Swords of the Emperor

by Chris Wraight

  He walked forwards. Even as he did so, there was a howling noise from the far end of the street. As if a mighty wind surged towards them from far away, the fire in the air rushed and swayed.

  Helborg tensed. The Klingerach felt suddenly heavy in his hands. All around him, men took up defensive positions.

  Something was coming. Something fast.

  “Trust to faith,” he growled, standing his ground. Beside him, Volkmar’s fire flared up again.

  Then they came. From the far end of the street, shapes appeared in the air. They grew quickly, hurtling towards the Empire troops like storm-crows, flapping and shrieking. In their wake was pure terror, dripping from the air and pooling on the blasted stone.

  They tore past the rows of houses. Their shapes grew clearer. They were women, or parodies of women, impossibly lovely, impossibly terrible. Their flesh was lilac, and their exposed skin shimmered in the bloodfire. In place of hands they had rending claws and in place of feet they had talons like a bird’s. Their bald heads were crowned with forbidden sigils, and their mouths were stretched open wide, lined with incisors and poised to bite.

  Some of his troops broke then, dropping their weapons and racing back to face their end on the battlefield beyond the gates. Helborg hardly noticed them go. The remainder braced for the impact, fear marked on their ravaged faces. Even the Marshal, inured to fear by a lifetime of war, felt his heart hammering and sweat bursting out on his palms, slick against the grip of his sword.

  “Trust to faith!” cried Helborg again, hefting the runefang and preparing to swing.

  Faith seemed like little protection. As swift as death, as terrible as pain, Natassja’s daemons screamed down the street towards them, eyes black with delicious fury, faces alive with the joyous malice of those about to feed.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Verstohlen watched as Schwarzhelm broke into a furious, heavy charge. Kraus was at his right hand, as were a whole company of swordsmen in the colours of Talabheim. Behind the sorcerer, a unit of dog-soldiers had formed up. The opening cleared by Grosslich’s sorcery began to close back in on itself.

  Verstohlen, his vision still cloudy, the sickness eating at his heart, could only watch as the Emperor’s Champion swept across the broken earth, his battle-ravaged features blazing with fury. As Schwarzhelm tore towards Grosslich, Verstohlen saw the same dark expression on his face as when Grunwald had died. Though his grim demeanour didn’t always make it obvious, Schwarzhelm cared about his men like few Imperial commanders. When one of them died, he felt it.

  Grosslich took a step back. His hands kindled lilac energy, snapping and snaking around his gauntlets. Tendrils of oily matter strung out along his swordblade, catching on the viscous fluid still dripping from the metal. As Schwarzhelm closed him down, Grosslich fired a spitting column of it outwards. The pure stuff of the aethyr surged across the narrow gap between the two men.

  Schwarzhelm didn’t so much as pause. Still charging, he swept the Sword of Justice into the path of the corrupted essence.

  The matter exploded. Shards of it spun into the bodies around, burning through armour and cracking metal. Both men and dog-soldiers shrank back from the swarm of glowing embers. In the centre of it, vast and inexorable, Schwarzhelm ploughed onwards, shrugging slivers of sorcerous discharge from his rune-warded pauldrons.

  Grosslich tried to blast at him again, but by then Schwarzhelm was in range. The Rechtstahl came across in a sweep of such staggering force that Verstohlen thought it would cleave the man in two. Somehow, Grosslich got his own twisted blade in the path of it. Me was slammed back heavily, his legs bending under the impact. A filigree of cracks ran across the crimson armour.

  “Faithless,” hissed Schwarzhelm, swinging his blade back for the next strike.

  “You can talk,” gasped Grosslich, giving ground and frantically blocking the rain of blows that followed. His face had twisted into a mask of loathing—for Schwarzhelm, but also for himself. The handsome features that had once awed Averheim had gone forever, scarred by the mutating whim of his new master. “You made me.”

  “I’d have killed you for Grunwald’s death alone,” Schwarzhelm growled, his blade working faster and heavier with every plunge, knocking Grosslich back steadily, stride by stride. “You need not give me more reasons.”

  Verstohlen found himself held rapt by the exchange, unable to intervene, clamped down by the poisons coursing through his body. Schwarzhelm fought like a warrior-god of old, shrugging off Grosslich’s attempts to land a blow and raining strikes of crushing weight on the sorcerer’s retreating frame. The traitor’s armour, invulnerable to the bite of lesser weapons, began to fracture under the assault. Even Bloch, for all his skill, hadn’t as much as dented it.

  Bloch.

  Verstohlen spun round. Where was he? The rush of bodies began to obscure the open space Grosslich had opened up. Dog-soldiers and swordsmen surged across it, a mass of sweat-draped limbs and blood-streaked faces.

  Verstohlen staggered along, pushing his way through a press of straining swordsmen. He was unarmed, vulnerable. He didn’t care. The battle roared on around him. The sounds of it were muffled, the stench of it muted. As if drunk, Verstohlen clumsily shoved and ducked his way to where Bloch had fallen.

  “Merciful Verena,” he whispered, the words slurring from his sluggish mouth. “As you have ever guided me…”

  He didn’t need to finish his prayer. A line of Empire swordsmen swept in front of him, driving a detachment of dog-soldiers back several paces. In their wake, a gap opened up. There, lying on the churned earth, lay the halberdier commander, forgotten by the fury that boiled around him. His blood had stopped flowing and his face was as pale as ivory. Somehow he’d regained hold of his halberd, and it lay across him like a monument of honour.

  Verstohlen limped over to him, falling to his knees by Bloch’s corpse. The commander had fallen awkwardly, his legs twisted and broken under him. His face was fixed in a snarl of aggression. Belligerent to the end.

  The virulence was now deep within Verstohlen’s bones. Without treatment he knew he’d be dead soon. Then the two of them, scholar and soldier, would find their end together, as unlikely a pairing as a minstrel and a slayer.

  He looked up. The swordsmen had maintained the assault but the right flank had been left exposed. More dog-soldiers crept forwards. There was nothing between Verstohlen and them. They advanced steadily, eyeing the vulnerable figure crouching down next to the body of their master’s last victim.

  For a moment, he thought his end had come. He was weak. Far too weak.

  “No,” he breathed, gritting his teeth and getting to his feet with effort. “You shall not despoil this.”

  He picked up Bloch’s halberd. It was heavy, far heavier than he’d imagined it would be. For the first time, he began to understand the scorn of fighting men for those they protected.

  The dog-soldiers kept coming. Verstohlen could see the unnatural light within the helmets of the lead warriors. The stench was just as it had been in Hessler’s townhouse so long ago, the first time he’d seen one of the creatures up close.

  “Damn you,” he snarled, standing over Bloch’s body and lowering the halberd blade awkwardly. “This is not for you.”

  If they understood the words, the dog-soldiers made no sign. They came on remorselessly. Empire troops, seeing the gap in the lines, came up to Verstohlen’s side. He was not alone. Without speaking, needing no orders, they closed in around the body of the fallen commander.

  All knew the score. This was ground that would not be yielded.

  As the first of the dog-soldiers came into range, Verstohlen narrowed his eyes, swallowed the bile rising in his gorge, adjusted his grip on the wooden stave and braced to meet the charge.

  Helborg swept up the Klingerach, aiming at the screeching face of the nearest daemon. It swooped past him, swerving away from the steel and spinning back into the air. They would not take on a holy blade. He swept round, looking to catch another
of them with its edge.

  They were too fast. Like hawks above prey, they darted into the crowd of men, picking off the weak and hauling them into the fire-laced sky. Their victims screamed with horror as they were born aloft. Warrior priest or knight, it made no difference. These were foes beyond all of them.

  Volkmar kindled his staff again and lightning spat along its full height. He whirled round, releasing a volley of twisting bolts. They streaked up at the circling daemons. One hit, dousing the creature in a ball of swirling immolation. It screamed in its turn, an echoing mockery of the cries of mortal men. Its companions merely laughed, and the sound was alive with joyous spite.

  “The men cannot fight these,” muttered the Theogonist. “The fire sustains them.”

  “We won’t go back,” said Helborg, watching as the daemons clustered for a second pass. “Can you do nothing?”

  “Hurt them, yes. Kill them, no.”

  The daemons swooped back between the houses, their claws now dripping with blood. As they came, the wind howled around them.

  Helborg watched them come again, keeping his sword poised to strike. One of them dropped down low, spinning as it dived towards the earth, its face lit with a malign grin of exuberance. It went for the Reiksguard on his left flank, ignoring the bearer of the runefang. The man stood his ground, his trembling hands holding his broadsword in place to ward the impact.

  Fast as a stab, the daemon took him. Helborg sprang. Leaping up at the sinuous figure, he whirled the Klingerach down across its kicking legs. The sacred blade sank deep into the daemonic flesh, sinking deep and severing aethyric sinews.

  The daemon wailed, dropping its quarry and twisting away from Helborg. The Marshal pursued it, spinning the sword into a two-handed grip and preparing to plunge. The creature spat at him and disappeared. It re-emerged twelve feet away, cradling its wounds and wailing in agony before kicking back into the air. It soared upwards, leaving a trail of purple blood in its wake.

  In the meantime more men had been plucked from the midst of the dwindling band and carried up into the high places to be dismembered. A steady shower of blood and body parts rained down on the survivors, evidence of their comrades’ fate.

  “No more of this,” snarled Helborg, turning to Skarr.

  The preceptor looked scared. He never looked scared.

  “What, then?”

  “We run.”

  “Where to?”

  Helborg gestured to the Tower, still distant over the roofs of the houses. Lightning flickered across the devastated cityscape, picking out the ruined frames of the buildings, now squatted on by daemons licking their blood-soaked fingers.

  “There.”

  Without waiting for a response, Helborg broke into a sprint. Needing no orders, his men did likewise. Leitdorf and Skarr went alongside him. The preceptor loped like a wolf, though no longer grinning. Volkmar took up the rear, keeping his staff kindled and doing what he could to ward the attacks from above.

  The ravaged company ran through the streets, assailed at every step. The daemons were in their element, sustained and buoyed by the bloodfire, impervious to mortal weapons. The warrior priests had the most success at fending them off, swinging their icon-studded warhammers and slamming the unwary creatures against the charred walls. The big man with the standard still roared out his hymns and hefted his mighty weapon. Bloodbringer, he called it. It was a good name.

  Despite the fragmentary successes, the sprint was a nightmare. Knights and halberdiers, both with little defence against the monsters of the aethyr, were plucked from the midst of them almost at will, destined for an agonising death in the spires of the city. With each corner the company rounded, another dozen were taken, whittling them down further.

  Helborg was torn between anger and horror. There was nothing worse than a foe that couldn’t be fought. He did his best to interpose himself between the daemons and his men, but they slipped past his guard all too easily. He was forced to listen as dying men’s screams rang out across the rooftops, accompanied by the echoing laughs of the killers.

  “We’ll all be dead before we get there,” panted Leitdorf, his cheeks red with the effort of running. He’d managed to cast off some of his armour, but he was making heavy work of the chase.

  “Then go back,” spat Helborg, unwilling to indulge the man’s fears. “I will find the one who did this.”

  A phalanx of daemons screamed low across the heads of the fleeing band, pursued by Volkmar’s inaccurate castings. Three of them had struggling bodies locked in their talons, all enclosed in plate armour. They were picking off the Reiksguard first.

  “You think you can kill her, if you can’t kill these?”

  Helborg ramped up the pace, driving his men harder.

  “The runefang will finish her,” he growled, his breath ever more ragged. His shoulder wound had opened again and he could feel the hot stickiness under his jerkin. The Tower was still too far away. “Count on it.”

  As he spoke, a daemon tore into them from the roofs on their left, diving down into the press of bodies and scattering them. It had miscalculated, coming in too fast. It rolled across the cobbles with its prey, unable to leap back into the bloodfire quick enough.

  Skarr, further back amid the men, was on her in an instant, hacking at her with his blade to free its prey.

  “Skarr, no!” roared Helborg, shoving his way through the jostling bodies to reach him.

  The preceptor’s blade passed harmlessly through the daemon’s flesh, biting into the stone beneath and kicking up sparks. The daemon hissed at him, dropped her intended quarry and coiled to leap.

  “Get back!” roared Helborg, almost there, Klingerach in hand.

  Then the daemon sprang, catching Skarr full in the chest and hurling them both free of the men around. They crashed into the nearest wall, shattering the stone. Helborg saw Skarr’s helmet bounce jarringly from the impact and the knight’s limbs go limp.

  Helborg burst free and leapt after them. The daemon crouched again, ready to tear up into the skies with her latest morsel. The Klingerach was quicker, tearing deep into the lilac-fleshed back, runes blazing as it bit.

  The creature screamed, arching back, limbs flailing, trying to turn round. Skarr fell from her grasp, sliding down the stone and leaving a slick of blood on the wall.

  Helborg withdrew the blade and the daemon spun to face him. The Klingerach flashed again, carving through the daemon’s neck and severing her head. A powerful snap rippled through the air, radiating out and knocking the airborne daemons back up into the heights. For a moment, the severed head of their fallen sister still breathed. It looked up at Helborg with a mix of fear and amazement, before finally rolling over listlessly, lifeless and empty.

  Leitdorf rushed to Helborg’s side, his own blade drawn, too late to intervene. The surviving troops gazed at the Marshal in awe.

  “Nothing is immune from the Sword of Vengeance,” panted Helborg, gazing at Skarr’s unmoving body. His voice shook with emotion. “You ask me how I’ll kill her? This is how.”

  Then he turned on his heel and motioned for the race to the Tower to resume. Far above, the daemons began to circle again, gauging the moment to strike, wary of the blade that had the power to extinguish them.

  Along the twisting streets, the stone blackened with ashes, Helborg’s men sprinted into the heart of the city, half their number slain, the Tower still distant, and the scions of the Lord of Pain on their backs.

  Volkmar ran. His robes curled tight around his huge frame as he went, slowing him down. His bald head was glossy with sweat, both from the exertion and from the pressing heat. Every muscle in his body screamed at him to stop, to hold his ground, to face the creatures that swooped on them.

  Perhaps, if he did, he’d take a couple of them down. Maybe half a dozen. He could flay their unsubstantial flesh from their unholy bones, rip them into their constituent parts.

  He knew Helborg was right. They couldn’t fight this foe, not for any length o
f time. The bloodfire sustained the daemons, filled their unholy bodies with energy and power. This was their place, a city of mortal men no longer.

  The ragged band of soldiers, whittled down to little more than a hundred, kept going. Laggards had been left behind, easy picking for the rapacious daemons. Those that remained huddled close together, gaining what protection they could from Volkmar and Helborg.

  They passed over the river. The water boiled black, choked with ash from the fires. The Averburg, the ancient seat of the electors, was an empty shell. Its stark, flame-blackened walls rose up into the raging maelstrom, broken silhouettes against the burning clouds of crimson.

  The daemons came at them again and again, giving no respite. With every pass, another man was taken, swept up into the spires for an agonising end. As the cries rang out across the ruins, Volkmar felt hot tears of anger prick at his eyes.

  He wanted to stop. He knew he couldn’t.

  “My lord,” came Maljdir’s voice from his shoulder.

  The priest still ran powerfully alongside him, despite carrying the standard in one hand and the warhammer in the other. Though his beard was lank with sweat and his face as red as the fires around them, he hadn’t given up yet. Damned Ulrican intransigence.

  “So you were right,” snarled Volkmar, hardly breaking stride.

  Maljdir shook his head.

  “No,” he said, his words coming in snatches between his laboured gasps. “I was not.”

  He looked up at the looming Tower, now dominating the sky above them.

  “Your zeal led us here.” Though effort etched his every word, there was a kind of satisfaction in his voice. He looked back at Volkmar. “I should have trusted you.”

  Volkmar just kept going. There were no certainties anymore. For a moment back there, he’d been close to losing his mind. Above them, the daemons were gathering for a final pounce. There were dozens of them. The portals of the Tower were visible, dark and gaping, but they’d be lucky to make the nearest of them.