[Marienburg 02] - A Massacre in Marienburg

by David Bishop - (ebook by Undead)

  A WARHAMMER NOVEL

  A MASSACRE IN

  MARIENBURG

  Marienburg - 02

  David Bishop

  (An Undead Scan v1.5)

  This is a dark age, a bloody age, an age of daemons and of sorcery. It is an age of battle and death, and of the world’s ending. Amidst all of the fire, flame and fury it is a time, too, of mighty heroes, of bold deeds and great courage.

  At the heart of the Old World sprawls the Empire, the largest and most powerful of the human realms. Known for its engineers, sorcerers, traders and soldiers, it is a land of great mountains, mighty rivers, dark forests and vast cities. And from his throne in Altdorf reigns the Emperor Karl-Franz, sacred descendant of the founder of these lands, Sigmar, and wielder of his magical warhammer.

  But these are far from civilised times. Across the length and breadth of the Old World, from the knightly palaces of Bretonnia to ice-bound Kislev in the far north, come rumblings of war. In the towering Worlds Edge Mountains, the orc tribes are gathering for another assault. Bandits and renegades harry the wild southern lands of the Border Princes. There are rumours of rat-things, the skaven, emerging from the sewers and swamps across the land. And from the northern wildernesses there is the ever-present threat of Chaos, of daemons and beastmen corrupted by the foul powers of the Dark Gods. As the time of battle draws ever nearer, the Empire needs heroes like never before.

  CHAPTER ONE

  It was dawn when the skull wept blood. The Keeper had slumbered through the night, his dreams unblemished by fear or anguish. But that first glimpse of red trickles seeping from the empty, staring eye sockets sent an icy dagger of dread deep into the Keeper’s heart. He scribbled a frenzied, fearful message on a scrap of papyrus and pushed it up through the narrow gap on one side of the heavy oak trapdoor. He was rewarded with a curse from above, and the sound of heavy footfalls as the guard outside ran to summon the sentinels, the servants of Solkan, the Knights of Purity. Once he could no longer hear the guard’s running, the Keeper turned back to his home these past thirty years.

  The chamber was an oubliette, a dungeon accessible only from a single entrance above the Keeper’s head. He had volunteered to be locked away in this space for life, entombed like a hermit or monk. Most would have thought his appointed task a living purgatory, sacrificing their existence to maintain a faithful watch over the objects stored within the oubliette. Of course, none but a handful among the Knights even knew of the dungeon’s presence, let alone the secrets contained inside it. Besides, the Keeper considered his post an honour. What greater prayer could a worshipper of Solkan offer than to give up their life in service to the god of vengeance? What greater blessing than to stand guardian to the treasures of Solkan, his most precious artefacts?

  Greatest among them all was the skull. It sat atop a stone pedestal, nothing within two arms’ span of the ancient relic. The rest of the artefacts were packed into the walls of the oubliette, mere trifles in comparison to the importance of the skull. If you believed the credo—as the Keeper did—the skull had been placed there for safekeeping by Solkan himself. It was said the inanimate skull would remain exactly the same—without skin or flesh or sinew or sign of life—until the day Marienburg faced its greatest peril. When the Keeper saw the blood dripping from those black, pitiless sockets, he knew his own life would soon be forfeit. But he did not care, did not weep at the prospect of facing eternity.

  “I have been a good servant to my god,” he whispered, dropping to his knees on the cold stone floor. The Keeper clasped his hands together in supplication, bowing his balding pate before the infamous relic. “I shall stand at his side when he returns to bring the gift of vengeance to all the unbelievers, all the servants of Chaos. So be it.”

  * * *

  Evil. That was the only word Captain Haaland could think of to describe the fog. Three days it had been behind Haaland’s vessel, a greasy yellow mist that swirled and crept across the water. Just looking back at the eerie cloud perturbed the captain. He had spent all his adult life as a sailor, more years than Haaland cared to remember at sea, yet he couldn’t recall ever seeing a fog so dense, so foreboding or forbidding. It gathered like a shroud on the horizon, a queasy pall of gathering gloom.

  They had changed course several times in an effort to shake off this sinister mist, without success. No matter how much they turned and twisted on the sea, how close they went to the shoreline or how far the vessel lurched out into deeper water, the fog was always there. Waiting, lurking, grim and relentless. It was one of the crewmen who noticed no sea bird dared go near the mist. A vessel like the Altena churned up the waters as it passed, attracting a constant entourage of gulls and other scavengers, diving into the ocean to feast on fish foolish enough to venture near the surface. But the fog had driven away the sea birds, leaving naught but an unnerving silence in their place.

  At first the captain had dismissed the fog as a freakish yet natural phenomenon, but his crew of nine refused to believe such reassurances. By the second day Haaland no longer believed himself, the hollow words mocking him as they slipped from his lips. By the third day, he found himself writing a new will and testament below deck, just in case. At the best of times Haaland’s handwriting resembled the crazed skitterings of a plague-stricken spider that had climbed out of an inkwell. But this was not the best of times, and the last words he would ever write were all but illegible.

  It was the captain’s faithful first mate Frode who summoned Haaland back above deck. They had been at sea together nigh on twenty winters, surviving tempest and torments alike, but this voyage had always been planned as their last. Haaland was due to resign as captain come Geheimnistag, Frode replacing him at the helm of the Altena. Haaland had been looking forward to a quiet retirement in Marienburg, perhaps supplementing his meagre savings by piloting ships into port or working the ferries that criss-crossed the Rijksweg on an hourly basis. Now he’d merely be grateful to get home at all after three days of being followed by the queasy, shimmering mist.

  Haaland climbed up on deck, heavy of heart. “What is it, Frode?”

  His fair-haired first mate smiled, pointing ahead of them. “See for yourself.”

  Against expectation, they were in sight of the grim fist of rock that served as guardian to the port of Marienburg and as an even grimmer offshore prison for the city’s criminals, misfits and political prisoners. “Sweet Shallya,” the captain muttered under his breath. “Never thought I’d be grateful to catch a glimpse of Rijker’s Isle.”

  “You and me both,” the first mate agreed.

  “How long until we pass the prison?”

  “We’ve been making good speed all morning, thanks to a friendly breeze.” Frode glanced up at the sails. “Shouldn’t be more than…”

  Haaland waited, but his first mate’s words did not continue. “Shouldn’t be more than what?”

  When Frode still didn’t reply, the captain joined him in looking up at the ship’s sails. The grimy canvas was stained a deep, dank crimson, though the captain could not imagine how they’d become so. The sails were dead, not a breath of air in them to propel the vessel home. As he peered at the heavy cloth, something dripped from the sail overhead, splashing down his cheek. Haaland wiped the liquid from his face, studied the scarlet moisture that now wet his fingers. It was thick, almost viscous. He raised his fingers to his nose and sniffed. An aroma of warm iron cloyed his senses, bold and primal as the colour on his skin. Haaland licked a corner of the crimson with his tongue, just to get a taste: it was blood. The captain spat it back out, muttering a dark curse under his breath, the strong voice now a terrified wh
isper of naked fear.

  The captain spun round to glare at the fog. Three days it had matched them for direction and speed, always maintaining the same distance. It’s as if the mist is following us, Haaland had written in his captain’s journal. No, not following—stalking us. Now the fog was accelerating towards them, billowing forwards, tumbling across the water to engulf the Altena. “That’s impossible,” Haaland said, shaking his head. “The air isn’t moving. How can the fog be catching up with us? It’s unnatural.”

  “There’s nothing natural about it,” Frode muttered.

  Then the mist was upon them, falling on the ship like a shroud, blotting out the sun in the sky. The screaming came a moment later.

  Kurt Schnell woke with a start, one name on his lips: “Sara.” His wife had been dead for years, but he still dreamed of her most nights. At first these visitations perturbed him, the ghost of Sara haunting his sleep like some spectral wraith. But in time Kurt came to accept the nocturnal visions, even welcome them. Sara might be buried back in Altdorf, but so long as he could still dream about her, his wife’s memory remained alive for him.

  That morning was different. A far more disturbing and unhappy dream had troubled Kurt’s slumber. He found himself moving from room to room in the watch station on Three Penny Bridge, a dull knife fit only for slicing bread clasped in one hand. For reasons Kurt couldn’t understand, he felt impelled to murder everyone he found inside the station. They stood or sat, making no attempt to defend themselves, terrified but frozen. Some dark force at the back of Kurt’s mind commanded him to use the knife on his watchmen, slicing it across their eyes.

  They wept blood, but still it was not enough to satisfy the murderous urge driving Kurt on. He ground the blade back and forth across the wounded victims, until they were dead. As one fell to the wooden floor, Kurt moved on to another. He wanted to scream at them to run, or beg them to flee, but the twenty victims waited patiently to be slain. By the last few Kurt had no strength left in his arm, and his tunic was bathed in blood. The last victim was a child, a boy with features not unlike Kurt’s own. The youth did not speak, but the pleading for mercy was all too evident in his eyes.

  In the dream Kurt had forced himself to turn and face whoever or whatever was making him commit these atrocities. “Please,” he had begged, “no more.” The thing that commanded his actions was hidden by shadows, but it shifted, about to emerge from the darkness. Kurt had always believed if he could see his enemy, he could defeat them. Now was his chance. In the dream his hand had tightened round the handle of the knife—

  That was when he’d woken, Sara’s name on his lips. Kurt knew Sara was not the monster in the shadows. He had spoken her name as a reflex, the same way a crippled soldier still felt an itch where they’d lost a leg in some nameless battle years before. Sara was a constant absence in his life, the hole in his soul, though Kurt was not sure he believed in such things anymore. Not after all he’d witnessed over the years.

  Perhaps I’ll ask Jan what he thinks, Kurt mused. Jan can usually find—

  A sharp pang of realisation hit him in the gut. Jan was gone too, just like Sara. Another gap in his world, another lost friend. Worse still, today was the first anniversary of Jan’s death. Kurt got out of bed. Wallowing in grief did nobody any good, Jan had taught him that not long after Kurt first arrived in Marienburg, first joined the Watch. Don’t mourn the dead. Better to celebrate the lives of those gone. That had always been Sergeant Jan Woxholt’s simple but effective philosophy when it came to such matters. Well, they were planning to do a bit of both today, Kurt thought, a rueful smile passing across his face. Hope you understand, Jan—wherever you are.

  It was the first anniversary of what people across Suiddock had taken to calling the Battle of Three Penny Bridge. As captain of the bridge’s watchmen, Kurt had led his motley band of law enforcers in a valiant defence of the station against hundreds of mercenaries and worse, triumphing against the odds, winning the respect of local citizens and criminals in the process. In truth, they had only prevailed thanks to an intervention by warriors from the House of Silvermoon, one of the noblest dynasties residing in Marienburg’s elf enclave, Sith Rionnasc’namishathir.

  The watch captain had little patience with those fond of mythologising battles by giving them grand names. In his experience those who fought in such conflicts preferred to bury the memories, not celebrate them. Only the ignorant and the bystanders bestowed titles and valour upon wars and battlefields. For those who gave blood in defence of something important, victory was the greatest reward and survival the best hope. Anything else was irrelevant, be it medals, glory, a place in history or epic songs.

  Kurt pulled on his uniform, insignia on the tunic demonstrating his rank, the gravy stains on his trousers evidence of a brawl with a band of drunken halflings the previous night. Unfortunately, the infamy accorded him by the battle a year before also made Kurt a target for any halfwit with enough ale in their bloodstream. Keeping his uniform clean would have been a full-time task, if Kurt cared about such things. He preferred his real job—maintaining law and order in the wild district of Suiddock.

  Still, he did make one concession to the occasion, using a cut-throat razor to scrape away stubble from his chiselled jawline and gleaming scalp. Kurt regarded vanity with much the same derision as he did glorifying battles. But he paused by the looking glass over the washbasin, staring at the reflection of his ice-blue eyes. He imagined how it would feel to have a dull, rusted knife scraped across his own pupils, the pain and the terror it would inflict. His nightmare sat ill with him, an unhappy omen—but of what?

  Belladonna Speer removed the hand resting on her left hip. “I thought you brought me here to help solve a mystery,” she sighed.

  Captain Ruben Damphoost of the Suiddock River Watch smiled. “I like to combine business with pleasure.” His dark, gimlet eyes glinted with mischief.

  Belladonna gestured at the two corpses floating in the canal that passed between Stoessel and Luydenhoek. Internal gases had bloated the bodies, stretching taut the blotched yellow and purple skin over bulging faces. “Well, if this is your idea of a romantic assignation, you’ll be waiting a long time before you sire any children.”

  Damphoost pushed a cord of long, black hair away from his shrewd features. “I was wondering why I didn’t have a family yet. Thanks for clearing that up.”

  She smiled, despite herself. “You’re welcome.”

  The captain nodded at the corpses. “What do you see?”

  “Bodies aren’t really my thing,” Belladonna reminded him. “You want a priest of Morr, or perhaps an apothecary. They know far more about—”

  “It’s obvious these two drowned,” Damphoost cut in. “I don’t need anyone to tell me that, not after twelve years with the River Watch. But you see things others don’t, notice clues other watchmen miss. Tell me what you see.”

  Belladonna let the watchmen comment pass. She was the first female member of the Watch in Marienburg history. A few had followed in her footsteps, but the collective term for Black Caps would probably always be watchmen, regardless of their gender. She concentrated her attention on the water around the corpses, and the bodies themselves.

  “Bloating means they’ve been in the water several days, at least since Marktag. Their garb is expensive—imported cloth, fine stitching. No tears and rips, no obvious signs of a struggle, suggesting they were already dead or unconscious before being bound. The rope round their wrists was tied with a sailor’s knot—”

  “Not much of a clue in Marienburg,” sneered the other occupant of the boat, a sour-faced River Watch sergeant called Grist. “Every other person in the city is a sailor or makes their living from the sea!”

  A glare from Damphoost silenced his second-in-command.

  “As I was saying,” Belladonna continued, “the rope was tied with a sailor’s knot, but whoever did it made a poor job. They tied a heavy weight to the bodies, hoping it would keep them underwater for months
, perhaps years. But the knot came undone. No sailor or anyone else who makes their living from the sea would make that mistake.”

  Grist grunted and spat over the side of the narrow wooden boat.

  Damphoost smiled. “Anything else?”

  “Hold on to my belt,” Belladonna commanded him.

  “I thought I brought you here to study these bodies,” he said.

  “I don’t want to fall overboard. Hold on to my belt. From behind.”

  The captain did as he was told, grabbing the thick leather strap that encircled Belladonna’s slender waist, his knuckles digging into the small of her back. She leaned out of the boat, stretching close enough to kiss one of the corpses. Belladonna rested one hand on the corpse’s chest, gently applying pressure. A sigh escaped the dead man’s lips, as if his sleep had been disturbed a moment. Belladonna inhaled.

  “Pull me back on board,” she hissed. Damphoost dragged her back into the boat.

  “What was that in aid of?” Grist enquired, a snide tone in his voice.

  “Almonds, I smelled almonds on his breath,” Belladonna replied.

  “He was poisoned,” Damphoost realised. “That explains the absence of a struggle.”

  “Arsenic,” Belladonna agreed. “It could be a business rival, but arsenic is most often a woman’s weapon when it comes to murder. These two men look alike, they’re probably brothers. Question both the wives, see if they’ll confess. With any luck the guilt will be playing on their minds. But the women would have needed help to weigh down and dump the bodies—a son, or a brother. Whoever stood to gain from the murder.”

  “You got all that from sniffing a corpse?” Grist couldn’t keep the disbelief from his voice. “Never heard such arrant nonsense in all my life.”

  “Captain Damphoost!” A young man in a River Watch uniform was standing on the bridge between Luydenhoek and Stoessel, looking down at them. “There’s a woman at the station says she wants to make a confession. Something about a double murder.”