Stefan felt the creature’s strength, its powerful body shaking him from side to side like a leaf. The cloth containing the stone fell from his pocket, and the crystal skimmed away from him across the polished floor. The dog-creature let go of the sword, spitting blood from its jaws where the blade had made its mark. It sprang back, and fell upon its haunches, compressing its muscles ready for a fresh attack. As it launched itself again, Stefan thrust his sword upwards, into the thick knot of flesh behind the dog’s neck. The creature howled but refused to die and Stefan was pulled off his feet by the brute force of the dog’s momentum. For a moment he was being dragged along the floor behind it, desperately trying to keep a hold upon his sword.
The dog writhed violently, twisting from side to side to free itself from the sword, and Stefan had the chance to regain his feet. He plied his blade with both hands and managed to lift the creature off the ground, still impaled upon the steel. With a mighty heave, he thrust it back, into the hot coals of the fire behind him. The monster roared in agony as the flames licked up around its body, and Stefan pulled the sword clear.
Furstlager wasn’t smiling now. In fact, very little about him was the same. He seemed to have sloughed off years in age, and the fattened body of the merchant had given way to the taut, leaner frame of a younger man. Only the eyes, those piercing azure eyes, remained unchanged. Stefan now saw that they were the eyes of Heinrich Krenzler, and they gazed at him with pure undiluted loathing.
“I knew I’d find you, in time,” Stefan said, quietly. “Where’s the real Ernst Furstlager? Did you use the stone to kill him, then steal his identity?”
“You should have died too, back in the mountains,” Krenzler said. “I should have made sure of that. Consider your escape only a postponement,” As the man lunged towards him, Stefan caught the glint of steel beneath the folds of his cloak. The stiletto was slender and light, but undoubtedly sharp enough to slice clean through a man’s throat. Krenzler wielded it with a lethal speed and skill. Stefan was forced back, fending off the whiplash blows from the other man’s blade. The stiletto stroked the flesh on his face, cutting the skin. Krenzler bared his teeth in a leering grin, and Stefan found the space to land a blow of his own. His sword cut through the other’s guard and lodged in the base of his windpipe. Krenzler’s eyes widened in disbelief as blood bubbled through his nose and mouth. As Stefan pulled his blade clear his opponent toppled back, bringing a shelf stacked high with artefacts crashing down on top of him. Krenzler lay pinned beneath the debris, and did not move again.
But, to his left, something else was beginning to stir amidst the fire still blazing in the hearth. The flames had reduced the dog-creature to a burning shell, but Krenzler’s diabolic familiar was not yet dead. Stefan stood frozen with horror as the skeletal frame emerged from the fire, smoke and flame still licking around its carapace. The beast’s jaw fell open to reveal its fangs, charred but intact.
Breathing fire from its scorched lungs, the creature started to crawl towards Stefan, its eyes, glittering like black coals, fixed upon its prey Stefan could feel the intensity of the heat radiating out from the fire-ravaged body as it advanced upon him, forcing him back. At each move, the creature seemed to anticipate him, driving Stefan slowly towards the far corner of the room. Finally, there was nowhere left to go. The creature’s jaws gaped open, and its body arched back, ready to leap at Stefan one final time.
Stefan reached for the heaviest object he could find, a bronze figurine lying amongst the tumble of artefacts at his feet, and hurled it at the creature as it sprang through the air. Metal struck against bone, and the creature exploded, showering the room with sparks and shards of shattered bone.
Stefan heaved a long sigh of relief and mopped a hand over his brow. He stood watching the smoking debris until he was certain the creature had been destroyed. This business doesn’t get any easier, he reflected.
He now had some decisions to make, and most of them revolved around himself getting out. He couldn’t be sure that there weren’t yet more deadly familiars lying in wait around the building, and, on balance, he didn’t much want to find out. He retrieved the crystal and set it down carefully on the marbled floor in front of him. He took hold of the figurine in his other hand, and brought it down hard upon the stone. The figurine cracked in two, bronze splinters spraying out in all directions. The stone skipped away across the floor. To his dismay, Stefan found it was completely undamaged; not so much as a scratch upon its smooth, polished surface. Cursing, he wrapped the cloth back around the stone and replaced it hurriedly in his pocket.
As he ran from the chamber Stefan all but collided with a guard rushing in the opposite direction. Stefan pushed the may aside, then ducked away just quickly enough to avoid being decapitated by the sword of a second guard. He kicked the first man hard in the guts as the second man took aim again. The blade sliced through the cloth of Stefan’s tunic, missing his flesh by a hair’s breadth. Stefan swung his own sword two-handed and delivered a heavy blow to the man’s head with the flat of his blade. The guard fell backwards down the staircase, his armour hammering noisily upon the stone steps.
Without waiting to see if he would rise again, Stefan sped down the stairs and made good his escape through the same window.
Outside, the grounds of the mansion were still deserted, but as Stefan sprinted towards the perimeter wall he could hear at least a dozen voices in pursuit behind him. With the shouts of the guards ringing loud in his ears, he cleared the wall and landed heavily upon the flint-strewn ground below. He picked himself up and ran back down the avenue, the only path out of the Furstlager mansion.
The twin moons had retreated behind the clouds, but in the darkness Stefan could nonetheless see that his escape had been cut off. A coach pulled by two black horses had appeared, positioned so as to block the neck of the avenue where it rejoined the main street. Heart hammering, Stefan drew out the pitted blade once more, and prepared to meet whatever further twist of fate now awaited him.
As he approached the unlit carriage, the door facing him swung open and a voice called out: “Get in, Kumansky.”
Stefan hesitated, sword poised in mid-air. The voice had the air of urgency, but Stefan sensed no hostile intent. Behind him, the sound of footsteps hard in pursuit on the gravel road.
“Get in,” the voice repeated. “We need to get away from here, fast.”
Stefan considered his alternatives. He might put what remained of Furstlager’s guards to the sword, and he might evade the attentions of whoever was inside the coach. But his situation was precarious; he was in need of allies, wherever they might be found. He sheathed his sword and stepped up into the waiting coach. The vehicle jolted into life instantaneously. The pursuing guards came into view, then quickly receded into the distance once the carriage began to pick up speed.
Stefan settled himself upon the narrow bench, bracing himself against the rocking of the carriage as the coachman drove the horses on. A barrage of noise filled the carriage as the iron-clad wheels turned ever faster upon the road. Soon the shouts of the pursuing guards were drowned out, or faded away as the men gave up the chase.
A face peered at Stefan from the seat opposite, lit by the glow from a solitary lamp. It was a man of middle years, rounded but lean, with greying hair cropped close against his skull. A priest of some sort, perhaps, a man schooled in penitence and devotions. The man’s eyes probed him intently, but not altogether unsympathetically. He seemed in no hurry to break the silence.
“Well,” Stefan said finally, raising his voice against the clamour of the wheels, “everyone seems to know my name. Might I have the honour of knowing yours?”
The man opposite ignored the question. “We’ve had our eye on you for quite some time now,” he said. “And on your merchant friend, of course. I take it,” he went on, “that Furstlager is dead?”
Stefan eyed his interrogator closely. He might look like a priest, but the man had the direct manner of a soldier, or one of the feared sco
urges who passed judgment upon the guilty wretches confined within the Palace of Retribution. For all that, something in his tone still suggested an ally rather than an enemy. “I think Ernst Furstlager died a long time ago,” he replied. “And the man I killed tonight was no friend of mine.”
His companion nodded, seemingly satisfied with Stefan’s response. “What of the crystal?” he asked. Stefan was momentarily taken aback, but there seemed little point in denying any knowledge of the gemstone. He touched his hand against his pocket, but kept the cloth-wrapped packaged concealed. “It’s secure,” he said.
“Excellent,” the other man replied, content again with Stefan’s answer. “You know,” he went on, “whatever the truth of it, it wouldn’t look good if, to all intents and purposes, a respected man like Ernst Furstlager is found dead by your hand. Wouldn’t look good at all.”
Stefan braced himself, waiting to see where the conversation was going to lead.
“Luckily for you,” the other man continued, “you didn’t kill him. Ernst Furstlager died in the sudden and savage fire that will be sweeping through his home… about now.” He waited a few moments longer, and pulled back the curtain fastened across the window of the carriage. Behind them, in the distance, Stefan could clearly see the first flickerings of flames lighting the sky above the Furstlager mansion.
The other man looked up at Stefan and smiled, knowingly. “A tragic accident, I fear.”
So Stefan now had a benefactor. Why and who remained a mystery.
“On the whole, it has been a good night’s work,” the man concluded. “A good night’s work indeed.”
Stefan pulled back the curtain over the window and peered out into the night. The carriage was still travelling fast, headed, it seemed, for the very heart of Altdorf.
Somehow, he had the feeling that the night was far from over yet.
CHAPTER TWO
The Map of Darkness
The man’s name was Otto Brandauer, that much at least Stefan had learnt. And it seemed at first that the likeness to one of the dread scourges might not have been so wide of the mark. The carriage had taken them directly to the Palace of Retribution, the feared grey edifice that lay walled within the heart of Altdorf, a fortress within the city. This was not a place that Stefan would ever have chosen to visit. This was a palace of few splendours, and fewer comforts. This was where those accused of crimes were brought to be judged, and, for those judged guilty, where savage retribution was brought to bear. Many passed beneath its portals, transgressors bearing their sins like penitents to the shrine, but few who entered here ever returned. It was not a thought that Stefan found comforting.
As they entered the palace, Brandauer’s demeanour changed. Far from gaining in stature, as would befit a man of high office, he seemed almost to diminish, to shrink. As he stepped down from the carriage, his head bowed, Brandauer would surely have been taken for a man of little consequence, a bearer or humble scourge’s clerk at best. Stefan fell in step with his host, out of place and ill at ease in his new surroundings.
They skirted the edge of a broad courtyard, grey, featureless walls stretching to the sky on four sides. Stefan could only wonder at how many hundreds of condemned souls lay beyond those walls, their existence now limited to the windowless cells that confined them. He suppressed an involuntary shudder, and moved on, keeping close behind Otto Brandauer. Soon they came to a rusted iron door set into one of the walls which Brandauer unlocked. Beyond the door, a narrow stairway snaked its way down below ground. The stairway burrowed down beneath the palace to a passageway lit only by meagre tallow candles. The air was dank and stale. Stefan and his companion descended into a cold, silent world. The few people that they encountered acknowledged neither Stefan nor his companion. It was as though they had become invisible.
After a while walking in silence, they came to a second door and Brandauer paused. He turned and smiled at Stefan.
“Welcome to my domain.” He opened the door and bid Stefan enter ahead of him. “We can talk here.”
Only once he had closed the door of the chamber behind them did Otto Brandauer regain his earlier air of self-assurance. Stefan sat down, taking in the austere surroundings. The chamber was cramped, with bare walls, a single desk and three upright wooden chairs. Two doors: the one they had entered by, and a second on the opposite side which remained shut. This was certainly not the office of a lord confessor.
Brandauer shed his cloak, and seemed to grow a few inches in stature. He turned the key in the lock of the outer door and seated himself.
“First things first,” he said. “The gemstone, Stefan.”
Stefan hesitated. His intention, once he had recovered the stone from Furstlager, had been to find a way of destroying it. That was already proving more difficult than he had imagined. Now he had little option but to trust Brandauer. He unwrapped the cloth from around the crystal and placed the stone on the table in front of them. The polished gem flickered like sulphur fire in the lamplight, insidious and seductive.
“A thing of beauty,” Brandauer observed.
“Harmless, too, by Krenzler’s account,” Stefan said. Otto Brandauer shook his head. “Hardly,” he said, sadly. “The crystal is formed from mithradur—an element once much prized by the dark elves. It would have been mined from the ancient quarries near Gratz. In your hands—or mine, perhaps—it might be harmless enough. Once in the possession of anyone versed in the dark arts, it could become very dangerous indeed.” He looked up at Stefan. “I’m afraid we have no choice but to destroy it.”
“I tried,” Stefan replied. “It seems indestructible.”
Otto Brandauer smiled, then opened a drawer in the desk. He reached inside and pulled out a small, silver grey hammer. Given Stefan’s experiences with the heavy bronze figurine, this looked hopelessly inadequate for the task.
Brandauer balanced the tool carefully in his right hand. “This hammer is forged from a flux of metals, mithradur principal amongst them,” he said. “Take a good look at both it and the stone. I doubt you’ll see the like of either again.” He sighed. “Such a pity.”
Otto raised the hammer, and brought it down smartly upon the polished gem. The yellow stone shattered with a pop like an egg bursting open, scattering shards of crystal across the room. He swept the remnants into a small casket made from lead, which he fastened with a lock. He replaced the casket in the drawer of his desk.
“Now the gemstone is safe,” he said. “The Gratz stone is a thing of the past. Now, we must talk of the future, and we must decide whether you and I have something to offer each other.”
Stefan drew out his sword, and set the blade down across the table between them. “If it’s a question of wielding this,” he said, “then you’ll find few better swordsmen in all Altdorf.”
Otto Brandauer nodded. “Absolutely,” he agreed. “In fact, I’d go as far as to say none better. Your prowess with the sword isn’t in doubt.” He gazed at Stefan, and drummed lightly upon the wooden surface of the table. “Nor, for that matter, is your bravery. No doubt of that at all.”
“Well then,” Stefan countered. “What?”
“Let’s talk about Stefan Kumansky for a moment,” Otto suggested. “Talk about the path that has led you here.”
“What more is there to talk about?” Stefan demanded. “You seem to know all there is already.”
“On the contrary. I know your history, the events of your life. The deeds and skills that distinguish a great swordsman from a dead one.” He took a sip of water from the cup at his side. “But, for what I am to ask of you, I have to be sure of the strength that lies within as well.” He touched one finger against his forehead. “I have to know what lies in here, and…” he lay his hand flat against his heart. “In here. Because, I assure you, the task I have in mind will test every part of your being to its very limits.”
Brandauer paused for a moment, content to let his words sink in.
“So,” he continued at last. “Let us review the li
fe of Stefan Kumansky. Only eleven years old, your life is turned upside down when your village in Kislev is attacked by raiders from Norsca. Odensk is razed to the ground, your father is dead.”
“I live that memory every day of my life,” Stefan told him. “There’s no need to revisit it now.”
Otto Brandauer looked up at Stefan, and raised one hand in a placating gesture. “Together with your brother you come at last to Altdorf,” he continued. “Two orphans, taken in by your uncle Gustav. One of your uncle’s last acts before he dies is to secure you a position in the Altdorf civic guard.”
Stefan nodded. His tenure in the guard had been brief, and, from his point of view, unmemorable.
“After barely a year, and before your twenty-first birthday, you leave the service of the lord elector, and quit the guard to take up the life of a mercenary.” Otto Brandauer exchanged a glance with Stefan before going on.
“What makes a young man throw away a good career in the Guard for the uncertain life of a hired sword?”
“I don’t know,” Stefan replied, a little defensive now. “Perhaps it was boredom. Guarding the city from drunks and petty thieves pales after a while. Soldiering in the guard wasn’t quite what I’d expected it to be.”
“Possibly not,” Otto agreed. “Except that I doubt it was simply boredom that took you to the Grey Mountains. That endowed you with the skill and courage to single-handedly slay an orc chieftain. And it certainly wasn’t boredom that stopped you from resting until you had tracked down the Gratz stone and seen it destroyed.” He fixed Stefan with a stare that would have befitted the most feared of confessors. “So,” he demanded. “What was it?”
Stefan held himself firm against the intensity of the other man’s gaze. It felt as though the grey eyes in front of him were staring into the depths of his very soul.
“I did it—all those things,” he said at last, “because I had to.”
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