[Stefan Kumansky 01] - Star of Erengrad

by Neil McIntosh - (ebook by Undead)

  Blood pumping hard through his veins, Alexei closed upon his adversary. He was nearing the heart of the storm that had come to define his very existence. A storm that raged along the thin line between life and death, between failure and glory. Every sinew of his body was attuned to this moment. He was riding to meet his nemesis, to do combat with what lay within the shadows, and emerge victorious.

  Zucharov positioned his sword for the opening strike and braced himself against the answering blow that would surely follow. Then, in the instant before the two riders met, he entered a space and a silence that was at the centre, the very eye of that storm.

  Time and distance seemed to slow to nothing. Alexei found his thoughts suddenly turned upon Natalia, upon the letter to his sister that lay, unfinished, inside his pocket. Upon the words of farewell that day in Altdorf. What was it he had said? That he wouldn’t always be around to look after his little sister? The other rider loomed ahead, seeming languid, almost magnificent in his progress towards him. Could it be that this was the journey from which he, Alexei, would not return?

  No, it was impossible. He was invulnerable. This day, at least, he could not be defeated. Today the gods favoured only one champion.

  Thoughts flew away as time speeded up. The other knight had not drawn his sword, nor even raised a shield. He neither positioned himself for attack, nor seemed to move to avoid it. It was as though he was deliberately leaving himself open, defenceless.

  Alexei cursed his opponent. Raise your sword! Claim your supremacy and we will see who prevails! He could not believe he was to be denied the sweetness of victory by an opponent who offered no resistance.

  Just before their paths crossed, the tattooed face turned, and the knight looked directly into Alexei’s eyes. The look seemed to mock him; taunt him with a secret knowledge. Alexei focused his anger, and swung his sword two-handed through the air into the body of his opponent. The knight’s horse folded beneath him; the rider crashed to the ground and did not move.

  Alexei circled his fallen opponent twice, watching for signs of life; some trickery of Chaos that would foreshadow the real attack. He was stunned and vaguely disappointed to find the contest ended so quickly and so decisively in his favour.

  When it became clear that the fallen rider was not going to rise, Zucharov dismounted. His careful eye spied the wrought steel plate still rising and falling upon the knight’s chest. The creature still lived. This was not over yet.

  The knight lay exactly as he had fallen, face down upon bare stony ground still heavy with rain. Alexei crept closer, sword poised, then, very slowly, turned the body of the fallen warrior over with his foot.

  The ravages of Chaos had wrought an evil transformation upon what had once, probably, been a mortal man. The knight’s body had grown beyond normal bounds in size and proportion, with a leathery skin sketched across a grotesque musculature. Although there was no sign of any wounds upon the body, Alexei could only assume that the knight had been injured earlier in the battle. For this was not an opponent he would have expected to defeat with such ease.

  Close to, the patchwork of runes and pictures etched upon the creature’s face was even more wondrous to behold. More wondrous, and more terrifying. As the creature’s lips moved soundlessly around unspoken words, the figures painted onto his flesh came alive before Alexei’s eyes. It was like looking down at the battle in microcosm: he saw knights on horseback clashing, great armies falling like waves upon the shores of battle. Alexei stopped closer, then recoiled in shock. For in one of the tiny, moving figures, he momentarily recognised himself.

  Zucharov stepped back from his prey. “This is nothing but witchcraft!” he shouted. He drew back his sword, ready to put an end to the monster’s existence, and with it the trickery that had befouled his mind. Just before he struck, the knight turned his head and stared up at Alexei through eyes that glowed like the embers of a dying fire.

  Alexei had the unnerving sense of an opponent who, though defeated, yet had a power over him which he could neither match nor comprehend. Suddenly shaken, he lifted his sword to dispatch the killing blow. Just before the sword fell, he saw the look upon the mutant’s face change to an expression not of fear, nor even one pleading for life.

  It was an expression of relief, and of release; as though a heavy burden was about to be lifted. For a moment, Alexei could have sworn, the knight smiled. He wants to die, he realised.

  “Then may your wish be granted,” he snarled, suddenly incensed. He brought the sword down, driving it into the other’s body with all the force as he could muster. The light in the creature’s eyes faded and died. Life fled his enemy with one, final sigh of breath expelled.

  Alexei stood motionless above his defeated enemy. He felt no satisfaction. It was as though he had been cheated, cheated of the glory that should have been his by right. He began to think that his instincts had proved false; this was not the moment he had been seeking, not the eye of the storm. On a whim, he kicked out at the dead body of his enemy, venting his anger and disgust. The sleeve of one arm rode up, and suddenly Alexei was angry no longer.

  Something set upon the dead knight’s wrist had attracted his eye. It was an engraved bracelet, a band of gold so bright it might have been spun from the very sun itself. Zucharov stared, captivated by its beauty. He had never seen its like before. It seemed impossible that so wonderful a thing might be found upon the body of a soldier of Chaos, but his eyes surely did not lie.

  Alexei crouched down to look closer. The bracelet was inscribed with runes, and all around its outer edge, with words. It was a language he neither understood nor recognised, perhaps the elvish tongue, or maybe some foul script of Chaos.

  As he gazed at the bracelet, he knew that he had to possess it. This, he realised now, was his treasure; his prize. He would not be denied it.

  He pulled the short knife from his belt and held it ready. He would take his prize, even if he had to hack the hand from its arm to do so. He bent forward, and gently touched his fingers against the finely chiseled gold. It felt cool beneath his touch. To his surprise, it slipped cleanly from the knight’s arm into his grasp. He lifted the golden band free of the body and raised it in the air, turning it one way and then the next beneath the sun. It felt light, lighter than the lightest armour, yet the gold was thick and sturdy between his fingers.

  He squeezed his hand closed, and slipped the golden band over his wrist. He stood up, slowly, and looked about, taking stock of the surrounding world.

  “I am invincible,” he said.

  The devastation inside the walls of Erengrad was worse than Stefan could ever have imagined. Smoke billowed from the proud towers, and many of the jeweled spires of the once mighty city had been toppled. Flames raged across anything that could be burned, and rats had the run of whatever kingdom remained.

  Elena looked around her, aghast. “There is no way back from this,” she whispered. “Star, marriage, come what may. No way back from this.”

  “Yes, there is,” Stefan insisted, determinedly. He hadn’t come this far to see Elena give up hope now. “Cities can be built anew,” he said. “If the spirit of the people is with you, there’s nothing that can’t be achieved.”

  Franz Schiller shook his head slowly, in disbelief at what he was seeing rather than in disagreement with Stefan. “True enough, Stefan,” he said. “But what I see, the spirit of the people does not fill me with hope.”

  They had abandoned their mounts at the edge of the city. Once within the walls, progress on horseback had become all but impossible, so thick upon the ground was the human debris all around them. They saw people laughing, and people crying from fear and from rage. People fighting each other, locked in combat to the death for no remaining reason. People bent upon their knees on the ground, praying for an end to come. Stefan had grown accustomed to facing the ravages of Chaos and its aftermath, but this was something different. Never before had he seen a people so turned in upon themselves in their rage and their despair;
so instrumental in their own destruction.

  “Morr’s tears,” Bruno exclaimed. “It looks like a city at war with itself.”

  Stefan nodded. That was exactly what it looked like. The dark gods would be laughing long and loud at the ruination that they had engineered. He swore to do everything within his power to ensure that their laughter rang hollow before the day was ended.

  They made their way through streets ankle deep in refuse and ordure, through air choked with the dust of crumbled buildings. For the most part, they found they were ignored. The desperate souls that milled around them seemed lost in their private madness; others who still held to their sanity were bent upon escape from the city.

  Those few that stopped to challenge them as they forced their way through the tide sensed something in Stefan and Elena that caused them to back off. “Do we frighten them?” Elena asked.

  “I doubt that,” Stefan replied. “I’d wager most of them are beyond frightening after what they’ve been through.”

  Elena looked at Stefan, and fingered the silver chain around her neck. “Could it be the Star?” she asked. “Perhaps, even incomplete, the two parts hold some warding power that’s keeping us safe?”

  “I don’t know,” Stefan admitted. “But whatever it is, let’s hope it continues to work.”

  Once fastened upon his wrist, the bracelet no longer felt light. In the instant that he passed the glittering band over his hand it seemed to grow heavier until it might have been fashioned from lead, not gold. But Alexei Zucharov barely noticed. What he was more aware of was his own body, the feeling of energy that surged through his limbs, erasing the pain of his wounds, invigorating his spirit. It felt as if his strength was being replenished from a bottomless cup. Soon his weariness, the exhaustion of recent battle, was no more than a memory.

  That was not all that had changed. As he roved the battlefield, Alexei began to see the world through different eyes. The dead and dying lay all around, those loyal to Castelguerre side by side with the troops of Chaos. He no longer distinguished between them.

  With sudden insight, Zucharov now realised that the greater battle, the battle that would rage for all eternity, was not between good and evil. Those were no more than arbitrary distinctions, devised by men for the protection of fools. The real battle, he now understood, was between the strong and the weak. The strong were those that had been born to rule; it was their provenance. And it was their duty to rid the world of the weak: the puny and the feeble who would drag mankind down with their imperfection. The strong must be freed of their shackles, free to rise up and take their rightful place.

  Their rightful place at the table of the gods.

  A throbbing pain deep within his wrist distracted him from his reverie. Zucharov glanced down at the bracelet. It looked just as it had before, but it felt as though it had somehow tightened. With his free hand, he reached across in order to ease the band further down upon his wrist. It would not move. Zucharov cursed, vexed that his will should be defied in any way. He tugged harder, and finally the band moved an inch or so. Alexei looked down again, and pulled up short, tugging back on the reins of his horse.

  Upon his skin, where the bracelet had lain, a rainbow-coloured bruise or stain had appeared. Alexei rubbed the spot hard with his other hand. The mark did not disappear. He lifted the blemish to his face and looked closer. What he saw he did not believe, but again his eyes did not lie. Instead of a bruise he saw a tiny picture, printed as though with ink upon his living skin. As he watched, the picture resolved into a recognisable form. He was looking down upon his own image, his sword raised above the body of the fallen knight.

  Shaking, Zucharov replaced the bracelet, moving it up his wrist until it covered the mark. Only when the tattoo had been completely obscured did he ride on. On towards the east, on towards the city of Erengrad.

  Setting the daemons of madness loose upon the city had been one thing, drawing the anarchy back under his control was proving to be quite another. Vladimir Rosporov knew he no longer had command of the situation, and it was not an agreeable feeling. Doubts had begun to enter his mind, doubts even about the intent of Kyros himself. He spoke the blasphemy quietly, but he spoke it nonetheless.

  For a while he had stood within touching distance of his dream. The entire city beneath his rule, bowed in servitude at his command. He was to have been the prince of Erengrad, regent for a new, dark age. Now that dream was ringing hollow. He began to wonder if the Dark Lord ever had any interest in conquering the city, whether he had not intended all along that it should be destroyed, allowed to tear itself asunder until only rubble remained.

  Rosporov had fulfilled his vows; others had not. The victorious army of Chaos had never arrived. He would have bent the feeble-minded Norscans to his will easily enough. By employing their brute, animal force he could have brought the city to heel. But he knew now the Norscans would not be coming. None of them were coming. Kyros had abandoned him.

  But, by the power of his will, he would yet prevail. Rosporov stared out from the rostrum at the sea of faces before him. A restless sea, a frightened, hungry sea of anger and confusion, held at bay by the black sashes of the Scarandar forming a cordon around the rostrum. This anarchy was his work, his creation. For a moment, Rosporov contemplated the thought with pleasure. But his creation could yet destroy him, too, if he did not find the means to subdue it.

  The means, perhaps, was next to him upon the platform. Rosporov doubted whether Petr Kuragin would still have possessed the strength to stand, had the ropes fastening him against the iron frame not served to keep him upright.

  Rosporov crossed the platform and seized his prisoner roughly by the hair, turning Kuragin’s bruised and swollen face towards his own. Petr Kuragin stared back at him through half-lidded, vacant eyes. He had endured a beating that would have killed many men, but had proved as stubborn as he was stupid. Still he refused to cooperate.

  But he would serve his new master, Rosporov was determined he would. One way or another, he would deliver him the people. And they would hand the prince of Erengrad his crown.

  Moving to the front of the rostrum, Vladimir Rosporov addressed the people massed in Katarina Square. “I bring you a gift,” he began. “A gift of the man who has brought ruin upon your city.”

  From out of the cacophony of warring voices that answered him, one voice could be clearly heard. “We don’t want your gifts,” it called out. “We want food, we want warmth and we want shelter.” A ripple of assent ran through the crowd. Rosporov stood, his arms spread wide, at the edge of the platform. His voice took on a softer, more conciliatory tone.

  “You shall be fed,” he said. “You shall be housed. Now that the yoke of tyrants has been lifted, anything is possible. All I ask—” he paused. “All I ask is that you bow in homage to me. I am your protector. Your lord.” He waited, with growing impatience, for the rabble to pledge their allegiance. To his fury, he heard Kuragin’s name being chanted from somewhere within the crowd. Very well. If they wanted Petr Illyich Kuragin for their prince, they would have him. They would have their coronation.

  He nodded to his lieutenants standing to one side. Two of the Scarandar climbed up on the platform. The first led Petr Kuragin forward, his feet still chained together. The second turned to a smoking brazier that had been set in the middle of the stage. From beside the brazier, Rosporov lifted aloft a ring of dull grey steel. The circlet was designed to fit exactly over the crown of a man’s head.

  Rosporov turned the ring into the air above Kuragin’s head, savouring for a moment the fear registering in the other man’s eyes. He held his arm motionless, and smiled at Kuragin. “Let’s warm this up a little for you, shall we?” He lowered the steel ring into the basket of burning coals, then turned back towards the now silent crowd.

  “You shall witness the fate that befalls those that refuse my will,” he shouted at them. “Are there any of you now who would defy me?”

  For a moment, the only sound was a low w
ind blowing across the desolation of Katarina Square. Then a single voice in response. A woman’s voice, strong and distinct.

  “Yes,” the voice replied. “I do.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The Paths Divide

  Stefan was standing at Elena’s side in Katarina Square as she spoke the words. The effect upon the crowd was electrifying. He had the feeling of a thousand eyes suddenly turning, seeking them out. Now he, too, was aware of the strange power that Elena had spoken of when they first entered the city. The silver chain about his neck began to grow hot against his skin, almost as though it were drawing raw energy from around them.

  The effect upon Count Rosporov was more difficult to judge. He scanned the crowd, trying to identify the woman who dared oppose him.

  “Name yourself,” Rosporov called out. “Let us hear the name of she who would speak against the will of the people.”

  “My name is Elena Yevschenko,” Elena said. “And I speak for the people, not against them.”

  If Elena had wondered whether her name would be remembered in Erengrad, she now knew. Faces in the crowd around them registered disbelief and awe. Some undoubtedly, were hostile, but the greater number amongst them seemed to sense that a corner had been turned in the grim history of the city. Stefan heard the name being repeated endlessly, like a ripple flowing out across a lake.

  Upon the rostrum, Rosporov’s expression changed. Arrogance and disdain started to leak away, replaced by uncertainty.

  Stefan looked at Petr Kuragin, standing in shackles at Rosporov’s side, guarded by two of the Scarandar. He could only guess what torture the man had endured, yet his spirit was still unbroken. At the sound of Elena’s name echoing across the square his face turned, and a glimmering of light returned to his eyes.

  “I applaud your insolence in returning here,” Rosporov retorted. “Or should that be foolishness? Your family have the blood of Erengrad upon their hands. Their guilt is no less than Kuragin’s!”