Konniger brazenly held out his hand, showing the gold ring upon his finger. The double-headed eagle emblem of the Imperial House of Altdorf shone on the face of the ring, its details picked out in tiny specks of sparkling ruby. Vido had seen the ring before, but knew that Konniger rarely wore it. Though his master carried the ring most of the time, he only slipped it onto his finger when occasion demanded a show of official authority.
'I am all this, and much more, my good captain, and I remind you now of the oaths of holy service that you have sworn, and that your authority here is very much subordinate to my own.'
'Then what is it you wish us to do, Herr Konniger? We have found the evidence you were sent here to uncover. Are we to let the matter end here?' There was still anger in the Templar's voice, but his dangerous rage had been tempered by Konniger's authoritative, commanding tone and the significance of the emblem on the ring he wore.
Vido realised that the Templar commander had been close to snapping, his anger and that of his men fuelled by the recent batde, the losses they had suffered on the journey and the disappearance of their comrade, not to mention the eerie, strangely malevolent mood of the monastery. The braying war-cries from the forest, where the beastmen were
apparently beginning to rally and reform in preparation for a second attack, did little to ease the tension. Konniger realised it too, for he softened the tone of his voice when he answered the Templar's question.
'There is the taint of Chaos here, that much we are sure of now, but such corruption may take many different forms, and one need not willingly promise one's soul in some damnable pact with the Lords of the Malign Powers to become infected with the dread touch of the physical marks of corruption.'
There was a look of confused puzzlement on Gustav's face, but also a hint of a growing need to learn more. Encouraged by the impetuous Templar's return to something approximating reasonable sense, the sage-detective quickly continued with his explanation.
'From too many priestly pulpits we hear blood and thunder sermons about the corrupting touch of Chaos and of how all those who come into contact with it, who bear its mark on their unnaturally altered flesh, must be willing agents of the Malign Powers.'
'You dare to challenge the teachings of the Holy Church?'
It was the scarred, witch hunter-serving veteran again, his voice thick with sneering disdain. Despite their commander's willingness to listen to reason, some of his men were clearly still angry and lusting for blood. In contrast to that of his doubter, the tone of Konniger's reply was measured and reasonable, almost as if he were debating some finer theo- sophical point with a fellow scholar of the esoteric, rather than addressing a coarse and violent-tempered armed warrior.
'My studies suggest that some forms of the contagion of Chaos may be more akin to the properties of a disease or plague than the popular misconceptions of pacts with devils and daemons. If that is true in this case, then these poor wretches are no more responsible for the mutations they bear than the leper or blind man can be held responsible for their own unfortunate afflictions.'
Understanding dawned on the face of the Templar commander. 'If this contagion is indeed spread like a disease, Herr Konniger, then there must be a source of the contamination, some thing that all those afflicted must have
somehow come into contact with. The books in the library? That was the manner in which the contagion was originally carried to Altdorf, after all.'
Konniger smiled. Despite a few rough edges, this young Templar showed great promise.
'Perhaps, but let us start instead with the most obvious sources of contamination and develop our search from there.'
Gustav followed Konniger's questing gaze, looking over to what lay in the centre of the courtyard. The monastery's deep, stone-walled well. "Yes,' murmured Konniger, 'water. The most common source and carrier of so many different diseases. Every living thing requires it and so it would be the easiest and most effective way to contaminate every human soul within these walls.'
He broke off, looking at Vido.
Vido, would you be so good as to fetch my field kit from the stowage of our wagon. I may also require your assistance in a simple but important alchemical experiment.'
Arek turned away in bored disinterest as his warband followers impaled another of the Khornate followers on the sharpened spoke of a hanging tree limb. The creature's roars and maddened shouts of devotion to the Blood God quickly irked the Chaos champion and he gestured impatiently to Vorr. The big beastman hetman shambled forward and despatched the screaming creature with a single spear-blade stab to the heart.
A second slash with the spear opened up the dead creature's throat. Beastmen pushed eagerly forward, bathing in the spraying shower of blood, and holding up hollowed-out skull gourds in which to catch the precious red fluid.
Arek impatiently waved away the contents of the blood- splattered bowl offered up to him by one of his followers. More than a century of service to the Lord of Chaos had given him a fondness for the occasional taste of human blood, but he considered the drinking of debased beastman blood to be beneath him.
'Strange fruit indeed,' snickered Sorren, pointing at the several blood-dripping beastman bodies hanging from the branches of the trees around them.
Arek bore little love for his warband's pet magic user, and even less for the sorcerer's petty sense of macabre humour. 'When?' Arek demanded simply, pointing towards the shape of the monastery silhouetted against the skyline by the slowly sinking sun.
'Soon. Nightfall, I think,' answered the sorcerer, toying with the bone rune pieces in his hand. 'Our master will send us a signal when he wishes us to be summoned.'
'What kind of a signal?'
Sorren looked up at the tall warrior. Arek couldn't see the other's face - mysteriously, even his Chaos-gifted night vision couldn't penetrate the shadows glimpsed behind the shifting movement of the metal-beaded mask - but somehow he sensed that the sorcerer was smiling.
We shall know when it comes.'
The daemon-thing shifted in the darkness, feeling the invisible fate-patterns around it warping and changing. As it had died and left behind its human self, a whole new world - strange and terrible, magnificent and awesome - had opened up to it, revealed by the awesome, dormant power of the thing that lay buried deep beneath the monastery rock. This world was a secret, hidden universe, full of blasphemously beautiful wonders. It was the shadow of the Realm of Chaos, imprinting itself on the reality of this lesser, physical world, but there for those blessed with the mystic vision to see it.
The nascent daemon-thing was still exploring the extent of this new and wondrous prescience-sight. It had much to learn in interpreting the meaning of the ever-changing patterns of fate-lines and flickering glimpses of possible, unborn futures. Yes, still so much to know and understand, it realised, but already it had achieved some rudimentary skill in interpreting the portents.
There was still danger, it knew. Danger from the clever human, the one whose mind burned like starfire. He was close to the truth now: too close. The daemon-thing knew it must act now to protect itself. Events were coming to a head. It had servants inside these walls and many, many more outside, but the time had come to act more directly and test its growing, new-found powers.
The daemon snarled in anticipation, the sound stirring up vast clouds of flies that had been nesting amongst the mummified human detritus around it. The cloud pulsed and swirled, reacting as if it were a single living entity. The daemon seized control of it with a casual mental flick, shaping and forming the fly-cloud to properly serve his will.
Under his direction, the black cloud flowed through the darkness, passing through dust-choked passages and chambers that had not known the tread of human feet in many years.
The way ahead was blocked by a stone barrier, but that would not stop his servants, the daemon knew. The cloud buzzed angrily against the barrier, untold thousands of tiny feet and delicate feelers mapping out
the rough topography of the stonework.
There were flaws in the stonework. Cracks and weaknesses, places where the mortar had crumbled away between the stones of the hastily-constructed wall as its desperate, terrified builders sought to brick up the horrors that lay beyond. The black cloud crawled and buzzed across the barrier, searching for ways past the apparently impenetrable material of the stonework.
As one, the cloud reshaped itself into a myriad thin tendrils and flowed through these tiny apertures.
Passing out into the halls of the monastery beyond.
All eyes were on Konniger as he dipped the bowl into the bucket of seemingly fresh and clean-looking water that had been drawn up from the depths of the well. To this he added the contents of a small bowl, a mixture of two different- coloured, crushed powders. He stirred the mixture into the water with a stone pestle, and those closest fancied they could hear a faint hissing sound emanating from the water bowl as he did so.
'Some kind of Sigmar-damned sorcery,' breathed a Templar, part in fear, part in awe, although Vido, who was standing nearby, could have told him differently. Despite what the common herd may think about the sage-detective and his mysterious methods, Vido knew that Konniger had little time or use for magics of any kind, and would only employ them as a last recourse.
"What does any of this prove, Herr Konniger?' asked Gustav, his voice tempered with impatience.
In response, Konniger held up the bowl towards the young Templar and then slowly tipped it. A thick, vile mess of black, foul-smelling sludge oozed out, forming a steaming pool on the ground.
'It proves I was wise to insist that we brought our own water supplies with us, captain,' answered Konniger, nodding towards the Templar company's heavily-laden supply wagons. 'The well is contaminated with the corrupting stuff of Chaos. That is, almost without doubt, the source of the mutations here.'
There was a low, despairing moan from the monks, many of them falling to their knees gabbling prayers and making the sign of the hammer. One of them rolled on the ground, thrashing about in mortified horror, desperately pulling and tearing at his vestments and at the flesh beneath.
'How could this be, Herr Konniger?' asked Gustav. 'How could the well have become polluted?'
That is a question I fear only someone within the monastery can answer.' Konniger looked round, searching amongst the assembled Templars and monks. 'Abbot Himerius, Brothers Kree and Rynok, where are they?'
Gustav and Waasen looked round in confusion. They were here a few moments ago, I swear. How could they have vanished so suddenly?'
'We must find them, and quickly,' demanded Konniger, the tone in his voice forbidding any disagreement. 'If my suspicions are correct, one of them at least knows all too well what has been going on within these walls.'
The abbot fell sobbing to his knees before the altar, his hands clasped together in agonised entreaty. He fixed his gaze on the silver hammer icon engraved on the surface of the altar, and on the faded, gold-haloed image of the proud and impervious warrior man-god on the sacristy wall.
'Forgive me, Lord Sigmar... forgive me for the many ways I have failed you... failed to carry out my sacred duties. We have known for so long about the scourge which has afflicted so many of our brethren, but in our piety and devotion to you, we took it to be a holy sign. A sign that you were
displeased with us... that you sought to punish us for our transgressions. It was my fault that I did not realise the truth, but I swear to you in the name of your blessed saints Werner, Dieter and Gunther that I was misled onto the path of falsehood and damnation... there was another who whispered lies into my ear, who corrupted us all... who encouraged us to believe that the affliction was a holy judgement upon us... I see now how grievously I was misled, and I swear to you that-'
He stopped, distracted by a low reverberation that seemed to fill the chill air of the small sacristy. He looked around in fear and confusion for the source of it, and then it appeared.
Flies. Thousands of them. Pouring out from the stonework of the walls and floor.
It was as if a veil of darkness had suddenly descended on the room. Himerius was immediately enveloped in a living black cloud of crawling, buzzing horror. He flailed about wildly, running for the door, but terror and blindness conspired to confuse his senses and he dashed himself face first into a nearby stone pillar. He fell heavily to the ground, his face wet with blood from his cut-open forehead. At once, a thick, crawling mask of insects settled on his head, attracted by the warm, sticky wetness of the flowing blood.
Blinded, Himerius clawed at his face, scooping handfuls of flies out of his eyes.
Flies crawled into his ears, filling his skull with their deafening buzz.
He felt them swarming around his nose, the first few pushing experimentally into the warm wetness of his nostrils.
He opened his mouth to scream, but the sound was stillborn, stifled into choking silence by the rush of insects that flew into his mouth and down his throat.
For the second time that day, the Templars began a systematic search of the monastery building.
There were fewer of them this time; the recent battle had taken a further toll of their numbers in terms of dead and wounded. Of the sixty knights and men-at-arms that Gustav had led out of Altdorf just over a week ago, now less than thirty remained alive and able-bodied. Of the remainder, he had been forced to leave the majority back outside, either
manning the battlements, tending the wounded or guarding the monks now being sequestered once again in the refectory.
The Templars had forced the monks at sword-point to disrobe. More than half of them bore some kind of sign of mutation, many of them also showing the disfiguring scars or wounds where they had tried to flay their flesh free from the shameful marks of Chaos infection.
With far fewer men to spare, Gustav had been reluctantly forced to make his men search on their own, although he had tried to organise things so, whenever possible, each man always had another comrade close by. The halls of the monastery rang with shouts as the Templars conducted their latest search, the men calling out to each other in frequent reassuring hails that all was still well with them. With one man already missing, a beastman horde lurking in the forest outside, and three senior monastery brethren unaccounted for - each missing man a prime suspect for the secret follower of the Unholy Powers - no one was taking any chances.
Vido most of all.
Corralled into joining the search, he nervously prowled the passages with a throwing dagger held ready in each hand, scanning entranceways and cautiously pushing open doors to reveal one empty, deserted chamber after another. There was another searching Templar a few passageways distant. He could clearly hear the larger, clumsier human cursing and swearing to himself as he noisily ransacked his way through rooms that he, or least one of his comrades, had most likely already turned over just a few hours ago. Vido's thievish instincts told him that stealth and caution were the best tools to employ when searching for some lurking and probably highly dangerous foe. He considered the presence of the nearby Templar more of a liability than a reassurance, and did his best to keep as much distance as possible between the two of them.
It was the sound that alerted him first: a soft, scuffling, scraping noise, sounding unmistakably like something being dragged across a stone floor. Vido froze, and then peered cautiously round the turning in the passageway ahead of him.
His instinct had been correct. There were two figures at the far end of the dimly-lit passageway one of them dragging the other backwards up the floor of the passage. They were both wearing monk's habits, and, as Vido listened, he could hear two voices, although from its limp, lax posture, he would swear that the figure being dragged was unconscious. He couldn't make out any distinct words but, while one voice sounded human enough, the other had an insane, gibbering, high-pitched tone to it which made it sound worryingly inhuman.
Daemonic even, thought Vido with a shiver, as he c
onsidered his options. No ordinary Moot-born fool of a halfling, as his master might have termed it, he did consider the possibility of slipping back in search of that nearby Templar, but realized by the time he returned, the figure and its unconscious burden would be long gone.
What would Konniger do in these circumstances, he asked himself, and then unhappily realised the answer. How many times had he seen the sage-detective rush off in search of some vital clue or piece of information, barely even considering the attendant risks?
Daggers in hand and courage to the fore, he slipped round the corner and padded silently after the strange procession.
Besides, he reminded himself, he was a cunning and streetwise former master thief from the greatest city in the Old World, with a razor-sharp dagger in each hand and the matching skill and willingness to use them to deadly effect. How much threat could one mad and disease-weakened old monk - even one possibly in league with the Ruinous Powers of Chaos - possibly pose to him?
His journey took him down into the lower levels of the monastery, away from the areas currently being searched by Gustav and his men. Several times, Vido heard the Templars' echoing shouts from elsewhere within the building, but each time his quarry's chosen path seemed to carry it safely away from a random encounter with any searchers. Vido lagged behind the figures, staying safely out of sight as much as possible, tracking mostly by sound. After a minute or two, he realised that he had heard the disdnctive footstep of his quarry's strange, shuffling gait before.
It had been that first night, after their arrival at the monastery, when he and Konniger had unsuccessfully tried to pursue and apprehend their unknown secret watcher.
'I don't think whatever made those footsteps was entirely human.' That was what Vido had said then, and what he was hearing now only further reinforced that grim impression. He was going down a stone stairwell now, depending on his keen halfling night-vision to find his way in the dark, down the steep and potentially lethally dangerous spiral of narrow, stone steps. He could hear the voices again from below, the strange echoes in the stairwell carrying occasional words and snatches of conversation back to him.
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