As he vacillated, Beaquis swooped down from its position, cawing furiously. There was no uncertainty in its feral eyes, just a rapidly kindled battle-lust. The hippogryph was under no illusions about what had just taken place, or what to do about it.
Leoncoeur reached up to grasp the beast’s reins, which hung below its feathered jowls. The hippogryph flapped down lower, coming level with Leoncoeur’s mount, and he leapt across the gap and hauled himself into position. Once righted, he drew his blade.
‘We are not too late!’ he cried as Beaquis gained loft. ‘Had it not been for the Lady’s grace, we would still be hacking through the forest, but we have been given a chance.’
Every warrior in his entourage looked up at him as he circled higher. The pegasi, following their master’s lead, remained in close formation. None of them yet had a rider, but that would quickly change.
‘You are weary,’ Leoncoeur told them. ‘You have already ridden hard. If you were any other people, I would not dare to ask more of you now.’ He shot them a savage smile. ‘But you are not any other people – you are the finest knights in the world, and you have been given one final chance to prove your mettle.’
By now every rider had controlled his steed, and the column was already forming up into battle order. The sky continued to glow with an ever more intense shade of sickness, but the first shock was already wearing off.
‘We ride together!’ Leoncoeur roared. ‘The winged and the earthbound, united unto the walls of Sigmar’s city!’
It would be brutal riding. The ground between them and the city walls was unknown and no doubt crawling with the enemy. By the time they arrived, they would have to move straight into battle, with no rest and no chance to prepare. It would be a desperate race.
‘You have followed me this far,’ Leoncoeur thundered, climbing into the tortured heavens. ‘If we stumble now, then all is for naught, so ride now, with me at your head, and we shall yet break the darkness with our valour!’
Vlad sensed the build-up of sorcery before he saw the tempest erupt over Altdorf. For over an hour, as the river had slipped past, he had felt the gathering of an almighty conflagration. It was like the beating of some immense heart, just beneath the surface of the world, but gathering strength with every pulse.
When the towers of smoke poured up at last from the western horizon, accompanied by the distant sound of war-drums, his fears were confirmed in full.
They have worked some great spell, he thought to himself grimly. Well then, what did I expect? That they would walk up to the gates and beg for entry?
Herrscher still had the presence of mind to be shocked. It was a difficult time for him – still caught between his old residual ties to the Empire and his new allegiance to Nagash. Vlad remained confident he would fall on the right side of the argument when the test came, but his transition had taken place in such a short period, and he had had much to absorb.
‘What is that?’ the witch hunter asked, appalled.
Vlad sat back in his throne, drumming his fingers on the armrest. ‘Your first sight of the enemy. Mark them well – if we fail here, you will be seeing a lot more of this.’
The smoke curled and writhed over the tops of the trees, burning its way into the sky. Vlad’s army was still many miles away, hampered by the Reik’s sluggish pace. As fast as his magic had cleared the river-path, more creepers and moss-mats had reached out to drag them back again.
Even the Pale Ladies looked impressed by the fires ahead. They gazed up at the gently turning storm, mouths open, watching as the heavens burned.
‘We must go faster,’ hissed Herrscher, his voice tight with impatience.
‘Calm yourself, witch hunter,’ said Vlad. ‘Look at what else approaches.’
The cavalcade of barges was still in convoy, a huge train of heavily-laden troop carriers, following like cattle in the wake of Vlad’s flagship. The entire convoy was passing around a wide bend in the river, curving from right to left as the watercourse opened up for the long straight passage towards Altdorf’s eastern wharfs.
As they neared the curve’s outside bank, a grey strand appeared, pale under the dusk shadow of the trees beyond. It widened rapidly, exposing a marshy beach on the northern shore, dotted with mottled reeds and studded with plague-webs.
The plain was not empty. Ranks of soldiers stood waiting, organised into disciplined infantry squares and carrying flaming torches. Black banners fluttered in the contrary winds, exposing old devices of Marienburg and silver death’s-head emblems against a sable ground.
One lord stood apart from the others. Even for one of his lineage, he carried himself with a studied arrogance, his cloak flung back over one shoulder and his pale chin raised.
Vlad sighed, and motioned for his ghoulish steersmen to ground the cruiser on the shoals ahead. The vessel ground to a halt, and undead menials immediately splashed into the knee-deep water and locked their hands together. Vlad rose from his throne and descended a wooden stairway hastily lowered over the side, then used the interlocking arms of his servants to avoid getting his boots wet. He alighted at the far end of the silent processional, stepping lightly onto dry sand. Behind him came Herrscher and the Pale Ladies, who were already cooing with delight.
‘My dear Mundvard,’ said Vlad, extending his ring-finger.
The vampire lord before him looked at the garnet jewel with distaste, before stiffly bowing and kissing it. ‘We are in danger of missing the party,’ he said.
Mundvard the Cruel was one of the most powerful vampires outside Sylvania. For years uncounted he had plied his grisly trade in Marienburg, only leaving once the doom of that city had become assured. He bore the marks of the degenerate aristocracy he had once been a member of – an excessively thin frame, sharp bone-structure, decayed attire harking back to a forgotten age of elegance. His lean fingers were studded with golden jewellery, and he wore a velvet frock-coat.
‘I had expected you to bring more guests,’ said Vlad, casting his eye over the forces Mundvard brought with him. Some were the dead of Marienburg, still arrayed in tattered remnants of their old uniforms. Others must have been raised on his march east, and others still were creatures of Mundvard’s old hidden retinue. At the rear of the throng, hissing under the leaves, lurked a greater beast, one that had once terrorised the Suiddock, and now slithered abroad again under new magical commandments.
Mundvard affected a look of disinterest. ‘We do what we can. Times are not what they were.’
Vlad shot his deputy a dark look. Mundvard was a skilled killer, one of the finest exponents of the dagger-in-the-dark school of murder, but his long sojourn in Marienburg had made him flighty and high-strung. If there had been time, Vlad might have been tempted to give him a lesson in command, a painful one, but Morrslieb was now full and the gaps between the worlds had already been punctured.
He withdrew his claw.
‘Tell me what you know.’
‘Three hosts assail the city,’ said Mundvard. ‘They have already started the assault. Some hex has been enacted, and daemons are falling from the sky.’ He wrinkled his slender nose in distaste. ‘Altdorf is a rotten corpse. It will not last the night.’
‘And that is why we are here,’ said Vlad, patiently. ‘Is your army ready to march?’
‘Whenever I give the word.’
‘Then give it.’
Mundvard looked at the barges, which were coming in, one by one, to ground on the beach. ‘Should we not take the river?’