But there was nothing. Rathmor seemed to have shrunk back into the very rock itself. The more that Magnus crept onward, the more silent and ominous his surroundings became. The ceiling carried on descending. Soon he was walking down corridors not much taller than he was. The rock had been carved roughly around him, and there were faint track marks in the jagged floor. Every so often, he would pass some abandoned cart, knocked onto its side and left to decay in the eternal shadow. There were still torches, even so far down. They flickered and guttered. Some had gone out for lack of fuel. The others would follow them soon enough. Then the night would close over him, and he would be totally blind.
That thought was strangely terror-inducing, and Magnus pushed it out of his mind. He kept going, his feet treading silently on the unseen floor, his fingers running along the walls, tracing the serrated pattern of the stone under them. The churn of the machines was a distant whisper now. There were no other noises. It was as if he was lost at the centre of earth. The memory of light and wind felt distant.
There was a noise. Magnus pushed himself hard against the near wall, his pistol raised. His breathing quickened, and he strained to see ahead. There was no repeat of the sound. He couldn’t even tell what it had been. But where there was noise, there was movement. And where there was movement…
Magnus waited for his breathing to calm, and set off again. It felt like he’d been walking for hours. Gauging time was near impossible. And then, he got the impression of space once more. The gloom around him was almost complete, but there was something in the air that told him the tunnel had opened out into a hall once more. Magnus slipped over to the near wall again, wary of the wide space. He paused, listening hard for any sound. There was nothing, except for maybe the slightest of moans as the air from above shifted down the miles of tunnel and chamber. No water dripped, no torch sparked. Something within Magnus told him that he’d reached the end. There were no chambers below this one, no more machines. Whatever had been done here, it was still a secret.
He looked down at the pistol in his hands. He could just make out its outline in the gloom. The last torch, some yards back, still lent a dim glimmer to things.
Then it went out. Caught by some freak gust of chill air, or doused by a malevolent hand, the light died. Magnus was plunged into complete darkness. He might have been swimming in the void before the creation of the world. Panic rose in his throat. He had been a fool. There was nothing he could do in such a place. He was blind, and alone. He had to get back, find a way towards the light.
Magnus whirled around, back in the direction he thought the tunnel lay. For a moment, he felt the urge to cry out loud, to scream, to do something to break the endless, terrible silent darkness.
Then he felt the cool metal press against his temple.
The invaders climbed the steps swiftly. Kruger and his knights were in the lead, powering up the twisting stairs even in their heavy plate armour. Hildebrandt struggled to keep up with them. Night had fallen, and he felt his fatigue latch on to him like a heavy cloak. The long, cold days in the mountains had taken their toll. His arms ached from wielding his weapon for so long, his legs ached from the endless climbing. It felt like they’d ascended halfway up the side of the peak itself. Only now were they nearing the uttermost pinnacle, the final chamber of the citadel.
Moonlight shone weakly through the windows of the tower, but there was little other light. The shadows clung to the walls like ink. Men’s faces distorted in the murk, and Hildebrandt felt his mood become more febrile. The green tinge on the edges of the stone was growing. As they clattered up the narrow, twisted ways, it became steadily more intense. The nearer the summit they went, the more it looked as though the walls had been doused in some unholy alchemical substance.
There was no resistance on the stairs. The promised army of defenders looked to have melted away. Hildebrandt wondered if the strength of Anna-Louisa’s forces had been overestimated. Certainly, since their initial setbacks in the passes, the battle had swung decisively their way.
The stairs went on, winding tighter and tighter as the tower drew towards its peak. Hildebrandt could feel his lungs labour. His breathing began to come in shuddering heaves. He was too old and too fat for this. His hands shook from tiredness. With a dogged growl, he pressed on, determined not to be outdone by the armoured men around him. Even after hours of fighting and pursuit, they still fought and climbed as keenly as ever.
Just as Hildebrandt began to think that they’d be plodding up the stairway forever, it came to a sudden end. There was a narrow antechamber ahead. Three iron lanterns hung from the ceiling. The glass in the panes was lime-green. They threw a sickly light across the stone. The walls were almost bare. Here and there, a few gold trinkets had been hung. It was an incongruous sight. In the eerie light, they looked strangely sinister.
Scharnhorst was waiting in the antechamber, as was Kruger and many of the other knights. There was space for several dozen men, no more. At the far end of the chamber, a large pair of doors was bolted against them. There was still no sign of any guards. The room was quiet. From down the stairs, the noise of men clattering to a halt on the stone echoed upwards. Hildebrandt came to a standstill amid the knights, his chest heaving. It didn’t look like Scharnhorst was in any hurry to break the doors down.
‘What’s going on?’ Hildebrandt asked a soldier next to him.
The knight had taken his helmet off, and his jet-black hair cascaded in curls almost to his shoulder. He looked young. No more than twenty summers. The battle hardly seemed to have touched him.
‘Can’t you hear it?’ he replied in an aristocratic accent, inclining his head towards the doors. ‘It’s unsettled him.’
Hildebrandt paused, and listened carefully. For a moment, there was nothing. Just the ragged breathing of the men around him and the muffled sounds of soldiers coming up the stairs behind them.
But then he caught it. A high, wandering voice. Like a little girl’s. It was some kind of whimsical tune. Hildebrandt thought he recognised it, but he couldn’t quite place the name. Then it came to him. It was a lullaby. He’d sung it to his own daughter Hannelore. Beyond the mighty oak doors, right at the bitter summit of the dark citadel, in the heart of the pitiless mountains and surrounded by the dead and dying of two armies, someone was singing a lullaby.
Hildebrandt couldn’t believe it. He looked over at Scharnhorst. For the first time Hildebrandt could remember, the general looked nonplussed. He stood by the doors, unmoving, his naked sword still in his hand. Around him, the knights waited for their orders. The assault had come to a grinding halt. Men waited on the stairs below, their vigour transformed into uncertainty. The singing continued, reedy and insubstantial. In the lurid green glow, the effect was more than strange. It was otherwordly.
At length, Scharnhorst turned from the doors. He had a strange expression on his face.
‘There’s some devilry here,’ he muttered, before turning to Kruger. ‘These doors are unlocked. We must enter and see this thing through. Come with me.’
Scharnhorst’s eyes swept the assembled throng, and settled on Hildebrandt.
‘You too,’ he said. ‘And bring one of those charges. Just in case.’
Without waiting for a reply, he turned and placed his hand on the doors. Kruger and Hildebrandt pushed their way through the crowd of soldiers to stand at his shoulder. The general hesitated a final time, and then pushed. With a long, sighing creak, the doors swung inwards. From inside, green light flooded the antechamber. The three men walked forward. This was the final room. There was nowhere else to go. They were at the pinnacle of Morgramgar. They entered the chamber.
Magnus froze, his own weapon by his side. He could feel the heat of another body close to his. A man’s breath grazed against his cheek.
‘Brave,’ came a voice, close by. ‘Very brave. But useless.’
The voice sounded sad, like a child
who has had to put away his toys at the end of the day. Magnus stayed perfectly still. The gun’s muzzle rested against his flesh. If he moved, he was dead. His mind raced, his heart thumped, but he resisted the urge to flail or plead. He would never plead.
There was a sigh from the darkness beside him.
‘I really don’t want to do this,’ said Rathmor, resignedly. ‘Do you think I desire the fate of two Ironbloods on my name? It’s hard enough having responsibility for one. Though I don’t feel I should share all the blame for that.’
Magnus kept his position with difficulty. His only chance lay in Rathmor making a mistake. If the man wanted to talk, so much the better. These moments were precious. He was painfully aware they could be his last.
‘Why didn’t you finish the Blutschreiben yourself?’ the traitor engineer asked, and his voice became wheedling again. ‘If you’d been open to persuasion, we could have completed it together. Then I wouldn’t have had to go behind your back. You’ve seen that I’ve nearly perfected it. There are a dozen more down here, almost finished. Imagine them on the battlefield at once! Nothing could stop them. Even here at Morgramgar, the only thing that could break its armour was a half-finished machine of your own design. And I’ve improved it since Nuln. It’s almost there, Ironblood.’
The voice broke a little. It sounded as if Rathmor was trying to convince himself.
‘Almost there,’ he said again, bitterly. ‘I just needed a little more time.’
The pressure of the muzzle lessened. Rathmor was drifting into some kind of reverie. This was the moment.
Magnus spun round, wheeling in the dark, and knocked Rathmor back. There was a cry, and a dull thud. Magnus sprinted forward, blind and terrified, waiting for the blast to finish him. In the dark he ran straight into a wall, and fell heavily. Blood streamed from his nose. Frantically, he scrambled along the stone, certain to feel the explosion of pain at any moment.
It didn’t come. Trembling, Magnus turned back. He could see nothing, just the endless black of the tunnel. Rathmor didn’t speak. He didn’t fire his gun. It was as if he’d never existed at all.
Suddenly, a spark lit. A flame burst into being nearby. The mouth of the tunnel was illuminated, and Magnus could see how narrow it was. The walls of the subterranean cavern soared upwards into the preternatural gloom. The far end was lost in shadow.
His eyes adjusted slowly. Rathmor lay a few yards away, his limbs twisted awkwardly. His neck was severed nearly straight through. Dark blood still pumped down his jerkin and over the stone. His eyes were unfocussed, but his face was set into a mask of surprise. His pistol lay on the floor, forgotten.
The fire had come from a flint-strike onto a flaming brand. As the flame grew, the red light blossomed. The torch was held low to the ground. For a moment, it was hard to see who the bearer was. Then the dark shape of Thorgad emerged. The blade of Glamrist was red from the flame and from Rathmor’s blood. The dwarf had a strange look in his eyes, at once full of triumph and emptiness.
‘I told you,’ he said gruffly, and his eyes glinted like jewels in the darkness. ‘You’ll be glad to have me along, I said. And I was right, was I not, Ironblood?’
Hildebrandt looked around him with amazement. In all his years of service, he had seen nothing like it. The room was circular, and huge. Great stained glass windows had been constructed on all sides. The moonlight streamed through them. Just as it had been outside, the glass was green. The panes were irregularly shaped, and threw odd patterns of emerald light across the floor. Everything was bathed in the lurid glow. More lanterns hung from the distant ceiling, also throwing a green light across the space. Hildebrandt felt a tremor of nausea just looking at it all. There was no escape. The effect was sickening. He fingered the last of his blackpowder charges nervously.
The walls of the chamber were covered in paintings. They looked like the daubings of a child. In fact, crude representations of children were everywhere. There was a portrait of what might have been the goddess Shallya too, and another of some kind of Sigmarite betrothal ceremony. The brushstrokes were heavy and artless. Some images had been scored out with thick black ink. Others had been savaged, slashed apart, and from these the canvas hung down in tatters. Those that were left were bizarre and malformed.
Across the floor, wooden toys were scattered. Most of them lay forlorn in the sickly shadows, forgotten or broken. There were ceramic dolls with no eyes. Wooden soldiers were everywhere. All were mutilated in some way. Many had no heads. There was a wooden rocking cradle near the far side of the room. The sheets had been ripped from it, and several of the legs were broken. A music box lay next to it. It looked exquisitely made, with silver bindings on the rosewood case. But it too was broken. Shards of metal were scattered around it, and the lid was cracked. It would never play again.
Hildebrandt felt a horror well up within him as he gazed around. The men beside him said nothing. It seemed almost indecent to be there, as if they had intruded into some profoundly personal nightmare. Reluctantly, the big man let his eyes follow the sound of singing. Part of him didn’t want to look. But it was impossible to avoid. In the very centre of the chamber, the margravine was sitting, staring at them.
She was in bed. Her huge four-poster bedframe dominated the room. It was lined with silk sheets and linen hangings. Once they must have been fine things, fit for a lady of noble birth. Now they were stained and tattered, and fluttered limply. The bedclothes were strewn with more dolls. One hung from the frame over the centre, a little noose around its diminutive neck. Others had been warped or disfigured.
Propped up by enormous bolsters, Anna-Louisa Margarete Emeludt von Kleister, commander of the rebel armies and mistress of Morgramgar, looked at them with glassy eyes. She kept singing, mumbling the words over and again. As she did so, she tugged weakly at her straggling dark hair. Strands of it lay all over the sheets in clumps. Her flesh was pallid. Dark lines had been scored under her eyes. What little she had left of her looks had been pasted over with heavy layers of rouge. Her lips were haphazardly painted. She looked a little like one of her own dolls. The stench of perfume was everywhere, powerful and pungent. It was a scene of madness and degradation.
She kept staring, but said nothing. Her singing petered out. The chamber fell silent. Eventually, Scharnhorst took a deep breath.
‘Madam,’ he said, falteringly. ‘By the warrant of Count Ludenhof of Hochland, Elector of the Empire, I have come to end your treachery.’
Anna-Louisa didn’t reply at once. It looked as if her mind, or what was left of it, was wondering. Then her eyes seemed to gather some focus. She gazed dreamily at the general.
‘Have you come to marry me?’ she said. ‘It’s about time. I’ve been waiting so long.’
A stray tear ran down her cheek, blurring the heavy make-up. Scharnhorst looked at Kruger, and his brow furrowed in confusion. The knight raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. Then Anna-Louisa shook her head, and laughed. It was a strained, gurgling sound.
‘Of course you’re not here to marry me!’ she said, brushing her tear away. ‘You’re soldiers. They told me you would come. To take away my gold.’
She picked up one of her dolls, looked at it dispassionately for a moment and in a casual gesture twisted its head off. As she did so, a faint growl passed her cracked lips.
‘My gold,’ she said again. ‘That’s what they want me for. That clever man Rathmor. And my soldier man, Esselman. They told me they could buy men with it. And then we could break down the Emperor’s palace, and he would have to marry me. And then I would have an heir. A little child. To play with. It’s been so lonely here without one. So I gave them my gold. That’s how it happened.’
A strange eagerness seemed to strike up in her eyes, and she leaned forward. As she did so, the blankets fell from around her. Hildebrandt could see that she was emaciated under her flimsy nightdress. Her movements were like that of a spider,
stilted and creeping. Scharnhorst remained silent. He looked horrified.
‘Do you know how much gold there is under these mountains, soldier man?’ asked Anna-Louisa, looking suddenly delighted. ‘Endless gold! The little men mine it for me, and then I buy more of them. Every day, more men come to serve me. Soon we will have enough, and Esselman will take them to break open the Emperor’s palace. It won’t be long now!’
Scharnhorst took a deep breath. Now that the shock of the sight was wearing off, he looked like he was tiring of the woman’s babbling.
‘My lady,’ he said, choosing his words carefully. ‘I fear you have been deluded. Your mind is deranged. Whatever plans you had have ended. Your armies are destroyed. Your citadel is taken. Any gold you have will be confiscated and withdrawn to the treasury of Count Ludenhof.’
As he spoke, Anna-Louisa’s eyes seemed to lose their focus again. She started playing with one of her toys.
‘My orders were to destroy your citadel and execute you for high treason,’ said Scharnhorst, his expression full of doubt and his speech slow. ‘Now that I see the truth, I must surmise that you have been misled. The real traitors are those who have told you such lies. I cannot judge this matter. I will take you to Hergig. Wiser heads shall determine what shall be done with you. You are ill, my lady. Very ill. Will you relinquish yourself to my stewardship? You will not be harmed. It may do your cause some favour, were you to come of your own free will.’
Anna-Louisa looked up vaguely.
‘Give myself up?’ she said, in her childlike, wandering voice. ‘They told me you would say that. Let me think. My soldier man told me you would say that. And there was something I had to say. What was it?’
Scharnhorst looked sourly at the scene before him. Anna-Louisa was clearly too far gone in madness to debate with.
‘Enough,’ he said. ‘Whatever your commander told you is not important now. The citadel is ours. At first light, you will come with me to Hergig.’
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