[Warhammer] - Runefang

by C. L. Werner - (ebook by Undead)

  “Maybe your lordship should have considered restraining his men,” spat Captain Gunther Meitz, leader of the Kreutzhofen crossbows. He was a stocky, bull of a man, with forearms grossly swollen by years of working the cumbersome mechanism of his weaponry. “If my men had been allowed to get into position before you and your nobs went galloping off to—”

  “My men were following the plan laid down by General Hock and his excellency!” von Schwalb exploded, pounding his fist against the table. To the baron’s left stood the thin, armoured figure of Andres von Weidinger, acting feldmeister of the Geschberg Guard after his predecessor had been dragged from his horse by the bony claws of the undead. The knight’s haggard face was livid with a barely contained rage.

  “If any are guilty of an excess of zeal, it is our brethren of the Southern Sword,” von Weidinger said, glaring at Marshal Eugen. Like von Weidinger, Eugen had assumed acting command of his knights after the death of his own commander. Unlike the Geschberg Guard, however, Eugen only had five men left to call his own.

  The old Sollander’s eyes were like chips of ice as he stared back at von Weidinger and the other knight felt much of his bluster melt beneath that frosty gaze. When he spoke, Eugen’s voice was a tired, scratchy growl. “Dare you say the Order of the Southern Sword did not do its part?” the knight challenged. “We have left most of our comrades lying on the field of battle. Many died trying to fight their way free from the midst of the enemy while your men were busy scattering into the forests.” Eugen turned his cold eyes on the other officers in the room. “Perhaps if any of you had an ounce of their valour we would not be vexing ourselves trying to place blame for defeat, but toasting our victory instead.”

  The accusing barb had Baron von Schwalb on his feet, one hand dropping to the dagger fastened to his belt. “You dare call me a coward! You presume to tell us how our courage is not equal to that rabble of beggar knights that upstart popinjay Armin led to the slaughter!”

  The ice melted in Eugen’s eyes, his hands closing into fists. “Draw your steel, baron, and everyone here will see the quality of your blood.”

  The threat had scarcely been spoken when a loud crash drew all eyes from the enraged men. Shards of shattered crystal skittered across the dark surface of the table, those nearest the head of the table spattered with wine as a decanter was dashed against the unyielding wood. The man who had smashed the decanter stood before the table, glowering at those arrayed around it. He was a tall, stately man, dressed in leather riding breeches, a fine ruffled silk shirt and stiff black boots that rose almost to his knees. A gold medallion hung around his neck and upon his fingers he wore jewelled rings that further announced the many positions and titles he claimed. It was, however, the sword he wore, the broad-bladed weapon with the finely engraved golden hilt, the clawed pommel inset with gemstones, that proclaimed the highest title he bore: Count of Wissenland and Protector of Solland.

  Count Eberfeld stared at his officers, locking eyes with each one until he felt them bend before his distemper. He held the stare of Baron von Schwalb longest, but at last even that fiery disposition bowed to the count’s will. Count Eberfeld waited until von Schwalb was seated before settling back into the gilded throne-like chair at the head of the table.

  “I will hear no more of this,” Count Eberfeld said, his stern tones stretching into every corner of the command tent. Pitched within the garden of the burgomeister of Koeblitz, the tent offered a more familiar and spacious setting for the count’s military headquarters than the gaggle of rooms he had commandeered within the burgomeister’s manor. It helped to impress upon his officers that despite their defeat in battle, things had not changed. They were still at war and he was still in command. During the long war with Averland, Count Eberfeld had seen his father use custom, tradition and the familiar to bolster the flagging spirits of his troops in the aftermath of one defeat or another. Nothing seemed to stifle doubt and dissension quite like the status quo.

  “This bickering avails us nothing,” Count Eberfeld continued. “It can only breed ill-feeling and bad blood between your commands at a time when we most need to be united in purpose and spirit.” The count leaned forward in his chair, holding out the medallion that marked him as commander of the armies of Wissenland. “If you would place blame for our defeat,” he said, tapping a jewelled finger against the medallion, “then it lies with me.”

  The statement brought shouts of denial from the gathered officers and noblemen. They might be prepared to point the finger at one another, but not a man among them was ready to cast blame on his ruler and sovereign. General Hock’s reaction was typical of the sentiment that filled the babble within the tent.

  “Nay, your excellency,” the general protested, his long moustache trembling with the volume of his protest. “It is I who am at fault! It was my plan that brought ruin to your army my strategy that was not equal to the task! Do not blame yourself, excellency! I assume the responsibility and would offer my resignation from my position.” The declaration brought silence to the room, nobleman and soldier alike staring at the grizzled general in disbelief. General Hock had been the field commander of Wissenland’s army for as long as many of them could remember, a carry-over from the time of Count Eberfeld’s father.

  The count shook his head. “No, old friend, I will not accept it. I am not some Marienburg merchant-prince who replaces his captains the first time they fail. Nor will I allow you to take the blame for our defeat. I could have contested any part of your strategy when you presented it to me. I could have, but I did not.” The count shifted his gaze from General Hock and glanced along the table. “I did not because, like the general, I saw no flaw in the trap he had prepared for our enemy. Like all of you, I underestimated the nature of the foe we faced. I dismissed them as a rabble of shambling monsters that could never stand before discipline and force of arms.”

  “Our armies have faced the walking dead before,” protested Ernst from his seat near the count. “In my grandfather’s time, a necromancer despoiled the graves of Oberaltgaeu and marched upon the town. The re-animants were soon put down, with few casualties among Rabwald’s soldiers.”

  Count Eberfeld nodded. “True enough, Herr Baron,” he said. “The history of our land is filled with such accounts, unholy curses and obscene magics that caused the dead to rise from their tombs and prey upon the living.” A haunted quality seeped into the count’s words and there was a troubled light in his eyes. “This is different, different from anything passed down to us from our grandfathers or even their grandfathers. Did you not feel it? A hideous power, a damnable force surrounding that infernal army.”

  “The fog,” whispered von Weidinger.

  “Not the fog,” Count Eberfeld corrected him, “but rather that which commanded the mists, the profane power that coursed through the entire hideous host. More than some witch’s curse, more than some necromancer’s foul sorcery, even from my position on the hill, I could feel it, like the breath of Old Night itself!” The ruler of Wissenland suppressed a shudder, falling silent as he banished the fear that had slowly seeped back into his mind. When he had composed himself, his words were once again spoken with authority and command.

  “We underestimated our enemy. We expected some shambling host of mindless monsters, or else a legion guided by the black will of a necromancer, steeped in the dark art but unversed in the ways of war. For our hubris, for our ignorance of our enemy, we have left many good men on the battlefield. We will not make the same mistake again, gentlemen. I will not allow it.” Count Eberfeld motioned to one of his retainers, who bowed and quickly dashed from the command tent.

  “Where do we go, I ask you, my lords and captains? Where do we go to learn the ways of the damned and the dead?” The count let the question linger in the air. He did not expect anyone to answer him. A grim smile pulled at his face as he saw a tawny-haired retainer slip into the tent. The footman held the flap aside, allowing three figures robed in black to enter. “I will tell you. When
you would know the ways of the dead, you must seek out those who minister to the dead.”

  As the count spoke, the others in the room began to notice the three sinister apparitions that the footman had conducted into their midst. Each wore a garment of coarse black cloth, a raven embroidered upon the breast. The foremost of them was a crook-backed old man, his head as barren of hair as the pit of a peach, his nose as hooked as the beak of a vulture. A tall, slender figure walked behind the old man, cloaked in black, a sombre hood drawn high over the head and concealing any hint of the face beneath. Last of all strode a massive brute, an enormous broadsword hanging from the belt he wore over his vestment. The outline of armoured breastplate and greaves could be seen beneath the vestment and his hands were encased in gauntlets of blackened steel. The warrior’s face was also hidden, concealed behind the dark confines of the great helm he wore.

  “Priests of Morr!” The shocked whisper hissed across the room, many of the assembled leaders making the signs of Shallya and Ulric as they hastily averted their gaze from the sinister servants of the god of death.

  “Your excellency!” shouted the outraged Petr Grebel, high priest of the cult of Myrmidia in Wissenland. The old cleric’s bony hand was closed tightly around a protective amulet, his bearded face contorted into a scowl of disapproval. “It is unseemly for these ill-omened—”

  Count Eberfeld interrupted the war-priest’s protest. “They are here at my invitation,” the count told him. “No man leaves this world without passing into the dominion of Morr. Who better to tell us the wisdom of the dead than those who serve the god and are privy to his dark secrets?”

  The vulture-faced priest bowed to Count Eberfeld, and then turned and bowed to the others assembled in the tent. He waved his withered claw and the hooded figure came over and joined him. The black-garbed warrior remained standing beside the tapestried wall, arms folded across his chest.

  “His excellency sent a petition for aid to my temple,” the old priest said, his voice like the rustle of cobwebs. “I and my brethren considered his request long into the night, seeking guidance from the Father of Dreams and the Long Sleep.”

  “And what wisdom did the god bestow upon you, Father Vadian?” Count Eberfeld asked, eagerness in his tone.

  The old priest gestured once more to the hooded figure beside him. “The wisdom I bring here to you,” Vadian answered, “the words of the Crone of Morr.”

  A hush came over the room, a silence so perfect that even the breeze that tugged at the tent seemed a howling maelstrom. Not a man in the room had failed to hear tales about the Crone of Morr. Some said she was a witch, others a handmaiden to the powers of Old Night. There were many who said she was the bride of Morr, that any living man who dared touch her cold pale flesh would be struck dead by the god’s terrible wrath. It was agreed by all that she had strange and awful powers, that she could call spirits back from the Gardens of Morr, that she could converse with shades and ghosts.

  Sometimes, in the extremes of despair and loss, a grieving family would petition the priests of Morr, ask them to have the crone call back the soul of the departed that they might speak with them one last time. Her abode, it was whispered, was a cave deep in the side of Barren Hill, a shunned and lifeless place where even weeds failed to take root. The frightful templars of Morr, the dread Black Guard, watched over her, though whether as guards or captors few could agree.

  Now this legend, this enigma stood before them. Her soft voice whispered past the heavy folds of her hood. The voice might have been described as alluring, even beautiful, but none of the men gathered around the table would have called it so. There was something within her words, something beyond sound and speech, something that evoked a chill in the air and caused the skin to crawl. Even the light seemed repulsed by her voice, and long shadows began to fill the tent.

  “Woe to Wissenland!” the crone cried out. “Doom is come to the sons of Merogens! Ancient hate walks the land once more, making steel from rust, changing dust back to bone. Zahaak has returned, he who was called Zahaak the Usurper in life, he who was named Zahaak the Worm, Zahaak Carrion-caller in death and beyond death. From the dust of ages he returns to slay the living, raise the dead and bring low the realm of the Merogens. A conqueror, a general, a king, slave of the Unspeakable One, now he will visit the desolation he brought to his homeland to the grey hills of the Merogens. Woe to Wissenland, know your destroyer and despair!”

  The crone slumped forwards against the table, officers scattering before her. Like a weary moth, her hooded head sagged down onto the wood as her knees slowly buckled beneath her. Gradually, the light began to reassert itself, the crawling chill dissipating from the air.

  It was Baron von Rabwald who broke the long silence that followed the crone’s whispered words. “Well… that was… informative,” he muttered, forcing something midway between a laugh and a shudder from his throat.

  “I would say considerably less,” Grebel observed. The cleric stabbed a finger at the still reeling medium. “The quality of your divinations is lacking, witch. Or are we supposed to be awed by the cheap mummery of a withered hag and the credulous gravediggers who give her succour? ‘Zahaak the Usurper, Zahaak the Worm’? What good is your pronouncement, witch? What is this ‘Zahaak’? What good does it serve us, this useless knowledge? Has any here heard the name before?”

  “The name is known to me,” a gruff voice answered Grebel’s tirade. Sitting near the end of the table, smoking a clay pipe stuffed with pungent weed, many gathered at the table had almost forgotten the presence of Skanir Durgrund, captain of the dwarf artillery that Count Eberfeld had engaged to supplement his forces. The dwarf’s grey beard was long and plaited, his hair escaping from beneath the smoke-blackened leather cap he wore in a wild, unruly cascade. His stocky, powerful build was girded in a shirt of metal scales no larger than coins, meshed together in interlocking rows that rendered the armour more durable than steel plate. A monstrous hammer, its peen tipped in engraved silver, its gromril head sporting the visages of warrior ancestors, rested against the side of Skanir’s chair. Even in the presence of Count Eberfeld, none had presumed to ask the dwarf to relinquish his weapon. One look at the hard, craggy face, one glance into the stony, flint-like eyes and few would be reckless enough to maintain the idea.

  Skanir waited, the clay pipe smouldering in his leathery hand, letting the full attention of all within the room fix firmly upon him. He was a dwarf of few words and was little inclined to repeat himself for those who did not attend them carefully.

  “The name of Zahaak would be well known to the men of the Empire were it not for the sacrifices of my people. It is only by the blood of my ancestors and my kin that the black name of Zahaak is not still cursed by the people of Sigmar.”

  “But who is he?” asked Count Eberfeld. “What is he?”

  Skanir knocked the bowl of his pipe against the steel-nailed heel of his boot, and then restored the extinguished pipe to its place on his belt. Impossibly, his stern features became even harder as he continued. “Zahaak is a monster born from the fear and ambition of vanished men, a thing of obscene mage-craft and sorcery. Your witch gives him many titles, but among my people he is known as the Sword of Nagashizzar.”

  Cold fingers clutched at the hearts of every man in the tent as they heard the dwarf invoke the haunted fortress of the dead. If the name of Zahaak had passed from the memories of men, that of the thing he served had not. Even millennia after his destruction by the man-god Sigmar, men still trembled in fear when they considered the ancient terror that had been Nagash the Black, the first necromancer. The priests of Morr made the sign of their grim deity as Skanir spoke, invoking the protection of their god against the shadow of the father of the undead.

  “Many are the debts against Zahaak recorded in the Great Book of Grudges,” Skanir said. “Many times did he lead the armies of Nagashizzar against the strongholds of my people, laying siege to Ekrund, Karak Azgal, Karak Azul and even the iron doors of Kara
k Eight Peaks with his deathless legions. Always we beat his armies back. Always they came again, filling the burial vaults with our butchered dead. Against our strongholds, Zahaak’s armies wrought a terrible toll, against the nations of men who dwelt on the plains, the destruction was more terrible still. He had been a king among them, for a time, but when the crown he had stolen was taken from him in turn, Zahaak looked to the lord of Nagashizzar for sanctuary: sanctuary and the one thing more important to him than his own life, vengeance! He returned for that vengeance, a fleshless wight leading a legion of skeleton warriors. Against those who had been his own blood, Zahaak gave neither mercy nor pity and the land was scoured of his race. From the oldest grey-beard to the youngest babe-in-arms, none escaped him.”

  “One of the Dark Lords of Nagash,” hissed von Weidinger, turning fearful eyes towards Count Eberfeld. “This thing is one of the Dark Lords of Nagash!” he repeated. “It was a test of even Lord Sigmar’s divine powers to drive those monsters into the dust! What chance do we have against them!”

  Count Eberfeld shook his head. “I do not know what our chances are, I only know that we must stand and we must fight. I will not see my lands despoiled, my people slaughtered by this grave-sent vermin! Run if you like, baron. I will give your lands to those with the spine to defend them, those who are fit to be called men!”

  The count’s reprimand brought Baron von Weidinger’s head low, the commander of the Sablebacks fixing his eyes on the tabletop and kept them there while indignation and shame slowly drained from his face. Count Eberfeld had already dismissed von Weidinger’s frightened outburst, returning his attention instead to Skanir.

  “You say that your people defeated Zahaak, Captain Durgrund,” the count said. “Can you tell us how?”

  “The Lord of Nagashizzar stirred from his blasphemies and marched against the lands of men to kill your Lord Sigmar and wipe his seed from the earth,” Skanir replied. “He moved his legions through Black Fire Pass, into the south of your Empire. But Zahaak did not march with him. Zahaak was sent to take the longer road, marching along the mountains, to fall upon the Empire from the west. Then Sigmar would be caught between two mighty hordes of deathless warriors and the ruin of the man-god would be complete. The Black One’s plot depended upon Zahaak’s swift passage through the mountains. The ice and snow would not bother those without flesh to feel it. Craggy heights are no barrier to those who will not tire from the climb. The barren rocks are of little concern to those without bellies to fill. Only one barrier threatened Zahaak’s march, those who already called the mountains home. Zahaak trusted that terror of his legion would keep my ancestors cowering behind the stone walls of their strongholds. In this, he trusted too greatly.