The End Times | The Fall of Altdorf Read online

  Ladders were cast down, smashing amongst the seething masses below. The zombies moved too slowly to evade the blades of determined defenders, who fought with the ferocity of men who knew their lives were forfeit if they faltered. Some of those who had fled at the first sign of the undead recovered their spirits and returned, shamefaced, to the fray, shuddering with fear but still able to clutch a weapon in their clammy hands.

  Combat raged on the wall-tops for over two hours, with neither side able to land the killer strike. The fires continued to crackle, the hymns rang out, but the undead could not be shaken from their grip, and just kept on coming.

  If any Imperial chronicler had been present on that night to witness the battle of Wurtbad, he would have noted, perhaps with some grim pride, that the end did not come from outside. Freed from the need to guard their backs, the defenders of Wurtbad might have held out through the darkness, perhaps using the dawn to clear their besieged walls and restore a solid line of defence. But just as the undead attack began to lose momentum, a fell prince in blood-red armour rose up in his saddle, standing high above the town on a rise north of the river. He raised a lone, clawed hand, holding it palm-upward, and cried out words in a language of the distant hot sands. Those words somehow cut through the clamour of fighting, piercing the soul of every mortal and sending the undead advancing with renewed energy. A ring blazed from his withered finger, sending coils of smoke churning out into the night.

  For a few moments, nothing else happened. The deadly struggle continued, and the battle-cries kept coming. Wolff even managed to clear the enemy from the summit of the southern gatehouse, felling a vargheist with a savage blow from his hammer before launching himself at the lesser troops.

  But then the earth began to boil. Sodden soils shifted, churning like molten oil. A wild snap rang out across the city, and the air buckled with actinic lightning.

  The first hand shot up from the ground, withered and pale. Then another, then a dozen more. Corpses pulled themselves free from their graves, hauling their etiolated bodies out of the mire. The tottering cadavers swayed for a moment, then set off, shuffling blearily towards the noise of combat.

  The people of Wurtbad had not been foolish – they had always buried their dead outside the city walls, facing down and with the marks of Morr set over their graves. But now the Law of Death had been breached, and those many hundreds who had died on the site of the town before Wurtbad had been established as an outpost of Sigmar’s Empire suddenly shifted in their cold slumber. With a shiver and a sigh, they came scratching and scrabbling back into animation. Arcane armour of lost ages and blades long-rusted into stabbing stumps cracked up through the topsoil, followed by creaking bodies slaved to a new master.

  It took a while for the new arrivals to be noticed. Intent on keeping the walls free of attackers, the troops of Wurtbad resolutely devoted their attentions to the host at their gates. By the time the screaming from the heart of the town could no longer be ignored, it was too late.

  Hundreds of living dead had been wrenched from their ancient graves, and they thronged in Wurtbad’s alleys and backstreets, twittering and hissing. With blank, rotting faces, they dragged themselves towards the living, their only desire now to drink the hot, dark liquor of mortal blood. They crept out of the town’s central courtyards and fanned out through the crooked streets, feasting on any unfortunates they were able to overwhelm. Even the river-rats, which had clustered in Wurtbad’s river-front, ran before them, streaming out towards the outer walls in a rippling wave of panicked grey.

  Wolff was the first to notice the tumult. Dispatching a final skeleton into a clattering pile of bones, he plunged down from his position over the gates, leading a charge against the growing crowds of living dead within the town’s perimeter. Others joined him, and the fragile bodies of the newly-raised were soon being cracked and smashed apart.

  That left the walls depleted, though, just as the shot for the gunners began to run low and the fires lost their vigour. The hordes outside sensed the presence of their kin on the inside, and the assault redoubled in ferocity. The real killers among the skeletal army took their chance, and armour-clad warriors wearing tattered cloaks and ornate liveries of forgotten, cruel ages pushed up the siege ladders and on to the parapets.

  Dark magic raced across the night, reaching a crescendo in tandem with the greater mass of human screaming. The fires began to die one by one, doused and chilled by the advancing dead, and shadows welled and pooled more thickly, plunging Wurtbad into a slick of oily darkness.

  The battle-hymns rang out right until the end, growing fainter as more and more defenders were cut down. Those mortals who were slain did not rest easily, but soon got up again, this time taking the fight to their erstwhile comrades, and so the advance of the undead grew ever stronger as the will of men was eroded.

  Bohr was eventually killed after his position at the northern gate was overrun by ghouls. He died shouting in outraged defiance even as icy fingers were plunged into his thick chest and his heart was ripped out. With the death of the burgomeister, the last organised defence of the northern walls collapsed, and those who could ran for whatever temporary refuge they could find.

  Knowing the futility of flight, and knowing too that hope had gone, Wolff was the last one standing. He cut his way back to his temple, gathering a few dozen of the stoutest defenders around him as he went. They made a stand before the dome of the Sigmarite chapel, overlooked by granite statues of griffons and with the final bonfires guttering about them.

  Waves of undead swept towards them, chattering excitedly as they sensed the prospect of drinking the blood of the valiant, but all were repelled. Wolff’s band held the outer precinct against them all, hacking and smashing with desperate strokes until the ground at their feet was knee-deep in broken bones and parchment-dry flesh.

  One by one, though, fatigue and ill-chance took their toll. The relentless numbers could not be defied forever, and in the end Wolff stood alone, his throat raw from war cries and his hammer as heavy as lead in his bloodied fists.

  Just as the vanguard of the undead host was poised to launch a final push, though, a chill voice rang out. The undead fell back instantly, shuffling into the shadows and clearing a space before the temple gates.

  Wolff stood under the lintel, his forehead sheened with sweat, breathing heavily. Between the parted crowds of lesser warriors, the Master of the Host strode out, his black robes rustling in the wind. Ice-white hair rippled about his shoulders, part-obscuring the scarred and cracked mask of his skin. The ring he had used to raise Wurtbad’s dead still smouldered on his finger.

  The warrior priest did not flinch. His eyes fixed on the vampire lord’s, and never moved. He murmured battle-curses in an endless litany, and prepared to lift his hammer once more. He knew he was overmatched, but he could at least die on his feet, taking the fight to the enemy just as his immortal patron demanded.

  Then Vlad von Carstein spoke.

  ‘You, too may serve,’ said the vampire, coming to a halt before the priest and folding his arms. He made no attempt to defend himself, even though he was in range of the warhammer’s strike. ‘This is why we do this. You are too good to be sacrificed to gods who appreciate nothing but mania.’

  Wolff’s lip pulled back in contempt. ‘Your kind has come this way before,’ he snarled. ‘You were always turned back. You will be again.’

  ‘By whom?’ Vlad sighed. ‘There is nothing left. Look around you – you can see what ruins remain.’

  ‘From ruins come glory. From the darkness comes light.’

  Vlad smiled thinly. ‘Come, you have fought enough. I always offer the valiant a place at my side – take the offer, priest. You can still fight against the greater darkness.’

  ‘At your side?’ Wolff laughed. ‘You know so little that you would even ask?’ He spat at the vampire, and the spittle landed on the crimson armour, sliding across its lacquered surface. ‘You have come amongst men, abomination. You may crush u
s for a time, you may tread across our broken bodies and burn our temples and strong places, but we will always come back at you. If I were given a thousand lifetimes, I would choose the same path every time – to smite you with the holy fire of my calling.’ He smiled with contempt. ‘And you came too close.’

  He swung his warhammer. It was a fine strike, one that Huss himself would have been proud of – fast, hard, well-aimed. The hammer-head flew out, angled at the vampire’s neck.

  At the same time, a single shot pierced the night, just as well-aimed. It struck Wolff clean in the forehead, penetrating the bone and punching a clean, round hole through his skull. The warhammer clanged to the ground, and the warrior priest tumbled backward, collapsing under the lintel of his own temple before coming to rest amid the shattered bones of his victims.

  Vlad looked down at the corpse thoughtfully. The man’s zeal had been striking. Had he himself been capable of such fervour, once? Of course he had, but it was hard to remember just how it felt.

  Herrscher emerged into the light, his pistol still smoking. The witch hunter had a tortured look on his face.

  ‘There,’ said Vlad, turning away from Wolff to look at him. ‘That was not so hard.’

  ‘I could not let you be harmed,’ said Herrscher, his voice shaking. ‘I killed... my own.’

  ‘He is not your own,’ said Vlad, impatiently. ‘Look around you. We are yours, you are ours. You have killed for us, and we will kill for you.’

  Herrscher looked like he wanted to vomit, though his body was no longer capable of it. Before he could reply, the sound of overlapping laughter wafted across the temple courtyard.

  Liliet and her sisters had climbed on to the dome of the temple. Their gowns were streaked with blood, and it dripped from their long fingernails like tears.

  ‘Rejoice!’ they chorused. ‘A thousand new blades for the army of the night-born! A thousand more to come before dawn-fall!’

  All across Wurtbad, those of Vlad’s army with the self-command to respond lifted their parched voices in victory-cries.

  Vlad laid a gauntlet on Herrscher’s shoulder. ‘The Empire trains its hunters well – that was a good shot.’ Then he turned on his heels, his cloak swirling about him, and strode away from the temple, back towards the river-front where the empty barges had been tethered, ready for the passage of the Reik. ‘Do not dwell on it. The night is still dark, and we have work to do. By the dawn, our new servants must be on the move.’

  Martak’s fury took a long time to ebb. He had stormed up to his barely used chambers in the Imperial Palace and smashed a few things up in there. He gave a glimmering simulacrum of Helborg’s gaunt face to every item he hurled across the room before it smashed into the wall.

  No one dared interrupt him. By then, every servant in the Palace had all heard tales of the half-feral Supreme Patriarch, and kept their distance. Gelt had been capable of rages, but at least he was vaguely understandable. Martak, deprived of even that measure of respect, took a grim satisfaction in causing fear instead.

  Let them fear me, he snarled to himself. They deserve what is to come.

  He did not mean that. No one deserved the horrors that lay ahead, not even the stiff-necked Reiksmarshal, and certainly not the flunkeys who struggled to do his impossible bidding.

  By the time he had calmed down, his personal chamber was a mass of ripped parchment and broken crockery, and he was a sweaty, panting mess.

  Martak cracked his knuckles, stomped over to the chamber’s narrow window and pushed the lead catch open. The window faced east, giving a view out over the great mass of the city.

  He took a deep breath. The stench was becoming unbearable, even at such a height. He thought again of Margrit – sensible, dutiful Margrit. He had promised her that something would be done. Every hour that the Rot was allowed to swell and grow was another hour for the temple’s supplies to run down and the energies of the sisters to ebb a little further.

  He propped his elbows on the sill and rested his chin gloomily on locked hands. Far below, the Reik was the colour of spoiled spinach and barely flowed at all. He could make out the sullen blooms of algae lurking just under the surface, and could smell the acrid stink of its steady fermentation.

  He had made a mess of his short time as Patriarch. Helborg was making a mess of the city defences, and the electors were making a mess of assisting him. They were like children caught by the glare of a predator, frozen and witless, unable to do more than bicker in the face of oncoming disaster.

  It is the city.

  The realisation came to him so suddenly and so easily that he immediately wondered how he had not seen it before.

  It is the poison.

  Martak was a creature of the wilds, of the windswept tracts of unbroken forest. He had been known to spend months in the wilderness, kept alive by his arts and native cunning, eschewing all comforts and embracing the idiosyncratic path of his college’s disciplines.

  I have allowed them to cage me. This is their world, not mine, and they have made me useless in it.

  He was a sham Patriarch in a sham Empire, playing out his role in dumb-show as the world unravelled around them. He could not command men, and had no desire to. Helborg had been right about one thing: this was his city, not Martak’s.

  He stood up again, and shuffled over to the writing desk he had just half-smashed. After a few moments scrabbling around, he found a scrap of intact parchment and a near-empty jar of ink. He pulled a quill from under a disarranged collection of broken-spined tomes, and started to write. Once he had finished, he folded the parchment and sealed it, stowing the letter in his grimy robes.

  Then he moved over to Gelt’s old Globe of Transmigratory Vocalisation within a Localised Aethyric Vicinity – a bronze-bound sphere set atop an iron web of intricately-woven threads. It was a meagre device for one of such talents, but it had its uses.

  Picking it up and setting it before him on the floor, Martak placed both palms on the cool surface of the sphere. Something like clockwork clicked inside it, and he felt the tremble of moving parts. Previously hidden runes glowed into life on the bronze, welling softly with a sudden heat.

  Martak concentrated. This was Gelt’s toy, and he still was not sure he had mastered it properly.

  ‘Search her out,’ he whispered gruffly, imposing his will on the machine’s. ‘The soul of Sister Margrit.’

  It resisted him. The device knew its gold-masked master, and resented being used roughly by a stranger. In the end, though, Martak’s presence prevailed, and the Globe performed its function. The air above it trembled, warmed, then parted, revealing a blurred and translucent image of Margrit’s garden. The priestess herself was standing with her back to the Globe’s view. As soon as Martak laid eyes on her, she stiffened, turned, and made a warding gesture.

  ‘Be at ease, sister,’ said Martak, knowing that he would appear to her as nothing more than a ghost, hanging above the herb-garden like a puff of steam in summer.

  ‘Patriarch,’ said Margrit, her voice muffled and distorted. She looked at him through the Globe’s portal, peering as if into murky water. ‘Could you not come in person?’

  ‘I am leaving the city,’ said Martak. A soon as he saw her face fall, he regretted his clumsy way with words.

  ‘All is lost, then,’ she said.

  ‘No, you were right – the Emperor is master. While he remains lost, we cannot stand. I go to find him.’

  Margrit’s expression brightened into an almost childlike hope. ‘You know where he is?’

  ‘He is coming, sister. The stars foretell it, and the elements gather to witness it.’ Martak had no idea whether this was true. All he had to go on were his dreams, which had been getting more vivid with every sleepless night. He had dismissed them for too long, and knew now that he should have listened to the whispered voices much earlier. ‘It will not be easy, but yours will be the harder road. I can give you no promise the Reiksmarshal will act. I would stay, if I could, but...’ He struggl
ed for the words. ‘This is not my place.’

  Margrit nodded, accepting what he told her. ‘Then you can give me no sign.’

  Martak racked his mind for something that would appeal to her. ‘When the hour is darkest,’ he said, hoping he sounded vaguely plausible, ‘look to the heavens above the Imperial Palace. Look for the sign of Sigmar reborn.’ It was poor stuff, this deception and fakery, but it was all he had. ‘In advance of that, endure, sister. Endure for as long as you are able.’

  Margrit looked satisfied, and Martak found himself marvelling once again at her quiet resolve. Given the tiniest sliver of hope, she would hold fast to her station until the very ending of the world. If the Empire deserved any kind of salvation, it was for the ones like her – the faithful, the decent, the selfless.

  ‘Do not be long gone, Patriarch,’ Margrit said. ‘I liked the colleges better with a wolf at the helm.’

  Martak laughed, and bowed at the compliment. He would have been happy betting that Gelt had never walked the streets in the shadow of the temple. ‘Go with Shallya, sister,’ he said, and lifted his hands from the Globe. Margrit’s image rippled into nothing, and the runes on the sphere faded back to blank bronze.

  Back in the realm of the senses, Martak looked about him. His chamber looked as if an animal had got in and destroyed everything in its frantic efforts to escape again. Perhaps that was not so far from the truth.

  He walked over to the heavy oak door and pulled it open. The corridor outside was empty, and he had to walk through two more antechambers before he found an official. The servant, wearing a crimson tunic marked with the sign of the griffon, looked startled to see the Supreme Patriarch back on the prowl.

  ‘My lord?’ he asked, shrinking from Martak’s malodorous presence.