CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The Flood

 

 

Anaise von Augen had lost track of how long she had been sitting in the shadows of the chamber, staring deep into the void which was the Well of Sadness. She was not a woman given to stillness, but, for at least the last hour, as the shadows lengthened and daylight fell to grey, she had not moved from that place.

Surely, she reasoned, she had done enough for it to come to pass. She had taken each of the cards that the gods had offered her, and she had played them well. They had given her the girl, Bea, and the monster Zucharov. Two opposite and opposing forces that, combined, could nonetheless deliver her unfettered power. And they had given her the opportunity now to use that power.

Konstantin had stumbled; his judgement had been shown to be weak, fatally flawed. The gods had loosened her brother’s grip upon Sigmarsgeist, prised the chalice that was power from his grasp. Now it could be hers. Everything was in place, her destiny stood ready to be fulfilled. And yet she found herself waiting, for what she did not know. Perhaps for the next, decisive chapter in the story to unfold, and for a sign, some signal that it had begun. Anaise stared down into the depths of the Well of Sadness, but found only dark silence in answer to her questions.

The sign, when it finally came, was from a quite different, and at first unwelcome, source. It came in the shape of a knock, tentative and brief, upon the door. Anaise looked up, pulled away from her contemplation by the sound.

“What is it?” she demanded, irritably. “I gave clear instructions that I was not be disturbed.”

The door opened just wide enough to reveal an officer of the Red Guard standing upon the threshold, his head bowed.

“I beg your forgiveness, mistress. But these are exceptional circumstances.”

Anaise beckoned the man inside with a curt wave of her hand. “Come in, then,” she snapped. “And make it quick.”

The guard stepped into the chamber and made a further bow before the Guide.

“Well?” Anaise asked him. “What do you want?”

“My lady,” the guard began. “There is water in the streets of Sigmarsgeist.”

Anaise was still vexed by the interruption. For a moment the significance of the guard’s words was lost upon her. “That’s good news indeed,” she replied, caustically. “Perhaps now the miserable wretches will get on with their work and stop complaining they don’t have enough water.”

She shot the man a look to indicate he was dismissed, and turned back towards the well. The guard hesitated, but did not move.

“I ask pardon, mistress. I did not express myself clearly.” He paused, marshalling his words. “There is water pouring into the streets. A great deal of water, mistress. I have received word that the lower quarter of the citadel is flooding.”

Anaise turned around. Now the guard had her full and undivided attention. She crossed the room and seized the man by the arm.

“Have you seen it?” she demanded. “Have you seen for yourself?”

“Madam, no,” the guard replied. “Word has only just been received from the Watch. But if they tell true then the levels are rising quickly.”

Anaise pushed the guard to one side and went to the window that looked south, towards the lower levels of the citadel. Little could be seen beyond the flickering of the lamps. Sigmarsgeist looked calm, almost tranquil in the moonlight. Anaise uttered a curse, then reached for her cloak, and drew it around her. “Hurry,” she commanded. “I need to be taken there. I must see for myself. Now.”

The guard held the door open for the Guide and stood at attention.

“A carriage is waiting below,” he reported. For a moment the man forgot his deference, and stared earnestly at his mistress.

“Some of the men say it is the wrath of the gods, my lady. That gods have come to punish our ambition. Could it be so?” he asked of her. “Has vengeance come to Sigmarsgeist?”

Anaise hurried on, no longer interested in what the Red Guard had to say.

“No,” she said to herself. “Tal Dur has come to Sigmarsgeist.”

 

As soon as she heard word of the floods, Bea knew that she had no option but to go. She no longer had any fear of Konstantin, or Anaise, or of what either of them might do. She knew that she must answer her calling, and that the time for concealment was over.

The streets of Sigmarsgeist beyond the palace were as full as ever, but now the crowds flowed in only one direction, towards the higher ground on the northern side of the citadel, away from the rising waters. Nearer to the palace people were jostling each other out of the way. Some were not even sure what the commotion was about. But as Bea got closer to the lower reaches of the citadel the angry flow became a stampede of frightened, panicking humanity. Against it all, Bea pressed on, a solitary figure moving against the tide. She watched them fleeing all around her: men and women from the foundries, labourers cut loose from their gangs, children with even smaller infants in their arms, fleeing servants and dishevelled officers of the Red Guard. All kindness and patience had been swept aside. Order was breaking down. All that would soon be left was the law of survival, the strong enduring over the weak. The final act in the history of Sigmarsgeist was beginning.

Bea had no clear notion of where she should be going, only that she must go. She let the massing crowds be her guide, and, before long, the water had begun swirling about her feet. After an hour the flood reached above her ankles. Soon after that it had reached her knees. Now she knew for sure that what the people were saying was true: Sigmarsgeist was drowning.

She fought her way past the fleeing crowds towards the bottom of a wide avenue that was fast becoming a canal. At the bottom of the avenue the road forked sharply to the right then turned downhill again. As Bea reached the turn in the road, a wall of water rolled out towards her and, when it had subsided, the icy waters had risen up above her waist. Soon she would need to swim if she were to make any further progress. She could feel the current plucking at her feet, trying to pull her over. She reached out and caught hold of the first thing that came to hand, the chassis of a cart that had been thrown over and upended in the stream, one set of wheels poking up towards the sky. All around, bales of clothes and possessions bobbed up and down on the water, the remnants of a life swept away.

Bea clutched tightly to the shattered iron frame and took a moment to look around her. The streets—if they could still be called that—were emptier now, as most of the people had fled. The bodies of those who had failed to escape lay around her on every side, face-down or face-up in the water, some still clutching the sticks or bundles of rags that they hoped might save them. Further ahead, Bea could now see where the flood was entering the citadel. Great plumes of water were shooting into the air, bursting from the grates and holes in the ground above the sewers. The force of the water still forcing its way from below ground was enormous; there was no possibility that the waters were about to subside.

A terrible noise from somewhere ahead made Bea look up. She turned her face to the sky just in time to see a huge marbled shard break off from the structure above her head and tumble into the rushing waters. The maze of mad bridges and pathways that had taken a parasitic hold upon the citadel was being broken apart by the power of the surging waters. As Bea looked on, sections of the bone-like mass sheared off and crashed down into the waters, bringing great slabs of masonry tumbling down with them. Those people still looking on screamed out, in wonder or in horror at the sight. Some proclaimed it the vengeance of Sigmar, others the might of the Dark Powers. Bea kept her counsel and looked on. She already knew that it was neither of these things.

Still the waters rose, relentless, pushing up out of the ground, overwhelming Sigmarsgeist. Another surge caught Bea, and plucked her feet away from under her. She managed to clutch hold of the abandoned wagon, still just visible above the water. But when she tried to place her feet again she could find no solid ground. She would have to swim from now on.

Gradually, a kind of eerie calm settled upon the scene as most of those around her in the water were swept away. She scanned the empty windows that lined the buildings on either side. Two or three of the tallest still had floors that rose clear of the water line. After a while, from those windows, the cries started to come. The last desperate cries of those who had all but abandoned hope.

Bea drew down a lung full of air and prepared to cast herself adrift from her fragile place of sanctuary. She was at one with her calling now. She knew what she had to do.

 

News of the great flood had reached Konstantin much as the waters themselves had breached Sigmarsgeist. Slowly, at first, no more than a trickle of rumour and speculation. But the rumours had quickly become an unstoppable tide of reports, all of them bad, all of them pointing towards the destruction of the citadel that had been his life’s achievement.

Konstantin knew he should act. His action should be bold, and decisive; an intervention that would turn back the waters and reverse the ill fortune that had stricken Sigmarsgeist. But he did not act. He could not act. He had become paralysed by a sickness that had taken hold of both mind and body. It was a sickness seeded in the belief, deep within his heart, that all of this was his doing.

Konstantin had sat and listened in silence to the reports of death and destruction brought to him with ever-increasingly regularity by his men, those of them that he could still trust. At length, even that became too much, and he barred all messengers from his chamber. He could hear them still, beyond the door, pleading to be admitted to the presence of the Guide, begging for him to save the citadel.

Konstantin sank his head into his hands and wept. They did not understand what he now knew. It was the judgement of Konstantin that had brought things to this. All that was left for him was to oversee its final undoing.

There was a pounding upon the door, louder and more insistent than before. Konstantin did not know who it was. Perhaps it would be his sister. They had not spoken since Rilke’s act of betrayal, and the overthrow of the White Guard. Anaise had taken her opportunity to seize all power, and he had let her take it, for in that same moment he had known for certain that he was broken. Konstantin raised his head as the knocking came again.

“I will speak with nobody,” he cried. But he knew instinctively that his authority would no longer hold. A few moments later, the door was opened and Hans Baecker strode in, accompanied by three or four of his men. Konstantin favoured him a weak smile. Baecker, he knew, was still loyal. He would be loyal until the death, but that counted for too little now.

“What have you come to tell me?” he asked, quietly. “What grim news can you be bringing me that I do not know already?”

“The waters still pour into the citadel,” Baecker reported. “There is no hope of their abating. At this rate of progress, Sigmarsgeist and all its souls will be lost by daybreak.”

Konstantin gazed up at his lieutenant. After Rilke, Baecker was the most trusted of all his men. But then, after Rilke, Konstantin no longer had confidence in any man, himself included.

“What of the gates?” he asked, distractedly, looking about the room. “Why have the gates not been opened to abate the flood?”

The guard to Baecker’s left exchanged an anxious glance with his commander. Baecker nodded, signalling that he should continue.

“The gate on the south wall is already submerged,” he began. “As for the west gate—” he hesitated. “Sire, it seems the west gate is no longer accessible—it has been—blocked.”

“Blocked?” Konstantin spoke the word as if unable quite to grasp its meaning.

“Built over,” Baecker said, firmly. “Blocked by timber and stone. We are cut off by our own endeavour.”

“But what of the main gateway, on the north side of the citadel?” Konstantin asked.

“That will not solve our problem,” Baecker told him. “By the time the waters reach that far, most of the citadel would already have been laid waste by the floods. And all those left in the lower reaches will have drowned.”

“Then there is no hope,” Konstantin said. “No chance for Sigmarsgeist?”

“That is not the news I bring, majesty,” Baecker replied. His voice was terse, his impatience with his master barely masked. “But if there is to be hope, then we must act, and act now.”

Konstantin looked about him, trying to draw some inspiration from the spartan surroundings of his chamber. He found none, only the image of the waters as they rose, higher and higher, until he, too, had been consumed.

Konstantin looked away. Gradually his head sunk into his hands, and he moaned. “I never imagined such a thing could come to pass.” He looked up again at Baecker, a look of pleading on his face. “How could I have anticipated it?” he demanded. “It is not as we planned. These were not the forces we built Sigmarsgeist to withstand. It is not as we planned at all.”

“Majesty,” Baecker cut in. “There is another way. Another chance that may yet save the citadel.”

Hope flickered like a weak flame upon Konstantin’s face. “Then what?” he asked. “Tell me, tell me now.”

“The walls of the citadel must be breached,” Baecker said. “As much as we can manage, they must be laid to waste. Only then is there hope that the waters can be dispersed, and the citadel saved.”

Just for an instant, Konstantin was re-energised. He got up from his seat, almost majestic again in his wrath, and would have clutched hold of his lieutenant by the throat, had Baecker not abruptly backed away.

“Destroy the walls? Are you mad?” Konstantin demanded. His face, so drawn and pale only moments before, flushed a hot red. “The great walls that girdle the citadel are the very symbol of all that we stand for, all that we have built and striven for. Destroy the walls and you destroy the very heart of Sigmarsgeist itself!”

Baecker glanced around at his men, and stood his ground. “Leave the walls standing and Sigmarsgeist will be destroyed anyway,” he replied. “In body as well as in spirit, as sure as darkness follows light.” He paused for a moment to let his word settle with the Guide, then added, “Sire, we have no other choice.”

Konstantin turned from Baecker and walked towards the high window. Night was starting to fall across Sigmarsgeist, but the carnage on the far side of the citadel was still clearly visible. More than a quarter of the city lay beneath a raging flood that had come from nowhere. And, where the waters boiled, the crazed, alabaster structures that had taken hold across the citadel were crashing down, taking towers, walls, whole sides of buildings with them. Years of pious toil were being rolled back in the space of hours as one madness collided head on with another.

Finally he turned back, as he knew he must do, and faced Baecker again. He did not look at him when he spoke.

“Very well,” he said, his voice cracked and low. “Do whatever is necessary. Bring down the walls of Sigmarsgeist.”

 

* * *

 

Zucharov had had no need of mortal word to bring him news of the flood. His master, Kyros, had already whispered to him of the waters coming. The time of reckoning was at hand. The time for waiting was at an end. Now was the time for action. After so many long months of inaction and subservience, Zucharov could feel the desire rising strong inside him to get out upon the streets of the citadel, to engage with the maelstrom and taste again the spoils of bloody war.

But first Kyros had one further duty for him to perform in the cells deep below the palace where the wretched prisoners rotted, unaware of their newly altered fate.

He had left it to the Norscans to look after Rilke. As soon as he stepped into the cell, Zucharov could see that the brutal northerners had paid close attention to their task. Rilke was still standing, but only because he had been chained upright to the wall of the cell. The Norscans had stripped him of his uniform, and beaten much of his life from him as well. Rilke’s once haughty features were barely recognisable, his face covered by bruises and blood. As Zucharov entered the cell, Rilke opened one eye and looked at him. With what strength he had left, he spat upon the ground to make his feelings clear.

Zucharov did not care about Rilke’s feelings, or about Rilke himself. He was one of the weak, and Zucharov had not cared whether he lived or died. The task he had to perform was to deliver his master’s bidding, and that was all.

He clamped one hand to the side of Rilke’s head, and turned the prisoner’s face towards his own. Rilke grimaced and tried to suppress a cry. There was still some capacity for pain within him, Zucharov noted. That was good. The Norscans had not, after all, over-stepped the boundaries of their command.

“Do you know who I am?” Zucharov intoned. Rilke struggled to force his swollen tongue around the words, but eventually managed to speak.

“You’re the servant of evil. I don’t need to know any more than that.”

Unmoved and untouched by Rilke’s words, Zucharov left a lengthy pause before he replied.

“I am death,” he said. “I am annihilation. I am the counterpoint to everything that your masters have prayed and striven for. I am the darkness that waits upon the end of your world.”

“My masters are the Guides of Sigmarsgeist,” Rilke retorted “And they will never—”

Zucharov drew back his hand, and delivered a punch to Rilke’s ribs. Not so hard that he lost all consciousness, but hard enough to draw a scream of agony from his already battered body. “Do not waste my time with fiction,” he said. “I know who your real masters are.” He twisted Rilke’s head again, and looked hard into his eyes, deep into his tortured soul.

“I know who you are,” he said. “And I know what you are.” He shoved Rilke back against the wall of the cell, and turned to the two Norscan gaolers standing in waiting behind him.

“Leave us,” Zucharov told them. “I will finish this now.”

 

“I was wondering how long it would take you to find me here.”

Bea was drained of all emotion. She had found her way to the lower city, already sinking below the rising waters. She had lost herself in the warren of half-flooded streets and houses, lost herself in her work. There were plenty there who needed her help, and there would be many more. But she knew that, wherever she went, Anaise would find her. Their destinies were inextricably linked. She understood that now.

She no longer felt any kinship or warmth towards Anaise, but there was no room in her heart for hatred, either. She knew she must pour all of her soul into her devotions, into her calling. Which, at that moment, meant doing whatever she could for the wounded woman that lay at her feet. So she did not so much as look up when she heard Anaise’s voice at her shoulder. Bea knew that, before long, the Guide would track her down. But she would not let Anaise distract her from her work. Not now. Not any longer.

“Where else would you be found?” Anaise asked, earnestly. “Where else would a daughter of the goddess be, but amongst the sick and the wounded, tending to them as best she could? Here—” The Guide got down by Bea’s side. “In the name of the gods, let me at least help you.” She tore a strip of cloth from the sodden bundle lying upon the floor and began to tie a tourniquet around the injured woman’s arm. Bea made no attempt to stop her—Anaise was competent, and Bea knew she could use all the help that she could get, welcome or otherwise. But there was a coldness in her heart towards the Guide that would never now be displaced.

“Why should you want to help?” she asked, icily. “What is it to you?”

Anaise stopped what she was doing, and tugged the hair back from her face so that she could look directly at Bea. “Don’t you think I care?” she asked her. “Don’t you think it matters to me what happens to my people?”

Bea finished the work of securing the tourniquet, and lay a soothing hand upon the sick woman’s brow. “I know why you’re here,” she said. “You want me to help you channel the power of the waters.” She held Anaise’s gaze, unblinking. “As for all this suffering, no, I don’t think you care at all.”

Anaise stared back at her. Her expression hardened. “You did this, Bea,” she said. “It is you who brought the waters to the citadel.”

Bea turned away, towards another patient, an older man who had been crushed beneath a falling building. The flesh of his arm was dark with a livid green bruise; he would certainly lose the limb if Bea did not act quickly.

“You’re wrong,” she said, without turning from her work. “It is you who have brought this doom upon Sigmarsgeist. With your desire, your naked greed for power. Now these people are suffering the consequences of that greed.”

Anaise reached out to her, but Bea pulled away. “Believe what you want,” Anaise replied, sharply. “I have no gain in bringing ill to my people. But if I have truly succeeded in restoring the great powers to this place—” She stood up, and started to pace the floor, taking no account now of the suffering around her, “then it must be I who will reap its bounty.” She smiled, defiantly, at the young healer. “I always knew that Tal Dur was close,” she said. “There was a purpose which drove us to set the first stones of Sigmarsgeist here, just as there was a purpose in your being delivered to me. The great powers are restored to this place!” She laughed. “Your work is done, Bea, whether you willed it so or not.”

Bea glared back at Anaise. “You do not understand those powers,” she asserted. “You understand nothing. You think Tal Dur is a place. It is not. It is a state of being. To those who seek it, it gives back only what it finds within them. Take the warning that is before your eyes, Anaise,” she implored. “Seek for Tal Dur with evil in your heart, and only evil will attend you. Turn away from this course before it is too late!”

Anaise brushed her aside and stood up. “Minister to your sickly charges whilst you may,” she advised. “And know this. We stand on the threshold of a new world, a world where weakness and sickness will have no place. A new Sigmarsgeist, my Sigmarsgeist.”

There was a sound like a roll of thunder from outside, and another great edifice collapsed into the swirling waters, great blocks of stone torn apart by the sheer force of the tide. For a few seconds the building trembled like a tree in a storm, and then subsided.

“Is this how your new world will look, Anaise?” Bea asked quietly. “With destruction and death its heralds?”

“There must be an ending before we can begin anew,” Anaise countered, stridently. “It is all within my gift. I can stop this whenever I choose, and begin to build anew. The strong shall survive the deluge, and I shall be there to lead them!”

 

Alexei Zucharov regarded the plight of Sigmarsgeist and its people with a cold indifference. The bricks and stones that had been the citadel were nothing to him, nor were the souls that had taken shelter within it. He strode through the heart of the citadel, towards the ever-rising flood waters, gazing dispassionately at the carnage unfolding all around him. To the mortal eye this would seem like the end of all things, mayhem and brutal destruction, a senseless tide of anarchy that could no longer be reined in. Only a follower of Tzeentch could see the destruction of Sigmarsgeist for what it truly was: an act of mighty transfiguration. Transformation on a huge scale; transformation of the sort upon which the great wheels of eternity turn. Zucharov knew this now. Without change there was stasis, and with stasis came degeneration and decay. Change was the very essence of being. The destruction of Sigmarsgeist was an act of celebration, pious homage to the great, Dark Lord of Transformation himself.

The end game for Sigmarsgeist, and for Tal Dur, was at hand. Now he must ensure that nothing interfered with the mighty forces at work. Zucharov had assembled an army, of sorts, to do his master’s bidding. The Norscans accounted for the greater number, prisoners from the defeated army at Erengrad, now freed to return to the service of the dark cause. Most of them wore the white of the elite guard. It had pleased Kyros to have them don the uniform whilst Rilke’s men were rounded up and left to rot, discredited and shamed by their leader, in the cells.

The Norscan force had been augmented by such others of the prisoners who could be trusted, any who bore the mark of Tzeentch upon them, or those who had not yet mutated beyond the point of madness. Amongst the white of the Norscan guard jostled a dozen or more inhumans, mutants and other creatures of Chaos.

Some of them were still recognisably human, some altered beyond all semblance of mortal form. As they waded amid the swirling waters, the power of their dark master flowed ever more powerfully through their altered forms. Bodies shimmered and convulsed; voices rose to a keening scream, adding to the insane cacophony of the streets, driven to joyous delirium by the scenes of grief and destruction all around them.

Zucharov did not share their joy. His purpose was to see the will of Kyros done, and the job was not accomplished yet. But he knew he must let his warriors—particularly the cruelly violent Norscans—have their head. Zucharov decided to give them blood, much as he might throw meat to a pack of dogs. All around them now townsfolk were trying to flee the rising waters. Zucharov ordered the Norscans to turn them back, it would be sport enough for them, for the moment. The white-clad northerners went about their task with a brutal, ruthless efficiency, lashing out with staves at anyone—man, woman or child—who tried to get past to safety, and herding those who held off back into the arms of the flood. Any who fell by the wayside they skewered with their swords, murdering the fleeing populace without discrimination.

Zucharov let the butchers get on with their work all the time marshalling his men deeper into the citadel. There was no reason why the townsfolk should die, but there was no reason for them to live, either. In the end, he knew, they were all dead. He marched on, the icy water swirling about his ankles running red with blood. Soon enough, he found real work for his murderous horde to concern themselves with.

They had skirted the heart of the city, and followed one of the main thoroughfares that ran from north to south, close to the high walls. Ahead of them was a large group of Red Guards—perhaps twenty or thirty in all—attacking the walls with picks and staves and—in one place—a great battering ram. The sight made no immediate sense to Zucharov, but Kyros quickly communicated to him their intent, and, equally quickly, made clear his orders. The guards must not be allowed to breach the walls. The great flood must be allowed to run its course; the transformation must be completed. Only then could the prophecy of Tal Dur be fulfilled. Only then could Kyros—and Zucharov—claim its gifts.

Zucharov raised his arm and drew his men to him. With a single shouted command, he began the attack. So absorbed were the Red Guard in their assault upon the walls, they did not see Zucharov and his grotesque troop until they were all but upon them. Zucharov drew out his sword and bellowed a cry of war that came from the very core of his being. At long last, he was delivered to his true destiny. The blood of battle coursed in his veins; he could taste it in his mouth. Soon his sword would run red with it. Too late the soldiers of Sigmar saw the Chaos horde bearing down upon them. Too late, they turned from the walls and raised their shields against the crazed attackers.

Zucharov plunged his blade deep into the body of the first guard who tried to block his path, the force of his thrust was so great that it carried the man—already dead—clean off his feet. He calculated the odds of battle—level or better than level, his followers matching the Red Guard man for man. Even with the odds against them, they would surely have prevailed. The Red Guard were weary, in their minds already defeated, desperately trying to salvage something from the wreckage of their citadel. The soldiers of Sigmar would be swept away, cut to ribbons in a flurry of frenzied steel.

Zucharov tore into the midst of the Red Guard, annihilating adversaries to his left and his right with thunderous blows of his sword. Most of those who had a chance to counter-attack could barely get near him, and even those who found their mark were unable to inflict a wound upon the leathery hide that had grown, like armour, covering Zucharov’s body.

The soldiers of Sigmar were not totally without heart, and they were not without skill. Although overwhelmed, they were still taking a toll of the Norscans, and soon as many as a dozen of the northerners lay dead or dying. Zucharov regretted their loss only as much as he would regret the loss of a resource. The Norscans deserved to die, he had no kinship with their foul breed. And there would be enough of them to ensure the deed was done. And if the Norscans, and his other followers all perished, then he would still stand, undiminished and unvanquished. He was strong, he was all-powerful, he was immortal.

Zucharov swung his blade, double-handed, decapitating two soldiers as they tried to close in upon him. In the aftermath he looked about, trying to establish what had happened to the Guards’ assault upon the walls. All but a handful of them had abandoned their attempt, and turned their attentions to saving their miserable skins. But, as he looked on, one of the red-clad guards—their leader—was now running back to where the great siege engine—the battering ram—sat poised ready to deliver its hammer punch to the outer wall.

Zucharov paid it scant attention at first. Huge though the siege engine was, it was surely incapable of breaching the thick stone wall. Then he saw that the wall was already weakened. Several great slabs of stone were missing or removed where the wall was being rebuilt. One well-directed thrust might be enough to break through. This could not be allowed to happen.

Zucharov broke away from the main combat, swatting aside another three opponents, and sprinted for the walls. The Red Guard was on the point of releasing the machine, and sending the column of oak smashing against the stone wall. Zucharov let out a roar and hurled a short-bladed knife, aimed square in the middle of the guard’s back. In that instant the guard turned to one side, and the blade flew wide.

Zucharov recognised the man. It was one of the confidants who sat in attendance upon the Guides, the highest ranking of those who wore the red of Sigmarsgeist. Baecker. Yes, that was his name. Zucharov leapt towards him, a final desperate lunge before his enemy could loosen the catches that held the mighty beam in place. Even in that moment, he was able to look through the eyes of Kyros, into the other man’s soul. Yes, it was clear. Baecker had the seed of darkness within him, the potential, at least, to cross the great divide and join with the march of the armies of the night. But for now, he was just another adversary. Zucharov already had enough men that he could call upon as his ally. The only fate that could await Hans Baecker was death.

Baecker’s hand was inches away from the mechanism, another second or two would be all he needed to set the beam in motion and smash a great fissure in the wall. In the last instant he saw Zucharov coming for him, and swerved aside. The manoeuvre saved Baecker’s life, but it cost him the chance to launch the battering ram. Before he could recover, Zucharov was on him, wielding his blade with awesome speed. Baecker was dwarfed by his opponent, but stood his ground, fending off Zucharov’s first strikes and even finding space to strike back at the tattooed mutant towering over him. Just for an instant, Zucharov experienced a feeling akin to shock, or surprise. For just that fleeting moment, as Baecker lashed out at him with a vigour born of desperation, Zucharov remembered what it was like to be mortal, and his sense of invulnerability fell under threat. He reacted to that threat with another bellicose howl of rage, redoubling the speed and ferocity of his sword.

Baecker parried three, then four, shattering blows in succession, but his strength was waning. Zucharov’s fifth stroke spun Baecker off-balance, and the sixth prised the sword from out of his hand.

Zucharov pulled back, on the threshold of the seventh, decisive strike. He looked down at his own chest, where a rivulet of ruby blood was running into the contours of the dark images etched upon his flesh. He sheathed his sword, and raised a hand to his chest, wiping the blood away contemptuously.

Hans Baecker launched a last desperate attack, charging full on at Zucharov, his fists held high. Zucharov grabbed the man’s arm and twisted, the sharp crack of splintering bone met by Baecker’s scream of agony. Zucharov drew his other arm around his opponent’s neck and held him firm. Baecker was twisting and writhing like a wild animal, but Zucharov was able to hold him with ease. He let Baecker struggle for a few moments more, then, with his free hand, clamped hold of Baecker by the hair, and snapped his head back, breaking his neck.

He kicked the body to one side, and stood back. The wall had not been breached. The final chance to save Sigmarsgeist had gone. The rushing waters hastened to cover the siege engine and the bodies of its crew. Soon they would all be submerged. It was time for Zucharov to move on. There was still more to be done.

He opened his hands and gazed down at his palms. The jet-black lines of the tattoo melted and reformed, swirling like the waters assailing the citadel. As Zucharov looked on, the image resting in each hand took on a similar, but different, shape and form. Finally the likeness of two faces came into view. The faces of two women, opposite and opposed, but united now in one purpose: to deliver Tal Dur to Kyros and his servant.