Chancellery, Berlin
The Security Council's meeting had not gone on for long and Uwe Junge was already exasperated.
"Yes, the bloody slaves have held out for much longer than I or anybody else expected. So what does this have to do with the price of tea in Cathay, Christian?"
Germany's foreign minister could be seen taking a few deep breaths before answering in a rather slow and measured voice.
"I do not think that overly concerns you Uwe, but it indeed gives us the chance to rescue the former slaves. If they have a chance to hold a few months longer, and we can improve the odds by dropping a few supplies, we can assemble forces which can indeed end that siege. And the same former slaves might provide the allies we need if we want to keep Naggaroth from becoming a peer competitor."
Uwe Junge paused for a moment before he chuckled.
"My my, Christian, did you read up on asymmetric warfare 101 or what? Yes, having local allies is one of the requisites of winning a guerrilla war. Tell me, how do you think you can control them? After 5000 years of rape, being sacrificed, and tortured the slaves will do the human thing when they can and massacre any Spitzohren they can possibly find. Not that I would personally mind, but I do not think your do-gooders would stand for that. So if we want to control things to a reasonable degree we would need a substantial amount of boots on the ground.
And the Kaiserlichen won't stand for that. It will drag the German armed forces into a quagmire for decades to come, will kill countless good men and women, and hurt many more. I do not think that we can manage such an occupation without using conscripts and calling up reserves. That is going to have an impact at home like you wouldn't believe. Even worse, none of that will do any good for Germany and the Germans, the very people who elected you. And weren't you elected on a platform of lowering the taxes? Forget about that if you want to play Iraq redux in Spitzohren-Land.
And if you get the bright idea of evacuating all the former slaves to Germany and maybe some to the Empire: Forget it. I guarantee you that the Kaiserlichen will leave this coalition before we agree to such madness. We had enough of that during the Bretonn Civil War, thank you very much.
Christian, you mean well, really, but leave such matters to the professionals, please."
It took Junge a few moments before he realized that all members of the security cabinet looked at him with either disgust or exasperation of their own. To him it confirmed how right he was. That Sonja Krieger, the Kaiserlichen secretary for magic, did the same was raising questions that would not be answered for a while though.
Neustadt, Naggaroth
Kuan Ti wasn't exactly running down the communications trench, that was hard to do with the weight of her gear, but she was certainly making her way as quickly as she could. She carried two pails with the food for her squad manning the bunker that was her post. She had to change the grip on one pail and stopped. It was then that she noticed the flickers of light. Lifting her helmeted head minutely above the parapet she saw the dark ground before the wire, about to be touched by the winter morning's cold light. Myopia, snow, and darkness conspired to hide the many bodies that she knew laying before and in the wire belts that protected Neustadt better than any city wall. Nothing could be seen there that could explain the flickers of light. It took her a moment to see the flashes on the horizon.
Her tired brain needed a second to parse that information and when it arrived at the correct conclusion it was reinforced by the menacing rumble of incoming artillery and the klaxon's wail. Kuan Ti had to get out of this trench pronto. The next tunnel entrance was just a dozen meters away, no problem at all. She started her fast shuffle again while all around her pandemonium worked itself up to its full fury. Rockets rose from Neustadt, deploying long-burning flares on parachutes. They lit the much-abused battleground before the wire in an eerie flickering, far too-brilliant light. Machine guns hammered at targets unseen and the first impacts dropped all over Neustadt's defenses. Kuan Ti still refused to let go of the pails, or her comrades would go hungry today. She managed three quarters of the way before something unseen on the ground gripped her left foot. She fell heavily on her face, stunned for a moment and angry at her clumsiness. She was just pushing herself up when something exploded on the lid of the trench she was in. The shockwave pummeled every bit of her body and threw lots of dirt on her moments later. Kuan Ti no longer felt the soil hit her back, she was dropping into an endless darkness already.
500 meters before the wire, Neustadt, Naggaroth
Racca Dawneyes enjoyed gazing at the flowers as only a Druchii could do. They were extremely short-lived, brilliant, full of fire and death. They were so very beautiful to watch from a distance, but offered thorns of shrapnel and overpressure to those close to them. She watched the explosions walk all over Neustadt's defense belt. They lit the sky in rapid succession and the rumble of their detonations merged into an evil surf that rose and fell like the last breaths of a dying man.
It was easy to imagine that nothing could live in the hell Dawneyes had ordered on the rebellious slaves. She knew better from bitter experience won in the fighting against the DawiZharr, having been on the receiving end often enough. That was why she had planned a hurricane bombardment, throwing shells at the enemy as fast as the artillery could manage in a short time. It might kill some defenders, but mostly it would waste its fury on the ground and whatever defenses the enemy had erected. Still, the shockwaves, the sheer noise and the knowledge that a shell might kill you at any time could frighten a warrior into uselessness. Racca had experienced it herself and imagined it must be worse for the slaves. No Druchii they, not born into a world where everybody might kill them at any time. They did not revere the god of murder, they were weak and therefore slaves. They would cower in their bunkers and try to wait it out. They would not like the wake-up call.
More flashes could be seen far behind the wire belts, but these flowers would present their thorns to Racca's people. They showed where Neustadt's arguably superior artillery wreaked havoc on their Druchii counterparts. That was quite all right with Racca, the hurricane bombardment had used most of the munitions in Darkhand's army. Better the arty pukes got it then her Stormtroopers. She could hear the slacking of fire already, the slaves had become good at what they did. Those pieces still in the fight fired the last mission.
Thank Khaine that the Darkhand had not known what to do with the smoke rounds he had been issued with. If it did not kill or wound the enemy the Black Guard was not interested. So she could ask for a deluge of white phosphorous rounds on the defensive belt. Not only would that mask the Druchii assault, it would water the slaves' eyes and burn their throats. Racca knew very well that a high concentration of the white smoke could kill, either quickly through burns or by filling the victim's lungs with their own body fluids. It made for a lovely prolonged, if somewhat painless death. The DawiZharr had done it to her soldiers and she had returned the favor a couple of times. Now she could do it to the slaves manning the defenses before her. Her time would come soon, but not now.
Now she watched the witches emerge from the depression they had been in. Only Druchii eyes would reveal the symbols written in fresh blood on bare skin in the darkness, scars old and new, and a madness eternal. They were as far from their hung-over and depressed former selves as they could be. They were racing to the front, lithe, agile, and elegant. Their cries mixed excitement, lust,and hate into a frightening whole. They were the Brides of Khaine, about to sacrifice all before them to the god of murder. They had to be the vanguard of Racca's attack, not only as they wanted it with all their bloody hearts. They would kill all before them when their blood was up, no matter whom their victim swore allegiance to.
They ran like the wind, unencumbered by heavy armor or arms. Their long daggers would kill all that came into their reach. They jumped any obstacles with ease and crossed the no-man's land before the wire in less than a minute. They paid for that already, Racca saw bullets emerge from the smoke, pulling a vaporous trail behind. Most missed the Witches, many inflicted bleeding wounds that were ignored in the drug-filled madness. Others impacted with the sound a butcher's cleavers makes, ripping off limbs or filling beautiful chests with blood and the remains of their flesh.
They reached the barbed wire with most of them still alive and screaming. Less than a hundred meters before them were their next victims and the bloody communion with their god and lover. Many tried to jump the tangled obstacle, only to find themselves entangled by more of it. Others slithered on the ground like snakes, trying to pass underneath the wire that ripped their few garments off and scratched their backs like a lover in heat. Quite a few of them found where Neustadt's denizens had placed the many traps in the belt. Even crazed and drugged to the gills the witches could not ignore the mines and their bodies started to clog the wire belt. Still others hacked at the wire with blades that could part even the most resilient flesh. The wire simply sprang back, trying to draw blood in revenge.
Whatever the witches tried, it slowed them down to a crawl. The longer they stayed where they were, the better the chances that a random bullet would find them. Less than a minute after the witches started their assault they were bunched up before the first line of wire. All of a sudden fiery poplar shapes rose between them, showing where mortar rounds detonated. Other explosions ripped the pre-dawn sky apart, lashing the ground below with shrapnel. The brides kept what they were doing as long as their crazed hearts pumped blood, never ceasing their advance. Some even made it to the first bunkers, struggling to gain entrance.
At the moment the witches were not able to judge their performance in sane terms, but for immense frustration. So far they had not killed any slave and had lost half of their number if not more. Whether they would be enthused by Racca's appraisal that they had played their role in her plan adequately was very much an open question. The next part was already gathering speed, hollering, hooting, and screaming like a teakettle on steroids.
The beastmasters had used their whips to frighten their charges into a fury and they stampeded for Neustadt's wire. Huge beasts, weighing many tons, they could take a rifle round or ten without dying immediately. Some War Hydras were even tougher than their brethren, having metal plates riveted onto their very bones. The fire that emerged from the fog hit them easily enough, given their huge size. It did not kill them though, not quickly enough. It managed to enrage them to an even greater fury and bellowing their rage while bleeding from many wounds they charged the wire. Any human or human-sized creature that was caught by the razor-sharp edges had to stop or risk losing limbs and life. The edges grabbed the Hydras' skin all right, but did not cut deep enough to bleed them badly. Their rage masked the pain and they were strong enough to rip the poles that held the wire from the ground. Bellowing their rage, defying blood loss and pain the huge beasts demolished the first wire belt meter by meter and nothing would stop them from doing so.
Bunker, behind the first wire belt, Neustadt
Gernod's eyes were watering, even below their protective googles and he had to work for every breath under the thick gauze mask usually worn by workers in Neustadt's more dirty factories. He could hardly see through his steamy googles and the chemical haze before the bunker's vision slits. That there was an attack there was no doubt, the artillery strikes and the screeching and bellowing of the unseen attackers bore testimony to that. He was shooting his machine gun inside its firing arc on targets never seen, but reported through the telephone from observation posts high up. The hammering the machine gun's stock gave his shoulder should reassure him as it usually did. But as he could see nothing and had no idea if he hit anything or not he felt nearly helpless.
He would never see the blood that rushed from Anja's nose or Torsten Breitkop's anguish when he caught her collapsing body. She had managed to push a spell through everything the Druchii did to prevent it, but it had cost her dearly. Gernod surely saw the wind that blew the smoke right into the Druchii's eyes and despaired at how close the enemy was. Even worse, he saw the huge Hydras which wrestled with the barbed wire and uprooted it meter by meter.
He turned his machine gun on the next one and fired a full belt at it in one go. He was not sure if he killed it or if the gunner from the next bunker made it happen, but finally the beast laid still on the ground. Before he could pick another Hydra to shoot, something hit the next beast and exploded the chest. Remembering the heavy guns farther back he looked for targets more suitable for his machine gun. Druchii witches crawled over Hydra carcasses to get closer to Gernod and he could not do anything about it as long as his gun was empty. Steam rose from the barrel's water cooling and the assistant loader took long seconds to insert another one. Where was Kuan Ti when one needed her, she would have done the deed in half that time?
Gernod's world reduced itself to the vision slit to his front. Enemies appeared before it for the briefest of times, being immediately hidden by the muzzle flashes. His only function left in his life was shooting anybody who walked into his firing lane and he did the best he could. Corpses lay before his bunker side by side and on top of each other and still more Druchii charged into the field. Gernod screamed at the loader to load faster, at the others to phone headquarters for aid and at the Spitzohren to die. His throat was hoarse from screaming and breathing smoke and he ripped the googles off so he might see better.
He hardly heard the mines on top of the bunker going off and the bangs of rifles fired from the slots in the rear made no impression. He lived to kill one more Druchii, the ones who had brought such pain to him and his comrades. Things got quieter behind him before there was a gurgling sound besides him. He only looked up from the killing when there was no more ammo to shoot and the loader did nothing. The last thing he ever saw was the hate-distorted face of a Witch. Something unbearably hot slammed into his chest and breathing became impossible then and there. He slipped into darkness within seconds.
500 meters before the wire, Neustadt, Naggaroth
Now this was more like it. The Witches and War Hydras were more or less wiped out, but they had breached the first wire belt in several places and the survivors were keeping the bunkers' crews busy. There was another line of wire past the first one, but Racca saw her next meat shields advancing into the much diminished fire. The Executioners might not be as fast as the Witches and had a tendency to keep tight formations. That made them better targets, but there were fewer shooters interested in them. And those who actually made it past the defenses could be trusted not to kill needlessly. Racca doubted that there would be many left, but they were not her and her troops, so they did not matter.
And when the Executioners reached the first wire belt it was her time. Pulling the pipe from its resting place at her chest she blew it three times. Time to leave the trench and make for no-man's land. Her Stormtroopers were the least impressive warriors to look at compared to the polished discipline of the Executioners or the murderous craziness of the Witches. They did not assemble in straight lines or marc in formation. They kept in small groups and dashed from cover to cover. They had neither artistically forged armor with spikes nor did they display nearly all their skin. Instead they were clad in the colors of mud and snow and tried to break up their outlines with twigs and strips of cloth. Racca was at their front and the closer she came to the fighting the more she liked it. She had gambled all of the resources Kouran had granted her into one assault and failure was not an option.
The Hydras had not just breached the wire, their corpses provided suitable cover to approach the fortifications. And if she heard right some of the Witches and Executioners were keeping the slaves busy. This might actually work. Racca threw herself into a handy shell hole and did not even notice the smell of the corpse that resided in it for some time. Looking over the rim she spotted a breach that she liked and showed it to her platoon. The Stormtroopers were not looking for a fight, they would infiltrate through weak spots and either attack the fortifications from behind or go for Neustadt themselves. They had already split into small groups, all of them knowing the overall plan and their area of attack. She doubted that the slaves were able to fight her soldiers when out of their fortifications.
No pipe this time, just hand signals and a few terse commands sent them forward, past the first Hydra. Her warriors could traverse the rest of the wire by stepping on the bodies of the many Witches that had been slaughtered before the bunker. The bunker itself was covered in corpses and the entrance blocked by more of them.
Still she could make her way forward to the next wire and her people pushed a Bangalore torpedo below. It exploded under the wire and produced a breach through which her people could make their ways forward. When the first warrior sprinted forward he was greeted by a machine gun salvo that ripped him in two. All the others dropped back into cover. Fuck, what now? There was no way to go around the bunker in front and attacking it directly would kill her platoon in no time. She was debating what to do when there was a commotion behind her. Crawling backwards she found herself face to face with Tullaris Dreadbringer, a Druchii who gave pause to the Witch King himself.
He said nothing while just staring at her through the visor slits. Racca froze until she saw the fractional nod of the helmet. Getting in front of the Executioners was worth something even in Tullaris' eyes.
She could not do nothing and letting the Dreadbringer take command here, on a battlefield he was not accustomed to, could only bring disaster.
"I have some smoke grenades left. We will use them at that bunker before us, then we can use the breach. If you reach the trench behind the bunker, you can kill the enemy where they cannot use their rifles effectively."
To Racca's surprise there was another nod, deeper this time.
When the smoke engulfed the bunker the Executioners ran through the breach with all the experience won on many a battlefield. The warriors were trained not to stumble when they fought on slippery ground or when stepping on a corpse, they were not inconvenienced by the mud below. The Executioners still did not stoop or try to take cover and paid for that, but not as badly as they would have an hour before. When the smoke cleared Racca saw most of them on the other side of the belt, about to enter a communications trench. If Dreadbringer and his warriors could clear that trench, Racca would have the next thing to a free pass into Neustadt proper.
Inside the communications trench, before Neustadt
Kuan Ti tasted the mud in her mouth and started to cough. She was not sure of (if not of) there was blood in the ejected matter and did not worry about it. She tried to get her bearings by groping around. She needed half a minute to find her glasses while all around her pandemonium reigned. Shots passed over her trench from both sides and the earth shook with explosions. Cries of anger and anguish, human and Druchii urged her to come to grips faster and yet she could see one or two meters ahead before things blurred into uselessness.
Her heart jumped with relief when she located the glasses that would show her the way to safety. They were hopelessly muddy, but she always carried a cloth for that under her tunic. When she cleaned the dirt away she felt the damage to one glass already and when she placed them on her nose the left eye saw a kaleidoscope image through shards. The right eye gazed at a nightmare. The dreaded slavers were through the first wire belt and some were working on the second one. Many bunkers were ominously still and death was all around her. Kuan Ti froze for an eternal moment when her dream of a safe, good life for her children was drowned in blood.
A group of Druchii was entering the trench she was in and coming her way. All Spitzohren were a threat, having demonstrated their cruelty to Kuan Ti from the time she could barely walk. Those that were in the trench now were the distilled essence of the Dark Elves, elegant, moving with a purpose and reveling in slaughter. Looking around like a frightened rabbit Kuan Ti looked for a way out, a path that would allow her to flee and see her children one more time.
Her children were behind her, no more than a kilometer from their would-be killers.
Ice ran through her veins and made her stand up straighter. Whatever else Kuan Ti was, she was a mother and her children were threatened. The slavers were dangerous, but that was no real problem. She just had to get close.
Kuan Ti had never received a gun as she had not been able to shoot at targets even 20 meters away. It did not mean she was unarmed. Pulling her collapsible shovel from her belt she unfolded the sharpened blade. She was good with that as long as she got close and the slavers before her only wielded swords. She would have her chance to bleed them that was sure.
She lifted the shovel with her right arm, making sure her left hand gripped the cords tightly. Screaming a wordless challenge, guided by broken glasses, the former slave charged the best swordsmen of Naggaroth. They did not react for a moment, looking incredulously at Kuan Ti's charge that seemed so useless. She got closer and closer to them without any stepping in her way. Finally she allowed her left hand to join her right to lend strength to her strike, the cords it had taken with it like a miniature banner.
The Druchii even stepped aside, allowing her to face the one in their midst that looked even more dreadful than the rest. She swung her shovel from her left shoulder, aiming for the gap under the shoulder armor. She never saw the strike that got her before the shovel ever connected. Her vision became a tunnel that showed a world tumbling around her. Her head had not even come to a rest when her real strike unfolded. No former slave in Neustadt wanted to be recaptured by the slavers, ever again. Nearly all had acquired means to make sure that would not happen.
Kuan Ti's post at the front lines meant that it was no problem at all to take a few hand grenades with her. She had pulled their cords on the last steps before she was among the Executioners. Three of them exploded in the tight confines of the trench, wasting very few fragments and pummeling everybody with a shockwave that rebounded from the trench walls.
Tullaris Dreadbringer, one of the few Druchii who could realistically challenge the Witch King had brought his retinue of Executioners with him. They were the veterans of so many years of war and bloodshed, able to kill any living being on this world with a single, elegant stroke of their long blades. The flower of the Druchii old guard was killed by a slave who protected her children.
Inside the second defense belt, before Neustadt
Racca Daweneyes world had turned into a nightmare set in an apocalypse. She had seen the madwoman attack the executioners, remembered her chuckle at the clumsy swing she took at the Dreadbringer himself. It had been a welcome moment of hilarity before the world turned over. The detonations had minced Tullaris and his retinue right and proper, washing the walls with their blood and leaving entails all over the parapet. It had left the surviving Executioners in a daze and her to push on the attack. She was about to organize the next push when artillery dropped on them and she could neither decide nor care who bombarded her people. She could just hunker down in the trench, pull her limbs around her and pray. When the explosions and violence ended her head was in a daze and her ears held a constant ringing tone.
She barely managed to pull a platoon of effectives together from various survivors. They had to assault two bunkers to clear the way into another communications trench that led to the rear. One was nearly easy, but the other one had been covered in mines which exploded when her people got too close. Bleeding from several small wounds and dragging a leg that no longer worked right behind her she led the assault into Neustadt proper. Emerging from the final trench she was greeted by a yard filled with the detritus of war and blessedly no more fixed defenses. She was still looking for the first target to assault when a few strange vehicles emerged from the far side of the yard.
Racca had seen a few trucks when she visited Neustadt in better times and had been regaled with the stories of the first victory against the Hung by the mercenaries. But these looked different, blocky and ungainly. They moved slowly and seemed prone to toppling over. Yet when her warriors shot them the bullets disappeared into the armor without any effect. They trundled right at her command without any attack until they started to spray a dark, sticky substance at anything that moved. Racca had time to smell the oil, but not to fear before the roar of flame consumed her world. She never saw the former slaves that followed the trucks, who advanced by squads, who went into the trenches and counterattacked the few surviving Druchii.
Having failed Kouran Darkhand and Malekith himself Racca was lucky to have been killed that quickly.
Former Kit Kat Club, Berlin
Anja had always been slender and pale as only a true redhead could be. Now her cheeks were drawn in, exposing lines she had never shown before. Tears had drawn runnels through a skin that bordered on translucent. Her eyes were tunnels into the depths of grief and her shoulders slumped as they never had when Andrea Hermanns could see her. She looked like someone who had taken on a huge burden and had no idea how long she could do that.
Her voice was hoarse and bereft of inflection.
"Yesterday the slavers made an all-out assault at our city. They used artillery like they never did before, unleashed their warbeasts and their best troops. They killed most of our people in the first lines of defense and so many from the second one. They took no prisoners, showed no mercy and did their best to recapture us as their slaves.
They failed to break us and we retook all the trenches they captured. We are back where we were before the Druchii tested our resolve. We will never back down and as long as one of us draws breath we will defend our city and our people. The Druchii will not pass as long as we live.
And yet the slavers killed so many in their attempt to recapture what they think is theirs, our lives, our souls, and our freedm. They shall not have it, but we paid a heavy price. More than 8000 good men and women died yesterday and so many more are wounded and crippled. It pains me to convey the news that Kuan Ti, known to many of you, has died defending Neustadt. We will never forget her.
Andrea Hermann could no longer see the monitor clearly as tears clouded her vision. She found it had to breathe for a while and took deep breaths while her mouth twisted this way and that. When she was finally getting a hold of herself she found the empty can holding an energy drink crumpled in her fist. Pushing herself upright she took a sheaf of paper and started to write.
The Warp, mostly
The triune god watched the realms from many points of view, in many ways and through countless filters. He saw the mundane world from the warp as an echo of thoughts and dreams, he perceived it through the many eyes and ears of those who kept his faith.
His most profound insights, the clearest view came from the two parts of him that anchored in the mundane world itself. They might be his least powerful parts and, in some ways, the simplest ones. And yet they had an influence far out of proportion to the vastness that was the god.
The part of him anchored in the weapon had been in this world the longest, it had seen countless battles, ended a multitude of lives, and had protected his chosen realm. It had been a silent part in many meetings small and large, public and secret, and had learned the ways of the mighty. The part that resided in a mortal shell which resembled his last body so very much had not borne witness to such eons. Instead it had drunk deeply from the new well of knowledge that had sprung up so unexpectedly. In these new, oh so different, times his avatar had such potential to shape the future for his chosen people.
For such a long time the god that had been called Sigmar Heldenhammer when he last walked among the mortals had known that Chaos would win in the end. He could just aspire to a long struggle, to a hard fight that would hurt the fell gods. It would allow his people lives which would align them with him or the gods that stood for something other than wanton destruction.
And then everything changed in a flash, a little more than a dozen years ago when the Germans had arrived on this world. So very strange, so very different,, (inserand so tantalizing familiar to his people they had changed the course of the fight against Chaos in ways unimaginable before. He had learned about these Germans as best he could and would have shaken his head in confusion, wonder, and disgust if he still had a body.
They had such potential, they could indeed do what he never had dared to dream of. But they had the potential to be the gravest danger to this world as well, and keeping them from coming under the influence of the Four became his first goal. Like all mortals they failed to take the long view. He feared they were on the way to complacency. And if they did that, they would allow new, creditable threats to grow that might threaten them and his chosen.
As much as he had learned about these Germans he was painfully aware that his knowledge was incomplete. Anything he might do to influence them could backfire spectacularly. In the end the god known to mortals as Sigmar did what he did best. He shored up the flagging spirits of those who fought the good fight, he lent strength to the warriors who defended the weak, and helped them rally the troops. He would not and could not change the minds of men and women, they had to make up their own. But when they did, and when they came to similar conclusions as he did, he could give them the will and strength to fight for their convictions, to their end if necessary. It was just that the arena for the fight was as unknown to him as Mannslieb's backside. The army he tried to shore up fought with means and in ways he did not understand. But their goals he understood and he agreed wholeheartedly.
Time to rouse the warriors to battle, even of they did not know him yet. They would have to do.
Castle Darkenhof, Sylvania
The walk-in fridge was closed by a door that would not have stood out in a bank's vault. It contained row upon row of bags and bottles. Some displayed computer-printed stickers full of abbreviations and barcodes. Others had printed labels that were miniature works of art. Still others had hand-written notes written on the containers themselves. The only things they had in common was the red liquid held within them..
Count Manfred walked through the fridge, looking at this bottle or that bag. He nodded at some or shook his head at others. Only rarely would he take a container from its place and gazed at it appraisingly. They were a symbol of the new times, showing the restraints placed on him and his kind at the same time the new possibilities available.
As Sylvania's ruler and the patron of many clients Manfred von Carstein could have gotten away with nourishing himself the old way, He would have preferred that, given for how long he had sated his hunger that way. It offered a terrible intimacy, an additional spice of emotions that the new way would never match. On the other hand, he had to set an example. If too many of his brethren got the idea they might drink from the living directly the humans might become angry. And as these were the new and improved times this was a frightening prospect indeed. So, Sylvania's ruler was a well-behaved vampire and drank the blood as the Red Cross and others sold it.
It would never match the despair of a human who would not know if he would die or transformed into a monster. Nor infuse the blood with the sheer intensity of the orgasm some of his followers experienced when he fed of their vitality. Yet the blood all around him offered other possibilities. As its donors knew they were safe and could plan the blood-letting in advance certain donor types otherwise unavailable could be enticed while others would ingest certain foods or drugs. Given that the blood was stored in a container it could also be blended with other substances. He liked his blood with a bit of champagne at times or a dash of chocolate if the mood struck him. Today he would do something different. Many of his brethren claimed they would taste no difference either way when they fed from a container, but he knew different. He finalized that contract with the DIY-store Bauhaus, so he would indulge himself.
The label was beautifully made and depicted a young maiden at the threshold of adulthood. The words "Extra Virgin" promised a rare delight: The first blood donation of a virgin. It would be such a rare pleasure. And while he was about it, maybe half a bottle fresh from an untreated diabetic for desert? Sweet….
Ice Carrier Leviathan, Gulf of Naggrond
Steering a straight course with Leviathan had been important before, as it improved speed and reduced consumption. Now it was of utmost importance, as deviating from course could run aground, and that would certainly not do. For any other ship this part of the Gulf of Naggrond was easily passable, with the gulf's shores barely in sight. Yet Leviathan was not any other ship it was in a class of its own. Its draught exceeded any other ship Raimund Scheer knew by many meters, which was unsurprising given the ship's construction material.
Two landing craft had been equipped with sonar and diligently scouted the ice carrier's path. Two radar sets measured the distance to the shores with impressive precision, and Black Arks used these waters regularly. Still Leviathan's captain was rarely far from the bridge and her crew was treading lightly about him. This went double when that damnable fog came in and reduced visibility to a few dozen meters.
Navigation-wise this made no real difference, GPS and radar allowed him to establish his position and anything substantial around the ship with more than reasonable accuracy. But the fog had grounded Leviathan's planes. If the Wild Geese and their sponsors had somehow overlooked a DawiZharr dreadnought he had a few popguns to fend them off. They were impressive popguns, but whether they would be enough to deter a well-armored ship was highly debatable. Raimund Scheer did certainly not want to test this. And now radar had made out a couple of contacts which they could not identify.
He took the handle to a field telephone next to his seat and turned the crank a couple of times. The aide at the other end picked up promptly.
"This is the captain. I need to speak with General Böhler as soon as practical."
The sound quality was good enough that Scheer could hear the Cathayan accent well enough.
"Duizhang Scheer, we will contact the General immediately."
Raimund's hand clenched the handle while he waited. Normally the Captain should be next to god on his vessel, but given the expedition's sponsors and the fact that Böhler commanded several thousand effectives on board the relations were a bit skewed. He did not have to wait for too long till he had Wolfgang Böhler on the other end.
"General, we have detected a small number of contacts at 280 degrees, 49 miles out. They seem to maneuver under their own power, so they could be DawiZharr warships. I would like to slow the ship to steerageway until we have ascertained their nationality and intent."
There was a short pause during which Scheer tried not to grind his teeth.
"Malekith's troops are in a terrible shape, we should relieve them as soon as possible. If you think it is possible keep course and speed. If the ships come too close our mages can dispel the fog. This is not easy, so we should only do so if really necessary. But we should place a squadron of dive bombers on ready five alert just in case."
Scheer was unhappy, but managed to keep that from his voice.
"Are you sure about your mages capability sir? If they don't bring that about we would try to sink armored ships with 105s. You could ask the crew of the cruiser Emden how well that works."
"My mages don't do necromancy captain. Still, they are powerful and have proven so on more than a few battlefields. The DawiZharr are better than our stumpies when it comes to magic, but not that much better. Please keep course and speed."
"Yes sir."
Both the cradle and the handle were sturdy enough to withstand Scheer's frustration, even if barely. For the next hours he stood by the radar screen and followed the course of the ships closely. In the end they never turned, never slowed down and made their way up the Hag Graef estuary.
Reichstag, Berlin
Andrea Hermanns was on her way to destroy her political career and she did not waver. She walked to the podium of the Reichstag, the place where power was brokered in Germany as one of the most junior people allowed to speak from it, and she held her head high.
She was convinced that she stood at the cliff where her work and the contributions of so many would founder and come to nothing. Still her back was straight and she had no doubts about what she was about to do. So very many people depended on her to try her best to keep them from horrible fates and she would be damned before she did not try everything in her power, no matter how little chance it had to succeed.
Her grass-roots movement had reached many, so very many people and had pledged their help. Polls indicated that a majority of Germans would support intervention of some kind in Naggaroth and even more were not against it. And it did not change a single thing. The Kaiserlichen had spoken against any action early and clung to it, probably both because of pride as well as from conviction. There was a slightly positive opinion within the CDU and the FDP towards intervention. It certainly did not come to the level where they would risk their coalition with the Kaiserlichen and trigger elections. Doubly so as the current call to arms had come from the SPD and joining forces with them might influence the next elections.
The SPD, for all the fact that Andrea Hermanns was one of their members and had at least supported her drive, had not made it theirs officially, mostly as the party grandees did not want to be associated with a cause that had to end in failure. And all of that meant that Andrea had led a worthy cause, had assembled a mighty host and was about to fail. The Bundestag would not consider intervention in Naggaroth, and Anja and all the slaves with her would die within a few months. The last calls from Neustadt had confirmed that: They had thrown the Druchii back, there was even doubt that the Spitzohren could mount another assault like this one. But Neustadt was cut off from its sources of food and raw materials, it could no longer produce new ammunition or weapons. It was not a question if Neustadt would fall, only when and how much suffering that would bring.
And so, Andrea Hermanns had asked her party for the opportunity for a speech before the Bundestag and they had considered it a salve for her valiant efforts. Neither Olaf Scholz nor anybody else in the party could see any chances for her crusade to succeed and so they had not made it an official SPD issue. Andrea had told them she would give a statement about the situation in Naggaroth and no more. She had lied through her teeth then and would suffer for that, still she had to make the effort.
When she reached the podium, she saw the audience for the first time and it was not what she expected. When a junior backbencher asked for the parliaments time usually only very few members attended. This was not unusual, with all the work to be done in committees and elsewhere a full house was the exception, not the norm. When it came to votes unwritten agreements between the parties made sure the proportions of the attendants were kept, even when the house was far from packed.
By these standards a lot of seats were taken. The government, whose members were also members of parliament, were mostly absent except for a few. But far more seats were taken than could be expected and those who were present were a curious proportion of their parties.
Andrea Hermanns placed her notes before her, but there was no need to look at them, the text was burned into her mind.
"Honorable members of the Bundestag, thank you for taking the time to attend this meeting. On the face of it, it is not about anything that should concern Germany directly and at the same time it is about the most important issue of them all: Who do we want to be?
This house and this nation have been under the shadow of Auschwitz ever since there was a Bundestag. There are none of us who are not aware of this nation's murderous madness that lasted for a full dozen years. There is no doubt about the days when our forefathers brought murder up to the standards of industrial efficiency in the heights of a racism with the utter will to kill all they saw unfit to live. No one in this house and neither their parents did participate and we have left the universe in which our forefathers sinned so badly behind. And yet it is right and proper that we examine all of our decisions in the light of that madness, that we do our utmost that this does not ever repeat again.
For the time this house and this state existed Germany has taken the lesson of this madness to be only to defend itself against external aggression. Only in a very few cases have we agreed to intervene elsewhere, and then only with allies who guided and shaped the mission. We have been reluctant to do so, and have often used our past to excuse our unwillingness to join our allies causes.
If that was a good course of action, I cannot say and the answer would probably be different in each case. But we live in a new world now, a world where we cannot wait for our allies to do what needs doing. Either we do it ourselves or we have to live with the consequences of our inaction. In this very world it is our responsibility to make the decision whom to aid and whom to hinder, what murderous hand to stop and what conquest to condone.
It humbles me to be a member of the Bundestag, the very body which has to make these decisions, to steer us and this very world away from the brink of destruction it was approaching before we arrived here. We have to make wise decisions, not in haste as both our actions and inaction have far-reaching consequences.
Many of us are not that religious, but if we all can agree on one prayer it is:
Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference.
What I cannot understand and what I cannot accept is that in the full knowledge of what horrors sentients can inflict on each other we watch a new horror unfold in Naggaroth. We have all seen the pictures and videos from the breeding camps the DawiZharr maintained in Karond Kar and still operate elsewhere.
We know the horrors the Druchii inflict on their slaves every day, we have more than enough proof of that.
If we were powerless to intervene, if we could not reach out to those in need we would have to accept these crimes. But all of us know that this is not so, we know that we can halt the arm that wields the whip and tear the chains holding slaves apart. We just lack the courage to do so.
Even if the suffering of slaves and civilians does not move you, if the valiant struggle to live free does not inspire you: why do you watch a new threat against Germany itself grow that will threaten us all in fifty or a hundred years? I have heard the tales of the Cold War many times, of the murderous border that divided Germany and of the ever-present threat of a mutually destructive war that could break out by accident. Is this the world we want to leave our children? Do we want them to look across the ocean at a Naggaroth dominated by the DawiZharr and worry if their fiery god asks them to sacrifice us all to nuclear fire?
Because this is the choice we have to make: Send our armed forces to this blasted land, rescue slaves and others and try to rebuild into something better. Or do nothing and be the willing accomplices to torture, rape and murder, to leave our children a situation that might doom them and the world they live in.
So, I ask this house to resolve the following: We should send the ready brigade of armored paratroopers to Neustadt immediately and insert them between the Druchii and the former slaves. We should ask our allies to release the Reiksbund Paladins and the Cave Raiders to participate in the same operation. We should…
Reichstag, government bench
Christian Lindner had heard so very many political speeches in his day. Some were full of wisdom, others reflected the speaker's conviction and very rarely both. He had endured many utterly boring ones and those which were just meant to entertain the respective party faithful. He had attended this meeting as at least one member of the government should and as this fell under foreign policy. On top of that he was somewhat sympathetic to this cause, even if it was a doomed one and did not originate from a governing party, which sealed its fate for sure.
Nevertheless, the speech had moved him like very few things had during the last several years, and he found himself nodding and even clapping at the right times. He was rapt enough that he did not wonder the absence of catcalls that should normally emerge from the Kaiserlichen or the Linke. Both parties were dead set against intervention and invoking the specter of Auschwitz in this house was bound to bring emotions to a boil. So far it did, but not in the way the experienced politician had foreseen. There was something about todays participants that was off, but Lindner was too busy listening to parse what exactly he had noticed about it.
And now the speech was at the end and the house was silent for an eternal second. It was as of the world had stopped for a moment to watch and waited with baited breath for the outcome.
The applause started in the rows of the SPD, as could be expected, but it quickly spread across the rows. That the Nanseitochi delegates, who had often asked their German colleagues to be more assertive, applauded was not a surprise. Slightly incredulously Lindner saw Phillip Amthor of the CDU applaud wildly. What really made him sit up and take notice was Damian Lohr clapping and shouting approval. Damian was the leader of the Kaiserlichen young turks, and if anybody should disapprove, it was him. Ok, Lohr had called for a more aggressive German foreign policy at times, but this? Carla Büttner, who wanted to abolish the Bundeswehr if she could? And all the while Christian Lindner was busy standing up, clapping his hands and shouting his approval. It was very unlike him.
He would realize what had bothered him after the resolution was accepted by acclamation: Most of the attendants were the younger members of parliament, those who had spent most of their formative years on the Warhammer World. He would never connect the heat given off by the ward he had received from Sigmar's temple with his own reactions.
Gulf of Naggarond, Naggaroth
Ernutan Doomshackler watched the Druchii defenses like the connoisseur of trench warfare he was. These were different, very much so and he did not like that. Different meant that there might be surprises and surprises meant that he would not fulfill Lord Mordred's commands as quickly and efficiently as possible. They would also cause higher losses, which he remembered to be regrettable in some way, besides reducing his resources to pave Mordred's way.
The trenches before him were not protected by barbed wire belts, but by rows and rows of stakes. They would also slow his troops, but would not grab them like the hated wire could and would have taken much longer to prepare. They would be easier to displace with artillery, if he had a surfeit of ammunition to use. He did not, so he had to improvise.
During the last days his stout warriors had dug several trenches closer and closer to the enemy. He had awaited the Druchii artillery to try and take his engineers out, but that never happened. Instead there had been several nightly sallies from the defenders. Druchii somehow managed to sneak past no-man's land and attacked his troops inside the trenches with cold steel. These attacks had been nasty and frightened the new recruits badly to the point where he had to execute a couple of them to encourage the others. A waste in any way he looked at it, as now the trenches were finished and he would see what his bright idea was worth.
When his arm chopped down the mortars behind him belched fire and threw brittle iron and excitable explosives at the enemy. The enemy's line disappeared in fire and short-lived smoke clouds. He could not keep this up for long, but he did not need to. The artillery nearly masked the shrill call of the pipes which propelled his warriors over the top of the trenches into no-man's land. They ran into Druchii fire and Ernutan's smoke. Besides the trenches huge craters burned whatever wet wood and straw the DawiZharr had found and produced deep, dirty, and opaque smoke. It was certainly less well placed and dense as what smoke shells could lay, but Doomshakler was fresh out of those. Something about the assault bothered Ernutan. He needed a second to understand what he heard, or more precisely, did not hear. The rattle of machine guns had become so common that its absence shook him. He got as excited as anything would get him these days. This attack had a decent chance of succeeding without crippling his forces again. There were the rapid cracks of rifle fire, but with the smoke only a few of his warriors dropped. Pretty soon he heard the sharp cracks of hand grenades and the blessed hiss of the flame throwers. What he did not hear was the scream of dying Druchii and that unsettled him more than he could explain.
A few hours later he was organizing the aftermath of the assault. According to all reports and his own examining of the Druchii fortifications the first trench had been nearly empty. The ones behind the first one were a different business and his warriors had taken their losses there. It had been an ugly business, with grenade, shotgun and bayonet against the same, against sword, spear and crossbow. The enemy had disengaged before taking too many losses and had never tried a counterattack. He was still trying to make sense of that when the camp around him stopped making noise. Steeping out from his command tent he blinked incredulously while dropping to his knees. What was Lord Mordred doing here, unannounced?
He was even more surprised when Hashut's chosen lifted him by his own hand and led him inside the command tent.
His voice betrayed his surprise as well as his misgivings about his failure to open the path to Naggrond faster.
"My Lord, I did not expect you, and now. I could not prepare…oh Lord, how may I serve you?"
Mordred's voice was so smooth, so warm, and showed such compassion that Ernutan Doomshakler cried with relief even before his brain sorted what his liege told him.
"You, General Ernutan Doomshackler, are a price beyond compare, a true gift from the gods to aid me in the difficult task given by the gods themselves. Rejoice, as you are my favorite servant. You have opened the path to Naggrond faster and farther than I had dared hope. You have led your troops without fear and with more skill than any of my Generals. From the bottom of my heart Ernutan, thank you for what you have done. And yet, I have to ask the DawiZharr who has done so much for one more service."
"Whatever you ask Sire, whatever it might be."
Was there a relived sigh in Mordred's voice? He surely knew that Ernutan would do everything asked for? Had he failed in some way…
"Not all my Generals are as successful as you are my Doomshackler. Zhlatan the Lame lost Karond Kar despite a valiant defense and all attempts at taking it back have failed so far. We can no longer ship supplies and reinforcements through the Underground Sea and even the Sea of Malice has become dangerous to our ships."
Ernutan's voice displayed his relief and eagerness clearly.
"My Lord, I will retake Karond Kar if you wish it. No matter…."
"No my valiant General, Karond Kar might be too much even for your talents. But there is a place in Naggaroth that has all the weapons and ammunition that we need. It has the machines and slaves to make even more.
The Druchii use their pet Germans there to make all their modern arms in this place called Neustadt. Ernutan, I beseech you to go to Hag Graef. Take command of all the troops there and then take this Neustadt for me. Will you do that?"
"Oh yes my Lord, I will do so without delay or fail"
"I knew I could count of you, most valued of my followers. I have left a gift for you in Hag Graef. You will find a shipment of Golems there, they will allow you to take Neustadt."
"Thank you, my Lord, thank you…"
