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

one of the shelves; by instinct he slotted it into the correct location. Pausing to consider, he selected another. The lectern creaked with a noise like a man racked by torture, as the codex settled onto it. The candles that lit this room smoked eerily with a smell like bacon; the fat of which they were made was wholly appropriate and readily available to any necromancer. He barely noticed the passage of time as he studied, feverishly trying to cram comprehension into his inexperienced skull. Spells and incantations normally beyond one of his experience seemed to be just barely accessible, falling into place with a curious, demented logic of their own. As if he already knew them, as if he had used them before.
    Hours passed. Oblivious to time, Helmut slaked his thirst for forbidden knowledge at a well polluted by a subtle foulness.
    The power grew in him until he felt that his head should burst if he committed to memory another incantation. It was a monstrous feeling. Presently he shut the cover of the book, this time with delicacy and an almost lascivious feel for the well-tooled human leather of the covers. He looked about, then blinked and rubbed his eyes. Yes, it was time.
    There was another exit from the hidden suite of the Nameless master, and Helmut found it without difficulty. He himself had entered by the back door, so to speak; since when had a necromancer not desired easy access to the nearest graveyard? Deep within the forest he found himself climbing a short flight of steps to a trapdoor. It had been buried beneath soil for years, but the bearings were so well-balanced that, despite a small flurry of dirt, it opened effortlessly in the darkness.
    Finding himself in darkness, Helmut clapped his hands softly, and muttered a cantrip he had known even before his accession to power. A soft, lambent light began to glow from an amulet that he swung on a chain before him. Let there be light , he thought ironically. Enough to see by, at any rate. Tangled roots wove like ghastly tentacles across the ground, and the trees rose into the gloom of the forest like the legs of giants waiting to step on and crush mortals.
    Helmut instinctively made his way towards the graveyard path that led to the village beyond. He never questioned how he knew where the path was - nor even why it had remained in the same place from century to century, down through the ages - but he found it all the same. He made his way towards the settlement quietly, pausing to sniff the air from time to time. The scent of woodsmoke and charred meat told its own story to his sensitive nostrils, a story of despair and suffering and pointless cruelty. The raiders didn't know - could not have known - that their target was not at large in the village when they struck. That their target had nothing to do with the village. That their ashes would be dust on the wind before the night was out. A cold anger grew in Helmut's breast as he drew near to the scene of the massacre. And a ghastly anticipation.
    The first victim he saw was a child. Julia Schmidt, baker's daughter. Blood on her dress, dark in the moonlight. Her mother lay nearby. He walked on. There were more corpses now; the reavers had fallen upon a fleeing band of women and children, slaughtering them like sheep. In the gloom they might have been sleeping, in cruel, uncomfortable postures forced upon them by the positioning of strange breaks in their limbs.
    Helmut kept rein on his anger. These were his people; firstly the people he had lived among - and latterly the people destined to be his subjects. Then he came to the village.
    It was a scene of utter carnage. There were bodies everywhere; twisted and hunched peasants with their weapons still in their hands, oddly pathetic heaps of cloth containing mortal remnants. The wreckage of the houses still smouldered under the moonlight, ashes glowing red around paper-grey cores of charred wood. There was blood in the street.
    He slowly turned around, until his