C. Werner - Dead Winter

The plague priest whirled about just as a brown-furred ratman brought his sword chopping towards his neck. Puskab’s staff intercepted the blow, the serrated blade of his adversary digging deep into the wood. His attacker snarled at him from beneath the brim of a steel helmet, his beady red eyes narrowed with hate. The powerfully built sword-rat brought one of his feet slashing upwards, kicking at the Poxmaster with his claws.

Puskab chuckled wickedly as the ratman’s claws raked harmlessly against the mail hauberk he wore under his green robes. Like most skaven, the sword-rat hadn’t given enough thought to what might be hidden under a plague priest’s robes. His effort to disembowel Puskab thwarted, the skaven thrashed about, trying to free his sword from the plague priest’s staff.

He discovered the deed to be more difficult than it should have been. The ratman strove with all his might to wrench the sword free, but instead there was only a grinding sound. Flakes of brittle red rust trickled from the edge of his blade. Horror filled the skaven’s eyes as understanding began to assert itself. He glanced down at his foot, gazing in disgust as the fur began to peel away, as the exposed flesh began to ripple with decay.

Puskab chittered with loathsome laughter as his would-be killer tried to flee. The skaven was experiencing first-hand the protective magic that had been summoned by the Poxmaster’s orison. The green smog surrounding Puskab was a concentration of the Horned One’s putrid majesty. Harmless to true believers, but corrosive and deadly to all infidel-meat.

The sword-rat whined in terror, abandoning his corroded blade and moving to disengage from Puskab. Before he could flee, the plague priest’s staff whipped around, cracking the skaven across the jaw. The rotten bone, weakened by Puskab’s magic, shattered like an eggshell. The stricken ratman wilted to the floor in a quivering heap as he choked on his own blood.

The blade of a halberd came chopping down at Puskab, snapping the tip of one of his antlers and missing the bloated priest’s head by a matter of inches. Puskab leapt back, moving with a frantic ease that belied his corpulent bulk. He found himself staring up at a snarling ratman looking down at him from a hole in the ceiling. No scrawny cave-rat from Clan Skrittlespike, but another brawny brown-furred warrior. It seemed Clan Mors had employed the cave-rats as a distraction and scapegoat, leaving the actual murder to their own stormvermin.

Puskab decided to show the vermin-meat the price of such arrogance. As the halberdier dropped down from his hole, the plague priest’s voice croaked out a glottal incantation. Green fire flared from his eyes, the air filled with the repugnant sound of buzzing flies. The armoured stormvermin struck out with his halberd once more, trusting that the long reach of his weapon would keep him safely away from Puskab’s corrosive aura. He did not reckon upon the priest’s other spells.

From the very walls of the tunnel, writhing streams of maggots emerged. In the twitch of a whisker, their wormy bodies moulted, transforming into a legion of hairy flies. Clouds of the vile insects took wing, swarming about the stormvermin, ignoring his shrieks of pain as they bit into his flesh. The halberd clattered to the floor as the ratman tried to flee, his body now carpeted with gnawing flies. Blinded by the swarm, he crashed into the wall, toppling to the floor in a screaming heap. If there were other sword-rats lurking above the ceiling, the agonies of the halberdier made them reconsider challenging the plague priest’s sorcery.

Puskab Foulfur watched his enemies with vindictive amusement. So would die all his enemies — slowly and in great pain. The suffering of these would be but a prelude to what would come.

Altdorf

Kaldezeit, 1111

The scene outside the Kaiseraugen was one of white tranquillity. The roofs of Altdorf were powdered with snow, the icy banks of the river shining like a field of diamonds in the early-morning sun. Tiny figures moved about upon the frozen docks, unloading cargo from the few ships still travelling upon the Reik. So small and frantic, they seemed like busy little ants.

Emperor Boris dismissed the men from his thoughts. Shifting his shoulders, snuggling his body deeper into the nest of warm furs draped about his throne, he restored his attention to the men seated around the table. Lord Ratimir was just finishing a particularly long-winded and tedious summation of the state of the Empire.

‘Half of the provinces have had a poor harvest this year, either through war or pestilence,’ Ratimir concluded. ‘Disease has run rampant among the peasants in six provinces, spreading faster than it could be contained. Many fiefs have been left without enough men to gather the harvest, forcing them to leave crops to rot in the fields. Worse, this misfortune has attracted vermin in unprecedented numbers… Mice and rats which gorge themselves in the abandoned fields and then turn their appetites upon such food stores as have been collected.’

Boris waved a jewelled hand, motioning his minister of finance to silence. ‘Exaggerations,’ he sneered. ‘A petty effort to cheat the Imperial Treasury. I want excise men sent into each province — outsiders, not natives — to evaluate the situation in each district.’ A cunning smile spread over the Emperor’s face. ‘Have taxmen from Nordland sent to evaluate Middenland, ones from Sylvania to inspect Stirland.’ He chuckled when he saw his smile infect Lord Ratimir’s lean features. He didn’t need to tell the minister to have provinces that already shared bad blood between them to police the accounts of the other. It would serve a twofold purpose. First it would ensure that each province would have its yields exaggerated by the inspectors dispatched by the enemy court. Whether such yields existed or not, the provinces would be taxed for them and the blame for this excess burden would fall upon the rival province, not the Emperor. Second, if a famine did develop, the Emperor could point to his tax records to show that ample supplies had been harvested and shift the responsibility over to greedy local lords engaged in speculation and hoarding.

‘There is another problem, your Imperial Majesty.’ Adolf Kreyssig rose from his seat, removing a scroll from a wooden tube as he approached the Imperial throne. ‘My Kaiserjaeger have discovered not less than six incidents of plague in the last two days. We have been able to remove the infected peasants to Mundsen Keep without even the Schueters taking undue notice. It is not uncommon for us to remove peasants for interrogation.’

‘Then there is no problem,’ Emperor Boris said.

Adolf Kreyssig shook his head and opened the scroll, unveiling a map of the city. ‘I’m afraid there is, your Imperial Majesty. The cases of plague we have found were in the vicinity of the south docks, the Niederhafen district; all of the victims were sailors of one stripe or another. That part of the city is cramped and overcrowded. Whatever fell influence brought the disease here, we can only assume that others have been exposed. It is only a matter of time before more incidents of plague begin popping up.’

‘What are you suggesting?’ Lord Ratimir asked. ‘That we burn down the Niederhafen district? Do you have any idea how much commerce enters the city from those docks?’

‘The plague may be entering the city from those docks,’ Kreyssig countered. ‘I have warned you that ships from Stirland and Talabecland should be turned away.’

‘Your point is noted, commander,’ Emperor Boris declared. The scheming gleam was back in his crafty eyes. A bejewelled hand drummed against the arm of his throne as his mind turned over the possibilities that now occurred to him.