But he, too, was weak. He might rank higher than the bandits with their
myopic greed, but only within the simple hierarchy of the damned. Zucharov would
kill him as he had killed the others. He lifted his sword, measuring a blow that
would cleave the other man clean in two. As the blade began to fall, he felt a
jolt like a fork of lightening run from his spine to the base of his neck,
paralysing him. The voice of Kyros exploded inside of him, a single, bellowed
word of command:
No!
Zucharov struggled to take control of his sword, battling to close the
movement that would power the furious blade into the body of Lothar Koenig. He
would have no master other than his own will. He would not submit, he would not.
But he had no choice. His body would obey only one master, and the dark lord
had decreed the sword would not fall. The spasm passed, but he knew he could not
strike at Koenig. He now knew that Kyros had other plans for them both.
Lothar Koenig had watched in disbelief as the falling sword hung suspended in
mid-air. The spell was broken, and Lothar fell back, out of range of the blow.
It lasted barely an instant, but the fire had gone from the other man’s eyes. So
invincible in battle only moments before, he now looked diminished, almost
mortal.
Emboldened, Lothar had drawn his own sword, unsure whether he was attacking
or defending himself, but knowing that the odds had shifted suddenly, and
inexplicably, in his favour. His mind had raced with the possibilities opening
up. Surely he should flee. He would get no second chance of redemption. The urge
to run, to leap upon his horse and ride for his life, had been strong indeed.
But Lothar had been a bounty hunter for perhaps too long.
There were other, even more powerful instincts that seized him at moments
like these.
The ring of metal fire glowed like the sun through the gloom of the night.
Lothar had stared, greedily, at the gold amulet, devouring it with his eyes.
That alone would surely keep him in comfort until winter’s worst was spent.
Standing between him and that comfort was the man who bore the band. The warrior
with the strange, writhing tattoo disfiguring his arm. The awesome power had
been dimmed, but the man still cut a formidable figure. Whatever he was—soldier, mercenary, or some freakish creation of the gods—Lothar Koenig knew
there were plenty who would pay handsomely to be the master of a man such as
this. If anything this was the greater prize.
Caution had vied with greed in the racing mind of Lothar Koenig and greed had
won.
Zucharov’s memory had broken into a series of jumbled, fragmented scenes. But
there was one seam that ran true through all his recollection: he was a fighter,
a warrior who had never yet met his equal. In battle he had earned scars and
borne pain but he had always prevailed. He had known many conquests, and the
taste of victory had become commonplace, only too familiar. But one thing that
Alexei Zucharov had never known was captivity. To submit now—to this man, this
creature whose life he could extinguish with a single blow—would be an
unthinkable humiliation. And yet he found himself stepping back from the
confrontation.
His grip upon the hilt of his sword slackened. The weapon slipped from his
hand. Zucharov heard it strike the hard ground, metal upon stone. And he heard
himself gasp as he slumped to his knees, the strength draining from him like
water through a sieve. Nothing that Zucharov had ever experienced had prepared
him for this. He saw the look on the other’s face: disbelieving elated.
Alexei’s head fell to his chest. He tried in vain to raise his eyes. Every
muscle in his face felt leaden, and a great weight had been spread upon his
shoulders, pressing him down. Only now, with Alexei bent low in unwilling
supplication, did Kyros address him once more. Zucharov listened to the voice, and when the
time came for reply, he heard the sound of his own words inside his head, words
that could be heard only by the dark lord of Tzeentch.
You have chained me through your magic. Shackled my body with a spell.
This is not the time to fight,
Kyros answered him.
Now you must be
truly strong.
You mock me with witchcraft. Free me from this web and I’ll show you what
strength can do.
No. You choose the wrong path. The path of the strong lies along another
road.
Still Alexei railed at his master’s bidding.
I will not submit, like some
beast to be tamed,
he raged.
I have free will.
Free will is a delusion,
responded Kyros.
A crutch for the weak.
Alexei finally managed to raise his head far enough to look up at the figure
standing over him. The other man had his sword drawn at the ready. He was
shaking with fear, little knowing that his adversary was powerless. Zucharov
waited, trying to fathom how this pitiful stranger could play any part in his
destiny. He was Alexei’s inferior in every apparent way, smaller, lighter and
older. No match at all for Zucharov in open combat. Even if he had been a master
of the sword, it would surely only have served to prolong his end.
He saw Koenig hesitate, saw the fear that still lived in his eyes. Even now,
Zucharov realised, he thinks I may destroy him. Zucharov raged silently against
his impotence. So this was to be his fate. This was the man that Alexei Zucharov
was about to yield to. He had no fear of death, but to yield like this,
passively and without so much as even a word, was worse than any death that he
could have imagined.
Lothar Koenig, quite simply, had not been able to believe his luck. His first
thought had been that the other man’s collapse must have been the result of
injuries he’d suffered in the fight with Durer’s men. Indeed, he had a gaping
wound that ran across the palm of his hand up the length of his wrist on his
left tattooed arm. Koenig remembered with a shudder how that wound had been
earned, and saw again the stranger grasping hold of the razor-edged blade in his bare hand.
But otherwise he’d swear the man was untouched. Whatever it was that had
stricken him, it was surely not his injury. What was more, he carried his sword
in his other hand, his right. Or, rather, had carried it. Lothar watched the
sword fall from the man’s grasp. Time passed, moments seeming to stretch forward
into an eternity. Only when it became clear that Zucharov was not going to move
did Koenig finally gather his courage and snatch the sword from the ground.
Koenig stood over the kneeling figure of his would-be captive. For all the
apparent supremacy of his position, the bounty hunter was filled with a terror
he had barely known in all the perilous years of his profession.
“Surrender,” he commanded, his voice as firm as he could muster. “Offer me
your surrender and I promise you’ll be treated fairly.” He watched as the other
man raised his head, the ponderous, slow movement masking the power that lay
beneath. Lothar had a sense of a great menace, temporarily subdued. He must
hurry.
“Come on,” he demanded. “On your feet.”
The other had turned his face towards the night sky. The bounty hunter felt a
jolt as their gaze met. In that moment he had experienced the fleeting sense of
another being, a far darker, malevolent soul, peering out at him through the
eyes of the man kneeling before him.
“You are weak,” Zucharov said.
At that point, something had snapped inside of Lothar Koenig, something he
would best describe as professional pride. The insult stung him into action,
reminded him who he was. Lothar Koenig. Not just a bounty hunter.
The
bounty hunter. The bounty hunter, what was more, who was on the point of
claiming not one, but two or even three bounties. Not bad for a couple of days’
work.
“That’s your opinion,” he replied, “but right now I’d say you were the weak
one, wouldn’t you?”
He had swung into action, instinct and years of experience guiding him
through a series of almost mechanical movements. He kept one eye firmly upon his captive as he took what he might
need from his horse. The shackling chains, or perhaps the mesh of wire that
could encase a man like a chicken in a net? Better both, he concluded. He patted
the pocket of his jerkin, feeling for the glass bottle. If all else failed, the
potion would be sure to subdue him for a while. As he set to work, he had been
filled with a sudden confidence. This was going to be easy, and he wasn’t going
to ask why.
Zucharov had watched the shackles going about his body, the steel biting into
his flesh. He neither resisted nor colluded with his fate. He was detached from
it, watching it from afar. When his arms and upper body had been chained he was
put upon a horse, slung across it like a commodity at market. Then he was lashed
to the saddle with strong ropes, so that he would not fall. Through all of this,
he was in the hands of the bounty hunter, his captor. And yet he was not; this
was just his flesh, his body His spirit had been carried far away, to the dread
halls where Kyros held court.
Kyros had heard Zucharov’s despair, listened to his silent rage against his
subjugation.
You still have much to learn,
the dark lord told him again.
This is
not the end.
At last they had got under way, the bounty hunter riding ahead, leading the
second horse bearing the chained body of Alexei Zucharov by a rope along the
steep path that wound up out of the Ostravska valley. The going was difficult
and slow, but gradually they had found a momentum, and Koenig’s heart had grown
lighter. He started to whistle, a tune half-remembered from his childhood.
And far away, in a place far distant from the mortal realm, Lord Kyros had
looked down upon Lothar Koenig, and smiled upon his labours.
This was only the beginning.
For two full days and nights, Stefan and his companions had ridden south with
the soldiers of the Red Guard. Finally, at the dawn of the third day, they
approached their destination.
Through most of the hours of darkness, they had been climbing. A steady,
gentle ascent had led along a wooded mountain trail, the way twisting and
snaking like a path through a maze. As the first glimmerings of light began to
streak the night sky the riders crested a hill and emerged from the cover of
trees into open land. They were on top of a high hill on the edge of a mountain
range, the ridge curving away to either side of them, drawing into a circle on
the far side of the valley, forming a vast cradle. As if on cue, the sun rose
from behind the crest of rock, suddenly and dramatically bathing the valley in a
flood of warm, amber light.
The land below was swaddled in early morning fog. Through the haze, the
scattered spires and towers of a town or city were just visible, rising up out
of the mists like ships riding a golden ocean.
“Behold,” Baecker announced. “Sigmarsgeist.”
From on high it was impossible to guess the exact size of the citadel, but it
was undoubtedly big. Stefan’s travels had taken him from Altdorf, at the heart
of the Empire, to the mighty city of Middenheim, and to Erengrad, at the western
edge of the lands of Kislev. Sigmarsgeist might not yet rival them, but this was
no mountain village.
Stefan cast his eyes across
a complex pattern of roads and streets, a
dense forest of buildings of all shapes and sizes, built from flint and stone. A
cluster of tall, domed structures set high upon the northern face of
Sigmarsgeist dominated the view of citadel. Beyond the domes the streets were
laid out in tiers, shelving down towards the southern end of the citadel. It
seemed all of Sigmarsgeist was built upon sloping ground, with the domed
buildings—which Stefan took to be a temple or a palace of some kind—at its
uppermost point. The sun began to burn away the early mist, cutting through the
chilly shroud to glint off the slate roofs of hundreds of separate dwellings,
halls and workshops.
There had to be a thousand souls living within those walls, maybe many more,
Stefan estimated. And it was clear that Sigmarsgeist was still growing. At least
a third of the citadel was still being built, with row upon row of new dwellings
standing in various states of construction.
Stefan was puzzled that he had had no previous knowledge of such a place. The
day before he had checked upon his map; there had been no mention of
Sigmarsgeist, nor of any other place of comparable size. The map that they were
using was undoubtedly crude, but Stefan was still surprised to find it missing
such a detail.
“You are impressed?” Hans asked of him.
“Yes,” Stefan readily agreed. He was impressed. If nothing else, Sigmarsgeist
bore ample testimony to the ambition and craft of man.
He shaded the sun from his eyes, peering down into the valley. He tried to
compare Sigmarsgeist with the great cities of the Empire, cities such as
Middenheim, a mighty, fortress sat high upon its plateau of rock. In many ways
Sigmarsgeist was the mirror opposite of the city of the White Wolf. Where Middenheim sat high and impregnable, nestling amongst the clouds,
Sigmarsgeist was buried at the very foot of the valley, hemmed in by towering
walls of rock. It seemed—to Stefan’s eye at least—a strange choice.
“Why was the city built here?” he asked, “so deep within the valley?”
Baecker did not answer the question directly. “The site was carefully chosen,”
he said. “There were many considerations.”
“Such as?”
“The Guides may wish to tell you more of that,” Baecker answered.
“The Guides?”
Baecker raised one hand. “Come. Save your questions for later. Sigmarsgeist
is waiting.”
Bea glanced at him, an inquisitive look stealing over her features.
“Was there something else?” Baecker asked her.