‘Did you?’ Kreyssig asked.
Something in her lover’s tone brought a flicker of doubt sweeping across the witch’s face. For the first time she was aware of a dissonance within Kreyssig’s thoughts, a mental partition that resisted her.
Before she recovered from her surprise, Kreyssig tore open the golden door with his left hand and with his right swung the purple-gowned witch into the chamber beyond. Frantically, he slammed the door shut behind her, fearing every instant that she would unleash some spell against him.
The baroness shouted at him from behind the door, but the first shout quickly faded into an inarticulate shriek of horror. The witch had realised what room she was in.
One of the most expensive of Boris Goldgather’s luxuries had been the construction of an indoor apiary, that he might be provided with fresh honey even in the deep of winter. Dwarfcraft and magic had gone into the building of the chamber, with pipes behind the walls to maintain a constant temperature and beds of enchanted flowers that never lost their bloom. A dozen hives, each in a box of crystal and gold, resided in the apiary to indulge the late Emperor’s sweet tooth.
The apiary was one of Boris’s extravagances that Kreyssig hadn’t demolished. He had a use for it. A use he was now putting into effect. He remembered the enchantment Baroness von den Linden had placed upon herself, a spell that offended insects and frightened them away. He also remembered that she’d said ants, with homes to protect, wouldn’t flee but would instead turn and fight.
As for ants, so with bees. Even through the thick door, Kreyssig could hear the angry buzzing of the insects as they rose from their hives. He heard the terrified screams of the witch as the swarm descended upon her, a stinging tide of rage. In her panic, the baroness forgot all her magic, all the spells and conjurations that might have saved her. All the cold discipline, all the manipulative cunning, all the careful plotting and politicking, none of it served her in that final terror.
The muffled pleas, the desperate entreaties that became less articulate as venom swelled her flesh and terror assailed her mind — Kreyssig savoured each one. He felt a thrill course through his hand as he felt the witch’s impotent fists pounding at the door, nails scratching uselessly at the golden panel.
‘It wouldn’t have worked,’ Kreyssig said, pressing his mouth against the door. He could hear the impact of bees against the panel as they struck at the witch, knew that for each insect that missed there would be many more that would strike true. ‘You are a Von, after all.’ He heard a dull moan from inside the chamber, felt the door shake as a body slumped against it. He stepped away from the door, a regretful expression on his face. ‘And I am but a lowly peasant.’
Kreyssig turned and marched back down the arcade. He’d have Fuerst brick up the apiary. With Boris gone, there wasn’t any reason to squander expenses on year-long honey. After the room was sealed, no one would ever find the body. Baroness von den Linden had simply vanished, walked off into the mists of legend like Sigmar had done. It would be something to elicit mourning but not unrest among the peasants. The Temple of Sigmar wouldn’t be connected in any way. The conditions of his arrangement with Grand Theogonist Gazulgrund would be satisfied. Removal of the witch in exchange for the Temple’s support. He might, of course, have used the Grand Theogonist’s daughter to sway him, but as it happened, eliminating the witch had suited his own purposes. The baroness thought she could control him; in her eyes he would never be anything but a peasant. He just couldn’t afford such an attitude so close to the Imperial throne.
Not if he would make it his own.
The orison the Sigmarites had taught him had served to conceal his intentions from the witch right until the last. He must remember to thank Stefan — Gazulgrund — for that bit of assistance.
Kreyssig paused, glanced out through the windows and towards the distant spire of the Great Cathedral. Something Fuerst had told him, an unsettling bit of trivia he’d heard a few of the dwarf goldgrubbers discussing. It was tradition for the Grand Theogonists to adopt a dwarf name, but the one Stefan had chosen was unsettling.
Loosely translated, it meant ‘the Death God’s hammer.’
Skavenblight
Vorhexen, 1118
Supreme Warlord Vrrmik of Mors settled into the coveted Twelfth Throne, that chair adjacent to the empty seat reserved for the Horned Rat himself. The symbols of Rictus had been removed, relegated to the lower position Vecteek’s successor had assumed. Vrrmik bared his fangs as he glanced at the simpering Kreptitch. He was a twitchy, nervous piebald ratman typical of the underlings the Warmonger had surrounded himself with. Any warlord of too great an ability was quickly eliminated from the ranks of Clan Rictus; it was one of the ways Vecteek had preserved his own position. Now, however, his plan was suffering from the resultant lack of leadership. Too much of their power had rested in the paws of a single skaven.
There had been many changes in the Shattered Tower. The Verminguard had been expelled from the fortress, replaced by a mixture of Clan Mors stormvermin and Clan Pestilens plaguevermin. The shared responsibility for safeguarding the Council of Thirteen had been a concession the Grey Lords had accepted with qualms. Happy to be rid of Vecteek’s troops, they weren’t so keen on allowing a single clan to assume the duty. In the end, it was decided to pit Mors and Pestilens, the two most powerful clans, in the adversarial role of dual protectors.
Even as Vrrmik congratulated himself on seizing the Second Throne, he couldn’t help but have a flicker of anxiety when he thought of the plague monks. Arch-Plaguelord Nurglitch might be content with a lesser seat, but he now effectively controlled three votes on the Council. Poxmaster Puskab Foulfur, progenitor of the Black Plague, had been the first of his disciples to acquire a seat on the Council, killing Wormlord Blight Tenscratch of Clan Verms and assuming his seat. Now another of the plague monks, a plaguelord named Vrask Bilebroth, had gained a seat on the Council, acquiring the position forfeited by Warlord Manglrr Baneburrow of Fester. There had been many twitching whiskers at the unusual transfer of power, but with Clan Fester entering the Pestilent Brotherhood and becoming little more than a thrall clan to the plague monks, there was little difference whether Manglrr kept his seat or handed it over to his masters.
Grey Lord Vrask had risen to prominence after the ill-fated expedition by Seerlord Skrittar, bringing a copious amount of warpstone back to Skavenblight to enrich the coffers of Clan Pestilens and dragging the once powerful Clan Fester along with him like a bat on a leash. The same mysterious expedition had decimated Clan Mordkin, forcing Warlord Nekrot to invest in new breeders to accelerate the repopulation of his strongholds. However, the most pronounced difference, the thing that probably did more to aggrandise the position of Clan Pestilens than even a hoard of warpstone and a third seat on the Council, was the death of Seerlord Skrittar.
The most defiant and outspoken of Nurglitch’s adversaries, Skrittar had been viewed with a mixture of religious awe and superstitious terror by the rest of the Council. Even the decimation of the grey seers, the loss of twenty-four of the most skilled of the Horned Rat’s prophets, had done little to reduce the fierce reputation of Skrittar. His death in the human lands of Sylvania, however, had cast the entire Order into doubt. The new seerlord, a grizzled half-blind creature named Queekual, was a sinister figure of few words and fewer friends. Since rising to the Council, he’d been content to sit, listen and observe, like some black spider at the centre of its web. None of the Grey Lords knew what the new seerlord might be planning, but none of them desired to become his pawn.