The Empire Omnibus

by Chris Wraight, Nick Kyme, Darius Hinks

  ‘I must do what I can for the captain,’ said Wolff, taking his hammer from Ratboy and pointing it back at the castle’s central keep. ‘Prepare your things and meet me by the postern gate in ten minutes.’ With that, he strode off through the milling crowds of soldiers, in the direction of Felhamer and the other officers.

  ‘As old as it is, Mercy’s End wasn’t the first bastion to be built on this site,’ explained Captain Felhamer as he led them through the deserted streets. ‘When my ancestors laid the foundations, many centuries ago, they discovered the remains of an even older fortress.’

  Ratboy looked away from the captain and noticed that Anna was listening to his words with a rapt expression on her face. He felt an odd rush of nausea as he saw the blushes that coloured her usually pale skin. What’s so special about him, he wondered, looking at Felhamer’s strong jaw, perfect teeth and tall, powerful physique. If you removed all those plates of armour and gaudy feathers he would probably look much like me, he decided.

  ‘The architecture was like nothing they’d ever seen, or even read of,’ continued Felhamer. ‘The ruins were full of delicate, serpentine columns and tall arching windows – all crafted with incredible skill. Despite the obvious age of the stonework, almost all of the rooms were still intact.’ The captain placed a hand on Anna’s arm and gave her an excited grin. ‘Imagine it,’ he said, ‘the handiwork of a forgotten race.’

  Anna’s blushes deepened and she smiled back at him, before lowering her gaze to the floor.

  ‘People weren’t so enlightened in those days, though,’ he said, loosing her arm and turning to Ratboy. ‘They were afraid of the strange sigils that adorned the walls, and imagined they had stumbled across some shrine to the Dark Gods.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘So they smashed the beautiful statues and filled the elegant rooms with rubble. Then they built Mercy’s End right over the top of the old castle and forbade anyone to ever speak of it again.’

  He led them into a tumbledown outbuilding and paused by a large set of trapdoors, half hidden beneath mounds of straw and dung. A group of bored-looking sentries leapt to attention as he approached, clanking their iron-clad boots and straightening their wide, felt hats.

  Felhamer nodded brusquely at them, before clearing the straw away from the doors with his boot and turning to face Wolff and the others. ‘For centuries the old ruins lay forgotten, until my great, great grandfather, Ernestus, ordered the building of a new well to cope with the demands of an expanding populace, and discovered this.’ He reached beneath the slashed leather of his doublet and withdrew a slender knife, holding it out so that it glinted in the torchlight.

  Anna gasped and stepped closer to Felhamer.

  ‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ asked the captain.

  Ratboy shrugged and scowled at his feet, but Wolff answered. ‘I’ve never seen anything quite like it,’ he said, peering at the delicately engraved silver. ‘Unless…’ He looked closer, but then shook his head and said no more.

  ‘Most of the relics have been lost over the years, but a few of the rooms have been unearthed.’ The captain gave a proud smile. ‘Many of them during my own tenure, actually. Most of the site was destroyed during the building of Mercy’s End, but we’ve managed to clear several of the larger chambers, and we reopened a long passageway that emerges almost half a mile south of here, on the other side of the valley.’ He gestured to one of the doors and a guard rushed to unlock it. ‘I had a suspicion that it might come in useful some day,’ he said, bending down and wrenching open one of the doors.

  Wolff pulled open the other door and they all peered down into the oily blackness. The torchlight only reached the first few steps, but they were obviously made by master craftsmen, and still sound, even after centuries of neglect.

  Felhamer took three torches from the walls of the outbuilding and handed them to Wolff, Anna and Ratboy. ‘These should see you through to the other side,’ he said, ‘if you don’t dawdle.’ Then he took a scrap of parchment and handed it to the warrior priest. ‘It’s a simple map. There are only a few rooms still passable, and once you’re into the main passageway, you just follow it till you reach the steps at the far end.’ The captain stepped back and looked out at the encroaching darkness. His smile faltered as he remembered the task that awaited him. He shook his head at Wolff. ‘Are you sure about this?’ he asked, with a slight tremor in his voice. ‘Is there no way you could stay? Even for a few days?’ He gripped the priest’s shoulder and his eyes filled with passion. ‘With you to lead us, I believe we could hold back anything.’

  Wolff looked away with a pained expression on his face. ‘I can’t,’ he muttered. He handed his torch to Ratboy and placed a hand on the young captain’s arm. ‘Join me in prayer, for a moment,’ he said. He led Felhamer to the far corner of the old barn and they knelt together on the straw. Ratboy could not hear their words, but as the priest led Felhamer in a series of muttered catechisms, the air began to hum with a tangible energy that tingled deep in his bones and raised the hairs on his arms. The torches spat and flickered oddly, and a sense of foreboding filled the room, as though a great storm were brewing. Ratboy saw that Anna and the guards had noticed it too; they were looking around nervously at the lurching shadows and had placed their hands on the hilts of their weapons, as though expecting an attack.

  After a few minutes, Wolff and Felhamer rose to their feet and returned to the top of the steps. The captain’s face was transformed. The fear had vanished from his eyes and there was a stern, determined line to his jaw. As he gripped Wolff’s arm, his hand was trembling with emotion. ‘Good luck, Brother Wolff,’ he said. ‘I shall not forget what you did for us here today. Whatever unholy powers your brother has allied himself to, I doubt they’ll be a match for such unshakable faith as yours.’

  Wolff nodded but his eyes were full of doubt. He gave no reply as he stepped down into the darkness.

  Chapter Eleven

  The Warrener

  ‘Stay close,’ muttered the priest as he trotted quickly down the steps. As his boots clattered across the ancient stone, the sound was swallowed by the thick gloom. The light from their torches only reached a few feet either side of them, but every now and then Ratboy glimpsed pale, delicate columns, rearing up into the blackness.

  ‘Who could have built these rooms?’ he whispered, afraid to disturb the centuries-old silence.

  ‘Who can say?’ replied Wolff, without breaking his stride. ‘The world is old beyond reckoning. Man was certainly not the first race to inhabit these northern regions. Older, stranger folk came here long before we did.’ As he turned to face Ratboy and Anna, the flickering light threw deep shadows across his brutal features. ‘Some say that it was the dabbling of those ancient peoples that unleashed the winds of magic on the world; that they unshackled the Ruinous Powers and gave them access to our realm.’ He shrugged and turned away. ‘But if such a people ever did inhabit this place, they fled long ago, leaving us to deal with the consequences of their hubris.’

  Wolff paused as they reached the bottom step, and held his torch over the map Felhamer had given him.

  As the priest frowned at the scrap of parchment, Ratboy held his own torch aloft, peering into the gaping void that surrounded them. His light revealed nothing but rat bones and a few pale spiders that scuttled quickly back into the shadows. The air seemed different this far down though, and his throat grew tight at the thought of all the earth above their heads. A thousand childhood tales nagged at the edge of his memory: tales of creatures that lived below the earth. Were these chambers really uninhabited, he wondered?

  ‘This way,’ barked Wolff as he strode off to the left.

  Ratboy and Anna had to move quickly to keep pace with the priest’s broad strides, but they were keen not to lose sight of his torch. Without a map, it would be all too easy to get lost in the maze of archways and tunnels. They rushed through a succession of ornately carved doorways and Rat
boy sensed from the echoes of their footfalls that each room they entered was slightly smaller than the last. As they crossed the third room, a flash of light caught his eye. Something was reflecting the glare of their torches. He guessed it was only a few feet away and veered off from Wolff’s light for a minute to get a closer look.

  ‘Ratboy,’ snapped Anna, from behind, ‘what are you doing?’

  Her voice echoed strangely through the darkness and Wolff stopped immediately to see what was happening.

  ‘There’s something over here,’ replied Ratboy, lowering his torch towards the glittering object. As the light washed over the dusty stone, a pale face grinned up at him and Ratboy yelped with shock.

  ‘What’s that?’ cried Wolff, dashing over to his side and thrusting his torch towards the object. A skeleton lay sprawled across the flagstones. It was fractured, ancient, and obviously not human. The limbs were unnaturally slender and the skull was elongated in a way that none of them had ever seen before. Clutched in its hand was a slender, curved sword. Most of the blade was hidden beneath centuries of dust and cobwebs, but a tiny section of the hilt flashed merrily in the shifting firelight.

  Anna staggered back from the bones with a look of horror on her face. ‘Don’t touch it,’ she gasped, ‘it’s some kind of daemon.’

  Ratboy didn’t hear her. The glittering metal entranced him and before Wolff could stop him, he reached down and grabbed the sword.

  ‘Let me see that,’ growled the priest, snatching it away from him. He wiped away the dust and muck and held the sword up to his face. The blade flashed in the torchlight, scattering lances of brilliance around the chamber and revealing tantalising glimpses of the crumbling architecture. The sword itself was a thing of incredible beauty, and of a similar design to the knife Felhamer had showed them earlier. Delicate scrollwork ran along its entire length, depicting astrological symbols, and a series of long, sculpted characters were entwined around single red stone embedded in the hilt. Wolff peered at the sword for a few minutes, turning it slowly in his hands. Then he shrugged, and handed it back. ‘This is no ordinary weapon,’ he said, looking closely at Ratboy, ‘but I can’t see anything unnatural about its manufacture.’ He watched as Ratboy cradled the sword in his trembling hands. ‘It seems strange that it’s lain here for all these centuries, hidden from everyone and yet the second you entered the room, you noticed it.’

  Ratboy boy’s eyes were wide with excitement as he ran a finger along the edge of the blade. He snatched his hand away with a gasp and placed his finger in his mouth. ‘Still sharp,’ he muttered, ‘after all this time.’

  Wolff nodded. ‘It’s a good sword.’ He placed a hand on Ratboy’s shoulder. ‘Just be sure to tell me if you notice anything strange about it.’ He looked at the twitching shadows that surrounded them. ‘Well made is one thing, but an aspirant priest should always be on the look out for any signs of sorcery or occultism.’

  Ratboy’s face flushed with pride at the suggestion he could even aspire to being a priest. As they marched out of the chamber, he felt as though he had discovered two prizes in the dark beneath Mercy’s End.

  They passed into another chamber that smelled strongly of damp and rotting vegetation. Ratboy frowned at the overpowering stench and, after slotting the sword securely in his belt, he held his hand over his mouth to try to block out some of the stink. He looked back at Anna and she twisted her face into an exaggerated grimace.

  They reached a doorway so wide that even when Ratboy stretched his arms out to their full extent, he couldn’t touch the sides. It led into a broad, empty passageway that continued onwards, arrow straight for as far as they could see. ‘This is the central route that leads up into the hills,’ said Wolff, pausing for a moment so that they could catch their breath. He removed one of his vambraces and massaged the bruised muscles of his forearm. ‘The next attack will have already begun,’ he said in a voice tinged with regret. ‘And I fear we hadn’t seen the half of what Mormius had in store for Felhamer.’

  Anna shrugged. ‘I don’t think we saw all that Felhamer had in store for the enemy either. There’s a strength in him that won’t be easily broken.’

  Wolff nodded as he pulled his armour back on and strode forwards. ‘You’re right, sister,’ he said, as they rushed after him. ‘But I can’t help feeling I’ve sent a good man to his grave. Many good men, in fact.’

  Anna gave a hollow laugh that echoed strangely around the passageway. ‘Isn’t that your job, Brother Wolff?’

  They walked in an awkward silence for a while, each lost in their own thoughts. After a while, the passageway began to slope upwards and the atmosphere grew a little less oppressive.

  ‘This must be it,’ said Wolff after nearly an hour had passed. Their torches lit up a pair of massive stone doors at the end of the passageway. ‘If Felhamer was right, they should open out onto the far side of the valley.’ As he reached the doors, he pressed his shoulder against them and shoved. The hinges groaned and the doors moved, but only an inch or so, and Wolff gave a bitter laugh. ‘They’re locked,’ he said, peering through the gap. ‘There’s a chain on the other side.’ He stepped back and lifted his warhammer from his back. ‘Stand clear,’ he said, as he prepared to smash it against the stone.

  ‘Wait,’ cried Anna, grabbing his arm. ‘You must be joking. Those doors are a foot thick. You’ll break your arm.’

  ‘Master,’ said Ratboy, rushing up to the door and drawing his new sword. ‘Let me try.’

  Wolff drew breath to speak, then shrugged and stepped back.

  Ratboy peered through the gap and then slid the slender blade carefully through it. After a moment’s pause, he lifted the sword and then brought it down with a grunt of exertion. It sliced downwards with a flash of sparks and clattered on the flagstones. Ratboy turned to give Wolff a mischievous grin before gently pushing the doors open to reveal the star-laden heavens beyond. The chain dangled at the edge of the door, sliced neatly through the middle. ‘Well made indeed,’ he said, proudly twirling his sword as he strode out into the cool night air.

  As Felhamer had promised, they emerged nearly a mile away from Mercy’s End. The door was cut into the far side of a small hollow, and the Forest of Shadows was spread out below them, for as far as the eye could see. They closed the doors carefully behind them and replaced the nettles and branches that grew over them. As they stepped out onto the hillside, Ratboy noticed with surprise that the doors had completely disappeared from view. He remembered his master’s instruction to be vigilant for signs of sorcery, but bit his tongue. If the doors had remained hidden for all these centuries, he did not think he should be the one to ask why.

  They clambered up to the top of the hill, savouring the cool night air and the open sky above their heads. Once they had reached the summit, they looked back towards the castle. It was adrift amongst an ocean of flickering lights and even from this distance there was something sinister about the fires. Greens and blues mingled with the more natural yellows and every now and then great gouts of flame would erupt from one of the lumbering, indistinct shapes that towered over the crush of smaller figures.

  ‘They’re still holding on,’ said Wolff, with a note of awe.

  Ratboy peered at the castle and saw that his master was right. Fire had spread all along the battlements, but Felhamer’s banners were still flying. The black and white designs were tinged a sickly green by the daemonic fires raging beneath them, but they were a clear sign that the citadel had not fallen.

  ‘What happened to Gryphius?’ exclaimed Anna suddenly. ‘Is he still down there?’

  Wolff nodded. ‘I think I may have underestimated him. I took him for a mere dilettante, but he has proved himself to be much more than that.’ He turned to Anna and noticed the tears that suddenly glistened in her eyes. ‘There’s nothing to be done for a man such as that, sister. His wounds are old and deep. But I assured him that he will find peace at l
ast in this battle – whatever the outcome.’

  ‘Peace in death, you mean?’ she snapped. ‘Do you really think the only way to ease a broken heart is to stop it?’

  Wolff shrugged. ‘We should keep moving,’ he said, ignoring her question and turning away from the besieged ruin. ‘We aren’t safe travelling in such a small group. The sooner we can find von Raukov’s army the better.’

  With that he jogged down the hill towards the trees, leaving his acolyte to bear the brunt of Anna’s fury.

  ‘Pig-headed hammer hurler,’ she muttered, scowling at the priest’s back. She turned on Ratboy. ‘Why do you people always believe bloodshed is such a cure-all?’

  Ratboy shrugged, in unconscious imitation of his master and moved to follow him.

  ‘Wait,’ said Anna, grabbing his arm. ‘How’s your hand?’

  Ratboy paused as she removed the bandages.

  ‘Improving a bit, I think,’ she said, in the same angry tones. She unclasped a small bag that was slung over her shoulder, and removed a large dried leaf. As she pressed it onto the wound, Ratboy’s eyes widened with pain. ‘Don’t be such a child,’ she said as she replaced the bandages and rushed after the quickly disappearing Wolff. ‘It will do you good.’

  As they reached the edge of the trees, Wolff paused and looked up at the shadow moon, Morrslieb. It was hanging unusually low in the sky and seemed to be almost resting on the black, shifting peaks of the forest. As Ratboy and Anna approached, gasping for breath, he turned to them with an odd smile. ‘What a choice,’ he said, gesturing to the trees. ‘Take our chances beneath these malign boughs, or risk the open country.’