Warhammer - Curse of the Necrarch

by Steven Savile

  Kaspar Bohme lost sight of Metzger when the dragon scorched the earth.

  The rain came down in a black veil, drowning the sky and everything beneath it. The bats disappeared over the tops of the bare trees, banking and swirling swiftly as they rose. They were not what interested the Silberklinge. He only had eyes for the dead man walking with an arrogant strut down the worn-smooth stairs leading down from the battlements.

  Bonifaz’s scarred face split into a broad grin as he reached behind him and drew his twin blades with practiced efficiency. They whispered clear of the scabbards strapped to his back. He turned them over and over in his hands, the steel circle lazy at first but by the time he reached the bottom step it was a lightning-fast blur.

  “We buried you,” Bohme said.

  “Dug up,” Bonifaz rasped, launching himself forward with a blistering series of cuts, each blade met by Bohme’s, barely. “Better now.” The words rasped wetly though his mouth and the ragged wound in the back of his throat. It would have sounded comical if not for the nightmarish quality it took on in the storm, surrounded by the squall and the thunder. Instead it was a sound that would haunt Kaspar Bohme until the end of days.

  Twin swords slashed in again. He blocked the first but the second opened a bloody gash in his left cheek, and before he could fend it away a third blow opened a matching line down his right cheek.

  “Brothers,” the dead man said.

  The cuts were shallow, more humiliating than painful.

  “What has he done to you?” Bohme asked as he circled Bonifaz slowly, keeping a distance that was not quite safe between their blades. “Are you his puppet? Do you dance to his tune? Is it even you in there or am I talking to the bastard beast himself?” Bohme lashed out. Bonifaz blocked the blow easily, turning it aside with a negligent roll of the wrist.

  “Me.”

  But Bohme refused to believe that was true.

  Bohme was good, but Bonifaz had always been the better swordsman. His only hope was to make this brief. The longer the circling and the testing blows went on, the more tired he would become and in turn the slower he would be. He was already aching bone deep. Bonifaz’s blades licked out, six cuts in rapid succession, each one softly nicking the armour protecting his biceps, just enough to scratch the mail but not dent it. The dead man was mocking him. It occurred to him what he needed to do to stand a chance of making it out of this uneven duel alive. He loosened his grip on the hilt of his sword ever so slightly, a hint that he was tiring, and then dragged his trailing foot in the mud a fraction longer than he needed to, compounding the hint. He saw the predatory gleam enter the dead man’s eyes as he sensed his opponent weakening. Bohme traded a dozen more blows, each a fraction less forceful than the one before. He breathed deeply, the air leaking out of him like a sigh. He let his guard drop an inch.

  It was the signal for Bonifaz to come in for the kill.

  He did just that, launching a lethal combination of fast left-right-left cuts aimed at opening Bohme from groin to throat, disembowelling him, but the older man was ready for it, feinting left and launching himself backwards. The momentum of the dead man’s lunge carried him forward off balance. Bohme brought his blade up and the dead man staggered on to it, the sword sinking hilt deep into the centre of Bonifaz’s chest. He looked down at the weapon protruding from his chest, and then up at Bohme. He shook his head slowly and drew himself off the blade. There was not so much as a single drop of blood spilled. “Not the end.”

  Kaspar Bohme said nothing.

  He did not need to. His fear was written plainly in every line on his face.

  Before the dead man could bring his blades to bear, Bohme threw himself forward, swinging wildly. The blow cut deep into the dead man’s neck, biting through the bone cleanly, but it was not enough to sever his head. It hung on a strip of tendon, and rolled back so that the dead man stared up at the sky.

  He finished the job with a second savage cut, and still it did not stop Bonifaz.

  Casimir stood stricken, staring at the weight of rubble that had come down to crush his dreams of vengeance and freedom. Somewhere beneath it Mammut lay buried, alive or dead he had no way of knowing.

  He threw himself at the wall of broken stones, grabbing chunk after chunk and hurling them aside in his desperation to get through to his glorious creation. For each rock he removed a dozen slid down from above. Choking dust clung to the air.

  There was nothing he could do.

  The ceiling above him groaned perilously, the weight on it threatening to bring even more of the corridor down.

  At that moment he loathed Radu more than anything else that had ever lived.

  He wanted to hurt him but without Mammut of the Nine Souls he was impotent against the necrarch and his legion of death-bringers.

  He had to leave, now. He had to run. He could not bear to be trapped down in the depths of this place.

  But, he thought covetously, there were such treasures close to hand, and one in particular, the casket the necrarch had scoured the world looking for. The master had crushed something of his. In turn he would crush something of the master’s.

  Covered in the dust of the collapse, he ran through the tunnels, tracking back on until he came to the stairs that led back up to the same level as the vast laboratories. Even though the huge complex was abandoned, he hesitated before entering.

  The destruction was near-absolute. The ceiling was gone, ripped open to the sky. The walls had crumbled, all of those secrets so close to resolution lost as the clay cracked and fell away from the stone, only to shatter on the floor. The pit where the fettered dragon had been chained after its resurrection lay empty.

  There was nothing of value left to be salvaged.

  The objects of their experiments lay in ruin, the equipment mangled.

  He looked around frantically, but he could not see it. He fell to his knees, clawing through the detritus, hurling aside rock and rubble as carelessly as he did fragments of twisted arcanery. He could feel the heat burning up through the stone. It was down there, buried beneath the ruined walls. He would not be denied twice. He refused to be. He tore away his nails and the flesh from his fingers in his urgency to get through to the source of the heat.

  Then he felt the thrill of power surge through him as he touched the plain wooden casket. Casimir dragged the box clear, the rhythmic dub-dub, dub-dub of the scar-faced warrior’s heart bounding ceaselessly inside his skull.

  He released the lock mechanisms and opened the box.

  For a moment he stared down at the heart beating impossibly within the clutch of the withered hand, and then he tore it free.

  His head filled with silence as the heart was stilled.

  Not content, Casimir raised the dead man’s heart to his lips and tore into it with his teeth, chewing and swallowing it one mouthful at a time.

  Only when he had finished did he flee the tunnels, clutching his stolen treasure to his chest.

  Radu watched the arrow trail away harmlessly as the great bone dragon swept low across the upturned heads of the fighters, cackling delightedly as the beast snatched up another hapless fighter and scrambled up through the sky to dash his brains out from a thousand feet.

  A second arrow lodged into the dragons huge rib. For a moment it appeared to be burn out, but then the last dregs of the flame licked the pickling oil that they had used to preserve the bones. The oil ignited, the flames spreading quickly across the beast’s skeletal frame, charring deep into the calcified bone and eating away at all of the moisture that prevented the old bones from crumbling to dust and blowing away on the wind like motes of dust.

  Soon every bone was aflame, the great wyrm streaking across the sky like a comet, blazing a trail.

  Radu hurled himself off the back of the burning beast, and for a moment, fell, tumbling out of the sky, the wind tearing at his clothes. Then he found the form of a great black bat, his body twisting and mutating as it plummeted.

  Empty rags blew away on the
wind while a lone bat flitted across the sky. It did not follow the same way as others that had gone before. Instead it settled on the roof of the old tower.

  The blazing bones of the dragon fell from the sky, streaking through the darkness like the fiery tales of comets as they burned and burned, brighter and brighter still as they fell. The air filled with the maddening shrieks of the magic undone. The ragged flaps of scale and wing shrivelled, their ash falling like black snow on the up-turned faces of the fighters.

  Then the bones of the beast crashed into the lower bailey.

  The fires consumed its bones utterly until there was nothing left to burn.

  Bonifaz fell.

  Bohme didn’t understand why and he didn’t care.

  He bled from a dozen shallow wounds inflicted by the headless warrior.

  He stared down at the corpse, half expecting it to rise up again.

  It didn’t.

  Behind him the lower bailey burned, but the heavy rain had already begun to extinguish the small pockets of fire. Before him, he saw Metzger charging through the carnage towards the doors of the tower.

  The old man turned and waved for him to follow. Even as he did, he clutched at his chest. He disappeared inside the tower.

  “He who scorns his own life owns yours,” the warrior said, setting off after his friend without a second thought.

  His heart was on fire as he climbed the spiral staircase. He forced himself to run on, even as a fresh wave of pain engulfed him and the confines of the stairwell turned black before his eyes.

  Metzger had watched the fall of the flaming bones, a peculiar flutter of motion catching his eye. Its erratic flight betrayed the bat. While others, he was sure, watched the creature’s empty clothes drift down on the wind, Metzger followed the bat with his eyes, tracking it back to where it settled on the roof of the great tower.

  He burst out through the door to see the vile creature standing over the parapet, grinning ferociously at the devastation the burning bones had caused. The necrarch turned to face him, the corruption that claimed his face absolute.

  Metzger stepped onto the roof, finally face to face with the creature that had savaged his protectorate. It seemed hardly credible that this withered husk of a thing could be behind such pain and suffering. The vampire looked down at the blade in his hand and whatever words of mockery lay on its lips died. “My sword? Where did you get my sword?”

  Metzger said nothing, moving forward resolutely.

  Another ferocious spur of pain tore into the white-haired warrior. His entire left side suddenly numb, Metzger clenched his fist around the blade’s hilt.

  He stared at the beast who neither moved to flight nor to defend itself.

  Despite the ruin, and as wilfully as he wanted to deny the truth of his own eyes, he saw his features mirrored in the beast’s.

  Another paralysing wrench tore at his heart.

  His face twisted, betraying him to the beast.

  “You slaughtered my people. You must pay for that.”

  “I don’t think so,” the necrarch said smugly, oblivious to the ruin all around him.

  Metzger lurched on another step, closing the gap between them to just a few paces. He brought the sword up.

  “You butchered women and children in your lust for power. You must pay for that.”

  “I don’t think so,” the necrarch repeated. “Who is left to extract a price? You? Do not make me laugh, you can barely lift your blade. The fire of your life has burned out, old man, but I could offer you salvation.”

  Metzger managed another step before the pain erupted again, bringing him to his knees. The sword slipped through his fingers.

  “I need nothing from you,” he managed through clenched teeth.

  “Oh, come now,” the necrarch said, almost affectionately. “It pains me to see my own kin suffer so. Look around you, all this could be yours again. This is your heritage, your birthright. Embrace it before that treacherous heart of yours gives in. I can smell death on you.”

  “No,” Metzger said, his head swimming.

  The necrarch walked around him slowly, circling like a vulture. He trailed a filthy finger across his matted hair, and then leaned in close to his ear and whispered, “Very well, I won’t make you beg. Think of this as a gift, from me to you.” Then he sank his teeth into Reinhardt Metzger’s throat.

  “Now,” Metzger pleaded, “Finish it…” He never finished the sentence.

  Bohme reached the top of the stairs to see the naked, decrepit form of the vampire hunched over his friend, suckling at his neck.

  He chose stealth over speed, moving silently across the rooftop to stand over the crook-backed creature as it sucked the last of the life out of his friend. He would not allow the parasite to claim the old man. Bohme drove his sword deep into the beast’s back, and as its head reared back, tearing out lumps of Metzger’s throat, he rammed the blade in deeper, yanking it upward viciously so that it opened a wound more than a foot long along the line of the vampire’s spine. The beast’s cries were terrible. Bohme did not flinch from the task. He wrenched the blade clear, and then grabbed the vampire’s head, digging his fingers mercilessly into the wretched monster’s eyes. He pulled the vampire’s head back, baring its throat so that he could saw through it.

  Then he tossed the head over the side of the tower.

  He stood silent vigil over his friend, not sure whether the beast’s bite alone was enough to contaminate him. He said a prayer to Sigmar, begging forgiveness for what he was about to do, cutting through his friend’s neck, hacking away until the bone and tendon had come apart and he was holding the head of the man he loved in his hands.

  Bohme slumped to the floor, tears of grief streaming down his face.

  This was victory, but at what cost?

  They had lost everything.

  There was no glory, no satisfaction. They had given everything to slay the beast. Now he was alone. He felt utterly hollow.

  In time he would go back down to join the survivors, few as they were. In time he would find the strength to bury his friend. He would bury the two of them side by side, the last of the Metzgers. He knew the truth but it would die with him. For the others, this place was nothing more than a castle of the damned. He knew differently. He would bury his friend here, so that the place might forever be Kastell Metz. Whatever he had become, it was only fitting that Felix lay beside his great-great-grandson. This place had claimed both of their lives. In time he would come to terms with the fact that his friend had bought his life at the price of his own death, but for now, he needed to be alone to mourn.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  British author Steven Savile is an expert in cult fiction, having written a wide variety of sf, (including Star Wars, Dr Who and Jurassic Park) fantasy and horror stories, as well as a slew of editorial work on anthologies in the UK and USA. He won the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future award in 2002, and has been nominated three times for the Bram Stoker award. He currently lives in Stockholm, Sweden.

  Scanning and basic

  proofing by Red Dwarf,

  formatting and additional

  proofing by Undead.