A pained sigh rumbled from the seated monarch. ‘If the Emperor attacks us, we will defy him.’ He stared hard into the face of his son. ‘Don’t you understand? What this man is asking of us is treason! To betray our oaths to the Empire! Saint or tyrant, Boris Hohenbach is our Emperor!
‘I am sorry,’ Graf Gunthar said, turning back to face Othmar, ‘but what you ask is impossible. Middenheim will fight if it is attacked, but we are not traitors.’ He motioned with his hand and an attendant in crimson livery blew a single note upon a curled hunting horn. This audience was at an end.
‘Take Sir Othmar to the Cliff Tower,’ von Vogelthal ordered. The Graf’s guards motioned for the knight to follow them, taking pains not to come too close to the man. Bowing once more to the seated monarch, Othmar allowed himself to be led from the room.
‘Is it necessary to lock him away like an enemy?’ Mandred asked.
‘Until we are certain he is not carrying the plague, he is an enemy,’ von Vogelthal told the prince.
‘He will be well looked after,’ the Graf promised.
Mandred shook his head at his father’s statement. ‘And what about the people down at the foot of the Ulricsberg?’ he demanded. ‘Will they be well looked after?’
‘The beastkin will soon solve that problem,’ von Vogelthal said, then immediately regretted his snide remark when he found Mandred glaring at him.
‘What does that mean, viscount?’ the prince snarled.
‘Our sentries have spotted beastmen gathering in the forest,’ Graf Gunthar told Mandred. Unlike von Vogelthal, there was sympathy in the monarch’s tone. ‘When they feel their numbers are strong enough, they will undoubtedly attack.’
‘And what are we going to do?’ Mandred demanded.
‘The only thing we can do,’ the Graf answered. ‘The only thing that can keep Middenheim safe.
‘We let Warrenburg burn.’
Chapter XIII
Altdorf
Vorhexen, 1111
His heart was pounding as Erich von Kranzbeuhler led the way into the cellar. It was not fear for himself that sent terror racing through his veins, but the knowledge that if they were caught then their cause would die with them. No one else in Altdorf would dare to stand against Emperor Boris after them. It was that thought which made his fist clench tighter about the hilt of his sword and made him pause at the door, listening for the slightest sound from below.
Erich looked back, instinctively seeking out Prince Sigdan, the leader of the conspiracy. He waited until the nobleman nodded his head, then he wrenched open the door and leaped down the short flight of stairs. He braced his feet on the cold stone floor, his body tensed for battle, his eyes scouring the darkness for the faintest hint of motion. The only sound was the rustle of rats creeping among the boxes and nibbling the straw scattered about the cellar.
A rushlight threw rays of illumination across the cellar, driving the rats back into their holes but revealing no lurkers in black livery. Erich glanced back at the steps behind him, reaching back to take the burning rushlight from Baron Thornig.
‘It doesn’t look like they’re here yet,’ Erich said. ‘We can thank Sigmar for that, at least!’ The captain turned about, staring at the jagged opening to the tunnel. He frowned as he thought of asking aristocrats like Prince Sigdan and Duke Konrad to creep through the muck and mire of the sewers, and the idea of Princess Erna and Lady Mirella slinking through such filth turned his stomach. If there were a way to spare them such indignity… but, no, they would suffer far worse if they fell into Kreyssig’s hands.
That is, those of them who hadn’t already decided on such a fate. He felt his jaw clench as he imagined the lovely princess married to a reptilian peasant like Kreyssig. For a moment he hesitated, wondering if it wasn’t better to make a stand of it and go down in a clean fight.
‘What is it?’ Mihail Kretzulescu asked. ‘Why have you stopped?’
The darkness hid the twinge of embarrassment on Erich’s face as he answered the Sylvanian. ‘Thought I heard something,’ he answered lamely. ‘It must have been a rat.’ Without explaining further, the knight pressed on, rushing along the cramped passage, following the mephitic reek of the sewer. Gradually the air became warmer, the moist unclean heat of the steaming channel of waste flowing beneath the city.
Erich hesitated upon the ledge, watching and listening. In the distance, he could just make out the sound of voices. They were faint and indistinct and in the echoing sewer it was impossible to tell which direction they came from. All he could tell was that there were a lot of them and there was a rattle of armour any time the speakers were silent. Only one group of armed men would have any business in the sewers. It was the Kaiserjaeger, come to close Kreyssig’s trap.
‘Which way, my lord?’ asked Meisel, a notched blade gripped in the dienstmann’s hand.
Erich agonised over the answer, turning his head left and right, desperately trying to decide which direction the voices were coming from. If they waited long enough to see the lights the Kaiserjaeger carried, then their own rushlight would be seen. They had to move before then, before Kreyssig had a chance to spot them. But if he made the wrong choice, they would run right into the villain’s arms.
As he gazed into the murk of the sewers, Erich felt his skin crawl. Thousands of beady red eyes gleamed at him from the shadows, each burning with obscene hunger. Looking at them, he could picture his body lying in the effluent with a Kaiserjaeger sword through his gut and a horde of greedy rodents gnawing the flesh from his bones.
The knight froze as he noticed another pair of eyes watching him from the darkness. They were bigger than the rats’ eyes, higher off the ground and with a disturbing impression of a lanky shape behind them. Yet they reflected the glow of the rushlight with the same crimson gleam as the rats around them, an unholy ember of malice and hunger. Erich felt fingers of ice race along his spine as he locked eyes with the sinister apparition.
Then there was no more time to think about the dreadful spectre. Imagination or nightmare, Erich tore his gaze from the dark figure, twisting around in answer to the cries of shock and horror rising from behind him. His first thought was that the Kaiserjaeger had stolen upon them from behind somehow. An instant later, he was wishing what had ambushed them was Kreyssig’s thugs.
The walls of the sewer were alive with vermin, great bloated rats that scurried along the ledges and swam through the filthy channel. An army of squeaking, chittering rodents came swarming towards the fugitives. Meisel was shouting in disgust, using the flat of his sword to fend off the vermin scrabbling at his legs. Lady Mirella screamed as a black beast with enormous fangs gnawed at her shoe. Palatine Mihail Kretzulescu stamped frantically with his boots as a pack of squealing brutes rushed at him.
Erich lunged at the chittering horde, thrusting the rushlight full into the faces of the rats as they swarmed about the feet of Princess Erna. The horrified woman collapsed in his arms, her breath reduced to a terrified panting. The knight shifted her weight to his sword arm, pressing her against his shoulder as he waved the flaming brand across the snouts of the onrushing pack.
An anguished wail echoed through the sewer. Erich looked up to see the manservant Gustav clutching at his bleeding leg, a piebald rat gnawing at his knee. His mangled leg collapsed beneath him, spilling him face-first into the swarming tide of rodents. At once they were over him, a living carpet of gnashing fangs and flashing claws.
‘We can’t fight them!’ Erich shouted, waving his sword and rushlight. ‘Not with these! We have to run!’
‘Run where?’ demanded Prince Sigdan, trying to slash the vermin spilling around his feet with a jewelled dagger and a gromril sword. ‘What about the Kaiserjaeger!’