Sindst chuckled. ‘Ranald is the god of luck, among other things. And you don’t get lucky if you don’t roll the knucklebones, Sigmarite.’
‘I hope we have a better plan than last time,’ Mordecaul said, as he was freed.
‘Run faster,’ Elspeth said.
‘That’s not a plan,’ Mordecaul said.
‘Die well,’ Olf said, heaving himself to his feet.
‘What part of the word “plan” don’t you understand?’ Mordecaul demanded.
Sindst chuckled. ‘For the servant of the god of death, you’re not very eager to make his acquaintance, are you, boy?’
Mordecaul hugged himself. ‘I wouldn’t be in his bower for very long, would I? Death is not the end here.’ He looked up, his pale face pinched with grief. ‘I can’t feel him. Morr, I mean. I can’t feel him here.’
‘None of us can feel our gods,’ Blaze said, kicking aside his chains as Sindst freed him. ‘That does not mean they are not there, hey?’ He went to the younger man and clapped him on the shoulders. ‘I knew a man, he was from Talabheim. His name was Goetz, and he was a brother-knight to me. He grew deaf to the words of Myrmidia, but he fought on, deaf and blind to her light. He still served. And when the time came, when he was at the end, suddenly – there she was!’ Blaze made a flamboyant gesture. ‘She had been there all the time, and he had been like a blind man standing in the sun, hey? That is what we are, newly blind. We must find the sun.’ Blaze patted Mordecaul on the cheek. ‘Find the sun,’ he said again.
Volkmar watched the exchange silently. Blaze’s overt display of faith made him feel ashamed, in some small way. His own faith had not so much been shaken as it had been uprooted. One did not become the Grand Theogonist on the strength of faith alone. Such a position was built on a bedrock of compromise. He had felt the power of Sigmar in his veins, but he had never spoken with his god, or gazed upon his face. He had never felt the need to do so. Sigmar provided him with purpose and the strength to carry out that purpose, and that was enough.
Or it had been. Now he wasn’t so sure. He felt eyes on him, and looked around to see Aliathra gazing at him, her face like something carved from marble. In her eyes was something he could not define – sadness, perhaps. Or pity. Volkmar felt a flush of anger and shook off the cloud of doubt that had settled on him. Mannfred had called him ‘Sigmar’s blood’. Well, he’d show the vampire the truth of those words, when he pulled out the leech’s unbeating heart and crushed it before his eyes.
Sindst had gone to the chamber door. ‘I can’t get it open,’ he said.
‘Then step back,’ Olf growled. He flexed his long arms. ‘Still a bit of strength left in this old wolf, I think. What about you, Blaze? What’s that you Myrmidians always say?’
‘We go where we are needed,’ Blaze intoned. ‘We do what must be done.’ He grinned. ‘See, I teach you something yet, yes?’
‘Shut up and put your shoulder into it, you poncy pasta-eater,’ Olf growled. Blaze chuckled and both men struck the door with their shoulders. Volkmar longed to help them, or to see to Morgiana with a sharp length of wood, but it was all he could do to stand. Instead, he kept an eye on the corner where Morgiana still lay, unheeding of their actions, as well as on the open roof above, just in case the vargheists decided to return. There was no way they could fight the creatures in their current state. It would be a miracle if they made the castle gates. But better a quick death in battle than whatever Mannfred had planned. He rubbed his blistered wrists and glanced down at the blood that flowed through the runnels that cut across the floor.
Then, his eyes were drawn to the gleaming iron crown, where it sat on its cushion of human skin. It seemed to glitter with a strange internal light, at once ugly and beauteous, attractive and repulsive in the same instant. He thought he could hear a soft voice calling to him, pleading with him, and he longed to pick it up.
I should, he thought. It was his duty, was it not? The Crown of Sorcery belonged in the vaults of the temple of Sigmar, in the Cache Malefact with the other dangerous objects. It should never have been brought into the light. How Mannfred had breached the vaults was still a mystery, but Volkmar’s fingers itched to snatch up the crown and – place it on my head – carry it away from this fell place.
He froze, startled at the thought that had intruded on his own. It had not been his, and he knew it. His eyes narrowed and he mustered the moisture to spit on the crown, which seemed to flicker angrily in response.
‘You can hear it, can’t you?’ the elf maiden murmured, from behind him.
Volkmar licked his lips. ‘I can,’ he hissed hoarsely. He looked away. ‘But it says nothing worth listening to. It is nothing more than a trap for the unwary.’
‘I saw Mannfred wearing it,’ Mordecaul said. He looked at the crown and shuddered. ‘It fit him perfectly.’
‘It fits any head that dares wear it,’ Volkmar grated. ‘And it hollows out the soul and strips the spirit to make room for that which inhabits it.’ He grinned mirthlessly. ‘Let the von Carstein wear it, and bad cess to him. Let it drain him dry, one parasite on another. A better fate for him, I cannot imagine.’
‘That is not his fate,’ Aliathra said. Her blind eyes sought Volkmar’s. ‘He will burn in the end. As will we all.’
‘I see the stories of the good cheer of the folk of Ulthuan were just that,’ Sindst said. He hefted a broken length of bone in his good hand. ‘If we’re going, let’s go.’
‘The door is giving,’ Olf said. The door shuddered on its hinges as the Ulrican and the knight struck it again. Even half starved and beaten bloody, both men were still strong, as befitted the servants of war gods.
Volkmar was about to reply, when a cloud of char and splinters cascaded down from above. He looked up and then turned, caught up Aliathra and Mordecaul and hurled them aside as the vargheist landed with a shriek and a crash. It reared up over Volkmar, wings filling the confined space of the chamber. It screamed again, jaws distending as it lunged for him. Then it jerked back as something soft struck Volkmar’s shoulder and hurled itself into the creature’s face. A second rat leapt from Volkmar’s other shoulder, and then a third leapt from the floor, and a fourth, a fifth – ten, twenty, until it seemed as if every rat and cockroach that had shared the chamber with the prisoners was crawling over the vargheist, biting and clawing. The monster staggered back, crashing into the lecterns with a wail as the tide of vermin knocked it sprawling.
Volkmar turned and saw Russett watching him blankly. The nature priest was surrounded by rats, and his lips moved silently as he sent his furry army into hopeless battle with the vargheist.
‘Come on,’ Olf roared as he grabbed Volkmar and propelled him into the corridor. ‘Leave him and let’s go!’
Erikan swept the femur out, and the holes he’d cut into it caught the breeze, making an eerie sound. He leaned back on his branch and placed the femur to his lips. The tune he piped out was an old one; he didn’t know what it was called, only the melody.
‘Very lovely,’ Markos said. ‘But weren’t you supposed to be helping us see to these strategies, Crowfiend?’
‘I am,’ Erikan said, not looking down. ‘I’ll take my hounds of night and silence the watch-posts along the Stir, as soon as we are able to leave. If we strike quickly enough, no one will have any idea that we are out and about.’ He whirled the femur again, enjoying the sound it made.
‘And by “hounds of night”, you mean those mouldering wolves and chattering ghouls that you seem content to spend your time with? What sort of warrior are you?’ Anark sneered, glaring up at him, his fists on his hips.