C. Werner - Blighted Empire

‘I have wondered about that,’ Kreyssig confessed. ‘How is it that you have warded off the plague when even the priestesses of Shallya are powerless?’

‘They try to save too many,’ the witch said. ‘The greater the effort, the more power the spell demands. The priestesses don’t know how to make such magic. They would shudder at what such rituals require.’

‘But you aren’t afraid,’ Kreyssig observed.

The witch dropped the cat to the floor. The beast dashed back to the entrails lying about the table. ‘To work magic, one must be afraid,’ she said. ‘Those who do not fear the power are soon devoured by it. To master the dark arts, there must be a balance of respect and fear.’ She threw back her head. ‘I have found that balance,’ she announced proudly.

‘Every shield has its weakness,’ Kreyssig warned, thinking of the way Kranzbeuhler and Ghal Maraz had slipped through his fingers.

‘Wisdom lies in finding the limits of your strength,’ the baroness said. ‘The plague, it is said, is spread by swarms of black beetles. Long have I guarded myself with spells to drive away any insect, so already I am guarded against the plague beetles.’

‘And what is the limit of your strength?’ Kreyssig asked as he strode to where his clothing lay piled on the chapel floor. He pointed to the cobwebs shrouding the statue of Verena. ‘It seems the spiders don’t share your respect for magic.’

The baroness frowned. ‘The spell afflicts only the six-legged vermin,’ she said. ‘Though it has a peculiar effect upon ants. They flee from me, but if I trespass too near an ant hill, the brutes come trooping out in a frenzied swarm.’

‘Protecting their home,’ Kreyssig said. ‘Any man would do the same when threatened by a witch.’

‘Would he?’ wondered the baroness. In a few gliding steps she crossed the vault and plucked the breeches from Kreyssig’s hand. She laid her hand on his chest, running her fingers through his hair. ‘What would you do if threatened by a witch?’

Baroness von den Linden laughed as Kreyssig took hold of her and crushed her against him.

‘Kreyssig-man late-late!’

Adolf Kreyssig scowled at the scrawny, rat-like creature as it scurried out from behind a pile of rotten timber. With most of the river trade dried up because of the plague, the once bustling shipyards along Altdorf’s riverfront had become derelict and abandoned, shunned as reminders of better, more prosperous times. They made a perfect site for clandestine liaisons, even with bestial mutants. During his long convalescence, he had come to dislike the subterranean haunts these brutes preferred. Better by far to draw them out into more accommodating conditions.

‘You forget who is master here,’ Kreyssig snarled at the creature, his hand dropping to the sword at his side. The rat-creature’s head drooped as it followed the motion, then the beast leaped back, raising its paws in a warding gesture.

‘Calm-peace,’ it whined. ‘No harm-hate! Know you take-need time for breeder-witch.’

The sword left its sheath as Kreyssig stormed towards the retreating mutant. He had engaged these creatures to spy for him, not on him! His liaisons with Baroness von den Linden were a carefully kept secret, something that could explode into a ruinous scandal if it were made known. Married to a baroness himself, involvement with another noblewoman would be bad enough, but there were already enough rumours about Kirstina to make such talk doubly dangerous.

‘You’ve been spying on me,’ Kreyssig snarled at the retreating rat.

‘No-no!’ the creature whined as it crawled away. ‘Not follow-see!’ The creature lifted a paw and tapped its long snout. ‘Scent-smell cat-devil on Kreyssig-man!’

The abject terror in the mutant’s voice as it mentioned cats added a note of such absurdity to the scene that Kreyssig returned his blade to the scabbard. What possible menace could such cringing vermin pose? Even if they knew more than they should, they could hardly make it public. Even in the best of times, the men of the Empire would hang them as abominations… And these were far from the best of times.

‘What do you have to tell me?’ Kreyssig asked the mutant.

The beast came slinking forwards, paws folded before it. ‘Listen-learn much-much,’ it said. The creature’s voice dropped to a conspiratorial hiss. ‘Boris-king leave Altdorf-nest soon! Hide-stay in Carr-o-burg!’ The mutant’s chittering voice stumbled over the unfamiliar name.

Kreyssig’s blood froze as he heard the report. He owed his rank and position to the favour and indulgence of Emperor Boris. As a peasant, he was held beneath contempt by the nobles of Reikland and Altdorf. Without the Emperor’s backing, Kreyssig’s authority would be compromised, perhaps even supplanted entirely. The despot’s courage would pick this time to desert him! Not for an instant did he doubt the mutant’s report. Droves of nobles had already quit plague-ridden Altdorf to go into seclusion in country estates. It stood to reason that Boris would follow their example. With the execution of Baron Konrad Aldrech, the Emperor had inherited the holdings of the Grand Count of Drakwald, including the immense Schloss Hohenbach. No, the only surprising thing about the report was that Boris had waited so long to go into hiding.

The mutant’s next words, however, did come as a shock. ‘Boris-king leave-hide! Make-declare Kreyssig-man Protector when king-man is gone!’

He could only stare at the verminous mutant in disbelief. Kreyssig, for once in his career, was dumbfounded. Emperor Boris was abandoning Altdorf and making him, a peasant, Protector in his stead?

Adolf Kreyssig, Commander of the Kaiserjaeger, would soon be Adolf Kreyssig, Protector of the Empire. He would become, in effect, surrogate emperor, the most powerful man in Altdorf!

Drakenhof

Brauzeit, 1112

Wine dripped from the nobleman’s thick moustache, staining the ermine collar he wore and trickling down the sleek steel plates of his armour. He lowered the ivory chalice, jiggling it in an irritable fashion. Timidly, a young servant girl glided forwards to refill his cup. Despite her best efforts, she wasn’t nimble enough to transfer the wine from the jar to the moving cup without spilling some of it on the ground.

Immediately, the nobleman’s eyes were fixed on her, blazing like living coals within his swarthy face. His hand whipped out, smashing the chalice across the girl’s jaw, shattering the cup and gashing her cheek. The girl crumpled to the ground amid the broken ivory, sobbing more from terror than pain.

Count Malbork von Drak sank back in his chair, sneering at the woman’s fear. Imperiously, he stabbed a finger at the wine-soaked dirt. ‘Clean it up, wench,’ he snarled. When the still crying servant leaned forwards and started to sop up the mess with her skirt, the nobleman brought his armoured boot cracking against her skull, sending her sprawling.

It was an ugly, sadistic sound that bubbled up from Malbork’s throat as he congratulated himself on his callous brutality. Then he turned away from the bleeding servant and turned his vicious gaze on the courtiers gathered about the mouth of his tent.

‘A fine jest, your excellency,’ a fat, piggish man with foppish curls in his hair and a lisp to his voice whined.

Malbork ignored the man’s fawning admiration. With an irritated gesture, he waved him aside. ‘You are blocking my view of the castle,’ the count said. With indecent haste, the courtier scrambled away.

It was well that he did, for the vista that was visible from the opening of his tent wasn’t one conducive to an improvement in Malbork’s humour. Voivodes of Sylvania, the von Draks had administered their domain from the walls of Castle Drakenhof for generations. The brooding vastness of the fortress loomed over the green hills and rolling fields around it like some slumbering monster, casting its menacing shadow across the villages clustered about its foundations.