Castle of blood, p.20
Castle of Blood, page 20
Bernger followed Magda, plunging after her across the planks. They tipped and swayed, threatening to send the survivors tumbling at every step. Her mind afire with concentrating upon her footing and keeping the snakes distracted, Magda didn’t need the added complaint of the urge to turn back and return to the castle. Only a few feet from the other side, her foot slipped. She stared down into the crawling pit and felt death rushing up at her.
Instead she was tackled from behind and sent sprawling. The cord tied to her arm broke as it was raked across the edge of the pit. Strangely, it was the loss of Ottokar’s sword that wracked her thoughts more than the closeness of her escape.
Bernger rose from the floor, his face aglow with victory. He held his fists in the air and shouted, roaring like a bloodreaver with a mound of victims heaped beneath his boots. Magda blinked in fright at the weird analogy and the vile picture it conjured in her mind. The vivid horror of atrocity and its obscene appeal.
‘We made it!’ Bernger crowed as he reached to help Magda to her feet. ‘I’m sorry if I hurt you, but we made it! We’re across!’
Magda tried to make sense of what he was saying. Was there cause to celebrate? She glanced back at the pit. Yes, it was him. He’d grabbed her when she was going to fall. Why had he done that?
Bernger turned away and hurried to the door. He was excited, but not too excited to cast aside all caution. He examined the portal carefully, studying it for any sign of more traps. ‘I can smell fresh air,’ he called out. ‘Once we have this open, we can escape the castle.’
Escape the castle? Magda shook her head. That wasn’t what she wanted. Or was it? Something inside her kept saying she had something important to do in Mhurghast. Something it would help her do.
‘Are you all right?’ Bernger asked when he looked towards Magda. ‘Did you get hurt?’
Magda wanted to shout. She wanted to warn him. She wanted to tell him to run, to throw open that door and flee. Flee for his life. Flee for his soul. She wanted to do that. But she also wanted to open his belly and watch his blood spill across the floor. She wanted to take his head and carve upon it the Skull Rune and lay it down before the Brass Throne.
There was worry and concern in Bernger’s eyes. He laid his hand on her shoulder. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked again.
Shock filled his face as Magda drove Bernger’s own knife into his stomach. She twisted and ripped, tearing through flesh and organs. Strength such as she’d never known pulsated down her arm, into her hand, through her fingers. The knife was no longer a knife – it was sacred. An instrument of the Blood God to nurture His insatiable thirst.
There was no regret in Magda’s mind when she watched Bernger stagger away. Only numb indifference as he stumbled to the edge of the snake pit. She didn’t react when he fell in. He didn’t matter – he was nothing. He had no part in what she wanted to do. What she needed to do.
Revenge, the thing clawing at the foundations of her soul howled to her. It was slipping away even as it tried to tighten its hold. The chain was broken. It couldn’t linger. Not unless she said it could.
Revenge, the Mardagg hissed, and in its whisper it told Magda why. Why she had to go back into the castle.
Why she needed revenge.
Epilogue
Klueger made his way through Mhurghast’s dungeon. Every room he entered, he did so with a feeling of dread. Would this be the place where he would find Magda, killed by some murderous device? How far had Bernger managed to lead her? How great was the extent of these deathly halls?
There could be no other escape now. Klueger had realised that the moment the daemon abandoned Thilo’s body. He had no proof of the Mardagg’s destruction that he could offer that would satisfy Grand Lector Sieghard. The castle would burn, along with all inside it. The only chance for life was the escape route guarded by the count’s traps.
When he saw that the body of Baron von Woernhoer and the decayed husk of his killer had been moved, Klueger’s anxiety swelled. Bernger and Magda had got this far. That was to be expected, since they knew the secret of the other rooms. What lay ahead of them would be the unknown. A deadly unknown.
Klueger slowly rounded the corner to the other part of the landing. He found the note left by Bernger. His eyes roved across the pencilled words and their final warning. He looked across the fifth chamber, but to his relief there wasn’t any trace of pulped bodies, only the splinters from the pole. Bernger had been right, then. He and Magda had won clear of this trap at least.
The witch hunter sprinted across the trapped corridor, calling out numbers as he ran. He reached the other side only a few seconds before the walls crashed together behind him. Their dolorous reverberation pounded through his ears. It was why he didn’t hear the footsteps that approached him from around the corner that led to the next room.
‘I knew I would find you,’ Magda called. He looked up to see her walking towards him. The expression on her face was cold, vacant. Only the eyes were vibrant. Klueger could see the rage smouldering in them.
‘Praise Sigmar you’re safe!’ he cried out, relief flooding through him. But even as he said the words, he knew something was wrong. There was a smell. A charnel reek that grew in intensity.
‘No one is safe,’ Magda said. As she spoke, her voice began to collapse inwards, deepening into a bestial snarl that reverberated not in Klueger’s ears but in the depths of his soul.
‘She gave herself to me, that I might thank you on behalf of her mother,’ rasped the Mardagg’s voice inside Klueger’s spirit.
The enraged eyes turned bright crimson as tears of blood spilled down Magda’s cheeks. The Mardagg raised one of her hands and reached out for Klueger. The pale skin cracked, blood spurting from torn veins as the fingers lengthened into bony claws.
‘Revenge.’ The word echoed through the dungeons of Mhurghast long after the witch hunter’s screams fell into silence.
About the Author
C L Werner’s Black Library credits include the Age of Sigmar novels Overlords of the Iron Dragon, The Tainted Heart and Beastgrave, the novella ‘Scion of the Storm’ in Hammers of Sigmar, the Warhammer novels Deathblade, Mathias Thulmann: Witch Hunter, Runefang and Brunner the Bounty Hunter, the Thanquol and Boneripper series and Time of Legends: The Black Plague series. For Warhammer 40,000 he has written the Space Marine Battles novel The Siege of Castellax. Currently living in the American south-west, he continues to write stories of mayhem and madness set in the Warhammer worlds.
An extract from The House of Night and Chain.
The antechamber to the Hall of Judgement on the battleship Eternal Fury was a semicircle, fifty-four paces across at its widest. I had counted. Against the fore wall, a single iron chair stood next to the heavy bronze doors that separated me from my judges. I had yet to sit in it. I could not keep still. I walked the periphery of the antechamber, finding no relief in movement, only the necessity to avoid the curse of stillness.
To port and starboard were deck-to-ceiling windows, and from the port one I could see the charred lump of coal that had been the world of Clostrum. The world it had been my duty to save. Every time I passed before that view, I paused, wincing through fresh spasms of guilt. Averting my gaze was not within my power. The sight pulled me, hooks sunk into my soul. Again and again, I stared at the dead world and then jerked away, my heart thumping hard, my gut dropping away, my left palm tingling with new sweat.
There was no feeling in my right palm. Nor anywhere else in my right arm, or my right leg. Or, more precisely, there was no natural feeling. They were my prosthetics, replacing the flesh and bone taken from me on Clostrum. I was not used to them yet. My pacing was more than restlessness. It was also my attempt to come to terms with the new realities of my body. The faint whirs of the servo-motors were still an alien sound, a machinic voice that I could not truly connect with myself. It was a whisper that followed me everywhere I went, its true source perpetually out of sight, though always near. The arm and the leg worked well, obeying the impulses sent by my brain. I did not consciously have to command their motions. At the same time, they were a strange land, a zone I did not recognise. They belonged to someone else, someone whose intentions perfectly reflected my own. I felt the phantom pains of my vanished limbs, and the aches corresponded to places on the prosthetics yet did not come from them. I was a divided being, playing at unity.
My soul was as split as my body. I was present in the moment, and grappling with the agony of my shame. I was also distant, part of my mind retreating into a cocoon of numbness, observing my torment with a cold disinterest.
I had been waiting in the antechamber for hours. When my eyes did not go to the ruin of Clostrum, they lingered on the relief sculpture of the bronze doors. On each was a massive figure, Justice personified in heroic lines, arms crossed, jaw stern, gaze directed far above my head, as if seeing the arrival of judgement. There was no mercy to be had here, no concessions.
I expected none. I desired none.
I did not think I desired anything. Not any longer. I awaited the call to pass through the doors with no impatience. I did not even feel the urge to get the process over with. There was only the shame, its spears battling with the protective shield of the numbness. The shield that held the memories of Clostrum at bay. I had to protect myself from them, or they would rip me apart. I would not be able to function at all. And if nothing else, I was determined to meet my fate with dignity. I owed that to my regiment. And to my fallen troops.
‘Steady,’ I whispered to myself as I approached the port window again. ‘Steady.’ But the effort to avoid the memories backfired. Instead of blocking them, I summoned them. They stormed my defences. They came for me with pincers and claws that could shred a Leman Russ like parchment. They came with bodies bloated with bioweapons. They came in a swarm that blotted out the sky and covered the land with an undulating carpet of horror. I saw the heroes of the Nightmarch, the soldiers who trusted me, who followed my commands without question, who looked to me for guidance and the path to victory. I saw the monsters turn them to blood and pulp. I saw the ocean of jaws devour my regiment.
I was in the roof hatch of my command Chimera again. The giant horror rushed us. It towered over the vehicle, its body armoured with impregnable chitin, its huge arms ending in talons like serrated spears. It stabbed its talons through the flanks of the Chimera, lifted it from the ground and ripped it in two. It hurled the halves away. I went flying and landed twenty yards from the burning wreckage. I tried to stand. I tried to make my last stand a worthy one. Before I could rise, the creatures were on me, marching over me, barely seeing me. One warrior form paused. Its talons pierced my shoulder and thigh.
The agony was fresh again. The agony and the sound, the awful tearing of muscle and the cracking of bone. The agony and the smell, the mix of my blood and the sharp, burning stench of xenos pheromones. The agony and the sudden absence, the parting of arm and leg from body.
And still other memories came, more fragmented but just as terrible, maybe even worse. They were confused impressions of gunfire, light and darkness, screams and roars. They were my last impressions as I wavered in and out of consciousness, of the troopers who came to my aid and died saving their failed colonel.
I hunched forward in the antechamber, clutching my false arm, my right leg feeling as if it were buckling, even though it could not. I gasped for air, and my nostrils were filled with the smell of xenos and massacre. My eyes watered. My chest heaved. I growled, because if I didn’t, I would scream.
‘Colonel, you may enter.’
The words jerked me from the memories. My eyes cleared. The bronze door had opened. Two men, one in the livery of the Imperial Navy, the other a surviving major of the Solus Nightmarch, stood on either side of the doorway.
I straightened up, cleared my throat and gave the major a curt nod. His name was Hetzer. He had been among those who had saved me. He was one of the few who had survived doing so.
I crossed the threshold into the Hall of Judgement. Four sculpted swords pointed to the centre of the vaulted ceiling, from which a great skull stared down. The room was circular, and I advanced down an aisle to its centre, to stand on a bronze aquila inlaid in the marble floor, directly beneath the gaze of the skull.
A ring of thrones surrounded me. All were occupied. The majority of the authorities present were of the Astra Militarum, most notably General Pereven of the Solus Nightmarch. There were a number of officers from the Imperial Navy as well, in deference to the fact that it was in their ship that this court was assembled. There were others too. There was Captain Numitor of the Ultramarines Eighth Company. I had never seen him before, but I knew who he must be. We had all known that the Ultramarines were fighting on Clostrum, though they had not been present near the battle I had lost. This was the first time I had been in close proximity to one of the Adeptus Astartes. I was dwarfed by his colossal stature. I felt something even worse than shame to be in the presence of so noble a warrior.
Sitting next to Pereven was a woman in solemn robes of black laced with gold. She was very old. The heavy chain and pendant of the Adeptus Terra seemed to weigh her neck down, but her eyes were piercing.
Pereven confirmed my surmise by introducing Numitor, and presented the woman as Lady Arrasq. ‘The rest you know,’ he said.
I did. I had the deepest respect for every officer in the room. It made my failure all the more painful to have it witnessed by them.
‘Colonel Maeson Strock,’ said Pereven, ‘the Circle of Judgement has been called to consider your actions in the battle for Clostrum. Do you understand your position in these proceedings?’
‘I do, sir.’ I stood straight. I stared at a point on the wall just above the general’s head. ‘I understand that the work of the Circle is complete. Judgement has already been reached. I am here for it to be rendered, not to defend myself.’
‘Good,’ said Pereven. ‘Before we pronounce the verdict, this court would like to hear your evaluation of the event.’
‘Sir, I was charged with leading my regiment against the tyranid invasion and protecting the civilian population of Hive Throndhelm. I failed in this task. My regiment was defeated, taking severe losses, and Throndhelm was overrun. So was all of Clostrum. In the wake of the Imperial defeat, Exterminatus was declared. I make no excuses for the part I played in losing a forge world. Whatever the verdict of this court, I accept it with thanks and will do grateful penance.’
Pereven toyed with the stylus in his hands. ‘Colonel, though you have described the events accurately, your analysis is incorrect.’
‘Sir?’ I asked, confused.
‘You did not fail in your duty,’ said Numitor. ‘No success was possible, though none of us knew this at the outset of the battle.’
‘You slowed the tyranids,’ Pereven said. ‘You bought enough time for a significant portion of the population of Hive Throndhelm to be evacuated off-world, along with a considerable amount of resources. Colonel, you are to be commended for your actions.’
‘Commended,’ I repeated softly. The word tasted like sawdust.
‘Though Clostrum was lost,’ said Numitor, ‘the larger tyranid advance into this sector of the Imperium has been blunted, at least for now. You were part of a victory, colonel, not a defeat.’
The screams of devoured soldiers roiled in my memory, blotting out my sense of the chamber for a moment. If there was a triumph here, I could not find it.
‘You fought hard,’ said Pereven. ‘You have done well, colonel.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ I managed. His praise struck my soul like a curse. ‘I look forward to serving with honour wherever the Nightmarch is called to next.’ It took a huge effort to utter those words. Sweat beaded on my forehead.
Pereven exchanged a glance with Arrasq.
‘No,’ said the noble who spoke for the Adeptus Terra.
‘How much of the retreat do you remember?’ Pereven asked before I could respond.
‘Very little,’ I admitted. ‘I believe I was unconscious for most of it.’
‘Despite your wounds, you were not. You continued to issue commands throughout.’
‘Coherent ones?’ I turned to look at Hetzer. He looked uncomfortable.
‘Speak freely, major,’ said Pereven. ‘You will do no harm to your colonel. We already know the answer to his question. He does not, and he deserves the truth.’
Hetzer cleared his throat. ‘No,’ he told me. ‘Many of your orders could not be followed.’
‘Meaning you had the good judgement not to obey them,’ I said sadly. ‘Was I delirious from blood loss?’ I asked Pereven.
‘The medicae officers have concluded that this was only partly the case. You were suffering from other forms of shock, colonel.’
‘You have given what you could to the battlefield, Colonel Strock,’ Arrasq said. ‘You have nothing left to give.’
What she said was true, and I knew it. Yet it felt like the most humiliating weakness to agree. Then she said, ‘The Imperium still has need of your services.’
Hope flared. I was ready to agree to anything, as long as I could salvage even a thread of dignity. ‘All I ask is to serve,’ I said.
‘Tell us about your home world, colonel,’ said Arrasq.
I was puzzled, but did as she had asked. ‘Solus is an agri world,’ I said. ‘Its seat of government is Valgaast, which is also its largest city. Its exports to the Imperium are on the order of twelve billion tonnes a year…’ I trailed off, feeling foolish. ‘I’m sorry, Lady Arrasq. I really don’t understand what you want from me.’
‘You have told me what I wanted to hear.’ She glanced at the data-slate in her hands. ‘Colonel, would you be surprised to learn that exports from Solus have been gradually falling for some time? And that the current level is just under ten billion tonnes a year?’
