WH-Warhammer Online-Age of Reckoning 02(R)-Dark Storm Gathering

by Chris Wraight

  Kirchner nodded.

  ‘Schulmann, then,’ he said.

  Fassbinder rose again, and watched his men perform their grisly labour with some sympathy.

  ‘Aye, he’s been here,’ he said. ‘Finally, we’ve caught up with him. Lord Heinrich will be pleased to hear some good news. When we’re done here, send a horseman back to the castle with the news that we’re on to him, and with a request for fresh troops. Most of these men have been lugging themselves through the mud for weeks. If we’re going to break the rebellion, we’ll need more soldiers.’

  Kirchner looked doubtful.

  ‘I agree, sir, but Lord Heinrich won’t like it. There are those who think we should give up looking for Schulmann altogether and concentrate on the invasion from the north. Everyone knows it’s coming.’

  Fassbinder looked at Kirchner darkly.

  ‘And have our fields burned from behind our backs? Schulmann is a traitor. If his uprising isn’t put down here, what chance is there of maintaining order when we need it most? If it hadn’t been for this damned plague, he’d never have roused the countryside to his wretched cause. No. He will taste justice, whether Lord Heinrich’s or that of Sigmar. I’ll not head homewards until he’s found and this cursed uprising crushed.’

  He spat the last words out with rather more venom than he had intended. Kirchner looked at him with an expression of concern. Fassbinder knew what he was thinking. All his men thought the same thing. He was obsessed, couldn’t let go, would hunt Schulmann down until the End Times rather than reinforce Lord Heinrich’s forces in the north where the need was greatest. No doubt some thought it was cowardice. It was nothing of the sort, of course. Just a rare enough quality in the Empire. Something like devotion to duty. Or maybe a desire to see the traitor punished. They amounted to the same thing, in the end.

  So he ignored Kirchner’s look, and continued to study the clues around him.

  ‘There must have been several hundred men camping here,’ he said, looking at the remains of tents and shelters constructed from branches and logs. ‘We know he has many more who will rally to his banner. But if they can’t prevent attacks from the plague creatures, they must be looking for somewhere more secure to base themselves. That means leaving the forest entirely.’

  He turned his gaze from the ruined camp back to Kirchner.

  ‘But where?’ he said, half to himself.

  Kirchner shrugged.

  ‘The main north road is close by,’ he offered, with no great conviction. ‘Perhaps there’s somewhere there he hopes to defend. There are several villages which would offer a rebel sanctuary. Though I hate to say it, Lord Heinrich is not popular in these parts.’

  Fassbinder frowned.

  ‘If he comes into the open, then he’s a fool. Or maybe just desperate. In any case, once he emerges, we have him. Sigmar willing, we’ll also have the men to bring this to a close. Anything would be better than dealing with these monsters.’

  As he spoke, the spark of flints and tiny spirals of smoke told him the fires were being lit. The burning had started, and they would leave within the hour.

  Then the hunt would start again.

  Leopold Klosser dragged himself painfully up to his filthy garret at the top of the building. The stench of fish and effluent seeped from the Altdorf street outside. Things were little better inside the semi-derelict house itself. Every movement still caused him pain, racking pain. His blackened fingers trembled as he fumbled for the great brass key from his belt.

  The lock rattled, and he was in. He limped over to the foetid pile of bedding in the far corner of the tiny room, and lowered himself gingerly on to it. His whole body protested. The burns were all over him, and the bitter cold of the journey had not eased his suffering at all. Shakily, he reached for a vial of potion from his tattered and ragged robes, and took a deep swig. Not much left. He would have to try and find some more, though it might take time to find a supplier. Not many legitimate alchemists would know how to synthesize the particular ingredients, and some that did would balk at getting hold of the required quantities of virgin’s blood.

  As the elixir did its work, Klosser relaxed slightly, feeling the sharp pain ebb. As ever, it was replaced by an acute mental anguish. He had failed. His co-conspirators were dead, and the observatory had not been destroyed. He had nearly died himself, consumed by the fire of that damned Bright wizard, but somehow a thread of resistance had remained. Death was something he greatly feared. He had served the Master of Change for long enough to know that the destiny of his soul was not likely to be pleasant. The Dark Gods were capricious with those who disappointed them, and were only generous to those who managed to advance their schemes.

  Klosser coughed weakly. He felt terrible even after the healing powers of the potion had started to work. He was also in danger. With the rest of the cabal having been killed, he was on his own and in a hostile city crawling with witch hunters. As far as he had been able to tell, his departure from the observatory had not been marked, but you could never be sure. He needed to do something. Above all, he had to find a way to get back into Rachsdorf’s good books. Letting that sadistic monster down was virtually a death sentence of its own.

  After a few moments to catch his rattling breath, Klosser ran a hand under the stained mattress. His dark and cracked fingers painfully found their target, and he dragged out a sealed bag. He emptied it on to the floor. A small glass bottle, a copper bowl, a tripod. Wheezing in pain, he rose from the bedding and arranged the equipment in the long-cold grate next to the pallet. The bowl was placed on the tripod. He brushed some grey coals underneath it, and whispered a few choice words. For a moment, nothing happened. But then the coals glowed into life, red and angry.

  Klosser poured some of the contents of the bottle into the bowl. More words were whispered. An unnatural flame grew. The oil began to bubble. He tried to relax, to let the potent currents of magic do their work. After a few moments, the oil started to give off a pungent smoke. It coiled upwards, clinging to the stone of the hearth.

  Klosser looked into it deeply, muttering words of power incessantly. The smoke began to twist into half-recognisable shapes. Divination by this method was always haphazard, and he really needed more time and preparation. But though Klosser was hardly the mightiest sorcerer in the world, gazing into the suggestive paths of fate had always come naturally to him. In a previous life he had been a Celestial wizard, one of the kind he had helped destroy at the observatory. Now he had allied himself with a far more powerful source of knowledge, albeit a dangerous one.

  The oil bubbled more strongly. The colour of the smoke changed. It became a lurid green, then a bright blue. Klosser smiled. He had not fallen out of favour entirely. There were messages in the burning oil, if one knew how to read them. He concentrated hard, trying to pull apart the shifting shapes. Only one clarified long enough for something like recognition. It was a face, a cruel, thin face. Klosser started, and the visage disappeared.

  ‘That was no human face,’ he said to himself.

  The oil bubbled away, and the smoke sunk into blackness. Klosser blew softly at the heated bowl, and the last wisps drifted upwards. The coals beneath the tripod sank back into lifelessness.

  Klosser got up and went to the pallet. He lay back on the blankets, feeling his scarred body protest. His mind was racing, fuelled by the restorative powers of the potion and by the nervous energy produced by his predicament.

  ‘An elf?’ he muttered. ‘Why show me that?’

  Then his awareness began to dim. He was exhausted, and could feel his ruined body begin to sink into sleep. No doubt the potion was doing its work. He felt the drag of a drugged sleep, and closed his charred lids.

  ‘Or maybe not an elf…’ he said, his words slurring. Something had occurred to him, something interesting.

  But then the potion took over fully, and oblivion welcomed him back into its dark embrace.

  Malek woke from a fitful sleep. His dreams had been disturbed, no
doubt partly due to the wine he was drinking. He slowly raised himself from his low bed, and reached for a fresh glass. He poured a small amount and drained the goblet in a single draught. It helped him to wake, and he remembered why he had woken up. It was time for the ceremony, and his body had remembered better than his mind. Knowing the consequences of lateness, he quickly threw on his robes and went from his private chambers into the lamp-lit corridor outside.

  As he went, he rehearsed what he was going to say. Kalia Uthorin’s news was the obvious topic. He found the idea intriguing. There were possibilities, to be sure, but also risks. At least the timing had been fortuitous. He went quickly through the labyrinthine passages and into the jumble of anterooms which formed the heart of his makeshift home. As he passed through the dank and gloomy spaces, his few guards saluted him warily from their stations. They were bored, cooped up in the damp and the dark, but would not dare show anything but the most complete deference. They saw what he did to the few human unfortunates who were dragged down from the streets above, and had no illusions about what he was capable of.

  He quickly passed into the inner sanctum, a tiny room half-hidden under the collapsed arches of some crudely-hewn human gateway. Lamps guttered fitfully in the gloom of the subterranean place, as if appalled by the horrors they had witnessed. Malek pulled aside heavy crimson curtains, and exposed a bubbling brass cauldron. The object seemed to throw off waves of a chill dread. It was an ancient and powerful artefact, though far less potent than its counterpart in Lady Arkaneth’s citadel in Naggarond. In the distant depths of time, both had been objects in the court of a great noble of Nagarythe in Ulthuan. It pleased Malek to think how the mighty magical wards had been broken and the cauldron perverted from its true purpose. Now it fed on blood and pain, whereas once its powers of messaging had been driven by less destructive sources.

  He walked up to the boiling surface, and took a deep breath over it. The red froth had been prepared well, and amidst the bubbling liquid suggestive gobbets of a fleshy substance bobbed and turned. The smell of blood aroused him, and his eyes glittered with a feral malice. He pulled the curtain closed behind him, and began to chant in a low voice. He took up his staff, an intricate shaft of dark iron inlaid with silver characters of ruin and destruction, and waved it in a complicated series of shapes over the lip of the cauldron. The gore within responded to the quickening magic, and slops lapped over the edge, running in glutinous trails down on to the stained floor. After a few moments, the liquids stabilised, and began to move in a steady clockwise motion. Above the incessantly moving blood, an ethereal shape began to emerge.

  Malek placed his staff down. The shape started to pull itself together. The flickering form of a woman rose above the boiling essences.

  ‘My Lady Arkaneth,’ said Malek, bowing low. ‘Your presence honours me.’

  ‘I hope you’ve something substantial to report, Malek,’ came the dry and distorted voice of his mistress. ‘This sending is difficult and tiring.’

  She didn’t sound in a good mood, which was always something of a worry. Malek swallowed carefully, hoping his anxiety was not apparent across the sending.

  ‘I do, my lady,’ he said. ‘I have intercepted secret communication between the asur and the humans. We know the name of the commander of the reinforcements, an archmage named Artheris, and also have an insight into her movements. I’m preparing to strike when she arrives. If we succeed, the asur army will be headless and demoralised even before they leave the city and travel to the front.’

  Lady Arkaneth raised a ghostly eyebrow.

  ‘If you succeed, Malek?’ she said, acidly.

  Malek cursed himself inwardly. A stupid mistake.

  ‘Have no fear,’ he said more confidently. ‘We’ll kill her. I’ve enlisted the support of the disciple from House Uthorin.’

  Lady Arkaneth looked even more sourly at him at the mention of Kalia.

  ‘Don’t get distracted with this plan,’ she warned, fixing him with an evidently ferocious glare even through the steam and movement of the sending. ‘Should you kill the commander of the asur forces then that is all very well. But your main task is to remove the stain of the Uthorins from the Old World. Once you – and you alone – are controlling our presence in the city of the humans, then we can develop things further.’

  Malek clenched his hands tightly against his sides. This was not going well. He had thought the plot against the archmage would have pleased her.

  ‘I understand, my lady,’ he said, working to keep the edge of irritation and fear out of his voice and thinking quickly. ‘My plan is to use the assassination attempt as a means to achieve both ends. In the confusion of the attack, Kalia will be consumed with the task in hand, and hence vulnerable. I will dispatch her once the archmage is dead, and make it look as if one of the asur has done the deed. No word of our treachery will come back to Naggarond, and your honour will be intact.’

  Lady Arkaneth looked unconvinced, but eventually nodded sharply.

  ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘But be careful. Your main target is the Uthorin witch, and I want no rumour of our plans to seep out of the Old World. If you need to, kill all your own warriors to keep this secret. I can send more. Kalia must die, and you must assume sole command of our operations in Altdorf. Everything else, even the killing of this archmage, is secondary.’

  ‘Yes, my lady,’ said Malek. He felt a sliver of relief. At least she hadn’t rejected the plan out of hand. ‘I’ll begin the preparations at once.’

  ‘Not so hasty,’ said Lady Arkaneth, raising a warning hand. ‘There’s something else. The wheels of fate are finally moving. Multiple threads are involved here. The forces of Chaos in the north are finally on the march, and the war will move into its decisive phase soon. There is one piece of information in particular you should know. The asur are not the only ones sending an advance force into the fray. There is a Chaos warlord travelling southwards ahead of Tchar’zanek’s main host. His name is Jhar’zadris, and he is working towards some purpose even Malekith has not fully discovered. As you can imagine, this has created unquiet in Naggaroth, and the premium for discovering more about his intentions is high.’

  Malek allowed himself a frown.

  ‘A Chosen in the Reikland? This is new. The humans here still believe the Chaos forces are bogged down in the north-east. Can the reports be mistaken?’

  Arkaneth rolled her eyes impatiently.

  ‘Of course they can. Nothing is certain, and the deceits of the Master of Change make things worse. But there is the ring of truth about this, Malek. Take it seriously. Seek this Chosen out. He may be of great advantage to us. When we finally move against Ulthuan, we will need to coordinate with the Chaos forces in the Old World. Should you forge a link with this warlord, our stock with Malekith will rise even higher. No doubt he would welcome news on the designs of Tchar’zanek, about which we still know very little.’

  Malek looked into the shimmering image and hoped he was keeping his distaste for this new development adequately hidden.

  ‘I am at your command,’ he said. ‘I’ll see if more can be discovered. If the reports are correct, then the invasion of the Reikland must be close at hand. The time of testing truly draws near.’

  ‘Indeed it does, Malek,’ said Lady Arkaneth. The tone of her voice indicated she was growing bored, and something of her earlier sharpness returned. ‘You’re dismissed now. I will communicate with you again shortly. When we next speak, be sure to have thought through your plans properly. And remember your two principal objectives, to kill the Uthorin bitch, and seek out the Chosen. That is all. You know the price of failure.’

  Malek bowed, fully aware of the consequences of getting things wrong.

  ‘I’ll not let you down,’ he said, watching the figure of his mistress flicker and die out like a guttering candle flame.

  Feeling events were running uncomfortably ahead of him, the sorcerer pushed the curtain back and headed to his own quarters. The business of
attacking the archmage, killing Kalia, keeping both tasks secret, and taking command of the several different druchii cells operating in the Old World was going to be testing. And that was before the unwelcome introduction of the Chosen. Things were becoming complicated, and he needed to think. He brushed past a stony-faced guard on the way his chambers and sat down heavily once more on his incongruously luxurious bed.

  Reaching for another crystal decanter, he poured a generous glass of the human wine. It really was marvellous stuff, and as he drained it in a single draught he reflected that it was the only unquestionably good thing to have come out of the whole endeavour so far. That was something which would have to change.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Alexander’s mood had not improved. The bandits had melted into the forest with a skill he would not have thought possible from their slovenly appearance. Or perhaps he was just not very good at tracking. In any case, he had lost them, and the scrolls were gone.

  The option of returning to Altdorf had seemed briefly attractive, but after some thought Alexander had rejected it. The Celestial wizards would no doubt be furious to learn he had botched his mission so soon after he agreed to take it, and he could do without the looks of contempt and disappointment. In any case, he was dutiful enough not to be entirely indifferent to Lord Heinrich’s fate. The scrolls might be lost, but he could still pass on the warning of treachery. It would be less convincing without the Celestial wizards’ written testimony, but he still carried some cache as an Imperial wizard. He found himself suddenly glad of the otherwise useless Griffon medallion. It would likely get him an audience with Heinrich if nothing else.

  After wasting considerable time trying to find the bandits, Alexander had turned back northwards and now rode his long-suffering steed hard trying to make up for lost time. The problem was that he was no longer entirely sure of his position. The main road north, the one he had opted to take before his unfortunate encounter, was strangely reluctant to be found again. He guessed he must have ridden some way east of it, but getting back to where he had started had taken much longer than he had hoped. Perhaps he had ridden west of it, in which case his efforts to find it again had only made things worse. Despairing of ever getting completely back on track in such a drab and depressing part of the world, he eventually chose to follow his instincts, hoping to come across a sizeable village or town where he could get his bearings again.