by C. L. Werner
‘So,’ Sabarra said, ‘it looks like you’re recovered. Suppose we have that little talk now?’
Brunner stalked through the corridors of the hospice like a wolf on the prowl. He had mended his armour, wearing it now once more, his weapons again hanging from his belt. The last traces of the red boils were slowly fading away, sinking back into his skin. Miraculous was the only word to describe the fantastic elixir Elisia had given him. The bounty hunter saw the priestess crouched beside one of the pallets in the ward he had so recently inhabited. He strode down the narrow path between the sick beds toward her.
Sabarra had been quite hasty in his departure, leaving Brunner to complete his recovery on his own. Brunner hoped that his rival was having a nice time in the little village of Montorri. He hadn’t lied to Sabarra, Montorri was indeed where Riano’s uncle lived. He had simply failed to mention that he no longer had any reason to believe Riano would be found there.
Elisia looked up as the bounty hunter’s shadow fell across her, the hate undimmed in her eyes. Brunner respected that, a woman of principle and standards. It had been out of respect for that quality in her and what she had done for him that he had waited this long. The smart move would have been to act as quickly as possible, to reduce how much time Sabarra had to realise his mistake. Instead, Brunner had bided his time.
‘How is he?’ the bounty hunter asked. Elisia glared at him, wiping a lock of stray hair from her face.
‘What you have been waiting for has happened,’ she told him, her voice as hard as the roots of the Grey Mountains. ‘The red pox has won. He is dead.’ Elisia smoothed the front of her robe as she rose to her feet. ‘You are no better than a vulture, a jackal,’ she spat. Brunner did not bother to contradict her, instead he stared down into the dead man’s face, the face he had recognised when Sabarra had brought him into this room. The face of Riano. When plague had struck Decimas, the outlaw had fled here. If Brunner still gave any thought to the gods, he might have seen the workings of fate that he and Riano should meet by so strange a turn of circumstance. But the bounty hunter no longer gave much thought to gods, only gold.
‘Have some of your people help me drag him outside,’ Brunner told Elisia, his gloved hand closed about the massive serrated knife he had named the Headsman. ‘That way you won’t have far to carry the part I don’t need.’
DEATHMARK
The bounty killer sat in the shadows at the back of the Black Boar, slowly sipping at his stein of beer. Normally, the transplanted Reikland beer hall would be almost deserted at such an early hour. But today the hot Tilean sun had punished the city of Miragliano with a vengeance, baking the streets with the fury of a raging kiln. Many were those who had retreated from the oppressive temperature and the foul stink of sweating unwashed bodies for the cool innards of the many taverns on La Strada dei Cento Peccati. The Black Boar, with its clientele from the cooler northern climes of the Empire, had swelled almost to bursting point.
Brunner watched as a mob of dwarf warriors made a game of tossing throwing axes at a wooden target that looked rather suspiciously like an orc in size and shape. A pair of dour-looking wool merchants from the Sudenland were drinking away their sorrows, and trying their best to ignore the raucous din set up by the hulking figure at the table beside them. He was a mountain of a Norse pirate named Ormgrim, and he was currently trying to discover if the beer barrels in the Black Boar’s storeroom really were bottomless. Along the counter of the bar was a group of mercenaries from across the Empire, who had recently arrived in Miragliano as part of a trade caravan from the rival city state of Remas in the south.
A dark, rail-thin man slipped into the beer hall. No displaced product of the northern lands was he—his swarthy skin betraying the harsher, punishing sun of the south. He was an older man, certainly well past his prime, but without the crushed, defeated stoop of an elderly peasant who had been abused by his overlong years. His face was pinched into a perpetual look of suspicion, his fleshless cheeks stretched tight over the bones of his jaw. He wore a dark coat of soft fabric, his feet shod in leather shoes fronted by elaborate brass buckles. The extravagantly frilled cuffs of a pristine white shirt exploded from beneath the black coat, and engulfed the man’s slender hands.
Brunner watched the thin man walk across the tavern, his head glancing from side to side as though in search of someone. Several times, the thin man was jostled by glowering Northmen as they crossed his path. Twice an extended boot caused the man to stumble. The patrons of the Black Boar considered the inn a home away from home, and they viewed any Tilean setting foot in the tavern as an intruder.
At last, the man appeared to find what he was looking for. Brunner watched impassively as the man walked over to his table. Beneath the table, however, he kept a steady grip on a small pistol-sized crossbow.
‘You are the man they call Brunner?’ asked the thin man. Although he looked like a Tilean, his accent bore the telltale inflections of Estalia. ‘You are the fearsome bounty hunter?’
‘Perhaps,’ Brunner said, sipping at his drink.
‘I am Ortez,’ the Tilean said. ‘In the service of her ladyship the Contessa Carlotta de Villarias.’ The man waited a moment, as if expecting Brunner to be awed by the name. When the bounty hunter’s expression did not change, the Estalian hurriedly continued. ‘My mistress has sent me to find you. She has a job for you.’ The man paused again, then added, ‘It will pay very well.’
Brunner set down his drink and rose from his seat, replacing the crossbow pistol to its place on his vambrace. The Estalian’s eyes went wide as he saw the weapon appear and breathed a sigh of relief when it was put away.
‘I have my own ideas of what a well paying job is,’ Brunner told Ortez. ‘But we’ll go and see your mistress and find out what it is she wants me to do for her.’ Ortez smiled and nodded his head, leading Brunner back through the tavern.
As they passed the bar and the group of mercenaries, a surly voice accosted the bounty hunter.
‘You there! Thief!’ the speaker growled. Brunner turned, finding himself staring into the angry countenance of a face that had been weathered and reshaped by years of hardship and battle. The man was originally from the western part of the Empire, Reikland or Altdorf to judge by his accent. But he had been long from his homeland; his once fair skin had been baked almost brown by the brutal sun of the south, his moustache and beard trimmed away into the rakish style of the Tileans. Indeed, were it not for the blond hair and piercing blue eyes, the man could quite passably present himself as a native of the city-states rather than some imported sellsword. An elaborately engraved breastplate encased the man’s chest, while a rich blue shirt billowed out from beneath the armour.
Mercenary and bounty hunter stared at one another for several tense moments. Ortez was sliding away from Brunner, eager to distance himself from any conflict.
‘If you are looking for trouble,’ the bounty hunter’s chill voice warned, ‘I suggest you look elsewhere.’
The mercenary captain was not to be intimidated. Instead, he took a step closer, and curled his lip into a disdainful sneer. The bounty hunter casually slid his hand to the butt of his pistol.
‘Brave words for a thief!’ the mercenary snarled. He pointed his leathery hand at the golden dragon-hilt of Drakesmalice. ‘I’ve seen that sword before,’ the inebriated warrior said. ‘You could not have come by it fairly!’
The tense situation erupted into violence. The drunken mercenary moved to pull his sword from its sheath, but discovered that he did not have enough room to draw it. At the same instant, Brunner surged forward, smashing his metal vambrace into the man’s face, then grabbing him about the throat with his arm. The bounty hunter kicked the stunned man in the back of his knee, forcing him into a forward fall. The mercenary’s head smashed into the counter. Brunner held him there, drawing his pistol and thrusting it into the face of the brutish bearded ruffian who had run forward to help his leader. Brunner turned his attention back to the man who was ch
oking in his hold.
‘You know this sword, do you?’ the bounty hunter asked.
‘It is the blade of the Baron von Drakenburg!’ accused the mercenary between gasps.
Brunner leaned forward and hissed into the mercenary’s ear. ‘I don’t know any von Drakenburg,’ he stated. ‘I took this sword from a self-styled baron a year ago. He lived in a miserable muddy hovel down in the Borderlands. Perhaps he stole it.’
‘What was his name?’ demanded the mercenary, despite the pressure on his throat. Brunner released his hold and stepped away.
‘The scum was named Albrecht Yorck,’ the bounty hunter declared. He removed the pistol from the face of the other mercenary and backtracked to the door. Behind him, the drunken mercenary sobbed into the wooden counter.
‘Yorck!’ the man cried, slamming his fist into the wood. ‘It was Yorck who betrayed us!’
Brunner left the man to his sorrow, emerging in the sweltering, stinking street. Ortez hurried to catch up with him.
‘What was that about?’ the Estalian asked as he fell into step beside the bounty hunter.
‘Nothing,’ Brunner answered, not meeting Ortez’s gaze. ‘Ancient history.’
Miragliano was not the chaotic warren found within the walls of most Imperial cities. The city was formed of distinct and identifiable districts, as removed and independent from one another as individual nations. Partially, this was due to the elaborate civic improvements and planning orchestrated by the genius Leonardo da Miragliano. Under his direction, Prince Cosimo had devastated much of the old city, to replace it with a well-ordered and easily navigated metropolis. The inner reaches of the city, which were most difficult for attackers to reach, became the homes of the wealthy merchant princes and those who had earned their favour. These were also the districts of the artistically enriched temples which were showcases of the city’s wealth and piety. The outer sections were given over to mercenary barracks, the taverns and brothels that served them, and to the labourers and seamen who toiled to fill the coffers of the princes. Around the entire city, thick walls guarded against invasion, and numerous towers leaned upward from their soggy foundations to protect those walls.
But it was not the genius of the engineer that kept the districts from swelling beyond their boundaries as they had in the cities of the Empire. It was the fact that much of the city was built on numerous small islands, so that in many places, canals took the place of streets, and thick walls and guarded gates maintained the inviolate boundaries between merchant and servant.
The scarecrow-like Estalian led Brunner to one of Miragliano’s most prosperous districts. It was in the very heart of the old city, and was protected from the sprawl around it by its own thick stone wall. Located as it was on a separate island from the warren-like maze of warehouses, shops and taverns that catered to the merchant fleets and their crews. Brunner and the emaciated Ortez were forced to embark upon a narrow gondola. The bounty hunter pointedly waited for the thin Estalian to pay the gondolier his fee. The man quietly poled his charges away from the mercantile domain, past the scows and barges of the water sellers, towards the looming wall of the old city. A small pier jutted out from the front of the wall. The gondolier manoeuvred his craft toward the small jetty where a trio of glowering soldiers awaited them.
Brunner could see that these were not members of the mercenary watch hired by the guildhouses to protect their goods and maintain a semblance of law in the mercantile district. These were hard-faced Tileans, scarred veterans who had already cut their teeth as dogs of war. Over their suit of reinforced leather armour, each man wore a tabard decorated with the scarlet field and black tower of Prince Borgio himself.
The scowling soldiers motioned for the gondola to stop at their post, which was set before a massive iron portcullis that blocked the canal’s progress under the wall. One of them produced a long boat hook to facilitate the landing. The other two soldiers fixed their stern gaze on Brunner and his companion.
Ortez smiled back at the guards, thumbing three gold coins from his money belt. The soldier with the boat hook accepted the payment without a word, then nodded at his comrades.
‘Search it,’ the soldier growled. Both men grabbed short spears from a barrel resting on the jetty and began to tap the bottom of the gondola, listening intently for any hollow sound. Satisfied in this respect, the guards looked carefully at the sides of the small boat, their keen eyes searching for anything that shouldn’t be there. As one of the soldiers turned to replace the spear in its barrel, Brunner caught sight of a small, hairy hand-like paw swinging from a leather strap on the man’s belt. It seemed that rat catching as well as gate keeping was part of the soldiers’ duties.
The soldier with the boat hook set the implement down and strode towards the wall. He spoke into a barred grille of a heavy iron door. Soon, the corroded portcullis that blocked the canal was groaning its way upward. The gondolier pushed off and began to navigate his way into the prosperous old quarter.
The canal soon narrowed beyond the wall. Looking back, Brunner could see the creaky portcullis lowering once more. A pair of crossbowmen in burnished bronze armour regarded the passing gondola from the top of the wall, then returned their attention to their duties.
The temperature was noticeably cooler here. The palazzos of the merchants and the Tilean noble houses rose to either side of the canal, their many balconies reaching across the reeking water to within an arm’s length of one another, casting the waterway below into shadow. Brunner studied his surroundings, noting the garish, opulent porticoes that fronted the mansions, each of the colonnaded entryways trying to outdo the next in extravagance and artistry. At times, a tired-looking footman in the livery of some merchant house could be seen leaning against one of the doorways, desperately awaiting some visitor to break the tedium and provide him with a brief escape from the stench of the canal.
The gondolier expertly navigated the confused network of canals, at last drawing his craft toward a massive grey-stoned building. Like the other palazzos, this one sported an extravagant portico, its fluted columns fashioned of black marble. Intricate carvings writhed about the mantle in a manner that suggested serpents as much as they did vines. A thick-necked, burly figure stood at the top of half a dozen steps that descended from the door to the canal. As the gondola approached, the doorman descended, accepting the rope the gondolier offered him and fastening it to an iron fixture cast in the shape of a swan.
‘The house of my lady, the Contessa Carlotta de Villarias,’ Ortez announced proudly as he stepped from the gondola. Brunner waited for a moment before following the scarecrow-like steward. He spared a moment to once again observe the elaborate portico. There was indeed an opulence to it, but there was also a touch of decay. Dirt had infiltrated the scrollwork, and cobwebs had gathered in the corners. It was an observation that gave him some misgiving. Was his prospective patroness the inheritor of a failing fortune? It had been the bounty hunter’s experience that there were few creatures more dangerous than an expiring dynasty seeking to preserve the illusion of wealth.
‘The contessa, she wait in the black room,’ the massive doorman growled, his accent thick with the tones of Miragliano’s most debased street thieves. Brunner took note of the brief, furtive glance between Ortez and the doorman when the thug mentioned the black room. He made a pretence of scratching at his forearm, as though the armoured vambrace were chafing at his skin. But he was actually ensuring that the needle-sharp spring-loaded stiletto he had relieved from the mercenary Ursio years ago was ready for plying its murderous function.
‘This way,’ Ortez gestured, showing the bounty hunter the door, as though Brunner had been ignorant of its presence. The scrawny Estalian hovered on the threshold as the doorman pushed the portal inward. The swarthy-visaged scarecrow looked into the room beyond for a moment, then turned his eyes back on Brunner. He had a puzzled and somewhat annoyed expression on his wrinkled features.
‘After you,’ Brunner said, his voice
icy, one hand caressing the pistol across his belly. Ortez favoured him with a nervous smile, then entered the palazzo. Brunner trained his eyes upon the thuggish doorman, watching him for the slightest suggestion of untoward intentions. The big Tilean just glowered back, his expression no less unfriendly than it had been upon their arrival. The bounty hunter smiled back, his mind working to place a name to the hulking ruffian’s face, and a price to fit the name.
The palazzo of Contessa de Villarias was a cold, clammy place. Despite the heat outside which slowly boiled the filth floating in the canals, the air in the noblewoman’s residence carried a definite chill. The marble floors were dusty, and the bounty hunter’s eyes were quick to note the trails that disturbed that dust. He mentally filed away the prints, cataloguing each distinct set, and slowly calculating how many others had been privileged to disturb the Contessa de Villarias’s dust.
The winding corridor and stairway that Ortez had conducted him through bore all the traces of a wealthy house. Statues of quality and antiquity adorned marble pedestals spaced along the walls. Where the statues were absent, portraits took their place, displaying the fading features of once powerful men. Each was the work of a master, though it was evident no one hand had painted any two. Moreover, many of the portraits featured men in costume dressed after the fashion of noblemen from ages past. It was a curious collection, for it was apparent that the portraits bore no familial connection. Perhaps the contessa was an eccentric spinster trying to fill her empty halls with a tiny trace of that which she had never claimed?
Everywhere amidst the artwork and elaborately engraved moulding that framed every doorway was the air of decay. Dust had silently gathered in the corners, in the cracks and crannies of the skirting, on the frames of portraits and on the brows of statues. Cobwebs dangled from the narrow space at the top of the vaulted ceilings. Brunner considered the paltry number of footprints he had seen. It was obvious that the contessa did not maintain a large household. It was equally obvious that what servants she did keep were tasked to duties other than maintaining the palazzo.