01 - Day of the Daemon

by Aaron Rosenberg - (ebook by Undead)

  While he was enjoying the cultists’ discomfort, Alaric stepped forward, past the cult leader and towards the tentacled mutant. “Hello,” he said, keeping both hands at his sides. “Can you understand me?”

  The creature nodded slowly, swaying as if it wanted to respond, and for the first time Dietz realised its mouth was tiny and beaked, not like a bird, but like the squid he had seen in markets once or twice. It might be able to understand Alaric’s words, but it could not respond in kind.

  “These are your tunnels?” Alaric asked, but the mutant uttered a strange whistling sound. “Do you live here?” Alaric tried again. Still the mutant replied only in whistles and clicks. “You… live… here?” Alaric asked a second time, this time using hand gestures to indicate the mutant, include the area, and make a strange clasping motion that somehow suggested belonging. This time the mutant nodded.

  “Ah, good,” Alaric said softly, more to himself than anyone else. “A combination of Reikspiel and gestures, then. Simple, really—just keep it basic.” He turned back to the mutants.

  What was he thinking, Dietz wondered? He felt like cursing, but kept himself quiet and still, avoiding anything that might draw attention from either the cultists or the mutants. Still, he was amazed. He had known Alaric to be easily distracted, easily excited and easily enthralled—much like any child, but even he would not have believed his friend was capable of this. Here they were, surrounded by bloodthirsty cultists determined to use them as sacrifices, facing mutants who might intend exactly the same thing, and Alaric was completely focusing on how to talk to the creatures! Dietz felt his hands clench into fists despite himself, and wondered how the others would react if he started beating up Alaric himself. Just as he thought this, however, his friend glanced over at him—and smiled.

  He’s up to something, Dietz realised. Alaric was smart, extremely smart, and he was definitely up to something—that smile had been his “watch this next bit” expression rather than his “isn’t this fun?” look. Suddenly Dietz felt worlds better. Whatever he had planned, Alaric was only pretending to be a fool. Dietz had to trust him, and he’d have to be ready for whatever occurred next.

  “These… people,” Alaric was gesturing to the cultists now, talking slowly so the mutant would understand. “Live… here.” His hands indicated the tunnels again.

  The mutant responded with clicks and what sounded almost like short barks. The other creatures behind him stirred as well. Dietz could see one that had an impossibly wide mouth and skin scaled like a fish, and another with eyes ringed around his forehead, and arms and legs with too many joints, and a third covered in thick fur whose arms were so long its clawed hands brushed the water. All of them were watching Alaric or the tentacled mutant, and judging by the strange groans and clacks and muted roars none of them were happy.

  “Their… tunnels,” Alaric continued, gesturing to the cultists and then the tunnel, and using that strange clasping motion again. The mutants’ barks grew louder and more agitated. “Not… yours.” He pointed at the mutants, slashing his hand in negation, and the creature hooted, its tentacles lashing about.

  “Hey!” the cultist leader had been watching, as fascinated by this exchange as everyone else, and only now seemed to realise what Alaric had said. “Stop that!”

  “Why?” Alaric glanced over at the youth. “It’s true, isn’t it? This is your home? You control these tunnels?” Unnoticed by the cultist, he was still making hand gestures as he talked, and Dietz was amazed to realise his employer was carrying on two conversations at once.

  “Well, yes,” the youth was caught by his own bravado. Then common sense intruded. “But don’t get them riled.”

  “What will you do if they get upset?” Alaric asked him, his hands indicating the cultists and making punching motions. “Kill them?” He mimed hacking someone to pieces. “Burn them out?” He gestured towards the torch Dietz had brought down, still held by the cultist near him. “Destroy them?” He made another negation gesture and then swept his hands to encompass all the mutants massed before them.

  The mutants, who had been following Alaric’s nonverbal comments, went berserk.

  “Wha—?” Before the cult leader could react the first mutant had grabbed him with its tentacled arms. It shuddered and raised the youth high above its head, and he gasped in pain and surprise as his flesh tore against the rough ceiling. Then the mutant’s limbs tightened, crushing the air from him, and spasmed, sending him crashing into the far wall. Dietz heard a clear snap as the youth hit rock, and he watched the body slide to the ground, and all but disappear beneath the standing water. The youth did not move again.

  Nor had the other mutants been idle. They had charged past their leader, ignoring Alaric and snatching up cultists left and right. Dietz, staying motionless, watched the apelike mutant tear the torch-bearing cultist to shreds, flesh and blood spattering them both. The eye-browed one lashed out with its arms and speared a cultist with barbs on the back of its hands. The fish-scaled one leaped forward and, stretching that impossibly mouth wide open, revealed row upon row of tiny triangular teeth, took a cultist’s entire head between its jaws. Dietz turned away, but not soon enough to avoid hearing a chomping sound and a muffled shriek, and seeing, just for an instant, the mutant moving away from the headless body toppling to the ground.

  After the initial shock, the cultists reacted, shouting and cursing, and raising their weapons to fight off the creatures. The tunnel was suddenly filled with the sounds of battle: the dull thud of metal, stone and wood striking flesh and bone, the shouts and grunts and sobs of people trying to kill, and of people being killed, the stomach-churning squirt of blood spraying from an open wound, and the dull crack of bones breaking. The cultist next to Dietz had dropped the torch, which had fizzled as it struck and sank beneath the water. Without that light Dietz found he could make out only dim shapes churning about him, the cultists faint hazes of bloody brown and the mutants lighter and darker patches that moved in strange ways. He held himself as still as possible and prayed that Morr was too distracted by the carnage to notice him in its midst.

  That was when Alaric gestured to Dietz, just a little nod and then a head toss to the side, and began backing away. Dietz followed his lead, moving slowly, step by step, barely breathing as almost-seen figures clawed and bit, and leaped and struck all around him. He paused at one point, ears and skin registering something large just past him, and felt water splashing his feet as something man-sized struck the ground just beyond his toes. Whatever it was did not get up, and after a moment he took another step back, then another, easing away until it was just another faint impression in the darkness.

  “Stop.” Alaric’s voice was close by and Dietz felt a hand against his back. He stopped and set his right foot, which had risen to retreat another step, back on the ground.

  “Can you see anything?” he whispered.

  “A little,” his friend replied. “I was further from the light than you were. Close your eyes a second and let them adjust.”

  Though he hated the idea of standing on the edge of a battle with his eyes shut, Dietz hated the idea of stumbling around blind even more. He did as Alaric instructed, and a moment later opened his eyes to discover that he could make out his surroundings, though everything was still dim.

  The cultists were still battling the mutants, though there were fewer brown robes than before. The creatures clearly had the upper hand. Alaric had angled to the left as he’d retreated, and Dietz found they were now standing in front of another tunnel, one of the two from which the cultists had ambushed them.

  “I don’t think we should wait to see who wins,” Alaric pointed out, backing up again until he was in the new tunnel and could no longer see the fight. Dietz agreed wholeheartedly and followed him, waiting until they were a good twenty paces away before turning around and walking more quickly from the fading sounds of carnage.

  “Carrion Hounds,” he muttered as he followed Alaric, who seemed to have forgotte
n his fear of being underground. “Well, the name certainly fits now.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  They walked for what felt like hours, their eyes adjusting enough to the darkness so that they could make out the tunnel walls. Some light did filter down from various grates here and there, the dim light of the moon and stars providing at least some illumination. In other places the tunnels’ walls were coated with a strange ooze that glowed faintly. Some sort of fungus, Alaric decided, and would have taken a sample if Dietz had not stopped him, pointing out that the substance could be poisonous. Between the two light sources, they found they could manoeuvre without too much stumbling into things. More than once they detoured around large, still shapes that rose from the standing water, unsure whether they were rocks or refuse, or corpses, and unwilling to find out. Water dripped down on them, slicking their hair and fouling their clothes—at least, most of it was water.

  “This is disgusting,” Alaric offered after a particularly thick, smelly glop of something struck his shoulder, leaving a dark splotch and a wet trail down his back. “I’ll never be clean again.”

  “It’s just water and refuse,” Dietz commented, though not without a shudder at the thought of how much offal was now caked into his hair and clothes. “City waste.”

  “How is trudging through this helping us?” Alaric asked, wiping at his shoulder and doing little more than smearing the filth about. “Why are we still down here?”

  Twice they had passed rungs hammered into the rock walls, the first time finding them only when Dietz skinned his elbow against one. The rungs rose to the ceiling, where thin beams of light marked a grating overhead. These were the sewer entrances, set so that workers could clean them if necessary. They had considered leaving each time they’d found more rungs, but had decided against it.

  “We still need to find Kristoff,” Dietz reminded his employer, “and quickly.”

  “And wandering lost down here is helping with that?” Alaric retorted. “We don’t even know where he is! Taal’s teeth, I’m not even sure where we are!”

  “Below the crafters,” Dietz replied. He pointed towards a tunnel ahead. “That leads to Canal Street, where we found that livery.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  Dietz shrugged. “The first set of rungs. They led up near the marketplace. I know my way from there.”

  “Oh.” Alaric brightened. “If we know where we are, then, we can find any place else in Middenheim, correct?” Dietz nodded. “Then we just need to determine where Kristoff would go and find our way there.” He frowned. “Where would he take that statue?”

  “Someplace he could feed it,” Dietz said, still intent upon their path. “The cultists said they fed it regularly.”

  “So some place they could bring victims?” Alaric asked, but shook his head immediately. “No, that makes no sense. Why drag victims down here and then kill them? It’d be far quicker to kill them above and just bring the blood down in buckets.”

  They passed below another drip of something and a drizzle struck Dietz’s cheek. He wiped it away quickly before his nose could register the smell. Then he paused and turned back towards his friend.

  “Why carry it at all?” he asked. He gestured towards the walls around them and the small holes near the top. “Those are drainpipes,” he pointed out. “They carry the waste down here.”

  “So all they’d need is a place that has a lot of blood,” Alaric finished, catching on immediately, “and they could feed the statue with no effort and without anyone noticing! Brilliant!” He looked around. “Where would you go in Middenheim to find a lot of blood?”

  Dietz thought about it. “The hospital,” he said finally. “Marketplace, maybe, but it might be spread too thin there, Morr’s central chamber.” He shuddered a little, as if mentioning the place of death might invoke its patron god. “The witch hunters’ headquarters—that’s always awash in blood.”

  Alaric frowned. “But they haven’t been killing people there lately, have they?” he asked, trying to remember what Rolf’s widow had said. “They’ve been performing public executions instead; in great numbers.”

  “The execution square, then.” Dietz nodded, glancing around. “This way.” He led them off to the right, down another tunnel, which branched off into three more corridors. At each branching Dietz stopped to glance around and mentally compare their location to the city above, and then led them on. After some time they rounded a corner and saw a light flickering up ahead.

  “The execution square is right above that,” Dietz confirmed, gesturing towards the glow.

  “And the statue will be there as well,” Alaric agreed. He straightened and made one last futile attempt to clean his clothes, face, and hair, before finally giving up with a grimace. “Well, let’s not keep Kristoff waiting, shall we?” And he strode towards the light.

  The tunnel emptied into a larger chamber, one of the few they had seen underground. Several more tunnels branched off from the other sides, but the chamber itself was the size of a large room, almost as big as the cavern beneath the Black Fire Pass. This chamber was much smoother, however, its walls chiselled and its ceiling domed, and the floor had been cleared of protrusions as well. Fortunately several large, rough columns had been carved on either side of the tunnel entrance. Alaric and Dietz quickly moved to one side and pressed themselves into the shadows of a column, hoping it would be enough to conceal them. From their new vantage they studied their surroundings more carefully.

  Torches hung in sconces mounted around the space and in their light Alaric and Dietz could see several figures swaying around the centre of the room. The figures all wore the red-brown robes of the Carrion Hounds. Before them stood Kristoff, his own robe offset by scarlet gloves and a matching cape, and his hood thrown back. Just beyond him sat the statue.

  Alaric glanced at the statue and then quickly looked away, shuddering. Each of the hideous carvings had repulsed him, but this one was worse than the others had been, far worse than it had been in Rolf’s shop. A reddish sheen coated it and he knew it was blood dripping from the large circular grating directly above it.

  This statue had indeed been fed regularly. It looked bloated, if stone could manage that feat, and he realised with a jolt that it was in fact larger than he remembered. As if it had swelled from its offerings. The stone possessed an odd lustre, resembling well-polished old brass, and its edges seemed softer, almost hazy. The details were sharper and more hidden—harder to make out right away, but then suddenly a tentacle or claw would spring into focus. The entire statue throbbed, stabbing at his eyes even after he had averted them, and it was not the torchlight creating that impression. The statue was beating, expanding and contracting like a massive misshapen heart.

  “It’s almost open,” he whispered, realising the truth even as he said it. “The sacrifices are opening the gate.” He turned to Dietz and grabbed his arm. “We have to stop it!”

  Dietz nodded and pointed towards the grating. “Almost dawn,” he said. Alaric followed his gesture and saw that the grating was providing a faint rosy light of its own, heralding the moment when night would give way and the sun would reveal itself once more. “Executions are at dawn.”

  “They’re waiting,” Alaric said, glancing at the cultists who all stood and swayed, but did not otherwise move. “Waiting for the witch hunters to kill their latest victims and for the blood to pour down. It will open the gate!”

  “Not if we shatter that thing first,” Dietz said grimly. He drew his knives and strode forward, forcing Alaric to follow.

  The cultists were so wrapped in ecstatic worship they did not notice the pair approaching. Dietz reached one of them, a middle-aged man standing at the rear of the group, and quickly yanked the man back, one arm wrapping around the cultist’s throat. His other arm jerked across, slicing his knife along the man’s throat, and then he hurled the spasming cultist aside to lie bleeding upon the ground. It was only then Alaric realised the stone floor was bone dry, unl
ike the slimy water-coated floors of the various tunnels. He also noticed a slight slope. This room had been carved so the refuse that fell through the ceiling grate would strike the centre of the floor and then spill down on every side, eventually washing into the tunnels beyond.

  Then one of the cultists had turned, hearing his brother’s choking gasps, and saw Alaric.

  “Intruders!” the man shouted, raising his short sword. Alaric had his dagger still in hand and stabbed the man in the stomach, pulling the sword from his grasp and shoving him to one side just in time to block an axe from another cultist.

  “Kill them!” Kristoff shrieked, raising both arms high. “Kill them, my Carrion Hounds! Offer their blood to the Lord of Skulls and he will praise your devotion! Give their bodily fluids that we might open the gate and usher forth his champion!”

  All the cultists turned towards them and Alaric realised that the group they’d encountered before had only been half of the whole, perhaps less. Nor did they have any mutants to aid them this time. He slashed with his stolen short sword, cursing the weapon’s short reach and awkward weight, but nonetheless carving a long gash into a man charging him with a club. Even before the man stumbled back two more had taken his place, and Alaric quickly forgot all sense as he slashed and blocked, and kicked.

  “Kristoff!” he shouted, trying to distract both the cult leader and his followers. “Is this the best you can do, sending your minions against us? Afraid to face us yourself?” he taunted. “What would Khorne say about that?”

  For an instant, everyone fell silent, shocked at such casual blasphemy. Then Kristoff tilted back his head and howled in rage, more like a beast than a man.