Swords of the Emperor
Page 83
Schwarzhelm ploughed straight into them, hacking and heaving with his blade. The steel sliced through the carrion-flesh, sending gobbets of viscera sailing through the foetid air. There were a dozen of them, just as before, and they dragged at his robes, hands clawing. He battered them aside, hammering with the edge of his sword before plunging the tip deep into their ragged innards. They were carved apart like mutton, feeling no pain, only clutching at him, scrabbling at his flesh, trying to latch their slack, dangling jaws on to his arm.
Schwarzhelm didn’t have time for this. He kicked out at them, shaking one from his boot before crunching his foot through a sore-riddled scalp, crushing the skull like an egg. They kept coming even when their limbs had been severed and their spines cracked. Only decapitation seemed to finish them. Twelve times the Sword of Justice flashed in the gloom, and twelve times a severed head thumped against the stone and rolled through the glowing slurry of body parts.
He pushed the remaining skittering, twitching torsos aside and pressed on, racing through the bakery and into the corridor beyond. So this was the horror Rauken had been cradling.
The further he went, the worse it got. The walls of the corridor were covered in a flesh-coloured sheen, run through with pulsing arteries of black fluid. There were faces trapped within, raving with horror. Some had managed to claw a hand out, scrabbling against the suffocating film. Others hung still, the black fluid pumping into them, turning them into some fresh new recipe.
Schwarzhelm killed as many as he could, delivering mercy to those who still breathed and death to those who’d passed beyond human. The steel sliced through the tight-stretched hide, tearing the veils of flesh and spilling the noxious liquid across the floor. As he splashed through it, a thin screaming broke out from further ahead. He was coming to the heart of it.
The next room was vast and boiling hot, full of massive copper kettles and iron cauldrons, all simmering with foul soups and monstrous stews. Lumps of human gristle flopped from their sides, sliding to the gore-soaked floor and sizzling of their own accord. Thick-bodied, spiked-legged spiders scuttled through the mire, scampering between the bursting egg-sacs of flies and long, white-fleshed worms. Vials of translucent plasma bubbled furiously, spilling their contents over piled slabs of rancid, crawling meat. Everything was in motion, a grotesque parody of a wholesome kitchen.
At the centre was Rauken. His body had grown to obscene proportions, bursting from the clothes that once covered it. His flesh, glistening with sweat and patterned with veins, spilled out like a vast unlocked tumour. Dark shapes scurried about under the skin, and a long purple tongue lolled down to his flab-folded chest, draping ropes of lumpy saliva behind it. When he saw Schwarzhelm, he grinned, exposing rows of black, blunt teeth.
‘Welcome, honoured guest!’ he cried, voice thick with phlegm. ‘A good night to visit us!’
Schwarzhelm said nothing. He tore into the monster, hacking at the yielding flesh. It carved away easily, exposing rotten innards infested with burrowing grubs. Rauken scarcely seemed to feel it. He opened his swollen jaws and launched a column of vomit straight at the knight. Schwarzhelm ducked under the worst of it, the stomach acid eating through his robes and burning his flesh. He ploughed on, cleaving away the rolls of stinking flab, getting closer to the head with every stroke.
‘You can’t spoil this party!’ raved the baron, gathering itself for another monstrous chunder. ‘We’ve only just got started!’
More vomit exploded out. Schwarzhelm felt a sharp pain as the bile slammed into his chest, sheering the cloth away and burrowing into his skin. Flies blundered into his eyes, spiders ran across his arms, leeches crawled around his ankles. He was being dragged down into the filth.
With a massive effort, Schwarzhelm wrenched free of the clutching horrors and whirled his blade round in a back-handed arc. The steel severed Rauken’s bloated head clean free, lopping it from the shoulders and sending it squelching and bouncing into a vat of steaming effluvium. The vast bag of flesh shuddered and subsided, leaking an acrid soup of blood and sputum. Ripples of fatty essence sagged, shrank and then lay still.
Schwarzhelm struggled free of it, slapping the creeping horrors from his limbs and tearing the vomit-drenched rags from his chest. There was a movement behind him and he span around, blade at the ready.
He turned it aside. It was Detlef.
The boy looked ready to die from fear. His face was as pale as milk and tears of horror ran down his cheeks.
‘What is this?’ he shrieked, eyes staring.
Schwarzhelm clamped a hand on his shoulder, holding him firmly in place.
‘Be strong,’ he commanded. ‘Get out—the way up is clear. Summon help, then wait for me at the gates.’
‘You’re not coming with me?’
Schwarzhelm shook his head. ‘I’ve only killed the diners,’ he growled. ‘I haven’t yet found the cook.’
The haze grew thicker. It was like wading through a fog of green motes. Schwarzhelm went carefully, feeling the viscous floor suck at his boots. Beyond the kitchen there was a little door, half-hidden behind the collection of bubbling vats. The flies buzzed furiously, clustering at his eyes and mouth. He breathed through his nose and ploughed on.
The room opened out before him. It was small, maybe twenty feet square and low-ceilinged. Perhaps some storechamber in the past. Now the jars and earthenware pots overflowed with mould, the contents long given over to decay. The air was barely breathable, heavy with spores and damp. Strings of fungus ran like spiders’ webs from floor to roof, some glowing with a faint phosphorescence, obscuring what was in the centre.
‘You’re not the one I was expecting,’ came a woman’s voice. Schwarzhelm sliced his way through the ropes of corruption, feeling the burn as they slithered down his exposed flesh. ‘Where’s the boy? His flesh was ripe for feeding up.’
The last of the strings fell away. In the centre of the floor squatted a horribly overweight woman. She was surrounded by rolls of flaking parchment, all covered in endless lists of ingredients. Sores clustered at her thick lips, weeping a constant stream of dirt-brown fluid. She was dressed in what had once been a tight-laced corset, but the fabric had burst and her distended body flopped across it. The skin was addled with plague. Some parts of her had been eaten away entirely, exposing slick white fat or wasted muscle. Others glowed an angry red, with shiny skin pulled tight over some raging infestation. Boils jostled for prominence with warts, virulent rashes encircled pulsing nodules ready to burst. Her exposed thighs were like long-rotten sides of pork, and her eyes were filmy and rimed with blood.
‘He’s gone,’ said Schwarzhelm. ‘I’m not so easily wooed.’
The woman laughed, and a thin gruel-like liquid cascaded down her multiple chins. ‘A shame,’ she gurgled. ‘I don’t think you’ve had many women in your life. Karl Franz’s loyal monk, eh? That’s not what they say about Helborg. Now there’s a man I could cook for.’
Schwarzhelm remained unmoved. ‘What are you?’
‘Oh, just the kitchen maid. I get around. When I came here, the food was terrible. Now, as you can see, it’s much improved.’ She frowned. ‘This was to have been our party-night. I think you’ve rather spoiled it. How did you know?’
‘I didn’t,’ said Schwarzhelm, preparing to strike. ‘The Emperor’s instincts are normally good.’
He charged towards her, swinging the sword in a glittering arc. The monstrous woman opened her jaws. They stretched open far beyond the tolerance of mortal tendons. Rows of needle-teeth glimmered, licked by a blood-red tongue covered in suckers. Her fingers reached up to block the swipe, nails long and curled.
Schwarzhelm worked quickly, drawing on his peerless skill with the blade. The fingernails flashed past him as he weaved past her defences, chunks of blubber carved off with precise, perfectly aimed stabs.
Her neck shot out, extending like a snake’s. Her teeth snapped as she went for his jugular. He pulled back and she chomped off a mouthful of beard, spit
ting the hairs out in disgust. Then he was back in close, jabbing at her pendulous torso, trying to get the opening he needed.
They swung and parried, teeth and nails against the flickering steel of the Sword of Justice. The blade bit deep, throwing up fountains of pus and cloying, sticky essence. The woman struck back, raking her fingernails across Schwarzhelm’s chest, digging the points into his flesh.
He roared with pain, spittle flying from his mouth. He tore away from her, blood pouring down his robes. The neck snapped out again, aiming for his eyes. He pulled away at the last moment, slipping in a puddle of slop at his feet and dropping one hand down.
‘Ha!’ she spat, and launched herself at him.
Schwarzhelm’s instinct was to pull back, to scrabble away, anything to avoid being enveloped in that horrific tide of disease and putrescence.
But instinct could be trumped by experience. He had his opening. As fast as thought, he lunged forward under the shadow of the looming horror, pointing the Sword of Justice upwards and grasping the hilt with both hands. There was a sudden flash of realisation in her eyes, but the momentum was irresistible. The steel passed through her neck, driven deep through the morass of twisted tubes and nodules.
She screamed, teeth still snapping at Schwarzhelm’s face, flailing as the rune-bound metal seared at her rancid innards.
This time Schwarzhelm didn’t retreat. He kept his face near hers. He didn’t smile even then, but a dark look of triumph lit in his eyes. He twisted the blade in deeper, feeling it do its work.
‘Dinner’s over,’ he said.
Dawn broke, grey and cold. His legs aching, his chest tight, Schwarzhelm pushed open the great doors to the castle, letting the dank air of the forest stream in. It was thick with the mulch of the woods, but compared to the filth of the kitchens below it was like a blast of fresh mountain breeze. He limped out, cradling his bleeding chest with his free hand. The cult had been purged. All were dead. All that remained was to burn the castle, and others would see to that. Once again he had done his duty. The law had been dispensed and the task was complete. Almost.
Just beyond the gates, a lone figure shivered, hunched on the ground and clutching his ankles. Schwarzhelm went over to him. Detlef didn’t seem to hear him approach. His eyes were glassy and his lower lip trembled.
‘Did you find anyone up here?’ Schwarzhelm asked. Though it didn’t come naturally, he tried to keep his voice gentle.
Detlef nodded. ‘A boy from the village. He’s gone to get the priest. There are men coming.’
The squire’s voice shook as he spoke. He looked terrible. He had every right to. No mortal man should have had to witness such things.
‘Good work, lad.’
Schwarzhelm looked down at his blade, still naked in his hands. Diseased viscera had lodged in the runes. It would take an age to purify.
He turned his gaze to Detlef. It was a pity. The boy was young. His appetites were hot, and he must have been hungry. There were so many excuses, even though he’d warned him not to eat the food. This final blow was the worst of them all. He’d shown promise. Schwarzhelm had liked him.
Detlef looked up, eyes imploring. Even now, the sores had started to emerge around his mouth.
‘Is it over?’ he asked piteously, the tears of horror still glistening on his cheek.
Schwarzhelm raised his blade, aiming carefully. It would at least be quick.
‘Yes,’ he said, grief heavy within him. ‘Yes, it is.’
DUTY AND HONOUR
Kurt Helborg, Reiksmarshal, master of the Emperor’s armies, wrinkled his nose, drawing briny air into his nostrils, barely hearing the cacophony of shouts, thuds and screams that rose up in a massed brawl of noise from a few hundred yards away. As his face moved, his waxed moustache flexed.
He watched his men die with the blank, severe expression he’d learned to adopt over the course of his long career. His horse twitched beneath him and he adjusted position in the saddle. Beside him, Skarr’s Reiksguard squadron waited patiently for their orders.
They would have to keep waiting. All the while, Helborg watched, observed, weighed, judged.
His men fought before him across an empty, forgotten land. Ruined towers broke the horizon, tall and eldritch but blackened by ancient fires. A pearl-grey sky descended to meet the grimy earth, pregnant with unshed rain and darkening quickly towards the dusk. Megaliths stood eerily among rustling tussocks, crusted with lichen and as old as the bones of the world. They loomed mournfully above a formless terrain, mile upon mile of wide, marshy wasteland, barred with glistening channels of slow-moving water.
Below Helborg’s position, down a long shallow incline and out on to the wide marram grass plains, two armies of several thousand—one Imperial, one Bretonnian—were entangled in bloody combat. It was a messy engagement, a straggling scrum of thousands of grappling infantry troops, extended far in either direction under the fading light.
Over it all the ravens hung, wheeling and mobbing in the frigid sky. They stared down over a nothing-place, a buffer between realms. When the gods had finished creating the world they had left many such places behind them—unfinished stretches of void, home only to beasts, squalls, and the ghosts of elder races.
To fight over it was beneath him. The dispute with the viscount was a minor one, a sordid exchange of border raids and burned fortresses, petulant threats of war and pillage. Resolving the matter was imperative—the pride of the Empire was at stake—but there was no glory in it, no glory at all.
Helborg watched his men die for a little longer, his expression unchanging.
‘We can’t win this,’ he said at last.
He beckoned, and a squire standing by his horse handed him an open-faced, hawk-winged helmet. Helborg hoisted it over his head and fixed it in place, drawing the straps tight around his clean-shaven chin.
‘But we can blood them.’
Skarr, happy to see some signs of movement, made a gesture to the squadron of mounted Reiksguard waiting patiently alongside him. It was a simple thing—a tilting of his gauntlet, a touching of fingers—but the effect was immediate. More squires rushed forward with lances, all of which were taken up.
‘Who would choose to own this?’ demanded Helborg acidly, seizing his lance and holding it one-handed, tip extended vertically. ‘Who would fight for it?’
‘They seem to like it,’ said Skarr, nodding into the distance.
Helborg followed his gaze.
‘Aye,’ he said, narrowing his eyes. ‘They must do.’
Out in the dusky haze, beyond the struggling lines of infantry, waited the enemy’s heavy cavalry. Just as the Reiksguard had, they stood out the day’s exchanges, letting the foot soldiers test themselves against one another in a cagey series of half-committed advances. Only now, as the light of the sun dipped towards the west and the blood began to clot in the sand, were they making ready for the charge.
Helborg could make out the pennants of the d’Alembençons hanging limp in the static air. He saw the glimmer of bull’s head and fleur delys devices, set in sable on fields of argent. He saw peasantry scurry around their mounted masters like rats at the foot of old monuments.
He didn’t know which one of the dozens of plate-armoured giants was the viscount. The knights all looked much the same to him—heavily armed, gilded, decked out in layers of steel that an Empire warhorse would have struggled to carry, let alone charge with.
Formidable.Not for nothing did men across the Old World fear the onslaught of the knights of Bretonnia.
Helborg spat on the ground and tightened his grip on his lance.
‘Ready, preceptor?’ he asked calmly, as if he were inviting one of his many consorts out for a stroll along the banks of the Reik by starlight.
‘Very much so,’ said Skarr, snapping the visor of his helm into place.
‘Then give the order, if you please.’
Skarr rose up in the saddle.
‘Reiksguard, on my command!’ he roared.
Helborg felt a sudden burst of adrenaline, just as he always did before action. He felt his thigh muscles tense. His gauntlets curled around the reins.
Then Skarr roared out again, his rasping voice ringing out despite the jaw of his helm muffling it.
‘Charge!’
Hooves kicked out in a flurry of mud, sending the squires scattering back out of the way. With a steady, accelerating drum and clatter, the line of Reiksguard swept down the incline and broke into the charge. Helborg drove them hard, watching the enemy ranks draw closer with every buck and stretch of his steed’s churning limbs. The grey air whistled past him, sending his cloak streaming out behind. As he had done a hundred times before, he crouched in the saddle, feeling the dead weight of his lance come to bear as the metal tip lowered to its killing angle.
Mercy of Sigmar, but he loved this.
It never got wearisome; it never got stale. He saw the faces of the Bretonnian peasants sweep into focus, blotched with pox and white with fear.
Too ugly to mourn.
He grinned, and picked out his first victim.
You first.
Captain Axel Von Bachmeier hauled himself back up the slope, feeling his boots sink into the mud. The ground beneath him was as shifting as the weather, home to a thousand tiny runnels of brackish water. It was a poor place to fight in—the men got bogged down, manoeuvring was difficult, bringing detachments into play was cumbersome.
His retinue laboured alongside him, happy enough to get out of combat for just a few moments. The going had been heavy and arduous, and there was little glory in such work even with the presence of the Reiksmarshal on the field to inspire them.