by Nick Horth
Two days. Two days he’d been here. Callis sat upright, and groaned as his accumulated bruises and cuts sent a wave of pain through him. He had to get out of here. If some total stranger could find him, the traitors who had slaughtered his patrol certainly would. He swung his feet over the side of the bed, and with gritted teeth hauled himself to his feet. His uniform was nowhere to be seen, which wasn’t much of an issue since he’d have to be somewhat more brain-addled than he was to risk wearing it. He was wrapped in a filthy linen robe and breeches, which caused him to resemble one of the faithful pilgrims who made the dangerous trek to Excelsis to visit the Abbey of Remembered Souls. He moved through the beds, past a sea of groaning, stinking bodies. As he moved, he whipped a tattered coat from the floor next to one of the cots, and a pair of ill-smelling sandals from another.
Throwing open the doors, he half expected the sun to reach down and sear his eyes after so long sat in darkness, but instead he was met with a dull, ominous grey haze. The air tingled with the promise of rain and thunder. The storm had clearly not yet passed. Around him the familiar hustle of a day in the Excelsis markets went on, but he could sense the tension and unease in the people of the city. As he turned onto the main thoroughfare toward the harbour stalls, what had once been a fine stone-cobbled road, now almost entirely worn to dust by decades of heavy traffic, a great crack echoed through the street. There were a fair few gasps and muttered prayers from those around him. He looked out towards the origin of the sound, and saw one of the occulum fulgurest apertures on the curve of the harbour wall. The device, one of six placed at equidistant intervals along the perimeter of Excelsis, powered the great lamp-lights that illuminated the bay through some unknowable Collegiate sorcery. Right now it writhed and danced with lightning. A great torrent of energy screamed off into the sky, and Callis heard the rumble of thunder answer it. After a few moments the tumult ceased, but that hardly eased the worried grumbles of the cityfolk. In a city that placed so much faith in omens and auguries, this hardly seemed a promising one.
Callis shook his head, refocusing his thoughts. He had greater problems right now. Where exactly could an errant guardsman, sought after by the very organisation that he had once served, go to ground? He needed somewhere to lay low, reassess his options. But where?
I have absolutely no life outside the Coldguard, he thought. That was a sobering realisation.
The only place he could think to go was to Uncle Tor’s house. He hadn’t been back there in years. Things had been ugly between them, at the end, but he was sure the old miser would at least listen to what he had to say. Surely?
It was a bad idea. He stood there, as the drifting tide of people swirled around him, and tried to think of a better one.
Uncle Tor Vallen’s house was a nondescript little stand-to at the very edge of the Veins. Only a few streets away, the structures descended into the ramshackle jumble of half-collapsed hovels that marked the border of the slums, yet Halfway Lane was surprisingly well maintained, all things considered. Like Uncle Tor, many of the residents here were old soldiers. Sergeants mostly, those that could afford a modest reward for their decades of service once their eyesight failed them or their hands shook too much to hold a blade. There was an order to things here that was missing elsewhere in the modest quarters of the city. Carts were stored neatly in the alleys between the two-storey cottages, which were built of smooth, polished stone rather than traditional bone and clay.
Callis rubbed one hand across his freshly shaved cheeks, wincing as he touched tender skin and the tattered remnants of his once-proud moustache. With his face on half the walls in the city, a visit to a barber had seemed unwise. He had pocketed a gutting knife while a razor-clam salesman’s back was turned, and hacked away at his face until it was relatively smooth, aside from the numerous abrasions his amateurish work had left.
Two old fellows leaned against a wooden fence, each filling the air with the spiralling purple smoke of hadja leaf. One was a duardin whose lower leg had been replaced with a metal prosthetic, the other a thin, irritable-looking human clutching a hardwood cane. Both eyed him suspiciously as he passed, for which he could hardly blame them in his current state.
‘Good day, sirs,’ he attempted, following up the pleasantry with a broad smile that reopened a cut on his cheek and sent a trickle of blood running down his face.
‘Hmm,’ replied the duardin, and took another drag of his longpipe. The sweet smell, like fresh cut coca plant, sent Callis’ stomach rumbling, and he realised how long it had been since he had eaten. Uncle Tor was perhaps the worst cook in the entire city, but Callis would have gladly given his right arm for a bowl of the man’s fish head and raw potato broth.
He limped onwards to the far end of the street. Ahead and to the left was Tor’s house, an unassuming two-storey structure with a thatched, sloped roof. Smoke billowed from the chimney. A narrow passage separated the building from its immediate neighbour, and Callis ducked in here, attempting to get a glimpse through the kitchen window. It was locked shut, and thick gauze curtains obscured a clutter of pans and plates on the other side, rendered a dull orange by the thick amberglass panes. He saw no movement.
He slumped to the floor outside, and put his head in the palm of his hands. There was a good chance that the traitors hidden amongst the Coldguard had already marked his relatives out as likely points of contact. Tor had been a popular, respected sergeant in his prime, and although that was many years ago now, there were likely still some old-timers who recalled him. That said, he did not recall ever speaking of his uncle. Tor had never approved of his brother marrying into a reclaimed family, and the two never truly reconciled before Adan was killed in battle. Callis’ mother Weri passed on only a few years later, struck down by fever. Though Tor had taken the orphaned Callis into his home, he had only done so grudgingly. He had never been cruel, but he had likewise never made a secret of his resentment at having to coddle a child that was a constant reminder of the brother he had never made peace with. When Callis came of age and enlisted he had done so under his mother’s family name – a small act of spite that might just help him here. Perhaps that particular familial connection had been overlooked?
In the end, it was exhaustion rather than reason that gave him the courage to approach the heavy oaken door at the front of the house.
It was unlocked. He eased it open, wincing at the creak it unleashed as he did so. Inside the faint, smoky smell of burned food filled the modest entrance hallway. Blades, guns and souvenirs from a score or more years of soldiering covered the rough sandstone walls. There were some new items, too, doubtlessly curios that Tor had picked up on one of his frequent visits to the harbour market: a duardin axe-musket; a pair of Lyndean duelling claws, serrated and hooked; maps, too, and a dozen other esoteric trinkets whose function escaped Callis.
‘Uncle?’ he said, and the softly spoken words rattled horribly through the empty hall. No answer.
‘Uncle Tor?’ he attempted again. ‘It’s Armand. I’ve got myself in a real mess, uncle. I could really use your help.’
Still nothing. Callis’ hand closed around the crude gutting knife tucked into his belt, clutching the bone handle so tightly it hurt. He inched forward. On his left the kitchen door was open. He pressed himself against the wall, drew the knife and shifted it into a fighter’s grip, blade running parallel to his arm. He held his breath and spun round into the room.
Uncle Tor sat at the head of the kitchen table, fork still gripped in one hand and a plate full of food in front of him. His craggy, boxer’s face was set in a look of mild surprise, and his eyes were fixed on the curved dagger that was thrust straight through his heart.
Callis slumped against the wall. That was it then. Tor had been his last hope, the only person in the city he had left to trust. Grief battled with self-pity in his mind, and he hated himself that the latter won out.
‘I’m sorry, uncle,’ he muttered. ‘
This is my fault. I got you caught up in all this madness, and you deserved a better fate.’
‘There’re worse ways to die,’ came a voice from behind him.
Two figures, both in nondescript tunics, breeches and cloaks, with scarves wrapped around their faces. Only their eyes were visible, and Callis saw no pity or anger there, only the detached calm of practised killers. They carried hand crossbows, duardin-forged alley pieces, and he saw the glint of more curved blades upon their belts.
‘Drop the blade,’ said the first man, gesturing with the hand crossbow. ‘And move. Have a seat next to your uncle, if you would.’
Callis did as he was bid, letting his pitiful weapon clatter to the floor and dragging himself across the room. The movement was almost mechanical. He shifted into the only other chair, and tried not to look at the cold, greying thing that had once taken him in, clothed him and fed him. He was dimly aware of the two figures sliding into the kitchen behind him. They were quiet and calm. One leaned against the work surface on the far side of the room, underneath the cluttered window looking out to the street. The orange glow washed across his narrow, angular face. The other, the one who had spoken to him, stood opposite Callis, slid the alley-bow into a leather holster on his belt, and drew his long knife.
‘You’re dead, guardsman,’ he said. ‘It’s important you understand that. You were dead as soon as you stumbled upon something you were never meant to see.’
He leaned down and let the blade trace a line across the hard wood of the kitchen table. The strange, azure blade was razor keen. The man hardly seemed to be applying any pressure, yet it sliced a deep trail across the worn surface.
‘As I say though, there are worse ways to die than a knife to the heart,’ the man continued. ‘And I’ll give you a taste of them. All of them. By the time we’re finished with you there’ll be nothing much left at all. Just a piece of meat, really.’
He never raised his tone. He sounded bored, if anything. As if he had recited these same words a dozen times today already. Somehow the casual manner with which they were delivered made the words even more chilling than if they had been roared into Callis’ face.
‘Unless, of course,’ the man said, ‘you tell us about everyone you’ve talked to in the last two days. Anyone you may have been foolish enough to confide in before coming here. Take your time, now. Our host here won’t mind if we stay a while longer.’
Callis finally looked up. He stared into the man’s indifferent grey eyes. From somewhere deep within him, a cold tide of fury roiled up to sear away the guilt and the sorrow.
‘I would have,’ he said. ‘I’d have told you what you wanted to know, if you’d threatened his life. Then I’d have let you gut me and leave me for dead in the street. We weren’t close, he and I, but we were family. My life for his, I’d have died content with that. But you made a mistake.’
‘You’re making one of your own.’
Callis laughed, a bitter, high-pitched noise that sounded hollow in the cramped room. ‘Perhaps. But I will tell you this. You’ve given me resolve, friend. And that’s a powerful thing for any soldier. So you start cutting. You do your worst. I’ll choke on my blood before I tell you a damned thing, you traitorous filth.’
The man snapped forward like a striking viperfish. He grabbed Callis around the throat, and slammed his head down on the table. Callis struggled, but the second man was already on him, slamming a fist into his ribs hard enough to blast the breath from him. The first figure wrenched the scarf from around his mouth, and as Callis looked into his clean-shaven face, he felt another stab of recognition. He had seen this man before as well. He was another Coldguard, a guardsman in Sergeant Volker’s platoon, though Callis could not recall his name. How deep was the rot within his regiment?
‘We’ll start with an eye,’ the man snarled. ‘Just the one, for now. I’m going to take my time with you.’
The knife came down.
There was an echoing blast from outside, followed by a shrill scream that was abruptly cut off. The blade stopped an inch from Callis’ eye.
The two cutthroats looked at each other, then the lead figure nodded to the back of the room. His companion shifted quietly to the far side of the room, knelt and aimed his alley-bow at the kitchen entrance. The first man slugged Callis hard on the temple. His head swam, and black spots burst behind his eyes. He felt himself be hauled up, and felt the curved blade draw a thin line across his throat.
There was a moment of uneasy calm, and then a figure stumbled into view. Another man dressed in simple street clothes, though the drab greys and browns were stained bright scarlet by the blood pouring from a gaping wound in his throat. From the corridor someone planted a boot in the stricken man’s back and kicked him to the floor. Ducked behind Callis, the lead assassin shot a bolt from his alley-bow, which clattered into the hallway. The man swiftly racked his weapon with his free hand, sliding the lever back and letting the feeder slide in another bolt from the drum magazine.
‘If you’re here for the guardsman, you should know that I’ve a knife held to his throat,’ he shouted. ‘And more of my men will have heard that shot. You should leave, friend. You won’t get a second chance.’
‘You’re labouring under the delusion that you have any control over this situation,’ came a voice from the corridor. It was assured and calm, with an underlying edge of anger. ‘And that your backup are still amongst the living. Seven men. Couple of roof-runners that stayed in place a little too long. Few beggars with too-fine clothes.’
‘You’re bluffing.’
A bag was hurled into the kitchen, the contents clattering across the floor. Seven curved daggers.
The first cutthroat bit back a curse. Callis laughed mirthlessly, ignoring the shock of pain as the blade dug further into the flesh of his throat.
‘Kill the wretch,’ said the second man. ‘We’ve been made.’
The kitchen window erupted. Pans and shattered glass exploded across the room as something small and heavy hurtled inside, tackling the kneeling bow wielder and sending him sliding across the stone floor. The man holding Callis hesitated just a moment, and the former guardsman snapped his head backwards, hitting his captor’s nose with a crunch and sending him stumbling backwards.
Striding into the kitchen, ornate four-barrel pistol in hand, was the same man Callis had encountered at the slum hospice. No longer was he quiet and unassuming. His eyes gleamed with righteous fire, and his stride was sure and purposeful.
‘Down,’ the newcomer said. Callis dropped. All four barrels of the pistol barked in terrible unison.
The man with the curved knife sailed backwards through the air, his chest a smoking ruin. He struck the old stove and crumpled to the floor, plates and clay cups shattering on the floor about him.
As he lay there panting and feeling the blood trickle from the shallow slice across his throat, Callis looked towards his remaining assailant. The robed figure lay on his back, eyes staring blankly at the ceiling as a thin pool of blood slowly spread across the floor. Upon the man’s chest sat the armoured duardin from the hospice, his knuckles bloody and his axe still secured at his back.
‘Kazrug, I told you to take him alive,’ said the man in the wide-brimmed hat, voice tight with frustration.
‘Soft as silt, these boys,’ spat the squat, muscled figure. ‘But it weren’t my right hook that did this, deadly as it is.’
His coarse hands grabbed the dead human’s robes and tore them free, exposing the man’s chest. Jutting out of the pale flesh was a bloodied spike of blue crystal. It pierced the man’s heart, and a steady flow of arterial blood fountained from the neat, surgical wound.
Toll cursed. ‘Some kind of failsafe.’
He grasped the crystal, and Callis winced at the sucking sound it made as the man tugged it free. Blood stained the glittering surface of the small shard, which was about the size of a fo
refinger. Beneath that it was dark blue, almost purple in colour. As Toll lifted it something seemed to swirl within its depths. There was a sound of rustling wind, a sibilant echo that could have been a whisper, and then the crystal shattered into a thousand pieces, covering Toll’s heavy leather coat in a patina of fine dust. He frowned in irritation and brushed the stuff down.
‘Our enemy is wise enough to cover their tracks. How vexing.’
He turned to Callis, and the smoking pistol was still held ready in his hand.
‘Well, corporal,’ he said, ‘that makes you even more valuable. I warned you what would happen if you did not trust me. I had hoped to dangle you out on the line a little, and catch myself a bigger fish. It seems I must revise my plans somewhat.’
Gone was the friendly demeanour Toll had displayed at the hospital. He studied the corporal with the dispassionate look of a blacksmith inspecting his tools. Callis felt naked under that gaze.
‘Who… who are you?’ the corporal asked.
‘I am the Witch Hunter Hanniver Toll, of the most holy Order of Azyr, and you are going to tell me everything you know.’
Callis felt his felt his blood run cold. Throne of Sigmar, he was in trouble now. The Order had found him. The Order! Stories of their zealous brutality were told in every barrack hall and drinking pit in Excelsis. They were the flame that burned away the heretical and the unfaithful, and the ruthlessness of their methods was legendary. He was, somehow, in even greater trouble than he had been in when he started the day.
‘That,’ said Toll, ‘is the appropriate reaction.’
He leaned down, and those pitiless grey eyes bored into Callis’.
‘Every story you’ve heard is true,’ Toll continued. ‘Every one. Where we see perfidy and betrayal, the Order excises it with sword and flame. Those that would eat away at the heart of this great civilisation will die screaming. Those that choose to aid such schemes, or who avert their gaze through cowardice or disloyalty will meet a fate no kinder. I tell you this now so you harbour no illusions as to the lengths I will go to protect this city – if you cross me, you are ash and memories, and even those I will seek to eradicate. Do you understand?’