Sword of vengeance, p.38
Sword of Vengeance, page 38
As for the remainder of the army, Schwarzhelm could only hope they were holding together. He’d worked hard to restore some kind of shape to the Imperial lines, but the numbers were still against them. Killing Grosslich might bring some respite, but it wouldn’t win the day. Whatever happened between the two of them, there were long hours of fighting ahead.
Grosslich pressed the attack, his sword crackling with lilac energy. As he did so, the clouds fractured over the summit of the Tower. Starlight shone through the gap, exposing the deep of the night above. Then, slipping into vision as the clouds sheared away, Morrslieb spilled its putrid light across the battlefield. Firelight mingled with the yellowish stain of corruption, making even the Empire troops look as ravaged as corpses.
Grosslich risked a glance upwards before meeting Schwarzhelm’s challenge again. The swords crunched together, splattering the viscous slurry from Grosslich’s sword in a wide circle.
‘The Deathmoon,’ he said, dodging a vicious swipe at his flanks and twisting Schwarzhelm’s blade back at him. ‘Sign of your defeat.’
‘My defeat?’ growled Schwarzhelm, letting his sword come back and seizing the grip with both hands. ‘I remember you as you were. There’s no victory for you here.’
He flung Grosslich’s blade up out of position and stabbed at the traitor’s midriff.
‘Your death will be victory enough,’ hissed Grosslich, sidestepping the strike and getting his sword back down into guard. His voice was ragged with effort.
‘Tell yourself that, if you need to.’
Grosslich snarled and surged forwards. His sword spun round, spraying black fluid over Schwarzhelm’s armour.
‘You know nothing of my choices!’ he spat, thrusting at Schwarzhelm’s guard with renewed vigour. ‘Dominion was denied me, though I was twice the man Leitdorf was.’
Schwarzhelm let the flurry of blows come to him, stepping into them, bringing his enormous strength to bear on the parries, engaging the peerless swordsmanship that had made his reputation on the battlefields of the Empire.
‘Maybe once. Now you have diminished, and he has grown.’
‘He lives?’ Grosslich became agitated, and the disquiet fed itself into his sword-strokes.
‘Even now he nears the Tower. Husband and wife are due a reunion.’
Grosslich’s eyes filled with a mocking light. His face glowed sickeningly as his misshapen mouth cracked into a warped smile.
‘She needs no husband,’ he laughed, meeting a powerful thrust from Schwarzhelm and pushing it back. ‘He can’t destroy her. You can’t. Only I have the power. Kill me, and you doom yourself.’
Schwarzhelm feinted to the left before bringing his edge back sharply, probing for the join in Grosslich’s armour below the breastplate.
‘You overestimate your power,’ he said, his voice steely calm. ‘Do you not recognise the Sword of Justice? It is a holy blade. It thirsts for your death, and you have nothing to answer it with.’
Grosslich laughed again. Quick as a snake, he pressed the attack, whirling his sword into Schwarzhelm’s face. The strike was blocked, but the power behind it was sudden and massive. The locked blades fell back before Schwarzhelm’s mighty arms halted the thrust. For a moment, the edge of the metal was close. Close enough for him to see the runes on Grosslich’s sword-edge, half-obscured beneath the ever-flowing corruption across its surface.
‘You don’t recognise my blade either?’ Grosslich crowed. ‘You gave it to me. The runefang of Averland. The Sword of Ruin. All of this, you gave to me. I have bent it to my will, just as I have this province. It can hurt you, Schwarzhelm. Oh, this can hurt you.’
The two men broke apart again. For a moment, Schwarzhelm’s eyes still rested on his enemy’s sword. A flicker of doubt passed across his face. Above them, the Deathmoon spread its sickening sheen across the mass of struggling men. In every direction, thousands struggled, all lit by the fires of Averheim. All around him, his troops were pitted against a foe they couldn’t hope to best. They would die, one by one, even if he halted Grosslich.
Schwarzhelm brought the Rechtstahl into guard, feeling the solid weight of it in his hands. The light of Morrslieb glinted from the steel, transmuted into pure silver by the holy metal. Grosslich waited for him, gathering his strength.
Doubt drained away. All that remained was combat, the purity of the test. It was one he had never failed, not even against Helborg. He wouldn’t do now.
‘Pain is fleeting, Grosslich,’ he said, poised for the strike. ‘Damnation is eternal. Let me show you the difference.’
‘I’ll go first,’ said Helborg. His voice resounded from the marble walls of the Tower. ‘Leitdorf behind, Volkmar last.’
The men silently fell into their positions. None of them, even the warrior priests, looked sure of themselves. There was something sickening about the Tower. The long nights of agony had left their imprint in the structure, staining it as surely as a birthmark. A man didn’t need Volkmar’s skills to detect the perversion humming in the air.
‘Remember yourselves,’ the Marshal warned, peering ahead to the stairwell. Despite himself, his heart beat faster in his chest. After the terrible sprint to the Tower, the sudden eerie quiet was hard to deal with. Something awful lurked here, something ancient and suffused with malignance. ‘Death in His service is glorious. Only the traitor fears destruction.’
He crept forwards, and the spurs on his boots clicked against the marble. The paltry band of men, now just eighteen strong, stayed close, eyes wide, knuckles white on the grips of their weapons. At the rear, Volkmar kindled a warm glow from the tip of his staff. It was scant consolation, and did little more than pick out the horrific images engraved on the walls.
They went down the stairs swiftly, hurrying round the broad sweep of the spiral and avoiding the twisted shapes embedded into the iron banister rail. As they descended, it got hotter. Breathing became more difficult and the growl of the hidden engines echoed more loudly. From far in the deeps, there came the sound of clanging, as if vast chains swung together. A muted howling resonated from far above.
‘Daemons,’ muttered Leitdorf, clutching at the book at his belt.
‘Volkmar can handle them,’ said Helborg. Terror seemed to invest the air itself, and he was not immune from it. ‘Keep your mind clear. We’ll be busy with your Natassja.’
‘She was never mine.’
‘Enough. We’re closing.’
They reached the base of the stairs. A long vaulted passageway led directly ahead. The walls were richly decorated with sculptures, all carved with assorted scenes of creative agony. Limbs and faces were contorted across stone friezes, locked in impossible positions of excruciation. Helborg let his gaze alight on the face of a young woman. The carving was artful, despite the debauchery. Bathed in the light of Volkmar’s staff, the subject still retained a warped kind of beauty.
Her eyes flickered open.
‘Help me!’ she gasped, muffled by the iron clamping her lips together.
Helborg recoiled in shock, bringing his blade up in a flash. The woman struggled against her sorcerous bonds, weeping with terror and misery. All along the corridor, other eyes opened. There were still people alive in there, locked in agony.
‘You can’t help them!’ cried Volkmar, calling to a priest who had swung his hammer back, ready to smash them free. ‘They are one with the Tower. Leave them.’
The band pressed on, walking a little faster, avoiding the piteous wails from the walls, hastening to avoid the fingers that somehow managed to clutch at them as they passed.
It kept getting hotter. The roar of the bloodfire became more complete. A doorway loomed up at them from the shadows, high and ornately carved. The corruption came from within it.
As they approached, a cloaked figure burst through the doors, screaming with fury. It might have been a man once, but it had been terribly transformed. Its spine curved over, forcing it to scuttle like an insect. Its flesh was ivory-white, though the eyes were ringed with black. One hand was chronically distorted, now little more than a collection of flesh-ribbons. The other was curled tight into a fist.
‘Blasphemy!’ it screamed, hurling itself at Helborg.
The Marshal caught it in mid-air with the edge of the Klingerach, hurling it back against the wall. The creature hit the iron with a crack, and slid down to the floor. For a moment it looked like it might get up again.
‘Blasphemy...’ it croaked. Its mouth filled with purple blood and its eyes glazed over. ‘She will punish...’
Then it locked into a spasm, choking and gagging. Helborg advanced to finish it off, but it expired. It slumped, twisted and broken against the iron wall.
Leitdorf gazed at it with horrified recognition.
‘Achendorfer,’ he breathed, unable to look away from the man’s distorted features.
‘Not any more,’ said Helborg grimly, resuming the march towards the doorway.
Volkmar and Leitdorf joined him. Together with the warrior priests and Reiksguard, they clustered at the portal to the chamber beyond.
Something vast was in there. The sound of a giant heart beating came from beyond the obsidian doors. The sigil of Slaanesh was engraved on each one, burning with the sweet stench of ruin. As Helborg’s eyes swept over them, pain lodged behind his eyes.
‘Trust to faith,’ he said for a final time.
Then he pushed the doors open, and they swung wide. Beyond was a Stone. It was massive, rearing up from the floor like a leviathan emerging from the deeps.
They entered the chamber. Helborg looked up. Natassja was there.
And then, only then, did he truly understand what had happened in Averheim.
Schwarzhelm pressed the attack, whirling the Rechtstahl round hard, knocking Grosslich back with the force of the blow. From the corner of his vision he could see his men locked in battles of their own. They couldn’t fight their way through Grosslich’s men, but neither were they being driven back in their turn. Everything hinged on the duel.
Grosslich’s armour was gouged with many rents, all inflicted by the Sword of Justice. Still he stayed on his feet. The wound in his neck had closed, and a ring of solid black blood formed a torc beneath his chin. His skills were impressive, no doubt augmented by the latent power in his sword.
It would do him no good. Schwarzhelm spun his blade at the traitor, pulling back at the last moment and flickering the tip above Grosslich’s guard. The sorcerer switched position, but too clumsily. Schwarzhelm stabbed forwards, aiming for a gaping crack in the breastplate.
The aim was good. Grosslich roared with pain a second time. He punched out with his gauntlet, aiming for Schwarzhelm’s head. The big man reared back, keeping the sword in place, then plunged it in deeper.
Grosslich’s face bloomed with blood like a translucent sac. He staggered, impaled on the sword edge. Schwarzhelm grabbed the man’s pauldron with his free hand and hauled him further up the blade.
The two of them came together, their faces only inches apart. Grosslich’s eyes went wide with shock and pain. The mutations on his face began to shrink away. The Dark Prince’s gifts were being withdrawn.
‘So you have sown,’ hissed Schwarzhelm, twisting the blade, feeling the holy metal sear the tainted flesh, ‘so shall you reap.’
Blood bubbled up in Grosslich’s mouth, hot and black. The Averland runefang fell from his grasp. For a moment, his face looked almost normal. It was the face of a mortal man, the one who had inspired a thousand peasants to march under his banner. Before Natassja had twisted those aims, they had been noble enough.
‘Dominion,’ he drawled, blood spilling from his lips. ‘Dominion...’
His eyes went glassy, and his body went limp.
Schwarzhelm wrenched the Sword of Justice free and Grosslich fell to his knees. For a heartbeat he stayed there, struggling against the inevitable. He looked up at Schwarzhelm pleadingly. The mutations around his face shrank back into nothing. He was as he had been before, a son of Averland.
There was no hesitation. Schwarzhelm drew the Rechtstahl back and swung heavily. Grosslich’s head came off in a single sweeping movement. It spun into the air and rolled across the mud, coming to rest amidst a detachment of halberdiers rushing into assault. The men trampled it into the mire, hardly noticing it amongst the horrors of the war around them. Soon it was lost, the skull cracked and smeared with blood and grime, gone amid the detritus of the battle.
The headless corpse teetered for a moment before thudding to the ground. Heinz-Mark’s rule as elector was over, ended by the man who had crowned him.
Schwarzhelm bent down and retrieved the runefang from the mire. The black slurry had stopped dripping from the blade and the steel glinted from under the crust of corruption. He wiped it clean on his cloak, then took it up in his left hand. Just as he had done on the journey from Altdorf, Schwarzhelm carried two swords, one the Sword of Justice, the other a runefang.
He turned to face the dog-soldiers already clustering around him. They weren’t daunted by the death of their commander, and the battle still surged unabated. Grosslich had never truly commanded them. He’d been a puppet to the last, a tool for the use of subtler powers.
Schwarzhelm narrowed his eyes. He could see Kraus leading the charge on his left flank. There were Imperial troops everywhere, all lost in close-packed fighting. The situation was still desperate, and Grosslich’s death hadn’t changed it.
He was about to plunge into the ranks of dog-soldiers ahead when he caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of his eye. A long, leather coat, flapping in the ash-flecked wind, worn by a man who had no business being on a battlefield at all.
‘The last of the family,’ said Schwarzhelm to himself, filled with renewed purpose and hefting his twin blades. ‘I swear it now. Death will not find you this day.’
Natassja had grown. The last elements of her humanity had been shed, and she now towered ten feet above a mortal span. Her flesh was as black as jet, tinged with a faint outline of blue fire. Her eyes, still pupil-less, blazed an icy sapphire.
Her human raiment was gone. Her flesh was clad in shifting strips of blackened silk, rippling around her and curling over the onyx skin. Her hair raged around her face like a furnace, caught up in the throbbing bloodfire as it whipped across her naked shoulders. The tattoos that had scored her skin for so long were gone, replaced by a single burning mark of Slaanesh at her breast.
Though still achingly beautiful, her features had already been twisted with mutation. Her feet were gone, replaced with cloven hooves. Her fingers ended in talons such as her handmaidens wore. They were sheer points of ebony, slender and curved. She moved impossibly quickly, as if there were no intermediate stage between her being in one location and at the next. Even when her mouth moved to speak, the pattern of her lips was eerie and unsettling. A long, lizard-like tongue flickered between glittering fangs.
Natassja now resembled the daemons that had served her, though it was she who was the greater and more steeped in corruption. For Natassja was no true-born denizen of the aethyr, but that most terrible and despised of creations, a daemon prince, a mortal ascended to the level of a demigod. She had exchanged a finite soul for an infinity of damnation, and the terms of the bargain were daunting. Her power was near-limitless, her invulnerability near-complete, her malice absolute. In exchange for that, thousands had died in terror.
Mortal weapons now had no purchase on her, death little meaning. The world of the five senses, so long her prison, was now fleshed out with a thousand shades of emotion. Her eyes were no longer bound by the trammels of matter but by the possibilities of a profound and piercing sentience. Where a mortal saw appearances, she saw realities, stretching away over a whole range of future states towards an impossible horizon. Men appeared before her as burning souls wrapped in a frail gauze, ready to be plucked out and consumed as a lesser being might select sweetmeats from a tray.
For so long, the Vision had been so beautiful. It did not compare to the reality.
Behind her, the Stone still throbbed with energy. It had been enough to complete her transformation, magnified by the Tower, called into being by the sacrifices of the humans who had died. Averheim was her altar, the stone across which the lambs had been slaughtered. Slaanesh was pleased. The Lord of Pain smiled on her now, gifting her with the merest sliver of His own consciousness. Though her flesh was real, rooted in the world like that of the lowliest creature of the earth, her soul was an inferno, a blaze of coruscation beside which those of mortals were mere candles.
‘The Sword of Vengeance,’ she said, recognising its pattern within the world.
Her voice was astonishing, even to her. All those who had died to bring her into being shared a part of it. Just as with the true daemons, many tongues echoed throughout her speech. Men, women and children all spoke through her, and the sound echoed from the walls like a massed chorus. As sharp as a scream, as deep and resounding as a sob, Natassja let her new vocal cords play across their full range. It delighted her. Everything delighted her.
From down below, the one called Helborg still stood defiant. He raised the blade she’d named, as if that little spike could hurt her now. Beside him, the worm who had once been her husband did likewise. There was a third man with them who mattered, a disciple of the boy-god. She could see his soul hammering at the bonds of flesh that enclosed it. He was no stranger to the realm of Chaos, that one. He’d been into it once, and come back out again. Intriguing. That shouldn’t have been possible.
‘The Staff of Command,’ she said, recognising its name from the profile in the aethyr. It was ancient by the standards of the Empire, paltry by the standards of her master. It was capable of causing her some pain, but little more. ‘You are the Grand Theogonist of the boy-god.’
