WH-Warhammer Online-Age of Reckoning 02(R)-Dark Storm Gathering Page 5

  They had once been villagers, no doubt. Good men and women of the Empire, tilling the earth and keeping the ever-present tide of the forest penned back. Now they were ruined creatures of feral madness and affliction, the worst of the many consequences of the terrible Chaos-inspired plague. Annika looked at them with something akin to pity. Mutation was always something to be stamped out and purged, but these people had done nothing to deserve their fate. There were not enough pyres in the whole Empire for the bodies that needed to be burned.

  ‘Where are they going?’ she whispered, watching the shambling figures stagger and drag themselves vaguely northwards. ‘This group have more purpose about them than usual. A plan, even?’

  Dieter narrowed his eyes.

  ‘They are drawn towards the heart of the contagion. Chaos has spawned them. Now they travel to meet the authors of their fate.’

  Annika frowned.

  ‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘If so, they’ll find no welcome there.’

  The witch hunter looked up, over the heads of the distant figures. The morning sky was chill and grey. The blankets of high cloud shifted uneasily in the incessant wind, as if the airs of heaven were troubled and tormented. The ice-cold breeze pried into every nook and gap in her clothing, and she shivered a little.

  ‘If our journey were not so important, I’d deliver these wretches from their torment,’ she said. ‘But there are too many, and time is short.’

  Dieter looked at the shuffling mutants with a disappointed expression. She knew that to him they were an abomination for which the only palliative was the liberal employment of steel and fire. If Dieter had a flaw, she thought, it was a certain unwillingness to see the larger picture.

  ‘I agree,’ he said in a grudging voice. ‘Grauenburg’s lands are close now. The sickness seems to have hit these lands hard. More reason to suspect he has turned. Your judgement on the matter is surely confirmed.’

  Annika smiled to herself. Dieter’s support was appreciated. Once he decided on a course of action, he stuck to it, and his faith in her was touching.

  The two of them had been scouting out the hinterlands of Lord Grauenburg’s lands for days. There had been too many reports of plague outbreaks to ignore. If she had had her way, an entire company of Templars would have been dispatched, with her at its head, to root out the heresy she was sure lurked here. If Annika’s career had taught her anything, it was that you could never be too careful. But now the war had come, and even the witch hunters were thinly stretched. It had taken much persuasion for Volkmar to let her investigate Grauenburg’s estates on her own. A single knight was a meagre escort for one of her rank, and Annika was more used to an entire retinue. What was worse, Dieter was a member of the obscure Myrmidia-worshipping Knights of the Blazing Sun, a cult whose activities she had always been faintly suspicious of. Though they were among the mightiest of the Emperor’s servants, and their fame had spread from Nordland to Araby, their allegiance to a strange goddess of the south made them an unusual choice for a witch hunter’s bodyguard. Still, Dieter’s martial prowess and dedication were hardly in doubt, as his blood-stained sword and notched armour attested.

  ‘There’s definitely something up here,’ Annika said, wrinkling her nose at the unusually acrid smell of the rotting leaf matter around them. ‘The land itself seems strangely… wronged. But we need more proof before we can move against Grauenburg. He’s powerful, and you can’t accuse an Imperial lord without being completely sure.’

  She shuffled forwards a little, trying to see if the mutants had passed out of their way and back into the trees.

  ‘I think they’ve moved on,’ she breathed, looking carefully ahead. ‘We should…’

  Before she could finish, an gurgling cry of anger and pain filled the air. It was met with similar cries from every direction. The voices might once have been human, but they were now merely twisted mockeries, more like the calls of beasts. Annika felt a sudden cold stab of foreboding. She raised her pistol with her right hand and drew a hunting knife from its scabbard with her left.

  ‘They’ve sensed us,’ she hissed.

  ‘So they have,’ said Dieter softly without the slightest trace of emotion in his voice. ‘And I think hiding here will do us no good.’

  He gestured forward, and Annika looked where he pointed. Perhaps a dozen of the limping creatures had turned back into the clearing and were coming directly for them. Whatever unnatural force had seized their wills and corrupted their bodies seemed to have augmented at least some of their senses as well. Unerringly, the broken and twisted mutants made their way straight for the witch hunter’s position. As they neared, some broke into a loping run.

  Annika shook her head in frustration.

  ‘Mother of Sigmar!’ she spat. ‘We don’t have time for this.’

  She rose from the thick covering of foliage and branches and took aim. Blackpowder exploded, and the crack of the report echoed through the trees. Two of the nearest figures fell to the ground, writhing a remembered reaction of pain. The rest hesitated for a moment, before resuming their lumbering march towards them. Dieter rose and stood by Annika’s shoulder.

  ‘Well, that’s done it,’ he said, dryly. ‘We’ll have to kill them all now.’

  Dieter broke from cover and charged headlong into the nearest group of mutants. His sword flashed in the cold air, and he was soon surrounded by a whirling maelstrom of gore and severed flesh. He towered over the grasping hands and scrabbling fingers around him.

  Annika stepped out of the shadow of a towering oak and cast an expert eye over the figures approaching her. One was slightly taller than the rest, and seemed to have retained much of his physical bulk. Perhaps he had once been a village headman or some other worthy figure. Without hesitation, she straightened her arm and took aim. The blackpowder detonation echoed once more around the forest, and the plague victim stumbled in his path. Oblivious, his fellow peasants pressed onwards towards her, raising their hands in anticipation of ripping at her throat.

  As they neared, Annika couldn’t help noticing the strange, twisted features of their faces. Their eyes had the dull look of those long sunk into possession by whatever unholy force had taken over their minds, but some still wore the expressions of anguish they had borne while consumed by the racking pain of illness. They were pitiful and utterly wretched. From the corner of her eye she could see Dieter wading through them, heaving his sword to and fro as they clutched at him. The stench of death and disease filled the air.

  Distastefully, she took aim once more, and a third shot rang out. Another body stumbled and crashed into the bracken. But then they were too close. Annika shoved the pistol deftly back into its leather holster, and drew a short sword with her right hand. The hunting knife still in her left, she strode forward to meet the first of the mutants. It looked at her with hatred, and screamed. Lunging forward, it tried to scratch at her face and gouge at her eyes. Coolly, Annika sliced across its throat with her sword, followed by a plunge into its chest from the knife. The body of the mutant twitched and shuddered as the steel passed through it. Annika pushed it roughly aside.

  Where it fell, there were more to take its place. Annika began to work harder, twisting and dancing away from the outstretched arms of the inexorably advancing plague creatures. They kept coming even as those before them were cut down, uncaring of anything except the strange compulsion to kill those whose kind they had once been. Annika punched a hulking monster hard in the face with the pommel of her sword, hearing the bone crack as she did so, before whirling around to face two scrawny creatures pawing at her cloak. The hunting knife flickered, and severed hands and fingers fell to the ground. Still they came, and Annika had to plunge her sword full into the torso of one before it would stop trying to haul itself on top of her. She stepped back, feeling sweat begin to shine on her skin despite the cold. There were more coming.

  ‘Myrmidia!’ came a voice beside her, and she turned quickly. Dieter had spotted something behind her, and his armou
r-clad body slammed into a grotesque, misshapen grey-skinned wretch which had sneaked under her defences. The sword span around, and a shower of gore flew into the air. Shaken a little, Annika pitched herself into the fighting with renewed fervour. Her boot kicked out at two child-sized mutants which had crept through the low lying bushes to gnaw at her ankles. She swung her sword in a graceful arc in front of her, sending the plague creatures backwards in confusion before kneeling to dispatch the drooling children with the hunting knife. Rising quickly, she thrust her sword rapidly into the leathery flesh of yet another of the creatures. Even impaled on the weapon it still came forward, and it took a violent heave of the blade, nearly ripping the mutant in two, before it came loose once more. The momentary delay cost her, and one of the creatures came close to fastening a hand with six gnarled fingers on her shoulder. Annika turned smoothly, and the severed hand landed heavily in the undergrowth, joining the growing collection of gore-drenched body parts littering the forest.

  The onslaught ebbed. Dieter’s butchery seemed to have deterred the rest of the mutants. Annika looked up from the carnage. They had felled many of their number, and the few remaining beasts were limping back into the shadows. Dieter dispatched a final shambling creature before hurrying to her side.

  ‘Pursue them?’ he asked.

  Annika shook her head.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘They’ll regroup in the shadows, and more will come.’

  She narrowed her eyes, watching the last of the plague creatures shrink from view.

  ‘This attack was planned,’ she said carefully. ‘They wish to draw us further into the trees.’

  Dieter looked doubtful.

  ‘These creatures are mindless,’ he said. ‘Their wills have been stripped from them. They are slaves to their bloodlust.’

  Annika shook her head.

  ‘I think not,’ she said. ‘They are creatures of Chaos. A greater will may guide them.’

  She looked about her.

  ‘We’re near the edge of the forest. From the map, the land changes to the west. Come.’

  She began to stride purposefully away. Dieter still looked unconvinced, but dutifully accompanied her. From behind them, a thin wail rose above the trees.

  ‘I do not understand,’ said the knight. ‘This place needs purging. Our duty lies behind us.’

  Annika nodded.

  ‘If I had a hundred knights at my command, we would cleanse this entire forest,’ she said grimly. ‘But do you not see? The plague beasts are not at the heart of this. Their presence in the trees would deter all but the hardiest from pressing on. They are a distraction, a ring of mindless guards to protect against discovery of the graver corruption within. We must press on.’

  They went quickly through the trees, mindful of the threat from more plague beasts. For the time being at least, the creatures seemed to have been beaten off. In time, the dense forest began to thin. They were nearing the edge. Then, with an unexpected suddenness, they broke into open country. To the north and south, the dark line of trees continued in an unbroken wall of shadow. But to the west the land was empty. Instead of tangled branches and briars, bleak moorland stretched towards the distant horizon. After the close world of the trees, it seemed strangely empty. The place had a grim feel about it. Then again, everywhere else in the region did too.

  Annika scanned the vista before them, shading her eyes against the cold diffuse light of the grey sky. There were several large piles of granite protruding from some of the high points of the moors in the distance, and smaller collections of tumbled rocks wherever she looked. Her gaze swept across the distant peaks. Nothing was out of the ordinary. But then her experienced eyes noticed something awkward about a tall outcrop to the north. There were signs, subtle signals perhaps most travellers would have missed. She was not a witch hunter for nothing.

  ‘Look,’ she said to Dieter, pointing to the granite formation in the north. ‘Those stones have been worked. There’s something there.’

  Dieter looked at the rock towers carefully.

  ‘I see it,’ he said. ‘So the creatures were protecting something.’

  ‘Looks like it,’ she said. ‘These are Grauenburg’s lands. We may as well start looking here.’

  They set off once more, heading in the direction of the distant peak. Behind them, a cold wind sighed through the eaves of the trees, but no plague beast followed them. The unnatural will which gave them purpose and direction also held them in the forest. It was little comfort. Annika sensed the aura of sickness grow. Whatever secret had been hidden in this place, they were coming to the heart of it.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Alberich was scared. His hands were sticky with sweat, and he could feel his blood pumping around his scrawny body as he hurried. He was a thin, rat-faced man, and his lank dark hair hung shabbily about his unshaven face. He was in his own territory, amongst his own kind, but the terror still drew at him. For Alberich, the entire world may as well have been the city of Altdorf and its endless twisting underworld. If plucked from his habitat and left to fend for himself in the trackless woods of the Old World, he would have been as lost as an infant. The only skills he possessed were the clumsy and brutal arts of the street thief, the amoral utility of the hired thug, and the somewhat dubious honour of knowing a number of shady people with more developed criminal skills. Despite the paucity of alternatives, the precariousness of his current position made him half-wonder whether there was a less fragile way of making a living.

  It was nearing dusk, and the teeming throng of Altdorf’s poor quarters was beginning to thin. The myriad smells and noises of the street were starting to ebb, and in the narrow and grimy windows above him some tallow candles were already lit. There were still plenty of people around, but all carried themselves with caution, wrapping themselves in heavy cloaks or holding rags over their mouths.

  The alleys of the city were dangerous enough places at the best of times, but the citizens had recently been more scared of the plague and its effects than the usual motley collection of cut-throats and footpads. No family had been untouched by the ravages of the deadly contagion, and the fact that its victims rose from their sickbeds to become murderous creatures of darkness made the whole thing even more horrifying. Alberich noted with some small comfort that most of the faces he passed were as haggard and worried as his own. Times were hard, and as ever it was those at the bottom of the pile who suffered most.

  With his habitual stooping gait, he crept through the shadows of a cluttered and mud-strewn thoroughfare and passed into a dank and overlooked square. A statue of Sigismund II stood mournfully over a decrepit fountain in the centre, daubed with crude slogans and splattered with bird droppings. There was very little natural light in the grimy space. Towering wattle-and-daub buildings crowded and clustered high on all sides. Sludge and refuse collected in every corner, and the joyless Altdorfers shuffled uneasily and quickly as they crossed the run-down area.

  Suddenly, Alberich was alerted to shouting and angry raised voices. With an instinct born of a life in the gutters, he slipped deftly into a narrow cleft between two massive many-storeyed townhouses. Ignoring the acrid stench of rotten vegetables, he shuffled back into the darkness. A band of men wearing the emblems of the Emperor charged into the square. They seized any unfortunates too slow to dodge into a suitable hiding place and clapped them in leg irons. Squealed protests were summarily cut short with a sharp blow to the head.

  ‘Join the glorious armies of the Emperor!’ cried a fat soldier wearing an elaborate red and blue patterned jerkin and hose, waving a large copy of a Pressing Warrant in his pudgy hands. ‘A piece of copper and guaranteed fame for all who join up to smite the enemies of Karl Franz!’

  The poor souls who had been caught in the rush looked at the officer with undisguised misery, clearly not convinced by the sales pitch, but were soon hurried on by the rapidly-moving column. They were herded into long lines and beaten out of the square. The noise of shouting diminished as the pres
s gang moved off in search of fresh new recruits. Once he was sure they were gone, Alberich squeezed out of the narrow hiding place and brushed his ragged clothes down. Elsewhere, other figures emerged from their chosen refuges like worms from the soil. The life of the city quickly resumed as if nothing had happened, and the streets filled once more with shuffling figures.

  Aware he was running short of time, Alberich hurried onwards. His path took him down a winding and treacherous stairway, past the bustling streets of the moneylenders’ quarter and into ever shabbier and more dishevelled areas. For those who knew the paths, Altdorf was a maze in every direction, including downwards. Successive generations had built upon the ruins of their ancestors’ homes, and the underworld was still riddled with tunnels, catacombs, sewers and long-abandoned caverns of stone and crumbling brick. Much of this twilight world was ruined, or flooded, or occupied by rumoured inhabitants even Alberich wouldn’t dare disturb. But some of the hidden kingdom was still navigable, and it was in such dark places that he had become happy to lay low when things became too dangerous in the world above.

  He slunk down the last few steps of the winding way, and came across a shallow archway carved from dank, cold stone. Down so low, the light from the evening sky was almost extinguished, and he pulled a lantern from the bag on his back. After a few frustrating attempts, his shaking fingers finally succeeded in lighting the wick, and a sickly flame quavered in the grubby iron container. The light it threw out was weak and dim, but just enough to illuminate his way. Taking a deep breath, he ventured forward, ducking under the low keystone and disappearing into the nocturnal gloom of the under-city.

  The stench was unpleasant even for an urchin such as Alberich. A stream of oily-looking water slid alongside him as he went, and strangely luminous moss clung desperately to the slick, dark rocks of the tunnel. The ground ran ever downwards, and soon Alberich was far below Altdorf’s normal street level. Every so often he would pass alcoves in the stone wall which the lantern picked out in lurid, flickering detail. They were as old as anything in the city. Tombs, most likely, buried under the sprawling mass of the fevered construction and activity above. He didn’t pause to pay them any attention. In the half-light, he knew they would only add to his anxiety. On previous journeys he had slipped from his path only once before, lured by the thought that there might be gold hidden amongst the silent sarcophagi. What he had seen then had convinced him never to venture off his well-worn trails again, and the only thing he brought back with him was a more than usually strong aversion to rats.