‘Can anything stand against this, o my brother?’ called out Otto to Ethrac, proudly surveying the scene from atop his sibling’s unnaturally huge bulk. In every direction, the rampant desecration of the Plaguefather ran wild. Soon the last of what had been Marienburg would be overwhelmed entirely, a festering jungle on the western seaboard of the Empire, the first foothold of what would become Father Nurgle’s reign of corpulence on earth.
Ethrac gazed at his two brothers with genuine fondness, and his withered face cracked a toothy smile. ‘No, my brother,’ he admitted, making ready to join Otto on Ghurk’s back, from whence the two of them would begin the long march east. ‘You are quite correct. Nothing can stand against it.’
SEVEN
Drakenhof was not how Vlad remembered it. The centuries had not been kind to the ancient structure, and whole wings had fallen into ivy-covered ruin. The ice-cold wind from the Worlds Edge Mountains cut straight through the many gouges and gaps in the walls, skittering around the dusty halls within and shaking the ragged tapestries on their wall-hangings.
Since returning to Sylvania from the far north, he had done what he could to restore something like order to the ruins. He had raised the cadavers of the old castle architects, and they had soundlessly got back to work, ordering work-gangs of living dead to haul stone and saw wood, just as they had years ago.
There was no time to make the necessary repairs though, and so Vlad’s throne stood in an empty audience chamber with the chill whistling through open eaves. Sitting in his old iron throne gave him no joy, for his surroundings were scarce better than any common bandit-lord.
He deserved better. He had always deserved better, and now that he was a mortarch, one of the Chosen of Nagash, his surroundings were little more than a bad joke.
Beyond the castle’s crumbling walls, out under the sick light of Morrslieb, the entire countryside was alive with movement. A thousand undead did their dread master’s bidding, dragging old sword-blades from graves and fitting them with spell-wound hilts. Armour was pulled from cobwebbed store-chambers and dug out from long barrows, all to arm the host that would take Vlad from the margins of the Empire and back into its very heart.
Mortal men worked alongside their dead cousins, swallowing their horror out of fear of the new seigneur of Castle Drakenhof. In truth, it was not just fear that made them work – the old ties of loyalty still had purchase, and there was no doubt in their slow, brutish minds that their true lord had returned.
Vlad did not despise them for that. They were only performing what their station demanded, and he held no contempt for his subjects. When he slew them in order to drink their blood, he did so cleanly, taking libation through the magics of his sword rather than sucking the flesh like an animal. They were cattle, as necessary to his kind as meat and water were to the mortal lords of the Empire, and if they served him faithfully then their lives would be no worse than any other of the toiling peasantry across the hardscrabble badlands of the outer Empire.
Some, of course, refused to see that, which required more punitive action to be taken. Thus it was that the witch hunter hung before him, suspended in a writhing aura of black-tinged flame. His arms were locked out wide, his legs clamped together, his head thrown back.
Vlad regarded him coolly from the throne.
‘What do you think will happen to you?’ he asked.
The witch hunter, his scarred face taut with pain, could only reply through clenched teeth. ‘I will... resist,’ he gasped. ‘While I live, I will resist.’
‘I realise that,’ Vlad sighed. ‘But when your resistance ends, what do you think will happen then?’
‘I will be gathered into the light of Sigmar. I will join the Choirs of the Faithful.’
‘Ah. I am afraid not,’ said Vlad, feeling some genuine sadness. ‘Perhaps, in the past, you might have done, but the Laws of Death are not what they were. Perhaps you have not felt the change.’ He got up from the throne, and his black robes fell about him as he stepped down from the dais towards his victim. The witch hunter watched him approach, his face showing little fear but plenty of defiance. ‘The world is running out of time. My Master has wounded the barrier between realms. The long-departed will soon stir in the earth, and nothing your boy-God can do will have the slightest effect. I admit that, for a time, our kind were troubled by your... faith. Those days, I am happy to say, are coming to an end.’
Vlad walked around the witch hunter, noting with some appreciation how the mortal controlled the trepidation that must have been shivering through him.
‘You think of me as your enemy,’ Vlad said. ‘How far from the truth that is. In reality, I am your only hope. The paths of fate are twofold now: servitude before the ravening Gods of the North, or servitude before the Lord of Death. There is no middle way. I do not expect you to see the truth of it immediately, but you will, in time. All of you will. I merely hope the realisation comes before all is lost.’
The witch hunter struggled against the black flames, but they writhed more tightly, binding him as firmly as chains. Vlad needed to exert the merest flicker of effort to maintain them. Sylvania’s soil was now such a fertile breeding ground for magic that his powers were greater than they had ever been.
‘Lies,’ spat the witch hunter, with some effort. ‘My faith is unshakeable.’
‘I can see that,’ said Vlad. ‘And so I am willing to extend a great gift to you. You may join me freely. You may follow me as a mortal man, and learn the ways of my Master. Your life will be extended many times over, and you will accomplish far more against the Dark Gods than you ever would have done while in your current service. The pain can end. You can still fight evil. I have ever been a generous liege-lord – even your annals must tell it so.’
The witch hunter’s eyes narrowed, and the muscles on his jawline twitched. Vlad could feel the man’s willpower eroding – he had been tormented for hours, and every man, no matter how well-prepared, had his breaking point.
‘Never,’ he said, his voice nearly cracking with effort.
Vlad drew close to him. He extended a finger to the man’s throat, tracing the line of a raised vein. ‘Your Empire is over, mortal. I say that not to crow, for I take no pleasure in seeing the ruin of what I once aspired to rule. It is merely a fact. I saw your Emperor slain at Heffengen. I saw the Bastion break, and I saw what was behind that wall. You are an intelligent man: you can see for yourself what is happening. Plagues run free, wiping out whole villages in a single night. The forest comes alive, churning with unnatural growth. The rivers clog, the crops fail.’ He slid his finger alongside the man’s ear. ‘They say that Marienburg has already fallen. Talabheim will be next. Your house is crumbling around you – I offer a new home for your loyalty.’
The witch hunter’s face creased in agony. His fists balled. He was still fighting. Lines of magic-heated sweat ran down his temples and slipped to the floor, fizzing as the drops hit the cold stone.
‘Never,’ he said again, screwing his eyes closed as he struggled to fight on.
Vlad regarded him bleakly. The offer had been magnanimous, but even the patience of lords came to an end. ‘One thing, then,’ he said. ‘Just one scrap. Tell me your name. I will need it.’
The witch hunter’s eyes snapped open. He stared up at the open rafters, his expression proud. ‘Jan Herrscher,’ he said. ‘By the grace of our Lord Sigmar, that is the name I have always borne. I never hid it, and may it give honour to Him forever.’