“With fire,” Nathaniel said, a sly smile playing about the corners of his mouth. He jerked his head towards the line of wraiths blocking their escape. All five were naught but shadows, only their ancient cloaks giving them substance. “There’s nothing inside those cloaks but death. Burn their cloaks with the right flame, you destroy the wraiths’ vessels. Without that they’re no worse than the breeze.”
Kurt weighed the flaming torch in his hand. “Let’s hope you’re right.” Letting Nathaniel take Otto’s full weight, Kurt advanced on the wraiths. The first drifted towards him, a shimmer of foreboding darkness across the cobbles. Kurt swiped his torch through the air, the handle passing straight through his foe, but the flames caught on the wraith’s cloak.
The fabric burned like tinder-dry leaves, dark clouds of smoke billowing from the impromptu funeral pyre. The wraith screamed as it burned, ghostly images of faces and lifeless eyes floating away into the sky.
The others closed in on Kurt, moving to surround him. He wielded his torch like a rapier, slicing the flames through the air with ease, engulfing each of the ghostly enemy with utter immolation. Then they were gone, not a cinder where they had stood, every speck burnt away to nothing. Only the screams of their pain lingered, an echo of pain.
Nathaniel dragged Otto over to Kurt. Behind them the advancing skeleton horde was less than ten paces away, and getting closer by the moment, the onward march of bone both relentless and tireless. “Come on!” Kurt snarled at the witch hunter.
Lying prone on the cobbles, Ganz kicked his feet up into the air, ramming them into the ghoul’s chest. The creature swiped thin air with its poisonous claws, jaws snapping in frustration at being denied fresh meat. The watchman knew he had mere moments before the ghoul realised it could start with his legs and work its way up to the rest. Ganz flung out an arm sideways, fingers scrabbling for one of his swords.
The ghoul closed its mouth over the watchman’s right boot, powerful jaws crushing the foot inside, but not penetrating the leather—yet. Ganz kicked at the monster with his other foot, smashing the heel into its head again and again and again until the cursed thing was forced back a step. Then he dived over to his sword, hand closing round the hilt as a smirk of satisfaction crossed his face. Ganz whirled round, his blade taking off the ghoul’s head and remaining hand with a single stroke. The fiend went down and stayed down, convulsing and contorting. Ganz kicked the head away, watching as it rolled towards a nearby canal before falling into the water with a wet plop.
“Anyone for any more?” he asked.
Three more ghouls burst from a doorway behind him. Only the watchman’s quick reflexes saved him, Ganz dropping to a crouch to avoid their flailing arms and poisonous claws. He rolled away from them, over and over, before scrambling to his feet. Half a dozen more ghouls were climbing out of the canal, one clutching the severed head of their fallen brother. Ganz didn’t wait to see how many more horrors were lurking in wait. He cut and run, sprinting towards Hightower Isle and the safety of the blockade. He left one of his swords behind but Ganz didn’t care, and he certainly wasn’t going back for it. One blade had saved his sorry hide, so one blade would have to be enough.
Holismus heard the screams first, long before he saw the citizens running towards the Draaienbrug. Howls of pain and torment, children sobbing for their parents, women screaming for their children, men crying out for mercy. The watchman looked to his colleagues, all of them clustered round the northern end of the Draaienbrug. Since Molly and her girls had persuaded Bescheiden and the other Black Caps to reinstate the swing bridge, fewer than two hundred citizens had taken their chance to escape Suiddock to the south. The watchmen presumed everyone else had gone over the Hoogbrug, or chosen to stay home. They couldn’t know half the citizens had fallen victim to an undead army sweeping east across the district, slaughtering everything in its path.
Then came the stampede—men, women and children running for their lives, charging towards the Draaienbrug like frightened animals. Some fell and were trampled beneath the boots and feet of their neighbours, nobody stopping to help those who went down, nobody caring about anything except escape. The Black Caps were supposed to be blockading the swing bridge, but had made nothing more than a cursory effort since moving the Draaienbrug back into its usual position across the Bruynwater canal. There was no sign of militiamen or witch hunters at the far end of the span, no evidence of the threatened excommunications, and thus no need to worry about letting people past.
So the watchmen stepped aside and let the fleeing citizens by, making no effort to impede the stampede. One of those who’d fallen in the rush got back up, the child’s clothes torn and skin broken in places, but they were still able to hobble. The boy struggled to the bridge, wincing in pain, glancing back over his shoulder again and again. He got as far as the Draaienbrug before his legs gave way, too weak to continue. The child collapsed into the arms of Holismus, his small face ashen, his teeth chattering.
“He’s going into shock,” Holismus realised, wrapping his cloak round the boy. The watchman ordered his colleagues to go help those who’d been trampled underfoot, to see if anything could be done for them.
Once they’d gone, he picked the boy up in his arms and they crossed the bridge, leaving Suiddock behind them. “What happened?”
“M-Monsters,” the child whimpered, breathing in short, quick gasps. “They took my papa, my elder brother too. Ate them like they were meat from a market stall.”
“Ate them?”
“L-like they were meat.”
Holismus didn’t know if he could believe what he was hearing. But the stomping of boots on the bridge behind him soon removed any doubts. Kramer burst past him and the boy, moving faster than Holismus had ever seen before.
“Run for your lives! Run!”
The other Black Caps were close behind, several of them carrying other stampede victims, all with the same terrified expressions on their faces. Holismus didn’t look back, didn’t want to know what was behind him. He did what the others were doing—he ran.
There was no such stampede across Hightower Isle to the Hoogbrug. Those who could get out that way had already fled. The streets were eerily silent as Ganz sprinted towards the bridge, sword clenched in one fist, his other hand spread over the muscle pain in his side. The thump of his boots on the cobbles echoed off the walls and buildings, as if mocking his retreat. Ganz put such thoughts from his mind—a good soldier knows better than to stand and fight against impossible odds. A good soldier falls back to a stronger position, in the hope of winning a better victory than mere death.
Ganz slowed as he rounded the last corner, knowing the southern entrance to the Hoogbrug was up ahead. He didn’t know what to expect—a throng of citizens protesting outside a blockade, a bridge swarming with witch hunters and militiamen spoiling for a fight, or an army of ghouls, ghosts and other undead entities. Instead he found the remnants of the Black Caps, strewn about the cobbles tending to dead and dying citizens. Ganz spotted Scheusal among the watchmen and ran over to the sergeant.
“You’ve got to get everyone over the bridge—now,” the former soldier gasped.
“We’re not going anywhere,” Scheusal replied, his voice gruff and low. The sergeant nodded to Potts, who was stood nearby with a shroud. The new recruit knelt by the citizen Scheusal had been tending and laid the cloth over the dead woman’s body.
“You don’t understand,” Ganz insisted, his breath returning at last. “I just killed two cannibals back on Luydenhoek, and narrowly avoided getting eaten by six others.”
The sergeant stood, muttering a prayer under his breath before grabbing Ganz by the tunic and dragging him to one side. “You stink of alehouse. How long have you been drinking—since dawn, or before then?”
“Yes, I’ve been drinking, for all the damn good it did me, but I’m not lying about this. Something’s been loosed on Suiddock, the like of which I haven’t seen outside the armies of Chaos; flesh-eating creatures that
feast on living human flesh and who knows what else. Utterly merciless, utterly relentless and no more than fifty paces behind me!”
“I don’t care if you’ve the wolves of Ulric behind you, we’re not leaving. I told the captain we’d hold this position until he gave us fresh orders, and that’s what we’ll do. Desert if you want, but I’ll pay tuppence and a sword before I abandon my post.”
“S-sergeant,” Potts called out, his voice strained and close to breaking.
“Not now!” Scheusal snarled, before jabbing a finger into Ganz’s chest. “I don’t know what your problem with the captain is. Maybe he did you wrong in the past, maybe it’s guilt because you survived the war and most of your brothers-in-arms didn’t. I don’t know and I couldn’t give the contents of two privies to find out. But if you want to keep being a Black Cap, you’ll learn to follow orders no matter who’s giving them!”
“Sergeant Scheusal!”
“Taal’s teeth, what is it, Potts?”
The recruit pointed to the corner round which Ganz had come a few moments before. Nathaniel was staggering towards the bridge, dragging Otto as best he could, while Kurt was behind him with a short sword in one hand and a burning torch in the other. For a moment the three men were on their own, scrambling towards the canal crossing. Then a horde of skeletons marched round the corner, all of them carrying a blade and shield.
“A little help wouldn’t go amiss,” the witch hunter called out.
Scheusal was already running towards Nathaniel, Silenti and Ganz close behind. Several more watchmen sprinted after them, leaving Potts with those crushed earlier. The sergeant got hold of Otto’s free arm and helped Nathaniel drag the priest away from the advancing horde. “The rest of you, help the captain!” Scheusal bellowed.
The Black Caps formed a line across the cobbles, most of them on one side of Kurt, Silenti and Ganz on the other. “Take off their arms and their heads,” the captain snarled, “that seems to stop them!” He demonstrated with three swift blows from his sword, slicing off limbs and decapitating the nearest foe. The skeleton crumpled to the cobbles, all animation gone, reduced to a pile of bones once more. But there were more than a hundred in their ranks, all marching towards the bridge.
Ganz and Silenti both followed their captain’s example, disabling two of the living dead warriors with a succession of blows. Even as the enemy fell, two more skeletons moved forwards to take those empty places in the front rank. The enemy fought as a single unit, advancing with one mind, one purpose, one relentless resolve. The other Black Caps attacked as well, hacking and slashing at the oncoming horde. Down went the skeletons, one after another after another, but sheer weight of numbers was driving the watchmen back towards the bridge. Kurt glanced over at the corpses on the cobbles.
“What happened to them?”
“Trampled in the crush to get over the bridge,” Silenti hissed, blocking an attack by two skeleton blades, before slicing off the bony hands that held them.
Scheusal and the witch hunter dragged Otto past a petrified Potts. “Move, boy!” the sergeant roared. “Get yourself onto the bridge, while you still have time!”
“What about the injured?”
“It’s too late for them,” Nathaniel replied. “Look!”
The crushed citizens were coming back to life, brushing off their shrouds and climbing back to their feet. Some had broken necks or punctured lungs, others had perished from heart failure, but none of that mattered now. Another force was making them rise from the dead, resurrecting bodies still warm from the life they once possessed.
Potts stared at the corpse nearest him, transfixed by the face of the child he had nursed as it died. A little girl, no more than six summers old, she had thanked him for the kindness of a drink Potts had fetched from a nearby water trough. Now she sat bolt upright, her face already blackened from bruises, the vicious gouge in her chest forgotten. She grinned at the recruit, the effort twisting her face as if responding to the invisible strings of some unseen puppeteer. “So sweet, so young,” the girl gurgled, a stream of dark black blood pouring from her lips. But the voice was that of another, a man hissing and spitting at Potts with venom and hatred. “Let me kiss you, sweet boy.”
“Get away from me,” Potts whispered, drawing the blade sheathed at his side.
“One little kiss, that’s all I want,” the girl teased in her mannish voice.
“Get away from me!” Potts yelled, stabbing his sword deep into her skull, ramming it so hard and so fast the point punched out the back of her head.
“That’s not very polite,” she observed.
“Shut up,” Potts replied, trying to pull his blade free.
“If you don’t want to kiss me, you only have to say so.”
“I told you to shut up!” The recruit braced a boot against the girl’s chest and used both his hands to rip the sword free. It tore away a quarter of her skull, brain and blood spilling out in a fountain of viscera. Potts staggered back, gagging on his own bile. Around him the other bodies were getting up, some licking their lips, others lurching towards the bridge where Scheusal and Nathaniel had dragged Otto.
The girl touched a hand to the cavity in her head, before lifting the palm up so Potts could see the blood covering her fingers. “It’s sticky!” The recruit sliced off her head at the neck with a single swipe of his crimson-stained blade, silencing her at last.
Scheusal came back to help Potts, cutting off the heads from two more corpses while the recruit dealt with a third. A swift kick in the stomach sent the next one tumbling into the Rijksweg, while the last was so badly crushed in the stampede it couldn’t get up off the cobbles. Potts finished that one with two strokes of his blade, not noticing the spray of blood that covered his face and tunic as a consequence. He kept on stabbing the corpse long after it had ceased to move. It took Scheusal’s intervention to drag him away.
“It’s over, Potts—you did it,” the sergeant whispered. “It’s dead, again.”
“That’s twice I killed them,” the recruit replied.
Scheusal didn’t say anything. The lesson was learned.
Kurt and the other watchmen were still being driven backwards to the bridge. They’d cut the skeleton horde down by two-thirds, but exhaustion was getting the better of the Black Caps. No matter how many limbs they severed or heads they decapitated, yet another skeleton stepped into the front rank, ready for battle.
“Fall back to the bridge,” the captain shouted. “It’ll be easier to defend there!”
The watchmen hastened their retreat, taking care to step over the headless corpses littering the cobbles. Within moments all the Black Caps were on the bridge, Kurt side by side with Ganz and Silenti, the others flanking their position on the Hoogbrug. Scheusal and Potts were carrying Otto over the span, while Nathaniel remained behind.
“We can’t let them get any further,” he yelled to Kurt. “If these things make it across the Rijksweg, the rest of Marienburg will be forfeit!”
“You think I don’t know that?” the captain snarled. “Go make sure Otto gets to a healer, we’ll give you as long as we can.” Kurt turned back to his Black Caps, not waiting to hear the witch hunter’s reply. “Stand your ground, men—stand your ground!”
Bescheiden had stayed behind at the southern tip of Luydenhoek while the others fled across the swing bridge, fighting the instinct that told him to run. Sergeant Woxholt died because of me, the watchman told himself, because of my cowardice. Maybe now I can repay that debt, redeem myself. But even Bescheiden’s powerful urge to sacrifice himself was shaken when he saw what was coming towards the Draaienbrug.
They marched in armour of bronze and black iron, rusted by the centuries. They carried weapons riven with corrosion, blades, sickles and spears inscribed with evil runes. By rights their bodies should have been incapable of movement, let alone marching, so decayed and worn out were the husk-like shells that advanced on Bescheiden’s position at the edge of the bridge. The watchman had heard of such c
reatures in dark legends, the sort of bleak, terrifying tales parents used to frighten their children. He’d never believed such monsters existed in the real world, and now dozens of them were coming for him.
“Wights,” Bescheiden whispered, fighting the urge to void his bowels where he stood. “Sweet Shallya, they’re wights!”
Still the creatures kept coming, their boots and bones stomping in perfect unison as they approached the northern end of the swing bridge. Bescheiden heard a voice behind, calling for him to fall back. It was Holismus, screaming at him to run. But Bescheiden would not let himself obey every instinct in his body, every sane thought in his head. If this was his day to die, so be it. Let this be an end to his unending misery.
He took one step back onto the bridge as the wights closed in, bracing himself for the moment of death. Bescheiden knew his soul was damned, but he prayed to whatever deity might be watching over him—at least let my end be swift. Let it be now. He closed his eyes and tensed himself for the deathblow. But it never came.
After what felt like an eternity of waiting, Bescheiden opened his eyes. The wights had stopped one pace short of the bridge. They stood in formation, rank upon rank, row upon row, blocking the way on and off the bridge. But not one of them set foot on the span, nor made any movement towards Bescheiden. He was within reach of their blades, but they did not strike, did not cut him down. The wights waited, immobile.
* * *
It was the same at Hoogbrug, where Kurt and his watchmen had fallen back two paces from the edge of the bridge. The remains of the skeleton horde blocked the cobbles that led up to the span, but none stepped on to the Hoogbrug. They stood frozen, their empty eye sockets staring forwards, their weapons held ready for war. “Taal’s teeth,” Kurt hissed. “What madness is this?”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Farrak studied two pools of blood that floated in the air before him, their surfaces like scarlet looking glasses. The necromancer smirked as he watched the standoff by the Hoogbrug in one blood pool, and Bescheiden’s disbelief via the other. “How long do you think they’ll stand there, waiting for my troops to attack?” the necromancer asked. There was no reply from either of the captives hanging upside down in the air, their severed throats providing the steady flow of blood that fed the looking glasses. “It matters little,” Farrak mused out loud. “I can spend all the time I want moving my pieces into position, while they puzzle over my strategy. Suiddock is mine now. A place to call home, if you will.”
[Marienburg 02] - A Massacre in Marienburg Page 18