by C. L. Werner
As the sergeant turned his face to alert his remaining soldier, Brunner lunged from the shadows. The soldier had no time to react, for the first he saw of his attacker was the bounty hunter’s dagger sliding across his throat. The sergeant pulled his sword from its sheath, opening his mouth to shout an alarm. But he was too close, and the bounty hunter pitched the dying body of the other soldier into the sergeant, both men falling in a jumble of limbs and steel. At once, Brunner jumped upon the struggling sergeant, crushing his wrist beneath an armoured boot. The officer’s eyes were wide with alarm, his face ashen where it was not concealed by thick dark moustaches. Brunner slammed the palm of his free hand over the sergeant’s mouth as he began to scream, muffling the sound before it could carry far. He pressed the point of his dagger against the man’s cheek, just below his eye.
‘Stop trying to shout,’ he hissed. ‘Tell me what I want to know, and I may let you live.’
The sergeant’s eyes went wide with fear, but the jaws beneath Brunner’s grip closed. Brunner removed his dagger and stared into the sergeant’s eyes. ‘There is a man here, a wizard named Niedreg.’ A look of recognition flared through the guard’s terror. Brunner smiled inwardly. ‘I need to find him.’ He put a slight degree of weight on his blade, drawing a bead of blood from the soldier’s face. ‘I want you to tell me how.’ The sergeant nodded his head.
‘Th… they brought him in… yestereve,’ the man licked at his dry lips. ‘He is down in the third level… where they keep all the special prisoners.’ The sergeant stared at the bounty hunter, his eyes filled with fear, but slightly narrowed. ‘Down this corridor you will find the stairs. Take them down, to the second level. Follow the corridor to a large door with a double-eagle marked upon it. That will bring you to the hallway that leads to the lower level. The wizard is kept in the fourth cell from the third turn to the left of the stairway.’
Brunner leaned back, considering the sergeant’s words. ‘You are sure that you’ve told me what I want to know?’ The sergeant nodded hastily, emphatically.
‘Anything else I should know about? Traps? Guards?’
The soldier shook his head and a slim, cruel smile appeared on the bounty hunter’s face.
‘You know, if you are lying to me, I will be back. I won’t kill you for lying to me. No, I’ll not let you off so lightly.’
Pallor crept back into the soldier’s face.
‘I’ll carve the eyes from your head and cut out your tongue. Then I’ll sever the tendons in your arms and legs. There will be pain and agony like you’ve never known, even in this hellhole. But you’ll recover, like these poor bastards sometimes do when the torturers have had their fill of them. You’ll be a sightless, voiceless sack of meat, not able to see or touch or speak ever again. Just a sack of meat that will beg for death with every breath, but unable to speak that desperate plea.’
Brunner leaned his face downward so his visor was now only a few inches from the trembling body of the sergeant. ‘But perhaps you were confused by my question. Perhaps you would like to amend the directions you gave me?’
Brunner waited in the dark corridor, watching another three-man patrol pass from view. He had spent a considerable time dragging the bodies of the soldiers back to the cell, and now he was thankful that he had. The guards might notice the traces of blood in the corridor, but he hoped that they would think the marks had been left by some wretched prisoner. It would not do to have the alarm raised when he was so close to his quarry.
The cell Niedreg was in was on this very level of the dungeons—not more than a few hundred yards from where Brunner had entered the maze-like halls of darkness and despair. The sergeant had also told the bounty hunter that one of the Emperor’s torturers might still be there questioning the arsonist and that one of the dungeon scribes might be in attendance to record any confession. Brunner had thanked him by killing him cleanly with a quick stab of his dagger in the neck.
He crept along the dimly lit halls with slow deliberate steps toward the cell he had been directed to. As he stole forward, he could hear a harsh voice coming from beyond the door. A shout of pain answered the voice, and with it came the sound of sizzling meat. Brunner smiled. The sergeant had indeed spoken the truth when he had changed his story.
The cell door was neither bolted nor shut entirely It had been left ajar, as much to let the screams reach the nearby cells as to let fresh air trickle in to offset the smell of burned flesh. Brunner’s gloved hands pushed the heavy door slowly inward, so as not to draw the attention of those within. As the sergeant had said, there were three men in the cell. Brunner could see a thick bear of a man, his naked chest glistening with sweat, his arms corded with ropes of muscle. He was slowly turning long rods of steel in a brazier of coals. At his side, seated upon a stool, was a nondescript man in blue and gold, carefully scribbling down every word spoken within the room. He was dabbing his plumed pen in a small inkpot on a second stool and using a small wooden board as a writing table. The third man was young, naked, and shackled by iron manacles to the rear wall of the cell. Ugly raw wounds marked the man’s body: the burns of the heated irons the torturer had set against the prisoner’s bare skin.
As Brunner watched, the torturer removed another iron from the fire and advanced upon the prisoner, holding the glowing red point before him.
The bounty hunter pushed the door again, the loud creak bringing the torturer spinning around. The man’s ugly twisted face took on a look of outrage, a look that was frozen on his brutal features as the bounty hunter’s bolt took him through the eye. The torturer toppled, the brand falling from his hand to set the straw on the floor aflame.
Brunner pounced upon the scribe as he rose, casting pen and parchment aside. Strange words whispered from the man’s mouth and an ugly light began to gather in the outstretched palm of his hand. Brunner had suspected that there might be a low-level initiate of the colleges watching over the magician. Still, the initiate’s wizardry had not warned him of the danger that prowled the tunnels and corridors below the Imperial Palace. It would take valuable seconds for the wizard to summon even the feeblest enchantment—seconds the man did not have.
Brunner’s sword rasped from its sheath and the slender blade slashed through the clerk’s neck, painting the wall a bright crimson. The wizard stood for a moment, as though he might ignore mortal injury, but then what magic had been summoned faded and he fell to join the torturer on the cell’s dirty floor.
The bounty hunter hurried to stomp out the fire with his armoured feet. Only then did he meet the jubilant gaze of the young magician hanging from the shackles.
‘Thank the gods you’ve come!’ Niedreg gasped. ‘I knew that Bosheit would not abandon me!’ The young murderer watched with some apprehension as the silent rescuer bent to retrieve the scattered pages from the floor. ‘I didn’t tell them anything,’ he hastily explained. ‘I have been loyal. I didn’t tell them anything, no matter what they did!’
‘I can see that,’ Brunner said as he collected the pages, scanning a few of them before thrusting them into his belt. He favoured the bound murderer with a friendless smile. ‘Whatever you did say,’ he added, drawing a dagger and walking toward the prisoner, ‘my job remains the same.’ Niedreg’s eyes widened with fright. A last protest, a last snivelling plea to spare his life formed on his lips, but it died there as the bounty hunter slammed the dagger into his heart. Brunner took a step back, waiting for the corpse to become still, and for the dead apprentice’s bowels to empty. Then, drawing the large saw-edged knife he had named ‘The Headsman’ from his belt, the bounty hunter advanced once more upon Niedreg’s corpse.
Trotzel stirred in his cell, groaning as consciousness returned. The ugly bruise on his skull throbbed with pain. He rolled onto his side, then sat up straight, eyes wide with alarm. Lying beside him in the cell were three dead guards. Trotzel’s mind tried to puzzle out who had killed the soldiers. Had the opening in the wall been real then? Had he really been struck by some dark figure f
rom the shadows? A fresh thought drove these questions from his mind: perhaps whoever had killed the guards had also left the door of his cell unbarred! He scrambled to his feet and hurried to the door.
Trotzel reached for the heavy oak portal, but no sooner had he reached it than the barrier swung inward. Trotzel retreated from the door and hurried to the body of one of the dead guards, leaning down to take a sword from the man’s belt.
‘I wouldn’t touch that,’ a low, hissing voice snapped. ‘Not unless you want to stay here.’
Trotzel turned around, watching as a tall man in armour, wearing a black sallet helm, entered the cell. There was a naked body slung over his shoulder. The thief gasped as he saw that the arms ended in ragged red stumps, and cringed when he saw that the severed hands had been tied around the corpse’s neck.
‘Come here,’ the icy voice commanded. The thief took a few tenuous steps forward. As he did so, the bounty hunter kicked the door of the cell closed with his foot. ‘I’m not going to hurt you unless you force me,’ he added, ensuring that the threat did not go unnoticed. The thief forced down his apprehension and hurried to the armoured figure.
‘Hold this,’ Brunner said, dropping Niedreg’s body into Trotzel’s arms. The thief staggered under the weight, but managed to hold onto the corpse. Brunner strode forward and crouched over the bodies of the dead soldiers.
‘Who… who are you?’ Trotzel asked, shifting his body to compensate for the weight of the dead man. Brunner did not look up, but instead removed the sword from the dead sergeant, adding it to the ring of keys he had taken earlier.
‘Do you care?’ the bounty hunter replied. He bent towards the soldier shot with the crossbow, and dug the bolt from his wound, removing his sword as well. ‘I should think your freedom would be enough to occupy your mind.’
‘It is.’ Trotzel admitted quickly, eager not to seem ungrateful lest the menacing man leave him behind. He watched as the bounty hunter strode to the rear wall of the cell and placed his hands against two of the stones set in the wall. Once again, the wall sank into darkness.
‘Aren’t you going to take his sword?’ the thief asked, nodding his head at the unplundered body.
‘Two will be enough,’ the bounty hunter declared. He nodded his head to indicate the opening. ‘Bring the body here.’
‘Certainly,’ Trotzel replied, hurrying forward as best he could. ‘A friend of yours?’ he asked.
‘No,’ Brunner replied, pushing the slim thief through the doorway. The bounty hunter followed Trotzel. A moment later, the wall slid back into place, leaving no trace of thieves, killers or wizards.
‘Oh yes,’ Trotzel’s voice crackled with malicious mirth. ‘There are quite a few people who are going to be sorry to see old Trotzel again! You can count on it!’ The thief let his words turn to another crackle of laughter. Brunner turned to the little man, uttering still another snarl for the fool to shut his mouth. It would serve to cow the man for perhaps another dozen paces or so, and then the thief’s eagerness to plot his revenge upon those who had caused him to be thrown into Karl-Franz’s dungeons would bring the words tumbling out once more.
The bounty hunter paused, glancing at the map in his hands. A few more turns, and he would be back at the place where he had encountered the monster. For the third time since returning to the sewers, in fact. Brunner cast a disgusted glance at Trotzel and the corpse the little man was carrying over his shoulder.
‘I tell you, when I get my hands on Ilsa, it won’t be a quick thing,’ the thief cackled, resuming his vengeful plots. ‘That little trollop! All for a few crowns reward!’ The thief hissed a low curse about the caprices of women. ‘I’ll have a grand time getting even with her!’
A sickly stench brought Brunner’s head about. A smile formed on his face. He turned and spoke to the thief once more.
‘Almost there now,’ he rasped.
‘About time!’ Trotzel groused. ‘Your friend here isn’t exactly weightless you know!’
Brunner watched as the phosphorous patch in the slimy water moved towards them along the channel.
‘Ranald’s blade! What is that smell?’ Trotzel exclaimed. ‘We must be under the privy for the Count of Ostland’s ogres!’
Brunner faced the thief. ‘Can you swim?’ he asked.
‘What? In that?’ A look of horror crossed Trotzel’s face as he stared at the reeking channel. ‘We’re going to swim through that?’
‘Not “we”,’ the bounty hunter explained. ‘You.’ Gloved hands shoved the thief and the corpse he was carrying into the water. The bounty hunter turned from the floundering man just as the slick of glowing scum surrounded him. Brunner could hear the man’s shouts of anger and disgust become high-pitched screams, but he did not dally to watch the Chaos spawn devour the man. The creature was quite probably mindless and would perhaps not remember the man who had injured it mere hours ago. And Brunner had no desire to test his strength against that of the abomination a second time.
The bounty hunter looked at the map again, now following it back towards the exit that would take him to the streets of Altdorf. He paused, dropping the keys and swords he had taken from the dungeon guards into the waste-carrying channel. He watched them sink into the reeking mire. Like the bodies of the two men he had removed from the dungeons, they would never be found.
Brunner smiled at his planning. He had left every indication that Trotzel and Niedreg had worked together to escape the prison. Whatever questions might arise from the escape would be blamed on the wizard’s magic, and the blame for Niedreg’s escape would fall on the shoulders of whichever magician had examined him and pronounced his powers weak and inconsequential. There would be no suggestion that the wizard had died in the dungeon, nor that his slayer had been an intruder from the sewers.
Now there was one last thing to see to. Brunner would have to collect the remainder of his reward from the sinister little man with the unpleasant laugh.
Skrim Gnaw-Tail peered around the corner of the alleyway. Darkness had settled upon Altdorf, and in the now deserted Fleischerweg, only a handful of streetlamps were lit. There was little custom for beef and pork during the long hours of the night and what foot traffic was still abroad was seeking the taverns, inns and houses of entertainment scattered throughout the Imperial capital. At such an hour, the district of butchers was as lonely as the gardens of Morr. Still, there was always the unlikely chance that a patrol of the city watch might happen by. Skrim would have preferred to end the matter down in the sewers, but there was too much chance that he might be seen; that one of the numerous spies of the other clans and factions of the skaven might see his encounter with the bounty hunter and wonder what was going on.
The skaven could see the bounty hunter in the lonely alleyway, sitting upon a rickety rain barrel that had long ago ceased to serve its purpose. Except for the lines of sheets and towels strung across the alleyway that were used by the slaughterhouses to sop up blood and entrails, and a few battered crates, the man was alone.
Skrim flinched back around the corner, muttering under his breath. His hand began to lift the scarred end of his tail to his mouth, but he dropped the appendage angrily when it touched his wiry whiskers. Why was he feeling so nervous, the skaven wondered? It was only one man, and once he was attended to, there would be nothing linking Skrim to the late Duke Verletz.
The skaven turned his head and snapped a command at the figures lurking behind him.
Brunner stood up as the small cloaked figure stepped into the alley, and advanced a few paces, fingering the small crossbow pistol in his hand.
‘I have been waiting for hours,’ he said. ‘I was starting to think you weren’t coming.’ Menace dripped from Brunner’s voice as he continued. ‘I was starting to think I’d have to go out and find you.’ The cloaked figure answered with another unpleasant tittering laugh.
‘All dead now.’ Skrim cackled. ‘All gone, but man-killer!’ The skaven leader dodged to the wall as six more ratmen scrambled
into the narrow lane. They were all lean with filthy, verminous pelts of brown fur clinging to their scarred and malnourished frames. In shape, they were somewhat human, but their hands ended in long claw-like nails and long bare tails snaked from their backs. Their heads were narrow and long, and sported whiskered muzzles and thin, pointed ears. Their mouths had been stitched shut, so that the only sound the creatures could utter was a low hiss. Each clutched a rusty steel blade.
Brunner drew back from the oncoming pack of skaven, and Skrim chittered as he watched the man recoil. Over the centuries, the skaven had been forgotten by the Empire, and reduced to legendary bogeymen to frighten bad children. It was a misconception the skaven constantly tried to foster among the lawmakers and learned men of the great Imperial houses. If confronted by these mythical creatures, even the bravest warrior could be overcome by a superstitious dread that would delay his actions by dangerous seconds.
But there was no such inaction in the human hunter. Brunner fired the bolt from his crossbow, catching the leading skaven in the chest.
It fell, twitching in the alleyway, tripping up those scampering behind it. The bounty hunter drew his sword, but did not rush to meet the remaining foes. Instead, he pointed the blade upwards and slashed it across one of the hanging sheets. A rain of small glittering objects fell from the ruptured sack, striking the stone paving of the alley and bouncing across the lane. The naked paws of the charging slaves sank into the spiked edges of the caltrops and they shrieked in pain, several tearing the stitches from their lips in their agonised wails.
Brunner had expected some sort of double-cross, for anyone as free with his money as his mysterious patron might take it into his head to reclaim what he had spent. But he had expected to confront men, not monsters. Still, he had faced inhuman adversaries before, and no matter what shape they wore, he would meet their challenge.