by C. L. Werner
Drugo replaced the bar his thin, wire-like hook had lifted and scanned the silent building. A dog lying near the door did not even raise its head as the assassin stalked past. The man grinned down at the animal, fingering the dagger clutched in his hand. It had been two weeks since he had slaughtered anything, and the last blood he had drawn had been from his jailer when he bit off his fingers as he spooned food into his mouth. The assassin’s tongue darted out, licking his chin and cheeks, as if to recall the taste. The man leaned towards the dog, a murderous urge rising within him. But the moment passed and he turned away, gliding up the narrow stairway that led to the rooms of the inn.
He had been forced to swear oaths before the grey moustached man had released him. Oaths to his patron god, Khaine, the Lord of Murder. The only oaths he would honour, and the man had known it. He had sworn to leave Greymere, sworn never to return, sworn to kill no more of its denizens. With one exception: the bounty hunter.
Drugo knew that his prey would be found up here, in one of the private rooms. It was to be expected. Poor men never warranted a sanction, never rated the expense of hiring a killer. Gold given for the services of an assassin of Khaine was sacred, and only a large amount was acceptable. For who would dishonour a god by offering up a pittance?
Drexler had been most upset at Drugo’s insistence that his freedom was not enough, and still more upset when he heard the price. But he had paid, in the end. When the fear set upon them, they always paid.
The assassin glided down the hall, his approach so stealthy that a rat scurried past him along the opposite wall without turning a whisker in his direction. He reached the first door on his left and paused a moment to defeat the lock. He pushed the door open by the slightest of cracks, then closed it again, the brief intrusion unnoticed by those within. The fat man had certainly not been a bounty hunter, his companion even less. The assassin glided away, passing from one door to another, pausing at each, before moving on.
Finally, he reached the room he sought. There, on a battered table, rested the helmet he had had described to him by the merchant. There was a body in the bed, the heavy blankets pulled about it to guard against the chill of the night.
Drugo’s blood surged and pounded through his veins. He shut the door behind him and silently moved to the bed. At last, his breath came hot and hard to him, the killing frenzy seething through his body. It had been far too long since he had made an offering to Lord Khaine!
The assassin’s dagger slashed downwards, into the blanket, into the spot where Drugo judged the neck to be. It was a killing blow, but the frenzy was upon him, and the blade struck the blankets again and again. The grinning leer became still more wicked and depraved, the gleam of madness still more maniacal as his dagger rose and fell, rose and fell. Then, the smile died, the gleam faded. The assassin’s hand reached out, tearing away the blankets. He watched as feathers slowly flew from the butchered pillows, feathers, but no blood, pillows but no body upon them. The assassin leaned forward, unable to believe his eyes.
There was a loud explosive sound and the assassin fell backwards, half his face turned into a charred, gory mess. Flecks of black powder sizzled in his flesh, as his blood dribbled into the floorboards and leaked down to the tavern below.
The bed creaked as a form emerged from beneath it. Brunner lit the lamp beside his helm. The smoking gun was clenched in his hand, mirroring the smoke rising from where he had fired through the raised pallet that served as a mattress. He lit a cigar on the lamp, and as the dark smoke rose from the stubby tube of dried weeds, he bent over the dead man, to examine what was left of his face.
There was a din and clamour in the hall outside, and a frenzied battering at the door of his room. The bounty hunter stalked over to the door, opening it, staring into the bald visage of the innkeeper.
‘Just an uninvited guest, maybe you know him,’ he said, motioning for the innkeeper to enter and look at the man he had just killed. The man gave a gasp as he recognised the carcass.
‘That’s Drugo!’ he exclaimed. ‘A cultist of Khaine. But he is supposed to be locked up in the prince’s dungeon!’ The man did not protest as Brunner gripped his arm and led him back toward the door where the faces of the rest of the staff and guests peered in.
‘Then he might be somewhat appreciative when I return Drugo to his custody in the morning.’ Brunner started to close the door.
‘My sheets!’ the innkeeper shouted, suddenly realising what else he had seen in the room.
‘Yes, I’ll need a new set,’ the bounty hunter said. ‘But you can give them to me in the morning.’ With that he shut the door in the face of the innkeeper and those behind him.
Brunner walked across the floor, back toward the bed. He reloaded his firearm, then, cradling the weapon against his chest, slipped under the pallet, letting the sheets once again drape over the edge. The bounty hunter was not unused to hardship, with many months every year spent hunting things that were almost men, and men who were barely human. A soft bed, even a not so soft bed, was now too strange to enjoy. And, besides, there was always some jackal ready to murder a person in his sleep. It was always best to give him a tempting target, but never the right one.
The bald man with the grotesque paunch reached to the shelf behind him and twisted the tap on the cask of beer. The light, urine-hued liquid sloshed into the clay stein. The man set the stein down upon the counter of the bar with such violence that the white-topped brew rolled over the sides of the cup.
‘Careful,’ the cold voice of the man on the other side of the counter admonished the bald bartender. ‘You are spilling my drink.’ The innkeeper turned on the bounty hunter, an angry look on his face.
‘You can have this one at my expense, just so long as you do not spend another night under my roof!’ the man exclaimed. ‘Half of my guests left this morning, and the other half have demanded I reduce their bills. All because of you and that visitor of yours last night.’
Brunner regarded the man with a face that was as expressionless as the steel mask of his helm.
‘You would think that I had not done your community a great service this past night,’ the bounty hunter said. ‘Kept you all from being murdered in your beds as I nearly was.’
‘As you should have been,’ the bald man retorted. ‘Beds are meant to be slept on, not to be crawled under! What kind of place do you think I am running here?’
‘I am glad that your prince was more appreciative,’ the bounty hunter’s voice warmed as his hand caressed the slight bulge in the breast of his tunic. ‘Twenty gold crowns is not my best work, but then my commissions are seldom so obliging as to come to my rooms looking for me.’
Brunner looked over as the tavern door opened, one hand slipping to a throwing knife, grasping its hilt. The bounty hunter relaxed slightly as he saw the salt boy enter. The boy caught the man’s eye and ran over.
‘I saw another stranger, like you asked about,’ the boy said. ‘Riding into town.’ Brunner dug a silver piece from his belt, holding it in his upraised hand where the boy could see it.
‘Now,’ the bounty hunter said, ‘describe this stranger for me.’ He looked over his shoulder at the innkeeper. ‘And I may be wanting to use that back door you spoke of earlier.’
The slender man rode his white horse through the muddy streets, stopping well short of the inn that was the first place of interest to visitors to Greymere. He was a young man, his brown hair worn short, in the rounded bowl pattern of a Bretonnian peasant. But the suit of well-tended leather armour that clothed him, the metal boots, the slender blade at his side, the hard set of his features—these belonged to no peasant. The man slipped down from the saddle of his steed, tethering the animal to a post.
He stared up at the high wooden tower of the building beside him, then glanced back down the street, his hawklike gaze training on the door of the inn. He turned, removing a long curved length of wood from the saddle of his steed.
The man carried the length of wood with him
as he walked into the building. There was no one about in the little timber temple to the goddess Myrmidia, as he had hoped. The Bretonnian paused, and drew a long cord from his belt that he fixed to one end of the haft of wood. He studied the wooden shaft, admiring the grain of its surface, the shape of its cut, the intricate carved runes and script that flowed along its length—too precise, too artful to be any man-made construction.
Straining, the Bretonnian bent the shaft of wood into a bow shape that transformed it from a length of wood into a deadly weapon. The string, made of the hair of elf maidens woven together with consummate skill and craft, was made fast at the other end of the bow.
Louis had dwelled long in his homeland, with his family, on the very edge of the Loren Forest. They had known the forest folk, as few men did, and the bow had been gifted to his father by one of the wood elves. It was that bow that had cost his father his life, when their knightly liege had demanded the weapon, claiming that such a bow was unfit for peasant hands.
Louis smiled, recalling how the knight had died, drowning in his own blood, how he had reclaimed his father’s bow, and how he had made the armoured lords of Bretonnia pay for their cruelty and oppression. At last, the feared archer known as the Black Feather—after the crow feathers he adorned his arrows with—had been forced to leave his homeland, to range far across the Known World to escape the vengeful grasp of the king.
Louis walked over to the simple ladder that would take him into the tower. Now he was an assassin for hire, employing his skill and the elegant weapon he bore for the crude pursuit of gold. But some day, he would return to Bretonnia, and cause his former masters to again fear the forests, to fear the death that struck from afar, without warning.
The marksman made his way into the small stand atop the tower, and crouched down onto his belly. He pulled a black-feathered arrow from the quiver at his side, putting it to the string of his bow. He sighted down the street, fixing his gaze on the door of the tavern.
He stretched the arrow back, keeping the string taut and the sight at the door of the inn. When the bounty hunter came out, he would never see the arrow that pierced his heart.
Long hours passed, the sun lowered in the sky. Still the Bretonnian kept his arrow nocked, ignoring the strain of his muscles, and the tension and fatigue setting into his limbs.
Louis waited, still as a statue. Eventually, the bounty hunter would emerge. Then he would die.
‘Intent on holding that thing back all night?’ a cold voice asked from behind the Bretonnian. The stillness of the archer seemed to actually increase. Louis turned his head slightly, seeing a black boot at the edge of his vision, resting on the edge of the sloped roof.
‘Wondering how long I’ve been here?’ the bounty hunter asked. ‘Almost as long as you, waiting for you to make a move.’ There was a steel edge in Brunner’s voice. ‘I finally got tired of waiting.’
The Bretonnian didn’t move as the man he had been hired to kill spoke, as his sword touched the small of his back. ‘When I learned that a stranger had ridden in, alone, sporting a fancy bow, I reasoned it out: that you were here to kill me. That you would be up here, the highest ground in this mud hole. I would be here too if I were going to put an arrow in somebody before they could do something about it.’
The Bretonnian craned his neck around, to glare at the bounty hunter.
Brunner stared back, his face unreadable in the dark. ‘Don’t even think about it,’ the bounty hunter said. ‘You move a muscle, and you’re dead. And I’m sure you’d rather have your bones rest back in Bretonnia, Louis.’
The use of his name enraged the former peasant. The tone of the bounty hunter’s voice echoed his former lord’s. With a snarl, the archer turned, gasping as Brunner’s sword stabbed into his side. The elegant bow slipped from the archer’s shocked fingers, toppling back down the dark pit of the tower. Louis clutched his side, blood seeping between his fingers.
‘Now,’ the bounty hunter’s chill voice spoke again, ‘what I want to know is who paid you to kill me.’ The words dripped with the promise of death if they were not obeyed. Again, Louis heard the echo of the knight’s voice as he demanded his father’s bow.
Louis’s hand flew to the hilt of his sword. Brunner lashed out with his foot, kicking the man in the chest. A strangled scream howled from the Bretonnian’s lips as he was pushed from the tower.
The bounty hunter heard the dull thud of the man’s body in the mud far below. He peered over the edge of the tower at the body down in the street, its limbs skewed about it in unnatural, broken angles. He shook his head.
‘Well, at least your head will make it back to Bretonnia,’ he said, caressing the hilt of the long knife at his belt.
Drexler sat upon the back of his horse on the low hill just outside Greymere, six of his men clustered around him. He had spent a day and a half hiding out here, less afraid of the denizens of the wild than he was of the seemingly unkillable bounty hunter. The sweat of fear dampened his brow as he thought of the man and the massive knife, and the use to which he put it.
Drexler pulled the small steel flask from his belt and drained away more of the Estalian brandy. A few of his men muttered something under their breath, but a withering gaze silenced them.
‘You have something on your mind?’ he snarled.
‘Yes,’ one of the men, a one-eyed thug who had been a bandit before Drexler had turned him to the marginally more legitimate trade of smuggler, replied. There was a defiant, worrisome tone in his voice. Some of the other men grumbled their support.
‘Out with it,’ Drexler demanded.
‘If you go ahead with this,’ the eye-patch thug went on, ‘there is no way Prince Waldemar is going to let us keep on operating in Greymere. Things have been good for us here, the town is a secure haven, close to the trade routes and caravan trails from the coast.’ The man looked over at his comrades. ‘You should wait this thing out. Hide until he gives up looking for you.’
‘Hide?’ the question rumbled from Drexler’s breast. ‘Like some damn rabbit?’ The level of outrage in his voice caused the one-eyed man to start. Drexler was all the more upset because he had been doing just that since the death of the marksman Louis. ‘I’ll not hide. Nor wait for this murderer to pull me from my hole in the middle of the night and cut my head off with that knife of his! No, we finish this thing! And if we must move on afterwards, then so be it.’ The glare in Drexler’s eyes told his men that there would be no further debate on the matter. Suddenly all eyes turned from the merchant as a horseman rode up. It was Vincenzo. Beside the Tilean lumbered a massive, brutish form.
It stood well over ten feet tall, its monstrous shoulders easily as broad across as the bed of a wagon. Thick arms, like dirty tree trunks, burst from the vest of tanned hide that clothed the bulging, muscular torso. Legs like pillars crunched across the ground, leaving clawed footprints inches deep in the hard earth. A vacant face considered the assembled men from beneath a low, bony brow. A cap ripped from the back of a bear rested on the creature’s head, flies swirling and dancing about the rotting fur. The slash-like mouth displayed the broken, rotting, jagged stumps of tusk-like teeth, one of them digging into the leather-like cheek beside the bulbous, squashed nose.
Two beady, grey-hued eyes stared from sockets set deep in the thick skull. Vogun the ogre let his hand twitch—a hand that gripped a club larger and more massive than any two of the men staring at him in a mix of awe and fear.
‘I see you found Vogun,’ Drexler said, trying not to betray his intimidation. He had used Vogun before, both to protect his own caravans and to prey upon the wagons of his rivals, but he never failed to be awed by the sheer size of the brute. ‘Does he know what to do?’
Vincenzo looked at the ogre. ‘Down below, in Greymere…’ he began. The ogre’s brow knitted as he tried to puzzle out the meaning of the words. The Tilean pointed his hand at the town below. ‘Down there, Greymere,’ he said. The ogre followed Vincenzo’s hand, nodding as he saw the to
wn, but once again became muddled when the Tilean called it Greymere. ‘The town,’ Vincenzo explained. ‘In town, there is an inn,’ once more Vogun’s brow knitted in concentration.
Vincenzo rolled his eyes in disgust. He rode to the ogre’s side, his horse snorting in aggravation as the stench of the behemoth’s clothing struck its nostrils.
‘See?’ he asked, pointing his finger under the ogre’s nose. The ogre leaned forward, sighting along the line of the Tilean’s finger like an engineer aiming a cannon. He saw the finger stabbing at a two-storey structure in the middle of the town. Vogun nodded his massive head.
‘Yer, da place dat looks like a lunchbox. Vogun see it,’ the ogre’s deep, rumbling voice growled.
‘There is a man there.’ Vincenzo went on. ‘In the building. His name is Brunner. He wears a black steel helmet shaped like a bowl. It covers his face,’ the Tilean gestured with his hands, trying to show the ogre what he meant. Vogun put a bony knuckle against his brow, as if pressing against his skull would enable him to make some meaning of the Tilean’s words.
‘By the grace of Morr!’ Drexler exclaimed, reining his horse beside the ogre. ‘Do you see that building?’ the merchant asked. Once again, Vogun bent forward, sighting along Drexler’s pointed finger.
‘Yer, da place dat looks like a lunchbox. Vogun see it,’ the ogre rumbled.
‘Go there. Kill anyone inside.’
The ogre nodded enthusiastically. Here were orders he could understand. Drexler tossed the ogre a leather pouch and the creature’s face broke into a toothy smile as he saw the glittering coins inside. With a deep bellow, the brute turned and lumbered off down the slope toward the town. Drexler turned in his saddle, facing the incredulous looks of his men.
‘We’ll be leaving Greymere anyway,’ he said.
There were shouts of alarm in the street. Behind the bar, the balding innkeeper cast a curious look at the door, wondering what was going on outside. He noticed the lamp hanging beside the door begin to jump on its hook. Ponderous steps thudded up to the door. Then the portal was smashed open. A hulking shape bent almost in half, moving sideways to fit through the doorway.