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The hallway was desolate and run-down. Specs of faintly candescent dust shifted lazily in the moonbeams drooping down through ancient wooden window frames. The dusky bricks of the walls were cracked and granulated underneath heavy tangles of thread that had once been glorious tapestries. The vague image of a charging elk held somber watch from most of the wall-hangings, and peered with deadened flass eyes on dusty carpets, antique ornaments and the occasional rusty chandelier. The gallery seemed to stretch on forever; into the oblivion that seemed to be on the last breath of every stone already.
This was Spitemoore, and it was dying.
Master-Administrator Randolph Eichner carefully handled the last oil lamp - fragile as thin glass - on this side of the castle, and tried to ignore the gloomy tendrils of decay and past reverence as he made his way through the gallery. There used to be at least four candles burning in each of the chandeliers, he remembered, but since Old Willy the head-servant went missing, the place was dark as well as deserted. In the time of Duke Baldich’s reign, squires and damsels would tread these once soft carpets, while the distant sounds of lyres and children’s laughter illuminated these halls more than any amount of candles could. It was a good time. His son, Jarvis of Spitemoore, did not do such a bad job himself, until... Well, of course every someone was devastated when the lady Juraine passed on. There were even some servants who were caught weeping over their chores, late at night. It was also the time when the Empire’s support from Altdorf ceased to reach Spitemoore and its surrounding woodland, eventually cutting off the ducal legacy from the rest of civilization. As far north as Spitemoore lay, it could very well be a death sentence to all still residing within its walls. The barbaric terror encroaching from the northern wastes threatened to usurp the whole border reaches on this side of the Empire; probably the exact same reason why Spitemoore was so suddenly abandoned. “Casualties of war”, the royal annals would say when every heart in its land had stopped beating.
And my own annals, Randolph reflected bitterly, will be burned on the spot. Over two hundred people’s lives, battles and dying words will be erased from history. Glory to the Emperor, huzzah.
Soon after the dissolution, the multi-eyed darkness crept in on Spitemoore and the few guarded glades surrounding it. Spitemoore’s soldiers, hard men with military pasts, fearfully reported hungry faces slinking through the trees. Some abandoned their posts, some dissolved the guard points and set up camp closer to the castle, and many more disappeared into the shadowy woods, never to be seen again. A few servants, while gathering berries in the relatively safe glades, spoke of tortured howls and the screaming of voices half-familiar to them. Soon, these sounds had all replaced even the tones of lyres. Sometimes sooty black plumes of smoke rose up somewhere out in the woods, and the wind blew a foul smell of burned flesh into the desolate halls of the quivering castle.
After the lady Juraine passed away, Duke Jarvis did not tarry on his grief. He had the lady, his wife, laid in the family crypts below the castle, and made an oath that he – all of them – would live to personally ride her body to the imperial burial grounds outside Altdorf, and there lay her to rest. That, rather than in this by now unhallowed land of gloomy forests and fearful screams in the dark. Grimly, the duke rallied what men he had left and personally laid the first balustrade of what would become the sole reason any of them had survived for this long. A shabbily built but strong barricade soon surrounded most of the immediate castle grounds, after which Jarvis feverishly set himself upon making sure Spitemoore would remain a bastion of sanity in the encroaching darkness for as long as he drew breath.
Jarvis appeared to have lost his own sanity for quite some time now.
Randolph Eichner absently strolled along the central corridors until he picked up the faintest sound. A clamour through thick and grimy walls. The duke was beating his children again. Yorrick and Jura. Twins, they were, and they grew hard and reserved after the isolation. Just like everyone else still alive in this place. They were the only ones who still held vigil by their mother’s body once a month. Their father must have hated them for that. The regularity of his outbursts of insane rage and the intensity of his blows were testament to it.
‘You conspire against me, with that dead sow of a mother of yours!’ Randolph had once heard him rave to the twins. ‘You think I do not hear you three whispering together, in those crypts? You think I am unaware of that you speak to her, while she refuses me any audience? Tell me! What does she say to you?’ And, after some short moments of silence, his voice broke as he added: ‘is she happy?’ Yorrick and Jura, bruised as they were, then took care of that devastated man, and held vigil over him while he cried himself to sleep.
And to think he used to call his daughter ‘sweetbread’... Well, despite it being hard to hate Jarvis, they are dutiful children, and maybe the only Spitemoores left with half a sense of decency, Randolph thought, and gingerly rapped the door of his master’s chambers.
Jarvis, sweaty and menacing, threw open the door with a dark look on his twisted face.
‘What is it, scribe? I’m tutoring the children.’ Not so much as a quiver from behind him, where the twins were silently picking themselves up, ready for another round.
‘Sir. My apologies, sir. I just wanted to let you know that our... enemies have not yet ceased the attack tonight, and that the outer balustrade has been breached.’
No sign of shock, but rather an insane twinkle glimmered in Jarvis’ eyes. ‘Hah! Let them come! I shall offer them refreshments personally!’ Whereupon he grabbed his naked sword, locked the door behind him with his children still in the room, and ran off through the darkened halls while cackling like a maniac.
The last balustrate did not last long under the combined might of the imperial forces.
Four battalions of griffon soldiers, a contingent of wizards and a steamtank rode out of the nearest imperial barracks to reconquer this part along the border, when the supposed grand invasion from the northern wasted proved but a trickle of migrating tribes of barbarians. Scores of towns welcomed the imperial banners decorated with the grisly trophies of their enemy, trailing safety in their wake.
Not Spitemoore. The military forces encountered heavy resistance from the duke’s private army, apparently all under order to shoot and stab anything coming closer than what the tree line marked.
This did not sit well with the liberation army.
The slaughter lasted but a few hours. By midnight, Spitemoore’s once green glades were sunken beneath a sea of red. The duke’s soldiers, mercenaries, and even some of the servants lay amidst the meaningless charnel of one man’s insane orders. They said the cook was the last to go down.
Randolph abruptly stopped fiddling with the lock, when duke Jarvis returned. He was in bad shape. Blood ran down the side of his head and stained his torn shirt. One leg of his trousers was completely burned away, showing a gruesome wound that must have gone to the bone and then some.
‘Sir! I... eh... Would you like me to look at-...’ The scribe began.
‘It is of no matter, fool!’ Jarvis sneered. ‘Soon I will receive the gift of all gifts, and these puny scratches will be nothing compared to the retaliation I will grant those dogs outside!’
Randolph tried to speak, but was at a loss for words.
‘I just need a little more time...’ the duke added, more to himself. He quickly, with trembling hands, unlocked and opened the door to his chambers. ‘Leave me!’ He bellowed to the one person still alive in the castle, aside from himself and his children. ‘You are dismissed from duty, sir scribe. You have served me well, and for that I will allow you to go. Before it’s too late.’ And with these cryptic words, Jarvis slammed the door shut. Billowing trickles of dust and mortar streamed from the ceiling by the force with which the wooden doorframe was shaken. Vaguely, Randolph heard the lock turn on the other side of the door. Jarvis shutting himself in with his children.
For a few seconds Randolph stood, puzzled.
Indeed. Completely bonkers, he concluded. Poor children. But alas, it had to be done.
Someone had to warn the liberation forces that, although the invasion was a false alarm, Spitemoore had fallen to corruption nonetheless.
‘Good Old Willy,’ he mumbled, as he made his way back to the main hall. ‘Always gets the message through.’
*
‘Father? Are you unwell?’
Yorrick repressed a sigh. Jura was always asking the obvious but, aside from his wounds, his father did look somewhat... strange. Stranger than usual, anyhow.
Jarvis, who had been stumbling to his bed, seemed to suddenly notice the children; as if he was previously unaware of any other presence in the room. While he looked, he blinked and a small amount of sense seemed to creep in his previously staring eyes. ‘Ach, you kids,’ he said, his voice soft and even warm. Carefully, he started to bind his leg wound with one of the bed sheets while he sat down. ‘I suppose I owe you too much to ever repay. Yes, that’s right. Daddy’s still in here, if you would believe it.’ He winced as he tied the last knot on his makeshift tourniquet. ‘I’m glad the haze is lifting for a while, before it obscures all that I was forever. Now, I want you to listen very closely to me...’
Jura bit her lip, tears glistening in her eyes. ‘Daddy, I’m scared.’
Impossible, Yorrick thought. He beat us senseless every week, and she didn’t even flinch! Now she worries and mewls like a frail infant? We agreed that we would give him no reason to pity us. Or for us to pity ourselves while the bastard uses us as his punching-bags. Yes, he looks different right now, but I’m sure it’s just another of his insane games. He observed his father once more. Hesitated. On the other hand...
Jarvis shifted into a more comfortable position. He looked like a discarded ragdoll. ‘I know, sweetheart, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything. So sorry...’ He started to weep. Several moments of silent sobbing passed, until he regained enough of his composure to speak. ‘I would try to make it better, if that’s even possible, but we simply don’t have the time. There are different things at stake now... You have to understand that when Altdorf cut us off, they were officially declaring these lands a war-zone. Do you know why, children?’
‘Because they would sooner let us rot than fight for their own?’ Yorrick sneered. Jura sniffled, but remained silent and attentive.
‘Hah. No, my son. They meant to make this a war-zone to fight for our rescue.’
‘But... They said...’
‘Yes. People talk. They click their tongues and shake their heads when they cannot fathom the circumstances through empirical visual observation. That’s why they’re “the people”. They did not know that a score of imperial battalions were sent to our rescue. Fortunately, I tell you, because then they wouldn’t have had to find out that these battalions were slaughtered by the enemy before they could reach Spitemoore.’
Jura wiped her eyes and swallowed hard. ‘Then why didn’t we lend them our aid?’
‘Because, sweetheart... Because I haven’t exactly been myself, lately. I have made an arrangement with some powerful... people. It is changing me, but that doesn’t concern you. I hadn’t heard of the rescue mission since a few weeks ago. I learned it from a wounded officer, pleading me for his life, wanting to know why we were fighting them while they had tried to rescue us from the beginning. Begging me, before I wrung the life out of his-...’ Jarvis unclenched his fists, and shook off the maniacal spell he suffered, leaving him trembling. ‘Gods... I’m so sorry... Listen to me carefully: in a few moments you will unlock that door, and you will leave. You will lock that same door behind you, and make for the main hall where you wait for the imperial troops to arrive. Can you do that, sweethearts?’
‘But daddy-...’ Jura started.
‘No Jura, your father is no more. These moments are his final breath. Please, do as I ask you. I know I have been a horrible father these past months. But please, remember me as I was before and as I still am now. Do this for me, and for your mother.’
‘We will.’ Yorrick blinked away treacherous tears of his own, and took his sister by her quavering hand. He guided her towards the door, unlocked and opened it, then turned around. ‘I promise I will remember you as you were, father,’ he stated, his voice flat. ‘And I think I know what ails you. The only thing I want to know is why.’
His father still sat upon his bed, among the crumpled sheets where he and mother had once slept so peacefully, safe from the world in each other’s embrace. The duke looked heartbreakingly alone now, and the bed seemed bigger than Yorrick remembered. ‘Because of you, son,’ Jarvis uttered and softly added: ‘and your beautiful mother.’
‘Daddy, I don’t want to go alone!’ Jura repeatedly cried, but Yorrick had already shut the door and was turning the key. He had to practically carry his sister back to the main hall, but he didn’t mind. We do these things for each other, Yorrick repeated over and over in his head, while outside the screams of a hundred loyal men died for nothing. For you Jura, dad, and mum, I will do everything.
Inside, in the dark, Jarvis Spitemoore felt his skin crawl. Literally. His heart was pounding harder and faster than was natural. This was good. It meant that it was starting and it wouldn’t take too long from now, although the worst was probably yet to come. He was faintly aware of Jura’s cries outside, getting more distant by the second. Also good. Lovely Jura. Poor wounded heart. If she would be anything like her mother, she woud grow up to be a gentle nurse and a furious protector.
Jarvis’ right arm tingled, then itched unbearably. White hot hurt shot through his limb while muscle and bone started to shift, it seemed, uncontrollably. He screamed, and held up a crab-like claw that, for some reason, filled him with feelings of such intense hatred it nearly made him throw up. He felt the rest of his body ache, then itch...
He gasped, ‘We all go alone, sweetbread...’
And the Duke of Spitemoore was no longer.
**
It had been fifteen years since brother and sister left Spitemoore. Discovered by the empirial forces, they were sent to a monastery and raised in the Faith. Sigmar was their father from then on.
Randolph Eichner was executed for treason and, when it was discovered exactly whom he had betrayed, his ashes were collected and placed in a holy crypt beneath Praag.
When they discovered how much he got paid for the betrayal, however, his remains were burned again. For treason.
***
There was a greenness to the light that alternately disturbed and soothed. Sunbeams were washed in earthy tones and the faintly glowing pollen in the air indicated even the slightest illumination. Already the smell of autumn flowed like a gentle river through the gnarly trees and broken ruins in the glade. Soon, twilight would arrive with its brown glow and cricket-chirping shadows. Somewhere nearby, a small brook sounded a tinkling chorus in the harmonic march of nature on the forgotten works of man.
‘So, they finally sent you out into the “field”, did they?’ Yorrick spoke as he idly kicked a stone, which turned out to be the top of a larger rock buried deep in the ground. His yelp of surprised anguish was impressive.
Jura sat against the stump top of a broken column, and gloated like a wicked witch. She took another swig of the wine sack, lay back and lazily closed her eyes. ‘Well done, Yor. Is the evil stone ready to confess, now?’
‘Hey! You know I only ever interrogate stones-... er, people with crab’s claws or otherwise-‘ he let himself drop down like a sack of potatoes against the same column, nursing his foot, ‘- unnatural deformities.’ He concluded feebly.
‘Like that maimed circus artist who lost his legs trying to save his family from a fire? I remember you put the fear o’ Sigmar into him but good.’
‘Hey!’ Yorrick eloquently protested. ‘... And I never touched him anyway. What about you, oh holy sister o’ mercy? Last time I heard you set a whole village on fire.’
Jura let out an insulted bellow. ‘They were sprouting horns out of their bloody heads and where frothing at the mouth! What do you expect I would do? Absolute them for eating their own children and slaughtering the nearby villages?’
‘... Yeah...’ Yorrick sighed. ‘ What a rotten world we live in eh?’
‘Yeah.’
Silence, but the gentle gurgle of the stream and the crickets’ song.
‘What beautiful green and slumbering brown stalk these woods,’ Jura almost sang.
‘You know, my department recently started burning so-called “child witches”. Mostly invalids and amputees, of course.’
‘Tinkling sounds and dozing birds mute the din of man.’
‘They’re also starting to turn on their own. Last week, a bishop was disemboweled and hanged for harbouring the only starving survivor of a village that fell prey to the barbarian invasion.’
‘Brilliant lighted folly of man,’ Jura stubbornly continued, ‘sleeps now in feathery moss and birds’ feathers. Forever-...’
‘Will you shut the bloody hell up?!’ Yorrick was standing, his eyes blazing. The game was over. ‘We come here every month to the ruins of our former home, like we agreed. Having at the bleedin’ bottle and hoping to find a moment’s respite from the horror and bloodshed filling our every righteous moment. We slaughter innocents and foes alike, and afterwards cradle our excuses like frail babes starving for nourishment,’ he held up the wine sack demonstratively. ‘Why do we do this, Jur? A thousand babes o’ evil I would burn, but the only thing I want to know is why...’ Always that same question. He slumped down across from her, clearly intoxicated. Clearly hurt.
Jura sidled over to his skulking form, put an arm around him. ‘What else is there to do, Yor? Piously study our holy texts? Enjoying our life until the shadow usurps us all? We all die, sweet brother, but a part of us is doomed. Would you rather be snuffed between the satin sheets of decadence or burn a thousand supposed evils and have at the mindless destruction that knows nothing but blind hatred? What your Inquisition does is not what you do. It’s not a question of condoning, it’s participating that will separate or connect you to the shadow’s first victims when all bloody hell breaks loose.’ She did not even convince herself.
‘Perhaps...’ Yorrick wiped his eyes. ‘Perhaps I have seen too much.’ He hicupped and rested his head against his sister’s shoulder. ‘I need to prepare you. Bloody hell is already here...’He sagged against her, sleepily. ‘Don’t want you to get hurt... Take care of you...’
‘Hush. I’ll take care of you now.’
‘... But I promised... father...’ Snoring.
Crickets sang, the brook’s gentle chorus faded and the green light dimmed to make place for the moon’s cool smile.
It was a long walk back to the nearest village. Especially with a passed out brother, brother in the Faith no less, on your back. But it contributed to the war-effort, Jura thought.
Why do we do this? She asked herself as she toiled towards the faltering lights of civilization. We do these things for each other. For you Yor, dad and mum.
I will do everything.
****
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