The Empire Omnibus

by Chris Wraight, Nick Kyme, Darius Hinks

  The priest tried to answer, but he was completely shrouded in light, and as he strained to escape, the only sound he could make was a strangled groan of frustration.

  Fabian strolled slowly towards his brother, still holding the book before him. In his other hand, he held a small black object. As the old general stepped closer, Ratboy realised he was holding the beak of a carrion bird, long and gleaming as he rolled it between his thumb and forefinger.

  ‘You’re so old,’ muttered Fabian as he reached his paralysed brother. He looked with fascination at Jakob’s weather-worn features and ran a finger slowly across his face. ‘You’ve lived a whole lifetime that you didn’t deserve.’ Fabian’s one good eye was the only hint of their shared heritage. Where Jakob was broad and heavy-set, Fabian was slender and graceful; they were as opposite as two men could be, but his eye was as black and dangerous as his brother’s. ‘Your destiny has finally caught up with you,’ he said, pressing the beak into the side of the priest’s neck.

  Wolff tried to pull away, but the dancing light held him firmly in place and as the curved, filthy beak slipped beneath his skin it sent a dark stream of blood rushing down his thick neck. Fabian gave a low chuckle. ‘Bless you, brother. I had my doubts that this would work. My lord had complete confidence in your naïveté, but I thought after all these decades you might have developed a little more insight.’

  He stepped back to watch as Wolff’s blood pooled on the ground. As soon as the liquid touched the grass, it fanned out into a series of thin, viscous strands, each one twisting and spiralling as though alive. The lines of blood traced around the priest’s feet in a complex set of circles, framing him within an elaborate, glistening design.

  Fabian shook his head at his brother’s confused expression. ‘It must be wonderful to see the world in such simple terms – to divide everything along crude fault lines of good and evil, but it does leave one a little blinkered.’

  He sighed as he watched his brother struggling. Then he waved at the slender, blue creature watching nervously from the edge of the clearing. ‘My eyes have been on you for a long time, Jakob. I’ve waited and waited for you to realise the truth, but you never did. Your head’s still so full of righteousness. Even after all these years, it robs you of sense. You knew I was coming here to make a sacrifice.’ He leant forward, so that his face was just inches away from his brother’s. ‘But not for a minute did you consider that the sacrifice might be you.’ He savoured the mute agony in Wolff’s eyes. ‘Yes, you see it now. Now that you’ve sent so many innocents to their deaths, believing I was interested in a horde of meat-headed soldiers. I’ve led you a merry dance, brother, but you embraced the role with enthusiasm. I think you can take credit for all the bystanders you’ve dragged down with you.’ He shrugged. ‘To be fair, the idea wasn’t mine. I did originally intend to buy immortality with the blood of my men. But my master’s taste is far more particular. Only a very choice morsel is good enough for such an imaginative appetite.’ He raised his hands to the star-speckled heavens and cried out in a dramatic voice. ‘Not just the blood of a powerful Sigmarite, but the blood of my own brother! How delectable!’ He shook his head. ‘I never dreamt you would be so stupid as to bring yourself to me – trotting meekly into my master’s own house, but he had faith; he had the vision I lacked.’

  The veins in Wolff’s neck looked ready to burst as he pulled against the light that enveloped him. Finally, with an incredible effort, he managed to let out a feeble word. ‘No,’ he croaked.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Fabian with a broad smile. ‘Yes, yes, yes! You’re my gift, Jakob. The whole campaign was nothing but a joke, with you as its moronic punchline. Two entire armies sacrificed, just to make a fool out of you – just to see if you’d take the bait. Everything was leading to this moment. Do you really think it’s so easy to stroll from behind the lines of such an army as Mormius’s? I thought you would see through the ruse though, I really did. I thought you would spot the handiwork of the Architect of Fate. How could you not recognise the artifices of the Great Beguiler.’ He shook his head and his smile became a laugh. ‘I could maybe understand your cynical abuse of the flagellants’ faith, but what happened at Mercy’s End, Jakob? I felt sure you would see sense then. How could you think it was right to abandon all those men? You let Mormius rip the heart out of this province, just so you could pursue a personal vendetta. Don’t you see? With you by their side, they would have won. Was there ever such a proud display of Ostland grit as Felhamer and his garrison? How could you just leave them all to die? How could you think that was right? You abandoned every article of your faith when you left those men to be butchered.’

  Wolff’s struggles grew weaker with each word. His shoulders slumped and his chin dropped, until it seemed as though the light was all that was keeping him on his feet. He looked utterly destroyed.

  Fabian stepped over towards Anna. ‘And what strange company you keep, brother. What a wretched collection of apostates.’ He looked down at Anna’s bloodstained robes with obvious amusement. ‘A murderous Shallyan – who ever heard of such a thing? How quickly we abandon our beliefs in the face of pain.’ As Fabian leant closer to the priestess, her body bucked away from him, lurching violently within the prison of light. ‘Did you enjoy it, Anna,’ he whispered, as he pressed the beak into the side of her neck, ‘when you felt him struggling for life?’ Anna moaned in horror as blood rushed from her throat, mingling with that of her victim. ‘Did you relish the power, as you stopped his heart?’ Fabian stepped back to watch as the blood danced around Anna’s feet, before writhing across the ground and linking with the pool at Wolff’s. ‘Did you really think you were left alive in that cart by mere chance?’

  He nodded with satisfaction and then moved over to Ratboy. ‘And this one, brother’ he chuckled. ‘Did you know he tried to forsake you?’ He sneered with disgust. ‘While you were fighting to preserve his homeland, this wretched turncoat was planning his escape. Can you believe that? After everything you’ve done for him, he tried to abandon you to save his own worthless skin. He wouldn’t even be here if the Knights Griffon hadn’t caught him trying to worm his way to safety. He lacks your faith, brother. He lacks the faith to kill.’

  Ratboy’s eyes filled with tears. The truth of Fabian’s words cut through him. Fabian was right. The battle had terrified him, but not as much as the sight of Wolff’s animal frenzy. That was what he had been fleeing – the fear of such inhumanity. His chest shook with great, heaving sobs. He had pictured many endings to his life as a novice, but never this one: to die by the side of his master after such awful betrayal. Ratboy’s desolation was complete. He barely noticed as Fabian slid the beak into his throat and sent a spray of blood down his filthy hauberk. The liquid quickly merged with the morass of crimson symbols on grass.

  Fabian turned away from him and flicked through the pages of the book. He muttered a few incoherent lines under his breath and the light grew in brilliance. The tears in Ratboy’s eyes fragmented the brilliant display, so that he saw dozens of Fabians stride back up to the ancient tree stump and remove their eye-patches.

  As the light grew, so did the throbbing sound. The birches surrounding the grove began to bow and creak with the force of it. At the same time, the strands of blood formed ever more complex shapes around the three captives: eyes merged into fish and flames formed into skulls and all with such frenetic purpose that the liquid seemed to possess an awful, animal sentience.

  Ratboy’s mind reeled in the face of such an onslaught and he felt his reason slipping away. The trees at the edge of the clearing were now undulating and throbbing in time to the pulses of light, twisting themselves into strange, serpentine shapes. Ratboy gave Wolff a final despairing look, but the priest was hanging like a limp doll, tossed back and forth by the currents of his brother’s magic. Ratboy closed his eyes but the awful visions simply burned through his eyelids and flooded his broken heart.

  Chapter Nine
teen

  The Blood of a Wolff

  Envy never dies, thought Anna as Fabian’s sorcery pawed and scratched at her flesh. Where had she heard those words? For the life of her she could not remember, but as she watched the old general, muttering feverishly over his book, she realised why she had thought of them. In an instant, her mind stripped away the decades and she saw a small boy stood behind the shattered oak; a child consumed by jealousy for his older brother. Her despair began to be replaced by anger. Had so many men really been sacrificed to assuage the petty hatred of a child? Was she really going to die here for such a pathetic reason? Whatever she had done, whatever mistakes she had made, she could not bear to be sacrificed on the altar of some paltry sibling rivalry. She strained her muscles one last time, testing the strength of her bonds, but the column of light that surrounded her was now a furious hurricane of glyphs and visions and there was no way she could break through. As Fabian’s incantation droned on in the background she began to seethe with fury. The lattice of energy had lifted the three of them several feet off the ground, coursing through their bodies with such force that they jolted back and forth like branches, battered by a storm.

  A movement caught her eye and she twisted her head back over her shoulder. There was a pair of men crouched in the avenue of trees that led up to the grove. They were stood in the darkness beyond the luminous display and she couldn’t quite make out their faces, but as the smaller of the two edged forwards, she saw his pale, staring eyes and felt a shock of recognition.

  Sürman had finally found her.

  Thoughts tumbled through her head. Death, or something worse, was only seconds away. Would the witch hunter do anything? She peered into his strange eyes and flinched at the hatred she found there. She could see that, even now, as unholy energy arced and flashed around the clearing, he was desperate to come to her. If there was ever an ounce of sanity in him it had long gone. She saw a profound madness in his thin, jaundiced features. The only thing keeping his ruined body alive was his hunger for her blood.

  She looked around the grove. Fabian was completely lost in rapture. His working eye had rolled back in its socket and his flesh was incandescent with power. The strands of blood and magic that linked her to Wolff and Ratboy were coruscating wildly in time to the rhythm of his words. The throbbing was now so loud she could barely hear him, but the imploring tone was unmistakable: he was using their vitality to summon something. At the heart of the circle of light a nimbus was forming in the bole of the old oak tree. It was too bright to look upon directly, but Anna thought she could see movement stirring deep within it: a foetal shape, twitching and straining for life. Whatever it was, the links between her and the others were feeding it, she was sure of it.

  An idea began to form in her mind.

  With all her remaining strength, Anna raised her hands above her head and twisted her face into a victorious grin. As she turned towards Sürman, she felt the light playing around her fingertips and laughed with pleasure.

  Sürman’s eyes bulged at the sight of Anna’s ecstatic movements. It was more than he could bear to see her relishing the power that surrounded her. His worst suspicions were confirmed. She was obviously a witch of unbelievable power. He clutched his head in dismay and stumbled into the light, lurching towards her as though dragged by invisible hands.

  His companion grabbed him by the shoulder, trying to pull him back to safety, but the witch hunter shrugged him away with a cry that was lost beneath the throbbing hum of Fabian’s magic.

  Anna twisted her hands into a series of vaguely mystical shapes, trying to ignore the pain that was eating into her limbs and assuming the role of an unrepentant sorceress.

  Finally, with a storm of invectives Sürman broke into a run and launched himself at Anna. He grabbed hold of her legs and they both slammed down onto the muddy grass.

  The triangle of light collapsed and arcs of power thrashed wildly around the grove, like the flailing limbs of a dying animal. The throbbing ceased immediately and Wolf and Ratboy dropped heavily to the ground.

  A hiccupping scream echoed around the clearing.

  Anna looked up to see that all of the light had turned back in on its source, pummelling into Fabian’s body with such force that it had pinned him to the ground. The book fell from his hand and smoke began to rise from his clothes as the power rippled over his prone body. ‘Gods, what have you done?’ he screamed at Sürman, as the witch hunter struggled with Anna, attempting to drag her from the clearing.

  ‘Help me Adelman, you oaf,’ hissed Sürman, looking back at the hulking figure stood beneath the trees. The man looked at the wild directionless power lashing across the grass and shook his head, white with fear. ‘Quick,’ said Sürman, wrapping his wiry arms around Anna’s legs as she tried to drag herself away.

  Anna had almost pulled herself free of the old man’s grip when his servant finally plucked up the courage to come after her. He lumbered across the grove and levelled a crossbow at her. Two bolts were loaded in its breach and Anna yelped in pain as the first sank deep into her thigh. As she clutched at the wound, gasping in agony, Adelman lifted her easily over his shoulder and began to carry her back towards the trees, with the grinning witch hunter following closely behind. Anna’s screams echoed around the grove, but both Wolff and Ratboy were still spread-eagled on the grass and gave no sign of hearing.

  They had almost left the clearing when Adelman stumbled to a halt. He looked down at his chest with an expression of dog-like stupidity. There was a smouldering hole where his chest should have been.

  ‘What are you doing?’ snarled Sürman. ‘Why’ve you stopped?’ Then he noticed the wound and his eyes widened in fear. As Adelman toppled to the ground, vomiting thick blood across the grass, Sürman and Anna saw the source of his injury. Fabian had struggled to his feet, still enveloped in the green light and was lurching drunkenly towards them. His right hand was extended and crackling with power.

  ‘Leave her,’ he said, with light sparking off his teeth.

  ‘She’s mine!’ screamed Sürman, pinning Anna to the floor and glaring back at him. ‘She escaped my justice once but not–’

  Fabian silenced the witch hunter with a single flick of his wrist. Light poured from his veins and slammed into the frail old man.

  The witch hunter barely had time to cry out in pain before the flesh melted and shrivelled from his face. As he collapsed on top of Anna, his head was little more than a mass of charred bone and smouldering hair.

  ‘Actually, she’s mine,’ said Fabian, pulling Sürman’s smoking remains off Anna and grabbing her arm. The power in his fingers scorched her skin and she cried out in pain. ‘I won’t be stopped,’ he growled, pulling her face towards his.

  For the first time, Anna saw Fabian’s left eye and she gasped in disgust. The scab had opened and the huge black orb was rolling excitedly in its moist, pus-lined socket. She felt a malign intelligence studying her through the bloated lens and turned away in fear. There was a smell of cooking meat coming from Fabian and she noticed that where the light was leaking through his pores, his skin was blistering and cracking. His determination seemed to blind him to his pain though and, despite Anna’s screams and kicks, she found herself being dragged slowly back towards the shattered oak.

  Anna gasped as she saw that the foetal shape had already doubled in size. Birdlike talons had erupted from its skin and were scrabbling at the wood in an attempt to climb free. Its flesh was rippling and twitching as it tried to settle on a fixed shape and as they approached it Anna heard the wet, laboured sound of the thing’s first breath.

  As she struggled to escape, Anna noticed that Wolff had climbed to his knees and was praying to his warhammer. His head was bowed and he was muttering furiously under his breath. The ornate tracery that decorated the head of the weapon was glimmering slightly with a light of its own: not as dramatic as the green fire that was devouring Fabian, b
ut enough to give Anna a fierce rush of hope.

  Fabian followed the direction of her gaze and hissed with frustration. He threw her to the ground and stretched out his hand towards Wolff. ‘This is my destiny, Jakob,’ he shrieked, as light exploded from his arm and hurtled across the clearing towards the priest’s head.

  Wolff calmly raised his hammer to meet the blast and a deafening explosion filled the grove.

  The flash was so bright that for a second Anna was blinded. When her vision cleared, she saw that all traces of magic had vanished. The forest had been plunged back into darkness and Fabian was sprawled, gasping on his back. The bole of the tree was empty once more and there was no sign of the grotesque foetus that had been forming within its bark. Anna’s ears rang with the sudden silence as she climbed to her feet. She had forgotten the bolt lodged in her thigh and she cried out in pain, dropping heavily to her knees again.

  At the sound of her voice, Fabian lifted his head and gave a weak groan of despair. With the light gone, he saw how scorched and ruined his flesh was. ‘What have you done?’ he croaked, peering though the darkness at the tree trunk, then turning to look at his brother.

  Wolff was still knelt in prayer.

  ‘You can’t stop me,’ howled Fabian, managing to stand ‘Not now, after all my work.’ He stumbled across the grove, with burnt clothes and skin trailing behind him like a bridal train. ‘You. Can. Not. Stop. Me,’ he said, punctuating each word with a punch to Wolff’s head.