‘Fighting for the city, as we are, I imagine,’ Martak said. He felt the winds of magic tense and flex beneath the clutch of another mind. He turned, seeking the source of the disturbance. A cloaked and hooded figure crouched atop a nearby roof, worm-pale hands gesturing tellingly.
Martak shoved past Greiss and shouted a single word. The air before them hardened into a shield of amber even as arrows of shadow launched themselves from the curling fingers of the sorcerer towards the Grand Master of the Order of the White Wolf. The amber barrier cracked and split as the shadowy missiles writhed against it. Martak gestured, and the barrier collapsed about the darkling projectiles, sealing them inside. A second gesture sent the amber sphere hurtling away at speed, back towards the sorcerer on the rooftop. The man leapt gracefully from the roof a moment before impact. He dropped to the cobbles, where he was engulfed by the battle and lost to Martak’s sight.
A moment later, that part of the street erupted in a flickering balefire. Bodies were hurled into the air or slammed back against the buildings that lined the street. Warriors from both sides screamed as the coruscating flames consumed them. Men fell, wracked with sickening, uncontrollable mutations, their bodies growing and bursting like overripe fruits. The sorcerer, his robes askew, strode through the conflagration, his hood thrown back to reveal a golden helmet covered in leering mouths. ‘Malofex comes…’ the mouths shrieked as one. ‘Bow before Malofex, master of the Tempest Incarnate, freer of the First Born, bowbowbowbow.’
‘No,’ Martak said. He slammed his staff down, and the street rumbled as a ridge of amber spikes sprouted and stretched towards the sorcerer. Malofex stretched out a hand, and the amber turned liquid and rose into the air, becoming globules which began to spin faster and faster about the sorcerer’s head. Then, with a sound like the crack of a whip, the globules shot back towards Martak.
Martak’s eyes widened and he whipped his staff up and around in a tight circle, carving protective sigils on the air. The globules of amber struck the invisible barrier and exploded, casting razor-edged shards into the melee around him.
‘Malofex, who freed Kholek Suneater, Malofex, who uprooted the Gibbering Tower, bids you cease and kneel, hedge-wizard,’ the mouths on the sorcerer’s helmet ranted. ‘Bow to Malofex, and live.’ As the sorcerer moved towards Martak, colourful flames sprouted on his robes, rising about him like an infernal halo. The flames swept out and struck the ground, towering around them like the walls of a keep.
Martak set the butt of his staff on the ground, and gripped the haft in both hands. Shards of amber formed and darted for the sorcerer, and were melted by the flames, or caught and crunched by the hateful mouths. He could feel the other’s will pressing down on his own. He had surprised his opponent before, caught him off-guard, but now the full force of the sorcerer’s attention was on him, and Martak found himself slowly but surely buckling beneath the weight of it. He was tired. He had been since Altdorf. There was no time to rest his mind or body. The war had been gruelling and his strength was worn to the nub. But he would not surrender, not now, not here. He hurled spell after spell at his opponent, and each was blocked or dispelled easily.
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Greiss trying to break through the flames that had risen to isolate him and his opponent from the battle going on around them. In the flames were faces, moaning, screaming, laughing, and they licked at Martak’s flesh, raising weals of strange hues and sending shivers of pain through him. He could hear the chuckles and whispers of the mouths, and the sibilant crackle of the flames rising from his opponent’s frame as the sorcerer drew close. But, then, a new sound intruded and the world grew slow around him. The flames seemed to freeze in place, and the colour drained from them as they fell silent.
In their place was the howling of wolves. Martak’s breath frosted as the temperature dropped. His skin felt cold and clammy, and he heard the snarls and growls of beasts on the hunt. Lupine shadows stretched across the ground towards him. And then, as it stepped through Malofex’s fire, he saw it.
The wolf loped towards him, seemingly unconcerned by what was going on around it. It moved effortlessly, as if it were a thing not of flesh but instead a ghost or phantom. Its jaws sagged in a lupine grin, and the howls grew louder, threatening to rupture Martak’s eardrums. He could no longer hear Malofex, and the roar of battle sounded as if it were far away. All he could hear were the howls, and the harsh panting of the white wolf as it closed in on him.
It leapt past the sorcerer, sparing him not a glance. Martak wanted to move out of its path, but some force held him frozen in place. The wolf grew larger and larger, its mouth expanding until its upper jaw blocked out the sky and its lower tore furrows in the street, and then Martak was between them and they snapped shut.
Martak was enveloped in darkness. Frost formed on his shaking limbs, and icicles grew in his tangled beard. The howling grew thunderous, and he sank down to one knee, hands clasped to his ears. White specks swam through the dark, faster and faster, and he thought that they might be snow. He heard the crunch of footsteps: human ones, not the padding of paws, but somehow more terrifying for all of that.
Get up.
Martak peered into the swirling snow. The voice had been like ice falling from the face of a cliff, or the stormy waters of the Sea of Claws as they smashed into the shore. It reverberated about him, surrounding him and filling his head.
Get up, Gregor Martak. A man of Middenheim does not kneel.
Martak shoved himself to his feet. Something massive and terrible lunged out of the whirling snow, and caught his throat in a cold grip. He felt claws digging into his neck, and found himself flung down onto hard stones.
He does not kneel. But he will bare his throat, when it is demanded.
The curtain of snow parted, revealing not a beast, but an old, stooped man crouched over him, one hand locked about his throat. The old man’s nostrils flared and he tilted his worn, hairy features up, as if tasting the air. He was clad in white furs and bronze armour, of the kind worn by horse-lords and the barrow kings who had ruled what was now the Empire in the centuries before the coming of Sigmar. His eyes glinted like chips of ice as he dragged Martak to his feet. ‘Who–?’ Martak croaked.
The old man threw back his head and howled. The sound was echoed by the unseen wolves, and its fury battered Martak like the blows of an enemy. He would have fallen, but for the old man’s grip on his throat.
Quiet. Listen.
Martak shuddered, as the gates of his mind were burst asunder and a wild host of images flooded into him. He saw a vast cavern, somewhere far beneath the Fauschlag, though he did not know how he knew that, and saw the roaring light of the Flame of Ulric, stretching upwards towards the Temple of Ulric above. He saw a figure clad in flowing robes step from the shadows and saw ancient wolves rise from the sleep of ages to defend the Flame from the intruder.
In the flashes of sorcerous light which accompanied the short but brutal battle, the figure stood revealed. An elf, Martak thought, confused. His confusion turned to horror as he watched the elf thrust his staff into the Flame. The fire shrank away as the head of the staff touched it, and the guardian wolves howled as one and collapsed into shards of bone and ice. A moment later, the chamber fell into darkness.
And in that darkness, something moved and grew. In the ashes of the Flame, something began to stir, and Martak felt fear course through him. ‘What is it?’ he groaned as he squeezed his eyes shut. There were stars in the darkness, not the clean, pure stars of the night sky but rotten lights which marked the audient void, strung between sour worlds. He could hear voices, scratching at the walls of his mind, and heard the cackling of daemons.