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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Elize cleared her throat. ‘A force of men and elves approaches from the east,’ she said. ‘They crossed through the wall of bone a few hours ago, and are marching towards Templehof.’
‘Our old friend Leitdorf and the hounds of Ulthuan, come to punish me for my many transgressions against their respective empires,’ Mannfred said. He clasped his hands behind his back and examined the tree, watching the blossoms flutter in the cold breeze that coursed through the garden. He had known that the war in the north would only occupy the men of the Empire for so long. And after Nagashizzar, he had expected another rescue attempt on behalf of the Everchild from the High Elves. But given the way their island nation was currently beset by daemons and dark kin alike, he was surprised that they had sent the forces they had.
‘There are beastmen in the Hunger Wood,’ Elize went on. ‘The herd is undisciplined, but it’s enormous – it eclipses all of the other invaders combined. It’s as if something – or someone – has browbeaten every filthy pack of the brutes within several leagues into joining together.’
‘Yes, and I’ll bet Arkhan knows who,’ Mannfred said. He rubbed his palms over his skull, considering. The identity of Arkhan’s be-winged nemesis was obvious in retrospect. He had long heard the stories of the enigmatic creature known as the Dark Omen; the beast was a lightning rod of sorts for its primitive kin, drawing them together to do the will of the Chaos gods. In this case, their desire was plain. Arkhan was right – the Dark Gods were intent on stopping Nagash’s resurrection. He lowered his hands. ‘Still, it’s of little matter who’s behind it. They’re here and we must see them off. Who else comes uninvited to my bower?’
‘More elves, from the south-west,’ Elize said.
Mannfred’s eyes narrowed. ‘Athel Loren,’ he murmured. ‘Arkhan was nearly taken by them, as he crossed the Grey Mountains. Krell moved to lead them away, costing us his strength in this, our hour of need.’
‘We do not need a mere wight to defend our ancestral lands, cousin,’ Elize hissed.
‘Krell is no more a mere wight than I am a mere vampire,’ Mannfred said, scratching his chin. ‘He is a weapon of Nagash, as Arkhan is. One of his oldest and best. How large is their host?’
‘Infinitesimal,’ Elize said dismissively. ‘It is barely a raiding party.’
‘Nonetheless, we must take care. Elves are always dangerous, no matter how few they are,’ Mannfred said. He raised his fingers and ticked them off one by one as he spoke. ‘Men, elves, beasts, yet more elves and… Who am I forgetting?’
‘Dwarfs,’ Elize said. ‘A throng, I think it’s called. Coming from Karak Kadrin.’
Mannfred closed his eyes and hissed in consternation. The dwarfs were the only invaders who truly worried him. The warriors of Athel Loren were too few, the beasts too undisciplined, but the dwarfs were neither. For a century he had stepped lightly around Ungrim Ironfist, and taken care not to antagonise either him or his folk. Now, it seemed as if all of that was for naught. ‘The Slayer King is at our gate,’ he murmured. ‘Tch, where is he stumping, then?’
‘Templehof,’ Elize said tersely. ‘I think that they are attempting to join forces with Leitdorf and the Ulthuani.’
‘That… would be unfortunate,’ Mannfred said. He stared at the tree, thinking. None of this was surprising, though the timing was problematic. Still, he had prepared for this from the beginning. Everything had led up to this point. He had known the moment that he had kidnapped the Everchild, the moment he had seceded Sylvania from the shambolic Empire, that he would eventually face an invasion from one quarter or another. Now, at last, on the eve of his certain triumph, his enemies were making their final stab at stopping him.
He took it as a compliment, of sorts. All great men could be judged by the quality of their enemies, and after all, wasn’t it the sad duty of every new empire to eradicate those older, stagnant empires that occupied its rightful place before it could take the stage?
He plucked another blossom from the tree. ‘When I was but a headstrong youth, with more bloodlust than sense, a warrior came to my city. He was a terror such as no longer walks this world, thankfully. We called him “the dragon”. He taught me much about war, and the waging of it, and despite our… falling out some years later, I am grateful to him.’ He smiled slightly. ‘His folk often waged wars on multiple fronts, so fractious was their land. Division and conquest, he said, were as good as the same thing. When your enemies converge, you take them apart one… by… one.’ As he spoke, he began to shuck the petals from the blossom. ‘Men are like water. They can be redirected, contained and drained away with the proper application of tactics and strategy.’ He held what was left of the blossom out to her.
She stared at it for a moment, and then looked at him. ‘You have a strategy, cousin?’
‘Oh many more than are entirely necessary for the conflict to come, I assure you.’ He dropped the denuded blossom. ‘Our task is simplified by our goal – we are buying time for the inevitable.’ He pointed at Elize. ‘We must peel them away, one by one. And here is how we shall do it…’
Hans Leitdorf stared morosely over his shoulder at the distant and now crumbling edifice of bone and sorcery that had, until a few hours ago, barred his path into Sylvania. It had begun to collapse, even as had the walls of Heldenhame so many months ago, but it had still required sorcery to clear a path for his army. Luckily, his new allies had provided a certain amount of aid in that regard.
He surreptitiously examined the silvery figures as they studied the territory ahead from a nearby rocky knoll. Three of them – two in the ornate and delicate-looking armour characteristic of Ulthuani nobility, and the third in flowing robes of blue. All three carried themselves with the haughty surety of their folk, an arrogant confidence that no human could hope to match.
That it had come to this was a sign of the times, in Leitdorf’s opinion. Dark times made for strange allies, as Thyrus was wont to say. Thinking of Gormann brought back memories of those terrible, final days at Heldenhame, after the undead assault had melted away.
He remembered finding Weskar’s head, mounted on the butt of a spear that had been stabbed point first into the centre of the castle courtyard. He remembered the blood that slopped thickly down from the battlements, and the gory remains of the castle’s defenders, heaped carelessly where they had fallen. He and Gormann had personally cleansed the bestial filth from the upper barracks and towers, burning and killing those shrieking vargheists that had not fled with Mannfred.
During the cleansing of the castle, they’d discovered that the vaults of Heldenhame had been torn asunder and scoured by sorcery. Ancient treasures, gathered from Araby in the time of the Crusades, had been melted to glittering slag as a sign of Mannfred von Carstein’s disdain. There was no way to tell if anything had been taken, though Gormann had had his suspicions. Leitdorf had found them hard to credit at the time, but as the year wore on, and he had seen the current state of the Empire for himself, he had begun to believe.
Worse even than the desecration of his order’s citadel had been what happened afterwards – as he had readied his surviving forces to pursue von Carstein back into his stinking lair to accomplish what the Grand Theogonist, Sigmar bless and keep his soul, could not, a massive herd of foul beastmen had blundered through the line of trees only just recently vacated by the undead. The children of Chaos had thrown themselves at the newly breached western wall with no thought for the consequences.