The Emperor’s eyes narrowed with hate as he heard Prince Sigdan’s demand. He cast his gaze across the rebels filing into the salon, then looked over at his own depleted forces. Coughing, half-smothered by the smoke, his Palace Guard still formed ranks around him, raising their shields and drawing their swords. The black-armoured figure of Baron Peter von Kirchof stepped out from the ranks of the defenders. The Emperor smirked as he saw the faces of his enemies go pale. In all the Empire, no man was better with a sword than von Kirchof, the Emperor’s Champion.
‘I do not recognise your authority,’ Boris growled. ‘But if you think I am guilty of some injustice, then I give you leave to prove my guilt in personal combat with my representative.’
Von Kirchof acknowledge his sovereign’s words with a curt military bow. Then the champion’s sword was drawn from its sheath. A gasp of outrage rose from Duke Konrad’s lips.
‘Beast Slayer!’ the furious duke raged. ‘The Runefang of Drakwald! That blade belongs to the Count of Drakwald! You have no right to bestow it upon this… this hired killer!’
Emperor Boris leaned out from behind the water organ, his eyes glittering malignantly. ‘There is no Count of Drakwald,’ he sneered. ‘The trappings of that realm are forfeit to the Imperial Court.’
Duke Konrad started forwards, in his blind anger ready to confront even the incredible swordsmanship of Baron von Kirchof. Erich grabbed the Drakwalder by the shoulder, restraining his reckless advance.
‘We have collected trinkets too,’ Erich called out. He laughed as he saw Boris’s look of smug victory collapse as Baron Thornig held aloft Ghal Maraz. ‘What kind of emperor are you without the Hammer of Sigmar?’ the knight scoffed.
Boris reeled against the side of the organ, his face growing purple with indignation. A portly man in black robes and a physician’s cap dashed out from the little knot of courtiers who had taken shelter with their Emperor, fumbling about in his bags as he tried to administer a restorative to his sovereign. The stunned Emperor waved away the efforts of his personal physician.
‘You dare such sacrilege?’ Boris demanded, throwing his head back and fixing the conspirators with his withering gaze. ‘That is the holy hammer of our lord and saviour, Sigmar Heldenhammer, first emperor of the glorious Empire of mankind!’ A hint of a smile curled his lips as he saw doubt flash across the faces of some of the rebels. It seemed they hadn’t thought of their little revolt in terms of blasphemy and heresy. Ready to turn against Boris Hohenbach, they weren’t ready to defy Sigmar Heldenhammer. Inwardly, the Emperor sneered at their religious qualms, though outwardly he wore the mantle of pious outrage.
‘You are a fine one to speak of sacrilege,’ Erich challenged. ‘By whose order was Arch-Lector Hartwich killed?’
At once, any doubts of purpose the rebels felt were extirpated. Prince Sigdan, drawing the Runefang of Reikland from its scabbard, stalked across the charred floor. He stopped well away from von Kirchof, looking past the champion to the tyrant hiding behind the hydraulis. ‘Archers!’ the Prince of Altdorf cried and at his command ten Drakwald bowmen nocked arrows and took aim.
‘I will not play your games, Goldgather,’ the prince declared. ‘You will abdicate now, relinquish all claim upon the crown, or we will burn this room and every-one in it. Anyone who makes a move to stop us will be shot down.’ He turned his head at a flash of purple cloth amongst the courtiers. ‘If your pet warlock makes another move, if he even breathes wrong, he can be the first to die.’ Karl-Maria Fleischauer did a perfect impression of a statue as the threat reached the warlock’s ears.
Prince Sigdan smiled coldly as he saw the resignation on Boris’s face, as the Emperor’s shoulders slumped in defeat. ‘Fetch quill and parchment!’ he ordered Baron von Klauswitz. ‘His Imperial Majesty has one last diktat to write down.’
While the rebels were storming their way into the Harmony Salon, a different assault was unfolding at the gates of the Imperial Palace. The siege of the Courts of Justice having been broken, the Kaiserknecht, supported by troops from both the Schuetzenverein and the Kaiserjaeger, began a vicious attack. Bowmen loosed arrows at the rebels holding the gate while the knights brought the stout gibbet-post from the Widows’ Plaza to employ as a ram against the portals themselves.
Despite the viciousness and energy of the attack, the rebels soon discovered it was nothing more than a diversion. Having guessed the strategy of the conspirators, Commander Kreyssig decided to use their own tricks against them. While the rebels were looking outwards, Kreyssig led a force through the escape tunnels — those of modern vintage and with an entrance underneath a nondescript wine shop — to effect a clandestine entry to the Palace.
Once inside, Kreyssig sent the bulk of his troops to attack the defenders at the gates from behind. When the gates were thrown open, the rebels would have no hope of holding the Palace. Indeed, there was only one thing that could still carry the day for them. Detaching twenty men from his main force, including the hulking Scharfrichter Gottwald Drechsler, Kreyssig hastened to locate Emperor Boris.
He was under no delusion that his fate was not dependent upon the safety of His Imperial Majesty. Without the protection and patronage of Boris Goldgather, Kreyssig would be a man alone, cast out to suffer the retribution of the nobility. If he would save his own skin, he had to save the Emperor’s crown.
A frantic halfling messenger from the gate rushed into the salon, bearing word that they were under attack by the Emperor’s soldiers. The news sobered the jubilant conspirators. The inmates of the salon had been disarmed and herded against the wall. Emperor Boris had been coerced into signing his own abdication and affixing the Imperial Seal to it. A feeling of triumph had gripped them all, a sense that everything would soon be set right.
‘Give up now, and I promise you will only suffer exile,’ Boris said as he heard the report. He extended his ring-laden hand to reclaim the diktat held by Prince Sigdan.
Prince Sigdan laughed at the scheming tyrant. ‘I would expect the same mercy you showed Grand Master von Schomberg,’ he said. ‘And I wouldn’t be too excited. We anticipated this. You above all people should know how well stocked the cellars of the Palace are. I imagine we could endure a whole year under siege. And by then, your enemies — and I assure you they are many — will flock to Altdorf to ensure you abide by this proclamation.’
A snarl on his face, Boris leaned back against the water organ, sending a sickly note from the instrument as his elbow pressed down on the keys. Aldo Broadfellow grinned at the defeated tyrant, making a great display of his bare, hairy feet. The halfling elder turned to Prince Sigdan.
‘I have a request,’ Aldo said. ‘Now that he’s not emperor any more, I’d like to see him take off his shoes.’ The halfling wiggled his bare toes. ‘It’ll be recompense for all the times he made me wear boots.’
The request brought a much needed laugh to the rebels, but their laughter faded when a second messenger came racing into the salon.
‘The gates have fallen!’ the halfling squealed. ‘Somehow Kaiserjaeger got inside the Palace and attacked our men from behind!’
The conspirators went pale, the last flush of victory draining out of them like blood from a corpse.
Boris Goldgather rose from beside the water organ and held out his hand. ‘Give me that parchment,’ he told Prince Sigdan. ‘If you surrender before my men get here, I promise I will still be lenient. But I suggest you hurry. My offer will expire very shortly.
‘And then, so will all of you.’
Bylorhof
Ulriczeit, 1111
A great bonfire blazed in Bylorhof’s town square. Doors had been torn from the homes of plague victims and broken to splinters with sledges, used as kindling for the roaring fires. Long tables surrounded the blaze, their surfaces littered with trenchers of mutton and platters of steamed lamprey and boiled heron. Bowls of almond milk and suet, mugs of spiced cider and hot ale, great plates of blancmange — these were all arrayed in a great feast. A riotous confusion of chairs and divans, couches and benches was at the disposal of the banqueters.