The End Times: The Return of Nagash
- Автор: Рейнольдс Джош
- Год: 2014
- Язык: английский
- Год: Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd.
- Жанр: Боевая фантастика
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‘With every day that passes, the spell grows weaker, and I can do nothing to stop it. We have weeks, or perhaps only days, before the enchantment fails entirely. And then what, bag-of-bones?’ Mannfred demanded, pounding a fist into the battlement. Stone cracked beneath the blow and fell, tumbling down, down, to smash onto the courtyard so far below. Arkhan watched the stone fall, and then looked at Mannfred.
‘By then, Nagash will have risen. By then, it will be too late.’
‘You knew,’ Mannfred hissed. He leaned towards the liche. ‘You knew. You tricked me.’
‘I am but a bag-of-bones. I am dust and memory. How could I trick you, the great Mannfred von Carstein?’ Arkhan gave a rattling laugh. He looked at Mannfred. ‘How it must have galled you to take that name, eh? How it must have pricked that monstrous pride, that abominable vanity that you wear like a cloak. Tell me, did you weep bloody tears when you surrendered your silks and steel for wolf-skin and crude iron?’
Mannfred heard Vlad’s chuckle. He had hoped that he’d heard the last of the memory, or the ghost, or whatever it was, in the Border Princes. You did. I remember it quite clearly. You whined for weeks – weeks! – and over a bit of frayed silk.
‘Quiet!’ Mannfred snapped. He saw Vlad’s face, hovering just behind Arkhan. His mentor’s smile cut him to the quick, and he longed to unleash the most destructive spells he could bring to mind, just to wipe that mocking grin away.
‘Were you talking to me, or to him?’ Arkhan asked. The liche cocked his head. ‘Who do you hear, vampire? I can hazard a guess, but I would not wish to offend you.’
Mannfred spun away with a snarl, fighting to regain his composure. His hands balled into fists, and his claws cut into the flesh of his palm. ‘You have already offended me,’ he said, not looking at the liche. ‘And I hear nothing but your hollow, prattling lies.’
‘Then I shall continue… Time is our enemy. It has turned on us. The enchantments I laid upon the Drakenhof banner yet hold. But they too will eventually fade. And our work is not yet done.’
‘The Black Armour of Morikhane,’ Mannfred said. He closed his eyes. Somewhere behind him, he heard Vlad applaud mockingly. Oh well done, boy. I see you were paying attention. Then, you always were a quick study, Vlad said. Mannfred opened his eyes and turned. ‘Heldenhame,’ he said. He looked out over the battlements, towards the northern horizon, where Heldenhame Keep stood silent sentinel over Sylvania.
He felt a pang as he took in the realm he had claimed by right of blood and conquest. In the beginning, he had never truly thought of Sylvania as anything other than a stepping stone. It was a backwater, full of ignorant peasants, barbaric nobility and monsters. He had never seen its potential the way Vlad had. But as he waged war after war, shedding blood for every sour metre of soil, he had come to see what the other vampire had seen, all those centuries ago. He had come to understand why they had taken up new names, and sought to burrow into the vibrant, if savage, flesh of the young Empire.
There was a rough beauty to this land, with its dark forests and high crags. It was a cold land, full of shadows, as far and away from the land of his youth as it was possible to get. But where that land had cast him out, this one had taken him to its bosom, and he felt his pulse quicken as he gazed out over it.
This was his land now. He had died to defend his right to it, and its waters ran in his blood. Nothing would take it from him. Not Nagash, and certainly not Karl Franz. But they weren’t his only enemies. He’d seen the portents, but hadn’t truly believed, not until his march across the Border Princes. The world was in upheaval. Everything was changing. His spies had learned much while he prosecuted his campaign against the skaven. There was a war-wind blowing down from the north, and drums beat in the Troll Country, rousing the lost and the damned to war. Kislev was gone, and the northern provinces of the Empire were in flames.
As he stared out at his land, Mannfred thought of the being he had seen in his scrying, the one to whom even daemons bowed, and he felt a cold determination settle over him. If this was the end, better Nagash than nothing. ‘Heldenhame,’ he said aloud, again.
Heldenhame was the Empire’s first line of defence against any army coming from his lands, and he had wasted more than one legion on its walls. But then, so had many others – including the barbarous orcs. ‘Its walls are strong, but they have their weaknesses.’
‘And you know what they are?’ Arkhan asked.
‘I have known what they are for the better part of a year. My spies within Heldenhame tell me that the city’s western wall was badly damaged last year, during a greenskin attack. Leitdorf has spared no expense in conducting repairs, but such a thing cannot be rushed, especially when you have naught but frail men as your labourers. It will be easy to breach, with the proper application of force.’ Before Arkhan could speak, Mannfred held up a hand. ‘However, the garrison of that wall has been reinforced with cannons, fresh from the forges of Nuln, thus rendering any assault there costly.’
‘You have a plan,’ Arkhan said. It wasn’t a question.
Mannfred chuckled. ‘I have many plans. The western wall is the obvious point of assault. But to strike there is predictable, and sure to be more arduous than we would like. However, the appearance of predictability is as valuable as its absence, if properly employed. We must take the oblique approach to this.’ He stretched out a hand, and curled his fingers. ‘With one hand, we shall show them what they expect.’ He raised his other hand. ‘And with the other, we shall crack their walls.’
‘Your confidence is inspiring,’ Arkhan said.
‘And your mockery is forgivable, this time,’ Mannfred said, with a mildness he didn’t feel. ‘You were right before. We need each other, liche. We are surrounded by enemies, and time, as you said, is not on our side. So let us cease wasting it. We will march north, now. And we will rip the last piece of the puzzle from the guts of Heldenhame.’
He turned and set one foot on the battlement. He flung back the edges of his cloak, raised his hands and began to speak. Overhead, the clouds swirled as Mannfred cast his voice and his will to the winds. He called out to every creature, dead, alive or otherwise that owed him allegiance. In his mind’s eye, he saw bat-winged monstrosities flop from dank caves and ghoul packs emerge from their burrows. He felt his mind touch the ephemeral consciousness of every chill-hearted spirit within his demesne, and rouse them to abandon their haunts and hurtle through the black sky towards Sternieste.
Before the ancient bells of Sternieste struck midnight, he knew that a mighty army would be assembled before the walls of the castle. And when it marched north, the world would tremble.
Amused by Mannfred’s display of unbridled sorcerous dominion, Arkhan watched in silence as the vampire called his forces to war. He let his mind drift as Mannfred lashed the world with his will. He had more pressing concerns than Mannfred’s petulance.
He had brooded on Kemmler’s betrayal and what it meant since the obliteration of La Maisontaal Abbey. He had suspected Kemmler’s treachery, but not the reasons behind it. Nagash’s hold on the necromancer had not been as certain as Arkhan had thought, and that disturbed him. Kemmler’s taunts haunted him.
That the Dark Gods would intervene so directly in order to prevent Nagash’s resurrection seemed unbelievable. But he knew what he had felt and seen. And it hadn’t merely been Kemmler. His return to Sylvania and Castle Sternieste had seen him lead what remained of his forces through the Great Forest. After departing Beechervast, Arkhan had taken the Lieske Road, and it seemed as if every Chaos-touched creature in those woods had been drawn to him, like moths to a flame. Howling, malformed monsters had pounced from the shadows, or swooped through the branches above. Chimeras and jabberslythes and worse things had thrown themselves into battle.