01 - Inheritance

by Steven Savile - (ebook by Undead)

  A WARHAMMER NOVEL

  INHERITANCE

  Von Carstein - 01

  Steven Savile

  (An Undead Scan v1.1)

  This is a dark age, a bloody age, an age of daemons and of sorcery. It is an age of battle and death, and of the world’s ending. Amidst all of the fire, flame and fury it is a time, too, of mighty heroes, of bold deeds and great courage.

  At the heart of the Old World sprawls the Empire, the largest and most powerful of the human realms. Known for its engineers, sorcerers, traders and soldiers, it is a land of great mountains, mighty rivers, dark forests and vast cities. It is a land riven by uncertainty, as three pretenders all vie for control of the Imperial throne.

  But these are far from civilised times. Across the length and breadth of the Old World, from the knightly palaces of Bretonnia to ice-bound Kislev in the far north, come rumblings of war. In the towering World’s Edge Mountains, the orc tribes are gathering for another assault. Bandits and renegades harry the wild southern lands of the Border Princes. There are rumours of rat-things, the skaven, emerging from the sewers and swamps across the land. And from the northern wildernesses there is the ever-present threat of Chaos, of daemons and beastmen corrupted by the foul powers of the Dark Gods. As the time of battle draws ever near, the Empire needs heroes like never before.

  PROLOGUE

  Death and the Maiden

  DRAKENHOF CASTLE

  Late winter, 1797

  The old man was dying an ugly death and for all their skill and faith there was nothing either the chirurgeon or the priest could do to prevent it. Nevertheless they busied themselves by plumping the sweat-stained pillows that propped the old man up, and fussing like fishwives with candle stubs and curtains to keep the shadows and the draughts at bay, and still the bedchamber was bitterly cold. Where there ought to have been a roaring fire the stacked logs and kindling remained unlit. The two men lit smoke to ward off the ill humours and offered prayers to benevolent Sigmar. None of it made a blind bit of difference. Otto van Drak was dying. They knew it, and worse, he knew it. That was why they were with him; they had come to stand the death watch.

  His bottom lip hung slackly and a ribbon of spittle drooled down his chin. Otto wiped at it with the back of a liver-spotted hand. Old age had ravaged the count with shocking speed. Otto had aged thirty years in as many days. All of the strength and vitality that had driven the man had fled in a few short weeks leaving behind a husk of humanity. His bones stood out against the sallow skin. There was no dignity in death for the Count of Sylvania.

  Death, he finally understood, was the great leveller. It had no respect for ancestry or nobility of blood, and his death was determined to be as degrading as it could be. A week ago he had lost control of the muscles in his face and his tongue had bloated so much so he could barely lisp an intelligible sentence. Most of the words he managed sounded like nothing more than drunken gibberish.

  For a man like Otto van Drak that was perhaps the most humiliating aspect of dying. Not for him the clean death of the battlefield, the bloodlust, the frenzy, the sheer glory of going out fighting. No, death, with its macabre sense of humour, had other humiliations lined up for him. His daughter had to bath him and help him go to the toilet while he sweated and shivered and barely managed to curse the gods who had reduced him to this.

  He knew what was happening. His body was giving up the ghost one organ at a time. It was only the sheer force of his will that kept him breathing. He wasn’t ready to die. Otto was contrary like that; he wanted to make them wait. It was one final act of stubbornness.

  Using a cold compress his daughter Isabella leaned over the bed and towelled the sweat from his fevered brow.

  “Hush, father,” she soothed, seeing that he was trying to say something. The frustration ate at his face, sheer loathing burned in his eyes. He was staring at his brother, Leopold, who slouched in a once plush crimson velvet chair. He looked thoroughly bored by the whole charade. They might have been brothers but there was no fraternal bond between them. Her mother had always claimed that the eyes were gateways to the soul. Isabella found them mesmerising. They contained such intensity of emotion and feeling. Nothing could be hidden by them. Eyes were so expressive. Looking into her father’s now she could see the depth of his suffering. The old man was tormented by this degrading death but it would be over soon.

  “Not long now,” the chirurgeon said to the priest, echoing her thoughts. He bent double over his case of saws and scalpels, rummaging around until he found a jar of fat-bodied leeches.

  “Perhaps there is small mercy in that,” the priest said as the chirurgeon uncapped the jar and dipped his hand in. He stirred his hand through the leeches and lifted one out, placing it on the vein in Otto’s neck so that it might feed.

  “Leeches?” Isabella van Drak asked, her voice tinged with obvious distaste. “Is that really necessary?”

  “Bleeding is good for the heart,” the chirurgeon assured her. “Reduces the strain if it has less to pump, which means it can keep on beating longer. Believe me, madam, my beauties will keep your father alive much, much longer if we let them do their work.” The young woman looked sceptical but she didn’t stop the chirurgeon from placing six more of the bloodsuckers on her father’s body.

  “All… talking about me… like I am… gone… Not… dead… yet…” Otto van Drak rasped. As though to prove the point he broke into a violent coughing fit before the last word was clear of his lips. He slapped ineffectually at the leeches feeding off him.

  “Be still, father.” Isabella wiped away the mucus he coughed up.

  “Damned… giving up… without… a fight.” Otto struggled to form the words. The frustration was too much for him.

  Leopold pushed himself up from the chair and paced across the floor. He whispered something in the chirurgeon’s ear and the other man nodded. Leopold stalked over to the window and braced his hands on the windowsill, feeling the wainscoting with his fingers. Listening to the old man’s laboured breathing he dug his nails into the soft wood.

  A jagged streak of lightning lit the room, throwing gnarled shadows across the inhabitants. Thunder rumbled a heartbeat later, the vibrations running through the thick walls of Castle Drakenhof. Leopold could barely keep the smug smile from his face. Rain lashed at the glass, breaking and running like tears through his reflection. He chuckled mirthlessly. Crying was the very last thing he felt like doing. “You’ll be damned anyway, you old goat. I’m sure the only reason you aren’t dead already is that you are terrified they’re all waiting for you on the other side. That’s right isn’t it, brother of mine? All of those wretched souls you put to death so cheerfully. You can hear them, can’t you, Otto? You can hear them calling to you. You know they are waiting for you. Can you imagine what they are going to do to you when they finally get the chance at retribution? Oh my… what a delicious thought that is.”

  Otto’s eyes blazed with impotent rage.

  “Come now, Otto. Show some dignity in your final hours. As Count of Sylvania I promise you I will do all I can to dishonour your memory.”

  “Get… out!”

  “What? And miss your final breath, brother mine? Oh no, not for all the spices in Araby You, dear Otto, have always been an incorrigible liar and a cheat. Dishonesty is one of your few redeeming features, perhaps your only one. So, let me put it this way: I wouldn’t be surprised if this was all one grand charade. Well, I won’t be a laughing stock at your expense, brother. No, no, I’ll wring the life out of you with my bare hands if I have to, but I won’t leave this room until I’ve made sure you are well and truly dead. It’s nothing personal, you understand, but I am walking out of here Count of Sylvania, and you, well the onl
y way you are leaving here is in a box. If the roles were reversed I’m sure you’d do the same.”

  “Damn you…”

  “Oh yes, quite possibly. But I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it, which looks like it will be a good while after you’ve already gone trip-trapping over it, eh? Now be a good chap and die.”

  “Vile…”

  “Again, quite possibly, but I can’t help wondering what father would think if he could see you. I mean, no disrespect, but you are a mess, Otto. Dying obviously doesn’t become you. It hasn’t changed you much, either, for that matter. So much for learning the error of your ways. You are still too cheap to light a damned fire in your bedroom so we have to freeze while we wait for you to pop off.”

  “Damn you… your children… damn all… rot… in pits… of hell. Never let you… be… count.” Otto clawed at the bed sheets, the skin around his knuckles bone-white. “Never!”

  Lightning crashed once more, the bluish light illuminating the sickening fury in Otto van Drak’s face. Twin forks struck somewhere along the mountain path between the castle and the town of Drakenhof itself. Fat rain broke and ran down the glass of the leaded window as another jag of lightning split the storm-black darkness. The wind howled. The wooden shutters rattled against the outer wall.

  “I don’t see that you have much say in the matter, all things considered,” Leopold said. “That sham of a marriage you so conveniently engineered for Isabella with the Klinsmann runt, well it was laughable, wasn’t it. I can’t say I was surprised when the boy threw himself from the roof of the Almoners Hall. Still, all’s well that ends well, eh, brother?”

  Sitting down on the edge of the old man’s bed, Isabella dabbed away the blood-flecked saliva that spattered his chin and turned her attention to her uncle. She had known him all of her life. At one time she had worshipped the ground he walked on but with age came the understanding that the man was a worm. “And I suppose I have no say in the matter.”

  Leopold studied his niece for an uncomfortable moment as she brushed the long dark hair back from her face. She was beautiful in her own way, pale-skinned and fine-boned. The combination crafted a glamour of delicacy around the girl though in truth she owned the foul van Drak temper and could be as devious as a weasel when the mood took her.

  “None, I’m afraid, my dear. Would that it was otherwise, but I am not the law-maker. By accident of birth you came out… female. With no sons your father’s line ends, and mine, as eldest surviving male begins. With your betrothed coming to such an… untimely end… well, that is just the way it is. You can’t tamper with tradition, after all it becomes traditional for a reason. Though,” Leopold mused thoughtfully as though the idea had just occurred to him. He turned to look at the priest. Tell me, how does the benevolent Sigmar look upon the union of close family, say uncles and nieces, Brother Guttman? Being the kind of man I am, I might be convinced to make the sacrifice to set my dear brother’s mind at rest. Wouldn’t want to see the only good thing he ever managed to create forced into whoring on the street, would we?”

  “It is frowned upon,” the aged priest said, not bothering to look at Leopold when he answered him. The priest made the sign of Sigmar’s hammer in the air above Otto’s head.

  “Ah, well. Can’t say I didn’t try, my dear.” Leopold said with a lascivious wink.

  “You would do well to mind your tongue, uncle,” Isabella said, coldly. This is still my home, and you are alone in it, whereas there are plenty of servants and men-at-arms here who remain loyal to my father, and in turn, to me.”

  “A woman scorned and all that, eh? Well of course, dear. Threaten and bluster away. You know I love you like my own flesh and blood and would never see you suffer.”

  “You would turn your back so you didn’t have to watch,” Isabella finished for him.

  “Damn, you’ve got spirit, girl, I’ll give you that. A true van Drak. Heart and soul.”

  “Hate… this. I don’t… want… to die.” The leeches at his throat and temples pulsed as they fed on Otto van Drak. In the few minutes since the chirurgeon had placed them they had bloated up to almost a third again their size and still they sucked greedily at the dying count’s blood.

  “Pity you have no choice in the matter, old man. First you die, and then you will go to Morr and I am sure the Lord of the Underworld will delight in flensing your soul one layer at a time. After the kind of life you’ve led I can’t imagine any amount of grovelling and snivelling by our friend the priest here will help you avoid what’s coming to you.” Leopold said. Tell me, Brother Guttman, what says your god on this matter?” Leopold asked the stoop-shouldered priest of Sigmar. The man looked decidedly uncomfortable at being addressed directly.

  “Only a repentant soul can be shrived of the taint of darkness,” the priest answered. Isabella helped the aged holy man kneel at Otto’s bedside.

  “And there you have it, brother, out of the mouthpiece of blessed Sigmar himself. You’re damned.”

  “Are you ready to unburden your soul of its sins before you meet Morr?” Victor Guttman asked Otto, ignoring Leopold’s gloating.

  “Get… away… from me… priest.” Otto spat a loose wad of phlegm into the priest’s face. It clung to the cheekbone just below the old man’s eye before slipping down into the grey shadow of his stubble. The frail priest wiped it away with a shaking hand. “I have nothing… nothing… to repent. Save your breath… and mine.” Otto trailed off into a fit of raving, spitting out half-formed words and curses in a senseless torrent.

  “Father, please,” Isabella said softly but it was no good, the old man wasn’t about to be convinced to cleanse his soul.

  “Oh, this is wonderful stuff, Otto. Quite wonderful,” Leopold gloated. “Do you think I have time to summon the priests of Shallya and Ulric so you can alienate their gods, too? Any others you would particularly like to offend?” Another jag of lightning split the darkness. If anything the storm was worsening. The shutters clattered against the stonework outside, splinters of wood tearing free. The wind howled through the eaves, moaning in high pitched chorus from the snarling mouths of the weather-beaten gargoyles that guarded the four corners of the high tower. “Every bitter word that froths from your mouth is rubbish, of course, Otto, but such marvellous rubbish. Give it up. All this breathing must be awfully tiresome. I know I am growing tired of it.”

  The laughter died in his throat.

  Three successive shafts of lightning turned the black night for a heartbeat into bright day. The storm lashed the countryside. The trees bent and bowed in the gale. Skeletal branches strained to the point of breaking. Thunder grumbled around the hilltops, the heavy sounds folding in on themselves until they boomed like ore war drums.

  A shiver chased down the ladder of Leopold’s spine one bone at a time. Behind him the priest pressed Otto to confess his sins.

  “It’s pointless,” Leopold said, turning to smile at the earnest priest. The old man’s hands trembled and every trace of colour had drained from his face. “If he starts at the beginning he won’t make it out of his teens before Morr takes him. Our Otto has been a very bad boy.”

  “Morr… take… you…” Otto cursed weakly as a fit of coughing gripped him. He hacked up blood. Brother Guttman took the towel from Isabella and made to wipe up the red-flecked saliva but Otto jerked his head away with surprising strength. “Get… away from me… priest… won’t have you… touch me.” Otto slumped back exhausted onto his pillows.

  As though the sheer force of Otto’s loathing had undone him, the priest staggered back a step, his hand fluttering up weakly toward Isabella to prevent himself from falling as his knees buckled, then swayed and collapsed. The side of his head and shoulder cracked off the rim of the bedside table with the sick sound of wet meat being tenderised.

  Mellin, van Drak’s chirurgeon, moved quickly to the fallen priest. “Alive,” he said, feeling the faint pulse at Brother Guttman’s throat. Though barely.”

  Lightning rent the
fabric of the bruise-purple sky, the incessant drumming of the fat rain stopped suddenly.

  The frail priest contorted in a series of violent convulsions, almost as though his body were somehow earthing the raw electricity of the storm. And then he lay deathly still.

  In the deafening silence that followed there was a single sharp knock and the door opened.

  A terrified man-servant stood in the doorway, head down, humble. A hauntingly handsome man pushed past the servant, not waiting for his formal introduction. The stranger was easily a head taller than Leopold, if not more, and had to stoop slightly to enter the bedchamber. In his hand he held a silver-topped cane. The handle had been fashioned into the likeness of a dire wolf, teeth bared in a feral snarl. The shoulders of his cloak were a darker black where they were soaked through with rain and water dripped from the brim of his hat.

  “The noble Vlad von Carstein, my l-lord,” the servant stuttered. With a wave of the hand, the newcomer dismissed the servant who scurried off gratefully.

  The sound of rain rushed back to drown the silence in the very heart of the storm.

  The newcomer approached the bed. His boots left wet prints on the cold wooden boards. Leopold stared at them, trying to fathom where the man had come from. “Out of the storm,” he mumbled, shaking his head.

  “I bid thee humble greeting, Count van Drak,” the man’s accent was peculiarly thick; obviously foreign. Kislevite perhaps, or further east, Leopold thought, trying to place it. “And you, fair lady,” he said, turning to Isabella, “are quite enchanting. A pale rose set between these withered thorns.”

  Her face lit up with that simple compliment. She broke into a lopsided smile and curtseyed, never taking her eyes from the man’s. And such eyes he had. They were animalistic in their intensity, filled with nameless hungers. She felt herself being devoured by his gaze and surrendered willingly to the sensation. The man had power and he was not averse to exploiting it. A slow predatory smile spread across his face. Isabella felt herself being drawn to the newcomer. It was a subtle but irresistible sensation. She took a step toward him.