Swords of the Emperor

by Chris Wraight

  Without warning, a huge explosion detonated from the press of troops before them. Men, both loyalist and traitor, were hurled into the air, spinning through the clouds of ash and soot like chaff.

  Bloch was slammed to the ground, knocked clean off his feet by the blast. When he looked up, his vision shaky and ringed with black, a wide circle of devastation had been opened up. For thirty yards in every direction the earth had been flattened. Men lay across the scoured land, some dead, some moaning weakly in pain.

  At the centre of the space stood a figure clad in crimson armour. The lightning from the Tower glinted from its glossy surface. He went on foot and carried a sword that dripped black liquid like an open wound. The man stood calmly, waiting for the battle to recover its shape around him.

  A few yards ahead of Bloch, Verstohlen was getting to his feet. Somehow the blast had failed to throw him as far as the others. His weapon had been ripped from his fingers, and the gash on his cheek had opened up.

  “Herr Verstohlen,” said Grosslich. The tone was resigned. “I thought you’d had the sense to leave Averheim.”

  Verstohlen stood shakily before the traitor elector, his tattered leather coat fluttering in the ash-heavy wind.

  “Coming back wasn’t exactly my idea.”

  At the edge of the circle, Bloch spat a gobbet of blood onto the ground. He’d lost another tooth. That made him angry. He reached for his blade. Every part of him ached.

  “Then it seems we’re both the victim of the choices of others,” said Grosslich. “I didn’t want this either.”

  “So give it up. Leitdorf still lives. He’ll happily take the runefang back.”

  It wasn’t clear if Grosslich smiled at that. His helmet obscured his entire face, and behind the eye-slit there was nothing but darkness.

  “Your advice hasn’t got any better, counsellor. There are other options for me. Though none left, I’m afraid, for you.”

  Bloch staggered to his feet, feeling his boots slip against the mud as he scrabbled for purchase.

  “Verstohlen!”

  He was too slow. With a sickening inevitability, Grosslich drew his sword back. The counsellor stayed still, rooted to the ground, waiting for the strike. Even as Bloch lurched across the circle of devastation, crying out for Verstohlen to evade the blow, Grosslich swung the blade.

  Rufus Leitdorf looked up at the gates. Grosslich had enlarged and changed them, replacing the stone blocks with iron columns and decorating the archway with a huge hammered “G”. The mighty pillars on either side of them soared up nearly forty feet. Within the gaping chasm Natassja’s bloodfire raged, filling the air with a surging, roaring sheet of flame. It looked like they were approaching some gigantic stained glass wall. Beyond the cordon, dark outlines of women flickered from roof to roof, swooping through the air like birds.

  The legions still swarmed around them, but none could stand against Volkmar and Helborg together. The two men rode at the head of the vanguard, both wreathed in an aura of blazing gold. Any approaching dog-soldiers were cut down, either by the power of the Staff or the harrowing edge of the runefang. They were terrified of the sword. It seemed to have some hold over them, like a totem of their destruction.

  Leitdorf took some heart from that, and was happy enough to ride in the lee of its protection. He’d felled a few of Grosslich’s minions himself on the charge, but most of the deadly work was done by the Reiksguard. Fewer than thirty of the knights remained after their daring ride through the heart of Grosslich’s legions, but they still fought with a zeal and skill that defied belief. They were nearing the site of their master’s defeat on the Vormeisterplatz and the mood was one of cold vengeance. They would not leave Averheim again without exacting their toll.

  “The blood of Sigmar!” roared Volkmar, riding ahead of Leitdorf, urging his troops on to greater feats. Every pace they took, every blood-drenched step, brought them nearer to the city.

  A huge man bearing the Imperial standard marched beside the Theogonist, thundering out hymns of defiance even as he swung his warhammer.

  “Despise the mutant!” he bellowed, smashing the skull of a growling dog-soldier with a grim relish. “Purge the unclean!”

  It was a brave show. For the time being, they were making progress. It had been a long time since Leitdorf had last been in Averheim. It looked like the place had changed quite a bit.

  “You’re troubled, elector.”

  Leitdorf turned to see Skarr riding beside him, his visor raised and his broken-toothed mouth twisted in a wolfish grin. The preceptor was breathing heavily and his sword was streaked with gore.

  “What are we doing here, preceptor?” replied Leitdorf. “If we make the gates, then what? We’ll never make it out again.”

  Skarr shrugged.

  “Helborg said he’d take you back to Averheim. He always keeps his word.”

  The Reiksguard knight had a fey look about him. Leitdorf had seen it before from men in battle, particularly in the elite ranks of the Imperial army. This was euphoria to them, this killing. Fear meant nothing once that mood descended, just a semi-bestial love of the contest.

  “Helborg has no idea of Natassja’s power.”

  “I’d say he does. You heard Schwarzhelm’s testimony. She’s at the heart of it.”

  Leitdorf shook his head.

  “Kill her,” he muttered. “So simple.”

  Skarr laughed, a grating sound like the rattling of old chains.

  “I thought you’d be pleased to see her again,” he said, pulling his steed round. “I’ve heard she’s a beauty.”

  And then he was gone, spurring his horse into the attack, his sword plunging into the wavering ranks of defenders.

  The gates drew closer. As Helborg and Volkmar forged a path towards them, Grosslich’s defenders dwindled. None retreated back through that archway. They seemed more scared of the city than of the attackers before them. Or perhaps there was some other reason why they wouldn’t enter.

  From within the mighty walls, the throbbing echo of power grew louder. Leitdorf could see the Tower properly now. The iron shell contained a heart of deepest vermillion, pulsing angrily like an artery. The clouds swirled still around its tip, dark and forbidding, and lightning lanced down its flanks.

  It was vast.

  Leitdorf let his fingers creep to the book at his belt, though its presence gave him little comfort. He mouthed the last words recorded there, the ones he’d committed to memory.

  She comes for me in my sleep, walking in my mind like a nightmare. I cannot defeat her. None can defeat her. Even now, my mind breaks. There is nothing. No hope, only madness. Her name is agony. Her name is Natassja, and she will kill me.

  After that it was nonsense, a stream of half-syllables. Some poorly-remembered fragment of a dream, the final ravings of a great mind brought low by a woman.

  “The gates!” cried Helborg, spurring his horse towards them.

  The final push came. Volkmar, Skarr, the Reiksguard and the surviving Imperial troops pressed forwards, cutting their way towards the iron columns. Leitdorf, just as he had been at the Vormeisterplatz, was carried along in the midst of them, surrounded by knights and swept like flotsam on the tide.

  The last of the defence fell under the onslaught of the Klingerach and the Staff of Command. Helborg rode under the iron portal, his steed stepping proudly. Volkmar followed him, and the golden aura of his passing lit up the agonised faces locked in the metal.

  One by one, the surviving Empire troops stepped over the threshold, passing through the curtain of fire and into Averheim. The sounds of battle receded, replaced with the numb roar of the bloodfire.

  Leitdorf took a look around him. The city he knew had gone. In its place was death. Nothing but death.

  Verstohlen saw the sword come at him. He couldn’t move. His muscles were locked in place, held down by some weight. Even as the blade-edge swung at his neck, dripping with black fluid, his limbs remained frozen. He was going to die.

&n
bsp; “Verstohlen!”

  Bloch’s voice, thick as a bull’s, roared out from behind him. He was coming, tearing back into the line of danger, just as he always did.

  Suddenly, from somewhere, the force clamping him in place lessened. Verstohlen jerked back. Grosslich adjusted too late and the tip of the blade missed its target, slicing across his chest. Verstohlen cried aloud as the metal cut through his leather jerkin and parted the flesh beneath. He fell to his knees, clutching at the wound. Blood, mingled with ink-black slurry, poured over his grasping fingers.

  Then Bloch barrelled into Grosslich, knocking him sidelong with the force of the charge then landing a flurry of crushing blows on the traitor elector. He wielded his stave with a ferocious, controlled skill.

  “I’ve marched halfway across this bloody province for this fight,” Bloch snarled through gritted teeth. “Now you’re getting one, you bastard.”

  “Leave him!” cried Verstohlen, feeling his vision fade into dizziness. Something in his wound was poisoning him, rushing into his bloodstream and spreading toxins through his body. He tried to rise, but his legs gave out and he fell back to his knees. “He’s too strong.”

  Recovering from his surprise, Grosslich began to meet Bloch’s attack. His sword-edge whirled in tight arcs, picking out the weaknesses in the halberdier’s technique. The twin blades still clashed together in unison. At the edges of the circle, other soldiers were beginning to find their feet.

  “A man with the stomach to face me,” mused Grosslich, hammering Bloch back two paces with a single swipe. “A soldier after my own heart.”

  “I’m nothing like you,” growled Bloch, pivoting the staff round and bringing the heel up for a jab.

  “Maybe as I was, then,” said Grosslich, evading the blunt stave and switching his grip for a backhanded thrust. “I’d have found a place for you here.”

  “And I’d have died before taking it.”

  Bloch jerked the blade back round and parried Grosslich’s strike, giving ground with every exchange. Though his eyes glittered with determination, he was unequal to this foe. The battle had already been long, and Grosslich’s muscles were animated with an unnatural strength.

  Verstohlen clambered back to his feet, the world swaying around him. Stumbling drunkenly, he went for his dagger, thrown yards clear by Grosslich’s theatrical arrival. His movements were clumsy and broken. Something virulent was worming its way within him. He grabbed the knife and whirled round, fighting the growing tide of nausea.

  Bloch was fighting like a man possessed. Verstohlen had never seen a halberd wielded with such power and speed. Even the troops shuffling forwards on the far side of the circle seemed daunted by it. A dog-soldier made to leap into the fray, but Grosslich sent it back with a dismissive gesture.

  “Get back, filth,” he spat.

  “Want me for yourself?” jeered Bloch, seizing advantage of the diversion to launch a flurry of downward plunges.

  Grosslich met them easily, adjusting his stance to absorb the blows. Verstohlen felt despair grow within him. Even if Bloch’s blade connected, Grosslich’s armour looked invulnerable. The counsellor limped back towards the duelling warriors too slowly, his dagger clutched in his clammy hands, sweat streaming from his brow. He felt useless, pathetic, wasted.

  “A warrior’s right,” replied Grosslich, planting his feet squarely and aiming a two-handed thrust at Bloch’s chest.

  Bloch swerved to avoid it, but the edge scraped along his breastplate, knocking him off balance. He regained his feet just in time to block the follow-up.

  “You have no—”

  He never finished. Grosslich’s follow-up was a feint. His blade spun round in his hands as it dropped down and plunged deep into the flesh below Bloch’s breastplate.

  “Markus!” Verstohlen cried out as he struggled, mere feet away, his hand outstretched impotently.

  Bloch’s face contorted into a mask of agony. His halberd, the weapon that had taken him from Turgitz, to Black Fire Pass, and finally back to Averheim, thumped to the ground. The staff shivered as it rolled across the earth.

  Grosslich shoved the blade in further, grasping the stricken halberdier by the shoulder and hauling him up along the impaling sword-edge.

  Bloch gasped, choked, and a well of thick blood spilled from his throat. He clutched frantically at Grosslich’s armour, scrabbling for some kind of purchase. Verstohlen crawled towards them both, nearly overwhelmed with black sickness.

  “Markus…” he choked, watching the man die before him.

  It was always the soldiers. First Grunwald, now Bloch. Verstohlen was consumed by a wave of self-loathing. His charmed existence seemed like a curse to him then. This was his fault. Again.

  Bloch looked at him. His eyes were glazing over. Blood bubbled from his mouth, running down his chest, streaked with black. From somewhere, he summoned the strength to grasp at Grosslich’s armoured bulk. He grabbed the elector in a bear-hug. He could no longer speak, could barely stand, but the final look he shot Verstohlen was as clear as glass.

  Do it.

  Verstohlen’s grief transmuted into fury. Thrusting aside his nausea, ignoring the pain streaming through his poisoned limbs, he leapt forwards, dagger in hand.

  Grosslich sensed the danger and whirled round, trying to draw his weapon, but Bloch’s dying body hampered his movements. His sword remained lodged, and for a second, a mere second, he was unprotected.

  Verstohlen raised the dagger high over Grosslich and plunged it down with all his strength and skill. It went in between the rim of his breastplate and helmet, sliding through like a stick in water.

  Grosslich screamed. He flung Bloch free. The halberdier’s body swung into the air before crashing to the earth with a heavy, final thud.

  Verstohlen staggered back, his veins thumping in his temples. His hands were shaking. Grosslich grabbed the dagger and hurled it from his neck. It spun through the air, spraying his own blood. Incredibly, he still stood.

  Verstohlen began to back away, his dizziness returning, the blackness around his eyes closing in. Across his chest, the wound still leaked hot, pumping slurry.

  “Damn you, counsellor,” Grosslich snarled, twisting his helmet off and letting it fall to the ground. His face was drawn with pain. He strode towards Verstohlen, sword brandished in his hand, the dark light of hatred in his eyes. “That was the worst of your many errors.”

  Verstohlen gazed up at the man’s face in horror. It was a pale white, and the eyes were ringed with purple growths. The flesh was as glossy and rigid as his armour. Blood pumped from the wound at his neck, but it barely seemed to trouble him. It should have killed him.

  “You could have resisted her,” said Verstohlen, feeling his consciousness weaken. He had no weapon. Even if he had, he was now too weak to use it.

  Grosslich’s face remained contorted with rage.

  “Remember this, as I kill you,” he hissed. “You were our instrument. Whatever choices I made, you made them happen. It’s over now. The game is finished. You have no blade left that could hurt me.”

  “But I do.”

  It wasn’t Verstohlen’s voice. Both men snapped round.

  Schwarzhelm was there, a giant amongst men, his armour encrusted with the patina of war, his eyes dark with betrayal. He raised the Rechtstahl, and the blade was as red as blood.

  As Helborg rode through the barrier into Averheim he felt the heat of it crush his lungs. He took shallow breaths, almost choking as the searing air filled his throat. Averheim was a furnace.

  No dog-soldiers followed them in. Helborg looked over his shoulder. The clamour of battle came from behind the hindmost Imperial soldier like a muffled echo. The enemy troops beyond the gates had turned away from them, back towards the greater mass of Empire soldiers to the north. It was as if, by passing across the portal, they’d ceased to exist.

  His men paused, waiting for the next order. A profound sense of dread had come over all of them. Less than three hundred, mostly ha
lberdiers, warrior priests or knights. They now clustered together, eyes wide, bravado forgotten, faces pale.

  The battle-fury had gone. The only sound was the low roar of the bloodfire, lifting their hair and pressing against their armour. It was hot but it did not burn. Its purpose was not to injure, but to preserve. Other things, inhuman things, thrived in such rarefied airs.

  Helborg looked about him warily, keeping a tight grip on the Klingerach. Everything was blackened by the fire. The street ahead was charred and ruinous. Nothing living stirred on the stone, and the windows of the houses gaped like mouths. Far ahead, some massive brazier sent billows of lilac smoke into the fervid air. The ground thrummed incessantly, as if machines ground away far beneath their feet.

  Above it all, the Tower loomed, dark and terrible, shimmering behind a haze of unrelenting heat. The dread leaking from it was palpable, a tight, horrifying cloud of fear. The structure was an aberration. It didn’t belong. No mortal could dwell in such a place. Then, and only then, did Helborg understand its purpose. It was no fortress or citadel. It was an instrument. A device. A means of focussing something within the city.

  None of the men spoke. None of them moved. Leitdorf looked like he was trying to remember something by mumbling words under his breath. Volkmar had let his golden fire ebb. The madness had passed from his severe features, replaced by the grim determination that had given him his nickname.

  Helborg’s steed was skittish under him. All the other horses were the same. One of them kicked out in a panic, infecting the others. They were going mad.

  “Dismount,” ordered Helborg, and his voice echoed strangely. “Horses will be of no use to us in here.”

  The knights did as they were bid, and the released horses galloped back through the gates, preferring a death on the plain to one in the city. All men stood shoulder to shoulder on the road, swords and halberds held ready.

  “Stay close,” warned Helborg, turning to look each of them in the eye. “Fear is your enemy. It will kill you if you let it. Trust to faith and to your blades. The Tower is our destination. Stay true, and we will destroy the architect of all this.”