by C. L. Werner
‘Very good,’ the warrior congratulated his attacker with the patronising tone of a fencing tutor. ‘That was almost exciting.’ The bandit leader’s armoured hands twisted the swords about, nearly ripping the weapons from the assassin’s grip and the elf recoiled, stepping away from his adversary. He raised his right hand, facing the palm toward the armoured warrior and flicked the spent gemstone at him. Matching the same fey quickness of the assassin, the armoured warrior swatted the oncoming missile aside with his sword. The gemstone crashed against the far wall, exploding in a violent discharge of smoke and flame.
The assassin did not hesitate, charging forward, a feral cry roaring from behind his mask. The ululating cry caused the onlookers to cringe, many openly crying out in terror. The tall, black-garbed warrior was unfazed, matching the flurry of blows the assassin struck at him with his own intercepting blades.
‘Ah, one of the secret names of Khaine,’ the bandit leader laughed. ‘Is that supposed to make me tremble? Frighten me?’ The steel boot lashed out, nearly catching the elf assassin’s knee. He danced back, but this time his enemy followed him. ‘I have no fear of your impotent god,’ the warrior leader sneered. ‘I have found older gods, better gods.’ He lashed out with his sword, penetrating the assassin’s defences and slashing his right arm. The jagged cut bled freely, but the assassin ignored the disabling blow, lashing out all the more fiercely with his left hand weapon.
‘Do you not wonder why the long war continues?’ the warrior asked, the tone conversational, calm and unconcerned by the lethal blade that danced before him. ‘It is because the ancient fool who rules us does not wish it to ever end.’ The assassin redoubled his attacks, and the armoured warrior casually swatted him aside. ‘Now, now, you must use your fury, not let it use you,’ he scolded. ‘The others who came before you made that mistake. I drink feeble human wines from goblets crafted from their skulls.’
The assassin swept the spineblade toward the armoured belly of his enemy, then adjusted his grip, dropping to his knees and trying to slash the back of his legs. The warrior caught the crescent blade with the tip of his sword, and sent it spinning from the assassin’s grasp. The weapon clattered against a table before it fell to the floor. The assassin started to draw the remaining blade, but the point of one of the swords nicked the back of his hand, and drew a thin trickle of blood.
‘I think the dagger will serve you better than the lakelui,’ the bandit leader calmly observed.
With a look of withering hate, the assassin bent to retrieve his blade, but as he crouched, his hand darted to the wrist of his injured arm, drawing three slender darts from the sheath there. The assassin rolled and threw the small missiles at his enemy. The swords rang out once more, and the three darts thunked into the counter of the bar where the warrior’s deflecting blows had knocked them.
‘You are becoming tiresome,’ the bandit leader said. ‘The dagger, if you would.’
Scowling behind his mask, the assassin crept forward to grab the dropped blade. Instead, he rolled forward, lashing out with the thin, jagged lakelui. At the same time, he raised his other arm, neither so numb nor so useless as he had led his adversary to believe. He gripped his mask, pulling it down, then rushed the armoured man. The assassin’s mouth fell open and he spat a black mist at the bandit leader. The mist settled upon the face of the helm, and sizzled upon the black steel.
The warrior’s long blade swept forward, slashing the assassin’s hand from his wrist. The assassin screamed in pain and clutched the bleeding stump to his body.
The black-armoured warrior moved forward, sheathing his bloody sword. The poison the elf assassin had spit upon him still sizzled upon his armour, all save the shiny visor that clothed his face, which was unmarked and unharmed. He bent and picked up the severed hand, pulling the lakelui from the nerveless fingers.
‘I told you not to favour the lakelui,’ the warrior said, the tone as pleasant as that of a huntsman consoling a comrade upon a missed bowshot. The assassin sank to his knees, cradling the bleeding stump to his breast. As he did so, the fingers of his remaining hand covertly worked their way into his tunic. ‘Thinking to offer my soul to Khaine? Yes, I suppose feeble old Malekith would expect nothing less.’ For the first time, there was true emotion in the warrior’s voice, a wrathful, wicked venom to his tone. ‘Still, incompetent kings should not be surprised when their incompetent servants fail.’
The assassin’s eyes hardened. Slowly, he worked his hand back from the tunic.
‘What new trick do you think to use upon me?’ the bandit leader asked. In a sudden blur, the lakelui leapt forward, thrust through the assassin’s throat, six inches of the long blade protruding from the back of his assassin’s neck. The body slumped to the floor. ‘I am sure it would have been tedious and boring, in any event,’ commented the warrior.
The hand of the assassin fell open and a four-pointed throwing star fell out, edges dripping with a sticky green poison.
The armoured warrior bent down and pulled the lakelui free. He raised the bloody weapon before his face, and held it there for sometime, as though savouring the smell of the blood.
‘When you see Khaine,’ the voice said to the elf’s corpse, ‘ask him why he failed to protect you. Ask him why my gods kept your tricks from disabling me, and why your wicked skills were not equal to the task.’
The armoured warrior turned away from the body and gestured to the mass of figures gathered in the doorway A beastman loped forward. Its head was like that of a wide-muzzled dog, its powerful frame covered by greasy grey hair. The creature wore only a simple skirt of braided hair about its waist and a huge double-headed axe was slung over its shoulder. Iron-shod hooves crunched across the tavern’s wooden floor, indenting each plank they struck. The creature focused its questioning gaze upon its master.
‘Take him,’ the warrior chief commanded. ‘Leave nothing that was his. Sop his blood from the floor, and bind his wounds. Wrap his possessions in soft wool. I wish to savour every trace of the smell of Naggaroth.’ The warrior’s armoured head swung around, regarding the beastman again. ‘I shall feast when we return and drink that rarest of wines from a goblet made from this one’s skull.’ A trace of menace entered the melodious voice, ‘Urgmesh,’ he hissed as the beastman lifted the body of the assassin to his wide shoulders, ‘no nibbling.’
The beastman nodded his shaggy head and loped back towards the door of the tavern. Other, more human, figures hurried in to gather up the discarded weapons and sop the elf’s blood from the floor boards. The black-clad warrior absently handed one of the men the assassin’s lakelui.
The armoured warrior cast his gaze toward his followers bunched in the door. They were a varied lot: motley-armed, foul-visaged men in grimy armour and piecemeal mail stood beside mangy-pelted twisted beastmen. But one figure stood out among them, and the black knight pointed an armoured hand towards him.
The figure stepped forward. He was tall, thin and garbed like his master in a fine mail aketon and skirt, a breastplate of steel and a high-browed helm. The helm was open, displaying his finely featured face, its skin pale and smooth like alabaster. The elf bowed as he stepped toward his master.
‘Not as entertaining as I had hoped,’ the bandit leader said.
‘It is well that my lord is unharmed,’ the elf replied. The black knight waved away his minion’s concern.
‘Such as they will never be able to match the gifts of the Dark Gods,’ the bandit leader declared, not deigning to look back at the dead assassin as he spoke. ‘There will be others, and they shall find the same end awaiting them.’ He cast his eyes upon another of the figures gathered in the doorway. He could see the sweat beading on the man’s forehead, a nervous twitch in his limbs. ‘Still, our country-man came here expecting to meet someone.’ He let his voice switch to the harsher, clumsier Bretonnian tongue. ‘Someone thought to betray me to my enemies,’ he hissed. ‘Someone who has not learned how to obey me. I must teach him a lesson.’
&nb
sp; The sweating man made to run, his portly frame smashing through the bodies nearest him. Before he could make the street, however, the paw of the huge beastman Urgmesh punched the traitor, knocking him back into the room.
‘Bors,’ the dark noble clucked his tongue, and shook his armoured head. ‘You have been with me for such a long time. I elevated you from poaching and thieving in the brambles around Parravon, and this is how you thank me. Such a waste.’ Urgmesh lifted his massive axe and held the blade over the stunned traitor. His master called him off.
‘No, nothing so quick, nor so crude,’ the bandit chief scolded. ‘Bind him. He returns with us. I must remind him that his life and death are my possessions, as are all of yours.’ The dark noble’s eyes considered each of his minions. ‘To be able to see another dawn is because I have allowed it. He must learn that death is a gift only I can bestow. Only when his pleas for death have become tiresome will I consider letting him die.’ The bandit leader waved one of his metal-sheathed hands and two of the watching bandits gathered up their former comrade and carried him outside.
‘What of these others?’ asked the elf lieutenant. The noble turned, regarding the frightened peasants as if seeing them for the first time.
‘This is an unfit stage to host my skill with the sword, and this rabble is an unfit audience,’ the black knight decreed. ‘Kill them all, and burn this place to the ground.’ The noble stalked toward the door. As he did so, shouts of rage and fear sounded from the cowed patrons. One of the mercenaries rose, charging forward, only to be hurled back by the blast of the blunderbuss. Before the liveried watchman could raise his sword or push the obese serving girl from his lap, a crossbow bolt sprouted from his chest.
Otto Kretzer roared his own defiant fury, but before he could take more than a few steps, he was cut down by the black knight’s thornlike sword. As his father fell, Josef Kretzer lunged forward, his sword forgotten in his rage, and his hands held before him in a clutching, choking grasp.
The young merchant collided with the noble as he turned from the body of the older man. His grasping hands closed about the bevor, trying to grip the black warrior’s neck. The knight brought his armoured knee upwards, smashing the wind from the youth’s midsection. The boy’s body slipped to the floor, his trailing hands clutching at the dark armour as his body sank to the floor. When he came to rest, the dark warrior turned and strode towards the door.
‘Burn this refuse,’ the warrior lord called from over his shoulder. ‘We return to the stronghold tonight.’
The black knight strode from the building, paying no attention to the screams and cries sounding from the tavern. He raised his armoured head and stared up at the dark, moonless sky. He smiled beneath his metal mask. No, Morrsleib, the Chaos moon, was still there, dark and invisible against the night sky, but it was still there, watching all that transpired in the mortal world. The bandit prince offered up a silent thanks to the generous power that he felt looked down from that dark star of Chaos. Once again, the Eye of Tchar had served him well, as it had so often before.
His body trembled as the sorcerous power ebbed from his limbs, and the magical vitality that had filled him dissipated into the night. It was dangerous to hold such power within a vessel of flesh and bone for too long, and the dark elf was eager to purge it from him. It was the very stuff of Chaos, the intangible corruption that twisted men into beasts and beasts into monsters. He himself had no desire to suffer such an end. Yet the power had been necessary—no, vital—for the duel. Only with such other-worldly aid could he have matched and bested one of the murderers of the temple of Khaine. That, too, he had seen with the Eye of Tchar.
The elf noble strode to his steed, a huge black maned stallion, taken from the icy wastes of the north—the blighted region men called the Troll Country. There was something of the Ruinous Powers about the creature, for even in Naggaroth, the dark elf had never seen its match. It was as savage as any of the reptilians, but without their dull wits and cold-blooded reactions. The horse snorted as its master stroked its mane. He removed a small morsel and fed the scrap of meat to the stallion’s fang-ridden jaws. As the animal chewed the flesh, the elf wondered what thoughts stirred within its head. Was it still a horse in its mind, or was it now something else? How much of the Dark Ones’ favours could one command before one was no more? Did he command the Power, or did it command him?
The noble shook his head. They were the old thoughts, the old fears. He was druchii—for him, there should be no fear. He had seen mere humans wield the power, so how could he doubt his own command of it? The Eye of Tchar was his, he was not the Eye’s.
The bandit leader lifted himself into the saddle and turned his steed’s head. He looked back at the tavern, and watched the first tongues of flame lick about the windows. He watched his slaves hurry from the building, and mount their own horses. He gestured with his hand and the entire force galloped away from the burning structure.
Once again, his enemies in his homeland had thought to strike him down. Even after three hundred years, they still remembered him. He sighed. He had been among humans too long. For them, three hundred years was almost beyond their ability to imagine. For elves, it was nothing—the space between youth and manhood. As he had said, there would be others.
There would always be others. For his enemies would never forget him.
They would never forget the Black Prince.
A ragged form crawled from the burning tavern, taking in the dull, dirty faces that watched the building burn. He wormed his way into the street and rolled about in the mud to smother the flames that rose from his garments. The peasants and tradesmen considered the survivor with expressionless looks. None of them moved to help the man, just as none moved to fight the fire that was consuming the tavern.
Josef Kretzer rose to his knees and glared at the spectators. He opened his mouth to hurl abuse upon the craven mob, but only a wracking cough escaped his lungs. As he coughed, he became fully aware of the object he clutched in his hand: the long, thin blade in the curious black, fish-skin sheath. His groping hands had torn it from the belt of his father’s killer, after the black-garbed figure had smashed his knee into Josef’s body.
The young merchant studied its curving, thorn-like shape. He felt some satisfaction as the eyes of the idle spectators grew wide with alarm and they backed away from him. He returned the dagger to its sheath and set the weapon on the ground before him, covering it with both his hands.
Josef bowed his head toward the burning ruin and spoke in a slow, heavy voice. It was an oath—an oath to all the gods of the Empire—he would find the one whose blade he now bore. He would find his father’s killer. He would bury the dark knight’s own dagger in his black heart. And he would ask no further favour of the gods than this, that Josef Kretzer might live just long enough to watch the life fade from the killer’s eyes as he had seen it pass from his father’s.
II
Dour-faced villagers quietly shuffled down the lane that passed for Falbourg’s thoroughfare. Occasionally, one of the peasants would pause to stare at the wood-frame expanse of the village’s tavern, when another cry of pain exploded from behind the building’s walls. But even these curious minds found that their errands required haste after all when the door of the tavern opened and a grim figure in armour and helm emerged.
Brunner strode from the tavern, wiping blood from his glove onto the scrap of cloth he held in his other hand. It had taken a bit of persuasion, but he had finally persuaded the recalcitrant brother of the notorious highwayman Gobineau to confess the whereabouts of the outlaw. Indeed, Brunner considered that it had been a fairly profitable morning. But the sound of booted feet at his back caused the bounty hunter to forget thoughts of profit and prey. With a single fluid motion, he spun about, tossing the cloth from his bloodied hands.
‘If you have a name, you’d better use it,’ he ordered, his hand pulling his gunpowder pistol from its holster and pointing the weapon at the man who stood only a few paces
away.
Framed in the sunlight of morning was a young man wearing a shabby and worn-looking hauberk of toughened leather reinforced by steel studs. A round kettle hat perched atop the stranger’s handsome features, a thin fringe of closely-cropped black hair peering from beneath the rim of the heavy iron helmet. His face was set with a harsh scowl of cold determination, and his brown eyes were narrowed in a penetrating look of intense scrutiny. The man’s smooth-skinned hand rested casually upon the steel pommel of the broadsword sheathed at his side.
‘I understood that I can find the bounty hunter called Brunner here,’ the young man said, adjusting his stance so that he might be able to draw his weapon easier. ‘I am Josef Kretzer, son of Otto Kretzer of Imperial Schrabwald. If you are indeed the man I seek, I have come to hire you.’
‘Indeed,’ Brunner said, his voice dripping with doubt. ‘It is a very skilful or a very lucky man who can find me when I am already on the hunt.’ Menace overwhelmed the bounty hunter’s tone. ‘Either way, it is a very foolish man who intrudes upon my business.’
‘I came here to retain your services, not to be threatened,’ Josef snapped, arrogance seeping into his words, mingling with the rage that lurked just beneath his cool veneer. ‘I wish to hire you to lead me to the murdering bastard that killed my father.’