The Empire Omnibus

by Chris Wraight, Nick Kyme, Darius Hinks

  The marauders held fast as the captain’s mount slammed into them, ripping through the horse’s chest with their strange claws and cutting its legs from beneath it. As the animal toppled, screaming to the ground, Tannhauser flew from the saddle, tumbling through the air over the marauders’ heads and slamming into the muddy hillside.

  Behind him, the grotesque figures struggled up from beneath the dying horse, but they were too slow. Despite his burning lungs, Tannhauser climbed awkwardly to his feet and ran towards Mormius, grunting with pain and exertion as he stumbled through the rain and filth.

  As the captain approached his foe, he saw the reason for the pale light playing across his armour. Mormius was clad entirely in faceted crystals that shifted and whirred mechanically as he raised his sword to defend himself. He towered over Tannhauser, at nearly seven feet tall, and as his wings spread out behind him in the moonlight, the captain felt as though he were facing a god. Hatred carried him through his doubt though. He grinned with triumph as he finally swung his sword at the monster that had robbed him of life.

  Mormius parried and with the dull clang of steel on steel, the fight began.

  The captain knew he had precious seconds before the champion’s guards pulled him apart, so he attacked with breathtaking speed, landing a flurry of blows on his opponent and leaving him reeling in the face of the onslaught. As Mormius staggered backwards, the captain called out the names of his fallen comrades in a furious roll call for the dead.

  Mormius’s huge wings began to beat frantically as he slipped through the mud and corpses. Finally, the captain smashed the champion’s blade aside and Mormius stumbled back over a broken cannon, his chest exposed. Tannhauser raised his sword for the deathblow.

  Then he froze.

  He found himself face to face with a proud knight of the Empire. The man’s skin was drawn and pale with passion; blood and filth covered his armour and his dark, rain-sodden hair was plastered across his ivory brow. It was the knight’s eyes that most arrested him, knifing into Tannhauser with a terrible look of despair.

  With dawning horror, the captain realised that this lost soul was his own reflection, trapped like a caged animal in the glimmering plates of Mormius’s armour. He was so shocked by his appearance that his sword slipped from his fingers. The war had made a ghoul of him. He was a monster. For a few seconds he forgot all about the battle as he studied the tortured lines of his own face; then, a hot bolt of pain snapped him out of his reverie. As the searing heat grew he looked down to see Mormius’s sword, embedded deep in his belly.

  The champion began to laugh as Tannhauser dropped silently into the mud.

  Mormius’s huge command tent was sewn from the hides of fallen soldiers, and as he lit a brazier in its centre, a dozen eyeless faces leered down at him, reanimated in the flickering green light. The champion sat down, cross-legged at the captain’s feet and removed his helmet, allowing a shock of lustrous ginger ringlets to roll down over his shoulders. Tannhauser struggled against the tiredness that threatened to overcome him, but a great weight seemed to be pressing him into his chair. He struggled to rise, but found his limbs paralysed, all traces of strength gone from them. He stared curiously into Mormius’s face. ‘You’re a child,’ he said, through a mouthful of blood.

  It was true. The face before him was that of a youth barely out of his teens. Mormius looked like a pampered aristocrat, or maybe the son of a wealthy merchant. His soft white skin was flawless and his languid blue eyes gazed out from beneath long, feminine lashes. His plump lips were so glossy and pink, that the captain wondered if he were wearing make-up.

  ‘It would appear so to you, I suppose,’ replied Mormius with a voice like velvet. He moistened his lips and revealed his perfect ivory teeth in a warm smile. ‘I was born in the time of your forefathers, Kurdt, way back when Sigmar’s progeny were still little more than beasts, crawling around in their own filth.’

  Tannhauser grimaced. ‘I would take a quick death over a life such as yours.’ He managed to raise a hand and wipe away the blood that was muffling his words. ‘What use is an eternity of life, if it’s spent in the service of such wretched masters?’

  ‘A commendable sentiment, Kurdt,’ replied Mormius as his smile turned into a giggle. ‘In fact, now I hear it put like that, I might be forced to reconsider my position.’ His laughter grew until his whole body was rocking back and forth and his eyes filled with tears. He lurched to his feet and whirled around the tent, carelessly knocking over furniture of incredible antiquity. Gilt-edged mirrors and crystal bowls smashed across the ground as Mormius’s mirth grew, becoming a succession of hiccupping yelps. Then the laughter shifted seamlessly into a scream of rage and the champion flew at Tannhauser, his face contorted with fury. ‘What would you know of eternity?’ he screamed, slapping the knight with such force that the chair toppled beneath him and he sprawled on the floor. ‘You’re nothing but an unwitting slave. Since the day you were born you’ve been ensnared, a plaything of the Great Conspirator.’ He crouched down, grabbed Tannhauser’s head and howled into his face. ‘You’re the child! Don’t you see? All of you strutting soldiers, celebrating your petty, ridiculous victories. You’re just pawns. Not even that. You’re a punchline to a joke you couldn’t even understand.’ He screamed again, but his rage was now so intense it strangled his words into a garbled whine.

  As Mormius’s anger increased, his features began to change, shifting and sliding in and out of view. Tannhauser saw a bewildering series of faces flash before him: old men, children and crones, all wailing with fury. Then, as suddenly as it began, the screaming ceased.

  Mormius covered his mouth and flushed with embarrassment. ‘Forgive me, Kurdt,’ he whispered, loosing his grip on Tannhauser’s head. His voice was gentle again and his face was his own once more. He helped the captain back up onto the chair and dusted him down with his soft white hands. He smiled apologetically. ‘I’ve spent so long with these creatures,’ – he gestured to the walls of the tent and the shadows of marauders passing by outside – ‘I sometimes forget my manners.’ The cheerful smile returned and he stepped over to a table laden with food. ‘I haven’t even offered you a drink,’ he said, filling a silver goblet with wine and bringing it to the captain. ‘You must think me quite the heathen.’

  Tannhauser simply stared at him in mute horror, so Mormius placed the drink on the floor next to him and returned to the brazier in the centre of the room. ‘It’s a good vintage,’ he muttered, as he measured out an assortment of coloured powders and dropped them into the green flames, filling the tent with thick, heady smoke. ‘It would ease your suffering,’ he added, with a note of apology in his voice.

  As the clouds of smoke grew, the captain strained to follow Mormius’s movements. His willowy shape slipped back and forth through the cloying fumes, dropping tinctures and leaves into the brazier like a master chef, humming merrily to himself as he worked. The walls of the tent gradually slipped away behind a haze of coloured smoke. Tannhauser felt himself falling into a realm of shadows. He wondered if his tired heart had finally released him.

  A shape caught his eye, to the left of the brazier. It was a large net of some kind and at first he thought it was full of animal carcasses. He saw ribs, gristle and strands of wet meat. To his horror, he noticed the mass of flesh was moving slightly, as though breathing. He looked closer and saw that the organs and limbs were melded together into one grotesque being, layered with glistening viscera and dark, pulsing tumours. As he watched, the pile of meat shifted and several eyes suddenly peered out at him. The sack’s thick cords strained as it started to slide across the ground in his direction. Tannhauser gasped as a grey, elongated face looked from beneath the folds of flesh. Then he noticed rows of hands, all reaching towards him from the mass of body parts.

  Mormius heard Tannhauser’s gasp and rolled his eyes in irritation. He strode across the tent and gave the meat a series of fierce kicks, until
the struggling shape crawled back into the shadows. ‘Family,’ he said, shaking his head despairingly. ‘What’s to be done with them?’ He stooped to wipe some blood from his boot. ‘Still, I suppose they have sacrificed much on my behalf.’

  Mormius gently fanned the smoke with his broad, silver wings, and Tannhauser sensed another presence, watching him intently. He peered through the fug, trying to spot the new arrival but, to his dismay, he realised that it was not in the tent, but in his mind, a strange sentience, spreading at the back of his thoughts like a shadow, tentatively probing the recesses of his consciousness. Images arrived unbidden in his head: glimpses of places and people he could never have seen. A range of mountains reared up before him, with peaks so sheer that they defied all logic. Then came vast armies of creatures so warped and grotesque he wanted to shield his eyes from the awfulness of them, but the visions were deep within him and however he squirmed, he could not escape them.

  Tannhauser realised Mormius was crouched before him again, watching eagerly. The knight looked down at his hands and saw that they were rippling and swelling as the presence exerted its influence over his body. The bones in his back cracked as they stretched and elongated, arching up in a long curve. His head jolted back and with a shocking flash of pain he felt his head rearrange itself into a long beak-like curve.

  Tannhauser opened his mouth to cry out, but another sound entirely emerged; a hoarse scraping that ripped through his throat. He was vaguely aware of Mormius, giggling with delight. The alien screech began to form words from Tannhauser’s protesting vocal chords. At first it was no more than a jumble of screeched vowels, but then a distinct word filled the tent: ‘Mormius.’

  ‘Yes, master,’ cried the champion, his voice wavering with emotion. ‘You’re so kind to spare me your–’

  ‘Failure,’ shrieked the hideous voice, forcing Tannhauser’s head back even further.

  Mormius’s smile faltered. ‘Failure, master?’ He gestured to the door of the tent. ‘We’re in the very heart of Ostland. I’ve killed so many in your name, they’re already writing songs about me. The province is on its knees.’

  A furious chorus of screeches greeted Mormius’s words. ‘What of the capital? What of Wolfenburg? What of von Raukov? Why are you here? Your idleness is treachery.’ As the words grew more enraged, the flames in the brazier began to gut and flicker, plunging the tent in and out of darkness. ‘Do you wish to serve me, or make a fool of me?’ cried the voice. ‘Have you forsaken me? Are you enamoured of another master?’

  Fear twisted Mormius’s chubby face into a grimace. ‘Master,’ he gasped. ‘Please understand – I’ve marched ceaselessly for weeks, but I need to gather my strength before I move on. The Ostlanders have refortified an old castle, called Mercy’s End. It has already been ruined once by Archaon and we’ll easily sweep it away, as surely as everything else, but I must wait for the rest of my army before heading south.’

  ‘No!’ screamed the voice, with such force that Tannhauser’s throat burst. His whole body began to spasm and twist, like a broken marionette, and blood started rushing quickly from his exposed vocal cords. ‘Strike now, or betray me.’

  Mormius pawed pathetically at Tannhauser’s jerking limbs and began to whine. ‘Don’t say such things, master. Of course I haven’t betrayed you. Strendel, Wurdorf and Steinfeld are already in ruins. The north of the province is overrun with my men and they’re all marching to meet me here. The surviving Ostlanders are massing in that crumbling old wreck, but they’ve picked a poor place to make their stand. We’ll be there within days and we’ll smash through those old walls like firewood. Then the whole province will be ours.’ There was no reply, so he grabbed his sword from the ground and lifted it up over his head. ‘As you wish then. We’ll leave now. The stragglers will just have to catch up with us as best they can. I won’t betray you, master.’ There was still no reply and Mormius dashed to the captain’s side, falling on his knees and grabbing Tannhauser’s bloody hands in his own. ‘Master?’

  The captain lay slumped in the chair and however much Mormius pleaded and shook him, no more words came. ‘Of course,’ muttered the champion, rising to his feet and looking anxiously around the room. ‘Of course, I must strike now. You’re right.’ He dashed from the tent and left Tannhauser to bleed alone.

  The flames in the brazier flickered and finally died, plunging the tent into darkness. The captain’s body was twisted beyond all recognition, but as the afterimage of the fire played over his retina, a faint smile spread across his torn lips. His heart finally accepted the truth of his death and gratefully ceased to drum. As his last breath slipped from his lungs, Tannhauser looked down at a sharpened ring on his finger, glistening with a jewel of Mormius’s blood. He wondered how long it would be before the champion discovered the gift he had left him.

  The keep reared up from the hillside like a broken tooth. Firelight flickered from its narrow windows and above its crumbling battlements a banner was flying in the moonlight: a single bull, glowering defiantly from a black and white field.

  All around the building, a great army was massing, swelling like waves beneath the quickly moving clouds. Mormius mounted a white, barded warhorse and rode to the brow of a hill to look down at the ranks flooding the valley. A grotesque figure shambled out of the darkness and stood at his side. Mormius looked down at his captain with distaste. The thing’s serpentine limbs dragged behind him through the mud and silvery mites rushed over his scaled, eyeless face as he grinned up at his general. ‘Your army is almost ready, lord,’ he said, in a retching, gurgling voice. He lifted one of his writhing arms and gestured at the scene below. ‘I’ve never seen such a gathering. No one could stop it. By tomorrow night we will have a force like nothing they’ve ever seen.’

  ‘We must leave now,’ said Mormius. ‘We’ve rested long enough.’

  The creature’s smile faltered and a strange hissing noise came from deep in his throat. ‘Now, my lord?’

  ‘Yes, now. For every day we spend waiting, Mercy’s End grows a little stronger. I have no desire to spend a week tussling over that backwater. I should be within sight of the capital by now, not wasting my time on these parochial skirmishes.’

  ‘Well, master,’ the marauder said, shrugging helplessly. ‘I’m not sure that will be possible. Many of the troops are still fighting their way through Kislev. Ivarr Kolbeinn has gathered a great number of ogres and they’re just a few days north of here. And Ingvarr the Changed has hundreds of men marching with him.’ He grimaced with all four of his mouths. ‘We should at least wait for Freyviòr Sturl and his horsemen.’

  ‘Didn’t you hear me?’ said Mormius. ‘We attack in the morning.’ He grinned. ‘Or do you think my skills as a strategist are insufficient?’ His shoulders began to shake with amusement. ‘Maybe it would be better if you made the tactical decisions from now on?’

  At the sound of Mormius’s laughter, the colour drained from the marauder’s face. He backed away, shaking his head. ‘No, of course not, you’re absolutely right.’ He waved at the keep. ‘These fools won’t see the dawn. I’ll see to it.’ He lurched awkwardly away through the rain. ‘We’ll be marching south within the hour.’

  With some difficulty, Mormius managed to stifle his laughter. Once he was calm, he smiled with satisfaction at the great army arrayed before him. The standard bearers had unfurled their crude colours to the wind: the eight pointed star of Chaos, daubed in the blood of their enemies. It was a terrifying sight and his heart swelled with pride.

  As he watched the endless stream of troops swarming out of the darkness, Mormius noticed a small hole on his left gauntlet. As he watched, a spidery, black patina began to spread over the crystals that surrounded it. He peered at the dark stain for a moment, then promptly forgot all about it as he turned his attention to the battle ahead.

  Chapter Two

  Merciful Justice

  ‘Envy never dies,’ said
the old man, leaning in towards the assembled crowd. His voice was low, but his whole body was twisted with hate. Spittle was hanging from his cracked lips and his gaunt face was flushed with emotion. ‘The old gods are always there, waiting for revenge; waiting to rise again.’ His frenzied, bony arms snaked back and forth across his chest as he spoke and a sheen of sweat glistened over his ribs. A blistered symbol was scorched across his belly: a single flaming hammer.

  Anna was torn between fascination and disgust. From her vantage point, up on top of the pyre, she could see how easily he manipulated the mob. Some of these people had recently trusted her with their lives; only the night before, most of them had still doubted her guilt. Now, they could smell blood on the morning air and they would not rest until more of it was spilled. As the old man continued his tirade, she saw life slipping from her grasp. Scarlet tears began to roll down over her bruised, swollen cheeks and she prepared herself for death.

  ‘Their obscure plots always surround us,’ continued the old man. ‘A tide of unholy filth hides behind the most innocent of faces. Even the most vigilant of Sigmar’s servants can struggle to spot the signs.’ The crowd murmured their assent, beginning to warm to his theme. ‘Look at her,’ he hissed, stretching his frail body to its full height and pointing theatrically at Anna. ‘See how this “priestess” whimpers for forgiveness. See the cold tears that run from her pitiless eyes. Even now, with judgement at hand, she is unrepentant. If you hesitate, if you falter even for a moment, she will worm her way out of justice. Trust me, my friends, that pretty young face hides an old, terrible evil; there’s murder in her heart.’ The crowd’s murmurs grew louder and many of them cast nervous, furtive glances up at the priestess.

  Anna shivered. Dawn light was spreading quickly over the village, but the witch hunter’s henchman had torn her white robes as he fastened her to the pyre. Her exposed flesh was wet with dew and the autumn breeze knifed into her. She prayed that one way or another, her ordeal would soon be over. As the crowd began to chant along with the old man’s liturgy, she looked out across their heads to the fields beyond the village; out towards the distant forest. Crows were hopping across the ploughed fields and heading towards her. She took a strange comfort in the sight. As mankind acted out its bloody rituals, nature continued unabated. The world marched on, blind to her fate. Even as the crows picked at her charred remains, she would become part of a timeless cycle of rebirth. There was solace in such things, she decided.