‘Stolen by a young knight?’ the graf marvelled. ‘Right from under the nose of old Boris!’
‘Prince Sigdan’s intention, I believe, was to bring the hammer here, your highness,’ Lady Mirella said. ‘Baron Thornig was to conduct the thief, a captain of the Reiksknecht, to your court. Sadly, the baron was killed by the Kaiserjaeger.’
‘And this captain? You say that he escaped?’ Graf Gunthar asked.
‘He did, your highness,’ Brother Richter stated. ‘Adolf Kreyssig, the so-called Protector of the Empire, has posted a three thousand crown bounty on the head of Erich von Kranzbeuhler.’
The amount of the reward brought appreciative whistles from some of the councillors. Viscount von Vogelthal turned towards the graf. ‘With such a large bounty, it is obvious this von Kranzbeuhler still has the hammer.’ The chamberlain frowned and shook his head. ‘Or at least Kreyssig thinks he does. Just because he didn’t reach Middenheim is no reason to think he might not have sought asylum in the court of another count.’
Brother Richter shook his head. ‘He didn’t,’ he declared.
‘You seem rather certain of that,’ Mandred observed.
‘I am,’ Richter agreed. ‘Because not six months ago I encountered von Kranzbeuhler in a small village south of the Reikwald.’
‘Quite a risk, merely to consult a simple friar,’ Ar-Ulric commented, a knowing gleam in his eye. He smiled when Richter gave him a worried look.
‘Did he still have Ghal Maraz?’ Grand Master Vitholf wondered.
The priest nodded. ‘You see, I didn’t seek him out. He sought me. He wanted my advice on what to do, where to take the hammer.’
‘What did you tell him?’ Graf Gunthar asked, leaning forwards in his chair, his face anxious.
‘I told him to hide it,’ Brother Richter said. ‘I told him to keep it safe. That Sigmar would reveal to him when the time was right for Ghal Maraz to return.’
‘Outrageous!’ exclaimed Duke Schneidereit. ‘If you had access to the hammer, why not keep to the plan and bring it here? This entire story is preposterous!’
Graf Gunthar fixed Brother Richter with his gaze. ‘You understand that with Ghal Maraz I could have made a claim upon the throne? I could have cast this peasant tyrant from the Imperial Palace. I could have restored order to the Empire.’ His voice became a bitter growl. ‘But a Sigmarite wouldn’t stomach an Ulrican on the throne.’
Thane Hardin snorted derisively at the graf’s statement. From anyone else on the council, Gunthar would have taken it as a grave insult. Instead, he turned to hear what the dwarf had to say.
‘You really think holding Ghal Maraz would make all the other kings bow to you?’ Thane Hardin scoffed. ‘All you’d get would be a bunch of scoundrels yapping for your blood and calling you a thief. Few men have the honour to set aside their own interests to do what’s right. Even fewer when they wear crowns and titles. To be blunt,’ he added, as though his speech had been restrained, ‘I’m amazed your Empire has held together as long as it has.’
‘Thane Hardin makes a good observation,’ Margraf von Ulmann said. ‘There are many who would refuse to acknowledge any claim on the throne. With the example of Boris Goldgather, they might justifiably fear the domination of another tyrant of his ilk. Then there are men like this peasant Kreyssig, who won’t relinquish power unless it is pried from his dead fingers.’
‘Men must wallow in the depths of darkness before they will strive towards the light,’ Ar-Ulric said, quoting an ancient Teutogen parable. The wolf-priest’s wrinkled hands slowly came together, fingers entwined. ‘The strength of the pack is tenfold against the lone wolf,’ he told the other councillors. ‘But until that strength is needed, how much will the lone wolf struggle to keep his freedom?’
Graf Gunthar sat back, sober contemplation knotting his brow. ‘That is why you hid the hammer?’ he asked Brother Richter.
‘It is, your highness,’ the Sigmarite answered. ‘By itself, Ghal Maraz cannot bring unity. What it can do is bring legitimacy to that unity.’ He swept his gaze across the council. ‘The Empire is beset on all sides. The Northmen have razed Westerland and are encamped in the rubble of Marienburg. Drakwald is a depopulated shambles. This you know, but things are even more dire in the south. Sylvania is in the grip of the walking dead, stirred from their graves by a terrible necromancer. Averland is beset by orcs from the south. The city of Pfeildorf…’
Richter hesitated, wondering if he dared continue, if any about the table would believe him if he related the fate of Solland’s capital, a fate that had also descended upon Wissenburg and nearly claimed Altdorf itself. Would they believe him if he said the Underfolk had scurried straight from the pages of legend to become loathsome, hideous reality? Would he have believed it himself had Kranzbeuhler not shown him the severed paw of one of the monsters?
‘Pfeildorf has been lost to inhuman creatures,’ the priest stated. ‘Beastkin of the most abominable cast in numbers such as even the Drakwald has never seen. Entire villages and towns have been enslaved by the fiends, forced to toil for their monstrous masters.’
Mandred gave a start as he heard Richter speak. He was thinking of that ratty beastman in the Kineater’s herd, of the similar creature he had thrown from the walls of Middenheim years ago. A shiver passed through him, those old legends scratching at his mind. He started to speak, but decided better of it. He didn’t want to look foolish before his father and the council.
Beastmen came in all shapes and sizes. The ratmen had been nothing but especially degenerate examples.
After all, everyone knew there was no such thing as the Underfolk.
Far below the halls of the Middenpalaz and the streets of Middenheim, the subterranean darkness echoed with the crack of pick and hammer. The low grumble of an old miner’s chant whispered down rocky tunnels, catching in fissures and crevices to become a chorus of echoes. The glow of candles and coal-lamps cast a flickering island of light amid the black pits of Grungni’s Tower.
The dwarfs smelt of beer and sweat, leather and steel. The reek of the goat fat used to starch their beards was especially pungent, an odour that announced their presence even more loudly than the glow of their candles and the stink of their lamps. Under concealment of the Khazalid work song and the din of tools, dark shapes crept furtively through the tunnels.
Intent upon the little ribbon of gold they had pursued through the mountain for decades, the dwarfs were oblivious to the foe that stalked them through the tunnels. The vein had been entrusted to their clan by the powerful Engineer’s Guild, becoming not simply a source of wealth to them but a matter of pride and honour as well. The work itself was as important as the rewards to be reaped from the golden nuggets they chipped from the walls. A dwarf who didn’t put himself fully into his work wasn’t fit to wear his beard.
Such was the devoted concentration they put into their labour that the miners didn’t notice when one of the picks fell silent. They didn’t hear the soft gasp as a sharp dagger was thrust through dwarfish back to pierce dwarfish lung. They didn’t notice the change in their song as one of its voices was silenced. They didn’t see the shape cloaked in black that carefully lowered a limp corpse to the floor of the shaft.
One by one, the miners were dispatched. Sinister shapes stole upon them from the shadows, striking in deathly silence with the expertise of accomplished killers.