[Stefan Kumansky 02] - Taint of Evil

by Neil McIntosh - (ebook by Undead)

  “Which is?” Stefan asked, genuinely bemused now.

  “Tal Dur!” Sierck snapped back at him. “Source of all wonders, and all things to all men. Well, let me tell you something.” The graf pushed his face closer towards Stefan’s, his voice rising. “Here’s a bit of free information, to save you your precious time. You won’t find Tal Dur here,” he said. “Not here, nor anywhere round here.” He pounded the desk once with his fist. “Get that into your heads—there is no Tal Dur—no mystical pool or whatever you want to call it. It doesn’t exist!” he shouted. The graf sank back into his chair, exhausted by his exertions. Stefan shrugged, and exchanged a mystified look with Bruno.

  Augustus Sierck looked the two strangers up and down. “You look regular enough to me, I’ll give you that. But then—” he cast a glance in the direction of Beatrice—“you never can tell. The fact is, we’re getting more than our share of strangers in Mielstadt. Shadows and ghosts, sniffing around our town. People don’t like it. I don’t like it.”

  “As I said before,” Stefan said, quietly, “we came here looking for someone. If he’s not here, then we’ll be on our way.”

  Augustus Sierck stood up, and puffed out his chest self-importantly “See to that,” he said. “Because if you’re still here at dusk then I’ll see to it that you’re dealt with.”

  Stefan bowed once more. “You are very kind.”

  “And you—” Sierck stabbed an accusing finger towards Beatrice, “you’ll be gone too, if you know what’s good for you. There’s no place for sorcery here, not now, not ever.”

  “But I’m not—” started the young woman, but Stefan cut her protests short.

  “Save your breath,” he advised. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Outside, the daylight was fast fading, the thin warmth of the afternoon sun already giving way to a chill dusk. The three walked back towards the tavern, where their horses were still tethered.

  “Well,” Stefan finally said to Beatrice. “You certainly don’t seem to have made many friends around here.”

  “People are fearful,” she replied. “Fearful, and ignorant, many of them. Word spreads of trouble in the east, and they start to turn against anyone who is—well, different.” She paused. “I do have a power of healing, that much is true. But I’m no sorceress.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” Stefan replied. “You don’t look much of a witch to me.”

  Beatrice’s face softened. “For that matter,” she observed “you don’t look much like regular travellers. But whoever you are, I owe you my life.”

  “Perhaps you can be of help to us,” Bruno told her. “What Stefan said back there is true. We are looking for someone. A man—perhaps a very dangerous man. Maybe you’ve heard some word of him.”

  The girl looked up at Bruno, then, to Bruno’s surprise, took his hand, turning it within her own. Finally she squeezed it firmly, and smiled. “You have good within you,” she said. “I can tell your cause is just. How would I recognise this one that you’re seeking?”

  Stefan held out his arm, and pulled back his sleeve. “He has a mark upon him,” he said, pointing to an area just above his wrist. “A kind of tattoo, like a rune etched into his skin. At first he hid it beneath a gold band. But the mark is growing, starting to cover his whole arm. He may be trying to find someone, or something, to rid him of the tattoo.”

  Beatrice looked thoughtful. “Come to me,” she murmured, as if to herself. “Come to me and wash away your sin.”

  “What was that?” Bruno asked her.

  “Nothing,” she said, hurriedly.

  “Even without the tattoo, he’d be distinctive,” Bruno went on, with feeling. “As tall as Stefan—taller perhaps. Tall, and heavily built. In combat he’s every bit as formidable as he looks.”

  “You wouldn’t mistake him,” Stefan affirmed. “Not someone you’d mess with lightly.”

  “I’m sure that’s true,” Beatrice agreed. “But I think Sierck was right on one thing. Mielstadt’s not so large that a stranger can go unnoticed for long. I’m sorry, but I don’t think he’s been here.”

  They had reached the horses, and the point where a decision had to be made.

  “Do you want to take a look around the town?” Bruno asked. Stefan glanced around. The crowds had gone, leaving Mielstadt deserted. He took in the crumbling houses, their windows barred and shuttered; the surrounding streets populated only by a few pigs and wild dogs.

  “No,” he said. “I’m sure Beatrice is right. If he’d been here, we’d know. The question is, what now?”

  Bruno looked at Stefan and shrugged, then began to untie the rope tethering his horse to the railing that fronted the tavern. “We travel on, I suppose,” he said. “But as to where—” he stopped short, mid-sentence, and turned to the girl. “What about you, Beatrice?” he asked. “What will you do?”

  “Actually it’s Bea,” she said. “I shorten it to Bea. Sometimes I shorten it to ‘B’, sometimes to nothing at all.” She laughed, not quite convincingly. “Sometimes I disappear altogether. That comes in useful at times, round here.”

  “Have you got family?” Stefan asked of her. “Somewhere where you’ll be safe?”

  Bea’s response was part nod, part half-hearted shake of the head. The movement betrayed her uncertainty. “I used to live with my aunt, a place on the edge of the town. I only came to Mielstadt to live with her. After she died I stayed on, living on my own.” She looked up, arranging her features into a semblance of a grin. “I’ll be all right,” she insisted. “I’m used to the sort of games they play around here.”

  “That didn’t look like a game to me,” Stefan commented. He looked at Bruno, the two men weighing the same, unspoken options between them.

  “Can you get a horse?” he asked Bea.

  The girl nodded. “Why?”

  “You can’t stay here at the mercy of that mob.”

  “What else can I do?” Bea asked, blankly.

  “You can ride with us,” Bruno said. “At least until we find somewhere where you can stay in safety.”

  Bea thought about it for a moment. “Where are you headed?” she asked them.

  “I don’t know,” Stefan replied, truthfully. “I wish I did.”

  “All the same, best that you come with us, for now at least,” Bruno said. “Maybe you can return home again, when things are safer here.”

  Bea stood in silence, looking around at the town.

  “No,” she said at last. “If I decide to leave now, then it will be for good. I’ll never come back to Mielstadt.” She expelled a breath, then turned back towards Stefan and Bruno. Her smile was tinged only with the faintest sadness. “I think my heart has already made that decision,” she said. “Give me an hour, and I’ll be ready to ride with you.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Retribution

  They rode for three days beyond Mielstadt, three long days of wearying travel. Three days crossing the same, endless barren vista, a green and brown patchwork of vast, empty plains populated with nothing but the occasional stream or clump of trees. Any direction was much the same as any other, no better, no worse. But they chose to steer south, searching for the path of the mighty river that would lead them, at length, back to the heart of the Empire, then home to Altdorf. Stefan still held to the belief that Zucharov would have come this way. That, in the end, he would turn towards the only place he knew as home.

  But in those three days upon the road they had encountered no one, nor passed through anything that could be called habitation. The world had suddenly emptied. Stefan had never encountered desolation on such a scale.

  That morning they had risen shortly after dawn, riding early to cover as many miles as they could in the light. But the days were shortening with winter’s stealthy advance, and, after barely seven hours in the saddle, the sun was already drawing down below the cusp of the distant hills.

  Bea had proved to be an easy travelling companion, happy to do her share and suffering the hardships
of the road without complaint. But most of the conversation between Bea and her new companions had been small talk, guarded, incidental. In truth she was still a stranger to them, and they to her. Stefan was happy for the moment to respect the distance between them. There would be time enough yet to get to know one another.

  Bea glanced around at the darkening skies, and drew her cape in tighter.

  “Getting cold, and dark,” she remarked. “When will we stop for the night?”

  “An hour more, maybe two,” Stefan replied. “We’ll wring a few more miles from the day if we can, get as far south as possible.”

  Bea nodded, seemingly satisfied, and rode on in thoughtful silence for a while. Stefan had the feeling there was something else on her mind, but it was a few minutes more before she said, “So, Sierck was wrong, then. You weren’t looking for Tal Dur?”

  “Tal Dur?” Stefan had heard the name for the first time in Mielstadt. Now it took him a few moments to recollect it. “No,” he said at last. “Why do you ask?”

  “It’s what most who come here are looking for,” Bea told him. “They’ve heard the stories. Stories of a place with magical powers.”

  “A lot of nonsense, according to our friend the graf,” Stefan reminded her. “Tal Dur doesn’t exist.”

  “But he’s wrong,” Bea countered. “It does exist. I know it does.”

  “Stefan, look at this!” Stefan was shaken out of his thoughts by Bruno’s shout. He turned to see his comrade a little way ahead of them, his outstretched arm pointed towards the horizon.

  “Dead ahead,” Bruno called out. “Smoke rising from the trees.”

  Through the fading light Stefan saw three or four separate wisps of grey-white smoke rising above a canopy of trees that marked the boundary of a distant forest. He stared.

  momentarily captivated by the lazy beauty of the coils snaking skywards.

  “What do you think?” Bruno asked. “A camp fire?”

  Stefan peered into the now fast gathering gloom. Buried deep in the forest, the source of the fire wasn’t going to give up its secrets easily. But the pillars of smoke seemed to spread across a wide area. It couldn’t be a camp fire.

  “It’s more than one fire,” he told Bruno. “And there’s been no attempt to conceal them.”

  That might be a good thing'

  “It might.”

  “Well, anyway,” Bea said. “It’s the first sign of life we’ve seen in four days. That has to be good at least.”

  “It’s a sign of something,” Stefan replied. “I wouldn’t assume any more than that.” He kicked in his spurs and started forward. “Let’s take a closer look. Then we’ll know what we’re dealing with.”

  It took another hour in the falling light before they reached the edge of the forest. All that time knots of thick smoke continued to rise skywards, white against the darkening backdrop. As they entered the forest and rode beneath the canopy of the trees, all trace of the fires disappeared. Bruno brought his horse around in a circle, scanning the forest floor.

  “There’s a clear path over here, a well-trodden one,” he announced. “It must lead somewhere.”

  The riders followed the path deep into the forest. Now, at last, there were clear signs of habitation. Neatly stacked piles of stones and hewn logs, the wheel from a cart, the debris of everyday living. Nothing out of the ordinary, but Stefan had the sense that all was far from well. Soon they could smell it: the slightly sweet scent of wood-smoke mixed with something else: the sharper odour of charred or burning meat, a smell that was becoming thicker and more pungent by the moment.

  Bea had sensed it too. “This isn’t right,” she said, her voice small and anxious.

  Stefan made no reply, but he was now certain his fears were justified. There was something very wrong here. Soon they came to the first building, its shape emerging out of a smoky mist woven around the trees. Sturdily built from thick-cut stone, the house had probably stood for a hundred years and might well stand for a hundred more. But it was a home no longer. The walls were blackened, scorched by the fire, and yellow tongues of flame still licked across what remained of its brushwood roof. The single door hung open, a gaping, broken mouth.

  Further along they came upon a second burned out shell, and then a third. In front of the fourth house they found the first body, lying face down upon the forest path. A dark red bloom was spreading from a wound in the man’s back. Stefan climbed down and turned the body over. The dead man was of middle years, with solid, weather-tanned features. Dead, vacant eyes stared up at Stefan. If the man had ever been armed, then his weapon had been taken from him. He had not died in battle. This was murder.

  The toll of death mounted as they neared the centre of the village. The bodies were not soldiers or mercenaries. They were farmers, simple labourers. Men dressed in peasant smocks, some still clutching the tools of their trades: pitchforks, spades or hunting knives. Tools they had used to mount a last, futile defence against their executioners.

  There were perhaps a dozen more houses in the village. All had been destroyed, all surrendered to the flames. At the heart of the village the trees had been cut down to make a small clearing, a patch of bare earth barely big enough to call a square. In the centre of the clearing was a neat stone chapel, and inside the chapel they found the women and children.

  Bea turned away, covering her face with her hands. Bruno left Stefan alone for a moment or two, standing in the doorway of the desecrated shrine.

  “How many?” he asked at last. Stefan turned to face him, pulling the door to the chapel closed behind him.

  “Twenty, maybe more,” he said, his voice subdued.

  Stefan imagined their terror as the attackers closed in. Imagined them praying for Sigmar to spare them, or for their tormentors to show them some small vestige of mercy.

  “Are they all—” Bea began. “I mean are there any—”

  Bruno shook his head. The chapel had become a tomb. “None survived,” he said. “Whoever was here made quite certain of that.”

  “It looks like the village has been plundered,” Stefan observed. “Food, provisions. Anything of any use taken.”

  “A raid, then. But why destroy the whole village into the bargain?” Bruno asked.

  Bea shivered. “It looks like some cruel punishment,” she said.

  “Cruel indeed,” Stefan agreed. Cruel, and methodical.

  Across the village the fires still crackled, otherwise a silence, almost serene in its totality, hung over the place. Stefan moved away from Bruno, and sat alone upon the bed of an abandoned cart, staring at the ruins in silence. When at last he looked round, Bea was seated next to him.

  “This is a terrible thing,” she began, then hesitated. “It touches something for you, doesn’t it? Something buried deep. A deep, terrible sorrow.”

  Stefan raised his head, and looked at Bea intently, taking in her features. She was young, but there was a wisdom there that outweighed her years.

  “Do you know me that well already?”

  “I have a power of healing,” she said. “To heal, you must be able to know pain.”

  She met his gaze steadily, waiting patiently for whatever answer Stefan might give.

  “I came from a place like this,” he said at last. “A small village. A place far away, in Kislev. It was a simple life, not much to it. But people worked hard, and they looked after each other. It was enough. Then, one day, raiders came—savage riders from Norsca. They came, and when they’d left, there wasn’t any village anymore. I was eleven years old.”

  “Your family,” Bea said. “Were they all…”

  “My brother and I survived,” Stefan said. He smiled, briefly. “Mikhal’s a merchant now, back in Altdorf. But our father died along with all the others, defending the village. They were just ordinary, hard-working people. Fishermen, not warriors. But they fought just the same, fought to save their village, their home. They fought, and they died. Just like they died here.” He scanned the smoking ruins. �
�You asked me why I have to keep searching until we’ve found the man we’re looking for. This is why,” he said. “My life changed forever on that day. That was the day I made my vow to avenge my father, and all those who had suffered like him.”

  He lifted his head, and looked around at the smoking ruins of the village.

  “Whoever did this,” he said, “we’ll find them. Find them and make them pay.” He stepped forward, and ran the length of his hand across the facade of the chapel, just above the door. The brick was charred and blackened, but, carved into the pitted surface, a single word was still legible.

  “Grunwald,” Stefan spoke the word softly, with reverence. “Remember that name,” he told Bea. “Hold it in your heart. For that is all that remains of this village now.”

  Bruno appeared, running back towards the chapel from the trees at the edge of the village. “Stefan,” he called out, breathlessly. “Come and have a look at this.”

  It was another body, all but hidden in the long grass on the edge of the village. The body was burnt, so badly charred as to be almost beyond recognition. Bruno had thought at first it was another of the villagers. But it was not a villager. In fact, as Stefan now clearly saw, it wasn’t even human.

  “Sigmar protect us,” Bea said, quietly. “A mutant.”

  Stefan raked through the ashes with his sword. The charred remains gave off a pungent, rancid smell, and where not totally burnt, the flesh was a grey-green in colour. Whatever the creature was, it had once been human. But twisted horns protruded from what was left of its skull, and the creature’s single remaining eye was a disc of sickly yellow.

  “That’s our answer then,” Bruno said grimly. “This is what happened to Grunwald. Some consolation at least that the villagers managed to destroy one of the vermin that attacked them.”

  “There must be others,” Stefan said. “The rest of the mutants can’t be far.”