by Nathan Long
‘Mmmm,’ he said, still stiff. ‘You did not come to the Armoury. I waited.’
Ulrika almost laughed. Was he suspicious, or hurt? ‘I was kept away,’ she said. ‘Family business. And I’m afraid I lost the trail that morning. It seems you had more success?’
Holmann lowered his lantern, his expression softening somewhat, though still wary. He shook his head. ‘I found nothing in the sewer. And I had to return home to sleep afterwards. My duties with the witch hunters are at night.’
‘Then how did you find this place?’ Ulrika asked. It seemed best to keep him talking about himself instead of asking uncomfortable questions about her.
‘I returned to this neighbourhood after my rounds the next night and spoke to the men of the local watch,’ said Holmann. ‘They said several citizens had reported hearing a loud fight near this intersection, but the watch found nothing. I wanted to question the locals, but it was by then too late. They were all abed.’
Ulrika smiled. ‘So you shirked your duties to come again tonight at a more reasonable hour?’
Holmann looked shocked. ‘Certainly not. I asked my captain leave to investigate the incident. My request was granted.’
Ulrika turned her head nervously, listening for other men. Could she have missed them? ‘You’re not alone this time?’
He shook his head. ‘No others could be spared. We are still questioning the acquaintances of the women who were revealed to be fiends.’
‘Ah,’ said Ulrika, relieved. ‘Of course.’
‘Tonight I spoke to several persons near here who had heard the fight,’ he continued. ‘And was able to more closely pinpoint the source.’ He spread his free hand. ‘This was the only unoccupied house in the vicinity, and the only one the watch had not checked.’
‘And no wonder,’ said Ulrika, wrinkling her nose. ‘You’re a brave man, entering a plague house.’
Holmann touched the hammer pendant at his neck. ‘Sigmar protects his servants. You are brave as well.’
‘Ursun protects too,’ she answered. ‘Have you found anything?’
‘Footprints,’ he said. ‘So far that is all.’
Ulrika gestured up the stairs. ‘Shall we continue, then?’
Holmann glared at her. ‘One day your bravery will be your undoing,’ he said. ‘I understand your reasons for pursuing this life, fraulein, but it is still unseemly for a woman to be in a place like this, with a sabre and breeches and…’ He trailed off, embarrassed.
Ulrika was tempted to tell him she thought she looked a damned sight more seemly in breeches than he did, and likely fought better with a sabre as well, but knew it wouldn’t do. Instead she lowered her head meekly. ‘I wish it were otherwise, templar,’ she said. ‘But I have made a vow to wipe out the things that corrupted my sister. I would lose Ursun’s favour if I renounced it, and bring shame upon my family name.’
That seemed to be the right line to take, for Holmann nodded curtly and looked like he had swallowed a lemon. ‘Vows to one’s gods must be upheld,’ he said. ‘You are an honourable woman.’ He stepped ahead of her and lifted the lantern. ‘Come. I shall light the way.’
The second floor was the same as the first, room after room of dry corpses lying on low cots, and nothing else – no sign of a fight and no sign that Alfina had been there.
‘The authorities must have brought every afflicted person in the neighbourhood to this place,’ Ulrika said as they turned from the door of the last room and started up to the top floor.
The witch hunter nodded. ‘I was here during the trouble. There were houses like this all over the city. It was the only way.’
‘Do you think it made a difference?’ Ulrika asked.
Holmann shrugged. ‘Nuln still stands.’
The layout of the top floor was different from the others – three large rooms instead of many small ones. The first they entered was lined like all the others with neat rows of corpses and cots. The second had corpses too, but they were no longer neat.
‘Sigmar’s hammer,’ murmured Holmann as he took in the destruction. ‘What battle happened here?’
Ulrika knew instantly, but didn’t answer. Looking around she was certain this was the place Mistress Alfina had been killed. It had been a sick ward like all the others, but the dozens of corpses that had filled it had been tossed about like straw in a hurricane, and were scattered all over the room, limbs askew or snapped off entirely. Ulrika saw a parchment-skinned skull lost under an overturned cot, and near it, a pair of skeletons thrown together as if they were making love.
And there were other signs of violence. A boarded-up window had been broken open, the timbers split and smashed, and great gouges had been dug into the walls and floor as if by mighty claws. Black blood was spattered across the boards in dust-furred splashes and streaks.
And then there was the stench, so strong even Holmann could smell it.
‘Sigmar’s blood,’ he said, coughing. ‘That comes from no ancient plague corpse. It smells like a drowned body in the sun.’
‘Aye,’ said Ulrika. And more than that, it was the same stench she had first smelled on Alfina’s corpse, and again outside the Silver Lily, only now it was overpowering, like being buried in rotting carcasses. It raised her hackles and made her want to vomit, but at the same time she relished it. This was the scent of the killer, she could be certain of it now. If she could follow it back to its source, she would find what was attacking the Lahmians, and she could put an end to the terror, and hopefully to Hermione and Mathilda’s feud. But where had it gone, and how?
‘What did this?’ said Holmann, examining the gouges in one wall.
Ulrika stepped back out into the hall, ignoring him, and inhaled deeply. The smell did not come out this far. It faded out quickly at the door of the room, and she had certainly not smelled it on any of the other floors as she came up. What did this mean? Did the thing change form like Mathilda, and only smell like a corpse in one form? Perhaps, but–
Suddenly she had it. She pushed past Holmann back into the room, then crossed to the smashed-open window. Yes. Claw marks on the sill and the sides, and the revolting rotten corpse smell on every surface, so powerful it made her wince.
‘It came in through here,’ she said. ‘And went out again the same way.’
Holmann joined her and looked out into the night. ‘Then it must be able to fly,’ he said.
Ulrika followed his gaze. The window looked out over the intersection. The closest building was across the street, perhaps ten yards away. ‘Or leap,’ she said, remembering her rapturous rooftop gallop of two nights previous.
‘A prodigious leap,’ he said.
‘Aye,’ said Ulrika, already lost in thought again. If she was going to track it to its lair, she would have to go to the other building and sniff around there, then try to follow the thing’s progress from roof to roof, guessing at directions all the while. It would be a difficult task, and if it did fly, it would be impossible.
She turned back to the room. There had to be another way – an easier way. She frowned at the floor. There had been others here besides the killer and Mistress Alfina. There were footprints all over the room. Perhaps she could track them instead.
‘But what did this flying monster fight?’ asked Holmann as she began pacing the room, looking at the tracks. ‘It must have been something as strong and ferocious as itself, or this would have been a massacre, not a battle.’
Ulrika remembered Mistress Alfina’s face, frozen in a snarling mask of rage, and the horrible wounds she had survived before someone had plunged a stake through her heart. ‘Aye,’ she said. ‘Strong and desperate.’ She kicked a black rag aside and squatted over a palimpsest of footprints. ‘Men with boots,’ she muttered. ‘Men with bare feet. At least five. Were they accomplices? Where did they go? Where did they come from?’
‘You may be a great track
er, fraulein,’ said Holmann behind her. ‘But you must learn not to overlook the obvious.’
Ulrika turned. Holmann was picking up the black rag she had kicked away.
He shook it out and held it up. ‘The robe of a priest of Morr,’ he said. ‘Or part of one, anyway.’ He showed her the breast of the garment, where a hollow square containing a rose had been embroidered upon it in black thread. ‘You see the sign of Morr’s portal?’ He grimaced and looked at his hand, which was sticky and red where it had touched the cloth. ‘Recently shed blood.’
Ulrika frowned, confused, and looked around the room again. Her mental picture of what had happened here shifted and became cloudy again. ‘So the monster was fighting a priest or priests of Morr?’ But what of Alfina?
‘It is their job to settle the restless dead,’ said Holmann.
New possibilities whirled up in Ulrika’s head like leaves in a wind. Could it be that her theory that an undead monster had killed the Lahmians was wrong? Could the killers have been priests of Morr instead? An image of some impossibly strong templar of Morr smashing through the window and attacking Mistress Alfina in a holy frenzy flashed behind her eyes. But could any human hero, no matter how great, make a leap like that, or claw marks like that? And what of the smell of rotting flesh? What of the little man in the sewers? Had she been mistaken about him? Had he been a priest, not a necromancer? She felt suddenly more lost than when she had begun.
‘But if priests of Morr are exposing these vampires,’ she said at last, ‘wouldn’t they speak up about it?’ She turned to Holmann. ‘Your fellow witch hunters have certainly not kept their investigation quiet.’
Holmann nodded, looking at the cloth. ‘True. Perhaps we should talk to a priest.’
Ulrika shrugged. It sounded more feasible than attempting to follow the smell of rotting flesh across the rooftops of Nuln. ‘Lead on, mein herr.’
The nearest temple of Morr was by the docks on the south edge of Shantytown, a small place devoted to augury rather than burial, and Ulrika began to have misgivings about pursuing their chosen course of inquiry as soon as she saw its open stone door.
In her life before Krieger’s kiss she had heard the same stories everyone had, that vampires were repelled by the symbols of Sigmar and Ursun and the other gods, but she had not so far noticed this repulsion in herself. In her journey with Countess Gabriella from Sylvania to Nuln their coach had passed any number of temples and roadside shrines, and she had come face to face with many priests and knights of various orders in the inns in which they had stayed, and no otherworldly fear had overcome her in their presence, just the reasonable wariness that all prey has for its predator.
She still couldn’t call what she felt as she and Holmann approached the door fear, only a profound nervousness. Morr was the protector of the dead, and his priests, as the witch hunter had pointed out, were dedicated to putting to rest the undead. Could they also somehow sense them? She felt that if she stepped over the temple’s threshold all eyes would instantly turn towards her, and all hands would be raised against her. She feared she would be attracting the scrutiny of the god himself, and that was not a risk she wished to face. What if she was struck down on the spot?
As Holmann started up the black stone steps, she paused. He looked back at her, an eyebrow raised.
‘Perhaps you should go in alone,’ she said. ‘I am but a woman from Kislev. I have no official sanction to be asking questions. You are a templar – a servant of Sigmar. They will answer you.’
Holmann smirked. ‘My authority will not be diminished by your presence, fraulein. Come. A vampire hunter has nothing to fear in this place.’
But a hunting vampire might, thought Ulrika. She swallowed, and considered fleeing, but then decided she could not. The torn robe was the only real lead she had. She did not want to go back to Gabriella and say she had not followed it out of a lack of courage.
‘Very well,’ she said. ‘Let us go.’
Ulrika followed Holmann up the steps, her shoulders tensing as she walked between the two pillars, one white, one black, that flanked the open door. Holmann went into the temple without difficulty but, for Ulrika, there was a pressure at the threshold, like the tension on the surface of water. It pushed back against her, trying to deny her entry, and her mind was suddenly filled with an almost overwhelming fear of Morr and his servants, a dread of their ability to end her unlife and snuff out her tenuous existence.
She fought forwards, both physically and mentally. She was not some mindless thing escaped from the grave. She was still Ulrika Magdova Straghov. She still had Ulrika’s joys and sadnesses, her dreams and longings. She had not yet surrendered herself completely to the night.
The barrier weakened the more she thought on her humanity, and with a last effort she stumbled into the temple and continued after Holmann, feeling weak and diminished.
He looked back at her.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Tripped.’
He nodded, then turned as, out of the darkness of the temple’s simple stone interior, drifted a tall, gaunt priest in long black robes, his hood thrown back on his narrow shoulders.
‘Welcome, children,’ he murmured, surveying them with heavy-lidded eyes. ‘Have you questions for the god of portals and dreams? Do you seek to know which path is most propitious?’ He sounded like he was talking in his sleep.
Ulrika hung back, eyeing the priest warily. Would he recognise her for what she was? Had he the power to strike her down? He looked like a doddering old sleepwalker, but one never knew with priests.
‘A more prosaic question, father,’ said Holmann, crossing to him and taking the bloodied black robe from where he had tucked it through his belt. ‘We found this during the investigation of the vampire menace. Have you heard of any of your brethren fighting these fiends, or of any being wounded in pursuance of their duties?’
The priest’s eyes widened, and he was suddenly much more awake. He reached out and took the robe, then examined it closely. ‘That is a lot of blood,’ he said.
‘Aye, father,’ said Holmann patiently. ‘And I seek the fiend that inflicted the wound. Have you heard aught of it? Was the unfortunate who wore this of your temple?’
The priest shook his head. ‘I have heard of nothing like this. And we have lost no brothers here. But this…’ He touched a spindly finger to the breast of the shredded garment. ‘This is not our symbol. We are a temple of augury. Our symbol is the raven, you see?’ He pointed to the breast of his own robe, upon which was stitched the outline of a black bird. ‘This rose – it is the symbol of Morr’s garden. Our brothers who tend the cemetery wear it.’
Templar Holmann inclined his head. ‘Then we will inquire there, father,’ he said, ‘and trouble you no further.’
He took back the robe and turned for the door. Ulrika followed him, and breathed a great sigh of relief when they stepped once again through the open door and out into the cold night air.
Ulrika found it interesting to walk with a witch hunter. She might be a creature of the night and an enemy of all mankind, but it was Holmann who the people feared. As they strode through the Neuestadt on their way to the Garden of Morr, street-corner demagogues stopped their tirades and vanished down alleys. Student agitators dispersed into their colleges. Harlots and beggars and swaggering bravos turned about on their strolls and found that they had business elsewhere. Even staid, respectable burghers blanched and found it difficult to know where to look when Holmann passed them by.
Ulrika hid a smile at each new tremor and stumble. No wonder witch hunters suspected everyone. Everyone looked guilty when they met them. It was also no wonder they were so often solitary men. Who could relax enough around them to be friends with them?
Only once did anyone approach them, a middle-aged woman in apron and mob-cap, wailing with grief, her arms outstretched.
‘Witch hunter!’ she cried. ‘Find my s
on! The vampires have taken him! You must save him!’
Ulrika’s heart leapt with hope as Holmann steadied the woman. Had the monster struck? Were they in time to catch it? That would be a stroke of luck.
‘When did this happen, mein frau?’ the templar asked. ‘Did you see the fiends?’
‘It happened last night,’ she moaned. ‘Jan went out and didn’t come home. He’s been taken, like all the others! I’m sure of it!’
Ulrika sighed, disappointed. It didn’t sound like a disappearance to her.
Holmann seemed to think the same, for his face hardened. ‘How old is your son?’ he asked. ‘What is his profession?’
The woman blinked, surprised by the questions. ‘He is nineteen, a student at the university,’ she said. ‘He–’
‘A student missing for a day hasn’t been taken by vampires,’ rasped Holmann, cutting her off. ‘He is drunk in some brothel, sleeping it off.’
‘Oh no,’ gasped the woman. ‘Not my Jan! He is a pious boy. He–’
‘If he is still missing four days from now,’ interrupted Holmann again, ‘report his disappearance at the Iron Tower and we will investigate. Until then, wait and pray to Sigmar for his safe return. Now excuse me. I have more pressing matters.’
And with that he strode past the woman, leaving her weeping behind him.
‘Fool,’ he growled under his breath as Ulrika caught up to him. ‘It is always the same. For every one true disappearance, there are reports of ten. Our work is hard enough without ignorant house-fraus leading us on wild goose chases.’
Ulrika nodded, her thoughts elsewhere. ‘Aye, but do you think she’s right? Are the disappearances connected to what we seek?’
Holmann shrugged. ‘There are always disappearances. People only take notice of them when something else stirs their fear – vampires, cultists, mutants – but they never cease.’