Despite its crumbling masonry and broken rafters, the central hall at Mercy’s
End was a beautiful sight. A high, vaulted ceiling reached up over a broad,
circular chamber that managed to be imposing, yet light and airy at the same
time, thanks to a series of tall, stained glass windows that flooded the room
with coloured light. As Ratboy entered, he kept his eyes focussed respectfully
on the floor, noticing that every polished flagstone was inlaid with glittering
images of twin-tailed comets and the Ghal Maraz.
At the centre of the chamber was a round stone table and as he approached it
Wolff rose to greet him, gesturing to the one empty chair.
“Tell us what you saw,” said the priest, placing his hand on Ratboy’s
shoulder, “as we were approaching the gates.”
Ratboy looked up from the table and felt his tongue freeze in his mouth. A
circle of regal, patrician faces surrounded him, and from the elaborately waxed
beards and furrowed brows, he took them to be generals and captains of the
highest rank. Their clothes were uniformly bloodstained and torn, but it was
obvious from their thick, velvet doublets and intricately worked hauberks that
they were great leaders. All of them had seen better days though. Their faces
were lined with exhaustion and several of them carried fresh scars.
With a shock of recognition, Ratboy realised that one of the men was
Gryphius. The Obermarshall’s olive skin had drained to a sickly greenish hue and
his face was contorted with pain. He nodded vaguely at Ratboy, but there was no
trace of his habitual grin.
“Well, um,” Ratboy stammered, unnerved by the dramatic change in the
general, “I can’t recall exactly, but—”
“What’s that he says?” bellowed a silver-haired old brute, with a fierce,
bristling beard and red, rheumy eyes. “Tell him to speak up, priest.”
“I said, I can’t remember too clearly,” said Ratboy, raising his voice a
little. “But I know I saw a winged creature of some kind, flying after us.”
“Winged, did he say?” barked the old soldier, looking around furiously for
confirmation.
“Yes, Oswald,” snapped the man to his right—a handsome youth with
short-cropped blond hair and piercing blue eyes. “And maybe if you bite your fat
old tongue for a second, he might be able to say a little more.”
The small patches of Oswald’s skin that weren’t covered by beard flushed red
and he leapt to his feet, thrusting forward a barrel chest as broad as a shire
horse. “You’re not the Elector Count just yet, Captain Felhamer,” he yelled,
glowering down at the younger man. “And it wouldn’t harm you to show a little
respect to your elders.”
Wolff raised a hand and all eyes immediately turned towards him. “Gentlemen,”
he said quietly, “we don’t have much time.”
Oswald continued to scowl at Captain Felhamer.
“Apologies, Marshall,” said the captain with a shrug, “I meant no offence.
Please, take your seat and let’s hear what the boy has to say.”
The old soldier gave a snort of disgust and dropped heavily back into his
chair.
“Please,” said the young captain, gesturing for Ratboy to continue.
“Well, that was it really. I saw a winged figure and he seemed to be made of
silver, or glass, or something shiny at least. I believe it was the thing that
Duke Luneberg called Mormius.”
A babble of voices erupted around the table, as the officers turned to each
other and began talking urgently.
“Gentlemen,” said Wolff, raising his hand again, and silence descended over
the chamber once more. The priest turned to Ratboy. “Did you see anything else?”
Ratboy looked down at the table’s scratched stone and frowned. “Well, I
passed out soon after I saw him. But I recall that he was surrounded by soldiers
who seemed larger than the others, and some that weren’t even human.” Ratboy
looked up at his master with fear in his eyes. “They had so many limbs and
mouths, and they scrabbled along the ground like spiders. I…” his voice trailed
off as he recalled the full horror of what he saw. “And there were other shapes
following him, that were even more monstrous.” He shook his head. “They were the
size of trees.” His voice became shrill at the memory. “They were twice the size
of the marauders and they carried great clubs and axes.” He grabbed Wolff’s
sleeve and looked desperately at him. “They were eating corpses as they
marched.”
The man sat next to Ratboy whistled through his teeth. “Ogres of some kind
then,” he said, looking around the table. “This is going to be some night.”
“The whole thing is madness,” cried another officer. “We’re all going to be
butchered. Why aren’t we pulling back to Wolfenberg, while there’s still time?”
“Diterich is right,” cried a sharp-featured, beak-nosed man, wearing a
monocle. He slammed his gauntleted hand down on the stone table. “Why make a
useless sacrifice of ourselves here? There’s no way we can make an adequate
defence of this ruin.”
“There was something else,” said Ratboy, closing his eyes in concentration.
The soldiers fell silent and waited for him to continue.
“Just before I passed out I noticed something strange about Mormius.” He
opened his eyes and looked up at Wolff with excitement. “He was injured. His
right arm was all shrivelled. It looked as though there was a kind of black acid
eating through his armour—stretching out like veins from his hand.” Ratboy
looked down at his own bloody fingers. “Like there was some kind of disease, or
poison eating him up.”
“Tannhauser!” cried Captain Felhamer, leaping to his feet and clenching his
fists with excitement. “Maybe he reached him after all? The boy might have seen
the effects of his poison. Sigmar’s Blood, this could be our chance!” There was
a cobalt fire burning in his eyes as he looked round the table. “If we leave
Mercy’s End now they’ll hunt us like rats—ripping us apart before we’ve gotten
a mile from this valley. Our only chance is to make a stand here. If the boy’s
right, Mormius could be on the verge of death. Tannhauser could have reached him
somehow.”
Wolff shook his head. “Tannhauser?”
“One of my bravest captains,” replied Felhamer, his eyes bulging with
passion. “The marauders butchered his regiment as they slept, and it sent him
half mad with grief. Several days ago he set out to avenge them. I tried to stop
him, but he wouldn’t listen.” Felhamer gave a short laugh. “To be honest, I
cursed his name at the time. Some of my best knights left with him. There was no
hope of success, but he was inconsolable. He wanted to join the fight for the
northern garrisons so he could try to get close to Mormius. He said he had a
ring filled with some kind of poison. I thought he was raving, but from what
your acolyte has described, I think he may have achieved his goal.” Felhamer
laughed again. “He was a very unusual man, Captain Tannhauser. I think I may
have underestimated him.”
“But what does it matter?” cried Oswald. “We’ve gathered every last vestige
of our strength into one convenient slaughterhouse. Even if you’re right about
this lunatic, Tannhauser, which I doubt very much, the marauders have ten times
our numbers. Mormius or not, we can’t win here. We should be splitting our
forces and choosing battlegrounds more suited to our strengths. That’s the only
way we can save Ostland from destruction.”
“The marauders annihilated the northern regions in a matter of days,” replied
Felhamer, levelling a trembling finger at the northern wall of the chamber. “If
they’re left to march any further south, there’ll be nothing left to save.” He
dropped back into his chair, with a despondent sigh. “We have to hold them here
for as long as we can and give the Elector Count time to bring the battle away
from Wolfenberg. I have orders from von Raukov himself, requesting me to do just
that.”
“So we’re a sacrifice, is that it?” cried Oswald, looking at the other
soldiers with an incredulous expression on his face. “Is that all von Raukov
thinks we’re worth? A minor distraction, to give him time to polish his armour
and rehearse his victory speech?” He drew his sword and slammed it down on the
table with a clatter that echoed around the vaulted ceiling. “I came to fight,
not play games. If we stay here, we’re as good as dead.”
There was murmur of disgruntled voices around the table, and most of them
seemed in agreement with Oswald. Ratboy looked at his master apologetically,
feeling that he was responsible for the discord.
Wolff rose from his chair with a slow majesty that silenced the debate. The
light from the stained glass windows played across the iron band on his shaven
head as he nodded slowly in agreement. “It’s true,” he said, “that if you stay
here and fight, it’s likely you will die; if you flee, however, it’s certain.”
He tapped his ironclad finger against the brass hammer on his gorget. “But, more
than that, if you flee, you will have betrayed your faith, your families and
your emperor.” His eyes flashed dangerously beneath his heavy brow as he looked
around the table. He strode across the chamber and when he reached the nearest
pillar he slammed his fist into it. The officers jumped in surprise as a cloud
of dust exploded around Wolff’s gauntlet. “This is good Ostland stone,” he said.
“A little old maybe, like the rest of us, but good nonetheless. Don’t let those
horrors soil one blessed inch of it.” He looked directly at Oswald. “Those
afraid to give their lives in the name of Sigmar are free to leave, but I have a
suspicion Ostland ran out of cowards a long time ago.”
There was a ripple of nervous laughter and even Oswald smiled, nodding in
agreement as he sheathed his sword. “It’s true,” he said, “Ostland
isn’t
the easiest place to grow a few ears of corn.”
Shoulders visibly relaxed and hands were loosed from sword hilts as the
tension around the room dissipated.
Wolff looked up at the crumbling masonry. “Life is fleeting. We inhabit a
tiny sliver of existence, surrounded on all sides by an endless void. We only
have one chance to make a difference. One chance before we return to the endless
night. Death today, or death tomorrow, what does it matter if we don’t lead a
life worth living?” He lifted his warhammer up into one of the shafts of light
and slowly rotated it, scattering jewels of colour across the walls of the
chamber and into the faces of the assembled officers. “You’re Sigmar’s heirs. No
one in this room was ever destined to eke out their days in a sick bed. We are
the elect few, chosen for hardship and greatness. Whether it’s today, or next
year, your end will be glorious and godlike. And if this is your day to die,
then by Sigmar make it a good day!”
Ratboy’s heart swelled at his master’s words and he noticed several of the
officers nodding eagerly in agreement.
“I hear you, priest,” replied the beak-nosed officer, “but your words might
carry a little more weight if your friend Gryphius hadn’t told me that you
yourself are planning to flee south at the first opportunity.”
Captain Felhamer looked at Wolff in dismay. “Is that true?” he asked.
Wolff nodded and returned to his seat. There was no trace of shame or
embarrassment on his face as he replied. “Yes,” he said. “It’s true. I must
leave tonight.”
“Why?” cried the beak-nosed man, glaring incredulously through his monocle.
“We have need of you here. How can you advise us to hold this pile of rubble,
when you yourself will not even stay to help?”
Wolff returned the officer’s glare with a calm nod. “I understand your
concern, Marshall Meinrich, but I assure you, I would rather meet my end here,
covered in glory, than pursue the miserable errand that waits me.”
Captain Felhamer rose to his feet, his pale cheeks flushed with colour. “But
Brother Wolff, after what you’ve just said, what could be more important than
helping us defend Mercy’s End?”
“I’ll help all I can,” replied Wolff. “There are things I can do before I
leave.” He ran a hand over his shaven head and closed his eyes. “I have a little
strength left. I’ll pray with your men and bless them. And I’ll join you in the
initial defence.” He opened his eyes and looked Felhamer in the eye. “But I
cannot neglect my duty.”
“At least tell us
why
you won’t stay and fight,” said the old, bearded
man, named Oswald.
“There’s a traitor marching with von Raukov’s army,” Wolff explained. “He’s a
worshipper of the Dark Gods, named Fabian. He’s a murderer and a heretic and a
threat to the whole war effort. He must be stopped before he can achieve
whatever perverted end he has in mind. And I’m the one person in all Ostland who
could recognise him.” The priest gave a long sigh. “He’s my brother.”
Silence greeted Wolff’s admission as the officers considered how exactly
Wolff might stop his brother.
“If I stay here and fight,” the priest continued, “I may be of some use to
you. But in the meantime, Fabian will be free to wreak havoc on von Raukov’s
army. I haven’t seen my brother for decades. I don’t even know what name he will
be using now. Who knows how high he has risen through the ranks. He may even be
close to the Elector Count himself. Close enough to assassinate him maybe.”
Wolff looked around the table. “We could give our lives holding Mercy’s End,
only to find that von Raukov’s army has been devoured from the inside.”
Felhamer shook his head and looked down at the table in despair. “Then you
must abandon us to our fate.”
“No one here is abandoned!” Wolff cried, slamming his fist against his
breastplate. “Sigmar is here, in our hearts and our swords. A priest is just a
touchstone. A conduit. You don’t need me to lead you. There will be a warrior
god marching by your side.”
A small voice piped up from next to the Wolff. “It’s true,” said Ratboy,
looking up at his master and nodding. “This morning, during the battle, I was
sure everything was lost: my hand was ruined; the enemy were all around us; but
something carried me through it. I felt Sigmar, guiding me.” He laughed and
looked around at the officers. “I had no weapon and the marauders towered over
me, but I still took them.” He gave a fierce grin. “I tore them apart.”