As Ratboy raced after him, he quickly realised that the growth beyond the
pool was even more gnarled and closely packed. He and Anna did their best to
clamber after the priest, but they felt as though the branches were deliberately
lashing out and pressing their ancient weight down on top of them. The strange
lights also began to reappear in the corner of Ratboy’s vision: flickering
sprites that vanished as soon as he tried to pinpoint them. As they straggled
deeper and deeper into the brooding heart of the forest, his eyes began to play
other tricks on him too. Branches slipped out of reach as he reached for support
and leering faces appeared in the knotted trunks, only to vanish when he looked
a second time.
“What’s that sound?” asked Anna, panting and granting as she fought through
the undergrowth.
Ratboy paused for a second and noticed that beneath the sound of his own
laboured breathing, there was a low throbbing noise. It was barely perceptible,
but it seemed to emanating from all around them, as though the forest itself
were groaning with fear. He shook his head and stumbled onwards after Wolff,
terrified at the thought of being left alone in such a place.
After a few minutes, he noticed there was a pale green light
pulsating through the trees ahead. He turned to Anna and guessed from her frown
that she had seen it too. As they neared the light, the throbbing sound grew
louder and Ratboy’s nervousness increased. He could no longer see his master,
but as they scrambled through the undergrowth he began to make out the source of
the strange radiance. There was a grove up ahead that seemed quite distinct from
the rest of the forest. An arcade of tall silver birches led proudly towards it,
before forming themselves into a perfect circle around the small, raised
clearing. The light was bleeding between the gaps in the sentry-like birches, so
Ratboy stumbled onto the avenue and raced up towards the clearing. The light was
so bright in the grove that he had to shield his eyes as he ran into the
dazzling circle of trees.
The grove was filled with blinding light. The glare was so intense Ratboy
struggled to see for a few seconds. When his vision cleared, he saw that Wolff
was stood just ahead of him, silhouetted against the brightness and watching the
deer as it trotted across a carpet of mossy turf. Ratboy saw that the animal’s
movements had become even more erratic. It lurched into the centre of the grove
and dropped to its knees before the hollowed-out bole of an old oak tree. As it
fell, its internal organs slipped from beneath its skin in a steaming mess,
spilling onto the grass like stew from a pot, to reveal a small, humanoid shape
crouched within the hide.
“Sigmar,” whispered Ratboy, as the figure discarded the animal’s remains and
climbed, gasping, to its feet. “What’s that?”
The creature stretched its slender arms above its head and let out a sigh of
satisfaction. As the rest of the deer’s innards slid down its back, they
revealed a coat of blue feathers that shimmered in the throbbing light.
“Kriegsmarshall,” it said, bowing towards the tree stump, “the other two are
close behind.”
“They’re already here, Helwyg,” replied a low voice from somewhere within the
inferno of light.
The feathered creature turned to look back at Ratboy and Anna in surprise.
His eyes were bright yellow and widened in fear at the sight of them. He dashed
away from the sodden remains and vanished into the light.
“Master,” cried Ratboy, rushing towards Wolff but, before he had gone more
than a few feet, he froze. The light that washed over his skin felt thick and
tangible and it rooted his feet firmly to the spot. He moaned in fear as he felt
it entwining his limbs and snaking through his clothes. Within seconds, his
entire body was paralysed. The most he could do was roll his eyes from side to
side in terror. As he did so, he saw that Anna was frozen too, just a few feet
to his left. Tendrils of light snaked between the two of them and Wolff, making
a crackling, glimmering triangle. He tried to scream, but even his vocal chords
refused to obey. His horror mounted as he realised that he had not seen Wolff
move an inch since he and Anna entered the grove. They were all paralysed.
“It’s been a long time, Jakob,” said Fabian in an imperious voice, stepping
out of the light. His regal features were flushed with pride as he surveyed his
handiwork. In his left hand he held an old, battered book, bound in white
leather, with a gold knife foiled on the front. Several of its pages were
missing and scraps of mismatched parchment had been sewn clumsily into the
jacket, but its power was unmistakable. Waves of emerald light were leaking from
the paper, rippling through the grass and glittering in the stones on Fabian’s
eye-patch. “But I’m sure you remember the promise I made you,” he continued. “I
swore not to hunt you down, but you’ve brought yourself to me. And I warned you
that if we ever met again, I’d have no choice but to kill you.”
The priest tried to answer, but he was completely shrouded in light, and as
he strained to escape, the only sound he could make was a strangled groan of
frustration.
Fabian strolled slowly towards his brother, still holding the book before
him. In his other hand, he held a small black object. As the old general stepped
closer, Ratboy realised he was holding the beak of a carrion bird, long and
gleaming as he rolled it between his thumb and forefinger.
“You’re so old,” muttered Fabian as he reached his paralysed brother. He
looked with fascination at Jakob’s weather-worn features and ran a finger slowly
across his face. “You’ve lived a whole lifetime that you didn’t deserve.”
Fabian’s one good eye was the only hint of their shared heritage. Where Jakob
was broad and heavy-set, Fabian was slender and graceful; they were as opposite
as two men could be, but his eye was as black and dangerous as his brother’s.
“Your destiny has finally caught up with you,” he said, pressing the beak into
the side of the priest’s neck.
Wolff tried to pull away, but the dancing light held him firmly in place and
as the curved, filthy beak slipped beneath his skin it sent a dark stream of
blood rushing down his thick neck. Fabian gave a low chuckle. “Bless you,
brother. I had my doubts that this would work. My lord had complete confidence
in your naiveté, but I thought after all these decades you might have developed
a little more insight.”
He stepped back to watch as Wolff’s blood pooled on the ground. As soon as
the liquid touched the grass, it fanned out into a series of thin, viscous
strands, each one twisting and spiralling as though alive. The lines of blood
traced around the priest’s feet in a complex set of circles, framing him within
an elaborate, glistening design.
Fabian shook his head at his brother’s confused expression. “It must be
wonderful to see the world in such simple terms—to divide everything along
crude fault lines of good and evil, but it does leave one a little blinkered.”
He sighed as he watched his brother struggling. Then he waved at the slender,
blue creature watching nervously from the edge of the clearing. “My eyes have
been on you for a long time, Jakob. I’ve waited and waited for you to realise
the truth, but you never did. Your head’s still so full of righteousness. Even
after all these years, it robs you of sense. You knew I was coming here to make
a sacrifice.” He leant forward, so that his face was just inches away from his
brother’s. “But not for a minute did you consider that the sacrifice might be
you.” He savoured the mute agony in Wolff’s eyes. “Yes, you see it now. Now that
you’ve sent so many innocents to their deaths, believing I was interested in a
horde of meat-headed soldiers. I’ve led you a merry dance, brother, but you
embraced the role with enthusiasm. I think you can take credit for all the
bystanders you’ve dragged down with you.” He shrugged. “To be fair, the idea
wasn’t mine. I
did
originally intend to buy immortality with the blood of
my men. But my master’s taste is far more particular. Only a very choice morsel
is good enough for such an imaginative appetite.” He raised his hands to the
star-speckled heavens and cried out in a dramatic voice. “Not just the blood of
a powerful Sigmarite, but the blood of my own brother! How delectable!” He shook
his head. “I never dreamt you would be so stupid as to bring yourself to me—trotting meekly into my master’s own house, but he had faith; he had the vision
I lacked.”
The veins in Wolff’s neck looked ready to burst as he pulled against the
light that enveloped him. Finally, with an incredible effort, he managed to let
out a feeble word. “No,” he croaked.
“Yes,” replied Fabian with a broad smile. “Yes, yes, yes! You’re my gift,
Jakob. The whole campaign was nothing but a joke, with you as its moronic
punchline. Two entire armies sacrificed, just to make a fool out of you—just
to see if you’d take the bait. Everything was leading to this moment. Do you
really think it’s so easy to stroll from behind the lines of such an army as
Mormius’? I thought you would see through the ruse though, I really did. I
thought you would spot the handiwork of the Architect of Fate. How could you not
recognise the artifices of the Great Beguiler.” He shook his head and his smile
became a laugh. “I could maybe understand your cynical abuse of the flagellants’
faith, but what happened at Mercy’s End, Jakob? I felt sure you would see sense
then. How could you think it was right to abandon all those men? You let Mormius
rip the heart out of this province, just so you could pursue a personal
vendetta. Don’t you see? With you by their side, they would have won. Was there
ever such a proud display of Ostland grit as Felhamer and his garrison? How
could you just leave them all to die? How could you think that was right? You
abandoned every article of your faith when you left those men to be butchered.”
Wolff’s struggles grew weaker with each word. His shoulders slumped and his
chin dropped, until it seemed as though the light was all that was keeping him
on his feet. He looked utterly destroyed.
Fabian stepped over towards Anna. “And what strange company you keep,
brother. What a wretched collection of apostates.” He looked down at Anna’s
bloodstained robes with obvious amusement. “A murderous Shallyan—who ever
heard of such a thing? How quickly we abandon our beliefs in the face of pain.”
As Fabian leant closer to the priestess, her body bucked away from him, lurching
violently within the prison of light. “Did you enjoy it, Anna,” he whispered, as
he pressed the beak into the side of her neck, “when you felt him struggling for
life?” Anna moaned in horror as blood rushed from her throat, mingling with that
of her victim. “Did you relish the power, as you stopped his heart?” Fabian
stepped back to watch as the blood danced around Anna’s feet, before writhing
across the ground and linking with the pool at Wolff’s. “Did you really think
you were left alive in that cart by mere chance?”
He nodded with satisfaction and then moved over to Ratboy. “And this one,
brother,” he chuckled. “Did you know he tried to forsake you?” He sneered with
disgust. “While you were fighting to preserve his homeland, this wretched
turncoat was planning his escape. Can you believe that? After everything you’ve
done for him, he tried to abandon you to save his own worthless skin. He
wouldn’t even be here if the Knights Griffon hadn’t caught him trying to worm
his way to safety. He lacks your faith, brother. He lacks the faith to kill.”
Ratboy’s eyes filled with tears. The truth of Fabian’s words cut through him.
Fabian was right. The battle had terrified him, but not as much as the sight of
Wolff’s animal frenzy. That was what he had been fleeing—the fear of such
inhumanity. His chest shook with great, heaving sobs. He had pictured many
endings to his life as a novice, but never this one: to die by the side of his
master after such awful betrayal. Ratboy’s desolation was complete. He barely
noticed as Fabian slid the beak into his throat and sent a spray of blood down
his filthy hauberk. The liquid quickly merged with the morass of crimson symbols
on grass.
Fabian turned away from him and flicked through the pages of the book. He
muttered a few incoherent lines under his breath and the light grew in
brilliance. The tears in Ratboy’s eyes fragmented the brilliant display, so that
he saw dozens of Fabians stride back up to the ancient tree stump and remove
their eye-patches.
As the light grew, so did the throbbing sound. The birches surrounding the
grove began to bow and creak with the force of it. At the same time, the strands
of blood formed ever more complex shapes around the three captives: eyes merged
into fish and flames formed into skulls and all with such frenetic purpose that
the liquid seemed to possess an awful, animal sentience.
Ratboy’s mind reeled in the face of such an onslaught and he
felt his reason slipping away. The trees at the edge of the clearing were now
undulating and throbbing in time to the pulses of light, twisting themselves
into strange, serpentine shapes. Ratboy gave Wolff a final despairing look, but
the priest was hanging like a limp doll, tossed back and forth by the currents
of his brother’s magic. Ratboy closed his eyes but the awful visions simply
burned through his eyelids and flooded his broken heart.
Envy never dies, thought Anna as Fabian’s sorcery pawed and scratched at her
flesh. Where had she heard those words? For the life of her she could not
remember, but as she watched the old general, muttering feverishly over his
book, she realised why she had thought of them. In an instant, her mind stripped
away the decades and she saw a small boy stood behind the shattered oak; a child
consumed by jealousy for his older brother. Her despair began to be replaced by
anger. Had so many men really been sacrificed to assuage the petty hatred of a
child? Was she really going to die here for such a pathetic reason? Whatever she
had done, whatever mistakes she had made, she could not bear to be sacrificed on
the altar of some paltry sibling rivalry. She strained her muscles one last
time, testing the strength of her bonds, but the column of light that surrounded
her was now a furious hurricane of glyphs and visions and there was no way she
could break through. As Fabian’s incantation droned on in the background she
began to seethe with fury. The lattice of energy had lifted the three of them
several feet off the ground, coursing through their bodies with such force that
they jolted back and forth like branches, battered by a storm.