C. Werner - Blighted Empire

The ratman reared back to strike again, but his opportunity was lost. Mandred’s dive had brought him to where a skaven carcass lay. Snatching the rusty sword from the dead paw, the prince rolled onto his back and thrust the point of the blade upwards at the same instant that Vecteek dived down upon him.

The point of the sword caught the monster in the belly, Vecteek’s own impetus driving the sword through the spiked mail he wore. The skaven’s fierce howl of bloodlust disintegrated into a pained yowl of agony.

Vecteek’s foot raked across Mandred’s face when he tried to drive the blade deeper. Instinctively, the prince flung his arms across his face to protect his eyes from the vermin’s claws. The instant the grip on the sword was gone, the skaven staggered back, his own mace falling to the ground as he clawed at the impaling blade.

Squeaking in agony, Vecteek wrenched the sword free, his glowing eyes glaring vindictively at Mandred. For an instant, the wounded monster seemed determined to rejoin the battle. Then the hate-filled eyes widened, the bestial head whipped from side to side in frantic, erratic motions.

A keening wail of sheer terror rolled across the plaza, erupting from a thousand skaven. The scent of Vecteek’s fear, the sound of their invulnerable tyrant squealing in pain, these had resonated through the senses of every ratman, driving black terror into their craven hearts. Moaning, bewailing their own imminent doom now that the despot was defeated, a wretched rout began. Wherever Vecteek turned his head, he saw the same thing. Hundreds of warriors throwing down their weapons, clawing and trampling each other in their desperate efforts to escape back into the streets. Men and dwarfs pursued the creatures, butchering them as they tried to flee.

The terror of his minions infected Grey Lord Vecteek. His eyes widened with fear. Whipping his tail at Mandred, forcing the prince to again shield his face, the Warmonger turned and fled, dashing towards the burned shell of the theatre.

Vecteek the Tyrant never reached the safety of the ruin. As he fled, a lone figure stood in his path, a blazing sword clenched in his mailed fist. Much of his speed and agility had bled out of the wounded skaven. When Legbiter came slashing at his head, Vecteek wasn’t quick enough to escape the runefang’s bite.

Bloodied, his finery reduced to rags in the long fighting, his wolfskin cloak dragging behind him, Graf Gunthar spat on the twitching corpse of Grey Lord Vecteek. A kick of his iron boot sent the vermin’s head bouncing across the plaza.

The graf cast his eyes across the battlefield, nodding to himself as he watched the defenders of Middenheim pursue the fleeing skaven back into the streets. The battle was over, now the cleansing would begin.

From the corner of his eye, Graf Gunthar noticed movement. He watched as a man rose painfully from the ground. Until that moment, he hadn’t realised that Vecteek’s foe had been his own son.

Across the bloodied battlefield, father and son looked to one another. The eyes of the son were filled with love and adoration, exhilarated to find the father alive. The eyes of the father beamed with pride, exalted to know that his son had become the man he had always prayed he would become.

For a moment, the lords of Middenheim stood, not speaking, words too clumsy to convey what they would say to each other.

The moment ended as a sharp crack boomed from one of the rooftops. A puff of smoke, a flash of flame and a slinking shape retreated into the darkness.

The graf cried out, threw up his arms as the warpstone bullet slammed into him, chewing through armour and flesh like a hot knife. The agony of his wound sent him crashing to his knees. From his knees, he pitched forwards onto the ground.

Mandred rushed forwards, cursing the pain that slowed his steps, that tried to drag him down before he could reach the body lying sprawled face-down on the cold stones. A tangle of soldiers and noblemen had already gathered around the graf, but the solemn circle parted at the prince’s approach.

Sickness bubbled in Mandred’s stomach as he stared down at the horrible hole in his father’s back. He recognised the evil black bullet sizzling at the centre of the wound. It was such a bullet that had almost killed Kurgaz Smallhammer — the poisonous bullet from a skaven jezzail.

His hand trembling, the prince reached down and gently rolled his father onto his back. A gasp of pain shuddered its way from the graf’s lips. Mandred’s heart raced. The graf yet lived!

‘Quickly!’ Mandred shouted at those around him. ‘Lift up the graf!’ He hesitated for a second, wondering where they could take him. The Sisters of Shallya were below in Warrenburg. The alchemist Neist was dead. It might take days to stir any of the physicians of Eastgate from their hiding places, assuming any of them had survived.

The life of his father hung by a thread. There was only one power to which Mandred could appeal for mercy, the same power that he felt had delivered Middenheim from the skaven.

‘Take him to the temple of Ulric!’ Mandred ordered, praying that the Lord of Wolves would again lend his aid.

Carroburg

Sigmarzeit, 1115

The green fume crept up the walls of the Schloss Hohenbach, rising like some fog spewed from Khaine’s black hell. The nobles, only moments before mocking death and plague, now trembled in terror, rooted to the spot in fascinated horror as the noxious cloud came for them.

Archers loosed volleys of arrows down into the fume, hoping to strike down the inhuman monks that menaced the castle. Blinded by the green smoke, the bowmen had to trust to luck rather than skill. Only a few pained squeaks rewarded their frantic efforts.

Emperor Boris recoiled from the battlements, retreating as the odious fog rolled up between the crenellations. Baron Pieter von Kirchof — the Emperor’s Champion, the most famed swordsman in the Empire, the man who had offered his own niece to stave off the plague — was the first to be touched by the foul fog. Slow in withdrawing from the battlements, he suffered the caress of one of those ghastly wisps. The effect was both immediate and ghastly.

Von Kirchof’s skin blackened, his face vanishing beneath a confusion of hideous boils. He took a few staggering steps, then collapsed, a wheezing, coughing wreck. Blood bubbled from his lips, gore dripped from his nose. In a matter of heartbeats, the man grew still, his body heaving in a final agonised gasp.

The Emperor’s guests degenerated into a panicked riot, converging upon the door leading back into the castle as the fog swept up over the parapet. They stampeded the archers who stood in their way, trampled the bodies of peasant servants unfortunate enough to impede their escape. In their hour of death, the great and good of the Empire, the scions of culture and society, the paragons of government, showed their quality.

Boris, first and greatest of them all, anticipated the rout. First through the door, first to abandon the walls for the security of the castle, he slammed the portal closed even as Count Artur of Nuln came racing towards him. The Emperor could feel the count’s fists beating on the heavy oak frame, could hear the muffled pleas spilling from his lips. He could hear Count Artur’s entreaties become screams as the maddened rush of nobility crushed him against the unyielding door.

The Emperor shivered as the cries of the doomed hammered against the door. The green fog was boiling across the wall now, bringing its loathsome death with it. The vapour wasn’t simply smoke and mist, but a concentration of the plague itself, a concentration so vicious that it did its deadly work not in days or hours but in minutes. The green monks had brought it to the castle, had brought it to smite the Emperor and his minions.