“Get some men,” she said, simply. “We’re going to the cells.”
The food was as bad as could be imagined—rank rotten meat and a hunk of
grey bread—with only a bowl of fly-specked water to wash it down. But Stefan
and Bruno ate, and they drank, for neither knew when they might get the chance
to do so again. They had barely finished when the guards returned to rouse the
prisoners from their cells, to face whatever torments the day held in store.
A row of covered wagons was waiting in the courtyard above, pulled by braces
of oxen. Stefan guessed that the wagons were intended to save time rather than
spare the prisoners’ strength. The mines must lie some distance beyond the
citadel walls. The prisoners climbed up into the wagons in pairs. Once they were
all boarded, the guards moved amongst them, shackling each man securely to the
next. There would be little or no chance of escape during this journey.
Stefan sat towards the back, trying to glimpse what he could of the world
outside as their wagon rolled through the citadel towards the outer walls. It
was still dark, the first rays of the sun’s light had yet to break above the
hills that crested Sigmarsgeist. Even so, the streets were already brimming with
people heading towards their day’s labour. None paid any heed to the passing
wagons or their cargo. It was as though they had ceased to exist.
As night gave way to grey dawn, Stefan peeled back the edge of the canvas
hanging over the back of the wagon to get a glimpse of what was happening
outside. He saw little to give him comfort. Aside from the dozen guards sitting
with the prisoners inside the wagon, there were at least a dozen more on horseback surrounding the wagons as they made their slow progress
through the streets. He soon gave up watching the guards and looked instead at
the citadel itself.
They were following the same route as they had taken the previous day on the
way to the walls, and yet the place looked already altered. Buildings, houses
and shops that had looked barely half-built only the day before now stood
virtually intact, their construction completed with incredible speed. Then there
were other buildings—those that had been already standing—that now appeared
partly demolished, broken down for no obvious purpose other than to accommodate
the new, partly-built structures growing up out of their midst. Some of the new
structures were recognisable in shape. Others—bizarre lattice-works of
alabaster marble twisting about one another like sleeping serpents—were not.
Everything, every edifice, was competing with others for the increasingly
precious space around the citadel.
“It’s getting out of control,” Stefan said quietly to Bruno. “The place is
feeding upon itself. The growth can’t be contained.”
“Why do they keep building?” Bruno asked, awed and perplexed in equal
measure. “They must see that they’re starting to tear the place apart?”
Stefan turned to his friend in the shadows of the wagon. “Who knows?” he
said. “But my senses tell me that Konstantin and Anaise have unleashed something
here that they cannot now undo.” He watched as the streets behind them receded
into the distance. “Something which sprang from honour and virtue, and has
become something other.”
The wagons passed beyond the city walls onto the open plains that lay beyond
the citadel. A wan light began to penetrate the interior of the wagon, and
Stefan was able to see the rest of his companions for the first time. Aside from
Bruno and the guards, they shared the cramped space with twenty or so more
prisoners. Their pale, emaciated faces looked battered and defeated. Flesh hung
off their frames like empty sacks. Many were not long for this world, Stefan
could see that. He wondered how much of this he could take before he, too, came
to look like the same.
There was another hour’s journey beyond the walls before the wagons rolled to
a stop, and the prisoners were ordered down into the pale morning light. The
land around them was desolate and barren, hemmed in by bare grey hills
stretching up towards a leaden sky. Some way in the distance, deep within the
cradle of those hills, lay Sigmarsgeist. Stefan looked upon it, and saw it no
longer as a jewel, but as a canker. A canker, steadily, remorselessly spreading.
Nearly fifty men in all were gathered by the wagons, shivering in the early
dawn. Many of them flung back their heads to the open sky, drinking in the light
as though it were for the last time. The guards allowed a moment’s respite, then
marched the men towards a yawning fissure, a cleft carved in the rock like an
entrance to a gigantic cave. In single file, and still shackled one to another,
the men walked down a steep slope towards the entrance to the mine. With each
step the air around them grew ever more stale and foetid. The dark mouth of the
mine disgorged a steady flow of men, caked in filth, some hauling laden barrows
and wagons, others with sacks loaded upon their backs.
Stefan gazed into their bruised and broken faces, and saw nothing but a
vacant numbness written there. They were the lucky ones, Stefan supposed, men
who were still able to walk from the mines on their own two feet. Piles of
bodies lay stacked like so much ballast either side of the gravel path, awaiting
disposal. The stench of death mixed with the odours of sweat and grime pouring
off the exhausted souls trudging out of the mine.
All we are, Stefan realised, is more fuel for the furnace. Sticks of human
tinder to feed the flames of Sigmarsgeist. His life was worth precisely the sum
of the labour that could be wrung from it. No more and no less.
He was pulled back from his thoughts by someone—or something—barging into
him from behind. He turned about and found himself staring into the face of a
tall Norscan, a scar running the length of one cheek. The Norscan stared at
Stefan, a murderous expression on his face.
“Erengrad,” the man said. “You were there. We don’t forget.”
“Neither do I,” Stefan replied. “I won’t forget Erengrad, or you and your
kind, for as long as I live.”
“Which won’t be for long,” the other countered. Stefan braced himself, ready
to fight there and then if necessary. But he wasn’t to have the chance. Two
guards standing close by had seen the altercation between Stefan and the
Norscan. Now they weighed in energetically, lashing out with their staffs, and
pulled the two men apart.
“Save it for later,” the guard snarled. “First we want some work out of you.”
The Norscan backed off, but shot a look towards Stefan that clearly signalled
his intent. A look that said,
this is not over.
The guard at the head of the column of prisoners shouted for silence.
“Behold the Mines of Sigmar,” he announced to the waiting men. “Behold them,
and despair. For those of you who work hard—” he looked around at the prisoners,
and laughed. “Who knows? Maybe you’ll find some food and rest as your reward at
the end of the day.” The guard looked down the line, scanning the faces. “For
those who don’t, take a good look about as you climb down the shaft.” He looked
down, and spat upon the ground. “Because they’ll be your tomb.”
The guards standing to either side of the column of men cracked down upon
their whips, and slowly, with something approaching dread, the line moved
forward into the darkness.
“Gods spare us,” Bruno muttered. “The Gates of Morr themselves couldn’t be a
crueller place.”
“Courage, my friend,” Stefan replied tersely. “The worst of this still lies
ahead.”
Kyros, the dark lord of Chaos, looked out upon the world through the eyes of
Alexei Zucharov. Through those eyes he examined the citadel men had named after
Sigmar, that old and obdurate enemy of the dark powers. In times past Kyros
would have taken no comfort from that cursed name, but what he saw now gratified
him beyond all measure. The forces of change, servants of his master, the dread
god Tzeentch, had been loosed upon the citadel, irreversible and, ultimately,
irresistible.
He gazed through eyes the colour of storm-beaten seas as Zucharov was led,
his limbs still weighed down with chains, through the courtyards and corridors
of the palace. He looked out upon the streets, across the face of the citadel.
The Chaos Lord could sense what was—as yet—still invisible to the mortal
eye.
The tide of anarchy, barely contained within the physical bounds of the
citadel. Sigmarsgeist was growing too fast; it was close to tearing itself
apart. The men who had built this folly had released a force which they barely
comprehended. Soon, surely, the walls would crumble and blood would wash through this dry place. Sigmarsgeist would fall, and another piece of
the puzzle would have been completed, another step taken upon the road towards
the inevitable victory.
But the citadel of Sigmarsgeist was only a token, a gilding gift for his
master to add to the greater prize. Kyros was concerned with what lay somewhere,
far below the folly of timber and stone, a place possessed of powers that the
rulers of the citadel could only dream of. Powers that would render his glorious
master all but omnipotent. Kyros had vowed to claim the waters of Tal Dur for
the glory of almighty Tzeentch, and Alexei Zucharov was going to lead him there.
Zucharov was strong, his will had proved stubborn and obdurate. Even now,
weeks after the amulet had infected his veins with the elixir of Chaos, Zucharov
still struggled to hold on to his former self—a man possessed of his own,
indomitable will. Kyros would subdue that will, remould and recast Zucharov’s
spirit until his single remaining purpose on this earth was to serve Kyros, his
eternal lord and master.
Through Zucharov’s eyes, Kyros followed Anaise von Augen as she strode several
paces ahead of the man she considered her prisoner. Surrounded by her retinue,
she exuded a calm authority that Kyros admired and mocked in equal measure. She
did not yet understand that the strongest shackles were those the eye cannot
see.
The Chaos Lord studied her movements. She was so proud, so confident,
possessed of absolute certainty and an iron resolve. Kyros would probe that
certainty until he had found each and every weakness, uncovered the keys that
unlocked the gateways to her soul, then he would put her resolve to the test,
bear down upon it and not desist until it had been utterly, irrevocably broken.
But first came Tal Dur. Between them, Zucharov and the Guide would lead Kyros
to the source, each of them drawn to its light by yearnings too powerful to
ignore. Like moths to the fatal flame, they would lead Kyros there. And when Tal
Dur had been delivered, the followers of Tzeentch would have need of no one, nor would anyone be able to stand in their way.
First, the light had faded until all that remained was the residual glow of
the tallow lamps set at intervals along the length of the mineshafts. Then the
air had begun to grow so stale and scarce that Stefan had begun to wonder if
there could possibly be enough to sustain so many men. And this was not to be a
brief stay below ground. The ordeal had begun with the descent into the
underworld. The prisoners had descended a series of shafts linked by narrow,
interconnecting corridors carved out of the rock. Each successive shaft took
them deeper, plunging them further into the belly of the earth. Some had the
luxury of a few crude steps, like a ladder cut into the sides of the shaft.
Others offered nothing but a rope dropping down into the darkness. Either way,
they were a single slip from their deaths. Stefan cast a wary eye about for the
two Norscans from the wagons, but there was no sign of either man. In any case,
Stefan reckoned, there were more pressing matters of life and death to occupy
all of them for the time being.
He and Bruno joined the line of men descending down angled ladders into the
gloom. For a while, on the surface, conversation amongst the prisoners had been
animated, despite the attentions of the guards. Now, an almost eerie silence
fell upon the men. One by one they disappeared into the dark void of the mine,
interspersed between the guards. No one spoke. Each man was left alone with his
own imaginings of what might lie ahead.
For what seemed an eternity, the descent continued, men clambering down into
the suffocating darkness, whilst the newly-mined ore was hauled relentlessly up
through the shafts towards the surface. Stefan counted at least a dozen heavy
rope nets filled to the brim with rough hewn stone, passing above his head on
the way back up the mine. He tried to keep some measure of how far below the
surface they had travelled, but after the fifth shaft had given way to a sixth,
he gave up. It was far enough, further below the face of the world than he had
ever ventured before.
He had expected it to be cold below ground, but it was not. A thick, sticky
heat had been apparent from the moment he reached the bottom of the first shaft,
and with each successive descent it grew worse. Long before he had reached the
bottom of the climb, Stefan was drenched in sweat.
For a while the darkness was near total, the men finding their way by touch
alone. But as Stefan neared the bottom of what he. counted as the seventh shaft
he saw a faint glow of light beneath him, and heard the sounds of iron beating
upon stone. At long last they reached the face of the mine itself, and joined a
queue of prisoners shuffling slowly forward along a cramped, narrow gallery. Up
ahead the space opened out, temporarily at least, and there was enough room to
walk two abreast, and more or less upright. At one end of the gallery, guards
were handing out a supply of tools, spades and pick-axes.
Bruno came alongside Stefan. “One of those could be turned to a useful
weapon,” he commented, quietly. “Maybe we have a chance of getting out of here.”
They came level with the guards, and Stefan reached out to take one of the
picks. The guard issuing the tools gave him a knowing look and pulled the tool
from out of his grasp.