C. Werner - Blighted Empire

‘It has been a trying day,’ he told Fuerst. His face contorted in an expression of disgust as he considered how even with the threat of ruinous scandal hanging over his cult, von Reisarch had imposed conditions and terms upon his capitulation. The end result would be the same, but von Reisarch wanted these concessions so that he and his god might save face. It was a contemptible display of hypocrisy.

‘I am going to retire early,’ Kreyssig said, waving his servant away. Fuerst bowed out, retreating to the little door concealed in the side panelling that led to his own quarters. All of the Imperial apartments were similarly appointed, doors disguised in the panelling to provide ingress for wardrooms, servants’ quarters and other such unseemly places whose presence was convenient but whose existence was best unobserved and unobtrusive.

Kreyssig withdrew into his chamber, sinking into sleep almost as soon as he lay down in the enormous bed.

It was still dark when he was awakened. Groggily, Kreyssig stared up at the velvet canopy, a dim blur in the shadowy murk of the room. The temptation to retreat back into slumber was almost irresistible, but even in his semi-coherent state his mind was vexed. What was it that had disturbed him?

The smell. There was a foul, animal stink in the room. That was what had disturbed him.

It was a smell that wasn’t unknown to Kreyssig. Furtively, he slipped his hand beneath his pillow, reaching for the dagger he kept there. Careful as he was, his action still evoked a warning hiss from the darkness.

Turning over in the bed, Kreyssig could make out a set of beady red eyes glistening in the darkness. The creature those eyes belonged to was only a dark outline, a black shadow behind the murk. He wasn’t sure which was worse, seeing the mutant or not seeing it.

‘I did not send for you,’ Kreyssig snarled at the shadow. ‘This is the Imperial Palace. You don’t belong here.’

The creature chittered, a sound that was unsettlingly like laughter. ‘Kreyssig-man want-need talk-talk,’ the mutant hissed. ‘Friends of Kreyssig-man listen when he talk-talk with god-man. Friends not like-like.’

Kreyssig snorted with contempt at the creature’s expression of displeasure. Was this sewer-crawling vermin actually trying to dictate terms to him? Angrily and without care for the mutant’s warning, he fished the dagger out from under his pillow.

‘I don’t care what you like and what you don’t,’ Kreyssig declared. ‘You should feel fortunate I tolerate you mutants to exist at all. My dealings with the Temple of Sigmar are my own affair. I employ you to spy for me, not on me!’

The mutant growled at him from the darkness, Kreyssig had the impression of fangs gnashing angrily. ‘Kreyssig-man promise much-much,’ the creature said. ‘Gift-give grain. Want-need more.’

Kreyssig fingered the hilt of his dagger, his skin crawling at the close proximity of the ratman in his chambers. He would never have given the slinking little beasts credit for such audacity as to violate the Imperial Palace itself. Now the loathsome mutants were compounding audacity with impudence. ‘You’ve already been given grain for your people,’ Kreyssig said. ‘Two storehouses. Enough to feed all of Altdorf for the winter.’

‘Want-need more,’ the mutant repeated its demand.

A horrible thought came to Kreyssig as he listened to that monstrous, insolent hiss. Enough grain to feed Altdorf for three months, yet these mutants already needed more. If their numbers were as few as he’d been led to believe… But could he believe? How many of the verminous things were actually down there?

Kreyssig shifted to the far side of the bed, setting his feet on the floor and taking a firm grip on one of his pillows with an idea to exploit it as a makeshift shield. ‘Why do you need more grain?’ he demanded.

The rat-mutant chittered again. When it spoke, its voice was more measured, each word unhurried and distinct. ‘Need more grain. If Kreyssig-man will not give, then we will take. Need god-priest to stay dead. If Kreyssig-man makes new god-priest, then we will kill.’

‘Will you?’ Kreyssig cried, lunging forwards, his dagger flashing at the darkness. The blade slashed only shadows. The red eyes were gone, vanished as though they had been no more than a phantom. Before Kreyssig could consider where the mutant had retreated, light was streaming into the room from the open doorway. He spun around, but nothing more menacing than Fuerst greeted his gaze.

‘I heard you cry out, commander,’ Fuerst said, a cudgel clutched in one hand, a candle in the other.

Kreyssig waved Fuerst inside, motioning for him to raise the candle high and illuminate as much of the room as he could. The two of them made a thorough search, but there was nothing to find. Kreyssig’s visitor had evaporated into the night.

‘You can go to sleep,’ Kreyssig told Fuerst. When his concerned servant lingered, he made the suggestion an order.

Despite the disturbing visitation, Kreyssig wanted to be alone. He wanted time to think, to consider his dealings with the mutants, to balance his experiences with them against the dim fables of childhood. He wasn’t so sure now if his subhuman spies really were mutants. At least human mutants. The old legends spoke of other things, other things shaped like rats that could walk and talk and think like men.

The cold clutch of fear closed around Kreyssig’s heart, that organ that so many of his victims had described as black and immovable. Now it was a sick, frightened thing, a thing plagued with doubt and foreboding.

What if they truly were what Kreyssig now feared they might be? Not mere mutants or monsters, but the ghastly Underfolk themselves!

Again he thought of those storehouses. He would have the Kaiserjaeger open them tomorrow, check to see how much the mutants had already taken. It was one way to estimate their numbers.

Because Kreyssig was afraid that there might be more ratmen under Altdorf than he would find in his darkest nightmares.

Sylvania

Nachexen, 1113

The satisfying stink of fear filled Seerlord Skrittar’s nose as he strode down the muddy lane. There was a panoply of other delectable scents in the air. The smell of grain and dried meat, cheese and bread. The man-things of this village had been quite industrious. The formidable palisade they’d erected around their village was a clear indication of how much they intended to keep the fruits of that industry. They’d been better armed than most Sylvanian settlements too, and better prepared to fight.

None of which had, of course, availed them in the end. It never ceased to amuse Skrittar how much faith humans put into walls to protect them. It was only a matter of hours for Clan Fester’s skavenslaves to burrow under those walls and bring them crashing down. Before the man-things were fully aware of what was happening to them, the ratmen were upon them, cutting down those who tried to defy them. With the humans’ enemies already inside their defences, the struggle was exactly the way Skrittar preferred — brief and one-sided.

Those man-things that had displayed the good sense to cower before the skaven had been spared, at least for a time. It wasn’t just the satisfying smell of their fear, but simply a matter of good policy. Man-thing slaves were generally stronger than their skaven counterparts, and when they eventually did wear out they made for much better eating.

A little trickle of drool fell from Skrittar’s fangs as he considered the various ways man-meat could be prepared. He’d have Manglrr’s sword-rats fetch him a nice young human for dinner. The young ones were so much more tender, and their flesh seemed to absorb spices much more readily than that of older specimens.