The End Times | The Fall of Altdorf Page 11

  It is my penance, he mused bleakly. For failing my liege.

  Zintler’s face flushed. ‘I can try again,’ he said.

  ‘Too late now,’ growled Helborg, cursing the luck that seemed ever against them. ‘If they come, they come. Until then, look to the walls. Organise details to begin work on the gatehouse this night, and bring me reports from the watch. We need clean water from somewhere, and I cannot believe all the shafts are tainted.’

  Zintler saluted smartly, and walked across the courtyard to the stairwell. Helborg watched him go, noting the stooped line of his shoulders.

  Karl Franz would have handled him better, he thought to himself. He would have handled all of them better.

  Helborg limped over to the very edge of the parapet, and gazed moodily north. Out under the cover of the encroaching dark, the tree line brooded like a vast slick of tar. The foliage had been allowed to creep closer to the walls than it should have done. Everything seemed to be growing at a burgeoning rate, blooming in a mire of foulness far more quickly than it could be cut down again.

  Above the jagged lines of the firs, Morrslieb rode low, its virulent orb glowing yellow-green. As Helborg’s eyes strayed towards it, the wound in his cheek throbbed harder.

  Behind him, the soft light of lanterns flickered into life, one by one, as the citizens began the nightly chore of warding against the night-terrors. Bonfires would be lit at every street intersection, and patrols doubled up. That did not stop the regular disappearance of citizens, nor the growing spread of the pox, nor the uncontrollable nightmares that made children and adults alike scream in their sweat-sodden cots.

  Out there, somewhere, the hordes of the End Times were coming, burning and hacking, and with only one goal in mind.

  ‘I will resist you,’ murmured Helborg, fighting against exhaustion, knowing how much labour still lay ahead of him. ‘We will not retreat. We will meet you with our blades and our hearts intact, for we are men, and you have never extinguished us, not after three thousand years of trying.’

  As he spoke, his gauntlets curled into fists. He stood atop the pinnacle of the northern gate, with the entire city at his back, and cursed the darkness.

  Out in the gathering night, nothing changed. The trees rustled in the distance, rubbing branches against one another as if they were greedy hands clutching weapons. The eerie calls of night-birds shrieked into the gloom, and the uncaring stars came out, just as they had done since the world was made.

  Slowly, his body shot through with the gathering weight of exhaustion, Helborg turned from the vista, and limped back into the gatehouse. His tasks for the night were only just beginning.

  NINE

  The river Reik had once flown strongly west of Carroburg. It had plunged into a narrow gorge, foaming and hissing, before reaching the cataracts that sent it tumbling down forty feet of rock-strewn white water. The cliffs on either side of the valley soared up precipitously, clad in dark firs and dripping with a constant mist of spray. The famed citadel itself had been raised on the northern shore – a spur of black rock, wound about with tight circles of inner walls and close-packed towers. Carroburg perched above the drop like a crow poised for scavenging. The banners of Middenland hung from its sheer-angled tower roofs, bearing the device of the white wolf atop a blue ground.

  Dominating the city was its fortress, built for defence, with soaring outer walls jutting from sheer cliffs of rain-slick rock. Only two gates broke the circle of the citadel’s lower walls, one looking east towards Altdorf, the other west towards Marienburg. In normal times both were kept open during the daylight hours, though for many weeks they had been barred and locked tight. A meagre force of Greatswords had issued out along the great western road to relieve Marienburg once news of its siege had come in, but no news had returned regarding their fate, and the city’s burgomeisters had feared the worst. After that, no living soul passed the cordon of the walls, and the populace huddled within their protection even as the nights were filled with lurid screaming and the waters around them seemed to thicken and spoil.

  Travelling at the head of their vast host, Otto and Ethrac paused at the point the Reik curved steeply north towards the Carroburg gorge. They were both riding Ghurk, and had to yank his ears hard to get him to stop lumbering.

  ‘What do you make of it, o my brother?’ asked Otto, licking his lips.

  ‘Satisfactory,’ replied Ethrac, running a wizened finger around the lip of his plague-bells. ‘Better than I hoped for.’

  In years past, they would have been staring up at a daunting defensive position, a natural funnel-point overlooked by formidable gunnery and backed up by the feared garrison of Greatswords. Now, the Reik was clogged with great mats of grey-fronded moss. In defiance of the strong current, the mats had floated upriver, lodging against the bank and blocking the flow. As the flood around them ebbed, more clots of foliage bumped and twisted upstream, further silting up the power of the waters.

  Even as the river had choked on the thick layers of unnatural vegetation, the forest on either bank had burgeoned and burst its bounds, sending meandering tendrils snaking out into what had once been open ground. Tree-trunks had burst, exposing thick smears of throbbing mucus within. Briars had shot from the boiling earth, tangling and throttling anything they came across. The naked cliffs below Carroburg were now writhing with tentacles, spikes and suckers. The cataract itself was gone, replaced by a slithering slop of viscous algal slime.

  Otto gazed up at the fortress. The base of its still-mighty walls was a hundred feet away. He reached for a copper spyglass at his belt, and placed it against his bloodshot eye. As he did so, the lens blinked.

  ‘They are locked up within it, o my brother,’ Otto observed, moving the spyglass across the battlements. He could see spear-tips moving across the parapets. There were still artillery pieces on the high battlements, and some of them might do a little damage. ‘They are not getting out now. Ghurk will feast on hot flesh this night.’

  Ghurk chortled, making his rolling shoulders shudder. Ethrac stood up, shaking his bell-staff. ‘The foundations will moulder,’ he muttered, invoking the dark magic that welled up all around him so easily now. ‘The stone will break. The bones will snap.’

  Otto joined his brother’s chuckling. He had not slain in earnest since Marienburg, and the blood on his scythe was almost dry. ‘It will be a mercy for them,’ he said. ‘Your medicines! They will splutter on them.’

  Ghurk started to lumber onwards, his cloven hooves sinking deep into the muddy mulch below. He waded across the channel where the river had been, and sank barely up to his shins. All around him, the vanguard of the pestilential host advanced in turn, surging across what should have been a raging torrent. Norscan warriors strode out, swinging their cleavers in armoured fists, followed by the long ranks of disease-addled plague-zombies.

  The trees around them shivered, and strange beasts crept out from the shadows – wolves with swollen bellies and sore-thick jowls, bears with split torsos and glistening ribcages, goat-like horrors with eyeless faces and dribbling withers. The whole of nature had been perverted, and the coming of the Glottkin roused them all from whatever dank pit of misery they had curled into.

  Otto felt a savage joy kindle in his rotten heart. Ethrac’s magicks would do their work soon, and the citadel’s foundations would begin to crack. He could already see the results – poison-vines prising the block apart and freezing it into powder. The air stank with glorious virulence, ushering the numberless hordes up the gorge mouth and towards the high gates.

  ‘Faster, Ghurk-my-brother,’ Otto urged, slapping his brother on his shoulder. ‘We are dallying. Show some speed!’

  Ghurk issued a joyous bark, and started to pick up the pace. His hooves splashed deep as he rolled up the choked riverbed. In his wake, the entire horde did likewise, shambling and surging like some colossal tide of incoming filth. A thousand parched throats croaked out battle-cries, and sonorous war horns boomed a hoarse, echoing dirge.
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  Far ahead, from atop the tallest tower, the trumpets of the Empire issued their counter-challenge. Puffs of white smoke rippled along the parapets, presaging the blackpowder volleys that would soon be cracking and spitting among them.

  Otto cared nothing for that. The seamy air coursed through his lank hair as he held tight onto Ghurk’s yawing body. Soon they would be up among them, breaking skulls.

  There were times when the resistance of mortals genuinely puzzled him. What could be better than indulging in the glorious foulness of the Plaguefather? What could be better than to be blessed with such noxious, bountiful gifts?

  Still, for whatever reason, they failed to grasp the possibilities and held on to their dreary, grey lives surrounded by fear and privation. He could not be too miserable about that – it meant that there were wars to be fought, and so his scythe would always run with glutinous fluids, melting from the body and ready to be slurped down quick.

  He grinned, seeing how quickly Ghurk ate up the ground and brought the doom of Carroburg closer. Ethrac continued to mutter, and inky clouds roiled across the beleaguered fortress, spinning out of the lead-grey sky like bile dropped into spoiled cream.

  ‘Onward, my creatures!’ Otto croaked, waving his scythe wildly and straining to catch the first sight of a terror-whitened mortal face. ‘Climb fast! Drag them down! Suck their marrows and squeeze their eyes!’

  The host answered him with a chorus of eager roars. Like some enormous, unnatural flood breaking in reverse, the host of the Plaguefather surged up the gorge mouth, clambered up the rocky cliffs and swarmed up towards the walls, its eyes already alight with slaughter.

  Leoncoeur stood on the balcony of the old stone tower south of Couronne and gazed out across the assembled throng. The rain hammered down, just as it seemed to do all the time these days, turning the turf below into a quagmire. The eastern horizon grumbled and snapped with thunder, heralding the latest storm to blight the eastern marches. It was just as the Lady had told him – the world was coming apart at the edges, torn like a worn saddlebag.

  He had chosen to make his appeal outside the boundaries of the city. Gilles le Breton had given him leave to make the case for Errantry, but it would have been discourteous to do so within the confines of Couronne. So the tidings had gone out to every keep and knightly hold between the coast and the mountains. Despite the weariness of the long and grinding war, those tidings had been answered handsomely, and knights had ridden through the wild nights to answer the summons.

  That alone gave Leoncoeur some respite from the doubts that had plagued him. He may not have been king any longer, but they still responded to the House of Couronne when it called.

  ‘My brothers!’ he called out, shouting hard to make his voice carry across the crowds. Several hundred faces, many wearing open helms, others with their long hair lank from the rain, looked up at him expectantly. A riot of colours was visible on the collected tabards and tunics – a chequerboard of knightly houses in azure, sable, argent and crimson. Beyond the crowd, squires stood with the horses, enduring the ice-cold rain with grim fortitude.

  ‘Much has changed since I last addressed you,’ said Leoncoeur. ‘The traitor Mallobaude is dead, and the kingdom rests again with its founder. We have seen signs and wonders in the night sky, and the curse of foul magic creeps across our realm. You know in your hearts that this is no ordinary war, such as we have endured for time immemorial. For once, the prophecies of End Times strike at the heart of it. My brothers, the final test is coming.’

  As he spoke, he studied their reactions carefully. Bretonnian knights were hard-bitten warriors, some of the finest and most dangerous cavalry troops in the entire Old World. They were not given to flights of fancy, and took tales of woe and prophecy in their stride.

  ‘Daemons are abroad again, and the servants of the foul gods march south with the storm at their backs. But as the winds of magic stir, other powers rise to contest it. I have seen the Lady, my brothers. She came to me from the waters and told me of the trials to come. This is why I call you here, so that her summons may be answered. I call Errantry, a crusade to strike at the heart of the new darkness.’

  The knights watched him intently. From any other mouth, they might have scoffed at claims to have spoken with the Lady, but they knew Leoncoeur’s past and none raised so much as a sceptical smile. As Leoncoeur spoke, he thought he even detected something like longing in their steady expressions. They had endured so much over the past months, and the prospect of something turning the tide of long, slow defeat spoke to their martial hearts.

  ‘The axe will fall, not here, but on the City of Sigmar,’ Leoncoeur told them. ‘Even now, the enemy burns its way south, turning forests into haunts of ruin. We do not have long. If we muster as quickly as we may, even an unbroken ride across the mountains will scarce bring us there in time.’

  Some scepticism showed on their faces now. The Empire was far away, and far removed from the concerns of Bretonnia. Relations between the two foremost kingdoms of men had ever been distant, riven as they were by both tongue and custom.

  ‘I know what you feel!’ Leoncoeur urged, forcing a smile. ‘You say to yourselves that Altdorf is distant, and has armies of its own, and that the Emperor did not send his own troops to aid us when we were staring devastation in the face. All these things are true. If you refused this summons then no Bretonnian would blame you. None of your ladies would scorn you, and your people would not whisper of your honour in the shadows of their hovels.’

  Leoncoeur leaned out, clutching the railing of the stone balcony.

  ‘But consider this! The fire is coming. The war that will end all wars is breaking around us, and no realm on earth will be free of it. The anvil, the heart of it, is Altdorf. Here will the fates of men be decided, and here will the trials of the gods play out. Would you miss that contest? Would you wish to tell your children, if any future generation still lives in years to come, that the flower of Bretonnia was given the chance to intervene, and turned aside?’

  The crowd began to murmur. Leoncoeur knew what stirred their hearts, and what kindled their ever-present sense of honour.

  ‘There is glory to be had here!’ he thundered, striking the railing with his gauntlet. ‘When we swore our vows, we swore to guard the weak and cast down the tyrant. We swore to ride out against any creature of darkness that threatened our hearth and home, and to take the vengeance of the Lady to every last one of them.’

  Shouts of agreement now, and a low murmur of assent. Their spirits were roused.

  ‘In these times, every realm stands as our hearth, and the whole world is our home!’ roared Leoncoeur. ‘The corrupted will make no distinction between them and us. If Altdorf falls, who can doubt that Couronne will be next? When we shed blood on the Reik, we shed it for Bretonnia; when we shield the Empire from the storm, we shield the vales and towers of Quenelles and Bordeleaux!’

  ‘Leoncoeur!’ someone cried out, and the chant was taken up. Leoncoeur! Leoncoeur!

  ‘I can promise you nothing but hardship!’ Leoncoeur went on. ‘We may not return from this adventure, for I have seen the hosts of the north, and they are vast beyond imagination. But which of us has ever shied from the fear of death? Which of us has ever shown cowardice in battle, or refused a duel against the mightiest of foes? If we are to die, then let it be where the storm breaks! If our souls are forfeit, then let it be fighting in the last battle of the Old World, where our sacrifice shall echo down the ages! And when the tally of years is complete and the reckoning made for all nations, let no man say that when the call came, Bretonnia failed to answer!’

  They were roaring now, drawing swords and crying out for vengeance. Leoncoeur felt savage joy rise up within his gorge.

  They are still my people, he thought. And I am still their master.

  ‘For the Lady!’ he cried, raising both arms high in defiance of the tempest that raged about the tower.

  The knights before him replied without hesitation, shou
ting out their fealty in a single massed roar.

  The Lady!

  Leoncoeur relaxed at last then, knowing the first task was over. Errantry had been called, and the heavy cavalry that made Bretonnia feared throughout the world had been unleashed. The road ahead would be dark, but at least the path was set.

  The Lady had spoken. Her crusade had begun.

  The vampire army travelled fastest by night. Only the weakest of Vlad’s servants suffered under the glare of the sun, but as the skies were relentlessly overcast and dark with rain even they were able to make some progress. In any case, the forest around them had burst into incredible growth, and the trees snaked and throttled one another in an orgy of tumescence.

  Vlad rode at the head of his skeletal vanguard, looking about with distaste at the corruption of his land. Creepers twisted across the road, all bearing virulent fruits that burst with acid when trodden down. The soil itself seethed with fungi and clinging mosses, all striving with perverted fecundity to assert themselves against the foul growths around them.

  This was life in all its disgusting, liquid excess. Even as a mortal man he would have found such violent displays of fertility alarming. As a lord of undeath, committed to the austere night-world of his Master, it was almost more than he could bear to endure it.

  If he chose, he could have halted the army and summoned his necromancers and lesser vampire lords. They could have shrivelled the growths and bleached the fruits white. If they committed themselves for long enough, they could have parched the land from the Stir to the mountains, draining it of the noxious mucus that leaked from every suppurating pore and returning it to the barren waste it deserved to be.

  But there was no time, and his energies needed to be husbanded for the trials ahead, so he grudgingly suffered his homeland to be overrun.

  Not forever, he thought darkly, running his ancient eyes over the tangle of vines. The cold fire will come, once all is accomplished.