The dwarf champion collapsed and Drakdrazh tumbled from his fingers. One of the black-furred skaven grabbed at the hammer, but before he could reach it his white-furred warlord lunged at him, tearing out his throat with gleaming fangs. Mandred’s view of the skaven warlord was obscured as the armoured skaven surged forwards to oppose the dwarfs seeking to avenge Mirko.
Another surge of skaven swept towards Mandred’s forces, pushing them back and away from Mirko’s company. Kurgaz cursed and raged, throwing himself with reckless ferocity against the monsters. He’d heard the great wail set up by Mirko’s comrades. He knew his brother was dead.
Mandred redoubled his own efforts, striving for every inch of ground. As the skaven began to give way, as they fell before the swords and spears of the Middenheimers, the prince kept an eye out for the white rat, dreading to see Drakdrazh blazing in the creature’s paws.
‘Your grace! Your grace!’ The cry came from a sweat-drenched man clad only in a linen tunic and woollen breeks. He pushed his way through the reserves behind the prince. Mandred shook his head at the man’s curious raiment. He didn’t look like one of his soldiers, which left the question of where he had come from.
‘Your grace!’ the man shouted again, his cry ringing over the fray. There were more words, but they were garbled in the clamour of battle. Something of their import must have impressed Beck, however. The knight pressed close to Mandred, fending off the prince’s foes so that he could disengage.
Mandred fell back, listening with horror as the man’s words became clear. He was right, the man wasn’t a part of the army. He was a messenger from the surface. From Middenheim.
‘We are undone,’ the messenger cried. ‘Skaven are attacking the surface!’
The report was like a cold knife sinking into the prince’s heart. Skaven on the surface! Skaven in Middenheim!
‘Your grace, what do we do?’ The question came from one of the commanders, a nobleman who had been fighting at the prince’s side.
Grimly, Mandred turned back to the battle. ‘We fight on,’ he said. ‘We gave our word to help the dwarfs, we will not forsake them.’ He choked back the dread that made his voice falter. ‘If we can’t turn the enemy back here, we won’t be able to save our homes anyway.’
Carroburg
Mitterfruhl, 1115
Plague ravaged Carroburg. Daily, from the towers and parapets, the denizens of Schloss Hohenbach could see the decimation of the city. Corpse-carts prowled the streets, bodies lay stacked in the gutters. White crosses were marked up on the doors of the afflicted, and even from the heights of the Otwinsstein the nobles could pick out the figures of plague doktors, their faces hidden behind their birdlike masks, making the rounds. The trickle of trade still braving the river to reach Carroburg vanished entirely, plunging the stricken populace even deeper into the grip of need and want.
Within the castle, however, a much different world existed. Here the Black Plague held no dominion. Here there was no spectre of starvation, no threat of death and disease. Here there was only indulgence and luxury, the excesses of extravagance. All the vices the plunder of the Empire could buy were brought forth by its Emperor to impress upon his guests once and again the magnificence of his might and his wealth. To make them forget the horror that had become their salvation.
It was a venture doomed to failure. What melody, what dance, what farce, what harmony, what delicacy, what eroticism could make a mind forget what had been done? Never could those who had partaken of the obscene inoculation drive that knowledge from their minds. Not the strongest spirit, not the most potent herb, not the most ardent lover could bring a moment’s respite. Yes, Emperor Boris had saved their lives, but their salvation was a tawdry thing, ever haunted by the thing Fleischauer had made.
Emperor Boris brooded upon the problem, watching as the very thing he had hoped to stop was instead accelerated by the warlock’s magic. The great men of the Empire were growing to hate their Emperor, not because he couldn’t protect them but because he had.
This inverted logic finally placed an idea in Boris’s cunning mind. The schemer who had played nobles and provinces against one another, who had ensured that no man was without some potent enemy only the Emperor could protect him from, now set his insidious intellect to this crisis. The answer that came to him was almost an epiphany. If he could not make his guests forget the cause of their good fortune, then he would compel them to embrace it!
The great hall was lavishly adorned, draped with festive garlands and colourful banners. Priceless artworks by the old masters were placed upon the walls, and a band of the most skilled musicians Boris had commanded to the castle assembled at the far end of the chamber. Broad tables displaying poached quail eggs, broiled cormorant and dozens of other items of costly fare lined the other end of the hall. It was the last of the fresh food. After this night, they would have to endure the pickled and preserved stores. This night, however, indulgence was to be the rule.
As the strains of a jaunty waltz rolled through the castle, the noble guests sauntered into the chamber, festooned in an opulence of frill and lace, each face hidden behind a feathered domino mask. Cloaked in the anonymity of their costumes, they entered the hall with a measure of bravado they might otherwise not have shown. Each feared to find accusation and recognition in the face of their peers — even more in the eyes of the thing itself. Wrapped in their disguises, however, they felt no such trepidation.
Boris himself made small attempt to conceal his identity, striding into the hall dressed in a costume that affected the ostentatious regalia of the proscribed godling Vylmar, lord of debauchery and decadence. The small silk mask that covered his eyes did nothing to conceal the impish smile. Even the dullest mind couldn’t fail to recognise the griffon-headed walking stick with which he swaggered about the hall, for all had seen that item many times in Boris’s possession.
The timid, quiet woman who accompanied Boris made a better effort at concealing her identity, but she was betrayed by the company she kept. It had been several weeks since the Emperor had devoted his attentions to anyone except Princess Erna.
The Emperor made a single circuit of the hall, a gesture that had all the judgemental posturing of an inspection tour; then he turned his back upon his guests and stared directly at the thing that none of them dared acknowledge, the thing they could look at only with shy, quickly averted glances. Boldly, Boris defied the taboo his guests had agreed upon.
The thing’s eyes were open, but there was no awareness in its gaze. A line of drool trickled from the corner of its toothless mouth, dripping down its breast to bathe one of the leeches fastened to its pallid flesh. The trunk of the thing was inanimate, only the rise and fall of its chest indicating that it was alive at all.
Brazenly, Boris walked up to the pedestal. From beneath the breast of his brocaded tunic, he brought forth a fold of gaudily coloured cloth adorned with tiny bells. While his shocked guests watched, Boris rose onto his toes, stretching to the utmost to set the fool’s cap onto the thing’s shaven head.
Music fell silent, conversation died. The atmosphere in the great hall became charged with tension, a dreadful expectancy. All eyes were turned to the Emperor and the grotesque thing resting upon the pedestal.
The shaven head tilted to one side, setting the little bells sewn to the cap jangling. In the silence, the tinkling note sounded like a peal of thunder.