They were roaring now, drawing swords and crying out for vengeance. Leoncoeur felt savage joy rise up within his gorge.
They are still my people, he thought. And I am still their master.
‘For the Lady!’ he cried, raising both arms high in defiance of the tempest that raged about the tower.
The knights before him replied without hesitation, shouting out their fealty in a single massed roar.
The Lady!
Leoncoeur relaxed at last then, knowing the first task was over. Errantry had been called, and the heavy cavalry that made Bretonnia feared throughout the world had been unleashed. The road ahead would be dark, but at least the path was set.
The Lady had spoken. Her crusade had begun.
The vampire army travelled fastest by night. Only the weakest of Vlad’s servants suffered under the glare of the sun, but as the skies were relentlessly overcast and dark with rain even they were able to make some progress. In any case, the forest around them had burst into incredible growth, and the trees snaked and throttled one another in an orgy of tumescence.
Vlad rode at the head of his skeletal vanguard, looking about with distaste at the corruption of his land. Creepers twisted across the road, all bearing virulent fruits that burst with acid when trodden down. The soil itself seethed with fungi and clinging mosses, all striving with perverted fecundity to assert themselves against the foul growths around them.
This was life in all its disgusting, liquid excess. Even as a mortal man he would have found such violent displays of fertility alarming. As a lord of undeath, committed to the austere night-world of his Master, it was almost more than he could bear to endure it.
If he chose, he could have halted the army and summoned his necromancers and lesser vampire lords. They could have shrivelled the growths and bleached the fruits white. If they committed themselves for long enough, they could have parched the land from the Stir to the mountains, draining it of the noxious mucus that leaked from every suppurating pore and returning it to the barren waste it deserved to be.
But there was no time, and his energies needed to be husbanded for the trials ahead, so he grudgingly suffered his homeland to be overrun.
Not forever, he thought darkly, running his ancient eyes over the tangle of vines. The cold fire will come, once all is accomplished.
Herrscher rode beside him. Both their steeds were skeletons, their bones knitted together by dark magic and held in place by Vlad’s will. The undead witch hunter looked a little less miserable than he had done, though he still slumped in the saddle.
‘How do you find your gifts?’ asked Vlad, trying to take his mind off the filth around him.
Herrscher shot him an incredulous look. ‘Gifts?’ He shook his emaciated head. ‘You have poisoned me.’
‘Learn to appreciate what you have been given. You are stronger than you were. You hear better, see better, and you will endure against all magic. Scorn this, and you remain a greater fool than when you lived.’
‘This is what you wish for,’ muttered Herrscher. ‘Slaves, all of us.’
‘Not quite. I wish for order. I wish for the weak to know their place, guarded over by their betters. Do sheep resent their shepherds? Or would they rather take their chances with the wolves?’
‘I would have done,’ retorted Herrscher, his face a picture of resentment.
‘And that would be a terrible waste,’ said Vlad. ‘You are better at my side, where your talents can flourish. Do not resent the past – soon you will have trouble even remembering it.’
‘So the past does not trouble you?’ asked Herrscher, his lips curling sardonically. ‘That is not what I heard.’
Vlad’s anger rose, and he made to turn on Herrscher, when he suddenly noticed a flash of white in the road ahead. In an instant, he saw Isabella riding to greet him, alone under the trees, a look of admonishment on her perfect alabaster face, and he froze.
The illusion faded. More than one figure emerged from the arboreal gloom – eight shades, each as thin and drawn as dried fruit, carrying between them a palanquin of shimmering glass. Silently, they set the carriage down, and three women emerged, all of them wearing lace-edged gowns of purest white. They seemed to glow like moonlight, and their footfalls left no tracks in the sodden earth. They curtsied archaically, and shuffled closer.
Vlad mastered himself. He knew the names of the ladies well enough, and which master they served, though he had not expected to encounter them so soon.
‘My lord von Carstein,’ said the foremost of the pale creatures, her voice as dry and hollow as a coffin-echo. ‘We had begun to worry. This land has become an abomination.’
‘All lands have,’ said Vlad, offering his hand for the lady to kiss. ‘Why are you here, Liliet? I did not seek to find you for days hence.’
The white lady gave him a dry smile. ‘Your servant Mundvard failed. Marienburg is a nest of writhing horrors, and the Empire has been driven back like whipped curs to Carroburg.’
‘They are moving fast, then. What strength do they have?’
‘They are led by three siblings – foul triplets, each blessed with grotesque gifts. One is the size of a house, and chews his way through fortifications like a fat child through sweetmeats. Their host is swollen beyond counting. Your servant did his best – I can vouch for that – but they will not be halted.’ She shuddered distastefully. ‘Such numbers. I would not have believed it, had I not seen it.’
Vlad pursed his fleshless lips together. ‘And where is Mundvard now?’
‘Gathering what forces he can. He sent us to you, and begs leave to join his army with yours north of Altdorf. He says that no action further west can delay the enemy now, and only a combined stand at the city holds the hope of resistance.’
‘Oh, he said that, did he?’ Vlad was irritated. Mundvard was a supreme fighter, but a poor general. More than that, it was not his place to dictate tactics to his betters – he should have delayed the Chaos forces for longer at the coast, giving time for Vlad to gather the greatest host he could. Now the need for haste, already pressing, had become overwhelming.
‘He fought skilfully, lord,’ said Liliet, a little coquettishly, given her cadaverous appearance.
‘Not skilfully enough,’ snarled Vlad. ‘You do not need to return to him. Remain with me, and together we will cut a faster path. I will send messages via other means, and if he still commands more than a rabble of zombies, he can meet us in the Reikland.’
Liliet bowed, then looked sidelong at Herrscher. ‘And who is this, my lord? Surely you have not been doling out the Kiss to mortals without the consent of the Master?’
Herrscher was looking at the three women with a mix of horror and fascination on his face. That was good – in the past, it would merely have been horror.
‘My new lieutenant,’ said Vlad kicking his horse into motion again and forcing the ladies to give way. ‘Ride with us awhile, and tell us tales of old Marienburg. We make all haste to Wurtbad, and I am sure he can learn much from you on the way.’
TEN
Captain Hans Blucher felt the stone crack before he heard it, and it made his blood freeze. The flags beneath his feet sprouted paper-thin fractures, which then widened to a blade’s width.