by ich du
Armoured figures filled the opening beyond the door, grim shapes of steel and corruption, their faces hidden behind gruesome helmets. Beside them, leaning tiredly upon a staff of human bones, a goatheaded monster gestured proudly at its sorcerous handiwork. The armoured warriors paid the shaman little heed, striding forward across the ruined portal, crushing its rotten substance into dust beneath their feet.
One of the warriors lifted his sword, filth dripping from its edge, pointing it at those cowering before his approach. A wrathful voice droned from behind the warrior's insect-shaped helm. 'Make of thizz plaze a zacrement to Nurgle!' the monster's voice roared. 'Leave none alive!'
In response to the plague champion's wrath, three white-clad priestesses stepped forward, their voices lowered in a soft chant. Despite the severity of the situation, and the fact that in all likelihood he was going to die horribly in a matter of moments, Sabarra felt a sense of calm flow into him. The reaction of the Chaos warriors was markedly different. The armoured monsters flinched, taking several steps backward, seemingly repulsed by the soothing chant. The insect-helmed leader looked over toward his bestial shaman. The creature nodded its horned head and began to mutter in its own braying voice.
Almost instantly, the sense of calm began to fade as the beastman's dark invocation fouled the very air. The Chaos warriors strode forward once more. The few temple guards who had not been reduced to screaming husks by the decaying sorcery of the shaman rushed forward, interposing themselves between the five warriors and the priestesses. Pulstlitz waved his warriors forward, content to allow them to slake their fury on the spearmen, just as he had been content to let the mob of mutants and pestigors bloody their blades on the rabble outside the walls of the hospice. The Chaos champion was interested in only one sort of prey, and with the few soldiers occupied there was no one to stand between himself and his prey.
Pulstlitz glared down at the white-clad women. They refused to open their eyes, concentrating entirely upon their sacred prayer. The plague champion snorted derisively. Sometimes the most satisfying things in life were also the easiest to acquire. 'Tonight, you zhall cower before my god and beg hizz forgivenezz!' Pulstlitz lifted his blade, pausing to savour the moment, then brought the polluted steel rushing downward.
The plague blade stopped short of striking flesh, the sound of crashing steel ringing out as another blade intercepted it. A dull fire seemed to glow within the keen edge of Drakesmalice as the enchanted blade crashed against the polluted metal of the Chaos sword. Pulstlitz recoiled from the unexpected parry. He turned his insect-eyed helm to face the fool who thought to stand between himself and those who had profaned his god.
The brown sack-cloth of a supplicant hung about Brunner's pale figure, sweat dripping from his frame as he struggled to remain on his feet. The Tears of Shallya were posed of miraculous properties, but they were not able to instantly erase days of inactivity and fatigue. The plague champion chortled within his corroded helm. Here, perhaps, was a man worthy of killing, a soul that warranted being sent screaming to the Plague God. Pulstlitz nodded, then swung his foul blade at the bounty hunter's neck. Brunner intercepted the powerful stroke, turning it aside with a manoeuvre he had learned from a Tobaran duellist. The foolish man was skilled, Pulstlitz conceded, but he could not hope to fend off the plague blade indefinitely and it would take but a single scratch from the infected steel to kill him.
However long their little struggle might last, Pulstlitz was certain of the outcome.
SABARRA LIFTED THE heavy arquebus to his cheek, his narrowed eyes considering the carnage unfolding all around him. The guards were almost all dead, but the plague warriors had been mobbed by a desperate pack of supplicants, their malnourished forms clinging to the butchers, slowing the armoured giants with the weight of their dying bodies. Closer at hand, the leader of the plague warriors had been engaged by Brunner. How Sabarra's rival had been able to rise from his sick bed, much less find the strength to wield a sword, was a problem Sabarra would worry about later. The Tilean was relieved that Brunner had stopped the insect-helmed monster, because he had a feeling that if the plague champion were to reach the priestesses, then no one would be leaving the hospice alive. There was another struggle going on, apart from the crash of swords. Gods were at battle here, striving against one another through their chosen priests.
Sabarra turned the arquebus toward the archway, where the twisted shaman continued to bray and moan in its grisly voice. Sickly green light gleamed from the monsters eyes. Sabarra muttered a prayer to Shallya, then put the smouldering hemp match to the touch pan of his arquebus. The weapon shook as the blackpowder ignited and the roar of the discharge overwhelmed all other sounds. Almost at once, the sense of soothing calm returned to Sabarra. As the echoes of the shot faded, the chanting of the priestesses returned, now strident and loud, as though the tones were a caged river flowing through a broken dam. The smoke began to clear and Sabarra was pleased to see the steel spike of his garro sheathed in the dead beastman's skull.
The plague warriors moaned as they reacted to the fading magic of their sorcerer. The loathsome runes carved upon their armour began to weep blood, and it was with painful, awkward movements that the monsters retreated back toward the archway. Outside, the frightened wail of the other plague creatures sounded, followed by the frenzied retreat of malformed shapes, slinking back into the comforting darkness of the woods.
PULSTLITZ SHUDDERED AS the protective magics of the priestesses surrounded him. Without the baleful power of the shaman to counteract the magic energies, the antagonistic energies wracked the plague champion. He felt the healing powers of the goddess entering him, sapping his strength and coordination. The plague champion lifted his blade to ward off the bounty hunter, but the move was too slow. Brunner's sword bit into Pulstlitz's hand, tearing through the corrupt armour. The steel gauntlet dropped to the flagstones with a crash, the plague blade tumbling from its slack fingers. No hand filled the polluted glove, instead a mass of black-shelled cockroaches scuttled into the light, their hideous shapes crumbling as the hostile energies drove the corruption from their tiny shapes.
Pulstlitz, clutching the stump of his arm to his chest, retreated before Brunner. The monster gave a droning howl of fury, then turned and raced from the courtyard. Brunner watched him go, sagging weakly to the ground. He was not one to leave an enemy alive, but what strength had been restored to him had been all but spent during their brief duel. He had a feeling, however, that their paths would cross again, and that only one of them would walk away from that encounter.
Sabarra walked toward the Reiklander, crouching beside him on the flagstones. The Tilean looked Brunner up and down, a cold smile tugging at his weasel-like face.
'So,' Sabarra said, 'it looks like you're recovered. Suppose we have that little talk now?'
BRUNNER STALKED THROUGH the corridors of the hospice like a wolf on the prowl. He had mended his armour, wearing it now once more, his weapons again hanging from his belt. The last traces of the red boils were slowly fading away, sinking back into his skin. Miraculous was the only word to describe the fantastic elixir Elisia had given him. The bounty hunter saw the priestess crouched beside one of the pallets in the ward he had so recently inhabited. He strode down the narrow path between the sick beds toward her.
Sabarra had been quite hasty in his departure, leaving Brunner to complete his recovery on his own. Brunner hoped that his rival was having a nice time in the little village of Montorri. He hadn't lied to Sabarra, Montorri was indeed where Riano's uncle lived. He had simply failed to mention that he no longer had any reason to believe Riano would be found there.
Elisia looked up as the bounty hunter's shadow fell across her, the hate undimmed in her eyes. Brunner respected that, a woman of principle and standards. It had been out of respect for that quality in her and what she had done for him that he had waited this long. The smart move would have been to act as quickly as possible, to reduce how much time Sabarra had to reali
se his mistake. Instead, Brunner had bided his time.
'How is he?' the bounty hunter asked. Elisia glared at him, wiping a lock of stray hair from her face.
'What you have been waiting for has happened,' she told him, her voice as hard as the roots of the Grey Mountains. 'The red pox has won. He is dead.' Elisia smoothed the front of her robe as she rose to her feet. 'You are no better than a vulture, a jackal,' she spat. Brunner did not bother to contradict her, instead he stared down into the dead man's face, the face he had recognised when Sabarra had brought him into this room. The face of Riano. When plague had struck Decimas, the outlaw had fled here. If Brunner still gave any thought to the gods, he might have seen the workings of fate that he and Riano should meet by so strange a turn of circumstance. But the bounty hunter no longer gave much thought to gods, only gold.
'Have some of your people help me drag him outside,' Brunner told Elisia, his gloved hand closed about the massive serrated knife he had named the Headsman. 'That way you won't have far to carry the part I don't need.'
DEATHMARK
THE BOUNTY KILLER sat in the shadows at the back of the Black Boar, slowly sipping at his stein of beer. Normally, the transplanted Reikland beer hall would be almost deserted at such an early hour. But today the hot Tilean sun had punished the city of Miragliano with a vengeance, baking the streets with the fury of a raging kiln. Many were those who had retreated from the oppressive temperature and the foul stink of sweating unwashed bodies for the cool innards of the many taverns on La Strada dei Cento Peccati. The Black Boar, with its clientele from the cooler northern climes of the Empire, had swelled almost to bursting point.
Brunner watched as a mob of dwarf warriors made a game of tossing throwing axes at a wooden target that looked rather suspiciously like an orc in size and shape. A pair of dour-looking wool merchants from the Sudenland were drinking away their sorrows, and trying their best to ignore the raucous din set up by the hulking figure at the table beside them. He was a mountain of a Norse pirate named Ormgrim, and he was currently trying to discover if the beer barrels in the Black Boar's storeroom really were bottomless. Along the counter of the bar was a group of mercenaries from across the Empire, who had recently arrived in Miragliano as part of a trade caravan from the rival city state of Remas in the south.
A dark, rail-thin man slipped into the beer hall. No displaced product of the northern lands was he - his swarthy skin betraying the harsher, punishing sun of the south. He was an older man, certainly well past his prime, but without the crushed, defeated stoop of an elderly peasant who had been abused by his overlong years. His face was pinched into a perpetual look of suspicion, his fleshless cheeks stretched tight over the bones of his jaw. He wore a dark coat of soft fabric, his feet shod in leather shoes fronted by elaborate brass buckles. The extravagantly frilled cuffs of a pristine white shirt exploded from beneath the black coat, and engulfed the man's slender hands.
Brunner watched the thin man walk across the tavern, his head glancing from side to side as though in search of someone. Several times, the thin man was jostled by glowering Northmen as they crossed his path. Twice an extended boot caused the man to stumble. The patrons of the Black Boar considered the inn a home away from home, and they viewed any Tilean setting foot in the tavern as an intruder.
At last, the man appeared to find what he was looking for. Brunner watched impassively as the man walked over to his table. Beneath the table, however, he kept a steady grip on a small pistolsized crossbow.
'You are the man they call Brunner?' asked the thin man. Although he looked like a Tilean, his accent bore the telltale inflections of Estalia. 'You are the fearsome bounty hunter?'
'Perhaps,' Brunner said, sipping at his drink.
'I am Ortez,' the Tilean said. 'In the service of her ladyship the Contessa Carlotta de Villarias.' The man waited a moment, as if expecting Brunner to be awed by the name. When the bounty hunter's expression did not change, the Estalian hurriedly continued. 'My mistress has sent me to find you. She has a job for you.' The man paused again, then added, 'It will pay very well.'
Brunner set down his drink and rose from his seat, replacing the crossbow pistol to its place on his vambrace. The Estalian's eyes went wide as he saw the weapon appear and breathed a sigh of relief when it was put away.
'I have my own ideas of what a well paying job is,' Brunner told Ortez. 'But we'll go and see your mistress and find out what it is she wants me to do for her.' Ortez smiled and nodded his head, leading Brunner back through the tavern.
As they passed the bar and the group of mercenaries, a surly voice accosted the bounty hunter.
'You there! Thief!' the speaker growled. Brunner turned, finding himself staring into the angry countenance of a face that had been weathered and reshaped by years of hardship and battle. The man was originally from the western part of the Empire, Reikland or Altdorf to judge by his accent. But he had been long from his homeland; his once fair skin had been baked almost brown by the brutal sun of the south, his moustache and beard trimmed away into the rakish style of the Tileans. Indeed, were it not for the blond hair and piercing blue eyes, the man could quite passably present himself as a native of the city-states rather than some imported sellsword. An elaborately engraved breastplate encased the man's chest, while a rich blue shirt billowed out from beneath the armour.
Mercenary and bounty hunter stared at one another for several tense moments. Ortez was sliding away from Brunner, eager to distance himself from any conflict.
'If you are looking for trouble,' the bounty hunter's chill voice warned, 'I suggest you look elsewhere.'
The mercenary captain was not to be intimidated. Instead, he took a step closer, and curled his lip into a disdainful sneer. The bounty hunter casually slid his hand to the butt of his pistol.
'Brave words for a thief!' the mercenary snarled. He pointed his leathery hand at the golden dragon-hilt of Drakesmalice. 'I've seen that sword before,' the inebriated warrior said. 'You could not have come by it fairly!'
The tense situation erupted into violence. The drunken mercenary moved to pull his sword from its sheath, but discovered that he did not have enough room to draw it. At the same instant, Brunner surged forward, smashing his metal vambrace into the man's face, then grabbing him about the throat with his arm. The bounty hunter kicked the stunned man in the back of his knee, forcing him into a forward fall. The mercenary's head smashed into the counter. Brunner held him there, drawing his pistol and thrusting it into the face of the brutish bearded ruffian who had run forward to help his leader. Brunner turned his attention back to the man who was choking in his hold.
'You know this sword, do you?' the bounty hunter asked.
'It is the blade of the Baron von Drakenburg!' accused the mercenary between gasps.
Brunner leaned forward and hissed into the mercenary's ear. 'I don't know any von Drakenburg,' he stated. 'I took this sword from a self-styled baron a year ago. He lived in a miserable muddy hovel down in the Borderlands. Perhaps he stole it.'
'What was his name?' demanded the mercenary, despite the pressure on his throat. Brunner released his hold and stepped away.
'The scum was named Albrecht Yorck,' the bounty hunter declared. He removed the pistol from the face of the other mercenary and backtracked to the door. Behind him, the drunken mercenary sobbed into the wooden counter.
'Yorck!' the man cried, slamming his fist into the wood. 'It was Yorck who betrayed us!'
Brunner left the man to his sorrow, emerging in the sweltering, stinking street. Ortez hurried to catch up with him.
'What was that about?' the Estalian asked as he fell into step beside the bounty hunter.
'Nothing,' Brunner answered, not meeting Ortez's gaze. 'Ancient history.'
MIRAGLIANO WAS NOT the chaotic warren found within the walls of most Imperial cities. The city was formed of distinct and identifiable districts, as removed and independent from one another as individual nations. Partially, this was due to the el
aborate civic improvements and planning orchestrated by the genius Leonardo da Miragliano. Under his direction, Prince Cosimo had devastated much of the old city, to replace it with a well-ordered and easily navigated metropolis. The inner reaches of the city, which were most difficult for attackers to reach, became the homes of the wealthy merchant princes and those who had earned their favour. These were also the districts of the artistically enriched temples which were showcases of the city's wealth and piety. The outer sections were given over to mercenary barracks, the taverns and brothels that served them, and to the labourers and seamen who toiled to fill the coffers of the princes. Around the entire city, thick walls guarded against invasion, and numerous towers leaned upward from their soggy foundations to protect those walls.
But it was not the genius of the engineer that kept the districts from swelling beyond their boundaries as they had in the cities of the Empire. It was the fact that much of the city was built on numerous small islands, so that in many places, canals took the place of streets, and thick walls and guarded gates maintained the inviolate boundaries between merchant and servant.
The scarecrow-like Estalian led Brunner to one of Miragliano's most prosperous districts. It was in the very heart of the old city, and was protected from the sprawl around it by its own thick stone wall. Located as it was on a separate island from the warren-like maze of warehouses, shops and taverns that catered to the merchant fleets and their crews. Brunner and the emaciated Ortez were forced to embark upon a narrow gondola. The bounty hunter pointedly waited for the thin Estalian to pay the gondolier his fee. The man quietly poled his charges away from the mercantile domain, past the scows and barges of the water sellers, towards the looming wall of the old city. A small pier jutted out from the front of the wall. The gondolier manoeuvred his craft toward the small jetty where a trio of glowering soldiers awaited them.