Grosslich smiled to himself, as if a joke he’d heard a lifetime ago had suddenly made sense.
“A regent. Tempting. I’ll bear it in mind.”
He bowed low.
“Farewell, Natassja. When I return, master of the armies you’ve created, perhaps our negotiations will go differently.”
He turned on his heel flamboyantly and marched out of the chamber. Natassja watched him go. Despite everything, despite the centuries of malice and intrigue, she was not unmoved. There had been a path for the two of them she’d foreseen, one of discovery, knowledge and enlightenment. The fact that he’d chosen to reject it was regrettable.
“So you let him go,” came a sibilant voice from behind the throne.
A daemon curled up from the floor, her naked flesh snaking lewdly across the obsidian. Natassja ignored the gratuitous attempt at provocation. For beings of infinite intelligence and power, daemons could be tediously infantile.
“Of course,” she replied. “Maybe it was wrong of me to expect more of him.”
The daemon laughed. “Or maybe he decided his position was no longer secure. That is a mighty army out there. It will make him feel safer.”
Natassja turned to look at the daemon and frowned with disapproval.
“Did you plant that idea in his head? If so, I’ll rend you apart.”
The daemon giggled, though the laughter was suffused with a note of fear. She darted away, hovering near the outlet to the shaft.
“That’s not in your gift, my queen,” she reminded her.
“Not yet,” said Natassja, rising from the throne. “But watch yourself.”
She began to walk from the chamber.
“Are you starting it, then?” asked the daemon excitedly, following at a safe distance.
“Why not? I have the city to myself now.”
The daemon whooped with pleasure. “Then you’re not worried about their armies? Helborg draws close, and he carries the sword.”
“What can he do now? His time has passed.” Natassja turned to the floating daemon and gave her an affectionate, tolerant smile. “Return to your sisters, dark one. There’ll be more play for you before the day is out.”
Then she turned back, heading down the long gallery and towards the spiral staircase.
“The Chamber of the Stone will be warded until all is complete,” she warned. “Wait for me outside the Tower. It is, at last, time for my birth.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Out on the plain, something had changed. The legions continued to take up their positions, but a new presence had come among them. Volkmar strode forwards, peering down into the smog-clad gloom of the battlefield.
“My spyglass,” he snapped, and a priest hurried to bring it.
He swept across the ranks of enemy troops. Some were men, clad in Grosslich’s colours, their eyes glowing strangely. Others were obscene corruptions of men, their legs twisted backwards and crouching like dogs.
Then he found his quarry. The gates of the city had opened, and a man had emerged, mounted on a coal-black charger. The horse was as corrupt and twisted as everything else in that host. It had clawed pads in place of hooves and a scaled hide in place of skin. Its mane and tail shone like polished onyx and had been plaited and decorated with jewels. Tabards decorated with forbidden sigils hung from its flanks, and its eyes smouldered like hot embers. It was massive, at least a foot taller and broader than a mortal beast, and when it trod on the broken earth the claws sunk deep.
The figure mounted on it was no less impressive. Enclosed from head to foot in crimson armour, glistening from the fires around him, the master of Averheim had emerged. He wore a tall helm crested with a plume of gold, the only opening of which was a narrow slit for his eyes. In his right hand he carried a black-bladed broadsword with a serrated edge. It looked as if molten pitch were continually dripping from the dagger-sharp points, pooling like blood on the earth as he passed into the heart of his men. In his left hand he bore a wand of bone.
As he made his way through the ranks of soldiers they withdrew silently. Perhaps once they had fought under him as mortal men, hopeful of the new dawn he would bring to Averland. Now such memories were lost, subsumed beneath the crushing will of the Stone and its mistress.
With their commander among them, the legions began to advance.
“So it begins,” said Volkmar, handing the spyglass back. “The master has left his lair. Give the signal.”
Trumpets blared out from the command position and passed down the line. The gunnery crews sprang into action. Just as they had done at Streissen, they worked quickly and well. These were crews from Nuln, the best in the Empire, and they were masters of their deadly trade.
Orders roared out, cannonballs were rammed home and rags doused in flame. Crews and escorts scrambled to get out of the way as the iron-belchers were primed and loaded. Seconds later the thundering boom of ignition shook the earth and a wall of death screamed out from the Averpeak on to the plain below. Huge clouds of blackpowder smoke billowed from the gun-line, swept up into the air by the swirling storm and dragged across the battlefield.
The enemy vanguard continued to advance into range, heedless of the power of the artillery. They were cut down in clumps, blasted apart by the sudden wrath of the heavy guns. Heedless and undaunted, they came onwards, clambering over their fallen without pause. Like a massive pall of black fog, the enemy rolled across the plain, marching slowly, claiming more ruined ground with every step.
“Maintain fire!” ordered Volkmar, looking down at the enemy ranks. All along the ridge, men were poised to counter-attack. Soldiers fingered their weapons, sweat on their brows and ice in their heart. Minutes passed while the iron-belchers reloaded. The waiting was the worst part.
The cannons bellowed out again and a fresh cloud of blackpowder discharge tumbled down the slope. This time the barrage was laced with the scything fire of the Helblasters, slamming into the front ranks of the Army of the Stone and tearing open whole companies of marching troops. In their wake the fizzing trails of Helstorm rockets screamed, spinning into the sea of men and detonating with devastating effect. Limbs were torn free and armour shattered by the volleys as they thudded home, round after round of murderous power.
But Grosslich was no savage or raving maniac in his order of men, and he didn’t send his vanguard idly into harm’s way. After the advance had gone so far, they halted, halberds raised, and began to dig in. Spikes the length of a man were brought up from the heart of the host and rammed into the ground. Earthworks were raised and the ground behind them cleared. Under withering fire from the Imperial guns, the forces of Grosslich toiled with neither fear nor hurry. Whenever an exposed company was torn apart by a well-aimed salvo, another would take its place. The artillery barrage was costing them dear, but it couldn’t dislodge them.
Horns blared from the walls of the city, and the reason for their death-clogged advance became apparent. Huge engines of war, each forged in the hells of fire beneath the Tower, were dragged from the open gates by straining teams of mutated horses. Their wide mouths gaped twice as wide as the largest Imperial cannon. Each device was decorated with writhing bands of bronze and encased in a spiked cage of iron. Smoke poured from beneath them where furnaces had been stoked and fuelled to a flesh-blistering heat. Stone-slaves crawled all over them, polishing the bronze and adjusting the spider webs of pistons and valves even as the towering constructs were hauled towards the forward positions. As the line of guns ground on, each monstrous engine was flanked by whole companies of heavily armoured infantry, all covered in thick iron plate, their faces hidden behind masks in the form of leering beasts.
From the angle of those mighty barrels, it looked as if their range was less than the Imperial guns. What they lacked in distance, however, it was clear they made up for in power. As Volkmar gazed at the rumbling tide of death his eyes narrowed, calculating the distances and gauging the outcome of a volley.
“Target those embankments!”
he roared, and the order went down through the ranks.
“We have to advance,” hissed Maljdir, his hands eager to clasp Bloodbringer. “Once those things—”
A fresh boom of cannon fire echoed across the battlefield, backed up with a hail of rockets. The gunnery crews weren’t fools, and had adjusted their aim to meet the new threat. One of the rumbling war machines was hit by a whole flurry of artillery fire. It cracked open, leaking green-tinged flames. The horrific structure listed for a moment, wracked by internal explosions, then blasted apart, showering the troops around it with white-hot metal shards.
A cheer went up from the watching Imperial forces, but it was short-lived. Other war machines were hit and suffered little, protected by their thick iron plating. More than a dozen still remained, all crawling into position, all aimed up at the ridge. The nearest drew up to the allotted positions, their bronze-lined maws grinning like hungry wolves.
Still Volkmar held back the charge.
“Magisters,” growled Volkmar, determined to delay the engagement until the last possible moment. “Destroy them.”
The Celestial wizards strode forwards, staffs crackling with sapphire lightning and their robes rippling from winds seen and unseen. Alonysius von Hettram, the senior battle wizard of the entire army, gave the Theogonist a proud look.
“It will be done,” he said, and the winds of magic began to race.
Bloch watched the column of fire grow as he rode west. The sight was enough to render him mute. He’d seen nothing like it in his life, and he’d done a lot of campaigning. The spectacle at Turgitz had been something, but the destruction of Averheim was on a whole different register of impressive.
Kraus was beside him as ever, riding a grey steed and keeping his mouth shut. The honour guard captain hadn’t liked what he’d heard about Schwarzhelm any more than Bloch had. The big man inspired near-fanatical loyalty from the fighting men close to him, and hearing of his actions at the Vormeisterplatz had made sobering listening.
Behind the two of them, Skarr’s army of infantry streamed out, marching in a semi-organised rabble. A rabble, that was, except for Bloch’s own halberdiers, who stuck to the well-drilled squares he’d insisted on. They’d keep their discipline even in the fires of hell.
Ahead of them rode the Reiksguard. Skarr hadn’t spoken much to Bloch since they’d exchanged their stories. He was still angry. Bloch couldn’t help but think the preceptor would have liked to punish him for Schwarzhelm’s alleged crimes just to make himself feel better. Typical high-born.
Despite it all though, he couldn’t entirely blame the preceptor. Bloch remembered the strain on Schwarzhelm’s face east of Heideck. His words had remained with him. Since arriving in Averland I’ve not felt myself. It’s been as if some force has turned against me, weighing down on my mind. The city is at the heart of it. It may be that Averheim is perilous for me.
Perhaps he’d been right about that. There was little else that could explain Skarr’s testimony. The few details Bloch had been able to add - Leitdorf’s treachery, the long process of legal divination, the Imperial armour on the greenskins—hadn’t really helped matters.
Even after the preceptor had allowed Bloch to accompany him to the rendezvous with Helborg, much still remained to be settled. The Reiksguard were suspicious, and their blood-oath against Schwarzhelm remained intact. Bloch found himself confronted with the terrible scenario of marching against his old master. For all he knew, Schwarzhelm had turned to darkness. He couldn’t quite bring himself to believe that, but the thought wouldn’t leave him alone.
“So is this what we drove the orcs out of Averland for?” muttered Kraus, staring sullenly at the distant red clouds.
Skarr’s column was little more than a day’s march from Averheim, summoned by Helborg’s orders of a muster. At the appointed location, Skarr’s two thousand troops would join up with Helborg’s three thousand. Not much of an army to take on the forces of the great enemy, especially as over three-quarters of them could barely point their sword in the right direction without being shown how.
“I’d rather have one enemy than two.”
Kraus shook his head irritably.
“I don’t believe it,” he said. “He hasn’t turned. And I won’t believe he made a mistake either.”
“You said yourself he was acting strangely.”
“The man’s commanded armies for thirty years. He’s no weakling.”
“Skarr never said he was. This is the great enemy.”
Kraus said nothing, and turned his eyes away from the angry sky. On the far horizon there came a low, grinding rumble, as if the earth were as troubled as the heavens above it.
“We should be glad we made it back here, Kraus,” said Bloch. “We’ve been part of this from the beginning. It’ll all be decided in Averheim, one way or the other. Couldn’t miss that.”
Kraus remained stubbornly quiet. Bloch looked up, watching the way the clouds were sucked across the sky into such a massive, slowly rotating spiral. He knew as well as anyone that their army couldn’t fight power of that magnitude, whether or not Helborg rode with them. Just more crazy Reiksguard heroism, a final fling of bravado before they all died.
That suited him. Fighting was what he’d been born for. It had to end some time or other, and it might as well be against a decent enemy. All he’d need was a sign that the sacrifices had been worth something and he’d happily march into that storm of fire, halberd in his hand as always, searching for the next victim, doing what he’d been put on the earth to do.
Hettram was first to cast. Raising his hands high, he cried aloud, summoning the storm to his aid. His companion, barely out of his twenties and with a lean face, joined him, adding his raw power to that of his master.
Above the battlefield, the clouds swirled fast. The storm, already raging, accelerated into a frenzy of anger. Lightning slammed down from the boiling tumult above, immolating all it struck and sending fresh fires blazing up from the heart of the beleaguered city.
“Storm, unleash thy wrath!” roared Hettram, summoning fresh power from the elements.
Rain began to hammer down, whipped into flurries by the wind. It bounced from the streaming barrels of the war engines, fizzing and hissing. Bolts of silver fire scored the heavens, streaking and tearing into the lumbering hosts below.
Another of the war engines tilted over, hit by a thunderous blast from the skies and cracked down the length of its gaping muzzle. Still it was dragged on, listing in the mud, gouging a huge furrow as the horses strained against their chains. The beasts had been driven mad by whatever foul experiments had been performed on them, and they foamed against their halters, churning up the mire until it became a blood-coloured soup.
“We’re not stopping them,” muttered Maljdir, watching darkly as the rest of the guns were hauled into their firing positions.
The Imperial cannons roared out again, sending blackpowder plumes rolling into the heart of the maelstrom. More lightning slammed down on to the field, burning brightly as it plunged into the heart of Grosslich’s legions.
Still the engines came on, rolling as the chains pulled tight, islands of iron amidst a morass of men.
“More power!” snarled Volkmar, seeing the engines settle into place and chains being run across their armoured backs.
The Bright wizards joined their Celestial counterparts. Their art was better suited to close-pitched combat, but they raised their staffs and summoned up the Wind of Aqshy. Chanting in unison, they called the words of their pyromantic craft aloud and shook their blazing shafts, eyes wide and riddled with sparks.
Now the lightning was laced with a consuming fire. The bolts summoned from the skies smashed into the advancing horde and burst into waves of hungry flame. The immolation spread quickly, taking the shapes of ravening wolves, sweeping across the ranks of glow-eyed figures and wrapping them in an agonising, rolling death. Every artillery impact exploded in a ball of orange, surging across the blasted land and leaping
up into the braziers and trenches.
Hundreds perished in that onslaught, burned alive by the sheets of fire-laced lightning, caught up in the heaven-summoned inferno. Two more engines were consumed, wreathed in leaping tongues of flame before exploding in a halo of spinning iron and bronze. Horses screamed and reared against their bonds, tugging the vast engines out of position. Another toppled over, lost in a welter of chains, hooves and struggling limbs. Cannons bellowed again, and the shell was cracked.
Still the rest came on.
Volkmar watched as the first engine was made secure, protected by earthworks, crowned with a bristling cordon of spikes and surrounded by the massed ranks of Grosslich’s elite guard. Fresh fire was kindled at its base and huge piles of shot were unloaded behind it, ready to be hoisted into the unholy mechanism and hurled into the waiting ranks of Empire troops.
Volkmar looked round at the Light wizards. They were still preparing their magic, locked as it was in complex rites and rituals. The Celestial wizards were beginning to tire, and their powers would be needed later. He had no more to give. The advance of the guns had been slowed but not halted. Their deadly power would soon be unleashed.
He turned to Maljdir.
“We’ve done what we can,” he said. “Give the order to charge.”
Out on the far west flank, Leonidas Gruppen heard the trumpet blare out and his heart leapt. The moment had come.
“Lances!” he roared, and his squires rushed forwards with the steel-tipped shafts, staggering as they tried to keep their footing on the slippery ground.
All around him his knights formed up into squadrons of twenty, each man with a lance and all prepared for the first, vital charge. Behind them, the second wave waited impatiently. In two sweeping assaults, all four hundred Knights Panther would slam into the enemy lines, clearing a path for the infantry and carving their way towards the war engines. They were the tip of the spear, the sharpest instrument in the armoury of Sigmar’s heirs.
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