C. Werner - Blighted Empire

Rare amusement this! Boris congratulated himself on this novel entertainment. Who but an Emperor could command such a performance? Who but an Emperor could afford to lay waste to an entire city? If nothing else had impressed his guests with the extent of his power, this would emblazon it upon their very souls! Once the spectacle was past, once the wonder and emotion had cooled into the reflections of cold reason, they would understand and appreciate what they had been witness to. He was thankful that the Black Plague had finally reached Carroburg. Without it, he might never have considered such a display of unrestrained power.

The conflagration quickly spread, entire districts blazing, the afternoon sky blotted by thick pillars of smoke. Before the gawking, jeering spectators assembled on the castle walls, Carroburg died.

Emperor Boris, tiring of the fiery display, turned from the battlements, seeking to find Erna. The woman’s helpless disapproval would, he decided, still add a much needed spice to the banquet of Carroburg’s destruction. He scowled when his roving eyes failed to find her. She’d retreated back into the castle, hiding herself away as she had when the nobles would feed the beggars. Boris chuckled at the absurdity. As though by not seeing a thing she could make it any less real.

He was debating whether to send someone to fetch Erna from wherever she had hidden herself when a note of alarm rose from the nobles on the parapet. Thinking perhaps he had missed some rare incident of unique tragedy, Boris rushed back to the battlements. He was surprised, even disappointed to find that his guests weren’t watching the fire but had instead turned their attention to something close to the base of the castle wall.

It was then that the Emperor became aware of the sounds, sounds that perhaps had been present for some time but had been deadened by the applause of his guests and the din rising from burning Carroburg. The sounds were strange, a confusion of dozens of small bells that seemed to have been selected for their disharmony. Beneath and around the chaotic notes were the tones of many chanting voices.

But such voices! Boris felt his pulse quicken at the loathsome noise. They were shrill, scratchy voices — the squeaks of vermin trying to contort themselves into the patterns of speech. He thought of the reports from the southern provinces, the appeals for monetary and military aid against hordes of horrific ratmen.

The Emperor’s guests pointed with trembling hands at a ragged line of sinister figures in tattered green robes. They were somehow monk-like despite the uncanny wrongness of their every step, the surging scurry in their gait that belonged to nothing human. It was from these figures that the eerie chant arose, and clenched in the furry talons of many of them were bells of every stripe and size.

Around and around the Otwinsstein the inhuman monks marched, filling the winding road with their pestiferous numbers. Every fifth monk bore aloft a metal censer fitted to a long pole, swinging it with crazed fervour overhead. The ball-like censers expelled clouds of grimy smoke, filth that was borne towards the castle by the winds sweeping across blazing Carroburg.

Emperor Boris heard the frightened mutters of his guests, the superstitious fears of men who now repented their mockery of the gods.

‘We stand protected,’ Boris called out to his guests. ‘The enchantment will shield us.’ Even as he spoke, he waved soldiers away from the catapults, sent servants hurrying to ready bows and arrows.

‘The magic will protect us,’ Boris scolded the terrified men around him as he watched a noxious green fog slither its way up the castle walls. ‘The gods are powerless to harm those who reject their power.’

Inwardly, however, the Emperor doubted his own words.

Middenheim

Ulriczeit, 1118

The skaven horde closed in around Graf Gunthar’s troops. The plaza rang with the clash of swords, the screams of terrified horses and the cries of dying men. Upon the roofs, skaven jezzails pelted the embattled soldiers, cackling viciously as warpstone bullets slammed through steel plate to explode inside human flesh. Mobs of scrawny slaves wrenched knights from their saddles, packs of clanrats thrust spears into horses and chopped down infantry with crooked swords and rusty bludgeons.

Before the pillars of the theatre, the Verminguard butchered their way through nobles and peasants, hacking them down with their wicked blades. At their back, Vecteek the Tyrant roared with sadistic mirth, relishing every scream, savouring the stink of blood in the air.

This night belonged to Clan Rictus and their despotic Warmonger! Before dawn shone down upon Middenheim, the humans would be exterminated. A few, perhaps, might be taken back to Skavenblight, trophies of his supreme victory. Most, however, would die. The armies of Rictus were vast and hungry.

Vecteek hissed with satisfaction as he watched his Verminguard cut down a knight and his destrier, reducing man and animal to a mangled heap before they were finished. Yes, his triumph would send terror coursing through not only the foolish hearts of the man-things, but through the perfidious minds of skaven as well. Where other Grey Lords had failed, he would return in victory! All would bow to his tactical genius, his incomparable might as general and warlord!

Baring his fangs, Vecteek swung around as a black shadow dropped towards him from the charred roof of the theatre. The Warmonger’s bronze mace in his paws, his foot kicked out, sending one of his palanquin’s bearers stumbling towards the shadowy apparition. It was only when the cloaked figure sprang forwards and sent the bearer reeling against the side of the palanquin with a graceful drop kick that Vecteek recognised the fearful presence as his faithful retainer, Deathmaster Silke of Clan Eshin. Just to be careful, he kept the stunned bearer between himself and the infamous assassin.

‘More man-things come,’ the Deathmaster reported, his voice like the whisper of a knife. ‘Dwarf-things too.’ Silke lashed his tail in anger. ‘Vrrmik betrays us!’

Vecteek snarled in outrage. Raising his mace he started to lunge at the Deathmaster. Silke, however, was one of the few messengers even Vecteek knew he couldn’t destroy. Instead, he contented himself by smashing the skull of his hapless bearer. ‘That tick-licking spider-pizzle!’ Vecteek roared. ‘Vrrmik-meat shall suffer much-much! Slow-die long-long!’

Other shadows dropped down from the roof, the menacing shapes of the Deathmaster’s apprentices. Briefly they whispered into the ears of their master, careful to keep their gaze averted from Vecteek’s enraged notice. The restraint he showed to Silke might not extend to themselves.

‘Men and dwarfs come,’ Silke told the Grey Lord, waving a paw towards the south.

Vecteek followed the gesture, whipping his tail in anger as he saw the assassin’s warning play out. The ratmen holding that part of the Eastgate were scurrying into the plaza, streaming from the streets and alleys in a confused panic. Behind them, rushing after them like hungry cats, came the armies of both Middenheim and Karak Grazhyakh, the armies Vrrmik and his treacherous scum were supposed to be holding down inside the Wolfrock!

The Grey Lord swung around to demand Silke and his assassins do something, anything that might stave off the disaster. The cloaked killers were already gone, evaporated back into their shadows. Vecteek gnashed his fangs and looked around for Puskab, thinking perhaps the plaguelord might have some pox or contagion that would strike down the avenging armies. Like the assassins, however, Puskab had vanished.

Fortune was abandoning Vecteek, and with it went his allies. The Grey Lord quivered in fury, brought his mace slamming down into the skull of another bearer. His improvised palanquin crashed to the street as the remaining bearers fled.