Warhammer [Ignorant Armies] by epubBillie Read Free Book Online Page A

Helmut. It was as if he was returning to himself, after a childhood of darkness and ignorance. Somehow he knew where everything was; knew what the rooms were; as if he had lived here before in some past incarnation.
    Nobody had ever told him of the dread life-in-death of the great necromantic wizards; much less of the whispered, rumoured ability some had to take possession from beyond the grave. In accepting the domain of a Liche, Helmut had accepted far more than the old monster's possessions. Already he felt a power in himself that was new; a confidence and a knowledge dark in its intensity and external in its origins.
    First Helmut lit the lanterns that, scattered through the mausoleum, shed a gloomy light upon the ancient dwelling-place. In the robing-room he paused for thought. Surely...? He shook his head. He had never possessed a garment that was not much-patched, handed down from some previous owner. Rags! A black cassock hung waiting. It crackled with age as he pulled it over his head, but it fitted well. The hood came over his head and he laughed grimly, satisfied. The very image of a wizard.
    Next he proceeded to the library. Shelves that bowed under the weight of mighty codices stretched to the ceiling on two sides. There was no reading desk, but there was a lectern in the shape of a hunchbacked, screaming skeleton. A tome was already positionioned on it, open to one leathery page. Helmut walked round it, admiring the binding which was of a curiously light, fine leather that could only have come from one source. Then he looked at the first page.
    It was in a script and a language with neither of which he was familiar. But he could read it, or something in him could; it made perfect sense. He laughed again. Voles and mice and dead squeaky bone-things in the forest! Such toys seemed ludicrous now. Then he frowned, remembering the reaver ship. It had been heading for the beach, a landing at high-tide twilight, full of warriors dreaming of the mystery of the axe. Impersonally he realized that there would be plenty of material on hand for his new-found-trade; plenty of familiar faces in strange, twisted contexts...
    He turned the page and heard the electrifying crackle of trapped power. Runes glowed on the parchment, gold-encrusted shapes that sizzled with potential. Illustrations of death and the unstill life beyond it, hermetic monsters and people of the twilight. On the raising of corpses and the ghastly perfection of skeletons. On the touch that brings pain and death, and the touch that restores a semblance of life. On the nature and treatment of vampires, ghouls, and the like. The elixir of life, and of death-in-life. His fingertips glided from page to page, subtly memorizing the more useful items.
    Then a thought struck him. A thought or a vision. His spine chilled as sweat stood forth on his brow - cold sweat. In his mind's eye he saw a picture of burning houses and villagers butchered, the priest's body gibbeted by the wayside. Barbarous raiders retreating to the beach to feast and celebrate their victory. His parents lying unnoticed among the dead, until the worms and beetles and small furry things came out to feed on human flesh.
    The book shut with a crack, dust flying from the spine at either end. Helmut stood with head bowed, a terrible tension in his shoulders. They would test me, would they? he thought with massive, terrible indignation. I, the heir! He still lacked the actuality of power, but nightmarish vistas were opening up to his dark imagination. With what he had here he could rule the headland for miles around. Poison the fish in swarms so that those who failed to fear him would starve, learning their lesson as their bellies bloated and ate the flesh from their bones. Did you do this, master? he asked silently. Did you prepare them for my arrival? Did you?
    There was no reply, but somehow he was sure he heard a chuckle from beyond the grave.
    Shaking his head, Helmut took the tome and placed it on