by C. L. Werner
The necromancer fixed his attention instead upon the object that was the focus of his ritual. Lying in the centre of the room, at the very nexus of the symbols and designs drawn on the floor, was a large black wooden box, the coffin lately inhabited by the necrarch Sibbechai. Carandini could almost see the dark energies gathering around the casket, permeating its wooden surface and iron fittings, suffusing the thing lying within. The ritual required one more component… human blood.
Carandini snapped his fingers, exerting his will. There was a gap between the circles and pentagrams on the floor, a narrow walkway leading from the outer ring of the chamber towards the casket lying at its centre. The necromancer exerted his will and two shuffling, tattered shapes began to approach the coffin. Between them, the two zombies bore the struggling, whimpering figure of the priest of Morr. The captive’s cries were little more than inarticulate gargles, the necromancer having removed the man’s tongue. Gods sometimes answered the prayers of priests, and Carandini was not of a mind to take any chances.
The zombies carried their charge to the casket, forcing the man to bend at the waist and lean over the open coffin. The priest’s inarticulate screams rose in pitch as he saw what lay inside, and he suddenly understood the necromancer’s purpose and his own role. The cadaverous claw of a zombie ripped into the priest’s throat, tearing though his flesh and slashing his windpipe. The dying man struggled in the remorseless grip of the zombies as a cataract of blood exploded from his neck, spraying a wash of gore into the casket.
Carandini exerted his will once more and his undead servants withdrew, bearing the remains of the priest with them. The necromancer paid them no further notice, his attention riveted to the casket. Would it work, he wondered?
The necromancer dismissed his doubts. The ritual would succeed; it would succeed because he willed it so. He would not be denied. His enemies would not keep him from his destiny. Das Buch die Unholden would be his. He would make its secrets his own, and the thing inside the coffin would help him take it from those who stood in his way.
From his vantage point across the street, Carandini had seen Thulmann lead his witch hunters back to the chapter house. He had seen them bearing the ashes of his treacherous former partner Sibbechai and the more intact corpse of the vampire’s minion, the vengeful creature Carandini had briefly encountered in the cellars of the castle. The ashes of his ally he had already attended to. Now he intended to put the remains of Sibbechai’s errant thrall to use.
Carandini held his breath as he sensed a change in the air of the room. The light of the corpse candles dimmed, the atmosphere became colder. A black mist gathered around the casket, and was sucked down inside the coffin. Then the moment passed, warmth began to creep back into the room, and the candles returned to their former brilliance.
A pale hand rose from within the coffin, closing around the edge of the box. Carandini watched in fascinated triumph as a body slowly rose from the casket, a pallid shape that exuded an aura of strength and power despite its sickly hue. The creature turned a once handsome face in the necromancer’s direction, the patrician features drawn and haggard, eyes at once both empty and hungry.
Slowly, awkwardly, the thing pulled itself up from the coffin, struggling to get out. The necromancer watched its efforts with pride, revelling in his own accomplishment. After a moment, the undead thing stood upon its own feet. It glared at Carandini and the necromancer could see a spark of awareness behind the vampire’s hunger. He felt no fear, however. The wards he had placed on the floor would contain the vampire until he was ready to release it.
‘Gregor Klausner, I believe,’ Carandini laughed, the sound filled with all the mockery and scorn of Old Night and the Dark Gods.
CHAPTER TWO
The gaping black cavern spread out before them, only partially illuminated by the torches and lanterns the soldiers bore. What that light revealed was every bit as noxious as the stench that assaulted their senses. The men stood upon a narrow lip that circled the cavern, the floor of the pit some twenty feet below. The floor was littered with bits of straw, fur and even strips of grimy cloth. Piles of immense rat pellets were scattered everywhere, punctuated by jumbles of gnawed bone. Several immense shapes covered in dirty brown fur lay amidst the squalor and excrement. Each was the size of an ox, but the form was that of a mammoth rodent. The beasts lounged on their sides, exposing the twin rows of furless teats that pimpled their upper bodies. The rat-like faces of the breeders stared up at the torchlight with wide-eyed, uncomprehending fear, recognising danger but incapable of understanding it. The pale, wrinkled things that clung to their teats did not react to the presence of the men at all: for the blind skaven pups, their entire existence consisted of drawing milk from their bloated mothers.
Thulmann stared coldly into the pit of horror and then turned, and gave the order to the soldiers to set it aflame. The loss of the breeders would effectively destroy the warren. Without their females, any remaining skaven would scatter, finding refuge or enslavement with other tribes of their kind.
When the orders were given, a great roar ripped through the cavern. Thulmann spun around as an immense form loomed up from the darkness of a side tunnel. Its beady red eyes gleamed as it strode into the light. The true magnitude of what they faced hit the men. The monster was not unlike the bloated breeders in the pit below, but was if anything larger, its body swollen with muscle. The rat-like head that jutted from its impossibly broad shoulders snapped and slavered with diseased ferocity, bloody froth drooling from its mouth.
Scurrying out of the shadows beside the hulking rat ogre was a smaller, black-furred skaven. The creature held a sickle-bladed halberd in its paws and its body was encased in steel, more armour than they had seen on any of the skaven they had encountered thus far. Strangely, the armoured skaven appeared to have been partially burnt. Even before the creature spoke, Thulmann knew they had found the master of the warren.
‘Snagit!’ the warlord hissed. ‘Rip man-meat! Rip!’
Under its master’s prodding, the rat ogre roared again and surged forwards with a speed Thulmann would not have believed possible for such a large creature. The foremost of the soldiers turned to run, but he had not reckoned upon the monster’s speed. The rat ogre’s claw crunched through the man’s armour, nearly ripping him in two. The beast roared again as it shook its victim’s entrails from its claws and swung around to resume its attack.
Captain-Justicar Ehrhardt held his ground as the immense brute charged forwards, his black garments melding with the shadows to make him almost as spectral as the chill hand of his sinister god. But Snagit did not need his eyes to find his prey. The Black Guardsman did not react as eight hundred pounds of slavering death rushed at him, standing his ground as solidly as a statue.
Snagit’s murderous claw swept out at Ehrhardt with a powerful slash that should have knocked the knight’s head from his shoulders. The instant the rat ogre closed, Ehrhardt was in motion, dropping beneath the powerful blow and lashing out double-handed with his massive zweihander. The huge blade crunched through both of Snagit’s knees, all but severing the monster’s legs. The rat ogre toppled like a felled tree, and the creature howled in terror as its bulk tumbled down into the darkness. A moment later there was a sickening crunch as the rat ogre struck the unforgiving floor of the pit.
The black-furred skaven warlord’s eyes were round with incredulous horror. Thulmann did not give the creature time to consider flight, dropping his sword and pulling his pistol. He tried to place his shot in the beast’s knee, but the fever starting to burn in his body conspired to render his aim imprecise, shattering the warlord’s hip instead. The skaven shrieked as its body spilled to the floor.
Thulmann wiped perspiration from his eyes and holstered his pistol. He waved Streng off as the bearded thug moved to help him. He’d come this far on his own and he would finish it on his own feet. The witch hunter carefully made his way towards the crippled skaven leader, leaving Streng and the remaining soldie
rs to inspect the breeding pit and assure themselves that the rat ogre was indeed dead. He found Ehrhardt’s armoured foot planted firmly on the warlord’s back, the creature struggling weakly beneath the knight’s weight. Thulmann paused for a moment, trying to steady his breath before closing with his captive.
‘Rather lively for a keep-sake, Brother Mathias,’ Ehrhardt commented as Thulmann stood beside him. The creature pinned beneath his boot squirmed ever more desperately.
‘No hurt! No kill!’ the skaven croaked in shrill, pathetic tones.
‘That depends upon how many of my questions you answer,’ Thulmann snarled, his words punctuated by the increased pressure of Ehrhardt’s foot upon the ratman’s back. ‘I want to know where your horned priest is and what has happened to a man named Doktor Freiherr Weichs!’
The pinned warlord chittered in twisted mirth, wrenching its neck around to fix its eyes on Thulmann. ‘Gone,’ the skaven hissed. ‘Fled when templar-man hunt burrow! Take doktor-pet! Take stormvermin!’ The warlord turned its head still further, displaying its burned cheek. ‘Thrat try to slay grey seer. Grey seer magic strong.’
‘There was a book the grey seer stole from the palace,’ Thulmann told Thrat. ‘What became of it?’ The ratman’s answer was the one he feared he would hear.
‘Gone. Grey Seer Skilk stole words when they fled.’ Thrat’s lips curled in a savage snarl. ‘Templar-man hunt Skilk? Rip grey seer?’ Faced with its own extermination, the only thought that warmed Thrat’s scheming heart was that through the witch hunter it might have its revenge on the treacherous grey seer.
‘First you will lead us from this rat nest,’ Thulmann said, rubbing at his eyes as fireflies began to dance through his vision. He only dimly heard the warlord’s shrill assurances that it would show his men the way out. The last things he was aware of were his legs buckling beneath him and the bare earth floor rushing up to meet him.
Carandini’s eyes swiftly adjusted to the darkness as he returned to his refuge. He could see the piles of refuse and rubble, and the silent figures of his zombies lined against one of the walls. But it was the thing squatting in the recesses of the small chamber that arrested his attention. As he entered, he saw it quickly throw something away, a gesture ridden with guilt and shame. The necromancer felt a small measure of triumph swell within his breast as he set the bag down and moved to light a candle.
The crouched figure rose to its feet as the light shone upon it. The man was taller than the necromancer, and more sturdily built. He wore coarse homespun breeches and a heavy wool vest, crude garments in contrast to the mouldering finery of Carandini’s cassock. The man’s fair hair and heavy, squared features were also far removed from the black hair and sharp, cunning face of the Tilean, but there was one quality that both men shared, the unhealthy pallor of their flesh.
‘Dining in?’ Carandini asked, voice laden with mockery. He gestured with his hand to the thing his guest had flung away, the tiny shrivelled carcass of a rat.
The other man turned his face towards the floor in shame. ‘I didn’t want to do it,’ he said. ‘I tried not to, but its life burned so bright, calling to me, tempting me.’ The man clenched his fist in anger. ‘Why did you do this to me! Why could you not leave me among the dead! Why did you make me come back as this unclean… thing!’
‘As I have told you before, Gregor,’ the necromancer replied, ‘because you are useful to me.’
The vampire looked up, snarling in hate and disgust. Even in the grey, chill world his undead eyes now saw, Gregor could discern clearly the smirking features of the sorcerer. He glared at the necromancer, seeing the sickly light of Carandini’s blood shining from within his body. Then his gaze shifted to the burlap sack the necromancer carried, a sack that writhed with an inner life and glowed with the bright, beckoning promise of blood. Soft blonde hairs poked from the mouth of the sack.
‘What is in that bag?’ Gregor asked.
‘I thought you might be hungry,’ Carandini said. The necromancer’s smirk died as he found Gregor’s hands coiled in the fabric of his cassock, lifting him savagely off the ground. Even in his weakened condition, the strength and speed of the vampire were far too easily underestimated.
‘Take it away!’ Gregor snarled into Carandini’s face. ‘I don’t want it. Take it away!’
Carandini’s moment of fright faded as he heard the pleading tone in Gregor’s voice. ‘Put me down, filth,’ the necromancer ordered. The fury drained from Gregor’s eyes and the vampire released his hold on the man.
Carandini brushed dirt from the front of his garment. ‘Your ingratitude is becoming tedious, Gregor. Don’t forget that just as I am the one who brought you back, I am the only one who can purge the taint from your body! I can make you whole again, Gregor! I can restore you to true life!’
Gregor turned away from the necromancer, wringing his hands in despair. ‘I only want to die. I only want to die and to stay dead, to die before this curse takes complete control of me, to die before it makes me kill.’
‘But you can’t die, Gregor,’ Carandini said, ‘not a true, clean death. The touch of the vampire has removed that hope from you. Your spirit can never find rest. Only I can help you, but first you must help me.’
The vampire turned to face Carandini, his features a mask of misery and despair. ‘I will do anything if you can drive this curse from my body!’
The wicked smile returned to Carandini’s face. ‘Then you must feed, you must not deny your urges. I will need you strong if you are to help me… and I you.’ The necromancer gestured towards the squirming bag. Gregor shook his head, a moan of agony ripping through his throat. The vampire retreated, hiding his face in his hands. Carandini watched the wretch withdraw, lips curling with amusement.
‘Fight it all you like,’ the Tilean muttered, ‘but you can’t fight what you are forever, vampire.’
An inarticulate cry ripped its way past the witch hunter’s lips as his body surged upwards from the feather mattress. His hands trembled as they wiped perspiration from his face. Thulmann froze in mid-motion, wondering for a moment what had happened to the sword he had held in his nightmare, the sword he had been thrusting into the neck of the Grand Theogonist. His confusion only increased when a soft hand closed around his own and a damp cloth was set against his forehead.
‘You’re alright, Mathias,’ a soothing voice told him. Disbelief flared within him as he heard the soft, comforting tones and he tightened his grip around the hand he held. He looked up into the woman’s face, almost crying out in joy as the beautiful face smiled back at him with all the old, patient understanding he remembered. Memory struggled to rebel against his senses, but Thulmann refused to allow it to affect him. He would not question a miracle.
‘You are in the Schloss von Gotz,’ the voice said, but there was something troubling in its tone, something familiar yet different at the same time. ‘Streng brought you back to the surface.’ The more the voice spoke, the more it changed. Thulmann ground his teeth against the wave of cold, unforgiving reason that killed his fevered fantasy. The face he looked upon changed, blurring in front of his eyes before resolving itself once more. It was still a beautiful face, but it was no longer the face he had imagined, the face he had been so desperate to see.
Thulmann knew this new face well. It belonged to Silja Markoff, daughter and chief agent of the late Lord Igor Markoff, the man who had been Wurtbad’s Minister of Justice before the madness of Baron von Gotz had seen him executed, and perhaps the only person in Wurtbad he truly trusted.
‘How… how long?’ Thulmann’s words forced themselves from his dry throat in a rasping croak.
‘Five days,’ came the answer. Silja Markoff reached forward to place another pillow beneath Thulmann’s head. ‘The Baroness von Gotz has taken every effort to care for you. This is the bedroom of her major-domo, and you’ve been attended by no less than Sister Josepha of the Temple of the Lonely Sacrament.’
Mention of the Shallyan Sisterhood caused
Thulmann to close his eyes and shake his head sadly. He had failed to prevent the late Baron von Gotz from removing plague victims from the Shallyan temple, confining them within Otwin Keep. Nor had he been able to prevent Meisser from setting the structure ablaze on orders from the possessed baron. Many of the Sisters had remained in the keep along with their doomed charges. Thulmann felt a profound sense of unworthiness that he should be attended by one of the few survivors.
‘You stayed by me all this time?’ It was strange that of all the thoughts swirling about in the turmoil of Thulmann’s mind this should be the one to find voice.
Silja smiled at him and withdrew the damp cloth from his forehead. ‘I didn’t exactly have anything better to do,’ she said with casual indifference.
Despite his fatigue and fever, the witch hunter managed to smile back at her. Silja Markoff had endured much in the past days, from the loss of her father to playing a part in the destruction of the daemonic horror that had infested the diseased body of Baron von Gotz. She gave no sign of the emotional ordeal she was going through, displaying a strength of will that even he found formidable. Only in her eyes could he detect some hint of pain.
Silja looked away as Thulmann studied her face, trying to conceal the emotion his scrutiny threatened to set loose. As she turned her face, Silja suddenly pulled her hands away and shot to her feet. Thulmann followed her redirected gaze. There was a man at the doorway.
‘I can come back later if you’re busy, Mathias.’ There was an impertinent tone in Streng’s voice and a smug suggestion in his smile. The thug punctuated his remark with a lewd wink at Silja, bringing colour to her pretty features.