“Baecker will reverse our fortunes,” Konstantin said again, with a hollow
defiance. “Sigmarsgeist will stand firm.”
On impulse, Stefan reached forward and took hold of the Guide. No one moved
to stop him. “Baecker is dead,” he reminded the old man. “Your men have his
body.”
“His plan was to breach the walls to release the flood waters,” one of the
guards added. “I fear it is too late for that now.”
“And where is your sister?” Stefan demanded. “Is she here, by your side? Is
she fighting for the soul of Sigmarsgeist?”
“My sister?” Konstantin looked around, taking in the figures standing about
the room, as if searching for some sight of Anaise. “My sister is lost,” he
said, at last, sadly. “And so now are we all.”
“We are not lost yet,” Stefan told him, defiantly. “Until we stand at the
very gates of Morr, there is always hope.” He paused, trying to marshal the
thoughts racing about his mind. “Do you remember,” he said, “when we first
spoke. You asked me if I knew what it was that I stood for? Not just what I
stood against, Konstantin, but what I stood
for
.”
Konstantin made no response.
“I couldn’t answer your question then,” Stefan went on. “But I know the
answer now.” He got to his feet. “This—this struggle, until the very last hope
is extinguished, that is what I stand for. I stand for all the people who live
their lives, not by some shining ideal, but as well as they can, in order to
survive. I stand for
life,
Konstantin, impure and imperfect.” He turned
and scanned the faces looking on. “And, by all that is mighty, for as long as
life survives, we owe a debt to the gods to fight for every precious last breath
of it.”
Konstantin looked up at Stefan, a broken man at the end of his life. But
somewhere inside him, Stefan’s words found their mark or at least tugged at a
memory of the dream that the Guide once held for Sigmarsgeist.
“What is it you want of me?” he asked, mildly. “What do you want me to do?”
Stefan looked round in search of the soldier who had spoken up before. “How
did the Norscans get out?” he asked. “Who set them free?”
“The mutant,” the guard replied. “The one whose body bears the living tattoo.
He accounted for Baecker, and Rilke too.” The man looked round, nervously, at
his comrades. “He has—he has the confidence of our lady Anaise,” he said.
“Then he will account for all Sigmarsgeist unless we act now,” Stefan replied,
tersely. “You must turn control of your men over to me,” he told Konstantin.
“All is not lost yet, but we must act now.”
A look of pain crossed Konstantin’s troubled features. “You last came before
me as an enemy of Sigmarsgeist,” he recalled.
“Then ask yourself this,” Stefan urged him. “Ask yourself how things have come
to this. Ask yourself who are the true enemies of Sigmarsgeist now.”
Konstantin made no reply, but there were tears welling up in his eyes. After
some hesitation, he slipped a bronze ring from his right hand, and offered it to
Stefan.
“This is my authority,” he told him. “My sovereignty and my power. Take it and
you have my all.” He cast his eyes about the chamber, meeting the gaze of his
men. “Witness this act,” he commanded. “And witness with it the end to the vain
folly that has brought us here. He is your captain now,” he told them. “Follow
his command as though it were my own.”
The Guide slumped back, his eyes closed, his breath slow and deep.
“And may Sigmar grant some stay against the dimming of our light,” he
whispered.
As the long day of carnage gave way to grim night, so Alexei Zucharov made
his way through the drowning citadel. He had no need to look for the healer
girl, no need to guess where she might be found. He had Kyros to light his path,
to guide him, sure and certain, to his destination. The spirit of the dark lord
flowed in every fibre of his being. It was the voice that whispered incessantly
inside his head, and it was the rhythm that beat, without pause or falter,
inside of him, a second heartbeat next to his own. Zucharov could feel it rising
from the golden amulet clamped tight about his wrist, a burning flow of pure energy pouring through his body.
His progress was slow, but inexorable. Where he met with resistance—from
what few of the Red Guard were on the streets, or the even fewer townsfolk
stupid enough to stand in his way—he repressed it, ruthlessly. He dealt out
death, but not as the Norscans had done. Zucharov took no delight in this
simple, meaningless killing. His was the greater purpose ordained by Kyros. He
killed swiftly, efficiently and economically, expending no more effort than was
necessary to remove the obstacle. He would leave the Norscans to enjoy their
mindless plunder whilst they may. The greatest spoils of blood still lay ahead.
Beneath the sound of the surging waters, he could hear the last desperate
calls of those left behind in the ruins, praying against all odds that salvation
would still come. They would pray in vain; if the waters did not claim them,
then the Norscans surely would. Their plight did not interest Zucharov.
He stood, head turned slightly to one side. Gradually, Kyros tuned out the
plaintive wails of hunter and hunted, and the tumult of the waters, leaving only
silence. Gradually, into the silence came the sound of footsteps, two pairs of
feet, hurrying away from the rising tide towards the dry ground above.
Zucharov stepped back into the shadow of an adjacent street, and waited. The
footsteps grew louder, and with them the sound of two women’s voices, one raised
against the other. Zucharov stood within the shadows, very still, and let them
come. Only when they had passed, one tugging the other behind her, did Zucharov
step from his place of concealment and call out, “Where are you going?”
The two women stopped, and turned around. Zucharov moved closer, stepping
fully under what light the moons allowed, recognising one of them as Anaise. He
watched, with satisfaction, as the expression upon their faces turned from
surprise to a disbelieving horror. The transformation that had raged like a fire
inside him and out was all but complete now. Every inch of his flesh was now
mapped by the lines of the tattoo. Even Anaise could not have imagined it coming to
this. Besides, who knew what dark future each woman saw—or imagined she saw
written in the terrible tableau of his face?
“Where are you going?” he said again, slowly, deliberately. “Where are you
going, Anaise?”
He watched the Guide carefully. In her surprise she had let go of the healer.
Now she grabbed the girl back, like some precious treasure she meant to horde.
Zucharov knew already what reply she would make, but it amused his dark lord to
hear the worm-tongue words.
“I was searching,” she stammered. “Searching for you.”
Zucharov nodded, an almost serene smile playing upon his hideous face. “I am
glad of that,” he said.
“Yes,” Anaise affirmed, more boldly now. She held the healer out towards him,
as if in proof of her words. Bea screamed out and struggled to escape, but the
Guide was deaf to her pleas.
“See. I have the girl safe. I was bringing her to you. Now the time is come.
Now Tal Dur is come.”
Zucharov listened to her words, and, behind her words, heard also what was
unspoken: the lies, the duplicity and the manipulation. Anaise thought she could
use him, trick him. She was not so stupid as to try and directly oppose his
will, not yet at least. But she still believed that Tal Dur could be hers alone.
That delusion was her weakness. And there would be no room for weakness in the
world that was to come.
Immersed in his contemplation of the Guide, Zucharov only now noticed the
third player in the scene as he advanced upon them. A voice, raised in warning
or alarm, rang out, calling the healer’s name out loud. A figure came running
towards the two women, sword held aloft. Zucharov edged back into the shadow and
looked on. Memory stirred at the sound of the voice. An old, abandoned memory
buried deep in the recesses of the mind of the man he had once been.
It was him. Kumansky. The face from the past. And from the present. The more
recent memory of the battle, bitter and rancorous, rose in Zucharov’s mind. Now he would finish it. Now he would
be avenged.
But he was mistaken. It was not Stefan Kumansky who was now sprinting towards
the two women. Another face, almost equally distant, yet still familiar, swum
into view. Zucharov trawled through the debris of that fading life, and seized
upon the name: Bruno, Bruno Hausmann. Not Kumansky, but almost as good. Bruno,
Kumansky’s oldest, most trusted friend. Killing him would be satisfaction
enough, until the final reckoning came.
At the very moment that the girl Bea tried to shout out a warning, Zucharov
stepped forward where he could be seen, and drew out his sword. It seemed to
take an age for the rushing swordsman to see him standing beside the women, and
another for recognition to strike. But when it did, the effect was profound.
“Alexei.” Bruno’s voice was quiet, almost stunned. He looked upon Zucharov, at
the grotesque facsimile of what his former comrade had become. Fear, confusion
and disbelief all met in his face. Zucharov read each separate, jarring emotion.
Smelt them, and tasted them, as clear as he could taste the blood that was soon
to flow.
“Alexei,” Bruno said again, and then his expression hardened. He looked at
Anaise and to Bea, still held firmly in the other woman’s unyielding embrace.
Bruno hesitated, wavering for just an instant, then took his sword in both his
hands.
Now it begins,
the voice whispered to Zucharov.
“Alexei, I’m sorry,” Bruno shouted, then charged towards him. Zucharov saw at
once in the speed and movement of his body, and in the way that he carried his
weapon, that this opponent would be different. This was no red-shirted
conscript, no wretched townsman fighting in a last, crazed defence of his home.
He would be stronger, more skilful and more resilient than all but one of those
that Zucharov had fought. But he would make the same mistake that others had
made: Rilke, Baecker and the feeble bounty hunter who had served to bring him to
Sigmarsgeist. Bruno would believe that he had enough skill, enough guile, and enough bravery to defeat him, and he would be wrong.
Bruno fell upon Zucharov in a fury, his sword probing Zucharov’s defences. He
was not a small man, but he was faster than most, certainly fast enough to catch
Zucharov off-guard if he allowed his concentration to falter. For a while the
two swordsmen circled each other, trading blow for blow. But each thunderous
stroke from Zucharov drained away a little more of Bruno’s strength.
He is already wounded, Zucharov noted, he cannot endure long.
He swung his sword two-handed, aiming to smash his way through the other
man’s guard. Bruno saw the blow coming and swerved aside. For a moment, Zucharov
was left vulnerable. He saw the glint of steel and felt the cold stab of Bruno’s
blade as it penetrated his flesh. The pain was vivid, brief; forgotten in an
instant. He turned, with improbable speed, and met the second strike with his
own sword. He caught Bruno just below the wrist, not where he intended. But it
was enough to loosen Bruno’s hold upon his weapon. His opponent cried out in
agony, dropping his guard momentarily. Zucharov struck out again, this time
knocking the sword clear from Bruno’s hand.
Zucharov experienced a sensation of disdain, almost disappointment. It had
been easy, too easy. Just for a moment, he made the error of assuming the battle
already won. In that same moment, Bruno threw himself at him, raining down blows
with his fists in a last, desperate assault. In the tumult that followed,
Zucharov’s own sword was dislodged, and parity restored.
At least half of Bruno’s blows were finding their target, but it made no
difference. To Zucharov they were little more than the fluttering of an insect
upon his face. He hit back, battering his opponent from side to side, until
blood was flowing from Bruno’s face. Bruno struck out again, with all that
remained of his strength, but wide of the mark. Zucharov’s reply knocked the
other man off his feet, and tumbling across the ground. By the time Bruno had
regained his feet, Zucharov had recovered his sword.
Bruno closed on Zucharov one final time, but the look in his eyes betrayed
the hopelessness of his situation. Zucharov shrugged off the challenge, and
pushed his opponent away. Then, as Bea screamed out in despair, he thrust out
his sword, and drove the blade through Bruno Hausmann’s heart.
What could Stefan hope to achieve with the small force now at his command?
What little he knew of the Red Guard—so recently his adversaries—told him
that they would give their all, but he had no idea whether that would be enough.
He did not know if Sigmarsgeist could be saved, but the briefest tour of what
remained of the citadel quickly confirmed that Baecker’s death had been in vain.
All attempts to force a breach in the city walls had failed. More than two-thirds of the citadel was now below water, buildings and dwellings wrecked and
submerged. Only the tallest of buildings still survived, those and a steadily
diminishing island at the centre of the citadel, with the palace at its heart.
But Stefan was sure of two things at least: he had to destroy the roaming
gangs of Norscans that were feeding off the carcass of Sigmarsgeist, and stop
Alexei Zucharov. That the two were inextricably linked, he had no doubt. Their
fates, and his, were now intertwined. There would be no reasoning with the
Norscans, no course of action open but to hunt them down, and then fight them to
the death. He led his men on, out into the citadel, knowing full well that most would never
return.
The appearance of the guards upon the streets was greeted with commotion from
the surviving townspeople. Word quickly spread of their arrival, and faint hope
began to supplant the despair that had settled like a shroud across the citadel.
But with the hope came impossible demands. Men and women cried to them from the
roofs of flooded houses. Buildings were still collapsing into the swirling
waters, creating mayhem. And those that had so far survived the worst were cold,
hungry, and in urgent need of care. But Stefan could not help them. First he had
to deal with the Norscans. Until then, anything else would be at best a
postponement of the greater horror to come.