The End Times: The Return of Nagash
- Автор: Рейнольдс Джош
- Год: 2014
- Язык: английский
- Год: Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd.
- Жанр: Боевая фантастика
Электронная книга - «The End Times: The Return of Nagash». Краткое содержание книги:
He’d come to Talabecland to study the wall of faith. The magics that Gelt had employed to create his wall were old, and far outside of Gelt’s area of study. Someone, it was assumed, had helped him. Gelt was keeping mum, but the other patriarchs, especially Gregor Martak, master of the Amber Order, were concerned, and Gormann didn’t blame them. It wouldn’t be the first time one of their own had used forbidden magics. Traitors like van Horstmann were few and far between, but their actions were indelibly engraved on the collective memory of the Colleges of Magic. Gormann didn’t like to think of them, though. As much as he disliked Gelt, he didn’t think the alchemist would willingly turn to the dark. He cleared his throat and asked, ‘What news from the rest of the Empire?’
‘The same as it’s been for a year. Kislev is gone, and her people with her, save those who fled south to warn us of the invasion,’ Leitdorf said. ‘Only Erengrad remains yet standing, and that only because of von Raukov and the Ostlanders. Men from Averland, Stirland, Middenland and Talabheim march north to bolster our defences on the border.’
He looked tired, Gormann thought. Then, he always had. Being brother to a man like the deceased and infamously insane former Elector of Averland had a way of ageing a man prematurely. Leitdorf had stayed out of the succession debacle, claiming that his duty was to the Knights of Sigmar’s Blood. In truth, Gormann was one of the few who knew that it was actually because Leitdorf was convinced that the Empire of his father and grandfather was being bled white by callow nobles and politicking aristocrats. He included Karl Franz among the latter, though he’d been wise enough never to say so where anyone important could hear him.
Gormann often feared for his friend. Leitdorf was a man of blood and steel, for whom patience and politesse were vices. Gormann had never been very good at the glad-handing his former position had required, but even his limited skills in that regard far outstripped Leitdorf’s. If the Knights of Sigmar’s Blood hadn’t been so influential, it was very likely that someone would have put something unpleasant and surely fatal in Leitdorf’s wine.
Leitdorf went on. ‘Beastmen still rampage across ten states, including this one. Plague ravages the western provinces, and our sometimes allies across the mountains are beset by their own foes.’ He drained his cup and stared at it. ‘The dwarfs have shut their gates. Tilea and Estalia are overrun.’ He smiled sadly. ‘I fear that we are living in the final days, old friend.’
‘Plenty before you have said as much, and as far back as Sigmar’s time, I’d wager,’ Gormann said. He drained his own cup. ‘We’re no more at the End Times than they were then.’
Before Leitdorf could reply, the clangour of alarm bells sounded over the town. The bells echoed through the room, and Leitdorf leapt to his feet with a curse. ‘I knew it!’ he snarled. He hurled aside his empty cup. ‘I knew it! Gelt’s wall has failed.’
‘You can’t know that,’ Gormann said, but it was a half-hearted assertion. He could feel what Leitdorf couldn’t – the rising surge of dark magic that caused a sour feeling in the pit of his gut. He knew, without even having to see, why the bells were ringing. He tossed aside his cup and snagged the decanter as he followed Leitdorf out of his office.
Outside, men ran through the courtyard of the keep, heading for their posts. Leitdorf stormed to the parapet, shoving men aside as he bellowed orders. Gormann followed more slowly. The sky was overcast, and a cold wind curled over the rooftops of Heldenhame. Flocks of carrion birds were perched on every roof and rampart, cawing raucously.
‘You told me I didn’t know that Gelt’s wall had failed, Thyrus? There’s your proof. Look!’ Leitdorf roared as he flung out a hand towards the approach to the western wall. It was thick with worm-picked skeletons, clutching broken swords and splintered spears, and steadily advancing towards the wall. Further back, on the edge of the tree line, Gormann could make out the shape of catapults. Their silhouettes were too rough to be wood or metal, and Gormann knew instinctively that they were bone.
He took a long drink from the decanter. As he watched, the torsion arms of the distant war engines snapped forward with an audible screech. The air ruptured, suddenly filled with an insane and tormented cackle that cracked the decanter and made Gormann’s teeth itch. Most of the missiles struck the wall. One crashed into the ramparts, and smashed down onto a regiment of handgunners who’d been scrambling to their positions. A dozen men died, consumed in eldritch fire or simply splattered across the rampart by the force of the impact.
‘They’re aiming for the blasted scaffold,’ Leitdorf growled. ‘The Rostmeyer bastion is still under reconstruction. There’s no facing stone to protect the wall’s core. It’s nothing but rubble.’ He whirled to glare at Gormann. ‘If they destroy that scaffold, the whole wall will come down.’
‘That’s why you put the guns there, isn’t it?’ Gormann asked, taking another slug from the cracked and leaking decanter. ‘See? There they are – happily blazing away.’ And they were. The sharp crack of the Nuln-forged war machines filled the air, as in reply to the enemy’s barrage. Round shot screamed into the packed ranks of skeletons, shattering many.
But even Gormann could see that it was like punching sand. Every hole torn in the battle-line of corpses was quickly and smoothly filled, as new bodies filled the breaches, stepping over the shattered remains of their fellows.
‘Kross is a fool,’ Leitdorf said, referring to the commander of the Rostmeyer bastion. ‘They need to concentrate on those catapults. Infantry, dead or otherwise, will break itself on the walls. But if those catapults bring it down…’ He turned and began shouting orders to his men. Gormann peered out at the battlefield. Gun smoke billowed across the walls and field beyond, obscuring everything save a vague suggestion of movement.
‘I think they figured it out,’ Gormann said. The smoke cleared for a moment, and the wizard saw one of the catapults explode into whirling fragments and flailing ropes as a cannonball struck it dead on. Men on the ramparts cheered. Leitdorf turned back, a fierce grin on his face.
‘Ha-ha! That’s the way!’ he shouted. ‘I knew Kross was the right man to command that bastion. Damn his pickled heart, I knew he wouldn’t fail me!’
Gormann said nothing. He finished the bottle. His skin itched and his eyes felt full of grit as he sensed a tendril of dark magic undulate across the field. He heard the cheers began to falter and didn’t have to look at the tree line to know that the shattered engine was repairing itself.
‘By Sigmar’s spurs,’ Leitdorf hissed.
‘All these years sitting on their doorstep and you didn’t expect that, Hans?’ Gormann asked dully. He examined the decanter for a moment, and then flung it heedlessly over his shoulder. He heard it smash on the cobblestones somewhere far below. ‘This battle won’t be as quick as all that.’
The cheering atop the battlements faded as the wind slackened and the fog of war descended on Heldenhame once more.
Wendel Volker staggered through the smoke, eyes stinging and his lungs burning. Flames crackled all around him. A shrieking fireball had crashed down onto the tavern, and it was ready to collapse at any moment. He resisted the urge to sprint for safety and continued to clamber through the wreckage, stumbling over bodies and searching for any signs of survivors. So far he’d found plenty of the former, but none of the latter.