CHAPTER FIFTEEN

 

 

There were more legends told of Sigmar Heldenhammer than of any other Emperor, and yet this chamber was the most barren. Sigmar had founded the Empire, and the walls were covered with numerous friezes in his honour; but all of the paintings and sculptures had been made long after Sigmar’s reign. The first emperor had lived two and a half thousand years ago, and he had not been seen since he had made his final journey back to Black Fire Pass to return Ghal-maraz to the dwarf race—not seen by anyone human. Upon the plinth where his mortal remains should have lain was a black velvet cushion which bore the only known relic of his reign. It was the handle of the dagger which Sigmar had carried at the battle of Black Fire Pass.

Konrad halted. There could be no going on, because this was the last chamber and there was but one doorway. He stared around, knowing that whatever was waiting for him must have been here. He gazed up, seeing the deformed shape of Morrslieb through the stained glass. The moon had been in exactly the same position in each chamber of the necropolis. Normally it passed across the night sky far more swiftly. But tonight it had become still. Time had indeed ceased to exist. There was no time—and there was every time.

He looked at Guido, who returned his gaze. The pirate frowned and raised his hand towards his lips. He opened his mouth as if to speak, and Konrad saw his tongue move—then realized it could not be a tongue. It was brown, it was covered in fur…

The head of a rat appeared from Guido’s mouth!

One of the pirate’s cheeks bulged and split, and the bloody snout of another rat ripped through the flesh. His left eye disappeared, and a third rat burst through the cavity—its sharp teeth chewing upon the eyeball.

Guido’s entire body shook and trembled, then was suddenly torn apart from within as a fetid horde of blood-drenched rats spewed out from his innards, from his chest and his guts, his arms and his legs. He had been devoured from within, his human shape supported by a skeleton of rodents.

Konrad gazed in horror as Guido’s clothes and shed skin and cutlass fell to the ground. The squealing pack of rats dispersed throughout the chamber, vanishing into the holes along the edges of the walls.

This was truly skaven sorcery. The Imperial guard may have become devotees of Slaanesh, but it was the servants of the Horned God who had drawn Konrad into the heart of the Imperial Palace.

Clutching his new sword, Konrad remembered that the warp-stone within the blade had come from the ratbeasts who had attacked on High Bridge. Had those skaven been a deliberate sacrifice, to beckon him along the Reik? And when he had voyaged towards Altdorf it was Guido, a skaven construct, who had made sure that he escaped from the pirate ship.

And now Konrad was alone once more, as he had been so often in his life. His mouth was dry, his heart thudding in his chest, his palms damp.

He had been drawn into a trap. The only escape was to retreat the way he had come. He turned—and saw a deformed creature rushing towards him. It had appeared from nowhere, and all his reasoning told him that it could not possibly exist.

Its body was translucent, and it was one of the most primitive mutants he had ever encountered: shambling and ungainly, with matted grey fur, the face of a dog, fanged and taloned, carrying a rusty sword.

The beast seemed somehow familiar, but Konrad did not know why. He raised his own sword, bringing it swiftly down across the thing’s neck, trying to decapitate the brute. His sword passed straight through, without any resistance. The apparition began to dissolve, however, but was immediately replaced by another beastman.

This one was huge, its face upside down, clad in pieces of tarnished armour, wearing a weapons belt around its fat belly and with an axe growing out of the end of its right arm. And this one Konrad did recognize: it was the first beast he had slain the day that his village had been annihilated. It was the one he had skinned, whose hide he had used to camouflage himself. He tried to kill the creature again, plunging his blade into its chest, but the mutant was already disintegrating, its place immediately claimed by yet another creature of the damned—this time a skaven.

Then he remembered the first monstrosity, where he had seen it before. It was the beastman he had stabbed to death when it attacked Elyssa. They had met the first time that day because he had saved the girl’s life.

He swung at the skaven, and that also melted away, to be replaced by a creature which seemed to be half-insect, half-human. It had the legs of a man, the upper body of what might have been an ant, with four thin limbs growing from its black carapace. And like all the others, it was already dead. He had slain the beast with his bow and arrow when his village was assaulted. It was a ghost, they were all ghosts. It seemed that he was being assailed by the spirits of all the beastmen he had ever slain—and each time he swung at them, each time one vanished and was supplanted by the next, Konrad felt weakened.

When yet another creature materialized, this time above him, he tried to lift his sword but it felt almost too heavy. It was one of the flying beasts which had swooped upon Konrad when he had returned with Wolf to the site of his destroyed village. The creature had more substance than the previous mutants, and yet Konrad’s sword could make no impact upon his assailant. As with all the other brutes, the blade passed harmlessly into its scaly hide and through its incorporeal body.

Then Konrad saw that his weapon was becoming transparent—and so was his own arm! His sleeve seemed to have vanished, his skin to have evaporated. He saw the veins which carried his blood, the tendons and sinews beneath the missing flesh. Then they too faded away, leaving nothing but whitened bone, which also disappeared as if disintegrating over the aeons.

His energy was being drained through the sword, sucked into those he was trying to destroy. Instead it was they who were destroying him, making themselves stronger and more substantial while his vitality ebbed away. His whole essence seemed to be vanishing, his entire body growing invisible.

He backed away, not wanting to use his blade, because that was how he was being depleted. The warpdust had come from the skaven, and it was the warpdust which was leeching his lifeforce.

But without Konrad trying to defend himself, the flying beast-man pressed forward, its own sword sweeping at him. The weapon passed through Konrad’s body, leaving no physical mark, yet stealing more of his substance.

More and more hideous shapes materialized all around him, the shadows of his bestial victims. They had long ago perished, but they seemed far more alive than Konrad. It was he who belonged to the ghostly realm.

He was fading, fading faster, while his enemies screamed in silent triumph, growing more tangible with every moment. And with every moment, Konrad dissolved a fraction more.

He found himself pressed up against the plinth upon which lay Sigmar’s one holy relic—against it and into it…

He reached out with his left hand, trying to hold himself back, and saw his fingers melting deeper into the stone. Raising his hand up through the plinth, through the velvet cushion, he touched what remained of the knife, and was able to feel the ancient ivory handle against his palm. He took a firm grip, and as he did so his fist regained its shape and colour.

Konrad saw his hand again properly—and he also saw the blade of the knife.

The metal of Sigmar’s knife which had rusted away centuries ago was visible once more, sharp and gleaming as if newly forged. Where there had been a cold numbness in Konrad’s fingers, there was now warmth. He sensed a glow rising up his arm, and his limb swiftly lost its transparency.

He was becoming whole once more, becoming more than whole. A surge of energy suffused his entire body, replenishing his lost strength. He felt totally invigorated, and he leapt forth against his legion of enemies. He had destroyed them once, and now he must obliterate them again.

Instead of draining his spirit, the warpblade now gave Konrad new vitality. The sword sliced through the air—and through ugly feral flesh, killing the undead. These were the Chaos breed that he had battled on the Kislev frontier, which had now been reborn in the heart of the Empire, and which he had to defeat once more. Their mutated bodies had long ago rotted, but this time he was conquering their souls, casting their foul spirits into eternal oblivion.

He also used Sigmar’s knife to drive the unliving horde away, stabbing and gouging at the flesh which was not flesh, and which lost its substance at the same rate with which his own powers increased.

Yet it was as if the dagger were wielded by some external force, that Konrad had control of the right side of his body, whilst his left was under the influence of some greater entity.

He had felt this way before, during the battle with the cave-dwelling goblins. Then, he knew, he had been truly possessed, driven to supreme feats by the authority of the spiritual power which had manipulated his complete being.

“There is some part of Sigmar in everyone,” Galea had told him. “There is more of Sigmar in you than in most.”

Again Konrad was Sigmar’s chosen warrior, destroying the malevolent invaders who had dared to invade the god’s most ancient sepulchre.

Awareness was immediate: it was not the skaven who had lured Konrad here, although that was what they believed; it was the spirit of Sigmar who had guided Konrad to this place, to this time.

Konrad opened his mind to the founder of the Empire, to the man who had become a god.

Together, yet as one, fighting within a single physical body, they slew the battalions of damnation, driving them back to the abyss of darkness whence they had been spawned.

Rivers of invisible blood gushed forth, dozens of insubstantial limbs were severed, scores of unseen bones were snapped, organs sliced, entrails spilled. All of Konrad’s years of carnage were compressed into one titanic ordeal of death.

He slew them all again, all the festering Chaos vermin he had ever fought. The goblins in the dwarf temple and Kastring the pagan chief, the pale troglodytes beneath Altdorf and Zuntermein the Slaaneshi priest, Taungar the corrupted sergeant and the skaven pack who had attacked on the bridge in Marienburg.

They were all but faint incarnations of their previous selves, forever banished by the potency of Konrad’s warpblade and the innate power of Sigmar’s holy dagger.

And then the battle was over, every opponent defeated, and Konrad was alone within himself. The spirit of Sigmar had returned to the outer realms where he dwelled, and Konrad felt both exhausted and yet revitalized.

He glanced around, and nothing seemed to have changed. The Imperial guard stood in his place, still immobile, still a bull-creature. Morrslieb cast its haunted luminescence over the mausoleum, while the candle flames remained frozen.

Konrad looked down at the knife in his left hand, the hand which was once more his own, and he watched as the blade slowly faded into invisibility. Once more all that was left of Sis-mar’s dagger was the fragile bone handle. He put the ancient weapon back in its place upon the black velvet cushion. Then, except for Guido’s remains upon the marble slabs, everything was truly as it had been before he entered the chamber.

Except for Silver Eye.

 

“Konrad,” hissed the skaven, “you going to try and kill me once more, yes?”

The ratbeast was standing in a corner of the chamber, as if he had materialized out of the shadows. He looked like Silver Eye, with the same tribal markings, the same scavenged armour, the same metal teeth, the same piece of warpstone in place of his left eye, the same jagged sword, and he carried the triangular shield which bore the golden crest of mailed fist and crossed arrows. But he did not sound like Silver Eye.

“Gaxar!” gasped Konrad.

“Who else?”

Konrad raised his sword and rushed towards the skaven.

“Stop! Stop!” commanded Gaxar, and he lifted his own sword. “One step and the Emperor dies!”

Only then did Konrad notice that the transformed grey seer was not alone in the gloom. There was a human figure to his right, a figure that Konrad recognized from paintings and from the Imperial currency. It was Karl-Franz of the House of the Second Wilhelm, the Emperor himself—or the doppelganger that Gaxar had created in his subterranean lair beneath Middenheim.

“That’s not the Emperor,” Konrad said, but he halted.

“Perhaps not,” said Gaxar. “But if that’s not the Emperor, then this is!”

He gestured to his left, and there was another man with him in the dimness. Another Emperor Karl-Franz.

One of them was the true Emperor, but which? Or were they both impostors, created by Gaxar’s necromantic talents?

“I knew you could give the dead a semblance of life,” said Konrad, “but how did you revive yourself?”

That was thanks to my loyal bodyguard. After you slew me, Fenbrod did me the honour of devouring my innards—my brain, my heart, my liver. He consumed the essence of my being so that I might be reincarnated within his body.”

“And Fenbrod?” Konrad had never known Silver Eye’s true name until now, and neither had he cared.

“There was only room for one of us within his body. He sacrificed himself for me, as a loyal servant should do. I must admit it is pleasant to have two paws once again, although the lack of an eye is disconcerting.”

“So I did you a favour by killing you?”

“Ha!” Gaxar barked out his laughter. “Now it’s my turn to kill you, Konrad. But when you die, you die forever!”

“What about the shield?” said Konrad.

“What?” asked Gaxar. “The shield?”

“Where does that shield come from?”

For a moment, Gaxar gazed down at the battered shield he held. “How should I know?” he growled. “Let us fight!”

“Why?”

“Why? Why! Because I want to kill you, Konrad, that’s why that’s why! I now possess Fenbrod’s brutal strength, and J still have my own magical skills. I intend to destroy you. No one kills me and gets away with it!” Gaxar barked out his rodent laughter once more.

Perhaps the bodyguard’s memories had been obliterated when the grey seer had claimed his fur and bones, and so Gaxar knew nothing of the shield. But he must have known something of Elyssa, because she had been in the underground chamber with the skaven sorcerer, watching as Litzenreich and Ustnar were crucified— and Skullface had also been there.

Konrad shrugged and stepped backwards.

“You’ve got to fight! Don’t you want to save your Emperor?”

“My Emperor? Why should I care what happens to him?”

“I’ll kill him, I’ll kill him!” yelled Gaxar, and he moved threateningly towards the figure to his right. Then he paused and spun around, his blade aimed at the second identical shape. “So cunning, you humans, so very cunning.”

The twin figures were both wearing the clothes of a courtier, and both stood without moving. Although not as rigid as the members of the Imperial guard who were stationed throughout the palace, it was clear that Gaxar had them under his spell and that they were unable to act of their own free will. But only one of them could ever have had any volition; the other had always been a creation of the grey seer’s, brought by him from Middenheim to the capital.

Captured by the skaven, the true Emperor was about to be replaced by his double, a puppet of the ratmen. The exchange must have been intended for tonight. If Karl-Franz were replaced by a servant of Chaos, the awesome consequences would be unimaginable.

“Kill him,” said Konrad, feigning unconcern. He shrugged again.

“No,” said Gaxar. “You kill him! You choose, Konrad. Which one should live, which one should die? One is the true Karl-Franz. You must decide which one— and execute the other!”

“Why should I?”

“Because I am commanding you to!”

Gaxar’s fierce gaze seemed to burn through Konrad’s eyes and into his brain. He tried to look away, but it was already too late. Gaxar had mesmerized him, and he felt himself advancing reluctantly forward. He attempted to hold back, but to no avail, and his right arm began to raise his sword. It was not he who was deciding which Karl-Franz would die. Gaxar would ensure that the impostor lived, that the throne was claimed by his own creation.

Above Gaxar was a frieze which showed the coronation of the first Emperor. It caught Konrad’s attention because instead of Sigmar being crowned, there was a skaven upon the throne—the Horned Rat himself…

And if Karl-Franz were murdered, it would be as if the last of Sigmar’s heirs had died—assassinated by Konrad.

Konrad took another unwilling step forward, and the warp-blade rose even higher.

Summoning all his inner reserves of energy, Konrad managed to utter two syllables.

“Sigmar,” he whispered.

There was a sound in the distance, a rumble like far away guns. Perhaps the pirate ship had broken through the boom across the Reik and was bombarding Altdorf itself. Konrad felt the ground move, and he glanced down in time to see the marble tiles beneath his feet splinter and crack. The entire world must have been in turmoil, shaking the foundations upon which the Imperial capital and the palace itself were built.

As he advanced, Konrad missed a step and almost slipped, perhaps because of the earthquake, perhaps because Gaxar’s hypnotic control was beginning to fade. He fought even harder, trying to resist the skaven’s malign influence, and he concentrated on his own mental resources, upon the hidden depths he had so recently discovered.

“Sigmar,” he prayed, once again, louder, and the word gave him enough strength to shout: “Sigmar!”

There was a sudden flare of brilliant light far beyond, reflected through the circle of stained glass, and Konrad raised his head in time to see twin streaks of lightning flash across the sky, so bright that they totally eclipsed Morrslieb’s macabre glow.

A thunderous roar came from high above the palace. The thunderbolts must have struck the pinnacle, which was built from granite blocks brought from Black Fire Pass, and the whole of the great building shook once more. This time, a jagged crack appeared down the side of the chamber, ripping apart the wall.

Gaxar gazed anxiously upwards, surrendering his preternatural hold over Konrad’s will.

Then, without warning, the ceiling was torn asunder by the untold weight of a gigantic block of falling masonry.

Konrad leapt back, Gaxar sprang aside, and the massive chunk of rock landed between them, spraying shards of stone throughout the chamber.

The hall was filled with clouds of dust, but everything was abruptly silent. There was no sign of the Emperor, or of the impostor, whichever was which. And, as the dirt and debris settled, Konrad observed what it was that had crashed down into Sigmar’s mausoleum: it was the replica of Ghal-maraz which had topped the palace spire. Thrice the size of a man, the stone warhammer had been dislodged by the lightning and plummeted straight down into the central chamber of this wing of the palace. There was a vast hole in the ceiling, but only the sky and the stars were visible. Morrslieb had been banished from the heavens. All the candles were properly alight now, flickering in the wind which blew through the cavity in the roof.

On the ancient frieze, Sigmar had been restored to his rightful place on the Imperial throne as the first Emperor.

Hearing another sound, Konrad looked around. The force of the titanic impact had knocked over the Imperial guardsman who had been on duty in the chamber, and now he was rising to his feet—and he hurtled towards Konrad, his sword raised to attack.

Time had been restored, the guard’s heart had begun to beat once more, but it was a mutant heart. He was still a slave of damnation, a depraved worshipper of the lord of hedonism.

Konrad’s warpblade sliced through the creature’s throat, half-severing his head. Blood spurted, the beast screamed—and died.

Turning, Konrad noticed that one of the two figures Gaxar had magically ensnared was still standing upright, gazing around in bewilderment. The other had been squashed beneath the huge granite carving, and all that remained was a mess of festering and decayed flesh. Sigmar’s legendary warhammer had claimed yet another victim. The impostor was a corpse once more.

Gaxar had been rendered immobile for several seconds, as though stunned by what had happened. Konrad ran to put himself between Karl-Franz and the skaven.

“I am,” said the Emperor hesitantly. “I am…” He shook his head, then staggered slightly.

There came the sound of many footsteps, all running towards the chamber. Several more members of the Imperial guard rushed into the hall. Once the Emperor’s most loyal servants, now they were devoid of all trace of humanity. Their bull-heads roared out their challenge.

Konrad glanced at Gaxar, but there was no time to slay the grey skaven—to slay him again—before the guards were on him. He stepped in front of the Emperor. He had to defend Karl-Franz at all costs. That was his mission, why Sigmar had brought him here. His whole life had been a prelude to this moment.

He fought, his new blade thrusting out to claim another victim, then slashing up and across to kill yet one more. The chamber echoed to the sound of clashing steel, to the screams of the dying mutants. Konrad lost himself in combat, yelling his own defiant warcries as loudly as his enemies vented their insane bloodlust—and howled their death screams as their inhuman blood was mercilessly shed.

The hall filled with more figures, but that did not matter. Konrad was already outnumbered. He could only die but once, whether attacked by a dozen feral foes or a hundred.

Then he saw a black blade slice through the air, and he knew he was not alone. Wolf was with him. The odds had been halved, and Konrad fought with renewed vigour. A thunderbolt flashed, a burst of bright flames illuminated the hall, and Litzenreich had joined in the battle.

The thunderous sound of racing hooves echoed through the palace, and Konrad looked towards the next chamber, wondering whether a whole legion of the damned had arrived as reinforcements. But then a rider charged into the hall—a Templar of Sigmar, his red lance impaling one of the mutated Imperial guard.

More of the mounted troops arrived in Sigmar’s sepulchre and entered the fray. These were the cavalry who had been ensnared by frozen time in the palace courtyard. Their helmets were crested by twin horns—but the horns of their victims grew from their deformed skulls, and they were slaughtered like the beasts they truly were.

Gaxar had been lurking in the corner, hoping to seize the moment when he could pounce upon Karl-Franz. But now he recognized that the odds were too great, and he spun around.

A hole appeared in the floor near his feet, a tunnel which had opened up at his sorcerous command, and he stepped towards it, about to escape.

“Gaxar!” Konrad commanded, and the skaven hesitated.

The grey seer turned, or perhaps it was the warrior part of him which could not be denied. Silver Eye’s body must still have retained his fighting instincts. A challenge could not be refused.

The skaven grinned, baring his metal teeth, and he licked at his jowls. Konrad remembered the rasping feel of Silver Eye’s tongue when it had licked at his blood, tasting the warpstone which coursed through his veins. Gaxar—if it were Gaxar who was in control of the rat shape—raised his jagged sword, lifted the enigmatic shield, and launched himself at Konrad.

They fought, trading blow for blow. Gaxar had the advantage, because he was protected by the triangular shield. But it was the skaven who was on the defensive, realizing that he was trapped. Even if he managed to defeat Konrad, there were plenty more warriors within the ruined chamber that he would have to destroy, and they would not attack him singly. Many of the knights had dismounted to form a protective phalanx around the Emperor, and from the corner of his eye Konrad could see both Wolf and Litzenreich watching the deadly duel. Neither of them would allow the grey seer to escape alive—although Litzenreich would probably be willing to consider some kind of deal if it meant he could get his hands on a cache of warpstone.

Konrad’s new blade clashed against Gaxar’s hooked sword. The warpblade was part skaven, and it was time it claimed skaven blood. The sword slashed through brown fur, and blood dripped onto the dust which covered the marble floor of the palace. Gaxar screeched in pain, and Konrad thrust forward again. He stabbed the point of his weapon into Gaxar’s chest, then sliced the edge of the blade across the skaven’s sword arm. There was more blood, more screams. Gaxar fought more wildly, throwing himself forward, leaving himself wide open to counter-attack. There was even more blood, more screams.

Gaxar was becoming more desperate, and suddenly he flung his shield at Konrad, spun around, and sprinted for the exit he had created. No skaven could ever outrun a man, and Konrad caught up with the grey seer before he could make his escape. He grabbed hold of the creature’s tail, yanking him backwards.

Gaxar howled, more in anger than in pain. He twisted around, hacked through his own tail to release himself, then ran on. Konrad fell back for a moment, and Gaxar had almost reached the hole in the ground when Konrad drove his sword between two plates of armour and into the rat-thing’s back. The skaven froze for an instant, and Konrad withdrew his sword. Then Gaxar slowly turned, and blood was pouring from his chest as well as his back.

He raised his sword, as if to strike, but the weapon dropped from his paw. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but no sound came. He fell, and he was dead before he hit the ground. The dark opening which his magic had caused to appear vanished simultaneously.

Konrad looked down at his warpblade’s victim. He raised his sword, examining the blood. The weapon gleamed in the candlelight, the skaven gore emphasizing all the different layers of metal, glinting from all the different hues.

“Gaxar,” Konrad told Wolf and Litzenreich, nodding to the skaven’s corpse. He looked past them. “Ustnar?” he asked.

“Dead,” said Wolf. His helmet was gone, and there were fresh cuts across his face; his armour was dented and scored, gouged open in several places.

Litzenreich had fared no better. His clothes were ripped, some of his hair and beard appeared to have been burned, and his face was scorched and blistered. His staff had been blackened by fire, the lower end turned to charcoal by some intense heat.

“Who are you?”

The three of them looked towards the Emperor, who had pushed himself between two of the knights.

“This is Konrad,” said Wolf. “This is Litzenreich. My name is… Wolf.” He hesitated, but did not give his full identity.

“I have few memories of what happened to me,” said Karl-Franz. “But I realize that I owe you all my life.” He glanced over to where the rotting corpse of his doppelganger lay crushed beneath the replica of Skull-splitter. “To you in particular, I believe,” he added, addressing Konrad. He was speaking slowly as if in a foreign language. “I must rest. But you will be rewarded, all of you. I will not forget.” He turned and was helped away by two of the templars.

“He’ll forget,” said Wolf, watching the Emperor leave the ruined chamber. The rest of the cavalry departed, leading their horses—and leaving the dead and the damned beastmen behind.

The only thing which remained intact was the stone plinth in the exact centre of the vast room, and upon it was the velvet cushion and the ivory handle of Sigmar’s knife.

“We’ve saved the Emperor,” said Konrad, wearily. “We’ve saved the Empire. Wasn’t that what we were supposed to do?”

“Was it? I knew we came here for something.” Wolf grinned and wiped his face with the back of his hand, smearing sweat and blood across his tattooed features. His sword was in his hand, dripping with blood and gore.

Konrad knelt down to study the triangular shield, examining it as closely as possible without touching it. It was old and dented, streaked with rust where the black paint had flaked away. The golden emblem was almost intact, however, and was identical to the crest which had been on the arrows, the bow, the quiver which Elyssa had given him so long ago.

“An elf?” asked Konrad. “Was this the elf’s shield?”

Wolf shrugged, making it clear that he did not wish to discuss the time an elf had defeated him, then spared his life.

Had all the weapons belonged to Elyssa’s true father, who was an elf? And where had Silver Eye scavenged the shield?

Litzenreich had been gazing at Gaxar’s body, walking all around him, tapping the floor with his charred staff. He said something, which was too low for Konrad to hear, and he kept muttering to himself. Then when the floor opened up, Konrad realized that he had been casting a spell.

There was a dark hole in the ground, in exactly the same position as the one which Gaxar had created. Litzenreich peered down, and Wolf walked across and did likewise.

It was almost dawn, Konrad realized. The whole of the night had been stolen by Chaos.

In the growing light, Konrad could see that there were steps leading down from the entrance which Litzenreich had conjured. It must have been some secret passage beneath the palace.

“Shall we go?” said Litzenreich, staring into the depths of the darkness.

He must have believed there were more skaven down there, and where the ratbeasts dwelled there would be warpstone—and warpstone was the source of magic.

Wolf nodded, and Konrad wondered why he should want to descend into the maze of passages beneath the city. Perhaps because that was where there was Chaos infection, which meant Wolf would have more enemies to fight.

The two of them looked at Konrad. The last thing he wished to do was return to the treacherous labyrinths which lay under Altdorf; but he knew that he must venture into the subterranean world once again.

Elyssa was there.

And so was Skullface.

Konrad picked up the black shield, slipping his left arm through the handle and holding the grip in his fist. Like his new sword, it was as if the shield had been made for him.

Wolf seized one of the large candles and led the way down; Litzenreich took another and joined him. Konrad also drew one of the scented candles from its sconce, then gazed upwards, seeing the first trace of blue as night was banished from the sky.

Aware that he would never see daylight again, or ever return from the land beneath the world, Konrad took his final breath of surface air then followed the other two down into what he knew must become his grave.