01 - Empire in Chaos (24 page)

“Quiet! I have no such intentions or delusions. I have no such interest in
the girl.”

Grunwald glared at the knight for a moment, before sitting back down, rubbing
his bruised knuckles.

The knight remained standing, glowering in anger.

“I am not trying to seduce the girl,” said the witch hunter. He sighed. “I
was married once, you know. A beautiful girl, with the sweetest nature a man
could ever dream of.” He snorted. “Never knew what she saw in me.”

“What happened to her?” said Karl, still standing.

“She died in childbirth. The babe was lost, too. It was a girl. Would have
been about Annaliese’s age by now.”

“Ah,” said Karl, sitting down, rubbing his cheek where the witch hunter had struck him.

“It’s not like that,” said Grunwald.

“Like what?”

“I know what you are thinking. That I lost my wife and daughter, and that
Annaliese lost her parents. You think I am adopting the girl—a surrogate
daughter to replace the one I lost.”

Karl frowned. “You could do worse.”

“Perhaps.”

“What do you mean by that?” said Karl, his voice sharpening
once more. His eyes narrowed. “What
are
you doing here, Udo?”

“Watching out for the girl. Ensuring she is no danger. To the Empire… to
herself.”

“A danger?” Karl huffed in derision. “What possible danger could she
be? You think she is what… a heretic? You templars of Sigmar see much where
there is nothing.” His voice was heavy with scorn.

“No,” said Grunwald forcefully. “I don’t. But that does not mean she could
not be dangerous.”

“Explain.”

Grunwald sighed. “The girl had a vision. True or not, it doesn’t matter to me,
but others believed her. The temple of Sigmar is placed in a tricky situation—either it refuses her, and risks causing dissent at a time when unification is
needed, or it accepts her claims and allows her to go north to fulfill her vision.”

“I fail to see the danger in that…”

“Think about it, man. What is the purpose of the devotees of Sigmar? His
warrior priests? They are to inspire strength, unification, resilience and
courage in the soldiery. A man who might flee will not do so in the presence of
his warrior god—it would be an act of shaming cowardice. Thus, the priests of
our order are trained from childhood—to ensure that they will not run in the
face of the enemy, to make them hard, able and fearless warriors.”

“I understand—it is similar with Myrmidia in the realms south of the Empire. But how does
that relate to Annaliese? She is no warrior priest.”

“No, she is not, but that
is
the point. The church does not allow the average Empire citizen to wield
the weapons of a priest or carry forth the word of Sigmar.”

Karl leant back, understanding dawning on him. “I see. So, she is a special
case—soldiers would not see her any differently than any other priest—indeed
she would probably be the focus of more attention, what with her being a woman.
A man would be even less likely to run in panic in front of a
woman
representing his god. That would be shameful indeed. So, you are here to make
sure that she doesn’t do something that would weaken the resolve of the soldiers—that she herself does not baulk in the face of danger.”

“Something like that,” said Grunwald. He was still unconvinced of the girl’s
purity, but letting the knight know that would be utmost foolishness.

“Seems like a strange job to give you,” remarked Karl. “Surely you would be
better placed rooting out necromancers and cultists.”

“Aye,” said Grunwald. “But I am not here by choice—this is a task I have
been ordered to perform.”

Karl sat rubbing his cheek thoughtfully for a moment. “If a woman priest
would be more inspirational to soldiers than a man, then why does the church of
Sigmar not promote more female priests? I cannot recall seeing a single one.”

“There is a very good reason for that,” said Grunwald. “Because they have in
the past been hunted down by witch hunters such as I and burnt as heretics and
witches.”

Karl’s jaw dropped. “What? Why?”

“Hundreds of years ago, there was an order of female priests. But Sigmar
smote the city that housed their temple, levelling it with a flaming comet that
fell from the heavens. It is believed that their existence angered him. There is
fear amongst the church that to allow women to become priests would encourage
Sigmar’s rage once more.”

“So, why let Annaliese live then, wearing the garb of a priest?”

“Why indeed?” said Grunwald darkly. He thought of the witchfinder general’s
last words before he left the temple in Black Fire Pass.

“It would be for the best, Grunwald, if the girl had an
accident.
Out
on the road somewhere, away from prying eyes. She would be forgotten, and the
church would continue as it always has.”

Grunwald had nodded, uneasy with this task that seemed far from noble, but
trusting his superior.

Now, he was not so sure.

Kadrin Keep, which Thorrik would often refer to as Slayer Keep, was a grand,
powerful bulwark—the kind of structure that seemed to Grunwald to be
impossible to destroy. It would have been easier, he thought, to destroy the
mountains themselves. Indeed the keep was more mountain than fortress, or
perhaps more correctly it was both.

Carved from the hard rock of the craggy peaks, the keep rose high above
Kadrin valley, just to the south of the Peak Pass itself. The passages and halls
of the fortress-hold riddled the mountain. Vast hall upon vast hall, the hold
was larger than any city of the Empire. It delved deep below the earth and rose
to the peak’s highest point.

It was an immense city beneath the surface, and all the necessary components
were housed within it.

Thousands upon thousands of dwarfs dwelled within, split amongst their
various clans, and there were vast areas dedicated to breweries, smithies,
stores, eating and drinking halls, barracks, mine-workings, libraries of ancient
lore, storehouses and anything else that the hold could ever possibly have need
of for survival. The witch hunter realised that a dwarf growing up within the
hold need never step outside, need never glimpse the grey skies overhead or feel
the icy bite of the wind upon the mountainside.

He never saw more than a tiny fraction of the hold, yet was in awe at its
scale, its majesty and the sheer care the dwarfs took in their craftsmanship,
wherever it was to be found. Even the smallest, least-used passages had
intricate knot-work carved upon their sides, leering faces of ancestors jutting
from walls and painstakingly chiselled runes arching around the groined support
arches overhead.

And it was not a dark place either, as he had expected. The hold was filled
with light, though there were invariably many areas of menacing shadow. Lanterns
and thick, greasy candles burnt at all hours of the day. Ingenious lamps fuelled
by strong alcohol pumped through intricate arrays of pipes and valves ensured
that they never burnt low. In the larger halls giant hollow wheels of steel hung
from mighty chains, their circumferences pitted with holes through which tongues
of flame lit the area.

The sounds and smells of industry pervaded every vast chamber within the
hold, and the pounding of hammers, the mechanical turning of vast gears and
toothed-wheels, and the hiss of venting steam pressure—all were a constant
hubbub of productive noise.

Grunwald had seen the forges of Karak Kadrin, and had been awed at their
scale. Giant hammers the size of a castle tower pounding at great sheets of
super-heated metal, driven by pistons and hissing boilers, and thousands of
sweating smiths worked tirelessly through night and day to provide armour for
the armies of the Slayer King.

“It is a tragic tale,” said Thorrik to Annaliese when she asked about the
strange title for the monarch of Karak Kadrin. “Generations past a mighty king,
Baragor the Proud, suffered a terrible loss that drove him to take up the slayer
oath—only in death would his shame be annulled. But the king faced a terrible
dilemma, for if he were to seek his death, as a slayer must, then he would be
abandoning his oath of kingship, his oath to oversee and protect his hold, and
to do such a thing would be a dishonour far worse than death. It was an
impossible dilemma, and one that haunted him until his dying day—indeed one
that continues to haunt his line, and will do until the day of reckoning comes,
when Grimnir comes back to us.”

“What did he do?” asked Annaliese, her eyes wide. Grunwald and Karl leaned in
to listen to the dwarf’s grief stricken words.

“His oath to his hold was stronger than his slayer oath. And so, he became
the first of the Slayer Kings, and the shame of being unable to fulfil his
slayer oath would carry down to his heir. In turn, his heir became the next
Slayer King, and his after that. King Baragor built the Shrine of Grimnir, and
Kadrin became the centre of the slayer cult. Slayers from all across the dwarf
holds would make the pilgrimage here, to mourn and lament before the grand
statue of the ancestor-god, who is their patron. He grants them the strength and
the fearlessness to go to their end with their heads held high, never to take a
backwards step in the face of the enemy.”

“The statue that we saw beneath the mountain?” asked Karl.

The dwarf gave the knight a pitying look. “No. That is but a pale shadow in
comparison to the great shrine, out in Kadrin valley, near Kazad Gromar.” He let
the impact of this statement sink in.

“The Slayer King who rules today is Baragor’s descendant of blood, King
Ungrim Ironfist, and he too bears the shame of his forefather.”

“The slayers, they… scare me,” admitted Annaliese.

“As well they should, lass,” said Thorrik. “They make even the most doughty
dwarfen warrior uneasy, for a broken oath or a personal tragedy could come to us
all—leaving us hungering for battle, lamenting life in all its forms and
forever seeking the final relief of death.”

Grunwald saw Annaliese shiver, and indeed he felt a chill at the dwarf’s words
himself.

“And now, Karak Kadrin itself is besieged,” continued Thorrik, his face
subtly changing, his mournful expression changing to one of anger. “The enemies
arrayed against it are many. The Bloody Sun tribe, they are called. Greenskins
arrayed in such force that they make the mountains tremble beneath their step,
and are like a carpet of foulness from horizon to horizon. It is said that this
is the self-same tribe of greenskins,” he said, spitting onto the ground, “that
assail Black Fire Pass. And far off Karaz-a-Karak, the seat of the High King
himself.”

“How is that possible?” said Grunwald. “Orc tribes ally uneasily—how is it
that one tribe holds dominance over all the others?”

“It is something that I have learnt is troubling the greybeards much,”
replied Thorrik. “They suspect some foul sorcery, some trickery is at play—some power that binds the orc and goblin tribes together. Whatever it is,” he
added, “if it is not broken, the lands of the dwarfs will be overrun. Not this
year, probably not next—but if the greenskin hordes do not fracture, I cannot
see how the dwarfen holds can withstand such hateful, protracted attack. We live
in the shadow times—the end of the dwarf nation draws close.”

“Your people cannot falter!” said Karl fiercely. “If the holds are lost, then
the Empire is lost with them.”

“Aye, I would guess as much,” said Thorrik.

The companions sat in silence for a moment, their mood dark. The sounds of
industry rang out around them, and dwarf warriors marched past them, tucked away
in the corner of the vast hall where they had made their camp.

“I am going to check on the horses,” said Karl at last, breaking the silence.
“Would you care for a stroll on this most fine evening, young lady?” he asked of
Annaliese, bending his knee theatrically and extending his hand. “Or morning? Or
whatever time it is in this… place?”

“I would be most honoured, noble sir,” said Annaliese with a laugh and a
curtsy. Eldanair too rose up silently from where he sat cross-legged on the
stone floor.

“
He
doesn’t need to come,” said Karl.

“Oh hush, leave him be,” said Annaliese.

With her hand resting lightly on his armoured forearm, the pair strode off,
ghosted by Eldanair.

“Good girl, that,” said Thorrik gruffly.

“You are troubled, my friend,” said the witch hunter. He had been trying to
get some time alone with the ironbreaker for days now. When they had first
arrived at Karak Kadrin, Thorrik had been full of energy, for his task was
almost complete. He had rushed off to try to discover the whereabouts of the
young slayer, so as to deliver unto him the ancient heirloom he bore. But when
he had returned, his mood was dark, and Grunwald saw that he still carried the
leather-bound relic.

“It’s nothing,” said the dwarf. “You would not understand.”

“Try me,” suggested Grunwald.

“It is this siege. The orcs rising. It portents of bad times to come,” said
the dwarf gruffly.

“Undoubtedly. But they have done so before, and together man and dwarf has
defeated them. It is something else, is it not? Something to do with your…
oath.” Thorrik sighed and pulled out his dragon-headed pipe. Grunwald did not
say anything as the ironbreaker lit up and began puffing away. Tendrils of
blue-grey smoke rose from the fanged maw and nostrils of the snarling serpent
pipe.

“Aye, you are right, manling,” he said. He cleared his throat. “I am unable
to complete my oath.”

“Unable…” said Grunwald, frowning. “Ah,” he said finally. “The young slayer
completed his oath, then?”

“Aye,” said Thorrik gruffly. “He feasts now in the halls of the ancestors,
his pride restored. He fell against a stone troll—a mighty foe to be bested
by, indeed. He slaughtered more than a dozen greenskins before the fell beast
cut him down, so it is said. A good death.”