Katerina raised her staff wearily, preparing for the final blow. Then she heard the whispering from below. She stole a quick glance over her shoulder. The ground below was crawling with dim shapes.
‘Can’t tell what they are?’ jeered Arforl. ‘They’re my children, flocking once more to my call. Now, at last, I can join them.’
He clapped his hands together, and a pale green light kindled at the summit of the tower, bathing the scene in a sickly radiance. Katerina could see the hundreds of undead milling at the base of the tower. They were pawing at the stone, though none had yet entered the tower.
Katerina took a deep breath, and gripped her staff tightly. There was no way out. She began to prepare her final defence. She laced the spells with words of destruction and immolation. If Arforl defeated her, there would be nothing left of her body to deface. She wouldn’t share Boris’s fate.
Arforl raised his arms, and dark magic snaked around him.
‘This is the end, Frau Lautermann,’ he said.
But then a shudder seemed to pass through the entire tower. Arforl momentarily faltered, and his magic wavered. Katerina looked back over her shoulder warily. A strange presence could be sensed. Below, the horde of undead seemed to turn in on itself. There was a new focus for their mindless bloodlust.
Arforl’s face twisted in amazement.
‘So he survived,’ he murmured, turning his attention from Katerina for a moment.
There was a cry of frustration from the undead below, and a bird-like shape broke from their clutches and into the air. Dark grey wings flapped, and it seemed as if a great carrion crow was heading for the tower. Katerina retreated along the narrow balcony, trying to get away from both Arforl and the newcomer. The traitor wizard followed her out from the chamber, but his attention was focused elsewhere. He hurled a stream of pale green light from his crooked fingers, sparking and crackling as it tore through the night. The wheeling crow evaded the deadly stream of necromantic energy, and landed on the balcony in a flurry of feathers. The shape transmuted with dazzling speed, and soon there was a cloaked figure standing between Katerina and Arforl. He was a Grey wizard, dressed in archaic robes. His staff hummed with power, and his eyes blazed with anger.
Arforl glared at him contemptuously.
‘You should be dead,’ he said, acidly.
‘So should you,’ replied the Grey wizard, returning the irony.
He raised a hand, and grey strands of shimmering magic sprung up, clinging to Arforl and pulling him back into the chamber. With a spasm of irritation, the traitor shrugged off the attack. His hands like claws, he summoned a whip of pure dark magic from the aethyr. It curled around his head. He cracked it at the Grey wizard, who leapt with surprising speed to evade the blow.
For a moment, Katerina was stunned. She fell back, trying to work out what was going on. Whoever this interloper was, it was clear he had no love for Arforl, and that at least was reason to be thankful for his intervention. The best course of action seemed to be to join him. With a deep breath, she raised her staff again and resumed her attack. The flow of amethyst fire rekindled, snapping towards Arforl in flaming barbs. Confronted with two sources of magic, Arforl was beaten back into the chamber. The space was soon swimming in unnatural power. Katerina and the Grey wizard pressed forward, hurling bolts and orbs of sparking energy at the traitor. Arforl responded with equal vigour, blasting gobbets of dark matter at them, slicing at them with his whip. The tower was filled with light and noise. The masonry above them began to shake at the power unleashed, and lines of dust spiralled down from the arched ceiling.
Katerina started to feel her strength ebb. She had been casting magic for days and, despite the ever-present wind of Shyish, she was near her limits. The mysterious Grey wizard beside her was potent, and kept Arforl tied up with a series of unbroken attacks. But Arforl was equal to them. Indeed, the two adversaries seemed strangely well-suited, as if their fighting styles were intimately known to each other. They circled around each other, trading blow after blow. Neither spoke, but their eyes never left the other’s. Katerina found herself pushed to the edge of the battle, her contributions increasingly ineffectual.
And then came the sound she had been dreading. The whispering she had come to loathe so much at Herrendorf, the clatter and rustle of dry bone and skin. They had broken through the wards. They were coming up the stairs. The undead had answered their master’s call.
She whirled around, just in time to see the first of them clamber into the chamber. Arforl and the Grey wizard remained locked in combat. Katerina swung her staff at the lead skeletal figure, smashing his frame apart and sending the bones skidding across the stone. She was weary to her core, but dredged up the reserves of energy required to ignite her staff with magic once more. Amethyst light blazed from its tip, mixing with the diffuse grey light of the newcomer and the lurid green of the necromancer. She strode forward to meet the shambling host of undead as they emerged into the chamber. Like a blacksmith at his forge, she used her crackling staff to slay them where they stood. She knew that if they managed to enter the chamber in numbers, the fight was over. Just as she had done at Herrendorf, she guarded the doorway alone, the only bulwark against the whispering host of unquiet dead.
Arforl laughed then, a ragged, strangled sound.
‘How long can you keep this up, wizards?’ he cried, mockingly. ‘They’ll keep coming forever!’
Katerina knew he was right. She stole a glance at the traitor, desperate for some sign of weakness, some way of turning the tide.
Arforl’s face was locked in a rictus of triumph, but there was something manic about his grin. For the first time, it looked forced. There were beads of sweat on his grey brow, and an odd rippling seemed to be taking place under his skin.
‘Boris!’ hissed Katerina, suddenly aware of what was going on. The old priest was still fighting for his body. This wasn’t over yet. There was a chance, but the moment was almost gone.
Ignoring the chattering horrors behind her, Katerina turned and hurled herself towards Arforl in a last, desperate lunge. Summoning all of her remaining strength, she sent a column of raging purple flame coursing towards him. All her residual energy went into the blast, and as it left her she felt stars spin before her eyes. If this failed, then there was nothing left.
The flame smashed into Arforl, dousing him in a raging torrent of amethyst essence. The Grey wizard waded in with spinning balls of cloying matter. The essence of Ulgu splattered into shards on contact with Arforl, digging into his flesh, tearing at his robes. The necromancer was hurled back hard, nearly knocked off his feet by the combined blast. He reeled, staggering against the stone wall, his eyes blurry once more. With a heavy gesture he countered the magic, but then something changed. His skin rippled once more, and his eyes bulged. Arforl let out a choked scream, and started to claw at his own face.
Katerina and the Grey wizard retreated back towards the balcony. Arforl staggered back to his feet, blundering straight into the crowd of undead entering the chamber. Some shrank back in mute reverence. But Boris’s body was no longer controlled by a single soul. Others of them sensed the presence of the old priest, and withered hands reached out. Nails clawed against flesh, and blood spurted from Boris’s flesh. A mingled scream of two voices rose from the priest’s lips. With the scent of blood in the air, the undead went berserk. They rushed forward, biting, scratching, gouging, tearing. With a sickening speed, they tore the body to pieces. Just as the old, ruined head was dragged down into the crowd of scrabbling hands, Katerina thought she glimpsed Boris’s rheumy expression in his eyes for a final time. Then he was gone, lost in a hail of dark blood and gore.
For a moment, the undead were locked in their blood frenzy. Katerina and the Grey wizard watched grimly. Over the gorging undead, the insubstantial shade of Arforl appeared once more, ragged and barely visible. His old features were back, though racked with pain.
The shade looked around the chamber as if for the first time, a mix of fury and fear marking the once noble face.
Katerina knew she had nothing left, and slumped back against the stone wall. The Grey wizard took command. He raised his staff high, and a vortex of grey energy surged towards it. The Wind of Shyish joined the Wind of Ulgu, and a potent mix of the lore of shadows and death, combined into a maelstrom of shimmering magic. The shade of Arforl, weakened by the death of its host, was sucked into the storm. With a throttled wail, the ghostly form was hurled down once more. A sighing noise escaped from the casket, and Arforl was dragged back within it. The light appeared briefly over the glassy lid, and was extinguished. Bereft of Arforl’s necromantic light, the chamber sunk into near darkness.
The undead completed their grisly meal, and pale eyes looked up at the two wizards remaining in the chamber. The green light which had animated them had faded, and they now looked hesitant.
The Grey wizard raised his staff a final time.
‘Go now,’ he said, in a low, quiet voice. ‘Your summoner is defeated. Return to the earth. Sleep. Forget. Trouble the living no more.’
There was magic in his speech, but not much was needed. The animating will behind the living dead had been withdrawn. Slowly, one by one, the vacant, bloodstained faces turned. The skeletal figures withdrew back down the stairs, into the night, and out to their resting places in the wilds. The whispering ceased, and the natural noises of the forest returned.
In the east, a thin line of silver marked the dawn.
Katerina sat wearily on a fallen tree trunk beside the tower. The pale morning chilled her to her soul. Even wrapped tight in her fine cloak, the cold found some way in. She shivered, and looked back up at the slender stone building. The Grey wizard was re-establishing the wards around it. When he was finished, he cleared the lichen from the lintel over the entrance. The rune of Ulgu was revealed more clearly. The tower had never been a place of Amethyst lore. Why hadn’t she seen it earlier? Arrogance, perhaps. Or maybe just being too hasty. The error had proved costly.
The wizard came over to her and sat beside her. As he did so, the windows and doors of the tower sunk back into the stone around them. As it had been before, the tower looked impregnable.
Katerina looked up at him.
‘The Master of Crows?’ she said, letting some bitterness at her conduct stray into her voice.
The Grey wizard nodded, a thin smile on his face. He had ancient-looking features.
‘That’s what they call me, I believe,’ he said.
Katerina sighed, and leant back on her arms. Her body was bone-tired.
‘So, the legend was corrupted. You should tell me what’s happened here.’
The Master of Crows lost his smile, and sat down opposite her in the mire.
‘In the beginning, I didn’t know myself,’ he said. ‘I’d defeated him, all those years ago. I discovered his treachery late, and by the time I found him he had grown strong. I was alone. He raised the dead against me, and I was nearly overcome. But I had more strength then. As the end neared, the dead were destroyed, and we fought a last duel out in the wastes. It must have created quite a show, had there been anyone around to witness it. Four days and nights we fought. The pain was terrible. In the end, he made a mistake. Just one, but it was enough. I defeated him, and believed that I’d killed him. But it proved otherwise.’
He looked wistfully back at the tower.
‘Magic’s a strange thing,’ he said. ‘As it turned out, we unleashed something together here. Something in us merged. I don’t think he’ll ever properly die. And, as it turns out, neither can I. I should have done, years ago. And I should have left this place too, years ago. But I can’t do that either.’
Katerina frowned.
‘What do you mean? There’s nothing stopping you.’
The Grey wizard shook his head.
‘For you, that’s true. For me, there’s no escape. I could follow you along the road to Bechafen for a few miles. And then, sooner or later, you would strangely forget about your companion. I would crest a rise, and be back in Herrendorf. Much as I hate the place, this is home. Forever.’
Katerina looked at him with scepticism.
‘But I didn’t see you, not when I was there.’
A shudder passed across the Grey wizard’s face. For a moment his expression was strangely blurred, and then Weiss’s surly features re-established themselves.
‘I don’t hold with witches,’ he growled in his thick, slurred accent.
He grinned.
‘Not bad, eh?’ he said, retaining Weiss’s appearance and demeanour. ‘I haven’t lost all my skills. And the Wind of Ulgu is strong here, just as Shyish is.’
Katerina shook her head in disbelief. Of all the strange things she had seen, this was amongst the most bizarre.
‘So you live amongst them still?’ she asked, fascinated despite herself.
Weiss nodded.
‘Where else can I go? I need to eat. That, at least, hasn’t changed. And at first, I was the proper hero. The fact I couldn’t leave Herrendorf was strange, but I was confident I could overcome it. Then they noticed I didn’t age. For years, I tried to hide it. But you can’t, not in a place like this. When I saw children I had known begin to pass into dotage, with me the same as ever, I realised something had to be done. The people here are neither wise nor over-kind. Anything unnatural is culled. So my old self disappeared, and the illusions began. Henrik the cobbler. Johan the farmer. Some others. And now Weiss the carpenter.’
Katerina looked down at the ground, pondering the man’s fate.
‘And over the years, the story changed,’ she murmured. ‘Was that Boris’s doing?’
‘No,’ said Weiss. ‘The passage of time corrupts all things. Arforl’s prison became, in people’s minds, Arforl’s memorial. You must remember that his reputation in the Empire was then impressive, while we Grey wizards are ever in the shadows. As memory faded and the stories became confused, I must have seemed the more likely villain. And it suited me, after a while. Who cares who defeated whom, as long as the dead lay in their graves? I tended the mausoleum, guarded against Arforl returning, and lived the best life I could. I thought it would last until the End Times. But Boris did stumble across the truth somehow.’
He paused for a moment, looking down at the sodden ground between his feet.
‘Don’t be too hard on him,’ he said. ‘He was racked with pain, and death was a terror. When he realised the necromancer was the one in the tomb, not his destroyer, it must have turned his mind. For all his faults, he was a subtle man, Boris. It was he that reached out to the shade and began to rouse it. He was not the first to seek escape from death, nor will he be the last. But he couldn’t complete the task. For that he needed a wizard. You.’
Katerina pursed her lips, feeling her mood sink further. She had been duped, and the knowledge of it was bitter.
‘I have caused great pain here.’
Weiss shook his head.
‘You were not to know. I am the guardian of this place. I was too slow to suspect the priest. I looked for the secret of Arforl’s revival in the wrong place. Of all those who could have been responsible, I thought the old man was least likely. It’s my dereliction which has brought this on Herrendorf.’
‘You’ve been here on your own too long,’ said Katerina. ‘You’ve given up your secret to me. I could bring help. This magic could be unravelled.’
Weiss gave a gruff laugh.
‘Unless the witch hunters are now more tender than I remember them, my presence had better remain a secret, I think. I am an abomination, Frau Lautermann. Arforl’s necromancy sustains me. It would be the interrogation chamber for me, if they could somehow drag me to it.’
Katerina started to protest, but then saw the look in his face. She let her eyes drop. She knew the ways of th
e Temple of Sigmar just as well as he did. It would be hard enough explaining Boris’s death to them.
She slowly climbed to her feet, and brushed her clothes down. It was hardly worth the bother. They were streaked with dried mud.
‘I should go,’ she said. ‘The plague has been ended.’
Weiss nodded.
‘What will you tell them about Arforl?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know yet. No one likes to discover that their hero is a traitor. But perhaps I’ll have to tell the truth.’
Weiss looked back at the tower.
‘You could say he still watches over Herrendorf,’ he said, grimly. ‘That’s true at least.’
‘It’s not him, though, is it?’ she said. ‘You’re the guardian of this place. I’ll study Arforl’s records when I get back to Altdorf. If I find anything, I’ll send tidings. There may be a cure.’
Weiss bowed in thanks.
‘I hold little hope. There’s neither death nor honour for me here. But such is the way of the world. We were never promised happiness, were we?’
Katerina found herself lost for words. It was time to go. He recognised it too. She bowed, and began to walk away. After going down the path for a few paces, she looked back over her shoulder. Weiss had gone in the opposite direction, back into the marshes. His Grey wizard’s robes had returned. As he disappeared into the thin mist of the morning, a solitary crow flew high in the pale sky. It shadowed him for a few moments, before flying west, away from the rising sun. There was a bitter caw, and it was gone.
‘Back! Back into the ground!’ Mikael cried, driving his sword into the zombie’s gut.
Impaled upon the blade, the undead monster hissed and snarled at the templar, reaching out with filthy claws. There was a horrible sucking sound as it dragged itself along the blade, cold steel slipping effortlessly through its rotten innards. It raked a filth-encrusted talon across Mikael’s face, tearing a long and bloody gash. Snarling in pain, he ripped the thing in two, wrenching his sword through paper skin. The legs and torso spiralled away as grave dust fell from the corpse like rain.
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