“I am death,” he said. “I am annihilation. I am the counterpoint to
everything that your masters have prayed and striven for. I am the darkness that
waits upon the end of your world.”
“My masters are the Guides of Sigmarsgeist,” Rilke retorted “And they will
never—”
Zucharov drew back his hand, and delivered a punch to Rilke’s ribs. Not so
hard that he lost all consciousness, but hard enough to draw a scream of agony
from his already battered body. “Do not waste my time with fiction,” he said. “I
know who your real masters are.” He twisted Rilke’s head again, and looked hard
into his eyes, deep into his tortured soul.
“I know who you are,” he said. “And I know
what
you are.” He shoved
Rilke back against the wall of the cell, and turned to the two Norscan gaolers
standing in waiting behind him.
“Leave us,” Zucharov told them. “I will finish this now.”
“I was wondering how long it would take you to find me here.”
Bea was drained of all emotion. She had found her way to the lower city,
already sinking below the rising waters. She had lost herself in the warren of
half-flooded streets and houses, lost herself in her work. There were plenty
there who needed her help, and there would be many more. But she knew that,
wherever she went, Anaise would find her. Their destinies were inextricably
linked. She understood that now.
She no longer felt any kinship or warmth towards Anaise, but there was no
room in her heart for hatred, either. She knew she must pour all of her soul
into her devotions, into her calling. Which, at that moment, meant doing
whatever she could for the wounded woman that lay at her feet. So she did not so
much as look up when she heard Anaise’s voice at her shoulder. Bea knew that,
before long, the Guide would track her down. But she would not let Anaise
distract her from her work. Not now. Not any longer.
“Where else would you be found?” Anaise asked, earnestly. “Where else would a
daughter of the goddess be, but amongst the sick and the wounded, tending to
them as best she could? Here—” The Guide got down by Bea’s side. “In the name of the gods,
let me at least help you.” She tore a strip of cloth from the sodden bundle
lying upon the floor and began to tie a tourniquet around the injured woman’s
arm. Bea made no attempt to stop her—Anaise was competent, and Bea knew she
could use all the help that she could get, welcome or otherwise. But there was a
coldness in her heart towards the Guide that would never now be displaced.
“Why should you want to help?” she asked, icily. “What is it to you?”
Anaise stopped what she was doing, and tugged the hair back from her face so
that she could look directly at Bea. “Don’t you think I care?” she asked her.
“Don’t you think it matters to me what happens to my people?”
Bea finished the work of securing the tourniquet, and lay a soothing hand
upon the sick woman’s brow. “I know why you’re here,” she said. “You want me to
help you channel the power of the waters.” She held Anaise’s gaze, unblinking.
“As for all this suffering, no, I don’t think you care at all.”
Anaise stared back at her. Her expression hardened. “You did this, Bea,” she
said. “It is you who brought the waters to the citadel.”
Bea turned away, towards another patient, an older man who had been crushed
beneath a falling building. The flesh of his arm was dark with a livid green
bruise; he would certainly lose the limb if Bea did not act quickly.
“You’re wrong,” she said, without turning from her work. “It is you who have
brought this doom upon Sigmarsgeist. With your desire, your naked greed for
power. Now these people are suffering the consequences of that greed.”
Anaise reached out to her, but Bea pulled away. “Believe what you want,”
Anaise replied, sharply. “I have no gain in bringing ill to my people. But if I
have truly succeeded in restoring the great powers to this place—” She stood up,
and started to pace the floor, taking no account now of the suffering around
her, “then it must be I who will reap its bounty.” She smiled,
defiantly, at the
young healer. “I always knew that Tal Dur was close,” she said. “There was a
purpose which drove us to set the first stones of Sigmarsgeist here, just as there was a purpose in your being delivered to me.
The great powers are restored to this place!” She laughed. “Your work is done,
Bea, whether you willed it so or not.”
Bea glared back at Anaise. “You do not understand those powers,” she
asserted. “You understand nothing. You think Tal Dur is a place. It is not. It
is a state of being. To those who seek it, it gives back only what it finds
within them. Take the warning that is before your eyes, Anaise,” she implored.
“Seek for Tal Dur with evil in your heart, and only evil will attend you. Turn
away from this course before it is too late!”
Anaise brushed her aside and stood up. “Minister to your sickly charges
whilst you may,” she advised. “And know this. We stand on the threshold of a new
world, a world where weakness and sickness will have no place. A new
Sigmarsgeist,
my
Sigmarsgeist.”
There was a sound like a roll of thunder from outside, and another great
edifice collapsed into the swirling waters, great blocks of stone torn apart by
the sheer force of the tide. For a few seconds the building trembled like a tree
in a storm, and then subsided.
“Is this how your new world will look, Anaise?” Bea asked quietly. “With
destruction and death its heralds?”
“There must be an ending before we can begin anew,” Anaise countered,
stridently. “It is all within my gift. I can stop this whenever I choose, and
begin to build anew. The strong shall survive the deluge, and I shall be there
to lead them!”
Alexei Zucharov regarded the plight of Sigmarsgeist and its people with a
cold indifference. The bricks and stones that had been the citadel were nothing
to him, nor were the souls that had taken shelter within it. He strode through
the heart of the citadel, towards the ever-rising flood waters, gazing
dispassionately at the carnage unfolding all around him. To the mortal eye this
would seem like the end of all things, mayhem and brutal destruction, a
senseless tide of anarchy that could no longer be reined in. Only a follower of
Tzeentch could see the destruction of Sigmarsgeist for what it truly was: an act of mighty transfiguration. Transformation on a huge
scale; transformation of the sort upon which the great wheels of eternity turn.
Zucharov knew this now. Without change there was stasis, and with stasis came
degeneration and decay. Change was the very essence of being. The destruction of
Sigmarsgeist was an act of celebration, pious homage to the great, Dark Lord of
Transformation himself.
The end game for Sigmarsgeist, and for Tal Dur, was at hand. Now he must
ensure that nothing interfered with the mighty forces at work. Zucharov had
assembled an army, of sorts, to do his master’s bidding. The Norscans accounted
for the greater number, prisoners from the defeated army at Erengrad, now freed
to return to the service of the dark cause. Most of them wore the white of the
elite guard. It had pleased Kyros to have them don the uniform whilst Rilke’s
men were rounded up and left to rot, discredited and shamed by their leader, in
the cells.
The Norscan force had been augmented by such others of the prisoners who
could be trusted, any who bore the mark of Tzeentch upon them, or those who had
not yet mutated beyond the point of madness. Amongst the white of the Norscan
guard jostled a dozen or more inhumans, mutants and other creatures of Chaos.
Some of them were still recognisably human, some altered beyond all semblance
of mortal form. As they waded amid the swirling waters, the power of their dark
master flowed ever more powerfully through their altered forms. Bodies shimmered
and convulsed; voices rose to a keening scream, adding to the insane cacophony
of the streets, driven to joyous delirium by the scenes of grief and destruction
all around them.
Zucharov did not share their joy. His purpose was to see the will of Kyros
done, and the job was not accomplished yet. But he knew he must let his warriors—particularly the cruelly violent Norscans—have their head. Zucharov decided
to give them blood, much as he might throw meat to a pack of dogs. All around
them now townsfolk were trying to flee the rising waters. Zucharov ordered the
Norscans to turn them back, it would be sport enough for them, for the moment. The
white-clad northerners went about their task with a brutal, ruthless efficiency,
lashing out with staves at anyone—man, woman or child—who tried to get past
to safety, and herding those who held off back into the arms of the flood. Any
who fell by the wayside they skewered with their swords, murdering the fleeing
populace without discrimination.
Zucharov let the butchers get on with their work all the time marshalling his
men deeper into the citadel. There was no reason why the townsfolk should die,
but there was no reason for them to live, either. In the end, he knew, they were
all dead. He marched on, the icy water swirling about his ankles running red
with blood. Soon enough, he found real work for his murderous horde to concern
themselves with.
They had skirted the heart of the city, and followed one of the main
thoroughfares that ran from north to south, close to the high walls. Ahead of
them was a large group of Red Guards—perhaps twenty or thirty in all—attacking the walls with picks and staves and—in one place—a great battering
ram. The sight made no immediate sense to Zucharov, but Kyros quickly
communicated to him their intent, and, equally quickly, made clear his orders.
The guards must not be allowed to breach the walls. The great flood must be
allowed to run its course; the transformation must be completed. Only then could
the prophecy of Tal Dur be fulfilled. Only then could Kyros—and Zucharov—claim its gifts.
Zucharov raised his arm and drew his men to him. With a single shouted
command, he began the attack. So absorbed were the Red Guard in their assault
upon the walls, they did not see Zucharov and his grotesque troop until they
were all but upon them. Zucharov drew out his sword and bellowed a cry of war
that came from the very core of his being. At long last, he was delivered to his
true destiny. The blood of battle coursed in his veins; he could taste it in his
mouth. Soon his sword would run red with it. Too late the soldiers of Sigmar saw
the Chaos horde bearing down upon them. Too late, they turned from the walls and
raised their shields against the crazed attackers.
Zucharov plunged his blade deep into the body of the first guard who tried to
block his path, the force of his thrust was so great that it carried the man—already dead—clean off his feet. He calculated the odds of battle—level or
better than level, his followers matching the Red Guard man for man. Even with
the odds against them, they would surely have prevailed. The Red Guard were
weary, in their minds already defeated, desperately trying to salvage something
from the wreckage of their citadel. The soldiers of Sigmar would be swept away,
cut to ribbons in a flurry of frenzied steel.
Zucharov tore into the midst of the Red Guard, annihilating adversaries to
his left and his right with thunderous blows of his sword. Most of those who had
a chance to counter-attack could barely get near him, and even those who found
their mark were unable to inflict a wound upon the leathery hide that had grown,
like armour, covering Zucharov’s body.
The soldiers of Sigmar were not totally without heart, and they were not
without skill. Although overwhelmed, they were still taking a toll of the
Norscans, and soon as many as a dozen of the northerners lay dead or dying.
Zucharov regretted their loss only as much as he would regret the loss of a
resource. The Norscans deserved to die, he had no kinship with their foul breed.
And there would be enough of them to ensure the deed was done. And if the
Norscans, and his other followers all perished, then he would still stand,
undiminished and unvanquished. He was strong, he was all-powerful, he was
immortal.
Zucharov swung his blade, double-handed, decapitating two soldiers as they
tried to close in upon him. In the aftermath he looked about, trying to
establish what had happened to the Guards’ assault upon the walls. All but a
handful of them had abandoned their attempt, and turned their attentions to
saving their miserable skins. But, as he looked on, one of the red-clad guards—their leader—was now running back to where the great siege engine—the
battering ram—sat poised ready to deliver its hammer punch to the outer wall.
Zucharov paid it scant attention at first. Huge though the siege engine was,
it was surely incapable of breaching the thick stone wall. Then he saw that the
wall was already weakened. Several great slabs of stone were missing or removed
where the wall was being rebuilt. One well-directed thrust might be enough to
break through. This could not be allowed to happen.
Zucharov broke away from the main combat, swatting aside another three
opponents, and sprinted for the walls. The Red Guard was on the point of
releasing the machine, and sending the column of oak smashing against the stone
wall. Zucharov let out a roar and hurled a short-bladed knife, aimed square in
the middle of the guard’s back. In that instant the guard turned to one side,
and the blade flew wide.
Zucharov recognised the man. It was one of the confidants who sat in
attendance upon the Guides, the highest ranking of those who wore the red of
Sigmarsgeist. Baecker. Yes, that was his name. Zucharov leapt towards him, a
final desperate lunge before his enemy could loosen the catches that held the
mighty beam in place. Even in that moment, he was able to look through the eyes
of Kyros, into the other man’s soul. Yes, it was clear. Baecker had the seed of
darkness within him, the potential, at least, to cross the great divide and join
with the march of the armies of the night. But for now, he was just another
adversary. Zucharov already had enough men that he could call upon as his ally.
The only fate that could await Hans Baecker was death.