CHAPTER TWO

The only way Konrad knew of to return to the underground cave where he had seen Elyssa and Skullface was to retrace his previous route. Even if he could find his way back down into the cavern, they would probably be long gone, but he must make the attempt.

That meant going back into the army headquarters, then down through the military prison. He expected that the barracks would be in a state of confusion; perhaps the beastmen he had heard charging to attack through the tunnel had even tried to break out into the capital.

When he reached the entrance, he stood watching from the shadows. Everything appeared as quiet as it had been when he originally arrived. Two infantrymen were guarding the open gates, but they were leaning against the wall and talking quietly to each other. It seemed no one realized the full significance of what had happened.

Two prisoners had escaped, and the officer who had discovered the jailbreak had gone in search of them after ordering that all the exits from the city should be checked. But the officer was dead, and his death might not yet be known. It might still be thought that he was in pursuit of the fugitives, following them through the labyrinthine levels deep below Altdorf. Or if his corpse had been discovered, and there was no sign of any beast creatures, it would be believed that he had been slain by Litzenreich and Ustnar.

If it were known that the officer was the victim of the skaven, that there was a horde of Chaos marauders so very close, then the barracks would have been on full alert and every force in Altdorf would be preparing to join the expedition against the insidious invaders.

The infiltration was still secret and silent. It seemed that Konrad was the only one who knew. Maybe that was for the best, and he stood a better chance of finding Elyssa if he were alone. An army of extermination would inevitably give too much advance warning of its arrival, and the girl’s captor would have time to escape with his hostage.

Konrad had to make his way under the city via the military dungeon; the base would also provide him with the weapons and armour which he needed. He had encountered no difficulty entering the barracks earlier, clad in his Imperial guard uniform and wearing the purple plume of an officer. Now, however, he was dressed in the unimpressive garb of a civilian.

He pulled off the cap and stuffed it into his pocket. His hair was so short that it was dry by now, and its cropped style was in keeping with the ascetic look adopted by the officer class of the Altdorf regiments. Konrad had made his way stealthily towards the militia headquarters. Now he backed further away until he was out of sight of the entrance, straightened himself then marched towards the gates, bringing his heels down as hard as he could.

“Ten-” he ordered, “-shun!”

The two sentries sprang to attention in immediate obedience to the order, just as Konrad came in view.

“Eyes front!” he commanded, emerging from the shadows.

They gazed past him, their halberds held out at the precise angle by their rigid arms. Konrad marched between them, through the entrance and across the courtyard, making for the brick guardhouse.

Another sentry stood on guard at the entrance, watching warily as Konrad strode confidently towards him.

“Who goes there?” he demanded, his hand on his sword hilt.

“‘Sir’!” snapped Konrad. “Call me ‘sir’, or I’ll have you on a charge for impertinence.”

“Sir!” echoed the guard, clicking his heels together. He glanced back towards the guardhouse.

It was the same man who had been on duty when Konrad first arrived. He did not want him to call for assistance from the officer of the watch.

“At ease,” said Konrad, his voice more casual. “Your commanding officer is expecting me.” He kept walking and drew level with the sentry, who turned as he began to go past.

“I know you!” said the guard.

He was very observant, recognizing Konrad in the dim light even though he was wearing completely different clothes, and despite the fact that his face had been partly covered by his helmet the first time.

His sword was half out of its scabbard, but Konrad already held the sailor’s dagger in his hand. The guard’s torso was protected by his armour and chainmail. Konrad’s arm thrust forwards and up, stabbing the soldier in the throat.

There was no time not to kill him. He died because he was alert, because he was good at his appointed duty—and because he was not fast enough.

Konrad clasped his hand over the sentry’s mouth to silence his fatal scream, supporting his body as it dropped towards the ground, then taking his sword from his death grip. A blade in either hand, he hurried towards the entrance.

“Gunther? What’s going on?”

Konrad could see an armoured figure within the building, moving towards the doorway, and then another. He knew he could probably dispose of them both before they realized what was happening, but how many more soldiers were inside? He had wanted to sneak in silently, to make his way unseen through the military quarters and down to the tunnels below. Even if he were able to fight his way through against so many troops, he would become the hunted instead of the hunter. This was already a lost cause; it was time to withdraw.

He slashed with the sword, severing the rope which held the oil lamp over the entrance. As the lantern dropped, he kicked out, smashing it and sending the pieces flying into the guardhouse. Burning oil splashed the ground and the walls, and in seconds the single flame had grown into a raging blaze.

Konrad turned and sprinted towards the main gates. The two sentries had begun to look around.

“Fire!” yelled Konrad, dashing towards them. “Fire!”

The sentries started to run towards the blaze. Then one stopped and called to the other, who also hesitated.

“Stay at your posts!” Konrad shouted. “I’ll sound the alarm!”

But before they could return to their positions, before they could decide what to do and before they could block his exit, Konrad was past them and out into the square beyond the gates. He did not stop running until he was several streets away when he leaned against the wall of a bakery and glanced back. There was no sign of pursuit, but he could see a cloud of thick black smoke rising slowly into the dark sky.

He wondered what to do.

He had to stay in Altdorf, because this was where Elyssa was. The only place he knew in the capital was the Imperial Palace. He would have to return and resume his role as a member of the Emperor’s elite troops, pretending that the events of the past few hours had never occurred.

Konrad began making his way back to the Imperial guard barracks, taking the longer way around, and headed across Karl-Franz Bridge to reach the southern part of the city. He was still clutching the sentry’s sword in his hand. It was possession of another dead soldier’s sword which had led to him into this predicament, he realized.

When he had taken part in the assault on the skaven stronghold deep below Middenheim, he had fought with the blade which had belonged to one of the fortress city’s troopers—which he had taken from a soldier he had killed. Gaxar and Silver Eye had escaped from their subterranean lair, and with them had been a human prisoner. That captive, Litzenreich had claimed, was the exact double of the Emperor himself!

Konrad knew that Gaxar could construct unliving creatures in the image of other humans, because he had fought a duel with his own mirror image, a doppelganger created by the grey seer. If Gaxar had fabricated a replica of Karl-Franz, it could only be for one reason: in order to replace him upon the throne of the Empire…

In that case, said Litzenreich, Gaxar must have headed for Altdorf via the skaven underworld, the maze of passages which linked all of mankind’s towns and cities which had been infested by the ratbeings. That, then, was the direction which Konrad wanted to take. But it was not Gaxar for whom he was searching, it was his bodyguard. Silver Eye had carried a shield which bore the same crest that had been on the bow, the quiver and the arrows which Elyssa had given him a decade earlier. Konrad was convinced that the enigmatic gold emblem, the mailed fist between two crossed arrows, was of untold significance. If he could discover something about the military accoutrements, perhaps even find out the identity of their previous owner, he was sure it would help him in the quest for his own mysterious origins.

Because of what had happened in Middenheim, Litzenreich could no longer remain in the City of the White Wolf. He said he would also travel to Altdorf, where he could continue his researches into the use of warpstone. And so Konrad, Litzenreich and Ustnar, the only survivor of the dwarfs who served the wizard, arrived in Altdorf on board the same stagecoach—whereupon the dwarf and the sorcerer were immediately placed under arrest for breach of Imperial law.

Use of warpstone was illegal, unless in the service of the Empire. The penalty was death, and a message had been sent from Middenheim warning that two such desperate criminals were on the loose.

There was no warrant for Konrad’s arrest, because no one knew that he had been with Litzenreich, or no one who had survived the battle in Gaxar’s warpstone refinery. But Sergeant Taungar of the Imperial guard noticed that Konrad was carrying a sword with a wolfs head emblem, which meant that the blade belonged to a Middenheim regiment.

Taungar recognized Konrad from the time when they had both fought in Kislev, at the Siege of Praag. He knew what an expert warrior Konrad was, and he wanted to recruit him as an instructor in the Imperial guard. If Konrad joined up, he said, then the matter of the Middenheim sword could be easily dealt with.

That suited Konrad perfectly. He needed to be in Altdorf, but he did not plan on being in the Imperial guard for very long.

Now, it seemed, he would have to remain a member of the Emperor’s personal army a while longer.

The sentry’s sword was a functional blade, a little too heavy and not very well balanced. It was no replacement for the one he had used beneath Middenheim, nor for the Imperial guard sword which had snapped when he levered the final nail which had pinned Ustnar to the ground.

The bridge was deserted, and Konrad leaned over the parapet and dropped the sentry’s blade down into the murky waters of the River Reik. He hated to be without a weapon, but he had no need of the sailor’s knife, and it followed the sword into the depths. He pulled the hat from the coat pocket and put it on. It might serve to mask his identity if he were spotted.

As he tugged the woollen cap down almost to his eyes, he noticed blood on his right hand and arm. It was that of the sentry. He removed the coat and wiped his skin as best he could with the sleeve, spitting on the back of his hand to wash away the blood which had already dried, then threw the garment over the side of the bridge. The loose boots made too much noise, and they also ended up in the river.

The cobbles felt like ice, and his breath condensed in front of him as he resumed his journey towards the palace. The huge building was a black shadow against the darkness of the sky, the towering silhouette of its pinnacle outlined by the surrounding stars.

Entering the barracks where he served would be far more difficult than gaining admission to army headquarters had been. He could easily have gone inside if he did not mind being observed, but then he would have to invent a story explaining what had happened to his uniform. When he left a few hours ago, he had no intention of returning; but now it had to appear as though he had never been away. Because he had not had permission to be beyond the palace walls, there was no reason for anyone to believe that he had gone. The sentries had seen him leave, however, not suspecting that he was not allowed out. There was no reason why they should mention it, and with luck they would not be questioned.

Barefoot, Konrad felt almost as though he had reverted to the role he had lived before Elyssa entered his life and changed his whole existence. Becoming a shadow amongst shadows still came naturally, moving about silently and invisibly so that whatever he did went undetected by the innkeeper who had been his master. To this, he had added the skills he had learned working for Wolf for five years, all the tricks of subterfuge and camouflage needed for survival in Kislev, on the frontier between the human and inhuman.

Often Konrad had infiltrated enemy positions, and although these enemies had been subhuman their senses were frequently more than human. They may have been called beastmen, which meant they had none of the nobler attributes of men, but they possessed the awareness of beasts. They could see more clearly in the dark, they could hear the almost inaudible, they could detect the faintest scent of a human adversary. The only way to mask the odour of a human was to overlay it with another smell, and more than once Konrad had hidden his humanity beneath the olfactory disguise of bestial blood.

Tonight, he would not be up against anyone or anything with such an array of keen senses. The palace guards were only human, and they were his own comrades. But that would make no difference if he should make a slight error and be seen. The only challenge made to any intruder was a crossbow bolt.

One of the first things he had done when he found himself within the walls of the fort was to check all the defences, in case it became necessary to leave in a hurry. He knew all the sentry posts, all the turrets, all the observation points. The times of the patrols were frequently altered, and the changing of the guards took place at irregular intervals. He had left the palace by his own unofficial exits on a few occasions while exploring Altdorf. That was somewhat different, because the sentries were watching for intruders trying to enter, not for anyone attempting to leave.

Nothing must happen tonight to disturb the regular pattern of security within the citadel walls, nothing which would make anyone suspicious. He could create no diversions, the night’s routine must remain exactly that—routine.

He kept the main entrance under observation for a time, watching while a liveried coach drew up for inspection. There was very little traffic at present, because the Emperor was away on an Imperial visit to Talabheim. Under normal circumstances, Konrad had learned, there would be conveyances entering and leaving until the early hours of the morning, with ambassadors and courtiers and aristocrats and merchants and servants and functionaries going about their duties and their pleasures.

The sentries spoke to both the driver and postilion, opened each of the carriage doors, saluted, and checked the occupants. One of them examined the underside of the coach before it was allowed access to the courtyard, and Konrad deleted this as a possible means of admittance.

But there were more ways of entering the inner fortress than through the entrances.

It was all a matter of climbing and leaping, of timing and creeping. And so Konrad climbed, scaling the outside of the palace wall midway between two observation towers, where the angle of vision gave him the best chance of being unobserved. He went up slowly, feeling for every fingerhold, every toegrip. Then the slowness turned to swiftness as he sprang across the parapet and jumped onto the roof of the stables below. That was where he had to wait, lying prone across the slates until the guards had patrolled from one end of the battlements to the next. After that came the slow squirming over the other roofs, up and down the gables, around the chimneys, then finally down and through the embrasure into the banack room where he was billeted.

Although of an equal rank to the other recruits, Konrad had been granted an alcove to himself because of his role as a combat instructor and in deference to his military experience. He had made it back unobserved, but still he could not rest. He had lost his sword, his helmet, his armour, his uniform, and now he went about making good those losses.

* * *

“In all my years in the Imperial guard, I have never seen a parade like this!”

Taungar strode up and down, staring in disbelief at the enlisted men lined up for morning inspection in the palace courtyard.

“I’ve had men lose their helmets; I’ve had men lose their tunics; I’ve had men lose their leggings; I’ve had men lose their spurs. At one time or another, I’ve had men lose just about everything. Swords, lances, daggers, gauntlets, boots, breastplates, shields, horses. But never, never have I had so many men lose so much at one time! The equivalent of a complete uniform is missing. Did it simply walk away? Is this Jape Day? No, it is not. And even if it was, the Imperial guard is no place for practical jokes. I am not laughing. And no one who has lost so much as a single thread of braid will be laughing for a month! You will all be confined to barracks, work extra duties, and lose a month’s pay—you’re good at losing things—in addition to making good the cost of those items which you have misplaced. How can you be expected to protect the Emperor when you can’t even look after the Emperor’s uniforms which he so graciously permits you to wear? You useless bunch of incompetent idiots! Why any of you were ever allowed to enlist in the guard, I have no idea. You aren’t even clever enough to join the army. You aren’t even clever enough to join the watch!”

Clad in his new uniform, Konrad stared impassively ahead as Taungar strode past him, berating over half of the men under his command. There had been no opportunity to reach the quartermaster’s stores and replace his missing garments and equipment from there. Instead, he had had to requisition what was required from the other troops in the barrack room: a pair of boots from one, a belt from another, and so on until he had a complete outfit. It had taken a long time to make sure that everything fitted properly. If they had been more alert, Konrad would not have succeeded and they would not have been punished. Military justice was arbitrary and harsh; it should be expected by anyone who had enlisted. Maybe they would learn a useful lesson: they should never feel safe, no matter where they might be, and they should never trust anyone.

They all stood in formation, at attention without breastplate or breeches or whatever item they had lost. There had been much confusion in the barracks when they began to dress in the darkness before dawn. Those who were first to notice their losses tried to find replacements from their comrades who were not so swift, and a number of fights had broken out. Searches had taken place, but nothing had been found. There was nothing to be found, Konrad was wearing it all.

“The army set fire to their own guardroom last night,” Taungar continued. “If it had been you lot, I suppose you would have burned down the whole palace! Two of their prisoners escaped, and they have a sentry dead, an officer missing.”

Taungar halted in front of Konrad. “They claim that a member of the Imperial guard was responsible for all of that.” Konrad’s helmet could not hide all the fresh bites and scratches on his face. The sergeant looked directly at Konrad as he added: “But of course they are lying to cover up their own incompetence.”

The dead officer had not been found, and there was no word about skaven or any other of the hell-spawned bestiary which infested the netherworld beneath Altdorf. Even the capital of the Empire was not safe from such benighted creatures. Or perhaps it was because it was the capital that Altdorf had become a centre of Chaos activity.

This had been Sigmar’s capital after he had united the eight warring human tribes two and a half thousand years ago, although its original name had been Reikdorf. It was still the heart of the Empire, and the fastest way to destroy most beings was to strike at the heart—and that meant striking at the Emperor himself, at Karl-Franz of the house of the Second Wilhelm.

There could be no immediate threat, not with the Emperor away from the capital. If it had been Gaxar’s plan to replace Karl-Franz with a necromantic duplicate, such a scheme would probably have to be abandoned now that the grey seer was dead. Gaxar must have been the only one who could control his creation, and with him gone surely the doppelganger had lost its own semblance of vitality.

Litzenreich would have known if this were the case. At one time, the wizard had claimed that he intended to defeat Gaxar’s scheme to usurp the throne by use of a resurrected impostor. The sorcerer and the grey seer were old enemies.

The sentry Konrad had killed was the only trooper who could have identified him. The guards at the gate, and the one who had accompanied him and the officer down into the dungeon had not had the time or opportunity to get a proper look at him. In any case, it seemed that the Imperial guard gave no credence to the army’s claims. There was little love lost between the two military forces.

But from the way he had looked at him, Taungar seemed to suspect that Konrad had something to do with the events of the previous night…

“Those of you who are fully dressed,” announced Taungar, as he began walking up and down once more, “one step forward!”

Konrad and seven others obeyed.

“You, you, you, follow me, at the double!”

Konrad and two others followed the sergeant, and they found themselves becoming part of the escort which climbed two hundred feet to the penultimate level of the palace, the final rampart where the Imperial ensigns were unfurled every dawn, high above the city, above the Empire. One of the flagpoles had always remained empty in the days that Konrad had served here. This was the gilded staff where the Emperor’s personal flag was raised whenever he was in residence.

From this vantage point, second only in height to the observation turret in the tower, the city lay spread out below. Konrad could see the army barracks, although there was no longer any sign of the fire. He could make out the Reik, and the gate in the white city walls by which he had re-entered Altdorf. He gazed beyond the red tiled roofs of the walls, and he wondered for a moment how far Litzenreich and Ustnar had managed to get in the hours since their escape.

He felt that he could almost have leaned down and picked up some of the buildings below, raising them like toys, and that underneath he would be able to see where Skullface had hidden Elyssa.

When the ceremony ended, and the last notes of the herald’s bugle still echoed from the nearby dome of the Cathedral of Sigmar, the captain of the guard led his troopers back down the narrow spiral staircase towards the lower levels.

Taungar and Konrad were the last to begin the long descent, and the sergeant said: “I will be at the Wayfarers Rest tonight.”