[Stefan Kumansky 01] - Star of Erengrad

by Neil McIntosh - (ebook by Undead)

  Varik reflected how no two of Lord Kyros’ disciples were ever the same, their souls as diverse as their earthly bodies. Some willingly embraced the black host, cleaved to its song as though they had longed for it all of their lives. Others struggled against the inner voice as they might struggle against a canker eating away at their flesh—with equal desperation, and with equal futility. Others still, only dimly aware of their own existence, had virtually no sense or knowledge of the power that could possess them at will. Men such as this shriveled old man could be easily controlled, but had limited potential. But it had been enough. The warding spells that the elders of Middenheim had set about the city had been weak; no match for the disciple of Tzeentch. Very soon now he would show them what true magic could achieve.

  The emissary stretched his newly acquired limbs and drew down a deep breath. It felt good to possess a strong, powerful body once again. He rubbed his eyes hard and refocused, taking a moment to adjust to clear his vision after the rheumy half-sight of the old shopkeeper. Haarland Krug, the Middenheim miller whose body now played host to Varik’s soul, was a very different proposition, a willing and enthusiastic acolyte of the dark power.

  The emissary allowed Krug a few moments of shared consciousness before sublimating his soul. Now, there were urgent tasks to attend to, and there must be no more distractions. The sleeping soldiers of Tzeentch, spread like dormant seeds across the city, must be woken and made ready. Varik allowed himself a moment to savour the hour drawing near. Thus far, he had no doubt, the Kislevite would have believed she led a charmed life. Now she would discover how quickly, how fatefully the winds of chance could change.

  The hours since they had escaped the ambush at Jaegersfort became days, and there were no more attacks. But by now it was clear to Stefan that their most tenacious, resilient enemy was the forest itself. The Drakwald was the enemy that never tired, never gave up. Night and day it was with them, sapping away their strength and their will to carry on. And then, almost a week after Jaegersfort, and just when their endurance was all but exhausted, the travelers emerged at last from the forest’s dark embrace.

  The Drakwald released them as suddenly as it had swallowed them up, the thick folds of trees giving way without warning to a path that led steeply up a sparsely wooded slope. It seemed as though they had travelled for half an eternity since Jaegersfort, but now, at last, they found themselves within sight of their destination. As the sky opened out above and ahead of them, Stefan halted upon the path to gaze at last upon the city that had once seemed so distant as to be no more than a dream.

  Night had fallen, and the lights of Middenheim beckoned like a thousand jewels shining in the night sky high above the forest. “Shallya be praised,” Elena murmured. “There were times back there when I wondered if I’d ever live to see this sight.”

  Stefan smiled. “I think we’ve kept Middenheim waiting for long enough,” he said. “Come on.”

  As night gave way to day, the great city began to reveal itself to the travelers. In the first glimmerings of dawn it looked improbably huge and imposing, a mighty citadel perched upon a great fist of rock that seemed to grow far above the forest floor. With its high granite walls the city dominated the landscape, an oasis of humankind amongst the wilderness of endless forest. To the traveler’s eye it looked very solid, very secure. Stefan had never travelled there before, yet now, after the hardships of the Drakwald, it felt like coming home.

  “The City of the White Wolf,” Stefan murmured. “Named after Ulric himself; god of the wolves.” He spurred his horse on, seeking the road that would lead them to the gates of the city.

  Stefan kept close by Elena’s side as they tracked through the rain-spattered streets of Middenheim. He shook away the tiredness weighing down upon him. Now above all he had to remain vigilant.

  Up to a point, he shared Elena’s relief at being within city walls once more. The vivid life and pungent smells assailing him from all sides seemed reassuring and familiar. But who amongst the thousands of faces streaming through the narrow might be their ally, and who their enemy? The forces of darkness would have their acolytes here in Middenheim, of that he had no doubt. And once they had the second part of the Star it would surely not be long before they stepped out from the shadows.

  The riders skirted the heart of the city, seeking the wide metalled road that led to the Morrspark. The grey-granite streets of Middenheim with their dark-timbered buildings seemed improbably crowded after the desolation of the forest. Although the hour was growing late, people still flocked about their business, moving between taverns, pushing handcarts laden with wares from market stalls. The horses were forced to slow to a walking pace.

  Finally the street ahead narrowed and there was no way through. The passage was blocked by a knot of townspeople arguing over something; a disputed purchase, or a debt. The argument was growing heated, drawing onlookers into its midst. Stefan drew his horse to a halt in front of the crowd and called down from the saddle.

  “Hey there,” he shouted, cordially but firmly. “Can’t you take your quarrel somewhere else? We need to pass through.”

  Those towards the back of the crowd either didn’t hear Stefan, or chose to ignore him. Alexei swore, impatiently, and started to climb down off his horse. “We’ll need a little more persuasion to clear this lot,” he commented.

  “Wait a minute,” Stefan said. “We don’t want to get caught up in this if we can help it.”

  He nudged his horse forward until he was right at the edge of the throng. “Hey you,” he shouted, focusing his attention on a large man standing with his back to them. After a momentary pause the man broke away from the brewing fight and turned to face the riders.

  Stefan saluted the man amicably. “Can you help move these people along?” he asked. “We need to reach the Morrspark before last bell.”

  The man stared glassy-eyed at Stefan for a moment. Just at the point when Stefan was beginning to think he must have chosen badly, a flicker of animation crossed the man’s face, and he sprang into action. Turning back into the crowd, the burly figure began clearing people aside unceremoniously. A path opened amidst the squabble, and Stefan and the others were able to pass.

  Stefan nodded towards the burly giant as he eased his horse through the gap in the crowd. “Thanks for your help, friend,” he said.

  Haarland Krug gazed up at Stefan without blinking, and nodded back.

  Distant bells were chiming the last of the day as they approached the Morrspark. In a few minutes the gates to the fields of rest would be locked shut, and the rendezvous would have passed for another night. That was a delay they could not afford. As they drew closer to their destination, the traffic upon the road became almost all one-way; grey figures departing slowly from the direction of the Morrspark, mourners returning from their lonely vigils amongst the dead.

  A mist had started to settle over Middenheim by the time they reached the fields of Morr, a sulphurous blanket of grey that masked both sight and sound. Even so, there was no mistaking the scale of the place.

  “It’s big,” Bruno commented.

  “Aye,” Stefan concurred. “Let’s hope we don’t have to search to find our priest.” He brought his horse to a halt, and sat, scanning the outer wall of the Morrspark. The wall ran as far as he could see in either direction before disappearing into the mist. There seemed to be only one entrance, some way down on their left, a pair of sturdy iron gates flanked on either side by what could be guardhouses. A light still burned in the lower window of one of the buildings, but the gates themselves appeared shut. Nothing stirred, living or dead.

  Stefan turned to Elena. “Any other way in, as far as you know?”

  Elena shook her head. “Otto described the park as a great circle, walled around in its entirety. His instruction was that there is only one principal entrance, approached on the road from the Nordgarten.” She looked to the gates in front of them. “This must be it.”

  Stefan lifted the reins and turned b
ack towards Alexei, riding at the rear, a watchful eye upon their captive. “Any sign of anyone unwelcome?” he asked. The swordsman shook his head. “None that I’ve been able to pick up on,” he said. “But the dark ones will be cleverer, this time,” he added, glancing at Tomas. “I’d take no comfort from this quiet place.”

  “Don’t worry,” Stefan assured him. “I won’t.” He looked round for Bruno. “Keep him here for the moment,” he said to him, indicating Tomas. “But keep him safe.”

  Bruno nodded his assent, casting a brief glance in the direction of Alexei Zucharov. “He’ll be safe enough with me,” he confirmed.

  “Well then,” Stefan said to Elena. “Are you ready for this?”

  “I’ve been ready for four years,” Elena replied.

  “Then let’s not waste any more time,” Stefan said. “We’ll ride together to the gatehouse.”

  Lisette picked up the reins, preparing to follow her mistress towards the Morrspark. Elena caught Stefan’s eye, then shook her head ever so slightly. Lisette looked from Stefan back to her mistress in confusion.

  “Madam, I’m pledged to ride by your side,” she protested. “If there is danger—”

  “It’s best you wait here with the others,” Elena said, somewhat uncertainly.

  “This is for the safety of all of us,” Stefan confirmed. “Wait here with Alexei and Bruno. As soon as we know all’s well, you can join us.”

  Lisette hesitated, part of her still intent on staying by Elena’s side. But a glance at her mistress told her that her mind was made up. Reluctantly the Bretonnian girl turned her horse and trotted back to where the others stood waiting. Elena and Stefan rode on towards the Morrspark.

  The gates were locked, and the park itself looked deserted. The last of the mourners had long departed into the mist.

  “The appointed time was between eleventh bell and midnight each evening,” Elena murmured. “Perhaps we’re too late.”

  “I’d advise we wait a while,” Stefan said. “But don’t dismount just yet. We may need to leave in a hurry.”

  Minutes passed. The fog blanketing the city streets thickened, and the sky grew dark as clouds gathered above, obscuring the moons. After what seemed a long time a door at the side of the gatehouse opened, and a figure emerged carrying a lantern. Stefan looked down at a squat figure of indeterminate sex and age, dressed in the drab, dun-coloured robes of the priests of Morr. The man stood before them, holding the lantern above his head to cast a light upon the riders.

  “Good evening, father,” Stefan began. “We have business at the garden of rest. I trust we’re not come too late?”

  The priest tilted the lantern slightly in Stefan’s direction. “What business would that be?” he asked.

  “We come to mourn a brother lost,” Elena said, speaking her words with a careful precision. “For only in devotion to the dead can the souls of the living be re-born.”

  The man moved the lantern towards Elena. “Then you hope to find virtue here?”

  “If we are found worthy,” Elena responded. “Then we pray the gods may choose to bestow the gift of virtue upon us.”

  The priest nodded abruptly, and turned to unlock the gates.

  “Father Andreas?” Elena asked, a tremor in her voice now.

  “Follow me,” the priest said, ignoring her question. Elena looked to Stefan.

  “Do we go alone?”

  Stefan thought for a moment. There was still the matter of Tomas Murer to be resolved. “Father,” he asked. “There are others who ride with us. May I take your lantern to signal to them?”

  The priest paused for a moment, then handed Stefan the lantern. As the priest unlocked the gates to the Morrspark, Stefan held the lantern aloft to signal to Bruno and Alexei waiting further along the road. The riders passed in single file into the Morrspark. The priest pulled the gates to behind them, and fastened them securely.

  Werner Schlagfurst had been sick for most of that week. The headaches had begun as a persistent throbbing in his head a few days ago, and had grown in intensity until, for much of the time, it felt as though someone were pounding against the outside of his skull, trying to break in. The headaches came and went throughout the day, but each day they were getting worse. It seemed to make no difference whether he drank nothing, or whether he drank a lot, which he did most days. Together the pain in his skull and the rotgut brandy combined to compound his already evil temper, until his own wife and children shunned him for fear of the violence he might do. That day Werner had not gone to work. The hammering inside his head had begun at first light and continued unabated throughout the day. The foundry could go to Morr, and take their filthy stinking job with it. Werner didn’t care. More than that; for all the throbbing ache battering his skull, he knew that there was something, something much more important, that was about to happen to him. Images—dark, violent images—swam into his mind then darted away from him like eels at the last moment. If only they would lie still for just a minute. If only this cursed hammering in his head would stop.

  He had lain, cursing and sweating, wrapped within the sheets of his filthy bed since morning, rising only to add to the stinking slops swilling in the pot at the foot of the bed. Let Marta empty it. He’d be cursed to Morr if he’d do any work that day.

  On the table by his bedside a flask of the brandy that had been his constant companion most of his working life. Several times during the day Werner had reached out for it, but he never took the stopper from the bottle, and he never drank. He didn’t know why. It was something to do with the pounding in his head. Something to do with the sense of importance that was growing in intensity with the throbbing pain. Curse those slippery eels. Curse them to Morr.

  Finally, Werner slept. His sleep was filled with the sort of dreams that most men would call nightmares. Horned serpents slithered out of the darkness to slink in and out of his body, darting tongues seeding him with an insidious poison. In the dreams Werner felt both weak and powerful as if, like a serpent, he was sloughing off one skin and growing new scales of armour. All the time the hammer inside him beat against the anvil of his soul, tolling incessantly like a bell.

  Something cold and wet hit him in the face and Werner sat bolt upright in bed. His wife Marta stood over him, candle in one hand. Somewhere in the distant night, a bell was indeed chiming.

  His wife was holding something in her other hand. A stump of wood, or something like that. Dimly, Werner remembered it as being part of a chair he had smashed apart last evening. Marta, he noticed, had a bruise like a ripe fruit below one eye, and she was trembling as though in dread of what he might do to her for having woken him.

  He gazed, fascinated, at his wife. It was as though, somehow, he could read in her all manner of things that were invisible to the mortal eye. Read them—if only Werner had been able to read—like the recipe for some mage’s potion. In Marta’s trembling face he read uncertainty and confusion, and he read fear. Fear that something was happening to her husband, that a change was coming upon him that could never be undone. Werner drank in her fear, and realised that he enjoyed the feeling it gave him.

  “What is it?” he demanded of her, sourly. “You’d better have good reason for waking me when I’m sick.”

  “There is a man waiting below,” his wife said, hesitantly. “I’ve never seen him before. But he says—he says that you must go with him now.”

  Werner cursed and spat effusively upon the wooden floor, but, to his own surprise as much as his wife’s, found himself pulling back the sheets and rising from the bed. Marta bit upon her lip. “Werner!” she pleaded. “This man—I don’t know, he looks bad—please don’t go with him.”

  Werner Schlagfurst stumbled from the bed, pushing his wife aside roughly to get to the door. He lurched unsteadily, cursing as his foot connected with the slop-bucket, spilling its stinking contents across the floor.

  The door at the foot of the stairs was wide open. Cold air blew around the interior of the house. Werner stagge
red down the steps and came face to face with the figure waiting for him in the doorway. Marta had been right about one thing; he’d never met this man before, he was sure. Yet, as his gaze locked upon the stranger’s black, unblinking eyes, Werner knew that the same incessant drum was beating inside his head.

  The stranger looked at Werner without any smile of welcome or recognition. Werner found himself stepping aside to let the man enter the house.

  “Arm yourself,” the stranger told him. “The time has come.”

  By the time Werner emerged from the crumbling house, his limbs had filled with a new energy. White-hot air pumped through his lungs, feeding his blood, raising it to boiling point. An old crossbow, rusted with disuse but now newly oiled, was slung across his back. He saw a woman, a bruised and miserable figure, standing in the doorway behind him, calling to him in confusion and desperation. But he neither acknowledged nor remembered Marta now. In fact, Werner Schlagfurst barely remembered himself. His mind was focused on the road ahead, his stride matched to the steady hammer beat inside his head. The serpent’s skin, glittering and new, moulded itself to his soul.

  The figure in priest’s robes led them through the Morrspark. Soon the sounds of the outer world, already muffled by the fog, had faded away entirely. It seemed like they were completely alone in the murky darkness. Alone, save for the thousand dead lying at rest all around, waiting their call unto the next life.

  But they were not completely alone, and it was not completely dark. As they neared the centre of the Morrspark a light became visible through the mist, a feeble glow-worm phosphor filtering through the gloom. Stefan saw a figure standing hunched beneath the light of a tallow lamp, a grizzled creature with an unkempt grey beard. The man was hard at work, attacking the cold earth with a pick.