by Nathan Long
Through half-blinded eyes he could see ratmen running everywhere, clawing at their eyes and ears. Many lay dead, long faces twisted in agony. Many more were falling. Their putrid animal musk filled the chamber. Their squealing was pitiful.
Then the light faded and the lightning ceased, leaving the cavern in almost total darkness. The ratmen’s purple lights had gone out. Only the Blackhearts’ torches and those of the men upon the plateau remained. There wasn’t a living ratman left in the chamber.
The Blackhearts writhed on the ground, clutching their forearms and crying out. Reiner frowned at this strange phenomenon, then suddenly he was doing it himself. His arm burned as if it had been touched with a brand. He looked down and saw a bright blue glow coming from beneath his skin. Valaris’s crystal shard! It was hot as an ember.
‘Make it stop!’ cried Rumpolt. ‘Cut it out! It burns!’
The boy drew his dagger, but before he could slit his skin the shards began to dim and cool.
Reiner sat up, head swimming, his hair dusted with dirt and pebbles. The others did the same. Only Darius remained on his back, his head buried in his arms, whispering under his breath.
‘All whole?’ asked Reiner. ‘All in our right minds?’
‘Ain’t been in my right mind since I took Albrecht’s brand,’ grumbled Hals as the rest nodded.
Reiner shook Darius. ‘Scholar?’
Darius slowly unfolded. His nose was bleeding. ‘Is… is it over?’
‘You would know better than I.’
Darius blinked around, shivering. ‘The… the energies have dissipated, but there is still much residue.’
‘Is it safe to go back?’
Darius shrugged. ‘As safe as it is here.’
‘Go back?’ barked Augustus. ‘Are you mad? I’ll fight any man, beast or monster alive, but what can a spear do against that?’
‘But not going back will certainly be our death,’ said Franka.
‘Maybe it’s better to die by Manfred’s poison,’ said Augustus.
‘No,’ said Reiner, remembering Abel Halstieg’s twisted body and rictus grimace. ‘No, it isn’t.’ He got to his feet and looked up to the plateau where the Talabheim guard and the other companies were dazedly recovering themselves. The rats on the slope below them had fled. The rats on the floor of the cavern had died. It was strewn with their carcasses. ‘Come. We haven’t much time.’
The Blackhearts picked up their weapons and their torches and followed him around the boulders—and stopped again, staring. The side of the outcropping facing the tunnel to the invocation chamber reflected their torches like glass. Indeed, every surface on that side of the cavern looked like it had been polished in a furnace. Once jagged rocks were as smooth as beach pebbles. The sandy, rubble-strewn floor had fused into a slick lumpy slab. The tunnel had melted like hot wax, and shone with a faint internal luminescence.
‘Sigmar!’ said Pavel. ‘Had we been caught in that…’
Jergen pointed silently to the dead black ratmen. They were but bones, and the bones glowed purple.
Though Reiner was as reluctant as any of them, he pushed ahead. If it was still intact, the waystone was only twenty paces away. He couldn’t hesitate now.
The tunnel walls were as smooth and phosphorescent as the intestine of some deep sea leviathan. Purple light pulsed down them, turning the Blackhearts’ skin an unhealthy grey. Reiner could hear hissing and popping as if from cooling rock, though the tunnel was as cold as the rest of the caves.
The walls of the invocation chamber were melted to a glowing, glassine sheen. Of the blood daubed rune on the shallow bowl-like floor there was no sign, but the copper braziers were now copper puddles. The rat-mages had been vaporised, but their shadows remained—long grey silhouettes that stretched away from the centre to the walls. Reiner scuffed one with the toe of his boot. It was burned into the rock.
The stone pedestal on which the ratmen had placed the waystone slumped to one side like a collapsed layer cake, but the waystone itself, though it had fallen on its side, was entirely untouched, as white and clean as a tooth.
‘The thing’s uncanny,’ breathed Gert.
‘Well,’ said Darius. ‘Precisely.’
‘Come on,’ said Reiner. ‘Let’s get it up.’
‘Wait,’ said Dieter. ‘Company.’ He pointed to a tunnel on the far side of the chamber.
The Blackhearts listened. There were voices—human voices—coming from it.
Reiner cursed. ‘Douse torches. Quick.’
The company ground their torches out on the floor and backed out of the chamber. There was still light to see by. The walls radiated purple.
As Reiner watched, men stepped cautiously into the chamber—Lord Scharnholt and his house guard.
Scharnholt’s eyes lit up when he saw the waystone. ‘Ha!’ he cried. ‘Excellent.’ He strode forward, puffing a little, with his men trailing more cautiously behind him. ‘Come, all of you. Before the others come. They’ll have been put off by that blast, but not for long.’ ‘Another opportunist,’ muttered Franka, disgusted. ‘Only out for himself.’
‘This will be a great victory for our master Tzeentch!’ said Scharnholt as his men began laying poles next to the waystone. ‘All praise the Changer of the Ways for returning the stone to us!’
‘All praise Tzeentch!’ murmured his men.
‘Father Taal, preserve us,’ murmured Augustus.
The others made warding signs and spat over their shoulders.
‘At least,’ said Reiner dryly, ‘he isn’t thinking only of himself.’
Hals glared at him. ‘Y’cannot joke about this, captain. We cannot let this daemon lover live.’
‘No.’ Reiner drew his vermin sword. The others readied themselves. ‘Particularly not when he has our stone. But wait until they’ve lifted it before we attack. We don’t—’
‘Ah!’ came a voice behind him.
Rumpolt was hopping on one foot and glaring at Augustus. ‘You oaf! You’ve trod on my hurt foot!’ he hissed.
‘What was that?’ said Scharnholt, looking up.
Reiner turned back to the chamber, and locked eyes with the lord.
‘Valdenheim’s villains.’ Scharnholt cried. ‘Kill them!’
‘Curse it!’ said Reiner. ‘Right, lads, in we go.’
‘Now look what you’ve done! Y’damned infant!’ spat Augustus. He shoved Rumpolt to the floor, then turned and raced after the others as they charged forward to meet Scharnholt’s men.
‘I am not an infant!’
The two sides slammed together. Reiner angled for Scharnholt, but the podgy lord backed behind two of his men, muttering and waving his bejewelled fingers. Reiner parried the thrust of the first and ducked the second’s swing, then slashed him across his forward leg. His sword sliced open the man’s breeks, but didn’t even scratch his skin. Reiner frowned. Augustus thrust his spear between his opponent’s breastplate and shoulder guard, stopping him short, but the man only grunted and knocked it away, and Augustus had to spring back desperately to avoid his counter-thrust. Jergen brought his sword down on his man’s unprotected forearm so hard that the man dropped his blade, but the blow made not a mark in his flesh.
Hals stepped back, blood leaking from a shallow cut on his neck, his broken spear hacked and splintered. ‘Die, ye filth! Why won’t ye bleed?’
Reiner looked at Scharnholt. His fingers inscribed a cage in the air. ‘Rohmner. On Scharnholt. It’s his doing.’
Jergen nodded and began hacking and shoving his way toward the lord. Before he got far, Reiner saw movement behind them.
It was Rumpolt, charging Augustus’s back, tears in his eyes. ‘I am not an infant!’ he shrieked.
Augustus fought two men, and didn’t hear. Rumpolt slashed him across the back, blooding him. Augustus yelped and stumbled forward. The pommel of his right-hand opponent’s sword cracked him in the temple. He dropped like a sack of flour.
‘Rumpolt!’ Reiner cried, trying to back o
ut of his fight.
Jergen jumped in front of Augustus to protect him from the Tzeentchists, his sword everywhere at once. Hals, Pavel and Gert spread out instinctively to hold the rest at bay.
Franka screamed at Rumpolt over her shoulder. ‘What are you doing, you fool!’
‘Stop shouting at me!’ screeched Rumpolt. He swiped a backhand at her.
Franka ducked sideways, nearly stepping into her opponent’s thrust. She twisted desperately. Rumpolt raised his sword at her back.
‘No!’ Reiner leapt away from his two adversaries, taking a cut on the calf, and blocked Rumpolt’s strike. ‘Calm yourself, you madman, or we’ll all die!’
Rumpolt was beyond reason. ‘Why does everyone shout at me?’ He swung clumsily at Reiner, weeping. Reiner parried easily and ran the boy through the heart.
Rumpolt’s eyes went wide with surprise. ‘It… it isn’t my fault.’ He clutched at Reiner as he slid off his sword, tearing open his doublet.
Reiner kicked him away and turned to block his opponents, who had followed him. There was no time for anger or remorse. Scharnholt’s men had taken advantage of the confusion and pressed the Blackhearts on all sides as they stood over Augustus. They laughed as the Blackhearts’ blades glanced off them. Pavel took a gash in the shoulder. Even Jergen bled—a cut across his left palm. He tried to push for Scharnholt again, but the Tzeentchists knew his goal now, and blocked him.
‘Darius,’ said Reiner. ‘Can you counter his magic?’
‘Why won’t you listen to me?’ wailed Darius. ‘I am not a witch. I am a scholar.’
‘Sod magic,’ said Hals, and spun his broken spear-end at Scharnholt.
It caught Scharnholt on the ear and he cried out, his fingers pausing in their pattern.
Three of his men went down instantly, surprised as their invulnerability vanished.
‘Ha!’ barked Hals, snatching up Rumpolt’s sword. ‘Come, ye cowards! Now we’ll see!’
But before another blow could be struck, a loud voice bellowed behind them. ‘What is this? Cease this melee at once!’
Reiner looked back. Boellengen, Danziger and von Pfaltzen were entering with their companies and fifty Talabheimers. Reiner heard Scharnholt curse, and Reiner echoed him. A few moments more and they might have been away with the stone.
‘M’lords,’ cried Reiner, springing back from the fight. ‘Thank Sigmar you’ve come! We have just found Lord Scharnholt stealing the stone and claiming it for his master, Tzeentch!’
‘Madness!’ shouted Scharnholt. ‘He lies!’
The two sides backed apart, eyeing each other warily.
‘He used magic against us, m’lords!’ continued Reiner. ‘Our swords could not cut the flesh of his men! Arrest him as a traitor to Talabheim and the Empire!’
‘What madness is this?’ asked von Pfaltzen. ‘You accuse a lord and member of the parliament of Talabheim of such a heinous crime? Have you any evidence?’
‘There can be no doubt he is marked, captain,’ said Reiner. ‘No follower of the Ruinous Powers so adept as Lord Scharnholt could remain unblemished by his master’s touch. If you were to remove his breastplate and…’
‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ said Scharnholt. ‘How can you listen to this proven rascal, m’lords?’
‘So you claim his story false, m’lord?’ asked von Pfaltzen. He actually seemed to weighing the case.
‘No,’ said Scharnholt, causing gasps from the lords. ‘It is true in every particular, except that it was he who I came upon trying to steal the stone. And he who used foul sorcery to protect his men.’ He pointed to his dead men. ‘Look at my poor fellows. His men are barely scratched, but for the brave fellow who refused his evil orders and was killed for it. Naught but sorcery could allow such rabble to prevail over my trained troops.’
‘Ye want another go?’ growled Hals.
Reiner shot him a sharp look. ‘M’lords, please,’ he said. ‘Did I not bring you to this place as promised? Have you not found everything I said you would find? Is the stone not at your feet? Why would I lie now?’
‘Because you hoped to take it for your evil ends while we fought the vermin,’ said Boellengen.
‘M’lord.’ Reiner pled, inwardly cursing Boellengen for hitting upon the truth. ‘You know not who you aid with this argument. If you would only ask him—’
‘I will not open my…’ interrupted Scharnholt.
Lord Boellengen held up his hand and turned on Reiner. ‘Hetzau, there is one way to prove yourself credible and make us take seriously your accusations against Lord Scharnholt.’
‘Anything, m’lord,’ said Reiner. ‘Only name it.’
‘Bring us to Count Manfred,’ said Boellengen. ‘Show us that he is safe and we will listen to you.’
Reiner balled his fists, his stomach sinking. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t even lie and say he would, for the dark elf would be listening. ‘M’lord, I have made a vow to Count Manfred not to reveal his whereabouts under any circumstances. I will not break that vow, though I die for it.’
Scharnholt laughed. ‘Just the sort of thing he would say had he killed the count.’
Boellengen sneered. ‘If that is your answer, then you will die, but slowly, on the rack, having told us long before what we wish to know.’
Snakes of fear crawled up Reiner’s spine. He was terrified of torture, but he was equally terrified of Manfred’s poison, and the hope, faint though it might be, that he might yet escape before they brought him to the rack, refused to die. He swallowed. ‘I will not betray Count Manfred,’ he said.
Boellengen sighed. ‘Very well.’ He waved a hand at von Pfaltzen. ‘Captain, I ask you to arrest this man and his cohorts for attempting to steal the waystone and dooming the city of Talabheim to madness and Chaos.’
Von Pfaltzen nodded. ‘With pleasure.’
‘Wait!’ said Scharnholt, pointing at Reiner. ‘What is that on his chest?’
Reiner looked down. His torn doublet had fallen open, revealing a part of Valaris’s knife work. He put a hand up to close it, but Danziger stepped forward and ripped it open, revealing the symbol the dark elf had carved in his chest.
Boellengen recoiled, horrified. ‘A mark of Chaos!’
The lords and their men made the sign of the hammer and muttered prayers under their breath.
Von Pfaltzen drew his sword, his face cold and set. ‘Cultists are not arrested. They are executed.’
FOURTEEN
All We Must Do Is Nothing
REINER CHOKED. ‘MY lords… I can explain.’
Von Pfaltzen turned to the Talabheim Guard. ‘Take their weapons and have them kneel. My men will take their heads.’
The Blackhearts backed up, pressing into a wary clump as a score of Talabheim archers aimed at them.
‘Ye daft fools!’ said Gert. ‘We ain’t daemon lovers! Y’have it wrong!’
‘Y’ve a plan, captain?’ whispered Pavel hopefully.
Reiner shook his head, lost. His hands dropped to his sides. He froze. His left was touching his belt pouch. There were three hard lumps within it. His heart leapt. He looked behind him. Only a few Talabheimers stood between them and the tunnel Scharnholt had entered from.
‘Lay down your weapons, dogs,’ said the Talabheimer captain.
‘Do as he says,’ murmured Reiner. ‘Then join hands and be ready for smoke.’
‘Smoke?’ said Darius.
As the Blackhearts threw their swords and daggers to the ground, Reiner slipped his right hand into his pouch and raised his voice. ‘Join hands, brothers! We will face this martyrdom together, as we have faced all other wrongs prosecuted against us!’ He took Franka’s hand with his left and raised his right as the others grasped hands.
Von Pfaltzen and the others stared, puzzled at this strange outburst.
‘We’ll show it our heels,’ said Reiner, and smashed the two glass orbs he had palmed on the ground. Instantly great clouds of thick black smoke billowed up and enveloped them.
&
nbsp; ‘To the back tunnel!’ Reiner hissed, and ran, dragging Franka with him.
‘What in Taal’s name!’ choked Augustus, but he ran with the others.
Shouts echoed through the murk. An arrow thrummed past Reiner’s ear. He flinched and continued running. His eyes were burning and he couldn’t stop coughing. The Blackhearts hacked and wheezed around him, bumping into each other and stumbling over their feet in the spreading cloud. Reiner’s outstretched hand touched the glassy wall and he felt left and right in a panic. If they didn’t find the tunnel this would all be a black joke. There! He pushed forward into shadow and the smoke dissipated. He looked back. The Blackhearts stumbled into the tunnel behind him, coming out of the oily smoke with eyes shut and tears on their cheeks.
‘Now run!’ he said. ‘We haven’t bought much time.’
They ran. Though they had no torches, the residue of the rat-mages’ magical blast still lit the tunnel in a dim purple glow, so they were not entirely blind. Sounds of pursuit came from behind them—running boots, men shouting orders. They sped up, but almost immediately they heard noises ahead of them as well.
‘The rats!’ said Franka. ‘They’re coming back!’
Reiner looked around. The purple glow was fading as they travelled beyond the radius of the explosion. In the darkness Reiner saw a blacker darkness, low on the right wall. Beyond it, a steady purple light was bobbing closer.
‘In there!’ Reiner hissed.
The Blackhearts dived into the low hole, pushing down it as fast as they could.
Then Pavel jerked to a stop. ‘Waugh!’ he said. ‘What is that stink?’
A horrific death stench overwhelmed them. All the Blackhearts choked and retched and swore.
Reiner covered his mouth. He had only smelled something so foul once before—the last time he had travelled in the ratmen’s domain. ‘It’s… it’s a vermin rubbish tip.’
‘Back out!’ said Darius. ‘Find another place!’