Grumbling into his beard, the dwarf glanced down at the moneylender’s name on the list he carried, noting the balance beside it. It was an appreciable sum, derived from the earnings the man’s business had enjoyed before the plague. A small thing like a pandemic would hardly justify a reduction in taxes. Besides, if the man felt the sum was unreasonable, he could protest to his noble lord. Allowing that his liege had survived the plague and hadn’t already fled the city.
Either way, the dwarf’s job was to collect. He repeated his summons, banging his fist so forcefully against the door that he bruised the wood. He drew back, waiting for any trace of activity. Frowning under his beard, the dwarf tilted his helmet up and pressed an exposed ear against the door. Years of mining in the Grey Mountains had honed the dwarf’s hearing to a superhuman degree, enabling him to detect the presence of ore simply by the sound his pick made when striking the wall, warning him of a cave-in by the softest groan from a support beam hundreds of yards up the shaft. By comparison, listening at a keyhole was simplicity itself.
Immediately, the dwarf’s ear caught the sounds of furtive shuffling inside the house. He leaned back, adjusting his helmet in place. Pejorative crept into his grumbling. So the cheats thought to hide in there and pretend they weren’t home, did they? Well, if they thought a dwarf could be dissuaded from his duty by such a facile deception, they were sorely mistaken.
Stepping away from the door, the dwarf thrust his shoulder towards it and lunged at it. The portal shook in its frame as his armoured weight slammed into the wood. Unfazed by the impact, the dwarf stepped back into the street, allowing himself a better start before charging into the door again.
This time the door collapsed under his impact, flying back on its hinges. The dwarf was propelled into the dingy parlour beyond.
Eyes adapted to the murk of mines and tunnels stared in disbelief at the scene within that parlour. If plague hadn’t claimed the moneylender and his household, they would have been better off if it had. The monsters that filled the decrepit building now certainly wouldn’t have been merciful to any occupants they found.
The parlour and what he could see of the rooms beyond were swarming with hundreds of skaven.
The dwarf drew his axe, set his feet and roared a prayer to Grungni. Then the vermin rushed at him in a chittering tide of fangs and blades. He cut down ten of them before he was crushed to the floor. After that, despite his heavy armour and his powerful build, it was only a few moments before the dwarf was reduced to an unrecognisable heap of dripping meat.
Dejected and dispirited, the peasants walking the streets had paid only the sketchiest notice to the dwarf’s invasion of the house. They paid far more attention to the horde that flooded out through the broken door. A few of them even had time to scream before the ratmen fell upon them.
It was a scene that was repeated all across Altdorf. From sewers and cellars, from abandoned homes and boarded warehouses, even from the holds of derelict ships, the ratmen came. With sword and fang the seemingly numberless horde rampaged through the streets. Wherever the skaven appeared, death and destruction reigned. The monsters were merciless in their depredations, devoid of any semblance of pity or restraint. Temples filled with the sick and dying became abattoirs in the wake of the chittering horde. Refugee camps erupted in flames as the ratmen surrounded them and put them to the torch, the agonies of those trapped within the ring of fire echoing hideously across the icy waters of the Reik.
Through the Kaiseraugen, the men assembled in the council chamber could see the pillars of smoke rising from the burning city. Screams, roars, the bedlam of a city being torn apart wasn’t quite muffled by the thick panes of glass. Several Kaiserjaeger stood watch, shouting to the leaders gathered about the table whenever they spotted the enemy in the streets below.
Adolf Kreyssig considered the grim-faced men gathered around him. They were solemn, hardly daring to speak as the magnitude of the attack was borne home to them with each fresh report that made its way to the palace. One of them, the bewigged fop Emperor Boris had installed as burgomeister of Altdorf, sat slumped in his seat, sobbing loudly into a laced handkerchief. Fortunately for the city, the rest of its leaders were made of sterner stuff. Kreyssig had made certain of that when he’d purged the council and made his plans for war.
Duke Vidor shook his head and cast aside the slip of parchment he had been reading, a report from a captain in the Schuetzenverein. ‘The area east of the river is cut off,’ he declared. ‘The ratmen have demolished the bridges. Two-thirds of the army had their billets there.’
Grand Master Leiber pulled at his long moustache, eyes closed as he pondered the dire news. ‘At least the heavy horse is stationed on this side of the river,’ he stated. ‘That leaves us roughly three hundred knights. More if we call upon the templar orders.’
‘The Black Guard have been surrounded by the cremation pits outside the walls,’ a wizened old count reported. A haunted look crept into his eyes as he considered the full message he had received. ‘Thirty knights against hundreds of those things. They won’t leave enough for Morr’s ravens to find!’
Prelate Arminus nodded in sympathy at the sacrifice of the Black Guard, closing his hand about the whalebone icon he wore around his neck. The priest’s voice was apologetic when he addressed the other leaders. ‘I fear that the Knights of the Storm are largely absent from the city. With the plague ravaging the river trade, many of them have been serving as marines on those vessels still braving the Reik. Merciful Manann watch over them all.’
Inquisitor Fulk of the Verenan temple drew back the heavy hood he wore, letting his sharp eyes rove across the faces of the men around him. ‘My temple stands ready to assist the city, but our strength is sadly diminished. The Black Plague has been most attentive.’ The grim priest tapped his fingers on the breast of his robe. ‘At best we might rally seventy swords if we left the temple unprotected.’ It was clear from his tone that he considered such a move to be sacrilegious.
Kreyssig decided to reject the inquisitor’s offer. The Verenans weren’t a martial order, their forte was hunting heretics. Torturers and executioners were quite capable of killing in cold blood, but he doubted if many of them were equally capable of hot-blooded killing, of fighting against an armed adversary. No, it was better to leave them in their gloomy temple and let them fare as their god saw best.
‘We have almost three thousand foot soldiers this side of the river,’ Kreyssig declared. ‘At the moment, they are scattered throughout, clumped in their training camps and isolated in their billets.’ He raised his eyes, staring out through the window. One of those training camps was built over the wreckage of Breadburg. From here, he could see a great column of smoke billowing up from that vicinity.
Vidor stood up from his chair, addressing the various nobles seated at the table. ‘By themselves, the knights will be of little use. The strength of heavy horse lies in the charge and there will be little opportunity for such tactics in the close confines of city streets.’ He turned, locking eyes with Kreyssig. ‘If we are to have any hope of driving the ratmen from the city, we have to mobilise our scattered foot troops, concentrate them into a single battle group. The ratkin may outnumber us, but those same close quarters will counter that advantage. Man for monster, even the lowest dienstmann is more than a match for the vermin. If we can concentrate our troops into bodies large enough to resist the numbers of the ratmen…’
Kreyssig nodded. From what he had seen of the skaven, they were a craven breed. They relied upon subterfuge and ambush to fight their battles. They had little stomach for a real fight. So far, the monsters had enjoyed success because they hadn’t encountered anyone in a position to seriously oppose them. Upset that tide of success even a little and it might hurl the entire horde into disarray.