The Corrupted Read online

  A WARHAMMER NOVEL

  THE CORRUPTED

  Robert Earl

  (A Flandrel & Undead Scan v1.0)

  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 World’s 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 near, the Empire needs heroes like never before.

  CHAPTER ONE

  The shop smelled of many things. It smelled of mildew and of dust, and of cheap pipeweed, but mostly it smelled of its owner. As plump as a toadstool, Brandt spent his entire life slumped within the confines of his store, idling the hours away in slovenly contentment.

  Unless forced into action by thievery or commerce, the merchant’s body scarcely moved from one hour to the next. His eyes, though, were a different matter. They flitted constantly between the door, his customers, and the long tables upon which his wares were displayed.

  In any other city, the nature and the range of this merchandise would have been remarkable, maybe even illegal, but this was Altdorf, the city of a thousand dreaming spires and the home of the great colleges of magic. Here, reading was almost commonplace, and the trade in ideas was every bit as important as that in salt fish or tar.

  The best thing about those who trade in ideas, Brandt always thought, was that cheating them was as easy as drowning kittens.

  One such innocent was stooping over his wares now: a tall, bearded man, as bony as a pauper, despite the richness of his robes. Brandt watched him flick through the pages of a book with practiced fingers. He stopped and read a little, his lips barely moving as he did so. Then he returned the volume to its place and wandered further down the table.

  Brandt’s pulse quickened as the customer browsed his way through the books. When the man’s fingers closed on the red bound book, he made the unaccustomed effort of licking his lips.

  Brandt watched as the customer tried to prise the covers apart. They gave a little at first, and then snapped back shut, just as the man who had given him the book had said they would.

  Not that the merchant had doubted that man’s word. He wouldn’t have had the courage to. He had seen what the fellow could do during previous… transactions.

  Brandt forced himself to look away as the customer wrestled with the book. He would be examining the binding for springs, trying to find some mechanical reason for the book’s strange behaviour.

  When he realised that the book’s reluctance to be read was no clockwork trick, well, then he would…

  “Ahem. Excuse me?”

  Brandt fought to keep the look of smug satisfaction off his face.

  “Yes? What is it, menheer?” he asked, blinking towards the tall man as if he had only just noticed him.

  “It’s this book,” the customer said. After an uncomfortable moment it became clear that Brandt had no intention of getting up, so the tall man brought it over for his inspection.

  “Oh.” The merchant studied the tome. “Would you like to buy it?”

  “Yes… No. I’m not really sure. There seems to be something wrong with it.”

  “Something wrong with it?” the merchant repeated, as hurt as a kicked puppy. “No, surely not. I assure you, menheer, that all of my stock is chosen by me personally. I mean that: absolutely personally. Now, what does the problem with this book seem to be?”

  “It’s just that I can’t open it.”

  Brandt, stirred to action by this criticism, reached out a podgy hand to take it. His grimy fingers prised at the covers, and he scowled with concentration. For once, he spared no effort, and after a moment, a runnel of sweat trickled down from beneath his tangle of hair.

  “Well, well, well,” he said, breathing deeply and putting the book down. “I don’t know what to say, menheer. I can only assume it is… bewitched.”

  He dropped the book with an expression of feigned horror.

  “I see,” the customer said, cracking his knuckles with barely suppressed excitement. “How interesting. I wonder if you have any idea what the book’s about?”

  Brandt dragged a dirty handkerchief across his face and shrugged. “Well, no… It’s in some strange language, lots of diagrams and symbols, pictures of jackals… Well, that’s what I was told…”

  The customer snatched the book off the table and tried again, but this time there was no give in the covers at all. He pulled at his beard with one hand and weighed the volume in the other.

  “I can only apologise, menheer.” Brandt plucked the book from his grasp. “Obviously this volume is magical. I’ll have to hand it in to the colleges of magic, or perhaps call in the witch hunters. I wouldn’t mind so much,” he continued, letting real grievance come into his voice, “but they never pay full market value, even to somebody like me, who bought the thing in good faith.”

  The tall man cracked his knuckles again, all ten of them. Then he shifted from foot to foot, and cleared his throat nervously. Brandt waited for him to find the words.

  “That does seem unfair,” he managed at last, and began to blush beneath his beard. “Perhaps I can help. I wouldn’t mind buying the book, you know. Just as a… a curio.”

  Brandt frowned.

  “I really should hand it in, you know,” he said. “I don’t want any trouble, and if the witch hunters were to find out that I’d been dealing in magical artefacts…”

  He trailed off, and looked worried, but the tall man, who seemed to have overcome his initial embarrassment, was obviously too big a fool to take no for an answer.

  His type always was, thought Brandt, and bit back another smile.

  “The thing is,” his customer was almost pleading, “I can take it off your hands, and if I just pay you what you paid for the book, well then, that’s not commerce, is it? It’s just me doing you a favour.”

  Brandt grunted noncommittally.

  “I suppose that’s one way of looking at it,” he allowed, “but are you sure? I mean, you know what the colleges are like about things like this. Let alone the witch hunters.”

  A momentary flash of anxiety furrowed the customer’s brow, but it soon melted beneath the heat of his desire.

  “Don’t worry about that,” he said, lowering his voice. “It can be our secret. I’ve always liked this shop, you know. I’d hate to see you get into any trouble.”

  Brandt composed his pallid features into a grateful smile.

  “It’s nice of you to say so, menheer, very nice. In fact, I think that it will be all right for you to take the book, but I won’t take a single copper more than I paid for it.”

  “Excellent, excellent.” The tall man retrieved the book and slipped it into a pocket within his robe. “Oh, and how much did you pay for it by the way?”

  With a silent prayer of
thanks to the gods, Brandt named his price.

  Nobody knew when the Grey college had been built, although it had certainly been before the college itself had been created. Nobody knew who had built it, either. All that remained of those ancient masons were the bones of their architecture, the stonework polished smooth by time.

  And what stonework it was. Even after countless centuries, the echoing chambers and shadow-haunted halls remained intact. The knowledge that this masonry was older than any tomb sometimes weighed down on those within, oppressing them with the weight of its years.

  However, in the review chamber, such ominous feelings were not left to chance. Everything about it had been designed to intimidate. From the strange angles of the walls, to the granite carved statues that stood in the corners, the review chamber loomed.

  The statues themselves were particularly unsettling. It wasn’t their height that did it, so much as their realism. Somehow, in the flickering light of the chandeliers, the agony that twisted their stooped forms seemed real enough to make the stone sweat, and their pain maddened eyes seemed to fix on all who entered the hall.

  Titus paid them no heed as he marched between them.

  He was a large man, almost as round as he was tall, but whereas some fat men grow nervous beneath their blubber, this certainly wasn’t true of the wizard. His footsteps rang out the measure of his absolute confidence, and his head was held so high that only two of his jowls showed.

  It was not the sort of attitude the council liked to see.

  There were six of them in all. Most were old, their faces lined by the terrible demands of their profession. All of them wore cloaks, shapeless grey things that faded into the stonework behind them, and they all sat raised up on a dais that dominated all who stood below.

  At least, it was supposed to dominate all who stood below it, but when Titus came to a halt beneath the platform, he looked up at its occupants as if it was they who were about to be judged.

  The grey robed men returned his look of disdain, vaguely aware that this wasn’t supposed to be how things went.

  “Well?” Titus boomed, the acoustics lending his voice an authority that had no right to be there.

  The chairman of the council scowled at this impertinence.

  “Wait until you are addressed before replying,” he snapped.

  Titus bridled at the man’s tone of voice.

  “Then perhaps you would get on with addressing me,” he said, hands resting on his elephantine hips. “I’m a busy man.”

  For a moment, none of the council could think of a suitable reply. The chairman recovered his wits first.

  “Just as you like, Titus,” he said, his voice dangerously calm. “Just as you like. Scrivener elect, read the charges would you?”

  “Yes, menheer.” The scrivener elect, a smoothly shaven man with a carefully expressionless face, snapped open a rolled parchment with a well-practiced gesture. He cleared his throat, held the parchment out in front of him, and began to read.

  “The Council of the Order of Grey Magic, first amongst all colleges of Altdorf and chosen of mankind, today does summon Brother Titus Hieronymus Braha to face the judgement of his peers.”

  The scrivener elect paused for long enough to glare haughtily down at the man who stood below him. Titus glared haughtily back up.

  The scrivener elect coughed, and carried on.

  “The reason is that, for the good of the entire order, Brother Titus has been reported by his more honest brethren as a miscreant. To whit, it has been said that he knowingly and with full forethought, attempted to turn his hand to a lesser magic than our own. And, on Sigmarzeit he cast a petty conjuration, the nature of which is far beneath the dignity of any of our order. Such spells are reserved for our weaker cousins in the College of Fire for a reason.”

  Here the scrivener elect coughed again, and looked down at the accused for the first signs of remorse, or at least fear.

  “Is that it?” Titus asked. The scrivener elect, caught off guard, lost his place on the parchment. By the time he had found it again he had turned pink.

  “Erm, no, not quite. I mean… ah yes. Here we are, yes. Such spells are reserved for our weaker brethren in the College of Fire for a reason, and that is that. Should one as skilled and puissant as those of our order use such magic, it will inevitably become too powerful. Titus Hieronymus Braha, you knew this as well as any of us, and yet still you cast such a conjuration. What have you to say in defence of this most heinous of actions?” Titus shrugged. “We all make mistakes.” The scrivener elect goggled, obviously lost for words. Not so the chairman.

  “We all make mistakes!” he thundered, his face mottling with rage. “Mistakes! We lost almost fifty books to the fire you caused. Fifty! And some of them, no all of them, irreplaceable. Do you have any idea how many hours were spent copying them, each word checked and checked again? Or how difficult it was to get them in the first place?”

  “I have some idea, yes,” Titus replied, his voice ice to the chairman’s fire. “After all of the work I have done for this college, I have a very good idea indeed.”

  “Twelve people were also killed,” the scrivener elect added, and then sat down as Titus looked at him.

  “Apprentices often have accidents,” he said, looking uneasy for the first time. “I know that your chairman has got through the same number whilst practising established incantations of no research value.”

  The chairman’s face went from red to white. The quill he held crumpled between his fingers, but then, with a superhuman effort, he mastered his temper.

  “But it wasn’t just apprentices you killed, was it?” he asked.

  Titus waved his hands in a way that made the seasoned wizards of the council distinctly nervous.

  “Oh them. Yes, well. It’s always sad to see our brothers fall by the wayside, but this is a hard path we have chosen, and not everybody is cut out to walk it; and anyway, I didn’t kill them. In fact, had they survived, they would have been here now to help explain the value of our research.”

  “Although I doubt if they’d have been any more capable of doing so than you,” another committee member sniped. One of the dead men had been an old acquaintance of his.

  Titus frowned.

  “Who knows?” He waved the question away with an airy gesture. “Anyway, it’s a moot point. I’ve decided not to pursue this particular area of research any further, at least not for a while. There are some neglected areas in our own canon that need work done on them: the truly effective concealment of large bodies of men, for example. Think of how grateful the Emperor would be to see his regiments turned to mist and shadows.”

  The chairman barked with humourless laughter.

  “I think you’ve turned enough people into mist and shadows recently, don’t you?”

  “No, no, no,” Titus said, oblivious to the sarcasm. “I meant…”

  “Never mind what you meant. All we want to know is whether or not you want to deny the charges against you.”

  “What charges?”

  The chairman nudged the scrivener elect, who had been listening to the exchange from behind the safety of the parchment roll.

  “Oh,” he said, and cleared his throat nervously. “Brother Titus has been reported by his more honest brethren as a miscreant. To whit, it has been said that he knowingly…”

  “Well of course I admit that,” Titus cut in impatiently, “although ‘admit’ is hardly the word. I am famed for the value of my research. This accident was unfortunate, but there it is. You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.”

  The entire board glared at him.

  “Very well, Titus,” The chairman spoke for them all. “I think we’ve heard enough. Return to this room at the same time tomorrow, and we will hand down our judgement. I have a feeling that it will be unanimous.”

  “Good,” said Titus, his mind already slipping away to other matters. “Well then, I won’t detain you any longer.”

  With that, h
e turned on his heel and left the room.

  “So, brothers,” the chairman began after Titus had slammed the doors shut behind him, “how do we find?”

  “Guilty,” the board chorused.

  “Quite right,” said the chairman. “Right then, let’s go and have lunch.”

  “Evening, sir.” The senior gatekeeper, who had been leaning against the college wall, stood to attention and snapped off a salute of his own invention.

  “Yes,” Grendel agreed distractedly. He forgot the guard as soon as he had seen him, and scuttled beneath the portcullis, impatient to be back within the peace of the college, and even more impatient to be alone. The book he had bought was tucked beneath his arm, as safely as an egg beneath a hen, and he was fighting the temptation to stop and study it.

  “I don’t know why you bother to greet them,” the gatekeeper’s mate said as the lank figure disappeared into the courtyard. “They don’t care if you do or not, and none of them ever returns the salute.”

  The gatekeeper, who had reached his position by outliving most of his peers, shook his head sagely.

  “Never hurts to show respect to the gentlemen. Although it occasionally hurts not to.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Back on the farm I heard all kinds about wizards. It’s all stories, though. They’re no worse than any other sort of merchant.”

  “Merchants!” the gatekeeper snorted. “Morrslieb must be out tonight. If you think that this lot are anything like merchants, you’re crazy.”

  “They’re easier than merchants, is what I meant,” the other man said. “I used to work on the caravans up to Praag, and the bosses there were nine times the bastards these wizards are.”

  The gatekeeper waited for a wagon full of barrels to rattle between them before he replied.

  “Maybe they were, but that’s not much comfort to Frenk, is it?”

  “Who’s Frenk?”

  “Your predecessor. He worked here twenty years, ever since he got out of the regiment; leant on his halberd instead of saluting, took it easy, and looked forward to getting drunk when the week was finished.”