He thought of the hot blood of his countrymen, and their desire to exchange the grim hunts after petty quarry for the blood-and-thunder of a real war. Many still looked to him; if he ordered them, they would ride with him still.
He reached his horse, and untied it.
‘So be it,’ he said to himself, smiling dryly as he prepared to mount again. ‘I asked for a path. I have been given one.’
He vaulted into the saddle. He turned one last time, gazing back to where ripples still radiated, and saluted.
‘Thank you,’ he said.
Then he kicked his mount up the slope, and was soon gone.
In his absence, the riverbank sunk into silence once more, broken only by the faint slap of the river-current against the shore, and the mournful wind in the twisted branches.
The deathmoon rode in the eastern sky, glowing with a sick greenish sheen. Its wholesome companion was nowhere to be seen.
Such as was foretold, Vlad thought, looking up into heavens.
The land around him was limned with a ghostly light, tainted as stomach-bile. Morrslieb had ever cast a corrupted illumination, but now its noxious effluence seemed worse than ever. Its scarred face was bloated, presaging the onset of Geheimnisnacht.
That should have made him glad. In the old days, when the deathmoon rode high on bitter, cloudless nights he had gloried in the visions it had brought him. He had raised scores of unliving to march under his black banners, and their bones had shone under the glow of the tainted heaven-spoor.
He stood before Castle Drakenhof’s ruined gates, his long cloak snapping in the night wind, and gazed out over the host he had summoned. As yet it did not compare to the vast armies he had once marched west with, but it was grand enough for now. Crowds of Sylvanian troopers, shivering in the cold, stood in decent approximations of Imperial infantry squares. They were dwarfed by the clattering ranks of skeletons and zombies, some pulled from the dark soil just hours ago by Vlad’s necromancers. Skinless horses walked silently along avenues between ghostly regiments, their skull-faced riders showing no emotion as they surveyed the lines of the undead host. Black banners flew, their tattered edges pulled by roving winds.
‘Will it be enough?’ Vlad asked.
No one answered. He stood alone. On his first such crusade, Isabella had been by his side, counselling him, encouraging him. Her absence made his heart ache – to the extent he had a heart, at any rate. The grief was real enough.
In the far distance, thunder cracked along the eastern horizon. The sawtooth edge of the mountains briefly became visible, black against the outer dark. Carrion crows cawed as they flocked above in huge swarms, ready to fly west ahead of the main host.
Vlad watched them mob and swirl. There were many hours left before the dawn, and they could make good time under cover of night. Though he planned to drive the army onwards even during the daylight hours, he knew they would struggle under the sun’s harsh glare. The mortals would need to be fed and rested, and even the dead would require constant supervision from his covens of spell-winders.
They would make for the Stir, taking any towns and villages on the way and turning their impoverished inhabitants to the cause. Since the Law of Death had been loosened, the many graveyards of his cursed province would readily yield up more fell troops for the host, and so the numbers of both mortal and unliving would swell with every league they marched. Once at the river, they would take barges downstream, riding the flood as the dark waters foamed and rushed west.
He did not expect any serious resistance before reaching the borders of Reikland. The Empire was like a rotten fruit – still intact on the outside, but eaten hollow within. The fortified city of Wurtbad might prove a temporary delay, but he had already taken steps to ease that potential barrier.
Behind him, he heard the howls of vargheists as they loped and swooped amid the ruins. He sensed the shuddering movements of ghouls, and saw the shimmer-pattern of unquiet spirits. Those spectral presences would soon send the entire realm into paroxysms of fear, just as they had done so long ago. And yet, this time he was not marching to bring the Empire to its knees. Far from it.
He looked down at the roll of parchment in his left hand, sealed with a great wax glob and marked with the signet-device of the von Carsteins. He remembered how difficult it had been to find the words to use.
I am aware that the mutual enmity between our peoples will make this proposal a hard one to entertain fairly. I have no doubt, though, given the circumstances, you will see past ancient prejudices and buried grievances. You will have seen the same auguries as we have, and you will know what is at stake. And, after all, do I not have some prior claim to this title? Or does right of conquest count for nothing in these debased times?
Vlad was not sure about those lines, but he had left them in. The detail of the law could be hammered out in person – the important thing was to make the approach now, before the city was cut off by the hosts of the North.
He looked up, just in time to see an enormous bat flutter down from the castle rafters. Its body was as big as a wolf’s, and its leathery wings had a downdraft like a hunting eagle’s. More bats followed their leader down, hovering in pack formation, until nine pairs of red eyes glowed before him in the night.
Vlad wrapped the parchment tightly in oilskin and tied the bundle with twine. He held it up, and the hovering bat took it in its powerful jaws.
‘Go swift, go safe,’ whispered Vlad, reaching up to caress the animal.
Then the whole flock of fell creatures shot upward into the night, spiralling high over the assembled army and heading west.
‘Their pride will be the greatest obstacle,’ he mused aloud. ‘Can the Empire humble itself enough to see sense? That is yet to be decided.’ Then he smiled coldly to himself, feeling his long fangs snick on his lower lip. ‘All men can change, and every mortal has a turning-point. We just have to find where that is. Would you not agree, Herrscher?’
The witch hunter stepped from the shadow of the gates, flanked by ashen-faced guards. His own skin was as white as bone, shrivelled dry onto his prominent skeleton. The clothes he had worn when fully alive now hung from him loosely, and his pistol-belt had slipped almost comically about his thighs.
Herrscher stared out at the host before them. Then he looked down at his hands. He was trembling.
‘The shock will pass,’ said Vlad, not unkindly. ‘You forget the worst of the pain, in time.’
Herrscher looked at him, a mix of horror and hatred on his face. For all that, he did not reach for his weapon. ‘How is it... possible?’ he rasped, and his once-powerful voice was as thin as corpse-linen.
Vlad sighed. He would have to get used to many such initiations into the half-life of undead servitude. ‘You do not need to know that. All you need to know now is that my will gives you breath. You will accept that. You will come to cherish it. The power of resistance you once commanded has gone, and you are my lieutenant now.’
Vlad regarded Herrscher with something approaching fondness. The witch hunter would never truly know it, but his position was one of the highest honour – other captains would be appointed, but he was the very first.
Herrscher looked like he wanted to scream, to dash his own brains out, to launch himself at Vlad and wring his neck, but of course none of those things were possible now. The witch hunter might be screaming on the inside, but he would do the bidding of the one who had raised him, just as Vlad did the bidding of Nagash who had raised him.