02 - Empire

by Graham McNeill - (ebook by Undead)

  “Ulric preserve us,” breathed Redwane at the sight of the gleaming fortress.

  The name Lukas Hauke had given it was apt, for it shone in the last light of day as though sheathed in brass. Its towers were tall and slender, and its walls were smooth and fashioned with great cunning. A great iron portal wreathed in sharpened spikes barred entry, and spectral light shone from every shuttered tower and lofty turret of the gatehouse. At the heart of the dreadful castle, a single tower of pearlescent stone rose above all others, and from it shone a pulsing dead light, a glow that drained life from the landscape instead of illuminating it. Sigmar felt a powerful attraction to the tower, as though this were the source of the cold wind that had led him to this place.

  He had expected to find the creatures of Morath waiting for them, but the crater was empty, unnaturally so, for even the carrion birds that had followed them from the foothills kept their counsel. Thousands of black-feathered ravens observed his army from perches high on glittering spires of icy rock, and Sigmar sensed their dreadful appetite.

  These birds had gathered in anticipation of a feast.

  “Move out,” ordered Sigmar, and the army advanced down the icy slopes towards the dreadful Brass Keep. The ground underfoot was slippery and treacherous, and many warriors lost their footing as they made their way down to the icy plain.

  Darkness gathered over the fortress, bruised clouds heavy with rain and lightning. A fell wind issued from the far reaches of the valley, and Sigmar tasted the foulness of dead things at the back of his throat. As the army marched out onto the frozen surface of the lake, Sigmar gasped in astonishment as he saw a sunken city lying far beneath its glassy surface.

  As though he looked through the clearest glass instead of ice, Sigmar saw an ancient metropolis, grander and more massive than Reikdorf, with towers and structures taller even than the Fauschlag Rock. Cries of astonishment and fear spread along the battle line as his warriors saw the same thing.

  Sigmar had never seen its like in all the realms of man, though it was clearly a city designed and raised by the artifice of his race. The towering buildings were colossal and defied understanding, such was their magnificence. Enormous temples, sprawling palaces and rearing statues filled the city, and its grandeur stole Sigmar’s breath. Yet for all its glory, it was a dead place, a mockery of a city where lives were lived and dramas, both vital and banal, were played out on a daily basis. As he formed this last thought, the image wavered for a second, as though the city was no more substantial than morning mist.

  “What is this place?” asked Redwane, still keeping pace with the battle line as he stared in horror as the sunken city. Collapsed portions of the city’s tallest towers jutted through the ice, lying in crumbled piles of fallen masonry, sad remnants of something wondrous that had passed into ruin and decay.

  “I do not know,” answered Sigmar. “Perhaps this is Mourkain? When Lukas Hauke said its name, I did not know whether it was a place or a person. Now I know.”

  “Mourkain? Never heard of it,” said Redwane, shaking his head as though to deny the city’s existence. “Surely if there was a city here, we’d know about it?”

  “Perhaps,” said Sigmar, tearing his eyes from the ghostly city’s wreckage as a shimmering mist formed around the battlements of the gleaming castle. “I think maybe that we are seeing an echo of something that has long since vanished from the face of the world. Hauke said that Morath survived the doom of Mourkain, so maybe this is his way of remembering it.”

  “What happened to it?”

  “I will be sure to ask him,” said Sigmar dryly.

  “Point taken,” said Redwane, grinning and hefting his hammer. The White Wolfs earlier fears had receded in the face of imminent battle, and looking along the line of determined faces of his warriors, his heart soared to see such strength. The fear that had dogged the army’s every step into the mountains fled in the face of their courage.

  Sigmar felt a cold gaze fasten upon him, and looked towards the dread tower at the heart of the castle as Ghal Maraz grew hotter in his grip.

  Atop the bone-white tower stood a figure wreathed in black, a slit of darkness against the sky that seemed to swallow the light around it. Robes of night billowed in ethereal winds, and even from this distance, Sigmar saw the pale, ravaged features of a thing more dead than alive. The necromancer carried an ebony staff, and upon his skull-like brow he wore a glittering golden crown that seemed to pulse in time with Sigmar’s heartbeat.

  “Morath,” hissed Sigmar as the dark sorcerer raised his staff. A withering light pulsed from the ice, the rocks and the very air, as though some ancient rite were nearing completion.

  “Stand firm!” shouted Sigmar, his voice echoing from the valley sides to bolster his warriors’ resolve. Shouts of alarm came from both flanks, and Sigmar saw scores of shambling horrors climbing from the ruins of the towers that jutted through the ice. Loathsome cadavers in tattered robes and rotted flesh lurched and stumbled from the ruins in their dozens, and then in their scores.

  Their armour was rusted from the long centuries that had passed since their deaths, yet their swords and spears were still deadly. Skeletal fists punched through the ice, and armoured warriors of bone hauled their fleshless bodies upwards, before turning grinning skulls upon their warm-bodied foes with dreadful malevolence. As though commanded by a living general, they marched in hideous lockstep, forming sword-bands like those facing them.

  Sigmar’s army halted at so terrifying a sight, for these abominations were an affront to the living, a dreadful violation of the natural order of things. The fear that had been quashed by courage returned to tear at each warrior’s heart, and they could not take so much as a single step towards the dead things.

  But that was not the worst of it.

  The iron gateway of Morath’s keep swung open like the maw of hell, and an unliving host of armoured warriors marched out in dreadful unison. A pall of fear went before them, and a low moan of anguish swept through Sigmar’s army as the dead warriors in silver armour and bloody robes drew relentlessly closer.

  Sigmar’s flesh crawled and his bladder tightened at the sight of the hideous warriors, for they wore the heraldry of Ulric and of Morr. The flesh decayed and rotted on their bones, but they were not so long dead that that their faces were unrecognisable. Brothers and sons marched at the command of the hateful necromancer, and every man in Sigmar’s host felt piteous horror at the sight of their fallen comrades.

  “Men of the Empire!” shouted Sigmar, his voice carrying across the field of ice, and striking home into the hearts of his men like arrows of truth. “You are the bravest warriors in a land where bravery runs in every man’s blood! You have climbed into these mountains in the face of fear, and you have reached this place of death by the iron in your souls and the fire in your hearts! Though they may wear the bodies of our friends, these monsters are not your sword-brothers. Their souls are bound to the will of an evil man, and only you can free them to travel onwards to Ulric’s hall. We march beneath the Dragon Banner, so let not your blade hesitate from destroying these dread foes, for theirs shall seek to bring you down!”

  A ragged cheer greeted Sigmar’s words, desultory and half-hearted, but he had broken the paralysing terror that held his men rooted to the spot. The fear of this dead host still cast a dark pall over his warriors, but swelling embers of courage were steadily pushing it back.

  Sigmar looked up at the necromancer’s tower as the hosts of the living and the dead marched into battle. The golden crown at Morath’s brow shone like a beacon of unimaginable power.

  “The cowardly sorcerer skulks atop his tower,” shouted Sigmar. “I shall tear the crown from his brow and take if for my own!”

  ——

  The Battle of Brass Keep

  The dead were silent, no battle cries or bellows to a watching god for strength of arm or divine protection. Somehow that was worse. When man fought man there was hatred and anger, emotions that both clou
ded the mind and granted strength, but these abominations fought with none of that. They came towards the army of men with singular determination, their rotten meat faces and skeletal grins terrible, giving each warrior a glimpse of the fate that awaited them should they fall.

  Sigmar knew of no other way to lead his warriors save by example, and he lifted Ghal Maraz high as he charged towards the living dead.

  “For Ulric and the wolves of the north!” he proclaimed.

  The White Wolves followed him, howling like their namesakes, their hammers swinging. Pendrag’s Count’s Guard charged the enemy with their greatswords held high, shouting oaths that would make a Jutonsryk docker blush. The Middenland warriors on the left each shouted their own battle cry and then slammed into the decaying creatures spilling from the tumbled ruins of the towers.

  A skeletal warrior stabbed a spear at Sigmar, but the thrust was slow, and he smashed his hammer down on the fleshless skull. The creature dropped, its bones falling apart as the power holding it together was undone. Another came at him, but he spun away from its attack and smashed its ribcage to splinters with an overhand sweep. The White Wolves fought all around him, their hammers breaking bones and skulls with every blow.

  The dead were no match for these brave warriors, but there seemed no end to them. As each creature fell, two or more pushed forward to take its place. Shambling creatures with pallid skin sloughing from their bones crawled from the wreckage of the city, and Sigmar saw hundreds more climbing the ruins beneath the ice towards the surface.

  A rusted lance hooked around his pauldron and hauled him off balance. He swung Ghal Maraz and crushed the pelvis of the lance wielder, but his feet slipped on the ice. Sigmar landed heavily, and no sooner was he down than the dead were upon him. Axes and swords chopped downwards with mechanical precision, and he rolled and blocked to keep them from him.

  He kicked out, breaking legs and kneecaps, but still they came on. A spear jabbed downwards and skidded from his breastplate as a bony foot stamped down on his face. He twisted aside and swung his hammer in a wide arc, splintering thighs and creating some space around himself.

  “Here!” shouted Redwane, holding his hand out. The White Wolf had slung his hammer, but still held Sigmar’s banner aloft. Sigmar gripped Redwane’s wrist and hauled himself upright, careful not to spill them both to the ice.

  “My thanks,” said Sigmar. “Lost my balance.”

  “So I saw. Lots of them, eh?”

  “Too many for you?” asked Sigmar.

  “Never,” grinned Redwane, unhooking his hammer and plunging back into the fray.

  Pale light, evil and suffused with emerald, bathed the fighting in a lambent glow. A flickering radiance seemed to dance around the blades of each warrior, both living and dead. The dread moon had risen, its rough surface leering down at the carnage beneath it, and a shiver of fear passed down Sigmar’s spine as he saw that it was as full as it had been when they had fought in the swamps around Marburg.

  White Wolves stood sentinel over him, and Sigmar nodded to them as he set off after Redwane. The fighting wedge of the army, with the wolves at the centre, was a spear thrust at the gateway to Morath’s fortress, with the flanks keeping the tip from becoming bogged down. Sigmar looked for his standards, quickly finding them in the morass of fighting warriors.

  Beneath the Dragon Banner, the Count’s Guard fought with killing sweeps of their enormous blades, cleaving great paths through the dead. Each warrior fought his own battle: for the reach of such swords ensured that no warrior dared fight nearby for fear of being struck. To fight in such a manner was courageous and heroic, but to wield a greatsword was heavy work and rapidly sapped a warrior’s strength. How much longer would Pendrag’s warriors be able to keep pushing on?

  To his left, Sigmar saw Myrsa battling a host of black wolves, their mouldering fur and decaying flesh hanging in tatters from rotten bones. The wolves fought with savage strength and speed, and only Myrsa’s superlative skill with his enormous hammer kept them at bay. Fangs flashed and bloody jaws snapped as Myrsa’s men were torn down and devoured.

  The blue and white banner of the Fauschlag Rock still flew proudly over the fighting, but Sigmar saw that the men of the north were in danger of being overrun. The ferocity of the frenzied wolves was slaughtering them, but they refused to break. With the Dragon Banner raised, every man understood that against such a dreadful foe there could be no retreat. It was fight or die.

  Myrsa fought in the centre of a circle of snarling, snapping wolves and the Hag Woman’s warning returned to him at the thought of the Warrior Eternal being brought down.

  “Emperor’s Guard, with me!” shouted Sigmar, pushing through the host of fighting men towards Myrsa. Armoured warriors of bone fought to reach Sigmar, but deadly strikes from Ghal Maraz and the weapons of his guards smashed them down.

  Sigmar battered a path towards Myrsa through the dead warriors as the clouds above the Brass Keep vomited up arcing bolts of lightning that slammed down and exploded in purple sheets of fire. Men were hurled skyward as bolt after bolt struck the ice with shattering force. He risked a glance towards the keep, and saw Morath with his hands raised to the heavens, laughing insanely as his staff crackled with the same purple lightning that smote his warriors.

  Wolves leapt and bit as they pushed into the ranks of Myrsa’s warriors, tearing with diseased claws and ripping flesh from bones with jagged fangs. The Middenheim banner bearer had no time to scream as a wolfs jaws fastened on his head and crushed his skull with a single bite. The snarling wolf swallowed its morsel, and a great wail went up from the northern warriors as their standard fell towards the ice.

  Sigmar leapt forward and swept up the banner before its silken fabric touched the ground. He raised it high before hammering its sharpened base into the ice.

  “The banner still stands,” he shouted. “And so shall you!”

  A pair of wolves launched themselves at him, but Sigmar leapt to meet them. Ghal Maraz smashed the spine of the first and clove through its dead heart. The second beast’s enormous jaws snapped at him, but he dived beneath them, rolling to his feet and gathering up the fallen banner bearer’s sword. As the beast turned to face him, Sigmar thrust the blade between its jaws. The wolf howled and dropped to the ice, its flesh crumbling and decaying as it fell.

  Given fresh heart by his courage, Myrsa’s warriors fought back against the wolves, driving them onto the spears of their brothers with flaming torches and wild charges.

  Myrsa came alongside him, his white armour streaked with blood and torn with deep gouges. Yellowed claws and gore-flecked fangs were buried in the metal of his breastplate. The Warrior Eternal’s hair had come unbound, and he looked every inch the northern barbarian warrior from which his tribe descended.

  “Tough fight,” said Myrsa.

  “It’s not done yet,” replied Sigmar, nodding towards the tower from which Morath brought down yet more bolts of lightning. “You with me?”

  Myrsa nodded and swung his hammer up to his shoulder.

  “Always, my lord,” he said.

  “Then let us finish this!”

  Pendrag’s axe chopped through the face of a decaying corpse, the stagnant ooze that remained in its veins spattering his armour. He spat flecks of rotten meat as he pushed onwards through the shambling horde of the dead. They fell easily to the hacking blows of the Count’s Guard, but they staggered from the ruins of fallen towers without end.

  His arm ached from hewing through the wet bodies of men and women who had once depended on him for protection, and though every creature slain was a soul freed, each one was a rusty nail in his heart. They pressed in on him and the Count’s Guard with grasping fingers and teeth as their only weapons, and such a contest of arms would have been ludicrous but for the fact that there was no give in them.

  Any normal foe would have long since broken and run from the deadly blades of his warriors, but with no thoughts of their own, enslaved to the will of Morath, they woul
d never retreat. Only when their dead bodies were destroyed would they stop fighting.

  More of the dead things fell to his axe, and he looked to his left to ensure that the speed of his warriors’ advance was keeping pace with the White Wolves. He couldn’t see Sigmar, but knew he would be in the thick of the battle where the fighting was heaviest. Across the valley, the banner of the Fauschlag Rock still flew, and Pendrag felt a moment’s guilt that he was not fighting beneath it.

  Sigmar had asked him to carry the Dragon Banner, and Pendrag could not refuse that honour, for only warriors of unbreakable courage were offered such a duty. He looked up at the banner, its once white fabric dyed red with the blood of the men who fought with it as their declaration of courage. The dragon was stitched in gold thread, and it flickered in the light of the moon and the flashing bolts of lighting that battered Sigmar’s army.

  A chill wind swept over Pendrag, and his body was suddenly gripped in a deathly cold embrace, as though he were drowning in the icy lake beneath him. The disgusting, cadaverous monsters moved aside, and a band of armoured warriors with mighty two-handed swords that shimmered with eerie light marched towards the Count’s Guard. Clad in rusted armour of bronze and dark iron, these grim sentinels of death advanced beneath a banner of deepest black that rippled with dark winds and heart-stopping cold.

  Spectral blades flashed as the dead warriors smashed into the Count’s Guard. Where the corpse-things fought with mindless hunger, these creatures were skilled, and fought with all the deadly fury they had possessed while alive. Enormous blades flashed in the moonlight, and warriors, alive and dead, were cut down by brutal sweeps of long, heavy blades. Against the weight of the Count’s Guards’ greatswords, the rusted armour of the dead was no protection, and every blow smashed a skeletal warrior to shards.