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:
The roof groaned like a dying man, and he heard the crack of wood surrendering to intense heat. Fear spurted through him, seizing his heart and freezing his limbs, but only for a moment. Then his training kicked in, and he whispered a silent prayer of thanks to the man who’d taught him swordplay. He knew the fear was good, and it had sobered him up. He had a feeling he was going to need to be sober. He could hear the bells of the keep, and the roar of the cannons on the western wall, punctuated by the harsh rhythm of handguns firing at an unknown enemy.
Kross would be up there, he knew, unless he was still sleeping off his drink from the night before. A brief, blissful image of Kross, asleep in his bunk as a fireball landed atop his quarters, passed across the surface of Volker’s mind. His joy was short lived. A burning mass of thatch tumbled down, nearly striking him. Ash and sparks danced across his face and clothes, and he swatted at himself wildly. He heard someone scream, and a flurry of curses. He wasn’t the only one in the tavern. He’d led as many as would volunteer into the burning building.
That they’d been close to hand was less luck and more circumstance – Volker and the men he’d led into the inferno had only just left the tavern, after all. He’d wasted an entire night swilling cheap beer rather than dealing with the stacks of make-work that the seneschal of Heldenhame, Rudolph Weskar, insisted his underlings produce. Those who could read and write, at any rate. Since Kross could do neither, his records and logs were handed over to Volker, who suspected that Weskar was still attempting to stir the pot. The seneschal had made his disdain for both men clear in the months since their last confrontation, and Volker had done all that he could to avoid Weskar and Kross, as well as Kross’s lackeys, like Deinroth.
Volker saw a bloody hand suddenly extend from beneath a fallen roof beam and flail weakly. He shouted, ‘Here!’ He coughed into a damp rag and shouted again. Uniformed men swarmed forwards through the smoke and Volker helped them shift the roof beam. He recognised the barmaid from his previous night’s carousing and scooped her up. Ash and sparks washed down over him as he grabbed her, and he heard the groan of wood giving way. ‘Everyone out,’ he screamed. The barmaid cradled to his chest, he loped for the street. Men bumped into him as they fled, and for a moment, he was afraid that he would be buried and immolated as the tavern roof finally gave way and the building collapsed in on itself.
Volker hit the open air in a plume of smoke. His skin was burning and he couldn’t see. Someone took the girl from him and he sank down, coughing. A bucket of water was upended over him and he gasped. ‘Get his cloak off, it’s caught fire,’ a rough voice barked. ‘Someone get me another bucket. Wendel – can you hear me?’
‘M-Maria,’ Volker wheezed. ‘Is she…?’ More water splashed down on him. He scraped his fingers across his eyes and looked up into the grim features of Father Odkrier.
‘Alive, lad, thanks to you.’ Odkrier hauled him to his feet. ‘Can you stand? Good,’ he said roughly, without waiting for a reply.
‘We’re under attack, aren’t we?’ Volker asked. The streets were packed with people. Some were trying to put out the spreading fires, but others were fleeing in the direction of the eastern gate. Volker didn’t blame them.
‘Sylvania has disgorged its wormy black guts and the restless dead have come to call,’ Odkrier said. Volker saw that he held his long-hafted warhammer in one hand.
Volker shuddered and looked west. The boom of the cannons continued, and he saw men in Talabecland uniforms hurrying towards the Rostmeyer bastion. He swallowed thickly, and wished that he’d managed to save a bottle of something before the tavern had gone up in flames. ‘Kross isn’t going to be happy.’
‘No one will be happy if our visitors get in, captain,’ a harsh voice said. Rudolph Weskar glared about him, as if he could cow the burgeoning inferno by sheer will. Then, Volker wouldn’t have been entirely surprised if it had worked. ‘Especially you, captain. Why aren’t you at your post?’ He raised his cane like a sword and tapped Volker on the shoulder. Excuses flooded Volker’s mind, but each one died before reaching his lips. Weskar frowned. ‘Never mind. Go to the eastern walls and bring as many men as you can. We’ll need them if the western wall comes down.’ Weskar’s hard eyes found Odkrier. ‘The men at Rostmeyer bastion are in need of guidance, father.’
‘I’ll wager they could use my hammer as well,’ Odkrier growled. He slapped Volker on the shoulder. ‘Take care, lad. And don’t dawdle.’ Then the warrior priest turned and hurried off.
Volker watched him go, and wondered if he would ever see the other man again. He looked at Weskar and asked, ‘How bad is it, sir?’
Weskar looked at him, his eyes like agates. ‘Get me those men, Volker. Or you’ll find out.’
Hans Leitdorf cursed for the fourth time in as many minutes as a merchant’s cart was crushed beneath the thundering hooves of his warhorse. The man screamed curses from the safety of a doorway as the column of heavily armoured knights thundered past. Leitdorf longed to give him a thump for his impertinence, but there was no time. Instead, he roared out imprecations at the running forms that blocked the path ahead. ‘Blow the trumpets!’ he snarled over his shoulder to the knight riding just behind him.
The knight did as he bade. Whether the blast of noise helped or hindered their efforts, Leitdorf couldn’t actually say. He felt better for it, though. No one could say that the knights hadn’t given fair warning. Anyone who got trampled had only themselves to blame.
Still, it was taking too long to reach the southern gate. When the messengers from the Rostmeyer bastion had reached him, Leitdorf had already been climbing into the saddle. A sally from the southern gate was the most sensible plan – it would enable the knights to smash into the flanks of the undead unimpeded. If they ever got there. A night soil cart was the next casualty of the horses, and Leitdorf cursed as bits of dung spattered across his polished breastplate.
He’d brought nearly the entire order with him. Those who remained he’d left to watch over Heldenhame Keep, or were abroad on the order’s business elsewhere. He felt no reluctance in bringing every man who could ride with him. He’d left the defences of the city and the keep itself in Weskar’s capable hands. Even if the enemy got into the city, the keep would hold. The walls were thick, and the artillery towers manned. No barbaric horde or tomb-legion had ever cracked those defences, and this time would be no different.
Fireballs shrieked overhead, striking buildings. Bits of burning wood, thatch and brick rained down on the column as they galloped through streets packed with panicked people. Men and women were scrambling for safety like rats, and the roads were becoming progressively more impassable. The rattle of handguns echoed through the air. The dead had drawn within range then, which meant they were close enough to scale the wall.
The enemy had no siege towers and no ladders for escalade, but Leitdorf had fought the undead often enough to know that they had little need of such. If there was a way in, they would find it. ‘Damn Gelt and his gilded tongue,’ he spat out loud.
‘You’re not the first to say that,’ Gormann said. Leitdorf looked at the Patriarch of the Bright College. The wizard rode hard at his side, clad in thick robes covered in stylised flames. He wore no hood, so his white-streaked red hair and beard surrounded his seamed face like the corona of the sun. He carried his staff of office, and he had a wide-bladed sword sheathed on his hip.