03 - Hour of the Daemon

by Aaron Rosenberg - (ebook by Undead)

  “I chased him, but he was too quick for me. A pair of Levrellian’s men blocked my path, and by the time I had cut down the one and tripped the other, the cultist was almost out of sight. I ran, heedless of my own safety, ignoring everything but the need to catch up with him.” He paused. “That is probably why Fatandira’s mounted warrior was able to run me down.”

  Someone gasped. Dietz thought it was Alaric, though he wasn’t sure. None of them could tear their gaze from the tracker’s face.

  “I heard his horse at the last second,” Lankdorf continued, “and managed to twist to one side. One hoof clipped me in the side, and another caught me in the temple, sending me sprawling. That probably saved my life. It knocked me out of the rider’s reach, and before he could adjust his course several cultists crashed into him, trying to swarm him and pull him from his steed. He fought them off and lost interest in me completely.” Lankdorf shrugged. “It took me several minutes to catch my breath and get my head to stop spinning. Then I pulled myself back to my feet. I was near a hole in the wall, caused by the ballistae, no doubt, and pulled myself through it and back out of the town. Then I finally remembered what I had been doing before I was attacked, and I looked around, but the cultist was long gone.”

  “And you couldn’t track him?” That outburst came from Wilcreitz, surprisingly enough. “You are a tracker, aren’t you?”

  Lankdorf shook his head, not at all insulted. “I am,” he said proudly. “My father taught me to read the tracks and trails of animals when we would gather herbs in the woods, and the army taught me to apply those skills to men as well as beasts, but there were hundreds, maybe even thousands, of people there. The ground was a mess. No one could track through that. I did look, of course, but there was nothing.” He gave them a tight grin. “So I backtracked. I returned to the rubble where I’d first spotted him, and found another cultist pinned half-beneath it.”

  “That’s who he was talking to?” Alaric asked.

  “It was.” Lankdorf’s smile turned nasty. “I asked him a few questions, before ending his suffering. He was most forthcoming. He told me the other cultist was heading for a small town called Heinzkit, back here in the Empire.” He took a deep breath. “So I followed him.”

  Dietz desperately wanted to ask if Lankdorf had caught the man, and was sure the other listeners were equally curious, but he waited, knowing that his friend would tell them in his own time.

  “He had a decent head start,” Lankdorf explained quietly, “and that kick to my side slowed me down some. I knew where he was going, though, and probably knew the Border Princes better than he did, so I figured I could shorten his lead. I thought he was simply going to some bolthole he knew, perhaps some hideout the cult had established, and I would take him when he went to ground.”

  The tracker paused again, and Dietz stopped to consider the enormity of his friend’s determination. To have chased the man from one country into the next! But then he thought about how he would feel if someone had murdered his parents, or his sister, and he knew he would have done the same. No distance would be far enough for the killer to run from him.

  “I caught up with him in Heinzkit,” Lankdorf was saying, “and there he stopped. I thought at first the town might be a cultist stronghold, so I scouted it before going in, but it seemed placid enough. The people there were farmers and labourers, and I could not figure out why this man thought he could take shelter there, unless it was simply because the town was so small and unassuming that no one else would ever bother to visit it.” He straightened. “Except that someone else had.”

  “There was another visitor?” Alaric asked. “Besides you, you mean?”

  “Yes, besides me,” Lankdorf replied. “I had not even shown my face in town, but I saw a man walking, and something about him struck me as strange, so I stayed hidden and watched. He was tall, this man, and dressed oddly, in long robes over dark clothes. He wasn’t fancy enough to be of the Jade Sceptre, but I suspect he was also a follower of the Dark Powers.” Out of the corner of his eye, Dietz saw Kleiber’s jaw tighten, and Wilcreitz’s too.

  “What did he want, this stranger?” Kleiber asked softly.

  “The cultist,” Lankdorf answered. “Or rather, to meet with him. I watched from a small ledge that hung over the back of the town. The two men met, and the cultist I’d been following handed something to the stranger, who gave him a heavy pouch in return.” He grimaced and glanced at Alaric and Dietz. “I was too far away to see much detail, but that package was the size of a baby. It was as long as a man’s forearm, and perhaps as wide or wider. He’d wrapped it in cloth, but either he’d done a poor job or its shape was irregular, for there seemed to be odd bumps all along it.”

  “You think he delivered a child to this man?” Wilcreitz sounded horrified, and outraged, and Dietz decided perhaps there was some hope for the short witch hunter after all.

  The tracker shook his head. “No, he had not had time to steal any children from the village,” he replied, “and they would have noticed immediately and fought back. We had been travelling for weeks, and he’d been carrying the wrapped package the entire way. If the stranger only wanted a small corpse he could have found one far more easily.”

  “What was it, then?” Alaric asked, but Dietz already had an idea.

  “The gauntlet.” The others turned to look at him, and he continued. “It was in that cavern when we fled,” he reminded Alaric. “That place collapsed soon after, but a cultist could have reached it, and brought it out safely, or at least far enough to hand it to someone else nearby.”

  Lankdorf was nodding. “I suspected the same,” he admitted. “It was of a size with that accursed piece, and the cultist held it with reverence, from what I saw. The pouch was heavy, as well, so it must have had great value, at least to the robed stranger.”

  Alaric glanced at Dietz, and Dietz met his friend’s gaze, seeing the shock and horror, and concern on his face. They had thought the gauntlet destroyed, or at least buried forever. It was incredibly dangerous and if it had entered the Empire, matters were grave indeed.

  “The same relic you spoke of?” Kleiber asked, rising to his feet. “An object like that cannot be allowed to remain on the loose. It must be found and destroyed at once.” Wilcreitz was right beside him.

  “Where is it now?” the shorter witch hunter demanded. “What became of it, and of the man who purchased it?”

  “I don’t know,” Lankdorf answered, although he did not look happy with his reply. “After they parted ways I… paid the cultist a visit. He was not expecting it, and I dispatched him easily. Then I searched for the other man’s tracks and followed them.”

  “Good man,” Wilcreitz said, clapping Lankdorf on the shoulder and then looking surprised at his own commendation.

  “I tracked him to Altdorf,” the tracker continued, “but there I lost him. There were simply too many people, too much movement, to keep one set of footprints in sight.” He sighed. “I was debating what to do next, and whether there was any way to find him again or learn of his whereabouts, when I heard you were seeking a tracker.” He shrugged. “Since I had no way of pursuing the man, and no other prospects, I applied.”

  “And you have been invaluable,” Kleiber told him. “Indeed, without your help we would never have come this far, or have discovered our friends here in time to rescue them.” He gestured at Alaric and Dietz. “Surely Sigmar has guided you to us, and to them, and all of us together.” The witch hunter rubbed his hands together. “He has brought us this news that we may be his instrument, and rid the world of this foul taint once and for all.”

  Even Wilcreitz looked startled by this announcement. “We have a mission already,” he reminded his superior carefully. “We must deal with these beastmen and the blackpowder weapons they have stolen.”

  “I have not forgotten,” Kleiber assured his subordinate. “Our mission here takes precedence, certainly, but once this matter is settled, we must return and notify our superiors of
the gauntlet’s existence, and of the mask as well. Surely they will dispatch us to ensure that their threat is ended and their taint cleansed from this world.”

  Alaric nodded. “I know I would welcome your order’s help,” he told Kleiber, turning towards Wilcreitz to make sure the second witch hunter realised he was included in the statement. “It seems our missions already overlap, so perhaps we can aid you with the beastmen and discover the mask’s whereabouts at the same time.”

  “Then we can all seek out the gauntlet,” Lankdorf suggested. “I would recognise that man if I saw him again, and perhaps other witch hunters know of him. Once I find him, I can track him, and we can take back the gauntlet by force and destroy it.” His face was flushed as he spoke, and Dietz knew their friend was also remembering the events from the cavern temple. They had seen the gauntlet’s power, and had barely survived.

  “We will,” Kleiber assured him. “I will contact my superiors once we return to Altdorf, and we will put all available force towards discovering the fiend’s whereabouts, and putting a stop to whatever foul plans he has devised for that cursed relic.”

  “Not tonight,” Alaric suggested with a slight smile, rising to his feet. “It is late, and I know I am tired. I can only assume the rest of you are as well.”

  Wilcreitz nodded. “Yes, we should rest,” he agreed. “We must return to pursuing the beastmen in the morning, and it would be best not to confront them while we are fatigued.”

  The others agreed, and began making their sleeping preparations. Dietz found he had Lankdorf on one side and Alaric on the other, which certainly seemed familiar.

  “I feel as if I were back in the Border Princes,” Lankdorf said as he stretched out on his bedroll, staring up at the sky, “although the stars have shifted, of course.”

  “I’m glad we found you,” Dietz agreed, “or you found us… or whatever.”

  “As am I,” the tracker replied. “Your witch hunter friend may be right; perhaps Sigmar did bring us all together for a reason.”

  Dietz nodded, laying down and closing his eyes. I hope it was Sigmar, he thought as he started drifting off to sleep, and not someone else.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Alaric woke early enough the next morning, for him, but even so he soon discovered he was one of the last to rise. Dietz, Lankdorf, and several of the others were sitting around the fire and finishing off a quick breakfast when he tossed aside his blanket and rose, stretching.

  “Still the late riser, eh?” Lankdorf noted, the half-smile on his face taking the sting out of his comment.

  “I see no reason to rush toward the day, when it will still be waiting when I finally reach it,” Alaric countered, stepping over to the fire and accepting a cup of tea and a hard biscuit from Dietz. Lankdorf snorted and introduced him to the three mercenaries still beside him, Hans, Felix, and Jarl, who looked similar enough to be brothers. Not that the resemblance meant much—Alaric had noticed over the past two years that mercenaries tended to fall into a handful of types, like big and bulky or tall and narrow, and most had a uniformly dusty and worn look to them. The three nodded but didn’t say anything, too busy consuming their own food. They were up and moving toward their fellows—Alaric estimated Kleiber had perhaps thirty men in all—before they’d swallowed the last bites, leaving Alaric and his two friends behind without a word.

  “Don’t mind them,” Lankdorf said after the trio had left. “They’re not big on casual conversation, that’s all.”

  “Hardly a problem,” Alaric assured him. He remembered the trek he and Dietz had made in search of the Chaos tainted statues, the same quest that had introduced them to Kleiber. The elector count of Middenheim had sent a troop of men with them, professional soldiers, and they had treated him as if he were in command. It had been unsettling at first, but he’d grown used to it after a few weeks, and to being surrounded by quiet, competent fighters who didn’t care to sit and talk.

  “Time to strike camp,” Wilcreitz told them as he approached. Alaric saw at once that the stubby witch hunter was one of those men who managed to always look rumpled no matter what. His uniform was clean enough, but it still looked as if he’d slept in it, which perhaps he had. Kleiber, on the other hand, always looked tidy. He was walking a few steps behind his subordinate, and the difference was that of a careless man to one fastidious by nature.

  Alaric had a brief flash, similar to the visions that had been plaguing him of late, but with one significant difference. The land around him was suddenly awash with strangeness: severed limbs and shattered skulls, and puddles of what might be blood or other bodily fluids adorning the ground; a strange film, coating the rocks and dirt, like filth solidified or grease left to cool; clouds roiling overhead, forming lurid images before breaking apart. The mercenaries Alaric saw scattered around the camp became larger and more brutish, revealing their inner lust for violence. Lankdorf had tendrils of mist curling around him, as did Dietz. Alaric suspected they were vestiges of their previous encounters with Chaos, showing that they had been marked, not by choice, but by proximity.

  Kleiber and Wilcreitz were different. They had no Chaos taint to them, quite the opposite. Whereas the elves had looked no different to Alaric’s strange vision, the two witch hunters glowed, a pure white light limning their faces and figures. The light was bright, but not blinding, and Alaric found it strangely comforting, even though it made his head throb painfully. He also realised that Kleiber had been right about Wilcreitz; whatever personality flaws the junior witch hunter might have, his intentions were pure, and he did indeed carry Sigmar’s blessing.

  “Herr Lankdorf,” Kleiber said, “we must locate once more the tracks of our quarry. If you please.”

  Lankdorf nodded, dashed the last of his tea into the fire, handed Dietz the mug, and walked away, scooping up his gear as he went.

  “They came down the cliff somehow,” Kleiber explained to Alaric and Dietz. “We were unable to follow that way.”

  “We saw that as well,” Alaric agreed, “but without their claws and talons, and whatever else, we had to find a different path.”

  Kleiber nodded. “Yes, of course. I forget that you were on the same trail and only just ahead of us. Herr Lankdorf assures me he can locate the place where they reached the ground, and can then follow their tracks from that point on.”

  “I’m sure he can,” Alaric said. “He’s an excellent tracker.”

  They joined the rest of the group, walking beside Kleiber and Wilcreitz with the mercenaries behind them. Lankdorf was up ahead, just barely in sight as he retraced his steps to the cliffs base and began to make his way around it. After an hour or so, he slowed, walking a little farther before finally coming to a halt.

  “Here,” the tracker called out as Alaric joined Dietz and the two witch hunters by the cliff face. “They came to ground right here.” Even Alaric could see the marks on the ground and on the stone beside it. “They went that way.” Alaric had worried that Lankdorf would be pointing west, back into the forest, but he was indicating the north, following along the mountain’s edge.

  “They must have a camp somewhere nearby,” Kleiber said softly, and the others nodded.

  “We do not know how far away it may be,” Wilcreitz cautioned. “If it is close, we could stumble upon it before we have readied ourselves for battle.”

  Alaric saw Kleiber open his mouth, ready to reply, and knew the broad-shouldered witch hunter would say something about always being ready, and about needing nothing more than faith in Sigmar. Fortunately, Dietz saw the motion too.

  “We should scout,” he suggested. “Leave everyone else here, just in case.”

  “I’ll take Dietz and Jarl,” Lankdorf offered. “We’ll go on ahead and stay out of sight. That way we’ll still have the element of surprise once we do attack.”

  “With knowledge of their location and defences,” Wilcreitz added, “we can strike more effectively.”

  Kleiber nodded. “Yes, these are good points,” he
agreed finally. “We must know our enemy before we can smite him.” He turned to Lankdorf. “Go, you may take Dietz and Jarl with you, as you asked. Find the beastmen’s lair. Get as close to them as you dare, but do not fight or draw their attention unless necessary.”

  Lankdorf nodded and tapped Dietz on the arm. “Let’s go.” Together, they walked back towards the mercenaries, and a moment later they were passing Alaric and the witch hunters by, the mercenary named Jarl right beside them. Alaric watched the trio vanish around a bend in the rock, and then turned back to Kleiber and Wilcreitz.

  “What do we do now?” he asked. In reply, Kleiber held up a small book, while Wilcreitz pulled out a needle and thread. Behind them, one of the mercenaries already had a deck of cards out, and several of the men were hunkering down and preparing to play. Others were sharpening blades, and a few were leaning against trees or rocks with their eyes closed, displaying a career soldier’s ability to nap anywhere at any time.

  “We set a guard, of course,” Wilcreitz answered, nodding towards several of the mercenaries, who immediately rose to their feet and began pacing the edges of the camp, weapons in hand. “And we wait.”

  “Quietly,” Lankdorf warned as the three of them crept forward. “They could be close by.”

  Dietz nodded, as did Jarl. Neither of them spoke.

  They had been walking for perhaps an hour. The tracks led to an old, worn trail and continued along it, growing heavier and more numerous, showing that the beastmen clearly came this same way often. It was hard to say how many there were, but Dietz was sure it was at least a dozen, and there were only three of them, so stealth was critical.

  They rounded another bend, and Dietz studied the cliffs before them. Back near the river, the mountains tapered off into foothills. Here they simply rose from the ground fully formed, towering above the land that ran to meet them and the occasional small valley trapped between them.