by Nathan Long
Ulrika stared at him, shocked. She hadn’t suspected it, even for a second.
‘A vow made to a monster is not binding,’ he continued. ‘It is not dishonourable to cheat a fiend. Indeed, it is policy.’
‘But… but you didn’t betray me,’ said Ulrika.
Holmann hung his head. His voice, when it came, was rough and broken. ‘Because… you are not a monster.’
Emotion constricted Ulrika’s throat. ‘Friedrich…’
‘Even as we fought the Strigoi, I was planning to finish your mistress and the others,’ he said. ‘And you as well. Your betrayal on the road had hardened me to it. But–’ He swallowed, then went on. ‘But then you returned my sword to me.’
Ulrika frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘After you beheaded the Strigoi,’ said Holmann. ‘I saw it in your eyes that you were contemplating killing me, but you did not, though I could not have stopped you if you’d tried. You told me to go, though you would have faced the wrath of the others for doing so. A fiend would not have done these things, and so…’
‘And so you kept the vow you meant to break,’ she said.
He nodded. ‘And broke the vows I thought I would keep forever.’ He closed his eyes. ‘And because of that, I cannot go back. I can no longer be a witch hunter. I… I will have to go somewhere – somewhere out of the Empire.’
Ulrika’s chest tightened unbearably. ‘Herr Holmann, don’t say that!’ she pleaded. ‘You did a great thing here this night – a thing any templar would be proud to have done. You helped slay an evil horror that had abducted and killed countless innocents. You are still good. You can still be the man you were!’
‘I killed the man I was!’ Holmann cried. ‘I broke my vow to my god! I lied to Captain Schenk! I protected you and your mistress against Sigmar’s law!’
‘But surely the good you did counter-balances that!’ insisted Ulrika. ‘Surely one tiny slip cannot wipe out a whole lifetime of valour!’
Holmann hung his head, his jaw tight. ‘The Templars of Sigmar recognise no spectrum of morality. Evil is evil, and good is good. An ocean of good with but a single drop of evil in it is evil, and must be destroyed. If I–’ He faltered, closing his eyes. ‘If I find that I can see such a spectrum, then I can no longer be a templar, no matter that I cannot imagine being anything else.’
Ulrika stared at him, wanting to shout at him, wanting to beat him until he saw sense. He was a better, smarter man than Schenk or any of the other witch hunters she had ever met. He was precisely the sort of man who should be a templar, and he was running from it. She wanted to slap him. But no, it was really herself she wanted to slap and beat. It was she who had done this to him. She had put the worm of doubt in his mind. She had made his eyes, which had before seen only in black and white, suddenly see in shades of grey. She had, because of a fondness for him she would never have acted upon, and her foolish, misguided mercy, destroyed his life and his image of himself. She felt like some giant child who breaks her toys without realising her strength. She would have been more merciful if she had killed him when first they had met.
She stood suddenly, her face feeling as hard as stone. ‘Rest,’ she said. ‘I must go to her.’ Then she swept out of the room without waiting for him to reply.
The morning room was empty when Ulrika returned to it. Curtains had been drawn over the shattered windows, but the sun was streaming through the broken doors and the room was too light for a vampire to stay in. She followed the muffled sound of raised voices to an adjacent room, much darker, which revealed itself to be a music room, with a harpsichord in one corner and a harp in another.
Mathilda had returned, and found clothes, and she and Gabriella and Hermione stood in three corners of the room, looking as if they might start another battle at any moment, while Famke cowered in a chair to one side and watched with nervous eyes.
‘Y’tried t’kill us!’ Mathilda was shouting at Hermione. ‘Y’ordered my death!’
‘I was tricked!’ cried Hermione. ‘That vile conspirator Otilia whispered poison in my ear!’
‘Well, y’needn’t have listened!’
‘Sisters, please,’ said Gabriella, holding up her hands. ‘Let us leave the past to the past. We know who the real killers were now, and how cunning their plan was – to turn us against each other and expose us to all of Nuln. What we still must discover is why they did it, and who was behind it. I refuse to believe that addle-pated monstrosity was anything but a sad dupe. He was manipulated as much as any of us. A “voice” told him that our blood would restore him?’ she raised an eyebrow. ‘So who was the voice? Who would benefit from our destruction?’
‘I fear there is a more pressing question, sister,’ said Hermione, stepping to a chair and sinking into it.
Gabriella raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh?’
‘Schenk,’ said Hermione. ‘You may have cooled his suspicions for the moment, but he will not be appeased for long. Even if he doesn’t attack, he will always have an eye turned towards us. It will be impossible to operate.’
Gabriella nodded, her brow furrowed. ‘You are right, sister. I fear it may be time to bid farewell to our current incarnations and find new guises under which to live.’ She looked around. ‘Perhaps we should all die here after all, savaged by ghouls.’
As the three Lahmians began to discuss the merits of this plan, Ulrika felt a hand on her arm and turned. Famke was standing beside her, a look of concern on her beautiful face.
‘You look troubled, sister,’ she murmured. ‘Has the man hurt you?’
Ulrika turned her head to hide the pain that twisted her face at the girl’s words. ‘No, sister,’ she said. ‘I have hurt the man.’
Famke stroked her shoulder. ‘Well, he most likely deserved it. They all do.’
‘Not this one, I fear,’ said Ulrika. She pressed Famke’s hand and smiled at her. ‘But thank you for your concern.’
Famke grinned shyly. ‘I am just glad that we all seem to be on the same side again. Perhaps we will see more of each other now.’
‘I hope so,’ said Ulrika.
She turned back to the three sisters as Gabriella’s voice rose again.
‘Then it’s decided,’ she was saying. ‘We will make our demise here, then wait in hiding while we consult with the queen as to our new places.’
Hermione sighed, looking around. ‘I wish it weren’t so. I have put so much into this place.’
Gabriella smiled. ‘There will be new places, and new opportunities to decorate.’ She stood as Hermione laughed. ‘I will return in a moment to help with the preparations, but I have a few things I must attend to first.’ She curtseyed, then limped towards Ulrika.
Ulrika hurried forwards and lent her her arm, and supported her out of the room.
‘How badly are you hurt, mistress?’ asked Ulrika as they entered the demolished morning room.
‘Broken ribs,’ said Gabriella, wincing. ‘Broken leg. It matters not. All will be well when I feed.’ She stopped as they reached the bottom of the stair and turned to Ulrika, looking grave. ‘But first, I must speak with you, and I believe you know the subject.’
Ulrika froze, her chest tightening with dread. ‘Templar Holmann?’
Gabriella nodded. ‘You have two options,’ she said. ‘Bleed him and make him your swain, or kill him. I leave the choice to you.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHILDHOOD’S END
Ulrika lowered her eyes. She could not meet Gabriella’s gaze. ‘I choose neither,’ she said. ‘I want to let him go.’
‘I’m sorry, beloved,’ said Gabriella quietly. ‘But that you cannot do.’
‘But why not?’ Ulrika asked, her voice rising. ‘Did he not save your life and mine? Did he not honour his pledge? He lied to Schenk and broke his vow to his god rather than break it!’
‘I know,’ Gabriel
la replied. ‘And it nearly killed him. A man so tortured will not long remain silent. His anguish will break him and he will speak, and we will be exposed.’
‘He won’t speak,’ said Ulrika. ‘He told me. He is going to go away. He will no longer be a witch hunter. I… cured him of that. He means to leave the Empire.’
Gabriella shook her head. ‘It is still too great a risk. He might change his mind.’
Ulrika stepped back, struggling not to shout. ‘But, but what does that matter? We are going to vanish, are we not? Did you not just agree with Hermione that we would pretend to die here and find new identities? What does it matter what he says?’
‘Because no one must know we were vampires even after our “death”,’ said Gabriella patiently. ‘Nuln and the world must think that there was only ever one vampire – a huge, hideous monster that preyed on innocent women. The suspicion that some of those women were also creatures of the night must fade so that we may live in peace when we enter our new roles. We cannot have Templar Holmann speaking of dead Lahmians, because we want the world to believe that there are no Lahmians at all.’
‘Mistress, please,’ Ulrika begged. ‘I know you for a good and honourable woman. How can you not deal fairly with him when he has dealt more than fairly with us?’
Gabriella raised her chin. ‘I am as good and honourable as it is within my power to be. And I deal as fairly as is possible with the living. But I must protect myself and my kind first, and when it is a choice between the death of a vampire and the death of a man, who do you suggest I allow to die?’
Ulrika stood rigid, searching an argument against the countess’s cold logic, but finding none.
Gabriella sighed and stepped to her, taking her arm. ‘I am sorry, my dear. But if you love him so, then make him your swain. He can be a replacement for Rodrik if you like. Then he will always be with you.’
Ulrika pulled free of her, angry. ‘It is because I love him so that I won’t make a swain of him!’ she cried. ‘I love him for what he is – for all his hardness and honour and pain. He is a good man, a man with a mind of his own. I won’t make some fawning, hem-kissing lapdog of him! It… it would sicken me! I do not want slaves for lovers, I want equals!’
Gabriella nodded, and some painful memory seemed to pass behind her eyes. ‘Aye,’ she said. ‘I understand. This is why we are wisest when we love among our own kind, or not at all.’ She looked up at Ulrika, her eyes sad. ‘Then I’m afraid you must kill him. It is really the most merciful choice.’
Ulrika met her glance, her breast boiling with anger. ‘You command me to kill? You promised my friends you would teach me to do no harm!’
Gabriella did not flinch from her glare. Instead she held it, her eyes growing as cold as winter stars. ‘You have already done the harm, girl,’ she said. ‘The moment you revealed yourself to him. He was dead then, and you only tortured him by dragging out his death throes until now. If you wish to honour my vow to your friends, then kill him and repair the harm, and don’t do it again. Consider it a lesson learned.’ She held out her arm. ‘Now come, help me up the stairs.’
Ulrika took Gabriella’s arm and started up the steps with her, all the while her mind whirling like water going down a drain. Every argument the countess had put forward made sense. For her protection and the protection of the Lahmian sisterhood, Templar Holmann must die. For his own sanity and the peace of his soul, Templar Holmann must die. For Ulrika’s own guilt and pain, Templar Holmann must die, but still, all she could think of was running ahead and lowering him out of a window and telling him to flee.
They came at last to the door of the guest room where Ulrika had left the witch hunter, and stopped before it. Gabriella turned to Ulrika and gave her a questioning look. Ulrika hesitated then shook her head.
‘I’m sorry, mistress,’ she said. ‘I cannot.’
Gabriella’s face grew closed and still, a blank mask. ‘You disappoint me, child,’ she said. ‘But very well, then I will do it.’
Ulrika stepped in front of the door. ‘Mistress, please.’
Gabriella shoved her aside with surprising strength, then opened the door and stepped in. Ulrika prayed that she would find the room empty and the window open, but her hope was denied. Holmann lay on the bed, bare to the waist and clutching his wounded arm, eyes closed in pain. Ulrika stopped in the door, paralysed, as Gabriella continued towards him.
Holmann opened his eyes and looked up as she approached. ‘Lady?’
Gabriella smiled at him and sat beside him on the bed. ‘Templar Holmann,’ she said. ‘Your wounds plague you?’
‘Only a little,’ he said. ‘If you wish me to leave, I will be on my way.’
‘Not at all,’ said Gabriella. ‘You must rest. Tonight will be soon enough for you to go. Will your pain let you sleep?’
‘I will manage,’ said Holmann. ‘Though if you have some brandy?’
Gabriella stroked his forehead. ‘I have something better than that,’ she said. ‘Something that will ease your pain, and my own. Now, close your eyes.’
Holmann pulled back, suddenly wary. He shot a questioning look over Gabriella’s shoulder to Ulrika. ‘Close my eyes?’ he asked. ‘What will you do?’
Ulrika lowered her head, unable to meet his gaze.
‘I only want to help you sleep, Herr Templar,’ said Gabriella, taking his chin and turning his face back to hers. ‘Now close your eyes.’
Holmann struggled to sit up. ‘Lady, I do not like this. Please. Fetch me brandy or leave me be.’
‘Close your eyes,’ Gabriella repeated, her voice like warm honey. ‘Close your eyes.’
‘Lady…’ Holmann murmured, his eyelids drooping. ‘Ulrika, tell… her…’
Ulrika sobbed as the templar’s head fell back against the pillow and Gabriella lowered her lips to his bare neck. Ulrika was unable to watch. She clutched her arms to her chest and pressed her face to the door frame, closing her eyes and wishing for tears.
There was something hard under her left elbow – something inside her doublet. Her eyes flashed open. The silvered dagger. She held still as a terrible thought came to her, then turned and looked at Gabriella, bent over Holmann and entirely defenceless.
Ulrika’s hand slipped inside her doublet and closed around the hilt of the dagger. The countess wouldn’t even know it was coming. She would be dead before she could turn. Ulrika could save Holmann and run away with him – leave the Empire, have adventures in foreign lands, live outside any society except their own.
But as quick as the daydreams came, the realities overran them like Kossar cavalry – Holmann growing old, hating her for feeding, trying to kill her as he had his parents. Could she kill Gabriella for that? Could she murder the woman who had saved her and raised her, who had protected her and comforted her when she had made some childish mistake? Without Gabriella, Ulrika would be dead.
The thought made her look up. The curtains over the window were only partially closed, and a sword blade of sunlight stabbed through into the dimness. If she could not kill Gabriella, perhaps she could kill herself. She had silver in her hand and sunlight only steps away. But though visions of stabbing herself in the neck, or crashing through the leaded window into the daylight flashed through her mind, they remained only visions. She could move neither her hand nor her feet.
Gabriella sat back with a sigh of relief, then turned to Ulrika. ‘Will you feed, beloved?’
Ulrika closed her eyes and shook her head – and let go of the dagger, a coward once again. ‘Not from him,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t.’
‘Of course,’ said Gabriella. ‘I understand.’ She turned back to Holmann, who lay now in blissful slumber, took his rugged head in her delicate hands, and snapped his neck as if it were a twig.
Ulrika choked and turned away, eyes closing tight, sobbing without tears. Behind her she heard Gabriella stand and cross to her. The
countess’s arms slipped around her and held her close.
‘I am sorry, beloved,’ she whispered. ‘But it had to be.’
Ulrika struggled in her embrace, but Gabriella only held her tighter.
‘I know the pain is terrible,’ she said. ‘But it will pass, I promise you. And the sooner you put humans and human emotions behind you, the sooner it will go.’
She kissed Ulrika on the cheek, then released her and stepped to the door. ‘Now come,’ she said. ‘We have much to do.’
Ulrika hesitated as Gabriella passed into the hall. She looked back at Holmann, his hard, handsome face made weak and childish by the insipid smile Lahmian mercy had painted upon it, then she shot a last glance at the blade of sunlight streaming through the half-covered window.
Someday, she thought as she turned and followed the countess, someday I will have the courage.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nathan Long was a struggling screenwriter for fifteen years, during which time he had three movies made and a handful of live-action and animated TV episodes produced. Now he is a novelist, and is enjoying it much more. For Black Library he has written three Warhammer novels featuring the Blackhearts, and he took over the Gotrek and Felix series, starting with the eighth instalment, Orcslayer.
He is currently writing the Ulrika the Vampire series.
To Rob Clark, who bled for this.
A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION
Published in 2010 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK
Cover illustration by Winona Nelson.
Map by Nuala Kinrade.
© Games Workshop Limited 2010, 2011. All rights reserved.
Black Library, the Black Library logo, Games Workshop, the Games Workshop logo and all associated marks, names, characters, illustrations and images from the Warhammer universe are either ®, TM and/or © Games Workshop Ltd 2011, variably registered in the UK and other countries around the world. All rights reserved.