01 - Empire in Chaos Read online

  A WARHAMMER ONLINE NOVEL

  EMPIRE IN CHAOS

  Age of Reckoning - 01

  Anthony Reynolds

  (An Undead Scan v1.0)

  For Joy, a woman full of life, love and poetry, and the baker of the dreaded curried shortbread.

  This is a dark age, a bloody age, an age of daemons and of sorcery. It is an age of battle and death, and of the world’s ending. Amidst all of the fire, flame and fury it is a time, too, of mighty heroes, of bold deeds and great courage.

  At the heart of the Old World sprawls the Empire, the largest and most powerful of the human realms. Known for its engineers, sorcerers, traders and soldiers, it is a land of great mountains, mighty rivers, dark forests and vast cities. And from his throne in Altdorf reigns the Emperor Karl-Franz, sacred descendant of the founder of these lands, Sigmar, and wielder of his magical warhammer.

  But these are far from civilised times. Across the length and breadth of the Old World, from the knightly palaces of Bretonnia to ice-bound Kislev in the far north, come rumblings of war. In the towering Worlds Edge Mountains, the orc tribes are gathering for another assault. Bandits and renegades harry the wild southern lands of the Border Princes. There are rumours of rat-things, the skaven, emerging from the sewers and swamps across the land. And from the northern wildernesses there is the ever-present threat of Chaos, of daemons and beastmen corrupted by the foul powers of the Dark Gods.

  As the time of battle draws ever nearer, the Empire needs heroes like never before.

  PROLOGUE

  Thunder rolled across the sky and clouds heavy and pregnant with rain hung low over the land. A malformed figure stood leaning awkwardly on a shovel, his thick, mud-caked features set in an expression of idiocy as he watched Udo Grunwald’s approach.

  Up through the mud and the waste Udo trudged, leading a half-starved mule that struggled beneath the weight of the cart it hauled up the incline towards the temple.

  The wretched beast strained as the uneven, swollen wheels of the cart turned laboriously carving a pair of deep furrows through the mud. A dark cloak of oiled leather covered Udo’s large shoulders, and he wore a heavy crossbow upon his back. His shaven head was bare to the elements, and his face was thuggish, his nose having been broken and badly set more than once and his jaw heavy and protruding. The malformed servant of the temple grinned stupidly as he passed. He stared hard at the simpleton for a moment before he turned back to look upon the temple gateway.

  Dominating the surrounding landscape with its brutal, martial architecture, the temple appeared more like a small fortress than a place of worship, as befitted the warrior deity it honoured. Carved statues adorned the buttresses, their features smoothed and crumbling from centuries of attack from the elements. These were the saints of this priesthood, warriors all, the devout of holy Sigmar. Each was heavily armoured in mail and plate and bore weapons—hammers and flails.

  Through the arched, fortified gateway he walked, under the raised portcullis that hung like an array of deadly teeth, and into the dimly lit cobbled passageway leading to the temple courtyard. He led the mule and cart through the gatehouse, murder holes and arrow slits watching his progress darkly.

  Dozens of pairs of eyes tracked his approach, men-at-arms upon the ramparts leaning on tall, broad-bladed halberds, cold-eyed priests with the arms of blacksmiths, and muddy servants of all ages, some crippled and deformed. A heavy-set soldier in studded leather blocked his path; Udo glared at him. After a quick look into the cart, the soldier stepped aside without comment.

  Udo stopped in the centre of the courtyard before the great double-doors of the temple. The mule sagged in exhaustion, its bones pushing against its thin skin. Udo strode to the back of the cart, and glanced down upon its flat bed, at the dead body lying there—the dead body of his employer.

  Dressed in knee-high black riding boots, uniform black trousers, shirt and vest, and a black shoulder-cloak with a purple lining, the corpse could have been that of any wealthy young Empire noble with a penchant for morbid colours, but it was the combination of these clothes with the wide-brimmed black hat, the pair of ornate wheel-lock pistols on his wide belt and the prominent bronze talisman that hung around the corpse’s pallid neck that gave away his true calling.

  Witch hunter.

  A calling that filled even the innocent with dread and guilt.

  Ruthless and without pity, the witch hunters stalked the lands of the Empire, rooting out corruption, sorcery and mutation wherever it was to be found. To even be suspected of infernal dealings was to be subject to the witch hunter’s cruel ministrations, and many confessed to crimes they had no knowledge of merely to achieve a swift death.

  One of the great doors of the temple creaked open, and an ancient, broad-shouldered figure emerged, his breath turning to steam in the cold air. Adorned in simple robes of deepest red, his only adornment a pin on his breast in the shape of a warhammer, the priest had clearly once been a powerful warrior, but the cruelness of time had robbed him of his strength. His skin was heavily lined and covered with liver spots, yet he moved with an assurance that belied his age.

  The priest stepped down the broad steps of the temple and came to a halt before Udo. His eyes were slightly cloudy, but there was strength there still. His face was grim, set in a deep frown that looked like it had not moved in several decades, and he acknowledged Udo’s presence with a sour nod.

  “I will inform the abbot that you have brought his body back to us,” the old priest said dourly, looking upon the broken body of the witch hunter. Even the dark clothes of the corpse could not hide the terrible wounds that had killed him—the savage tears in his flesh that were caused by no human hand.

  Udo thought back to that night, only seven nights earlier. He saw again the painted flesh of the feather-cloaked zealot ripple as things clawed within him. He saw again the horrific carnage that followed.

  The elderly priest turned to climb the stairs leading within the temple once more. He paused after a step, and turned his rheumy gaze towards the face of the cloaked man.

  “Come,” he said. “Your old master spoke well of you. The Temple of Sigmar has much it wishes to discuss with you.”

  BOOK ONE

  The Armies of Destruction march against the Empire.

  From the east come the greenskin hordes, massing beyond the Worlds Edge Mountains in the Dark Lands, gathering in numbers not seen since the age of holy Sigmar, before the foundation of the Empire. The dwarfs are stalwart defenders, but I fear that even their great, ancient holds will not have the strength to stem the tide.

  Far to the west, beyond the Great Ocean, our allies the high elves of Ulthuan are beset by their hated dark kin, hampering their efforts to come to our plight.

  And to the north comes the greatest threat of all, for the hordes of Chaos, they who have sold their immortal souls into damnation, are marching upon us once again.

  The Raven Host, an army mustered for the sole purpose of the destruction of the Empire, advances against us. Already they have swept through the Peak Pass, and overrun the lands of our allies the Kislevites in the frozen north. Dispatches from the Tsarina have informed me that the great city of Praag itself is besieged.

  War has been met in the northern states, and war parties are pushing south towards the Talabec as I write this. Towns and cities are being sacked even as the electors gather their armies. Already my people are being butchered, but I know that this is merely the beginning of a far greater conflict that threatens to overwhelm us.

  Elector Hertwig of the Ostermark struggles to hold back the tide, and von Raukov of Ostland has already lost much of his state army. Todbringer of Middenland musters his forces north of th
e Talabec, but I fear even his martial skill will do little against the overwhelming hatred driving the enemy. The electors bicker amongst themselves, bringing ancient enmities and feuds to the surface in this our time of greatest peril. The temples of Sigmar and Ulric are at loggerheads, and I fear what shall come to pass if a reconciliation cannot be achieved.

  A great plague is sweeping the lands, striking down thousands of my citizens beneath its unnatural pestilence. My agents of the Order of the Griffon are even now investigating the source of this dire sickness, and all fingers point towards its sorcerous nature—it would seem that this is a ploy of the enemy, to weaken our resolve as their first forays strike against us. It has even reached the streets of Altdorf itself—it seems that nowhere is safe from the vile pestilence.

  The doomsayers predict that this is the dawning of the End Times. I fear that they may speak the truth.

  K.F.

  CHAPTER ONE

  The flames crackled, curling around the fresh wood like infernal, flaming tongues. Annaliese Jaeger stared deep into the glowing blaze, lost within its destructive beauty.

  Though she could feel the heat from the fireplace reddening her face, it did nothing to dispel the icy chill that pervaded the darkened room of the cabin. No matter how much wood she stacked within the fireplace, no matter how high the flames rose, the intense cold would not lift. It was like the cruel touch of death itself—unstoppable, and so, so cold.

  The window in the small room was obscured by a heavy, moth-eaten curtain that had once been a deep green but had long since faded. Beams of cold, grey light slipped through where the moths had eaten completely through the fraying material. The timber beams of the roof sagged as if the weight of existence was too much to bear, and a rug covered the uneven wooden floorboards. There was no furniture within the room bar an old straw pallet upon the floor, and a low chair beside it. In better times, her father would sit in that chair before the fire, lost in his thoughts.

  Annaliese tore her dead-eyed gaze from the fire and back to the pale, grey face of her father. She prayed that she would remember him as the powerful man that he had been—not this wasted skeleton breathing painfully beneath the heavy, sweat-drenched blankets. His once strongly muscled arms were now little more than skin and bone, wasted away as the sickness ravaged his body. For four days he had remained in this comatose state, neither waking nor uttering a sound. It was only the nigh-on imperceptible rise and fall of his sunken chest that told her he still lived.

  It would not be for long, if Morr were merciful.

  Merciful! She almost laughed at the thought. What mercy there was in the world had long since abandoned the people of Averland.

  Winter still held the land tightly to its icy bosom, as it had done for almost five months, long after the thaw should have come and gone. Snow was banked up outside. The crops in the fields had long withered and perished in the frozen earth, and none of the hardy, long-coated sheep farmed in the area had survived. Death was prevalent, particularly amongst the elderly and infirm, and there had even been blood spilt amongst the desperate villagers, disputes over the scarce supply of blankets, firewood and food. Adelmo Haefen, the village’s quietly spoken miller, had been stabbed in the stomach only two days past after an altercation over a loaf of bread.

  But the harshness of the winter was as nothing compared to what had come next.

  A deranged, half-naked wretch had come to the village almost three weeks ago. Nails had been hammered into the bones of his arms, and his back was stripped of flesh, the skin hanging in loose, bloody rents. Upon his forehead a crude shape of a twin-tailed comet had been carved, both dried and fresh blood covered his face.

  He had screamed and ranted of the end of the world, proclaiming that death was coming and that he was its herald. In accompaniment to his doom-laden, fiery screech, he lashed himself with a flail of leather straps studded with metal barbs.

  And the flagellant had been correct, but possibly not in the way that he had imagined, for he had brought the plague with him. He had collapsed within the day, falling into a deathly coma from which he could not be roused.

  Within days dozens of villagers were struck down seemingly at random, and it was not long before families who had tolled the land for dozens of generations were packing their belongings into carts usually used to transport goods to market, heading for the ethereal safety of far away cities: Nuln, Averheim and Wissenburg. But gossip said that the plague was rife even on the streets of the Empire’s capital, Altdorf, and that is when true panic had set in.

  Each day more victims were dragged to the trade guildhall that overlooked the village square. This decaying building with its sunken, uneven roof and perilously leaning walls had long sat unused, and it had been decided that it would be converted into a makeshift quarantined hospice. Its doors and windows were kept locked, shuttered and barred, and warning signs were driven into the ground around its circumference. For those who could not read the Reikspiel lettering on these boards, which was most of the common folk of the Empire, the intention of the signs was made very clear—skulls of dead livestock daubed with the mark of Morr hung from them, along with the rotting bodies of dead rats, black birds, and other grisly trophies warning of plague and pestilence.

  The village burgher had fled in the dead of night, abandoning his post and the villagers to their fate. There was no one to bake the bread, for the baker, his wife and his apprentices had all been early victims, and they lay comatose and wasting away within the rising filth of the guildhall. The local butcher, who doubled as the local apothecary and was the closest thing the village had to a healer, had succumbed to the early stages of the wasting sickness. There was now none who dared enter the deathly building to tend to the sick and dying. Each morning the local men of the village drew straws to determine who was to drag the newly discovered plague victims into the building, covering their mouths and noses with cloths as they rapidly dumped their charges inside and relocked the doors.

  As yet, it was unknown if any of the plague victims had died, but it was believed that none had awoken from the deathly state that came some three days after the initial symptoms were identified. Certainly there was no one trying to get out of the horrific hospice.

  Annaliese looked again at the wasted face of her father. Only a week ago he had been in the peak of health. She had refused to take him to the hellish quarantine guildhall—she would be damned if she would let him spend his last hours rotting in that festering place among the dead and the dying.

  The sound of angry voices carried over the cabin from the village below, and Annaliese rose to her feet. She drew aside the heavy, dusty curtains and opened the dirty window to see what the commotion was. Shielding her eyes against the sudden glare that came off the snow, she could see a cluster of men, some wearing the provincial yellow and black uniforms of Averland state soldiers, trudging through the muddy slush. Some were brandishing weapons—halberds, pitchforks and clubs—and their shouting was drawing more onlookers from their homes and their misery.

  With a worried glance at her father, she bit her lip in indecision. Strangers to the village had brought nothing but trouble and sadness of late, and she feared what this new drama would bring. Still, she was drawn by a morbid curiosity to witness this new arrival. Her father did not seem to be any worse than he had been for the last two days, so she made her decision. Drawing her sheepskin coat around her tightly, she opened the door to the cabin and stepped out into the winter. She would only be a moment away from her father’s side.

  As she walked down the hill, the crisp snow crunching underfoot and making her long dress wet where it dragged, she saw men pushing and prodding a bound and gagged prisoner before them. She saw one soldier club the bound figure to the ground where it was brutally kicked by three or more men before being dragged back up to its feet.

  She saw a flash of long, silken black hair before the figure disappeared into the crowd again. Some of the men were carrying burning torches, and there
were angry, raised voices shouting for blood.

  A crowd was gathering in the village square. None stood too close to the guildhall, and many covered their mouths and noses with dirty rags and strips of cloth. Hugging herself for warmth, she went to stand beside Johann Weiss, a portly villager with heavy jowls.

  “What’s happening?” she asked Johann quietly. He was the innkeeper of her workplace, and she had known him since childhood.

  “Three families left the village yesterday, all their possessions packed onto a single cart,” he said, his voice devoid of emotion but his eyes tired and sad. Annaliese nodded fearfully. She had known the daughters of the families well.

  “They were murdered on the road. Not even the little ones were spared. This,” he said with a nod of his head, “is one of those responsible.”

  Grief and horror washed over Annaliese, and the innkeeper put a fatherly arm around her shoulders.

  The men dragged their murderous captive into the centre of the village square. A solid, ancient gibbet stood there as it had done for countless decades, a blackened metal cage hanging from its crossbar. She had always felt a horrible loathing for the thing, and when she was young had sat aside as other children threw rocks at the condemned.

  A skeleton was slumped within the torturous, black iron device, the remnants of a thief who had been placed there a year before as a warning to others. The heavy chains holding the grisly remains aloft were slackened, and the metal cage plummeted to the ground with a crash and a cheer from the crowd.

  Leonard Horst, a reed-thin villager with the stilted, stiff movements of a hunting stork climbed onto a rotting bale of hay, waving a hand for silence. He was the village warden, and a man with a reputation for harshness. He had once beaten a trader to death, it was said, for attempting to bypass paying his road tax. Nevertheless, he was a respected man, for none doubted his devotion to the village and its people.