The End Times | The Fall of Altdorf Page 20

  The display of collected power was comforting. It would have looked better with Schwarzhelm there, or Huss, or Volkmar or Gelt, but it was still a daunting panoply. As the doors slammed closed behind Helborg, all head were lowered in deference.

  ‘So, the enemy has been sighted,’ said Helborg, standing before them and fixing each in turn with his gaze. ‘We know now that they are three: an army to the north that still marches; an army to the east that is almost upon us, and the largest host of all, fresh from the sack of Marienburg and within sight of the walls. They will wait until Morrslieb is full, or so the arch-lectors tell me.’

  Fleischer bowed. The head of the Celestial College nodded in agreement – they all knew the power of the witching-night.

  ‘They outnumber us many times over,’ Helborg went on, his harsh voice echoing strangely in the huge chamber. ‘They bring foul creatures from the wilds on the edge of the world, and think to break us as easily as they broke Marienburg and – so we fear – Talabheim.’ He smiled wolfishly. ‘But they have not reckoned on the soul of this place. It is Sigmar’s city. It is our city.’

  Gausser grunted approvingly. All the true fighters – the grand masters, the Reiksguard – appreciated words like this. They had spent their lives going into battle, often against horrific odds, and only needed to know that their liege was with them; that he suffered alongside them, and that, in the final test, he would stand in the mud and blood with blade in hand.

  ‘This is the heart of the Empire,’ growled Helborg, gesturing to the golden pilasters and columns surrounding the empty altar. ‘This is where the seat of power has always been, where the Emperors rule, where the Law was set down and where the source of our greatness was first delved. While Altdorf lives, the Empire lives. As fortune’s wheel turns, it is we who have been charged with the sacred task of keeping it secure for the next thousand years.’

  As he spoke, Helborg could see doubt in the eyes of those he addressed. If even half the scouts’ reports were accurate, than the enemy was almost ludicrously vast – a host greater even than the swollen armies of Kul.

  Let them doubt. What mattered was whether they stood up or fell to their knees, and there had never been a day of Helborg’s life when he had not faced his enemy on his feet.

  ‘Even as I speak, our troops are reaching their stations,’ he said. ‘They will remain firm so long as we remain firm. They will look to us, the masters of men, to lead the defence and show just what stuff the Empire is made of. They will not be afraid if we do not feel fear. They will not retreat if we hold fast, and they will not contemplate defeat if we do not let it enter our minds. So I say to you all this day: stand firm in Sigmar’s image! As night falls and the terror grows, stand firm in Sigmar’s image. As they bring fire from the firmament and summon horror from beyond the grave, stand firm in Sigmar’s image. He has not abandoned us, for He is a god of battle. Wish not for a world in which there is no strife or bloodshed, for that would be a pale reflection of the world of glory we have been given to dwell in.’

  He grinned, feeling the seductive mania return, and his wounds broke open on his cheek. ‘And this will be the most glorious of days! Men will sing in after-ages of the heroes of Altdorf, and will curse their fortune not to have witnessed the deeds that will be done here. They will look up at the white towers of this city, standing prouder than they do today, and marvel at their eternal strength, just as they curse the darkness that thought to bring them low.’

  Helborg drew his sword. ‘You know what this is!’ he said, brandishing the blade before them. ‘This is the Sword of Vengeance, the Klingerach, and it has drunk the blood of the faithless across every province in the realm. I have driven you hard, and I know the burden has been heavy, but now the Sword of Vengeance marches to war, and you will march with it.’

  He lifted the sacred runefang towards the empty altar. Ghal Maraz may have been missing, but his own weapon was ancient enough to honour the sacred space.

  ‘And so, on this day, when the fates converge on Altdorf and we become the fulcrum of the war to end all wars, I pledge this,’ he swore, feeling the lines of blood trickle down his neck. ‘I will take no backward step. I will not retreat, I will not cower, I will not relent. I will fight. I will fight for this place with every breath and with every drop of blood in my body. And if the world is to end and if all is to be cast in the fire, then I will die in the service of the Empire as I have lived, as a warrior.’

  He raised the sword high.

  ‘For the Empire!’ he roared.

  As one, the assembled warriors raised their own weapons towards the altar.

  The Empire! they cried in unison, and the massed voices soared into the dome above, echoing in fractured harmony. The Empire! For Karl Franz!

  Helborg looked at them all, his blood pumping. They were as ready as they would ever be, each of them filled with the zeal of combat. This was what made the Empire great – that, for all its folly and corruption, when the storm broke they had never refused the challenge.

  ‘Now then,’ he snarled, feeling the dark swell of battle-lust throbbing through him. ‘The time for words and prayers is over. Take your positions, and may Sigmar guide your blades.’

  FIFTEEN

  More orcs came over the mountains after the first gang, jogging in loose bands, their maws drooling and their eyes rimmed with madness and fatigue. Every time they were dispatched, another herd would follow, not in huge numbers, but enough to slow the Bretonnians further.

  The knights rode in full battle-gear all the time, keeping lances to hand and changing horses often. Snow began to fall, dusting the bare rock with a grey slush that made the horses’ hooves skid and slip, and they lost more precious steeds and men during the vicious, short-lived brawls.

  ‘They just run onto our blades,’ Jhared remarked. ‘It is as if...’

  They no longer wish to live. Leoncoeur could have finished the sentence for him. That, beyond all he had seen since the rise of Mallobaude, filled his heart with foreboding. An orc was a crucible of nature’s wrath, a furious avatar of martial excess. They lived to fight, to scrap, to roar out their feral abandon into the world as they tore it apart. An orc feared nothing.

  And yet now they were broken. Just as Jhared said, they stumbled blindly into combat, going through the motions in a kind of dumb rehearsal of their old terrible glory. For the first time in his life, Leoncoeur took no pleasure in slaying them. It began to seem... cruel.

  The series of skirmishes slowed their passage through Axebite Pass, but did not halt it. Leoncoeur gave the column no respite, and they trudged on through the swirling, snow-laced squalls. Peasants who succumbed to the grinding cold were left where they fell, and the baggage train became steadily more and more undermanned. Soon they would have scarce enough hands to keep the carts rolling and the teams of warhorses guarded, but the pace never slackened.

  Eventually, they cleared the worst of the bitter high path, and the road began to snake downhill again. The vast peaks of the Grey Mountains still rose impossibly high above them, their distant heads blocked by thick cloud, but the hardest portion of the traverse was over. The knights began to pick their way down the gravelly paths of scree and boulders, going carefully lest more horses go lame.

  The purity of the high airs soon collapsed once more into the thick filth they had breathed in Bretonnia, except it was far, far worse on the northern side of the range. On the second day of the descent, the vanguard rounded a tight bend in a narrow gorge, and beheld for the first time the land beyond the mountains.

  Barring their path a few dozen yards away was a thick snarl of tangled briars. Beyond that lay a seething glut of vines and throttle-weeds, all gently moving as if propelled by intelligences of their own. Trees studded the congested road, looking like they had sprouted from the living rock just moments ago, their gnarled roots frozen onto the cracked stone and their crowns gasping for air and light.

  From his vantage at the head of the column, Leoncoeur coul
d see that the thick undergrowth extended for miles. It ran away from them, close-bound and endless. To their right reared the old fortress of Helmgart, once a mighty citadel, but now abandoned to the clutching vines, its walls crumbled and its keep hollow. It looked like it had been empty for weeks.

  Leoncoeur sensed the dismay from the warriors around him. The way was blocked, and it would take days to hack through just a tithe of it. The pegasi would soar above it all, of course, but they were merely the spear-tip of his force.

  Leoncoeur whispered an order and his horse walked on, approaching the first clumps of moss that marred the stony path. As the rank wall of growths neared, he smelled the over-sweet stench of fermenting fruit.

  This is the spawn of corruption, he mused, watching the polyps flex and swell under his mount’s hooves. If it comes from magic, it can be dispelled with magic.

  To the left of the path, an ice-white cataract plunged down the mountainside, swollen from the storms in the peaks above. It remained pure when all around it was foetid. Leoncoeur halted before it, remembering the words of the Lady.

  Look for me in pure waters.

  The white river ran on ahead of him, foaming in its narrow course and throwing up a fine spray. Far ahead, it plunged under the shadows of the trees, hissing as if angered by the contagions around it.

  Leoncoeur drew his blade, stained from greenskin blood, and held it high.

  ‘By the Lady we march!’ he cried. ‘And by Her grace will all taint be cleansed from the world!’

  His warriors remained at a distance, unsure. They had been sorely tested by the passage of the pass, and Leoncoeur was not so deaf that he had not heard the mutterings of discontent. They had been promised glorious battle, not an endless slog through poison-vines.

  They would need to be reminded just who they served.

  Leoncoeur pointed his sword towards the river, holding the tip just above the gurgling surface. ‘They have not removed you from the waters just yet, my queen,’ he murmured. ‘I can sense your power here, just as it was in Couronne. Their faith wavers. I beseech you, humbly, restore it.’

  Nothing happened. The rain started up again, drizzling down from the grey sky and making the standards heavy. The thick filigree of branches and vines seemed to tighten, drawing across the path ahead in a heavy wall of interlocking boughs.

  Leoncoeur held his weapon in place, and closed his eyes. What do you demand of me, Lady? I have already pledged everything. What is there left?

  He saw her then, in his mind, just as she had been in Bretonnia. If anything, her slender face seemed even more careworn.

  Everything, my champion? she whispered back. You have barely been tested.

  That hurt. He had lost a kingdom, and forfeited any chance of taking it back by following her command. He had already lost more than most men would ever have to give away.

  The way is barred, he said.

  All ways are barred, she breathed, her voice little louder than a child’s whisper. Are you sure you wish me to unlock it? If this road is made straight, you will never return along it.

  Leoncoeur stiffened. She had already warned him of this. What did she expect – that he would forget his vow?

  Do you wish me to live?

  That startled her. She looked at him, a sudden desire playing in her immortal eyes. Of course, beloved, she insisted. I desire that of all things. Turn aside, and I will preserve you for as long as my power lasts. When you die, my heart will break.

  Leoncoeur nearly opened his eyes. For a moment, he saw a future unravelling before him – the two of them, mortal man and wife, riding out across a wide grassland, the sun rising swiftly in a dew-fresh dawn. He saw her face turn to his and smile, the care wiped from it. She reached out, and their hands touched.

  The vision made his heart ache. It had been forbidden even to countenance such a thing, and here she was, showing it to him.

  He looked down, still locked in the dream-image. His steed’s hooves trod in the damp earth. In the marks of the hooves, tiny worms wriggled. They were white and blind, and their mouths were ringed with fangs.

  There would be no escape, he told her, letting go of her hand. It would pursue us to the ends of the earth. You know this.

  The Lady nodded, smiling sadly. And now you do, too. So ask me again, my champion. You wish me to give you a path to Altdorf?

  He did not. He wished for nothing but the vision, even in its falsity and its deception. He wished only for a scrap of time alone with her, just as he had always dreamed of, even if it meant an eternity of damnation thereafter.

  But wishes were for peasants, and he was a knight of the realm.

  If it lies within your power, Lady, he breathed, make the road straight.

  She bowed, her expression a mix of sorrow and satisfaction, and the vision ebbed away. Leoncoeur opened his eyes again.

  Nothing had changed. His warriors gave no sign of impatience – however long the exchange had seemed to him, it had clearly been no time for them.

  He straightened in his saddle, and turned to the foul morass ahead.

  ‘Your reach does not yet compass the world,’ he announced, gazing out at it with his fierce, blue-eyed glare. ‘While we may yet contest you, we will.’

  His words rang out, echoing strangely on the air. The vines shivered, and straggling roots withdrew. The entire forest seemed to falter, as if stirred by a sudden gust of wind.

  Leoncoeur smiled coldly. He could feel the divine power now, warm against his flesh like summer sun. She was weakened, to be sure, but not yet destroyed.

  ‘Rise,’ he commanded, raising his blade and pointing it ahead.

  The waters began to surge, let loose like a dam breaking. The river burst its banks, welling up and flooding the path ahead. Leoncoeur backed up, never letting his blade waver, as the road ahead dissolved into foaming silt.

  The trees immediately shrank back, and a thin hissing broke out from among the branches. The waters kept on rising, boiling up out of the ground in defiance of all natural law. Fresh springs burst through the open rock, gushing in plumes of white before crashing to the ground again and sluicing down the slope.

  Leoncoeur backed up further, watching with some satisfaction as the river’s banks crumbled away, unable to accommodate the roaring torrent that now coursed through it. Boulders were dislodged, rolling along with the flow and crashing into the twisted trunks ahead. The roar of the waters mingled with the snap and crack of wood breaking.

  Where the Lady’s water-magic hit the sorcerous forest, great gouts of smoke leapt into the sky, fizzing and spitting with emerald aethyr-energies. The raging river seemed to carve straight through whatever it touched, burning the foul woods away as if acid had been poured onto them. A stench like burning flesh rose up, harsh and acrid.

  ‘Stand firm!’ commanded Leoncoeur, working to keep his steed from panicking. The waters frothed and swirled around its hooves, causing no more harm to it than a non-magical river. Ahead of them, the torrent gouged deeper, cutting a path through the woodland and leaving ragged wound-edges on either side. The up-swell of water kept on rising, roiling and churning out from the fractured earth. The forest was ripped open, its roots torn up and its tight-wound growths carried away. As the waters smashed onwards, tearing ever deeper into the country beyond, the sound of a woman’s laughter could be heard over the thunder, faint but unmistakable.

  Soon the sounds faded away, heading north as the magically roused river cut its way onward. An empty road stood in its wake, dripping and sodden, overlooked on either side by the surviving trees. The path was like a tunnel, overhung and hemmed in on all sides. The Lady’s power had only been sufficient to rid the river’s path of its filth, and the clear route extended no further than the road’s edge.

  Leoncoeur looked into the shadows, his heart thumping. Witnessing the extreme release of such magic had been a mixed experience for him. On the one hand, being in close proximity to the divine strength of his lifelong queen was what gave
him the reason for living. On the other, he was under no illusions that this march would be his last. The brief, snatched vision of another life had made the choice even crueller, though he knew the purpose of it.

  She had to be sure. Even the slenderest chance that he would turn aside had to be discounted. He did not resent her testing him, for his whole life had been a test, and the knowledge that he had passed it made up for some of the grief.

  Not all of it, though. It would take him a long time to forget the vision.

  ‘You have been shown the way,’ he announced, lowering his blade at last and sheathing it. His horse stamped in the waters. Ahead of them, the river level gradually subsided as the tide-face worked its way further north. ‘Now we begin the final march. Ride on, for Bretonnia and the Lady.’

  The warriors about him saluted piously, and began to move. One by one, trooping in file, the knights of Bretonnia passed under the shadow of the plague-wood, and trod the last road to Altdorf.

  The host of the undead grew ever larger, feeding from the slain of the battles and pulling corpses out of the ground every passing hour.

  It was all so familiar. Vlad remembered doing the same thing just the previous year – gathering the lost souls to himself, giving them purpose, making them far greater than they ever had been in their first life.

  Then he smiled to himself, embarrassed by the false recollection. It had not been last year – it had been over a thousand years ago, and everything in the world had changed. It was so easy to forget how long he had been away. His old enemies – Kruger of the Order of the White Wolf, Wilhelm the Theogonist – had been dead so long that no mortals outside the dusty archives still remembered their names. And yet, to him, it felt like mere months ago. He could still see the walls of Altdorf reeling before him, ripe for destruction. He could taste the blackpowder on the air, and feel the pressure of Isabella’s hand in his as they jointly planned the final assault.