[Von Carstein 01] - Inheritance

by Steven Savile - (ebook by Undead)

  He lay flat on his stomach, listening to the sounds of the night.

  He rolled over onto his back.

  Altdorf was oblivious to his roaming. Felix rose in one fluid motion and stalked cat-like across the flat roof. His foot dislodged a tile, which fell forty feet to the cobbles below and shattered with a sound that could have been thunder. He froze, waiting for cries of alarm that didn’t come. Thanking Ranald the Night Prowler for small mercies, Felix scaled the outer wall of the Imperial barracks, his boots slipping occasionally despite the tar on them as he pulled himself up. There were plenty of handholds in the pitted stone of the wall where the rain and wind had weathered them and the cement joining them.

  And there it was, in all its dark splendour: the Imperial counting house. Among the criss-crossing washing lines a single thick hemp rope had caught his attention earlier in the day. It ran from the roof of the barracks to the roof of the counting house opposite. Smiling despite himself, Felix tested the rope, seeing what kind of strain it could take. It was secure. He knelt beside it, ready to lower himself and traverse the small gap between the two buildings.

  The sensation that crept over him was unmistakable. He was being watched. Staying stock still, Felix scanned the rooftops opposite and the walls, then turned slowly, taking in the sweeping rooftop panorama of the city. He couldn’t see his stalker but he knew better than to believe that meant they weren’t there. He could feel their eyes on him. A good thief soon learned to trust his instincts. In this case his gut reaction was to turn around and go home, better to be alive and poor, than weighed down with treasures and very, very dead. There was always another job. Skills like his didn’t just fade away. Thievery was a mindset. “One last job,” he promised himself. “It will be all over in an hour.” He swallowed, struggling to ignore every instinct that told him what he was about to do was a very bad idea, and lowered himself onto the rope.

  It sagged slightly under his weight, but held firm as he swung himself forward hand over hand. He made it to the other side. He could still feel the eyes on his back.

  He knew his way in. There was a ledge above the courtyard, and beneath the ledge a small balcony. By coming to it from above he kept himself out of line of sight of the guardhouse. Felix crept up to the edge, and then shuffled forward a few steps, readjusting his position so that he could lower himself and drop soundlessly onto the ceramic tiles. Working quickly now, he examined the lock, then selected the appropriate pick from his canvas wrap. It only took a second to pop the lock.

  Grinning, Felix Mann opened the door and stepped through.

  Something hit him in the chest, punching the wind out of him and knocking him off his feet. He tried to get up, but he was somehow being pressed to the floor. Dazed and disorientated, Felix tried to look around—but couldn’t move his head. The air around him sparked blue as he struggled to break free of the trap. No net was holding him, no paralysing darts had struck him.

  Magic! It was the only answer… But the practice of magic was outlawed. All sorcerers were hunted down by witch hunters, and destroyed. And witch hunters got their authority from… received their orders from…

  His thoughts swam. He had been trapped. Him, the greatest thief the Empire had ever known. “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” he cursed himself for a fool, a stupid bloody fool. The fact that he could talk through the spell did nothing to calm him. The subtlety of the magic only helped convince Felix that he was in deep, deep trouble. The kind of trouble you woke up dead from—or rather didn’t wake up at all from. The lack of guards, the convenient rope from the roof of the barracks. Someone had grifted the grifter. He had been set up and fallen for it, hook, line and sinker. A groan slipped from his lips.

  All he could do was wait and see what kind of mess he had gotten himself into.

  The grating sound of a chain being drawn though brass handles carried up to Felix. It sounded like a death sentence in his ears. At least they weren’t going to make him wait long.

  Footsteps: two pairs, one heavier and more laboured than the other, echoed in the stairway. The footsteps stopped as one of the people approaching gave in to a fit of convulsive coughing. It didn’t sound good at all. Three more steps and then the coughing began again; deep, tubercular hacks.

  Flickering yellow light announced the pair long before they were at the top of the stairs. The light cast its jaundiced glow over the room’s dark green wallpaper and rows of equally dark oil paintings. Each depicted a grim faced and forbidding chancellor long since buried. The guardians of Kaiserliches Kanzleiamt met Felix’s predicament with blank stoicism. He was an invader in their house and judgement was coming slowly up the narrow stairs.

  The methodical climb and the bobbing taunts of the light only served to increase his discomfort. Felix wanted it over.

  “If you intend to kill me, get it over with would you?” he called out, but he knew they wouldn’t, whoever they were. They wouldn’t have gone to such lengths to snare him if death was all they had in mind;

  a quarrel in the back would have seen to that. They had had plenty of opportunities while he negotiated the treacherous rooftops. No, they had plans.

  Which was worse, by far.

  He couldn’t even close his eyes.

  The pair walked along the landing and into the green room. They were as mismatched a couple as their footsteps suggested. One was tall, emaciated, his hair drawn up in a topknot, the sides shaved high above his ears, the other was considerably shorter and moved with the arrogance of a natural born fighter but wore the robes of a priest.

  “Felix, Felix, Felix,” the priest said, something approaching a smile on his ruddy face. It didn’t last. The climb had taken its toll. He broke off into another fit of coughing. Felix saw the flecks of blood that spattered the priest’s handkerchief as he took it away from his mouth. He secreted it in his robes, his smile returning. The priest’s obvious delight at Felix’s predicament had a cold chill quickening in his gut. He was face to face with the divine grifter, the Grand Theogonist himself. This is a pretty little pickle you’ve gotten yourself into, isn’t it?”

  Even if he had wanted to, Felix couldn’t look away from the priest’s scrutiny. He felt like a slab of meat being weighed out on the butcher’s block.

  He waited for the cleaver to fall.

  “You could say that, but you could also say that it is getting more interesting by the minute,” Felix said finally, filling the uncomfortable silence. “I mean, not so long ago I was all alone up here in the dark, thinking I’d probably rot here for months while the vampires had their fill below, and now look at me, blessed with an audience with the Grand Theogonist of Sigmar himself. Not what I would have expected, given the circumstances.”

  “Well, my friend, desperate days call for desperate acts, isn’t that what they say?”

  “The grift,” Felix said, as though that explained everything.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “The grift, that’s what this is all about isn’t it?”

  “I’m not sure I understand,” the priest said but the manner with which he said it gave lie to his words. He knew full well what Felix was talking about.

  “The grift, the con, the big fat lie you just sold to half the people in this damned city.”

  “Interesting, don’t you think?” the priest said quite matter-of-factly to his partner. “How our good thief here is in such an uncomfortable situation and yet he manages to turn the whole thing around so we appear to be the malcontents in this little scenario. It is quite a skill.” His smile fell away. What Felix saw was the face of a very, very tired man. Almost four days locked in the darkness beneath the cathedral had done nothing to help him and he obviously hadn’t slept more than a handful of hours, if that.

  “You’re dying, aren’t you?” he said, taking a wild guess: the tubercular coughing fits, the sallow skin, lack of sleep evidenced in the eyes, maybe it wasn’t so wild after all.

  “Aren’t we all?” the priest offered, the flicker of a sm
ile returning to his face.

  “Some faster than others.”

  “Indeed.”

  “Never grift a grifter, that’s what my old mum used to say, but that’s what you are doing, isn’t it?”

  “Indeed,” the priest admitted. “But quite irrelevant to the current situation we find ourselves in, wouldn’t you agree?” Felix would have nodded, if he could have. “I believe, and my friend here can confirm this, that the punishment for being caught in flagrante delicto as you have been, is quite steep.”

  “You have seen the gallows outside,” the second man said, leaving Felix to put two and two together.

  “And, alas, a defence of ‘I was tricked, yer honour’ won’t cut it. You’re here, and your intentions are pretty plain. Once a thief, always a thief. You can dress up in fancy clothes and attend the society parties but that doesn’t make you a gentleman, Felix. You’re a thief.”

  “And a damned good one,” Felix said.

  “Well, present circumstances excluded, eh?”

  “Can’t really argue with that, can I? So, priest, what do you need a thief for? That is what this is all about, isn’t it? You’re hiring me for part of your grift.”

  The Grand Theogonist bowed slightly. “Very good, very good indeed. I can see why you come so highly recommended, Herr Mann. The price I am offering is an official pardon for all of your previous transgressions, including this one, and enough wealth in gemstones to reinvent yourself somewhere you are less well known, and live well for years to come. A small fortune, you might say. In addition, you are never to return to Altdorf, understood?”

  “Sounds too good to be true so far, priest. Let’s say I am waiting for the inevitable knife between the shoulder blades. No offence meant, but you religious types, well you aren’t exactly trustworthy, far as I’m concerned.”

  “A colourful way of putting it, but on the contrary the charge is a very simple one. I need you to steal a ring for me.”

  “Steal a ring?” Felix repeated doubtfully. “Whose?”

  “Ah cutting to the quick of the matter, good, good. This is the situation: four days ago I retreated into the vaults of the cathedral, ostensibly to pray for wisdom. I was waiting for a very earthly sign though. This morning my visitor arrived with precious information. His message might very well save our beloved city from the beast at our doors.”

  “And that secret was a ring?”

  “So it would seem. I want that ring. I would have asked you out of public spiritedness, but this arrangement seemed far more practical. I do hope you will forgive me for taking advantage of your natural, ah, shall we say curiosity rather than greed? Greed is such an ugly word don’t you think?”

  “How did you know I would come in through this window?”

  “Oh, I didn’t. But all the other ways in have been blocked up, or are obviously guarded. This was the most obvious way in. Desperate times require desperate measures, and my colleagues convinced me that a man in their custody—Nevin?—could be ‘persuaded’ to help us catch you. All I needed to do was sit and wait for word of your capture. Sometimes, I have found, it helps to think like the scum around you. I did not take long to deduce that in the citywide panic we find ourselves in, a profiteer like you would look to score an otherwise impossible job. I forced myself to think big. After that, the secret was to make a few of the plum pickings appear tastier—and easier—than the rest and let your—ah—curiosity do the rest.”

  “So we could have been having this conversation almost anywhere in Altdorf?”

  The priest nodded. “Under identical circumstances.”

  “I am impressed,” Felix said.

  “Thank you. So to the crux of the matter: I want you to steal me a ring, a very special ring, tonight. If you agree, you will be freed from your bonds and given safe passage out of the city. If not, well, we won’t go there just yet. So, do we have an agreement?”

  “There’s something you aren’t saying, priest. It all sounds too easy. I can’t work out why you need me, any one of your holy goons could steal a ring for you.”

  “Ah, not quite. You see it is this ring that grants the vampire von Carstein his immortality. Without it, he can die like the rest of his filthy horde. You will find it, along with von Carstein, in his coffin in the white pavilions that have been erected on the mud flats before the Meadows Gate.”

  “You have got to be out of your bloody mind!”

  “Oh no, no. Think of it this way, Felix: the ultimate theft. No one but the very greatest could even dare, never mind achieve it. The next few hours offer you your very own slice of immortality. Imagine: Felix Mann, the greatest thief of all time, stole a ring of immortality from the hand of the Vampire Count while he slept in his coffin—in the middle of one of the largest armies the world has ever known. Come on, Felix, you have to admit that the notion intrigues you.”

  “Scares the bloody life out of me, you mean. You’d have to be a fool to step out into the middle of that lot.”

  “Or a dead man,” the Grand Theogonist said, bluntly. Suddenly, with that one sentence, Felix understood the full horror of the priest’s threat. The gallows was more than just a death sentence for his crime, it was the promise of resurrection into the ranks of the Vampire Count’s mindless undead. Damned if he did, very much damned if he didn’t. What they were doing to him was monstrous.

  “My god, there’s no difference between you, is there? You’re as bad as each other. How could you? How?”

  “In the face of great evil, the end justifies, always, the means,” the priest said, sympathetically. “I am sorry, Felix, but that is the reality of your situation. Now, you won’t be alone out there. You will have help though most likely you will not be aware of it. My visitor is even now making arrangements to ease your passage through the enemy forces. According to him von Carstein ought to be sleeping for hours to come. I suggest we do not waste any more time.”

  He had no choice.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The Left Hand of Darkness

  ALTDORF

  Winter, 2051

  Felix Mann was in hell.

  He lay in the thick undergrowth beyond the city wall, watching von Carstein’s men secure the perimeter of their huge encampment. Their torches burned, throwing hellish shadows over the scene. The dead lay where they had fallen when the Vampire Count had retreated to his coffin; the mud flats were covered with thousands and thousands of rotting bodies and bones.

  The Grand Theogonist had given Felix a small double quarrel handheld crossbow and directions to an inn on the outskirts of Altdorf, owned by the temple. It was surprising how far Sigmar’s financial influence spread but it made sense that they would want some kind of back door out of the city to hide the comings and goings of their flock when necessary. The cellars connected to a subterranean labyrinth that offered escape from the city away from prying eyes. The tunnel came out two hundred yards beyond the wall, opening out into a cleft in the riverbank, a few feet above the fast flowing Reik. The cleft was sheltered from sight. It was perfect for what he had in mind.

  He had been there for twenty minutes studying the movements of the enemy’s soldiers. Already he had seen things he didn’t want to believe.

  They weren’t all dead, nor were they all monsters.

  There were normal people swelling the ranks of the undead.

  Normal people. The idea that men would willingly choose to ally with the Vampire Count troubled him deeply. It was one thing to fight against monsters and lose, becoming one of them, but quite another to willingly align yourself with them. Felix had no idea how many living—breathing—humans he faced. The few he had seen strutted around the mud flats arrogantly. It would have been nice to see their smug grins slip when von Carstein realised he had been robbed of his precious ring. If the Grand Theogonist were right about the ring’s nature, those traitors would be the first to face the vampire’s wrath.

  Felix saw a body swinging from a silver birch. It had been stripped and a sack
had been put over its head. Something moved inside the sack. He stared for a moment, sickened by the slick, almost sinewy movement of the thing in there with the man. A ferret? A rat? Felix thought sickly. They had put vermin in the sack. It would have eaten half of the man’s face before he died. It was a ghastly punishment.

  How could they not understand that alive or dead they were worth as much to their twisted master?

  Come dawn the zombie would tear the sack from its ruined head and rejoin the fight.

  Felix shuddered.

  Four of von Carstein’s men stood talking less then fifteen feet away from his hiding place in the undergrowth.

  “I tell ya, I heard summink, Berrin.”

  “Nah, it’s in yer head, lad. We’re all alone with the dead out here.”

  “That’s what I’m saying, man. I heard summink and I’m thinking we should tell someone, because it might be important.”

  “An’ what good will that do, lad? They’ll thank you kindly ’n then they’ll wet themselves laughing ’bout you jumpin’ at ghosts. Ain’t none of us happy we’re shacked up wif the dear departed so I say keep yer trap shut ’n wait for some other bugger to tell ’em about it’s my advice.”

  Good advice, Felix thought with a smile. Now be a good boy and listen to it. He lay very still but his fingers itched to nock an arrow and make sure the boy wouldn’t live long enough to tell a soul.

  “What if one of them’s out there?”

  “Then most likely he’s running scared and no danger to anyone, right?”

  “I ain’t sure, Berrin. I mean—”

  “You think too much lad, that’s yer problem. Life ain’t all mystery and intrigue. We’s soldiers. Soldierin’ is what we do and that means we do what we’re told, no questions, even if it means we hafta do our business in a field a long way from home and don’t get to feel them warm legs of our women wrapped around us when we go to sleep. It’s our life, lad. You don’t want the vampires thinking yer frightened of yer own shadow, now do ya? They’ll just make yer life hell for it.”