Erna studied the doktor as he sat in the pew, his body shaking like a leaf. ‘You’ve seen what the sorcerer did?’ she asked.
‘Do not ask,’ Moschner answered. ‘By all the gods, do not ask and do not look.’ He turned his head away from the altar and regarded Erna. ‘I know I am a mere peasant, but you must believe me. Spare yourself.’ He shuddered again and his body heaved as his empty stomach clenched. When the spasm passed, he again apologised.
‘His Imperial Majesty has feted his guests,’ Moschner hissed. ‘He’s fed and pampered them well!’
‘Did none refuse?’ Erna pressed him.
Moschner gave her a disgusted look. ‘Two,’ he said.
‘We must pray for them,’ Erna said.
‘It’s too late for that,’ Moschner said. ‘There’s no help for us. The gods will have nothing to do with us now.
‘We are the living damned.’
Chapter XII
Altdorf
Brauzeit, 1114
Under cover of night, Kreyssig’s Kaiserjaeger removed the Baroness von den Linden and her paraphernalia to the abandoned residence of Lady Mirella von Wittmar. Mistress of the traitor Prince Sigdan, the noblewoman had fled Altdorf in the aftermath of the disastrous coup against Emperor Boris. Her townhouse had stood vacant and desolate since then, not even the most desperate peasant willing to seek shelter beneath such an ill-regarded roof.
The witch was far from her usual composure. Her appearance betrayed no sign of her recent ordeal. To the eye she was as ravishing and seductive as when Kreyssig had first met her. He wasn’t sure if it was cosmetics or magic that covered her bruises, but whatever the cause, the baroness’s vanity was intact.
No, it was a more subtle air of tension and unease that clung to the woman as she stalked through the dusty chambers of her refuge. She snapped curt commands to the men carrying her effects, alternately urging them to greater care or greater haste.
When the last of her things had been brought in, she drew near Kreyssig, gripping his arm in a clutch that was almost as cold as ice. ‘Get rid of them,’ she whispered into his ear.
Kreyssig bristled at the assumed authority in her tone, but his defiance wilted as he met her intense gaze. Clapping his hands together, he dismissed his troops, ordering them out into the street. When the last of them marched away, he motioned for Fuerst to close the great oaken doors and seal off the entry hall.
The baroness stared at the portly servant, causing a flush to creep into his face. Fuerst couldn’t hold her gaze, turning his eyes to the floor and shuffling his feet anxiously.
‘Fuerst is dependable,’ Kreyssig reassured the witch. ‘You can trust to his discretion.’
‘It is not I who must fear his tongue,’ the baroness retorted.
Fuerst bowed in his master’s direction. ‘I can wait outside…’ he started to offer.
‘Stand where you are,’ Kreyssig snapped. It was a small, even petty thing, but he wasn’t inclined to submit to the baroness’s demand. He had to prove, even if only to himself, that he could defy the witch.
Her jaw clenched, the baroness spun around and stalked upstairs. Kreyssig smiled and followed her.
The witch led him into what had been the master bedchamber. Now it was littered with boxes of books — the hastily removed contents of her library. She glanced at the boxes for a moment, then descended upon one of them like a hawk swooping down on a dove. Without hesitation, she removed the topmost volumes and retrieved a heavy tome banded in black leather. Watching the proceeding, Kreyssig felt his hair stand on end, discomfited by the uncanny way the witch was drawn straight to the book she wanted.
A piebald cat came creeping out from some corner as the baroness settled onto the musty bed sheets. The brute sat beside her feet, becoming as still as a statue. ‘He will warn us,’ the witch said, ‘if there are rats in the walls.’ She extended her hand, beckoning Kreyssig to join her.
Careful to keep his distance from the feline sentinel, Kreyssig positioned himself at the head of the bed. He glanced at the cobwebbed walls, unsettled by the woman’s mention of rats. Better than anyone, he knew the efficiency of verminous spies.
He was soon to learn how little he really knew.
The baroness laid the book in her lap, folding her hands across its cover. ‘You have heard of the Underfolk?’
There was an absurd quality in such a ridiculous question being asked with such grim severity. Despite his feeling of unease, Kreyssig laughed at the witch. ‘What child hasn’t been threatened with fables about the Underfolk!’
The baroness did not share his humour. ‘A truth too awful to accept is quickly dismissed as a fable,’ she warned. ‘The Underfolk are real, Adolf. They are what the dwarfs have called “skaven” and fought many wars against in their long history. They are the fiends that lurk and slink in the darkness, watching and waiting to usurp the realms of men.’
Again, Kreyssig laughed, but this time it was forced laughter. ‘Conquer the realms of men? Those disgusting mutants?’ he scoffed.
‘It has happened before,’ the baroness cautioned. She opened the tome in her lap, displaying pages of illuminated text. The words were written in a cramped, spidery script, the drawings crude and horrible. A glance at the frontispiece was enough to make Kreyssig’s stomach churn. ‘This is an ancient Tilean text, written before the time of Sigmar. In Reikspiel, its title would be The Tower Falls. It describes an ancient city of men, the most powerful in the world, a kingdom that shone like the sun. For all its might, for all its magic, the city was brought to ruin by the skaven, razed so completely that even its name has been lost to legend.’
‘More fables,’ Kreyssig declared.
The baroness shook her head. ‘Not fables — a warning. The book describes how the ancient kingdom was destroyed. The skaven didn’t assault the walls with armies. Instead they burrowed beneath those walls, ferreted out men whose ambition they could exploit. Meek and fawning, they offered their services to those who would betray humanity for power. Through their proxies, they set brother against brother, fragmented society until it festered with enmity and hate. Then, when the kingdom was sufficiently weakened from within, they rose up from their hidden burrows.’
Kreyssig scowled at the baroness. The fable she was relating drove too close to his own dealings with the mutants — the skaven as she named them. He couldn’t forget their demands for more and more food, food far beyond even the most gluttonous demands of the small handful of ratmen he had been led to believe dwelled beneath Altdorf. No, even without the evidence of his own eyes when the vermin had rescued them from the witch-taker, Kreyssig knew the creatures were duplicitous, pretending to be something they weren’t. It was all too easy to believe the baroness when she said their ultimate ambition was to visit ruin upon mankind.
‘If these creatures are what your book tells you they are,’ Kreyssig said, ‘then what does it say about stopping them?’
He could tell from the hollow look in the witch’s eyes that whatever knowledge was inside her book, how to overcome the ratmen wasn’t one of its secrets.
Kreyssig was silent for a moment, mulling over everything the ratmen had done for him. Had done for themselves. For the first time, he appreciated how the vermin had used him to their own ends. Exposing Prince Sigdan’s conspiracy, the treason of Reiksmarshal Boeckenfoerde, this information hadn’t been given to benefit himself or the Emperor. The skaven had done it to weaken the Empire. They had used him as their pawn.
Kreyssig had a peasant’s resentment at being used. He would pay his duplicitous allies back, and in their own coin. It would need bold, immediate action to salvage the situation.