01 - Empire in Chaos (3 page)

Closing her eyes, Annaliese allowed exhaustion and despair to wash over her.
She couldn’t remember when last she had slept, and her entire body heaved with
sobs from the shock of her father’s dying fit.

She opened her eyes to see a cold pair of eyes regarding her.

Blue flames flickered within the sunken sockets of her father’s face, and
Annaliese felt the edges of her sanity begin to fray.

She screamed involuntarily and scrambled backwards across the floor. The
thing that had once been her father pushed itself onto its stomach, and began to
claw its way across the floorboards towards her, fingernails digging into the
floorboards. Its movements were jerky and stilted, as if it were some twisted
marionette and someone was plucking at its strings.

Its face was still locked in a hideous grinning rictus, a manic
death-grimace, and eyes of blue fire blazed coldly.

Udo removed his wide-brimmed black hat, and ran a gloved hand across his
shaven head. If there had been hair growing there it would have had grey in it,
as there was in his moustache and the salt-and-pepper stubble that covered his
thick jaw. You are getting old, he thought to himself. His legs were sore, and
he cursed again the bastards who had stolen his horse.

He had been returning to the tall, black stallion after relieving himself up
against a tree when he came upon them. There had been three of them, rough men
that had the look of deserters about them, and they were struggling to keep the
stallion from bucking.

So intent were they on the powerful steed that they didn’t notice the
appearance of Grunwald until he calmly killed the first with a bolt through the
back of the neck.

The would-be thief was killed instantly and the reins fell from his limp
hand. The powerful stallion lashed out with its hooves, slamming another of the
men to the ground. Grunwald had stalked forwards then, his dark coat billowing
out behind him, dropping his heavy crossbow to the ground. He hefted a heavy,
flanged mace in one hand and with the other he drew an ornate, gold-worked
pistol—one of the weapons of his former master. The brigand struck by the
horse struggled to his feet, and the pistol boomed deafeningly. The lead shot
slammed into his head, sending a mist of blood out behind him as he fell.

The third man, a small, weasely individual, leapt into the saddle of the
bucking horse, the reins held tightly in his hands.

“It will be better for you if you get off my horse now,” said Grunwald. The
outlaw spat in response, and kicked the stallion into a gallop.

It had not been hard to follow his trail across the destitute lands of
Stirland.

The three were part of a larger group that were preying on the weakened local
people. The plague had desolated much of the region, and the armies of Graf
Alberich Haupt-Anderssen, the Elector Count of Stirland, were scouring the land,
killing and burning the bodies of those infected by the foul contagion.

The wretches that Grunwald was now hunting parasites, eking out an existence
by taking advantage of the horrific situation that the Empire found itself in.
Low-life scavengers, they were looting abandoned settlements and villages, and
preying upon those fleeing with all their worldly possessions. Grunwald had
learnt from his inquiries that they had been pressed into service in the armies
of the Graf to fight the terrible threat that pressed from the north, but had
deserted their posts, fleeing into the wilderness rather than stand and fight
for the good of the Empire.

Grunwald’s face was dark. It sickened him that while tens of thousands of
loyal soldiers were fighting and dying in the north to protect the Empire, there
were others such as these who were abandoning their posts and preying on
innocents. He would ensure that these men were punished for their crimes.

But none of those crimes was as heinous as the one they had committed the day
before. They had come across a rural chapel devoted to Sigmar, and in an act of
extreme sacrilege, they had stolen the offering pot and knocked a statue of the
holy deity to the ground in their haste to leave. By such actions they had
doomed themselves. The bruised and battered priest had been shamefaced as he
spoke of how he had been overcome by the ruffians, and Grunwald’s brutish face
was set in an angry expression as he recalled the incident.

He hated this land, Stirland. Always poor, and living in the shadow of the
cursed realm of Sylvania, it seemed to breed corruption and wretchedness. The
grim landscape, with its fields of wasted crops, oppressive dark forests and
bleak mountains merely seemed to feed the feeling of hopelessness that pervaded
the life of the Stirlanders.

Darkness was falling quickly, and the thick clouds overhead ensured no light
from moon or star would reveal him. Twisted trees loomed like dark, malevolent
presences around him, and Grunwald began to crawl forwards through the snow once
more, drawing towards the bored sentry.

Rising up behind the man, he placed one gloved hand around his mouth while
the other ripped a knife across his throat. He pulled the man down into the snow
without a sound, holding him tightly as he convulsed, his warm blood soaking
into the pristine white snow.

After weeks of tracking these doomed bandits, he gloried in the feeling of
satisfaction as he watched the life slip from the ruffian’s eyes.

Concealing the body beneath a fallen log, Grunwald pressed on, slipping
between the thick boles of the dense trees. He cursed as he looked over the
deserters’ camp. There were at least half a dozen of them lounging around a
fire, but that was not what made the witch hunter swear.

There were no horses tethered at the campsite—but there was an unmistakable
equine shape roasting on a heavy spit over a fire.

A battle trained stallion bred from the line of the finest warhorses of
Averland, the horse was worth an Elector’s ransom, and these ignorant fools were
roasting it.

Grunwald pushed himself flat in the snow as he heard a voice rise in alarm.
He readied himself for violence. Had they found the sentry already? That was
unlikely—he had watched the camp for almost an hour before he had made his
move, and he was fairly certain that there would be no one checking up on him
for good few hours. He strained to hear the muffled conversation.

“…down the path,” he made out.

“…tracking us?” came the reply, a deeper voice than the first. Grunwald
carefully elbowed himself forward.

He saw a slight man—the one that had ridden off with his horse—talking to
a more solidly built outlaw. Once he might have been well proportioned, but it
looked as though his muscle had long since run to fat.

“Don’t think so, sergeant,” said the smaller man.

“I told you not to damn well call me that!”

“Sorry. Lone traveller by the looks of it. A dwarf, heavily armoured. Got
himself a heavy looking pack, too. Must be something in there worth takin’—gold perhaps. Everyone knows his kind hoard it, countin’ their wealth while us
Stirlanders starve.”

The bigger brigand grunted.

“Would certainly be rude to pass up such an opportunity, ’specially when it
appears on our doorstep. Right, let’s get moving then, you pack of worthless
whoresons,” he said, kicking out at the dozing men.

Grunwald swore once again. He had been planning on moving through the
darkness and killing each of the sentries in turn before turning on the sleeping
camp. He sighed, and began crawling backwards through the trees, away from the
campsite.

The short, broad-shouldered figure of Thorrik Lokrison hummed tunelessly to
himself as he sat before a small fireplace. A solid pot of black iron was
balanced on top of a small pile of rocks within the fire, and a heavy pack lay
in the snow beside him, an object wrapped in oiled leather carefully positioned
on top of it.

A round metal shield leant against the log on which Thorrik sat, a stylised
embossed bearded face in its centre and intricate bronze weave-work running
around the rim. Besides the shield was a single-bladed axe, runes and more
intricate bronze-work adorning it.

Belching loudly, Thorrik leant over the steaming broth bubbling away within
the iron pot, savouring the aroma of the heavy, stodgy food, before leaning back
and resuming his humming.

He had removed his helmet, but was otherwise covered in heavy armour from
head to toe. The only exposed skin that could be seen was his forehead, bulbous
nose and ruddy cheeks, the rest of his face framed by a finely wrought chainmail
coif and a prodigious plaited beard. That beard was woven with bronze win and
hung down over his ornately worked breastplate. The plaits were adorned with
metal discs, stylised faces engraved upon them.

With a heavy, gauntleted hand, the dwarf stirred the meaty broth with a
chunky metal spoon.

“Smells good, friend,” came a voice from behind him that sounded anything but
friendly. Thorrik’s features darkened. He had not heard the man’s approach.

Rising to his feet he picked up his axe and turned face this human that was
interrupting his supper. Eyes as hard as stone glinted from beneath his bushy
eye brows. His gaze flicked left and right, seeing that there were six men
fanning out around him. Two had bows in their hands, while the others were armed
with swords and axes, though they were not drawn. He settled on the overweight
figure in the centre of the group the one who had spoken. A towering brute, he
wore tattered clothes dyed yellow and green and a heavy fur over his shoulders.
Beside him was a slight, pinch-face man that looked to Thorrik not unlike one of
the stinking grobi that infest the depths beneath the mountains, though his skin
was not green as were those hated enemies of his kin.

“’Tis a cold and wintry night to be out here alone, friend,” said the
overweight man, his voice dripping with threat. “Would you not like some
company? I would dearly like to try that fine smelling food you are preparing.”

“I’d say you have eaten your fair share of food for two lifetimes, manling,”
growled the dwarf.

The leader of the group laughed at that, and grobi-face gave a sycophantic
chuckle. The remainder of the group made no reaction—their eyes were hard.

“No need for hostility, friend dwarf, though I dare say you are right in your
estimation,” said the man, a brutish smile upon his big-jowled face as he
patted his prodigious belly. “We are merely loyal soldiers of the Empire seeking
to warm ourselves at your camp. May we? I assure you, we mean you no harm.”

Thorrik tightened his grip on his axe, frowning.

“There is no Stirland state patrol within twenty miles and you ’aint scouts
or militia,” he said gruffly. “I’d say you are deserters. Cowards. Your word is
worth less than pig shit.”

The smile dropped from the leader of the outlaws’ face.

“Brave words for someone so heavily outnumbered, dwarf.”

His greedy eyes flicked towards Thorrik’s pack, and the object wrapped in
leather on top of it.

“Give us your belongings, and we will be on our way. No harm need come to
you, friend.”

“Call me friend once more, pig face, and I will carve the fat from your
bones,” growled the dwarf. “Where are your companions? I thought it would take
more of you cowardly dogs to pluck up the courage to rob a clan warrior of
Karaz-a-Karak.”

One of the deserters, grobi-face, looked around him “Where’s Anton, sergeant?
And Valdar?”

“Shut your hole,” snarled the big outlaw. “The time for niceties is over,
dwarf. Shoot him.”

The two archers drew back their bows, and Thorrik roared a war cry in
Khazalid, the dwarfen tongue. Hefting his axe, he surged forwards. There was a
flash of movement in the darkness further up the trail, and one of the archers
fell, a black bolt protruding from his neck. The other archer fired, the arrow
streaking through the air towards the dwarf.

Thorrik turned his shoulder into the path of the arrow, and it skidded off
one of his heavy gromril pauldrons, unable to penetrate or even dent the thick
metal plate. He closed the distance to the leader of the outlaws with surprising
swiftness, and the big outlaw swore as he stepped backwards to make more room
for himself, drawing a massive double-handed greatsword from his back.

A brigand darted in from the left, a short sword stabbing towards the dwarf’s
exposed face. With a powerful swipe of his arm, Thorrik deflected the blow with
his armoured forearm and slammed his axe into the man’s neck, and blood
fountained from the mortal wound.

Thorrik saw an ugly brute of a man appear from the darkness and a pistol
boomed, shattering the leg of another of the outlaws, who fell screaming to the
ground. The newcomer wore a dark great-cloak, and had a broad-brimmed hat upon
his head. A heavy black breastplate protected his chest, and his body was
criss-crossed with buckles and straps from which hung an impressive array of
knives and deadly implements.

Then the newcomer was amongst them, his mace pulverising the face of one who
had turned to face this new threat.

Thorrik stalked towards the overweight leader of the outlaws, aware of the
axe-man stepping to his flank but keeping his eyes locked on the fat man the
other had called sergeant.

“What’s the matter,
friend
?” he snarled, his voice gravelly. “Things
not turning out how you had hoped?”

Thorrik saw an arrow fired in haste glance over the shaven-headed man’s
shoulder, and saw the archer draw a long knife from his boot. The thug lunged,
but the dark-clad figure caught his wrist, keeping the knife turned away from
him. A heavy mace smashed down onto the brigand’s shoulder, shattering it with a
sickening crunch. He screamed in agony and dropped to his knees. His cries were
silenced as the mace swung in and crushed his skull.