Boris stopped pacing and scowled at the goblet of wine in his hand. ‘This is vile stuff,’ he declared. ‘It needs some honey to sweeten it.’ The cherubic amusement was back on his face as he turned towards Erna. ‘Did you know the Imperial Palace has an indoor apiary? Dwarfcraft, of course. Cost a small fortune to build, but it allows Us to have fresh honey even in the dead of winter.’
‘There has to be another way,’ Erna insisted, ignoring his talk of bees and honey.
The Emperor dashed his goblet to the floor. ‘The divine protection of Shallya?’ he scoffed. ‘Matriarch Katrina is as terrified as any of us! If she doesn’t have faith in the goddess, why should anyone? Or maybe We should trust Moschner and his peasant medicine?’
‘He’s kept you healthy this long,’ Erna said.
‘If medicine were the answer, the plague wouldn’t be killing three-quarters of Our subjects!’ He turned away and gazed into the fire blazing away in the hearth. ‘No, Fleischauer’s magic is the only answer. The Black Plague stinks of sorcery and Chaos, it only makes sense that similar means would counteract it.’
Erna rose from the bed, came close to the Emperor. ‘Then you know this is evil,’ she told him.
Boris rounded on her, his eyes blazing as fiercely as the fire. ‘Then you don’t have to partake!’ he raged. ‘Exclude yourself! Go ahead and catch the plague!’
‘Better that than the alternative,’ Erna stated.
‘If you catch the plague, We’ll have you thrown over the wall,’ Boris threatened. ‘Don’t think for a moment We won’t!’
Erna turned from him, retreating across the room and into the hall. ‘I’m certain your fear will spare no one,’ she said as she left him.
Otwin’s table no longer dominated the great hall, but the room was once again denuded of furnishings. The only object that reposed in the hall was a marble plinth in the very centre of the room. The statue that had once rested upon it had been removed, consigned to some distant corner of the castle. In its place stood an object of obscene horror.
In his desperation, this time Emperor Boris had allowed Fleischauer all the time he needed to prepare for his ritual. It had taken the warlock a fortnight to finish his conjurations and their attendant atrocities. Day and night the closed great hall had resounded with horrific screams and sinister incantations. Strange smells had seeped into the passageways, eerie lights had shone from under the doors. The icy emanations of sorcery had throbbed and pulsed and undulated. A foulness beyond the merely physical had emanated from the hall, warning people away far better than any diktat issued by the Emperor.
The end result of Fleischauer’s labours was propped up on the top of the pedestal, a cushion supporting its ghastly mass. There was some resemblance to von Kirchof’s niece Sasha, but the familiarity increased the horror rather than lessening it.
The woman’s flesh had taken on a chalky tone and texture. All the hair had been shorn from her scalp. Across her body, strange runes had been inked with a needle of daemonbone, the symbols encompassing even her face and scalp. Situated in the gaps between the runes, their slimy black bodies seeming to be extensions of the horrible tattoos, were bloodleeches. The parasites could be seen gorging themselves on something far weightier than merely the blood of their victim, drawing into their foul bodies slivers of her innocence, of her very soul.
Sasha herself looked like a leech. Through some unholy magic, her body had been altered in unspeakable ways. Her arms and legs had atrophied, withering into stick-like stubs that were folded in upon her torso. Her teeth had fallen out, leaving behind only blackened gums and a tongue so shrivelled that it could utter only a flat, croaking susurration.
It was an abominable, unspeakable fate, a misery no sane mind could endure.
As they filed into the great hall and saw the horrifying husk of the woman, many of the Emperor’s jaded followers sickened and excused themselves. Boris allowed them their moment of weakness. He knew they would be back. The magic Fleischauer offered them was too important to turn away. What man could say no to life, whatever the price?
‘Everything is in readiness, Your Imperial Majesty,’ Fleischauer declared with a bow. He waited for a nod from his patron, then crept across the hall to the pedestal. ‘Observe,’ he said. Reaching to his victim, he plucked a leech from her neck and popped it into his own mouth. More of the nobles fled as their stomachs revolted with this new horror.
‘The leeches draw the magic from her essence,’ Fleischauer explained when he had finished chewing the parasite. ‘When they are removed, the magic is passed on to whatever eats them.’
Emperor Boris took a wary step towards the pedestal. ‘This will prevent the plague?’ Almost he hoped his warlock would tell him it wouldn’t.
Instead, Fleischauer nodded his head in affirmation. ‘For a time,’ he said. ‘It will be necessary to replace the leeches with new ones. They act as a preventative, but not an immunisation, to employ the secular words of dear Doktor Moschner.’ The warlock paused for a moment, looking about to see if the physician was in attendance so he could gloat. He sighed when he didn’t see the man. ‘One leech each week should be enough. If it isn’t, I can create another host.’
Boris suppressed a shudder at the suggestion. ‘This is horror enough,’ he said. He turned and called von Kirchof to him. The swordsman’s stride lacked his usual confidence and his face was nearly as bloodless as that of his niece. Guilt, shame, self-loathing, all of these were etched upon his features and his eyes were as empty as those of a doll. When the Emperor ordered his champion to remove one of the leeches, he did so without looking at the thing Fleischauer had dismissed as their ‘host’.
One by one, the others came to follow von Kirchof’s example. Despite the horror of the situation, Boris felt a twinge of satisfaction when he saw Matriarch Katrina pluck one of the parasites from Sasha’s body. If the High Priestess of Shallya could be driven to such despair, Princess Erna would soon recant her lofty morals.
The tiny chapel of Sigmar within the Schloss Hohenbach displayed the signs of neglect everywhere. It had been generations since Sigmar had been venerated with much zeal in Drakwald. Older gods like Ulric, Taal and Rhya were of more prominence to the Drakwalders. Count Vilner and his son Konrad had had little reason to be kindly disposed towards a deity who enabled a man like Boris to wield supreme power over them. Dust lay thick upon the floor and altar, cobwebs clung to the granite comet and bronze hammer hanging upon the wall. Woodworms had bored holes in the pews and mice had gnawed at the rugs.
Despite the dilapidation of the chapel, Erna felt a sense of peace as she knelt before the altar. As a Middenlander, she too had been raised in the faiths of older gods; however, she had also seen too much to discount Sigmar’s power. She had need of that divine strength to endow her with the will to persevere. To endure as the shade of her father had told her she must.
Whatever the consequences, she wouldn’t partake of the obscenity fostered by Fleischauer. Sigmar was a god who decried witchcraft and sorcery. Perhaps He would respect her determination to shun the progeny of such unholy arts.
The creak of groaning wood turned her away from the altar. Erna was surprised to see Doktor Moschner seated on one of the wormy benches. The physician’s face was drawn, haunted.
‘I didn’t think anyone was here,’ he apologised. ‘Do you mind? I’d rather not be alone.’ He pointed towards the hammer above the altar. ‘Strength through unity. That is what Sigmar taught us. If only He had explained the lesson better.’