It was just as it had been in Heffengen – the dead fighting with the living. How such allies came to be within the sanctity of the Palace grounds, though, was a question for another time.
‘Now what?’ asked Martak, dismounting clumsily and skidding on the polished floor.
‘The Chamber of the Hammer,’ replied Karl Franz, striding out towards the doors with Deathclaw in tow.
Martak took a little more time to persuade his steed to follow suit, and had to haul on its halter to bring it along. ‘What of the Menagerie, lord?’ he asked. ‘The dragon! Can you not rouse the dragon?’
Karl Franz kept walking. He could have done that. He could have opened all the cages and let the beasts loose, but it would not accomplish anything now. There was only one course open to him, one he barely understood, one that could only bring him pain.
‘Time is short, wizard,’ he said, reaching the doors and peering out through their wreckage. A long corridor stretched away, empty of enemies for the moment and ankle-thick with fungus spores. ‘You will have to trust me.’
Martak hurried to catch up. ‘Trust you? You have told me nothing! You saw the armies, you know how close they are.’ He fixed the Emperor with a look of pure exasperation. ‘What will this serve?’
Karl Franz looked back at him with some sympathy. There were no easy answers, and it was not as if his own intentions filled him with any certainty. All he had now were feelings, stirred by the sight of the comet and prompted by vague premonitions and old whisperings.
It could all be futile – everything, every step he had taken since the disaster at the Auric Bastion. But, he reflected, was that not the essence of faith? To trust in the promptings of the soul in the face of all evidence to the contrary?
He would have to dig deeper, to drag some surety from somewhere. In the meantime, there was little he could do to assuage the wizard’s doubts.
‘If you wish to rouse the beasts, then I will not prevent you,’ said Karl Franz. ‘You have delivered me to this place, and for that alone I remain in your debt. But I will not join you – the time is drawing closer, and I must be under the sign of Ghal Maraz when the test comes.’
He forced a smile. The wizard would have to follow his own path now.
‘You may join me or leave me – such is your fate – but do not try to prevent me.’ He started walking again, and Deathclaw followed close behind, ducking under the lintel of the chapel doors. ‘This is the end of all things, and when all is gone – all magic, all strength, all hope – then only faith remains.’
The spell guttered out, and Vlad reconstituted deep in the heart of the Imperial Palace.
For a moment, it was all he could do not to stare. He had dreamed of being in this place for so long – more than the lifetime of any mortal. The yearning had stretched through the aeons, as bitter and unfulfilled as the love he had once borne for her. For Isabella. He had often imagined how it would be, to tread the halls as a victor, drinking in the splendour of aeons. Long ago, so long that even he struggled to retain the memory, he had imagined himself on the throne itself, presiding over a whispering court of black-clad servants, the candles burning low in their holders and the music of Old Sylvania echoing in the shadowed vaults.
To have accomplished those long hopes should have made him glad. In the event, all he felt was a kind of confusion. Nagash had given him what he needed to get here at last, but it turned out that all that remained was a ruin of foliage-smothered stonework and gaping, eyeless halls. It would never be rebuilt, not now. He had accomplished his goal, only to find that he was a master of ashes.
‘My lord,’ came a familiar voice.
Vlad turned to see Herrscher and a band of wight-warriors in the armour of the Palace. They must have been raised recently, for their greaves and breastplates were still mottled with soil. Further back stood silent ranks of the undead, interspersed with ragged-looking groups of zombies.
‘Where are the rest?’ asked Vlad.
‘Mundvard and the ladies rode out to halt the plague-host before it reached the Palace,’ said Herrscher. ‘They did not come back.’
Vlad nodded. Perhaps he should have expected it – the Ruinous Powers had always been too strong for his servants to take on.
‘Then their commanders will be within the walls now,’ said Vlad.
‘They have taken the southern entrance,’ said Herrscher. ‘They are heading for the centre, and we are in their path. If we leave now–’
‘Leave?’
Herrscher looked confused. ‘We cannot stay here, lord,’ he protested. ‘Your army is spread throughout the city, but they have broken into the Palace in force. They cannot be stopped, not by us, not without summoning reinforcements.’
Vlad smiled tolerantly. Herrscher looked genuinely perturbed at the prospect of harm coming to him, which was as good a sign as any that his transformation was complete.
‘You are right, witch hunter,’ said Vlad. ‘The longer this goes on, the worse things will go for us. To bring this beast low, we must sever it at the head.’ He smiled thinly. ‘The savages of the north lead their armies from the front. If we wish to find the authors of this plague, look to the vanguard.’
Herrscher looked doubtful. ‘We are so few,’ he muttered.
‘Ah, but you have me with you now.’ Vlad glanced up and down the corridor, trying to get his bearings. ‘I wonder, do any of your old kind still live, or do we have this place to ourselves?’
As if in answer, there was a huge, resounding bang from the corridor running away to the south, like a massive door had been flung back on its hinges. Following that came the sound of a low, slurring panting. The floor shook, trembling with the impact of heavy footfalls.
Herrscher drew his blade, as did the wights, and they fell into a defensive ring around their master.
Vlad unsheathed his own sword with a flourish, finding himself looking forward to what was to come. The footfalls grew louder as the beast smashed its way towards them.
‘So the hunt is unnecessary – they have come to us.’ Vlad raised his sword to his face, noting the lack of reflection in the steel. ‘Now look and learn, witch hunter – this is how a mortarch skins his prey.’
With some regret, both Otto and Ethrac had to dismount from Ghurk as he barrelled on into the Palace interior. Their huge steed now scraped the roof of the corridors, bringing down chandeliers and ceiling-panels as he lumbered ever closer to the goal.
Otto and Ethrac ran alongside him now, both panting hard from the exertion. Ghurk himself seemed as infinitely strong as ever, his bulging muscles still rippling under his mottled hide. The vanguard of their suppurating horde came on behind, wheezing through closed-face helms and carrying their axes two-handed before their bodies.
As they came, they destroyed. Paintings were torn from their frames and ripped to pieces, statues were cast down and shattered. Ghurk’s hooves tore up the marble flooring, and his flailing fists dragged whole sections of wall panels along with him. They were like a hurricane streaking into the heart of the enemy’s abode, breaking it down, brick by brick, into a heap of mouldering refuse.
As they rounded a narrow corner, Otto was the first to catch sight of fresh enemies. A thrill ran through him, and he picked up the pace. ‘Shatter them!’ he cried, his voice cracking with enthusiasm. ‘Smash them!’
Just as at the Palace gates, the warriors lined up against them were no mortals, but more of the undead that had dogged their passage ever since the breaking of the walls. Otto began to feel genuine anger – they just could not be eradicated. They were like a... plague.