CHAPTER SIX

“KHORNE!”

The point of the blade slashed across Konrad’s chest, leaving a line of blood.

As the loathed name of their revered god’s hated rival echoed through the room, it shocked the fevered chorus of acolytes into sudden silence and Konrad felt his human bonds briefly slacken—and he burst free.

He drove his left elbow into Taungar’s face, feeling the sergeant’s nose crumple under the blow. Taungar cried out in agony and stepped back over the edge of the dais and dropped into the crowd beneath him.

Holwald maintained his grip upon his prisoner’s right arm slightly longer, until Konrad swung around and smashed his fist into his throat, crushing it with a single powerful blow. With such a terrible injury, Holwald could not even whisper his pain. Konrad thrust the heel of his hand up against the captain’s chin, jerking it swiftly back. There was a sharp sickening snap as Holwald’s neck broke, and he was dead before he hit the ground.

The man who had held Krysten’s chain now rushed towards her, his face contorted with hatred, his fingers held out like claws. The girl had not moved since slicing at Konrad, but now she turned. She dodged aside as the man lunged at her, then drove the dagger into his belly. He grunted in surprise and pain, and toppled to the ground, taking the blade with him.

Krysten had dispatched the cultist exactly as Konrad had taught her to deal with an assailant. He glanced at the girl, but did not recognize her expression. Her features had become malevolent, devoid of all innocence. Free from Zuntermein’s spell, she was in thrall to a far more dominant power.

Although blood was pouring from his chest, Konrad felt no pain. He had suffered many wounds which were far worse. If she had meant to kill him, Krysten could have done so with a swift and accurate strike deep into his heart. That was something else he had taught her.

But it was not Konrad’s death that she wanted—it was his blood…

“Khorne!” she shouted once again, raising her arms as she prayed to the god of blood.

Konrad saw a movement above him, and he looked up. The effigy of Slaanesh seemed to shimmer, its outlines melting, its features dissolving into a different image, and Konrad could see another vast idol in its place upon the dais. It wore brass armour, sat upon a throne mounted over the bones of its victims, carried a mighty waraxe and a shield which bore an X-shaped emblem.

He remembered the last time he had stood before such a shrine, when he had been with the beast-girl called Silk, and how she had carved that same runic cross into the chest of one of Kastring’s captives…

He touched his own chest, feeling the wet warmth which flowed from the wound, and it was as if this were Konrad’s own offering to the lord of death and of pain.

Time seemed frozen, stretching to eternity. Krysten gazed at Konrad, and their eyes finally met. The girl’s pupils seemed to glow red. And through them Khorne himself appeared to be offering Konrad the opportunity of swearing blood allegiance—that the only way of escaping the Slaaneshi cultists was for Konrad to join their most hated enemy.

His pulse raced, his heart pounded, and more blood oozed from his wound.

Krysten had become one of Khorne’s acolytes. All of Konrad’s desires were reawakened as he remembered the passions they had shared.

He wanted to be with her again, no matter what the price; and he wanted to flee the Slaaneshi temple, whatever the price. _ Yet a part of him held back, aware of how high that price would be. It would cost him far more than his own life, he realized.

Krysten smiled, beckoning to him.

Then she screamed.

But this was no scream of devotion as she called upon the foul deity that she worshipped. It was a scream of ultimate pain. Her whole body shook in an agonized spasm, and she dropped to the ground, still twitching.

It was Zuntermein’s doing. Only a second or two had passed, and now the magician had turned his thaumaturgical talents upon the girl.

Khorne was banished, the altar to Slaanesh was back in view again, and in a moment Zuntermein would direct a spell against Konrad. Against such magical attacks he had no defence.

Already Konrad had acted. He had no weapon, but did not wish to touch the wizard with his bare hands for fear of what spell could flow from flesh to flesh. He sprang up to the effigy of Slaanesh, up towards the jade sceptre which the figure clutched in its left hand. The wand was an elaborately carved green staff, the deity’s emblem wrought into its upper end. Konrad pulled it free and he leapt down at Zuntermein, who had raised his arms to cast another spell.

Before the wizard could utter a single syllable of his fiendish chant, Konrad rammed the lower end of the sceptre into his mouth, silencing him, then drove it down into his throat, choking him.

Konrad forced the jade sceptre even deeper—and discovered that it was as easy to slay a sorcerer as it was to kill anyone else. They were mortal, they could die.

And Zuntermein died.

The sudden unwelcome sound of the enemy deity’s name had both silenced and stilled the congregation of the damned, but by now they had all regained their voices and their volition. The heathens were swarming up to the dais, screaming out their demented blood lust. Konrad rolled Zuntermein’s corpse towards the steps, knocking the first few of the horde back.

He drew the knife from the belly of Krysten’s victim and dashed forward, striking out at the first two men who made it to the top of the steps. One fell back, his throat sliced open, fountains of red spraying from his severed blood vessels. The second dragged the knife from Konrad’s grip, the blade embedded in his heart as he dropped.

Even though none of his opponents was armed, Konrad realized that there were too many of them to fight. Such odds had seldom stopped him before, but there was more on his mind than combat: he had to get Krysten away from here.

He glanced up at the chandelier above his head, at all the candles, at all the red flames, and he noticed the velvet curtains which covered the walls of the secret temple.

Turning back to the altar, once more Konrad leapt at the giant effigy. But this time he kept a grip on the figure of Slaanesh, hauling himself up, using the image’s limbs as his stepping stones, climbing to the deity’s horned head, then reaching out towards the elaborate lamp. It was a yard beyond his reach, and he launched himself through the air, grabbing hold of the lower edge—but the supporting chain was torn out of the ceiling by his weight and the whole thing fell. So did Konrad. He dropped onto the acolytes below, dragging the heavy chandelier down on those around him. More blood was spilled where the crystal shards struck.

Most of the candles had been extinguished by the fall, but a few were still alight. Konrad kicked and punched himself free, and pulled two of the guttering candles from the sconces. Holding them upright, he hurried to one side of the room, touching the flames to the drapes. The fabric immediately caught fire, erupting vividly in a matter of moments.

Ripping off a piece of velvet from another curtain, Konrad wadded it into a ball and ignited it from the blaze. The fabric unravelled as it flew across the room, like a barrel of burning pitch hurled from a ballista, and the draperies on the far side also began to blaze.

The screams of venomous hatred quickly turned to cries of desperate fear, and instead of trying to attack Konrad the cultists were now attempting to escape the incendiary assault. But some did not move aside swiftly enough, and Konrad used his bare hands as his weapons. Men or women, it made no difference, all became Konrad’s victims as he forced his way back to the dais and to Krysten’s side.

She lay on her back, her eyes open and unblinking. Zuntermein’s unseen assault had left no sign of injury, and she was still alive.

“Konrad,” she breathed, as he knelt next to her. “I thought you were dead…”

“Not me,” he told her, sliding one arm under her knees and the other beneath her back. “And not you,” he promised.

Krysten gasped in pain as Konrad picked her up. He carried her past the shrine, down the steps, through the swirling smoke and towards the flames. By now, it was not only the velvet curtains which were blazing; everything was becoming engulfed by the inferno. There was absolute mayhem within the temple. A crazed cultist rushed past, his hair turned to fire. Others were frenziedly tearing at their robes which were ablaze, their flesh blistering in the raging heat.

The door to the passage beyond was visible now that the curtains masking it had burned away, and a number of acolytes were gathered near the exit, but it seemed they could not make their way through to safety because of the intensity of the heat. They pushed forward, but then withdrew hastily towards the centre of the room, which was the only part not yet ablaze.

The conflagration had engulfed all the walls, and tongues of fire were licking hungrily across the floor and over the ceiling.

The temple was full of smoke and screams, the roar of vivid flames and the stench of burning flesh.

A few more seconds, and the conflagration would have destroyed everything.

Konrad carried Krysten through the fire, and the flames seemed to part for a moment wherever they passed. It was as if there were a route through the incandescence, a pathway which only he could sense and which was not part of the room, not part of Altdorf, perhaps not even part of the world…

He walked between the blackened bodies of his tortured enemies, towards the refuge offered by the only area of the room still untouched by fire. When he reached the door, he kicked it open and stepped through into the sanctuary of the corridor beyond.

The door slammed shut behind him. A moment before it did so, Konrad caught sight of the funeral pyre within and witnessed the hideous fate of those who were still alive and trapped by the immolation, the ravenous flames consuming their living flesh.

He realized that the door must have been drawn shut by the severity of the heat, as it sucked in even more air to feed the inferno, but he knew that it was more than merely the blaze which had imprisoned the doomed worshippers. Some sinister force had held them contained within the conflagration, unable to escape, yet it had permitted himself and Krysten to leave. Not even the hair on his arms had been singed, despite the ferocity of the flames.

Within the passageway, suddenly everything was still and silent; there was not even a smell of burning. It was as if the blaze were a thousand miles away. Supporting Krysten with one arm, Konrad reached out to touch the wall—and swiftly drew his hand away. The wooden panel was hot, very hot. It could not contain the raging fire beyond for much longer.

He made his way to the end of the hall, laying the girl upon the pile of clothes on the floor. She winced in pain. Her eyes had been closed, but now she opened them again and she smiled when she saw Konrad.

“I’m glad you aren’t dead,” she said softly.

“And I’m glad you aren’t,” he told her, and he kissed her forehead.

She raised her face and lifted her hands, pulling him down so that he kissed her lips—and he tasted warm blood. His arms were covered in blood where he had held her.

For a moment he thought it was his own blood, then he realized that it was hers. Earlier, Krysten’s eyes had seemed to be red, but now her entire body was suddenly that colour. It was as if she had been flayed alive.

“We have to go,” he said, releasing her and standing up.

He smiled so that she would not notice how concerned he was. He looked around for something to cover her with, and he found a green velvet cloak, then another. They were the kind worn by courtiers at the palace, but their wearers no longer had need of them. Konrad wrapped Krysten in the cloaks.

She opened her lips for another kiss, and he responded. This time there was even more blood.

“Why did you leave me?” Krysten asked, and then she died.

Konrad gazed in disbelief at her corpse. He pulled a loose strand of blonde hair away from Krysten’s cheek, wiped the blood from her face, touched his fingertips to her lips one final time, then pulled one of the velvet cloaks higher, over her head, folding it around her as if he were tucking her into bed.

He stood up, found his own clothes and swiftly dressed. The second of his knives was still in his boot.

Krysten was gone. All that remained was her body, and Konrad piled more of the discarded clothes around and on top of her lifeless corpse, reached for a candle from the wall and set fire to the stack of garments. He walked back along the corridor, igniting the tapestries and everything else that was flammable, before opening the outside door and stepping into the night.

The servant boy was waiting for him. He was armed with a spear, which he thrust at Konrad’s stomach. Konrad stepped aside, grabbing the shaft as it slid past his hip. He pulled, and the servant was dragged towards him—and onto Konrad’s knife.

The boy gasped in agony as the blade slid into his chest, the gasp turning into a long scream of ultimate despair as Konrad killed him.

He killed him slowly; he killed him coldly; he killed him without mercy. He stabbed him over and over again, until his white uniform had become totally red. Only then did Konrad kick the servant into the moat, where the waters turned to blood as his life finally ebbed away.

Konrad made his way across the gardens of Zuntermein’s mansion. When he reached the gate he looked back. The blaze was far more spectacular than the one at the army guardhouse had been.

* * *

It was after being in a tavern with Taungar that Konrad had first met Zuntermein. The young serving girl had reminded him of Krysten, and that was why it was she who had been foremost in Konrad’s thoughts when Zuntermein had probed into his mind.

Then, after so many months apart, and however briefly together, Konrad had been reunited with the girl.

There is no such thing as chance, Wolf had frequently said. Either that was true or the converse: there was too much chance. Too many things had happened for them all to be attributed to random circumstance. So many intertwining events could only have been part of a greater design, but Konrad was too close to see his own place within the pattern.

After returning from the dwarf temple which Wolf and Anvila and he had discovered, Konrad found that the frontier mine was destroyed and everyone within had been killed or taken hostage. There had seemed to be but one survivor, the one-handed man called Heinler—but in reality this was the skaven, Gaxar. The grey seer had taken on human form, masquerading as a miner, and it was he who had destroyed the watch towers so that the invaders could approach the fortified workings unseen.

Unable to find her body amongst the ruins, Konrad had assumed that Krysten was a prisoner of the pagan hordes. While tracking the marauding armies, he had revealed to Gaxar that his motive for pursuit was to locate and rescue the abducted girl-Having discovered this, Gaxar had knocked him unconscious. When he awoke, Konrad was the captive of a marauding band of Khorne worshippers. Another group of Khorne acolytes must have captured Krysten at the mine—but it was more than her body which they had taken. She had become corrupted, joining them to become a devotee of the Blood God. And then, somehow, she had fallen into Zuntermein’s hands.

Konrad had escaped Kastring’s warband by dressing in the armour of the bronze warrior, the knight who Wolf said had been his twin brother. This was the same figure Konrad and Elyssa had seen ride through their village the day before the swarms of rampaging beastmen had totally annihilated everyone and everything within the valley.

It was Litzenreich who had saved Konrad from his prison of bronze; it was Litzenreich who was the cause of Gaxar losing his right paw; it was Litzenreich who had convinced Konrad that Gaxar must have been heading for Altdorf after the skaven sorcerer’s subterranean lair had been assailed by the Middenheim troops.

And Gaxar had indeed been in the Imperial capital—as was Elyssa… and Skullface… and Krysten.

There was no such thing as chance…

Konrad felt as if he were enmeshed within a giant web, becoming more and more trapped all the time. The strands of the web seemed to link all the people that he had ever known, his enemies as well as his friends.

Elyssa and Kastring; Kastring and Gaxar; Gaxar and Krysten; Krysten and Zuntermein…

Wolf and the bronze knight; the bronze knight and Litzenreich…

Elyssa and Skullface; Skullface and Gaxar…

Silver Eye and the golden crest; the golden crest and Elyssa…

Chance…

Deep beneath Altdorf so many of them had been together: Litzenreich, Gaxar, Silver Eye, Elyssa, Skullface.

And himself.

There was no one line linking all of these; each was connected by several interlocking links. And everything was circular. Whichever direction Konrad explored, he was brought inevitably back to where he had begun.

Chaos…

He was a pawn of Chaos, cast helplessly whichever way the winds of fate happened to blow him, a piece of driftwood at the mercy of the currents and oceans, washed up on some foreign shore and then carried away again by the next tide. He had believed it was his own decision to come to Altdorf, but that was not so. All he had done was play the role which destiny had assigned to him.

Moreover, he had become a creature of darkness, corrupted by the warpstone within the bronze shackles which had held him for so long, then further infected by more of the evil unearthly substance which Litzenreich had used to extract him from the armour.

Zuntermein had recognized the taint of Chaos which had taken hold of Konrad. It was something that Konrad knew he would never escape. Skaven could even smell the odour of the warpstone which permeated his body.

When Krysten called out the name of the huntsman of souls, had she really summoned up a vision of the Blood God? For a few moments Konrad believed he had seen the image of Khorne upon the altar, and he had felt his allegiance being drawn towards the powers of damnation. Had he been granted some profane strength by the cruel deity which had enabled him to escape?

Unlike the time when he had battled the goblins in the ancient dwarf temple, below the mountains of Kislev, Konrad had been aware of no inhuman power invigorating him. He had felt no different when he had slain Zuntermein and fought against the Slaaneshi cultists. It had been his own hatred which had given him all the energy that he needed to defeat his benighted foes.

He and Krysten had escaped from the doomed church, however, whilst everyone else within had perished. He could not deny that some supernatural force had seemed to help him survive, guiding him unharmed through the deadly flames.

Was it the Blood God who had saved him, then claimed the price of its assistance by taking Krysten as another sacrifice?

Konrad had no way of knowing, and neither did he want to consider any of it, not now, not ever.

He had to get out of Altdorf. The web was drawing tighter and tighter around him, sucking him towards its centre and what must surely be his inevitable nemesis. That was why he must leave the capital.

He was aware that he would be able to escape the city without any difficulty, although he realized that it would have been wisest to have taken some of Zuntermein’s valuables before he left—but so far as Konrad was concerned, there had been only one precious thing inside the mansion.

For months he had falsely believed that Krysten was dead; now it was true.

Even as he made his way out of the city, slipping past the watch like a shadow in the night, Konrad knew that he would return.