by C. L. Werner
‘Gobineau!’ The rogue turned as he heard his name called out. He glanced over to where the last of his bandits had found cover. The man shouted to be heard above the sizzle of lightning as Rudol sent bolt after bolt slamming into the column. ‘We’ve got to get out of here!’ the bandit called. ‘Now, while they are trying to kill each other!’
‘A capital suggestion,’ Gobineau remarked, amazed that someone thought it necessary to voice something so painfully obvious. ‘Why don’t you go first, Pigsticker!’ the rogue called back. The other bandit muttered a short prayer to Ranald, then made the sign of the Lady for good measure and broke from his shelter, scrambling on his hands and knees until he was across the threshold and out in the street. Still frenziedly assaulting the stone column, Rudol paid the brigand’s departure not even the slightest notice. Gobineau braced himself for a quick sprint for the door, chancing a last look back at the enraged wizard.
The brigand chief’s eyes fell away from Rudol and the magic lightning crackling from his hand, drawn instead to the ivory cylinder lying upon the table. Gobineau smiled as a new idea fixed itself in his mind. ‘No reason why I should leave empty handed,’ the rogue observed. He crawled across the floor until his legs were beneath the timber table. He braced himself and with a double kick of both feet, upended the table, spilling it onto Rudol. Gobineau heard the mage cry out as the table struck him down, but the rogue did not linger to see what damage he’d done. His hand closed upon the ivory reliquary that had been sent skittering about the floor.
Laughing, Gobineau scrambled to his feet and sprinted for the door, back bent low so as to present the smallest possible target should the wizard have already recovered, and keeping one wary eye on the badly damaged support column. He might have incapacitated Rudol, but that would be small comfort should a crossbow bolt from the bounty hunter’s weapon dig into his chest.
The dreaded shot did not come, however. Instead, there was a loud explosion and a bright flash of blue light. Gobineau risked a look back and shuddered at what he saw.
Rudol had freed himself from the timber table, splinters of wood surrounded him, oily black smoke slowly spiralling from the debris. The wizard’s black cloak fluttered about him, the cloth whipping about in an unnatural breeze. Crackling energy snaked about Rudol’s body, filling the air with a smell of ozone. The mage’s eyes had gone white, lost within the eerie power that now filled his frame. The exile’s face was contorted into an embodiment of pitiless hate and rage. His clawed hands gestured, sending rapid blasts of lightning flickering in every direction, disintegrating wood and cracking stone.
‘Thieves! Scum!’ the maddened Rudol was shouting. ‘The Fell Fang is mine!’ As the wizard continued his merciless assault, heavy wooden beams groaned overhead and clouds of dust fell from the ceiling. Gobineau could see the badly damaged support column shudder and moan, the horrific sight snapping him from the fascinated paralysis that had gripped him. With a leap worthy of a mountain goat, Gobineau jumped through the doorway and out onto the street.
Behind him, Rudol looked upwards, the colour returning to his eyes as the energy drained from him. His pupils dilated in fear as the entire structure began to tremble. Hastily he started to shout out in a strange language, words that no human throat was ever meant to utter. Even as he raised his arms up to make arcane gestures, the ravaged support column, unable to bear the weight of the rooms above, cracked and flew apart, followed a second later by the entirety of the upper floor and the timbered roof.
Gobineau burst onto the street, a cloud of dust billowing out behind him as the wizard’s tower collapsed in upon itself, the outer walls no longer able to stand without the bracing support of the floors within. The bandit scudded through the mire of the street, then turned to face the structure that had so very nearly become his tomb. He looked away from the pile of wreckage, considering his torn and stained clothing. ‘Damn poor waste,’ he muttered as he considered the long gash that had manifested in the sleeve of his tunic. Then he considered the ivory cylinder still clutched in his hand and laughed heartily. ‘I can buy new clothes,’ he concluded.
A sound from behind him made the rogue spin around in alarm, his free hand pulling out his sword. He chuckled again when he found that it was only the other remaining members of his gang.
‘You got it,’ commented Pigsticker. The greasy bandit’s eyes were once again displaying the cold gleam of greed that had shone within them when the bandits had overhead Rudol’s appraisal of the artefact. Gobineau shot an angry look at the man, but quickly let it slip into a friendly smile. Gobineau did not favour confrontations that were two to one, or even confrontations with more equitable odds, unless the other party involved had his back to him.
‘We’re rich, lads!’ Gobineau exclaimed, casting another lingering look at the pile of rubble that had so lately been Rudol’s tower. ‘The world is now our oyster!’ He nodded back toward the wreckage. ‘But let’s discuss our fortune a good distance from this place. I half expect that wizard bastard to dig his way out of there!’
‘What about Brunner?’ wheezed the third brigand, his breathing still short from the brutal blow the bounty killer had introduced to the man’s stomach.
‘I wouldn’t put it past him to dig his way out of there either.’ Gobineau agreed. ‘More reason for us to get a long way from here.’ He pointed a finger at the brigand. ‘Dux, you go and get the horses from the stables. Pigsticker and I will meet you at the mill just outside the village.’
Gobineau watched as Dux hurried down the street, still clutching at his belly. When the bandit was out of earshot, he turned to his remaining confederate. ‘There’s a stable at the southern end of the village. I suggest we go and relieve him of his two fastest horses and make ourselves scarce.’
Gobineau did not wait for the other bandit to comment, but slipped into the alley that wormed its way between the mud-walled hovels. The other bandit hurried after him.
‘Why are we going to steal more horses?’ Pigsticker complained. ‘We already have some!’
Gobineau smiled at the other thief’s lack of foresight. ‘Tell me, from everything you’ve heard about him, do you think Brunner would let himself get crushed beneath a wizard’s disintegrating manse?’ The other bandit paused, his bleary eyes deep in thought.
‘You think he’s alive?’ Pigsticker asked. Gobineau shrugged his shoulders by way of reply, kicking at the foremost of a gaggle of geese that was blocking the path of the two thieves. The birds hissed angrily, but diverted their march.
‘Who knows, but I’d rather err on the side of caution.’ Gobineau told him. ‘Something to do with the rather extreme value I place upon my own neck.’ The rogue stopped, turning to look at his companion. ‘You’re a bounty hunter who has tracked down his prey.
The only problem is that they just happen to be in the process of being cooked alive by a mad wizard. The smart man cuts his wager, slips away and hopes his mark makes it out in one piece so he can be caught later.’ Gobineau smiled, an expression of calculating admiration. ‘From what I hear, this Brunner is a very cagey sort. He’d probably figure that if any of us made it out of that carnage alive, we’d head for our horses, straight as an arrow.’ Gobineau chuckled darkly. ‘I’m betting he’s waiting there right now.’
Pigsticker surged forward, his callused hand closing about the neck of Gobineau’s tunic. The larger bandit slammed the rogue against the mud wall of the hovel they were standing beside. ‘And you sent Dux there to get killed!’ Pigsticker accused.
‘Not at all,’ Gobineau replied, his voice strained as he tried to suck in a full breath. ‘I sent him there to buy us time. If Brunner is there, and he sees only Dux, he might figure Dux was the only one who made it out of there in one piece. Meanwhile, you and I are sneaking away in the other direction.’
The rogue’s calculating words gave the other bandit pause. Pigsticker slowly released his hold on the dapper brigand. Gobineau tried to smooth out the wrinkles caused by the bandit’s
clutch.
‘I know people in Mousillon who will pay quite nicely for what we have,’ Gobineau told the other bandit. ‘And I’d rather split the haul two ways than three.’ Pigsticker smiled back at the rogue, nodding in agreement.
Fifteen minutes later, Pigsticker sat slumped on the ground, his head lolling against his breast, eyes locked on the dark liquid spilling from his belly. He looked up as he heard a horse trot close by. The dying bandit’s face twisted with hate as he recognised the rider as Gobineau.
The rogue threw him a mocking salute. ‘Many thanks for your help dealing with the farmer,’ Gobineau called down to his former comrade. He slapped the flank of his new horse. ‘They really do raise some fine animals in this area.’ The rogue sighed deeply, turning the head of his animal so that the horse began to trot away.
‘It’s a pity you can’t come with me,’ Gobineau called back. ‘But sadly, I prefer not to split loot at all than split it two ways.’
The dying bandit watched his treacherous companion ride off, fury and rage suddenly overcoming even the cold chill of death pulling at his limbs. Pigsticker was unusual for a Bretonnian, he could read and write after a fashion, a skill he had learned during a brief legitimate phase as a warehouse warden in L’Anguille. Now he put that halfremembered skill to use, dipping his fingers into the pool of bubbling crimson that covered him. Pigsticker stabbed his fingers into the dirt beside him, slowly, one-by-one, drawing the letters that would betray his betrayer.
It was nearly sunset when the bounty hunter found the body of Pigsticker, on the outskirts of the village. Brunner’s scrutinising gaze took in the gruesome scene, reading at once the story it told. The bandit had been stabbed at close quarters and from the front, the wound too small for that of a sword, more likely the work of a knife or dagger. The bandit’s own weapons remained in their sheaths. Quite clearly, the blow had been unexpected, unexpected because it had come from a man the bandit had thought to be his friend. A belly wound such as that would give the dying bandit a long time to consider the treachery of his murderer. It was with a smile of triumph that Brunner read the words the dying brigand had painted into the dirt with his own blood. It was the name of a place, the place to which, undoubtedly, his killer was heading.
Brunner had already gone through much trouble to find his prey. The battle with the wizard had been one the bounty hunter had been utterly unprepared for. Had it not been for Gobineau’s timely distraction, Brunner might not have had the opportunity to escape, diving through a hole blown into the rear wall of the tower by one of the wizard’s lightning bolts. The bounty hunter had then hastened to the stables, to await the arrival of any survivors from the bandit gang as they tried to reclaim their animals. There had been only one, and not the man he was after. But the bandit had confirmed that Gobineau had escaped from the wizard, and that the rogue was to meet him at the old mill. When Gobineau had not been where the bandit said he would be, Brunner had guessed at the rogue’s cunning and duplicity, quickly riding a circuit around the village in the hopes of catching Gobineau’s trail. That had led him to Pigsticker, and the simple message the man had left behind.
The bounty hunter considered again the name and the place it represented. There were few places that Brunner hesitated to go, however, it seemed that his prey was making for one of them, the haunted, decaying city of Mousillon. Brunner let his gloved hand slip to the hilt of the Headsman. Gobineau was clever, in his way, but if he thought a little thing like hiding in the most reviled place in all Bretonnia was going to help him, then the rogue was going to quickly discover that his cleverness had run its course.
The wind wailed and moaned through the tiny copse of trees, causing the scattered leaves to crackle and spin. Had anyone been there to observe it, they might have marvelled at the strange motion of air, a spiral of force that was contrary to the light breeze that moved the tops of the trees. The weird motion of air began to intensify, stripping loose bark from the trunks of the poplars, uprooting grass from the fragile soil. As the spirals of force became still more intense, it seemed they became visible, glowing with a pale blue light. The spectral display intensified until its brilliance seemed to rival the sun.
Then it was gone—force and wind and glow. In its place, amid the stripped bark and uprooted vegetation, there stood a figure garbed in black. The wizard turned his body, staring with eyes that were pools of fury at the distant cluster of poverty that was Valbonnec. Rudol’s lip twisted in a spiteful sneer and his long-fingered hand spread into a claw, then snapped close into a clenched fist, as though crushing the village within his grip.
They had called him too emotional for proper mastery of the arts of wizardry and magic, too given to excess and the free rein of his emotions. The masters of the Celestial College spoke of restraint, of carefully measuring the power a wizard called into himself, of letting that power be used with care and caution lest it run wild and beyond the magic wielder’s control. It galled Rudol to no end that they were right, he was given to excess, given to allowing his emotions to overwhelm him, letting his anger rather than his intellect direct the power he took from the winds of magic. In his tower, he’d allowed the celestial energies to almost overwhelm him, allowed them to destroy indiscriminately, allowed the power to build to such a level that it might have consumed him. Rudol had seen what could happen if a wizard allowed too much magic to gather in his blood. The lucky ones would die, exploding in a brilliant blaze of light or simply dropping as though pole-axed by an ogre. There were others who survived such things, their bodies consumed and degenerated by the awesome energies that had run rampant through their systems. Spawn they called them, living manifestations of the dread force that was father to all magic: Chaos.
Rudol’s limbs trembled, unsteady and weak from the energies that had crackled about them. With a fumbling hand, the wizard opened a pouch on his belt, removing a small clay phial of filthy, tar-like liquid. The substance’s narcotic smell steadied Rudol’s hand and the wizard lifted the tiny bottle to his lips, letting his tongue lap some of the syrupy liquid from its container. At once, the calming effect of the drug surged through the wizard’s wasted veins, calming twitching muscles and throbbing nerves. Essence of weirdroot was not easy to come by, especially in Bretonnia where the knights were quick to punish those reckless enough to grow the forbidden herb, punishment that as often as not meant quartering for the criminal. Yet it was a vital substance, an essential tool to maintaining Rudol’s prowess with the black arts, keeping the wizard from reducing himself to a seizure-ridden cripple after one of his zealous magical outbursts.
The spell he had used, one that allowed the caster to vanish from one place and translocate himself to another, was a dangerous one, which called upon different winds of magic. To draw upon more than one of the colours of sorcery increased the risk of allowing too much Chaotic power to build within the wizard’s body. Even a reckless man of Rudol’s temperament hesitated to risk such things, yet there had been no other way to escape his crumbling abode save to embrace that risk and employ the Grey magic he had learned so long ago.
The wizard turned his gaze toward the south. He could sense it, the Fell Fang, being carried away by the filthy bandit scum who had brought it to him. The thief no doubt was unaware of the glamour Rudol had placed upon the artefact when he had guessed what it was. So long as the spell was maintained, Rudol would know exactly where the coveted relic was. It would not be long before he tracked down that snickering brigand.
Rudol considered his options. He could, of course, try and kill the bandit and whatever confederates he had with him when the time came, but if he did that he ran the risk of allowing the power to run away with him again. The Fell Fang was much too important to risk losing forever due to an excess of magic and his own impatience. No, he would be better served by securing swordsmen of his own, blades to cut down Gobineau and his trash while Rudol relieved the scum of their treasure. He would need an ally, a patron in this matter.
The wiz
ard’s sinister laughter cackled into the night. He had a good idea where to find such a patron, a man ruthless enough to support the wizard’s schemes, so long as Rudol led him to believe that he too would profit by them. He looked south again, imagining the fleeing Gobineau, scuttling back into whatever spider hole he called his home. He hoped that the smiling rogue made good use of the days left to him, for they were most certainly numbered.
CHAPTER THREE
The small town of Alelbec was little more than a hog wallow by the standards of the Empire, but for the sparsely populated countryside of Bretonnia it was a thriving centre of commerce and trade. It boasted not simply one but two taverns, each of which, it was said, put more ale than water in their drinks. It boasted an inn, an ironmonger, a couple of horse traders, and even a glass blower, though this artisan’s wares mostly found their way into the cities of Gisoreux and Couronne. Indeed, the inn had the only glass windows and wood floors for a hundred miles. Such prosperity owed its existence to the location in which the town was situated, sprawling across the main roadway leading from Gisoreux to the royal court at Couronne, making the place a welcome stop for weary travellers, common and noble alike, to wash the dust from their mouths.
But by Imperial standards, it was still a slum and a pigsty, and Otto Kroenen would be quite happy to see the little dung heap retreating into the distance when he continued his journey. The toy maker despised his trips away from his native Reikland, most especially the ones that took him into Bretonnia. It never ceased to astound him the exceedingly low value the Bretonnians placed upon personal comfort. Quite the contrary, they seemed to take an almost sadistic pleasure in privation and hardship. Still, the lords of the kingdom took delight in Kroenen’s clockwork mechanisms and never ceased to delight in watching his little tin knights unhorse one another. The lords of Bretonnia might not spend a groat to clothe their peasants, but they were certainly willing enough to trade gold for cunning mechanisms far beyond the ability of their own artisans to produce. In the Empire, there were many toysmiths with whom Kroenen had to compete, many of them, if he were honest, quite a bit more clever and inventive than himself. But in Bretonnia, Kroenen was almost unique.