Thorgrad’s hands tightened about the arms of his chair. ‘I stopped him,’ he said. ‘Before his shame could become something more than rumour and suspicion, I stopped Uthorsson.’ A fanatical gleam filled the old priest’s eyes. ‘I waited until he and his filthy coven were practising their obscenities in the sanctuary. I locked them in, barring the door with cold iron that he might not call upon his daemons to set him free. Then I set fire to the temple. The flames consumed the defiled sanctuary and the foulness within!’
The strength drained out of Thorgrad and he slumped back against the chair. ‘Is it wrong to murder evil? That is something only Sigmar can judge. Like you, I am willing to let him decide.’
Hartwich shook his head, trying to digest the revelation he had heard. Certainly there had been stories about some heretical taint upon Grand Theogonist Uthorsson’s reign, but he had never imagined so monstrous an aberration, nor Thorgrad’s role in ending the fallen priest’s sacrilege.
‘I admire your courage, Wolfgang,’ Thorgrad said. ‘I wish that I had possessed such valour when I needed it. But it is too late now. My fate has been decided.’
‘And mine?’ Hartwich asked. It was an impertinent question. He had already undergone the rituals preemptory to a religious execution. He already knew that such a resolution had been demanded by Kreyssig and Boris Goldgather.
Thorgrad smiled. ‘Wolfgang Hartwich must die,’ he said. He lifted his hand and pointed to a corridor leading out from the calefactory. ‘He is lying in his cell right now, meditating upon his crimes against the Emperor. In the morning he will be consigned to the pyre.’
‘I don’t understand. What are you saying?’
‘It is strange how much Wolfgang Hartwich resembled one of my attendants, the unfortunate Brother Richter, who has contracted the Black Plague. After the fire, I do not think even Commander Kreyssig will be able to tell the difference.’ The Grand Theogonist smiled and gestured to a door at the other side of the room.
‘Through that door, you will find raiment and provisions, my son. These good knights will see you clear of the city and accompany you where you need to go. I am sorry there is nothing I can do to help Wolfgang Hartwich and his cause, but I will trust you to honour his name.’
Hartwich kneeled before the dying Grand Theogonist once more. ‘I shall make it my life’s work, your holiness,’ he said. ‘By Sigmar’s grace, I will carry on Wolfgang Hartwich’s work.’
Middenheim
Vorhexen, 1111
From the walls of Middenheim, Mandred had a clear look at the squalid shantytown crouched between the causeways. Miserable little cook-fires rose from the tents and shacks, scrawny pigs and goats shivered inside ramshackle pens made of sticks and thatch. Sometimes there would be a flash of white among the squalor, the robes of a Shallyan priestess as she made her rounds among the sick. Over the weeks, the sight of a priestess had grown more and more infrequent. The prince tried to tell himself it was because they were kept busy inside the barn-like infirmary. He didn’t like to think it was because they were succumbing to the very plague they were trying to stop.
Every day miserable caravans of wretched humanity came trudging through the snow. Most accepted fate and simply added their misery to the squalor of the shantytown. A few, however, made the long journey up the causeways. These were turned back at the bastions, warned that Middenheim was closed to all outsiders. Some few refused to accept this dashing of all their hopes, racing desperately past the bastions in a mad effort to storm the city gates.
Mandred always turned away before the mad fools were brought down by archers. A family of lepers who lived in a cave at the foot of the Ulricsberg would come later to clear the bodies away.
It sickened the prince to be able to see the suffering going on down below, to be so near and yet able to do nothing. His father had forbidden even the smallest intervention, telling his son that it was best to think of the refugees as already dead. He had to harden his heart against them. It was the only way to keep Middenheim safe.
Mandred refused to resign himself to such callous pragmatism. The Graf’s obligation might be to the people of Middenheim, but he had another and greater obligation to his fellow man. To turn his back on these people diminished him, made him something less than human in Mandred’s eyes. He had always been close to his father, but he no longer recognised the man who sat upon Middenheim’s throne and wore the crown of Middenland.
A blur of activity at the edge of the shantytown drew Mandred’s horrified attention. He watched as a pack of dark, shaggy shapes burst from the trees, charging towards a group of children at play. Before any of the adults could react, several of the children had been caught up by hairy claws and were being carried off into the forest. Mandred sobbed a prayer to Ulric, asking that the men rushing to stop the abduction would be in time.
For an instant, it seemed his prayer had been answered. Mandred whooped in triumph as a hulking refugee tackled a goat-headed monster, smashing the beast to the ground. The screaming girl squirmed out from the stunned monster’s clutch. Before the brute could rise, the enraged man straddled its body and seized it by the horns. With a savage twist, he snapped the beastman’s neck.
The triumph was short-lived. A second beastman charged at the heroic refugee, while a scraggly half-man circled around to grab the fleeing child. The hero clenched his hands into fists, refusing to flee before the goat-headed monster. The brute’s harsh bray carried all the way to the mountain. Swinging its stone axe, the beastman cut the refugee down where he stood.
Mandred forced himself to watch the tragedy play itself out, to look on as the beastmen retreated back into the forest, dragging the dead with them into the darkness. None of the refugees pursued them, stopping well away from the trees and shaking their fists in impotent rage.
It was a scene that had repeated itself over and over in the past weeks. At first, the beastmen had been skittish, rushing out from the trees only when their prey was alone and darkness cloaked their actions. Each success had made them bolder, however, and their raids into the shantytown had become more and more frequent. Realising the refugees were sickly and largely unable to defend themselves, the beastmen had claimed Warrenburg as their own private hunting ground. Not an hour went by that they didn’t rush out to snatch a child or drag a sick old woman from her bed. A hideous effort to placate the monsters with the bodies of the dead had only increased their lust for manflesh.
‘Maybe the filth will catch the plague and die,’ Mandred snarled aloud.
‘They won’t die off soon enough to do those people any good,’ observed Arno Warsitz, the brawny Grand Master of the White Wolves. Like Mandred, the knight frequently toured the battlements, staring forlornly at the cluster of shacks at the foot of the mountain. ‘The belly of a beastman is the toughest thing in the world,’ he added, his face twisting with distaste.
Mandred slammed his fist into his palm. ‘If we could just get weapons to them…’
‘It wouldn’t do them any good, your grace,’ Arno said. ‘Even if most of them knew how to use a sword or swing a hammer, they’re too weak to use them.’ He nodded his head sadly. ‘Those people down there are beaten, and they know it. They’re just waiting for the end now.’ The Grand Master’s eyes turned to the sprawl of the forest. It looked so beautiful, the firs covered in snow, icicles dripping from their branches. It was difficult to picture the monstrous evil lurking beneath such beauty.
‘The beastkin won’t wait long,’ Arno said. ‘Patience isn’t something those brutes understand. What they do understand is strength and weakness. Once they realise that Warrenburg can’t stop them and that we won’t help, they’ll come storming down out of the trees like the second coming of Cormac Blood Axe.’