'I have to do something to while away the lonely hours before opening time,' Dietrich admitted with a laugh and picked up another tankard that needed polishing.
'We need you, Dietrich, now old Alexi's gone and Krakov's left us. And let's face it, if you're stuck out here in this backwater mooning over serving wenches then you need us too!' At that moment a buxom, sprightly young woman brushed past Torben with a tray of empty tankards and gave him a flirtatious smile. 'Mind you, I wouldn't mind mooning over a few of these wenches myself… but that's beside the point. You think about it for a minute or two and then let me know your decision.' And with that the tall mercenary strode somewhat unsteadily back across the bar to join his equally hard-bitten-looking companions seated around a table on the other side of the room.
Absent-mindedly rubbing the surface layer of the tankard, as if trying to remove the pewter itself, Dietrich Hassner considered the bear-cloaked mercenary band noisily enjoying their evening's ale. He knew Torben Badenov from his soldiering days and a more boastful, hard-drinking, gambler, accomplished swordsman and incorrigible womaniser Dietrich had yet to meet, and he had served in some of the roughest armies ever mustered in all the Empire. He knew Torben's weaselly companion Oran Scarfen from his days of active duty as well, and had lost a fair few wagers to the devious man's swindling sleight-of-hand.
The last he recognised was the young, mop-haired Yuri Gorsk, although he knew how much the youth hated being reminded of fhe fact that he had been the youngest in their regiment. Of course that was years ago now, but the tag seemed to have stuck, maybe because of Yuri's petulant nature and lack of confidence. He needed the support and leadership of Torben and the others to convince him that he was as able as the others. He always had, although he was perfectly capable of handling himself on the battlefield.
Dietrich had known Alexi of Nuln as well, of course. The old soldier had been serving in the armies of the Empire before Dietrich was out of swaddling clothes, but now he was gone, slaughtered by a Chaos-thing, Torben had said, although on that subject even the normally ebullient mercenary captain had been unusually reticent.
The other two he'd met for the first time when Torben strode into the Hand of Glory that very afternoon, Dietrich having not seen the Kislevite for over a decade. The bear-like giant called Stanislav Hagar was reputed to have the strength of an ox and Dietrich could well believe it after the handshake he received on being introduced to the smiling, erstwhile trapper. The second was a sullen individual dressed in the garb of a nobleman soldier and carrying an old, as well as valuable-looking, blade, scabbarded at his waist. When just Dietrich and Torben had been talking, the latter had told him that the sombre young man was Pieter Valburg, only son of the mayor of Schwertdorf, who had given up everything to avenge the death of his sweetheart at the hands of some degenerate count of Stirland. The nobleman was sitting apart from the rest of Badenov's band at a stall of his own, hunched over something that he appeared to be reading.
They had enjoyed many good times together, he, Torben and the rest, back when they were foot soldiers in the Tzar's army, as well as many terrifying ones, and he was sure that they would again if he were to join Badenov's band. Torben could be very persuasive - Dietrich was reminded of that hilarious night in Talabheim - and to say he wasn't tempted would be a lie. But something in him now yearned for the peaceful existence he had as innkeeper of the Hand of Glory in Nagenhof.
Drawing a tankard of Wergig's Old Peculiar from a barrel behind the bar Dietrich walked over to Torben's table. He pulling up a stole and sat down amid raucous cheers from the inebriated mercenaries.
'You see, Torben, old friend,' he began, 'it's like this…'
IN THE SILENT stillness of the church of Morr the snip of the hand-shears hung in the cold night air of the nave as the black-cowled priest went about the business of trimming the candles. Another candelabra seen to, the white-haired, stooping Father Ludwik shuffled on to the next.
Hearing a pattering on the flagstoned floor behind him the old man looked round to see a large, black rat scamper across the central aisle of the nave and disappear between the battered oak pews. Father Ludwik cursed in a most unpriestly manner and then made the holy sign of Morr in obeisance. There hadn't even been any rats in the crypt, let alone the church, when he had left to tend to the dying Farmer Hackett in the out-lying hamlet of Weiler four days ago.
How could the boy let things get so out of hand in such a short time? Ludwik had returned that afternoon to find none of the candle-wicks trimmed, leaves blown in by the storm piled in drifts around the pews, rather than disposed of, and no sign of Otto.
It was Otto's job to keep the rats down; it never pleased the bereaved to see that the recently departed had been given the once over by vermin.
He obviously needed to teach the boy a lesson and his lessons were never learnt better than when they were accompanied by a good beating.
'Beat the evil out of you,' the old man used to say, when he wasn't so old and his birching arm wasn't so frail.
The priest was roused from his musings by the scratching of claws on the tiles of the chancel. 'When I find that hunchbacked scoundrel…' he muttered to himself. Putting down the hand-shears, and picking up his lamp, he hurriedly made his way towards the darkened sanctuary, his sandals flapping on the cold flagstones. Despite himself, Father Ludwik was intrigued. He had never seen such a large rat in all his life: lithe and black, more like a dog than a rat really. If there were ones that big roaming the building maybe the church of Morr had a bigger rat problem than he had at first thought, and all thanks to Otto's negligence.
Would that boy never learn? Ludwik would have thought that the half-deaf hunchback would have been grateful for all he'd done for him and repay the priest's kindness rather than let the place go to the rats. Especially because… Ludwik halted that particular train of thought.
He could have let the hunchback die like his gypsy-whore of a mother. Morr had seen fit that the witch passed on into his dark domain and perhaps he had planned that her deformed offspring should go with her. But Ludwik had decided to intervene. Had it been out of pity for the mewling infant? Had it been out of a sense of moral obligation? Or was it simply because…
No, that wasn't why! Morr had wanted the child brought up in his service. Why else would the witch have come to the church that night, all those years ago, if not because Morr had guided her there? It was Morr who had directed him to open the door and let her in. And as the gypsy girl - she really had been no more than a girl - lay bleeding to death in the priest's own cot it was Morr, his master, who had made him take the child in his arms. But still sometimes he wondered why.
The boy and his deformity were a penance that the old priest simply had to bear, a daily reminder of past sins. How long would it be before Morr saw fit that they should be absolved?
Father Ludwik stirred from his musings to find that he had followed the rat to the door to the crypt. The creature squeezed its long, bristly body under the door, its worm-like tail disappearing in a trice. Placing a hand on the door's handle he paused, realising that his heart was pounding. What was he afraid of? Was it because he had been reminiscing about the past? Was it because there had been no sign of Otto since he had returned from Weiler? What did he really expect to find in the crypt? Turning the handle Father Ludwik pushed the door open.
Whatever he had expected to see there it certainly wasn't this! The crypt had gained two occupants since he had left to tend to Farmer Hackett. The bodies of two men - or at least what was left of them - lay dumped on the stone preparation table.
Climbing over the corpses, nuzzling their bloodstained whiskers into the soft parts of the cadavers or gnawing at exposed bones, were dozens upon dozens of disgusting, scabrous vermin.
The rats filled the chamber and a few screeched as the lamplight shone in their eyes. In the flickering illumination Ludwik could see that it was unlikely the two men had met their deaths naturally: his training in the ways of Mor
r had furnished him with an almost macabre knowledge of pathology and human anatomy. One, what was left of his features displaying a swarthy complexion, appeared to have been crudely gutted, judging by the cut to his belly, although the rats had made short work of his intestines so it was hard to be sure. Over this cadaver had been deposited the body of a taller, long-limbed man. His neck and left leg were twisted at unnatural angles suggesting that he had died in a fall. But what horrified Ludwik more than the arrival of the bodies was what was what had been taken away from the crypt.
At that instant the church bell started to toll and the rats began squeaking in raucous excitement. This wasn't the clear reassuring chime of Morr's bell, informing the townsfolk that one of their number was making their way to the underworld. This sound was more like a cold clanging, rife with discordant harmonics that set Ludwik's teeth on edge, as if the bell were cracked. The ominous tolling chilled Ludwik to the bone, as if it were his own death-knell. Then he remembered. Three nights ago - the night of the storm - he had heard the distant discordant pealing and that night Hackett had slipped into a coma from which he never recovered. At the time Ludwik had no idea that the sound he had heard had come from the bell-tower of his own church but he did know he hadn't slept well that night.
Otto! he thought and bustled out of the crypt towards the other end of the church.
With one hand on the banister of the creaking wooden staircase, Ludwik began to climb the bell-tower. It had been a long time since the old priest had made the ascent; he left it to the boy these days. After all that was one of the hunchback's jobs about the place, that and the fact that the tower was a hundred feet tall. The higher Ludwik climbed the more his aching, ageing joints protested. He stopped to catch his breath halfway up the tower. He had to reach the belfry and command Otto to stop. Then the hunchback could expect the beating of his life. No matter how frail Ludwik might be now, righteous fury would lend him the strength to chastise Otto and teach him the folly of his ways.
With every step his lungs heaved, his heart strained against his ribcage. The closer he came to the top of the tower and the tolling bell, a tightening nausea gripped his stomach. At last, puffing and panting, Father Ludwik stepped onto the wooden floor of the belfry. Opposite him, pulling down on the bell-rope with the rhythm of a failing heartbeat was the hunchback.
'Otto!' the priest gasped. 'What are you doing?'
Then Ludwik's eyes fell on the bell itself. It was as he had feared. In the gloom of the belfry he could still make out the cracked, bronze bell suspended from the oak frame. With each pull of the rope, the clapper rung the hideous artefact and it seemed to Ludwik that the claw-like scratches that formed the runes on its surface glowed with a faint green luminescence.
'Ah, father,' Otto slobbered, his malformed vocal chords distorting the words, 'you're back.'
'Yes, I'm back,' snarled Ludwik, 'and I want to know what's going on!'
Something resembling a smile twisted the hunchback's lips. 'I've been busy since you went away, father!' The bell-ringer almost spat the last word.
'You certainly have, you demented oaf!' the priest shouted over the tolling of the bell. 'Can you explain to me why this accursed thing's hanging here and why there are two dead bodies in the crypt?'
'This is the church of Morr,' Otto retorted.
'Why you impudent wretch!' Ludwik roared, raising his arm as if to strike the hunchback. It was all that was needed to send the maniac bell-ringer over the edge.
Otto loped over to the priest and with a backhanded swipe sent the old man flying across the belfry. Ludwik crashed to the floor in a corner, cracking his head on the stone wall.
'I've been doing a lot of thinking lately,' Otto said as the bell continued to swing unaided behind him. 'About why you took me in.'
'I've told you before,' Ludwik said in angry shock, rubbing the back of his head. 'You were a foundling. Your mother was a gypsy. She died giving birth to you, in this very church. It was Morr's will that I take you in.'
'And why did my mother come here, to the temple of the god of death?' The hunchback was getting closer and closer. 'Why didn't she go to the priestesses of Shallya, in her time of need? Why come to a church of Morr and its lone priest, unused to the ways of women and healing? Why, unless she blamed you?'
Ludwik felt his blood run cold. How could the boy know? Who could have told him? Only Ludwik and the boy's mother knew the truth, and she was dead and he hadn't told anyone.
'I've called you father all these years and I never knew,' Otto said, tears born of rage, pain and a deep sadness running down his face.
Suddenly Ludwik found that he couldn't keep it a secret any longer - there was no point - and the words poured out of him in a torrent: 'She tempted me. She was a follower of the Ruinous Powers. She was a gypsy! She used her dark powers to seduce me.'
'My mother was a follower of Chaos? Really?'
'Well look at yourself! She must have been to produce such deformed offspring as you!'
'More lies! More excuses!' the hunchback cried in misery and frustration. 'If my deformity is a reflection of a parent's black heart then it's yours, old man!' Otto was standing over him now and to his horror Ludwik realised that he was shaking.
'You never really wanted me!' Otto howled. 'I was just an unpleasant reminder of your moment of weakness! All the beatings, all the abuse I suffered at your hands. You said it was to educate me! Well you're about to reap what you've sown!'
There was no way for Ludwik to escape. Grabbing the priest's habit, the hunchback lifted him up in his arms and carried him with purposeful steps towards the arched window of the belfry.
'It wasn't really me you were punishing every time you brought the birch down across my twisted spine. You were punishing yourself for siring me!' Ludwik found he had no words as Otto raised him above his head before the arched opening. 'Well I don't need you anymore. There are others coming who will understand me, welcome me into their family, like you never did. Goodbye, father.'
There was a sudden heave and then only air beneath the old priest's body. As he spiralled down towards the ground, the wind rushing in his ears, Father Ludwik could see Otto, the hunchback's ugly face now an expressionless mask, watching him fall. And above him, spread wide over the pinnacle of the bell-tower, the black wings of Morr's great raven unfurled across the night sky.
'WHAT'S THAT INFERNAL noise?' Oran Scarfen asked grumpily as the harsh knelling of the church bell continued.
'It's starting to grate on my nerves,' said Yuri Gorsk, looking to the mercenary band's leader for guidance.
'What time is it?' Torben Badenov asked their host.
'It's not yet the hour of ten,' Dietrich said looking at the peeling face of the clock above the blazing fireplace.
'Then what's your bell-ringer playing at?' Oran went on. 'Is he mad?'
'Quite possibly,' said Pieter Valburg darkly joining his companions at their table. 'That sounds like no ordinary bell.'
'You're telling me,' Dietrich said. 'The church of Morr's only got a small bell. That tolling sounds like it's coming from something much larger.' The innkeeper suddenly froze as a terrible possibility made itself plain to him. 'Oh it couldn't be,' he uttered in a hushed whisper.
'What?' Torben demanded suddenly sober and serious.
'Well, it's just that ten years ago, during the Battle of Nagenhof, the skaven used a war machine we nicknamed the Screaming Bell against the town. I remember watching from the gate defences as giant rats hauled it into position. A monstrous contraption it was, a gigantic bell suspended from a frame bearing all manner of other bells, carried on a great-wheeled carriage. When the Screaming Bell was struck the town walls shook and men's ears bled.'
'I've read of such things,' Pieter said, cryptically.
'When I was fighting in Liotta's Legion in Tilea, at the Liberation of Sileno, around the campfires the talk was rife with tales of the skaven war machines,' Torben added.
'Well after the battle, when t
he day was won, the war machine was destroyed but one of the smaller bells from the carriage was saved and put in the church crypt, as a reminder of the town's victory over the ratmen.'
'And you think that same bell is the one we can now hear being rung,' Pieter deduced.
'Exactly. Thinking about it, the bell also rang during the storm three nights ago. It sounded a little strange then, only you couldn't be sure over the noise of the thunder, the wind and the rain.'
'But why would anyone want to ring a skaven bell? Who knows what effect it might have?' reasoned the anxious Yuri.
'Well we're not going to find out sitting around here,' the massive Stanislav said, slamming his drained tankard down hard on the table.
'He's right,' Torben said, rising from his seat.
Their curiosity piqued, the rest of Badenov's band followed suit and, accompanied by Dietrich, walked out of the Hand of Glory into the moonlit street. Other inhabitants of the town had also come out of their houses, men, women and children, some dressed for bed, all gazing towards the brooding church at the end of the street.
'Will you look at that?' Oran said alerting the mercenaries to what was happening at their feet.
'Relatives of yours, Oran?' Torben asked as he watched the rats emerging from the inn behind them. The rodent-faced mercenary scowled. 'Looks like you've got a bit of a rat problem,' Torben said, turning to Dietrich.
'Again!' the innkeeper added, skewering one of the vile rodents on the end of his hook as it tried to scamper between his legs.
'They're all over the place!' Yuri stated in a tone of morbid fascination.
It seemed that every cellar and drain in Nagenhof was spewing forth its verminous inhabitants. No matter where they emerged from, all the rats were heading in the direction of the church and the source of the infernal tolling. The mercenaries watched incredulously, as the rats swarmed unhindered towards the tower. The bell continued to ring.
Swords of the Empire Page 15