Witch Killer

by C. L. Werner

  The thug looked back across the meadow at his attackers. For the moment they were busy explaining the situation to the newcomers. He looked back at the corpse, judging the distance.

  ‘Why the hell not?’ he grunted, launching himself from his refuge and towards the corpse. He heard the ambushers cry out in alarm as he broke cover; another instant and their arrows would be flying. Streng’s flesh crawled in anticipation of an arrow striking home. The mercenary dived before reaching the dead man, rolling him onto his side, using the corpse as a gruesome shield. He felt the body shudder as an arrow struck it. He held it fast, wrapping his arms around its waist and began to crawl backward towards his refuge, taking it slowly to keep the body between himself and the archers.

  Streng heard his attackers cry out again. He gritted his teeth and swore. If they decided to charge him now, there wasn’t a thing he could do about it.

  After half a minute of desperate, agonising effort, Streng dragged himself and his shield back behind the boulders. The mercenary breathed a sigh of relief, hurriedly pulling the quiver from the corpse. Then he froze. Why were those bastards still shouting?

  No, they weren’t shouting. They were screaming, screaming like the damned.

  Streng risked peering from behind the boulders. Someone, no something, was attacking the assassins. Something Streng hoped never to set eyes on again.

  It might have borne more resemblance to Gregor Klausner if there had been any suggestion of life in the ghostly pallor of its flesh, if the feral expression spread across its face had borne the faintest suggestion of humanity, if it hadn’t torn the arm off one of the attackers clean from the socket and wasn’t now using it to cudgel the others. The fingers of its lean, almost skeletal hands ended in claws, black talons that were swiftly painted crimson as they tore the throat out of one of the hunters.

  Vampire. It was a word that struck terror on an almost primal level, offending the very core of the human psyche. Yet it was the merest echo of the true horror evoked by the appearance of one of their fell kind. Streng felt it fully as he watched Gregor butcher his way through Kipps and his friends. He broke from his cover, running for the woods, injury and fatigue replaced by stark terror. He’d faced vampires before, but never alone. Streng prided himself on being a man who placed his trust in no one, be they god or man. Now, for the first time, he appreciated just how much confidence and faith he invested in Thulmann, how much fortitude he drew from the man. Somehow, Thulmann seemed the equal to whatever nightmare the ruinous powers spat from the abyss. There was something about the witch hunter that seemed to assure the triumph of light over darkness.

  Streng knew he had no such quality. Alone, before such unholy evil, all he could do was run.

  Run, and perhaps pray. If he could remember any of the words.

  Gregor stared in disgust at the carnage strewn across the meadow, the debris of five human beings. He looked down at his hands, the fingers splayed like talons, the skin caked in wet, dripping blood. A hideous urge swelled up inside him. He bent his head towards his hands, mouth open, his tongue licking expectantly at his lips.

  With a shudder, Gregor recovered himself, hastily wiping his bloody hands on his clothes, furiously trying to get the residue of the massacre from his flesh. The hunger pounded inside his veins, urging him to fall on the wet, ragged corpses scattered about his feet. He sobbed in despair. How could the gods allow such an abomination to walk the land? How could they suffer such a thing to live?

  The sound of slow, condescending applause caused the vampire to turn his head. He could see the amused, mocking look on Carandini’s face as the necromancer walked towards him. The sorcerer paused to cast an appraising glance at Gregor’s victims. ‘Nicely done, and in daylight no less. I must say I’m impressed. You really are full of surprises, Herr Klausner.’

  ‘I care nothing for your praise,’ Gregor snarled. ‘I only want to die.’

  The necromancer wiped a stray lock of his greasy hair from his face. ‘So you have said. It is a rather tired refrain. Well, if you’ve had a nice rest, I suggest you get back to work.’

  Gregor crossed his arms, glaring at the necromancer. ‘No.’

  Carandini regarded the vampire with a look of exaggerated disbelief. ‘I don’t believe I heard that correctly.’

  ‘I said no,’ Gregor repeated. ‘I won’t be a part of this any more. I won’t take any more lives.’

  Carandini smiled and shrugged his shoulders. ‘Have it your way,’ he said. He turned his face upwards, shielding his eyes with his hand. ‘Tell me, how are you enjoying the sun this bright morning? Does it burn? Does it make your skin itch? It will do far worse to you as time goes on, as your humanity withers away and the taint of the vampire consumes everything that is left. Eventually the sun will wither your flesh like salt on a slug. You’ll be a thing of the night, body and soul.’

  Gregor looked down, feeling a great weight pressing down upon him. Carandini always knew just what to say, what to do to crush his spirit, to cow his defiance. ‘I only want to die.’

  ‘As you are?’ Carandini scoffed, ‘as an unholy blood-worm, feeding on the living to maintain the semblance of life in your unclean shell? You already know how fleeting such a “death” may be.’ The necromancer shifted his gaze to the distant tree line. Something flew out from the darkness of the woods, something black and winged, cawing and croaking as it flew. The reek of rot and decay impacted against Gregor’s senses as the thing circled the necromancer.

  The horrible thing landed on Carandini’s shoulder. It had been a crow… once. Its black feathers were crusted with decay, and the eyes in its skull were tiny, blind dots oozing pus. Carandini called the horrible carrion crow his ‘eyes’. He’d created several of the hideous things since they had left the banks of the River Reik, employing a spell he had ‘borrowed’ from the grimoire of a necromancer named Simius Gantt, the infamous Crow Master of Mordheim. Now the abominable corpse-thing pressed its beak to Carandini’s ear, as if trading words with its master.

  ‘Our friend tells me there is still no sign of the witch hunter,’ Carandini reported with a sigh. ‘It seems we must content ourselves with his lackey.’ They had come upon the standoff between Streng and his ambushers during the night, driven to the place by the vision Carandini had evoked from Nehb-ka-Menthu’s spirit. Carandini had decided to wait, to see if Streng’s master would arrive to rescue his henchman. Only when it looked as if things would favour the men from Wyrmvater had he at last given Gregor the order to intervene.

  Gregor looked at the dark, brooding treeline into which Streng had retreated. To his unclean vision, the darkness seemed warm and inviting. He struggled to resist its lure, just as he had fought back the unholy thirst and every other filthy abnormality the poison in his body sent screaming through his mind.

  ‘The sooner you go and fetch him, the sooner we can start seeing about curing you,’ Carandini said, prodding the vampire with his oily words. Gregor faced the necromancer, nodding his head slowly and then turned and stalked off into the forest’s inviting shadows.

  With every step, he could feel a little more of him rotting away, oozing from him like the corrupt fluids from the carrion crow.

  Gregor wondered how much of himself there was left to save.

  They were laid out in a row, thrown into the first line of pews facing the sanctuary of the chapel. Bound hand and foot, the witch hunters and their associates had been carried into the temple like sacks of grain. After depositing their burdens, their captors had withdrawn, busying themselves with the ghastly transformation that was occurring all through the chapel. A large group of Wyrmvater’s citizens were hurrying around the chapel, strange burdens in their hands. As Thulmann watched, they began setting their burdens against the walls, fixing them in place on small hooks. Thulmann felt sick as he saw the things – stretched skins upon which the scratch-dash script and icons of the underfolk had been daubed in crimson ink. The fact that some of the hides still bore hair or displayed fa
cial features left the witch hunter no illusions what had served the degenerates as parchment.

  Thulmann felt his revulsion increase as Andein emerged from the rear of the chapel, a ghastly idol held reverently to his breast. The witch hunter didn’t like to consider from what the vile thing had been cobbled together, it was revolting enough for him to realise what it was meant to represent. The devotion with which the curate bore his burden became all the more abominable. Thulmann had uncovered many a cult of perverted, diseased madmen, but he had never expected to see this, never dreamed that men could allow their minds and souls to decay so far.

  How could any human being bow his knee before the infernal horror of the vermin god? How could any man make obeisance to the corrupt father of the skaven? What sane mind gave their soul to the gnawing hunger of the Horned Rat?

  Isolated madmen, driven by their own greed and lust for power, tempted to betray their own race by the promises of the scheming underfolk, this was something Thulmann could accept, something he had seen before. But here was an entire community, an entire society that had given itself to the cult of the Horned Rat.

  As Thulmann watched, Andein set the ghastly effigy of his daemon god on the altar, prostrating himself before it. Such was their contempt for Sigmar, the cultists hadn’t even bothered to remove any of the talismans of his worship, content to let the holy hammer rest in its customary place even as the fanged eidolon grinned across the sanctuary.

  The congregation of heretics finished dressing the temple to suit their profane sacrament, paying no heed to the enraged shouts of Haussner and his flagellants. They were certain of the power and providence of their scurrying god, having long ago abandoned any fear of Lord Sigmar, much less his devoted servants. As the townsfolk strode back towards the pews, they retrieved hideous furred garments, loathsome rat-skin cloaks. When they put them on, Thulmann felt his revulsion rise. They looked like shabby, horrible imitations of skaven, men transforming themselves into parodies of rats even as the skaven race was a twisted shadow of man himself. Each garment sported strange cuts, cuts that exposed the sickly, diseased malformations that infested nearly every one of the town-folk, the corrupt taint of mutation. The mutants flaunted their abnormalities, revelling in the horror of their flesh. Many put the mutations of the little girl Haussner had tried to burn to shame in their repugnance.

  Bruno Reinheckel forced his way through the congregation, one of the rat-hide cloaks draped around his shoulders. The burgomeister sneered down at his prisoners.

  ‘You should feel privileged,’ Reinheckel said. ‘We’ve given you the place of honour, right up front near the altar. Normally my family and I sit here.’

  ‘Heretic filth!’ Haussner spat. ‘You dare defile a shrine of Lord Sigmar with this abomination? Sigmar will rot your flesh for this blasphemy!’

  Reinheckel smiled at the fanatic’s outburst, turning to display his back to his prisoners. A long cut in the rat-hide cloak displayed the lumpy, bubo-ridden skin that clothed Reinheckel’s body. ‘The Horned One already has,’ the burgomeister declared, ‘but in Wyrmvater we do not revile the touch of the gods, we do not cringe at the gifts they see fit to bestow upon the flesh. We accept them. We honour them.’

  ‘You honour madness,’ Krieger hissed. ‘By Sigmar’s hammer, I’ve uncovered the most diseased, depraved madmen in my day, seen the most unholy of cults, but you’ve managed to distinguish yourself. Your town outshines even the lowest of them.’

  The burgomeister shook his head, laughing. Then he straightened, striking Krieger across the mouth. ‘I think I’ve borne enough of your insults, Altdorfer. I know that my community has.’

  Krieger glared at the smirking Reinheckel, hate smouldering in his eyes. Somehow, someway, he’d pay the peasant back for his temerity.

  Thulmann’s gaze was drawn back to the altar. The curate had returned, bearing with him a large bronze bell. Horrible designs and symbols were engraved into its surface and from its midsection, the sculpted visage of a rat with antler-like horns stared at him.

  ‘How, Reinheckel?’ Thulmann asked. ‘How does an entire community become so debased as to worship such obscenity?’

  The burgomeister moved away from Krieger, looking down at Thulmann. ‘Wyrmvater has a long and distinguished history,’ he began. ‘You read some of it for yourself in those books I allowed you to see, but you didn’t find all of Wyrmvater’s history there. No, not all of our history. You didn’t read about what it was like when civil war gripped the Empire, when Imperial crowns graced the heads of nobility in Altdorf and Marienburg and Middenheim. In those days it was not the depredation of the orc or the wolf we had to fear, it was the hand of our fellow man that threatened Wyrmvater. Companies of soldiers would set upon Wyrmvater, taking what they wanted, killing what they did not. It mattered little to them whether they wore the colours of Reikland and the emperor in Altdorf. They came with sword and pike, to steal food for their bellies, blankets for their steeds and leather for their feet. Year after year, this town was despoiled, forced to toil all year in the fields only to starve in the winter. Cries for help did nothing, none would raise their hand against the soldiers. The baron who exacted a tithe from this town stayed behind his castle walls, content to ignore our plight so long as there was enough left for him to claim as tribute. The people turned to the gods, praying to them for mercy.’

  Reinheckel spun, stabbing a finger at the fanged idol resting on the altar. ‘One of the gods answered the prayers of my forefathers, witch hunter. The Horned One sent his holy children to strike down the pillagers, to deliver our town from its misery and suffering, to free us from the corrupt tyranny of a corrupt land. All that was asked of the town was its devotion and tribute to feed his sacred children. Wyrmvater had given both before, but never to its own benefit. The Horned One was not the baron, not your petty Sigmar. He did not promise things with words, but with deeds. The Horned One would protect us from orc and wolf, and those men foolish enough to think us easy prey. The Horned One has never strayed from his compact with us.’

  ‘All it cost you was your souls,’ Thulmann said, ‘your souls and your humanity.’ Reinheckel laughed.

  ‘More wisdom from your weakling god, templar? Where is Sigmar now? Why does he not brave this temple that was once his to deliver his servants? I shall tell you: because he dares not, because he cowers before the might and glory of the Horned One!’

  ‘The Horned Rat cares little for its “sacred children”. How much less must it regard men stupid enough to offer it their prayers? It has promised the skaven will inherit the world, not the deluded madmen of some Reikland backwater!’

  Reinheckel snarled in outrage, drawing the knife from his belt. He moved to lunge at Thulmann, but was kept from his attack by Andein’s restraining hand.

  ‘It is not for us to destroy these infidels,’ the fallen curate admonished Reinheckel. ‘Their fate is the prophet’s to decide.’

  The curate turned away, retrieving the heavy bell he had brought into the sanctuary. Thulmann felt his mind cringe as the curate struck it, sending a noxious, brassy note reverberating through the chapel. Andein allowed the last echoes of the note to fade and then struck it again, still harder than before. Twelve times, the priest struck the bell, each time the notes sounding louder and more strident. Thulmann thought his skull would crack by the time the curate finally struck the twelfth note. By then Lajos was already moaning in agony, one of the flagellants had started to froth at the mouth and Haussner had lost consciousness. Then, as the echoes of the twelfth note began to fade, a thirteenth note sounded. Not from the curate or his bell, but from deep beneath the sanctuary. Thulmann saw a section of the floor sink, vanishing into darkness. The verminous reek flooded into the chapel, threatening to smother him with its overwhelming stench. The people of Wyrmvater began to hiss and squeal in excitement and adoration, attempting a perverse rendition of the skaven language. Thulmann shook his head at their delusion. The ringing of the bell was no sacred ritual, it w
as a warning to their inhuman masters, a sign that all was safe in the sanctuary and that the underfolk might emerge from their burrows.

  A black, furry head poked its way from the hole in the floor, sniffing the air with its rodent-like snout. The ratman crawled its way into the chapel. Half a dozen of its kin followed, spears and halberds gripped in hand-like paws. They adopted wary, guarded poses, casting nervous glances not only at the congregation and their prisoners, but also at the hole from which they had emerged. After a moment, something else followed the stormvermin into the chapel, something with horns curling from the sides of its rat-like skull. The grey seer’s eyes actually glowed with a greenish light, one black furred paw stroking the hairy collar worn around the thing’s neck.

  Thulmann cursed as he recognised the creature and realised what a fool he had been. It was the grey seer from Wurtbad, the monster named Skilk. Erasmus Kleib had told his nephew where the monster might be found, only too happy to set Thulmann on its trail. But the sorcerer had neglected to tell him one very important detail. The skaven warren wasn’t near Wyrmvater. It was under it.

  The grey seer hobbled from the hole, supporting himself on a wooden staff tipped by an iron icon. The cultists began to howl in adoration as their ‘prophet’ stepped down from the sanctuary. Skilk paid them no notice, his eyes fixed in the direction of the prisoners. Even with the energies of refined warpstone racing through his body, enflaming his mind, Skilk remembered the witch hunter. A skaven never forgot an enemy, no matter how briefly their paths crossed.

  The ratman grinned hungrily, lashing its tail as it drank in Thulmann’s scent. ‘Hunter-man find much?’ Skilk chittered, hobbling forward. There was spittle dripping from its chisel-like fangs, an air of ravenous menace on its rancid breath. Silja cried out in loathing as the monster came close. ‘Hunter-meat find words?’ The grey seer chittered again, its inhuman laughter crawling across the prisoners. Thulmann felt the full extent of his defeat when the skaven pulled a skin-bound object from beneath his tattered robe. Das Buch die Unholden, the tome they had come so far and risked so much to find. Skilk drank in the smell of the witch hunter’s defeat, savouring the sensation.