“Why should I give it to you?” she asked. “I’m coming too.”
The captain shook his head. “Not this time, not where we’re going.”
Belladonna grabbed hold of Kurt’s arm and dragged him to one side. “You’re sending me away—why? It better not be because I’m a woman,” she hissed, keeping her voice low so the others wouldn’t hear. “I’ve risked my life a dozen times over for you, and now you’ve got the gall to send me away when you’re walking into certain death? My place is at your side, Kurt. Damphoost is dead. You’re my captain now.”
“Don’t you understand?” he whispered. “This has got nothing to do with you being a woman, or the fact you transferred to River Watch.”
“Then what is it about?” Kurt turned away, battling with his emotions. Belladonna twisted him back round to face her. “Tell me, damn it!”
He stared into her eyes. “I care too much about you. I don’t want to see you die.”
She stepped back, staggered by the strength of his feelings, and her own reaction.
“Go with Holismus. I want the two of you in Goudberg, with Scheusal and Silenti, helping Sandler protect that bloody skull. Can you do that for me?” Kurt pleaded.
Belladonna nodded, unable to refuse him.
“Thank you.” The captain beckoned Holismus over and ordered him to accompany Belladonna back to shore in the other boat. While they made their way across to the other vessel, Kurt asked Nathaniel to give them directions to the temple where Scheusal and Silenti were standing guard. “Make the best speed you can. If this prophecy’s even close to being correct, keeping the skull safe is far more important than anything the rest of us can do. There’s more at stake here than the future of Marienburg—much more.”
Kurt gave the rest of his cohort a chance to join Holismus and Belladonna on the other boat. “Nobody will think any the less of you for going with them. Either path probably leads to the grave, or worse, but your chances may be better in Goudberg.” The witch hunters stood resolute, as did Otto. Bescheiden stared out towards Rijker’s Isle, his weasel-like face offering no hint of his feelings. Potts bit his nails but stayed where he was, while Auteuil simply shrugged. “So be it,” Kurt said, before bidding farewell to Holismus and Belladonna. “Good speed to you.”
The mooring ropes between the two craft were untied, and the other boat drifted away, making towards the ruins of the Hoogbrug and the district of Goudberg beyond. Kurt did not watch it go, preferring to concentrate his attention on the coast of Suiddock. He didn’t think about anything or anyone else now but Farrak, in case it distracted him.
Otto and Nathaniel joined the captain by the prow. “There’s a spell that may help us slip past the first line of Farrak’s defences,” the priest said. “To a necromancer and his acolytes, their enemies appear as blood-red smears, pulsing with life. I can cast a spell that will drain the strength and energy from our bodies, enabling us to move among the undead without drawing attention to ourselves.”
“What’s the catch?” Kurt asked.
“The spell debilitates those upon whom it is cast,” Otto said. “This is not some mere illusion or conjuror’s trick. We will be weak, less able to defend ourselves.”
“It’s like fighting a battle after five nights without sleep,” Nathaniel added.
“Risky,” Kurt said, “but so is everything we do from now on.” He glanced at the mighty ship, where undead patrolled the deck, keeping watch over the Rijksweg. There was no quick path to Three Penny Bridge that could not be seen from that vantage point. If the cohort was to reach Farrak before nightfall, Otto’s suggestion seemed their best chance. “Very well, cast your spell Otto—and what will be, will be.”
It was the sound of distant screaming that most unnerved Silenti. The watchman had been standing guard outside the Brotherhood of Purity’s Home for Widows and Orphans for hours. The building behind him was empty, the residents evacuated several days earlier. But Silenti knew the home was not under threat, it was the hidden temple underneath he had been sent here to protect. Scheusal had shared the true purpose of their mission before departing with Captain Sandler at dawn, but Silenti was forbidden from telling Nagel and Ravensberg, the other Black Caps assigned to this duty. They were both new to the watch and Sandler never trusted anybody who hadn’t been vouchsafed to him by others.
The screaming started not long after dawn. Silenti thought it was coming from Rijkspoort at first, but the screaming seemed to move, convincing him the trouble was now at Ostmuur. Soon the cries for help and mercy were coming from every direction. They grew louder and louder, but the Black Cap believed that was due to the sheer number of people screaming, and not because those screaming were getting any closer.
Whatever was causing such terror, it did not seem interested in Goudberg. The streets around the vacant home remained empty, quiet of all noise except the distant screaming and the boots of the watchmen as they patrolled round the refuge for widows and orphans. Nagel and Ravensberg both complained to Silenti about the assignment. Neither man could see the value in guarding a vacant building, especially not when other citizens nearby were so obviously in need of their aid. But Silenti refused to let the two watchmen leave their posts. He knew what was coming, and that they represented the first line of defence against it. The Black Caps must stand their ground.
Ravensberg died first, while he was on the far side of the building, halfway round yet another circuit. He saw a lone figure strolling towards him from the shadows, clad in a crimson cloak that glistened like wet blood. “Stop and identify yourself—friend or foe?”
The approaching figure ignored his challenge, and kept coming at him.
Ravensberg raised his crossbow, aiming it at the stranger’s chest. He still couldn’t make out their face, the features well hidden behind the shadow of a heavy hood. “I order you to stop and identify yourself, or it’ll go the worse with you. Are you friend or foe?”
Still they ignored the Black Cap’s challenge. The stranger raised a hand, the fingers crooked and wizened by age, yet eldritch energy danced about their tips.
Ravensberg swallowed, hard. “One more step and I will fire!” When this went unacknowledged, the watchman pulled the trigger on his crossbow. The bolt flew straight and true, but the intended target snatched the speeding projectile clean out of the air. One touch of their hand and the wooden shaft crumbled to dust, while the sharp metal tip was dissolved by rust, its residue lost on a passing breeze. The watchman struggled to load another bolt in his weapon, backing away from the stranger as they loomed ever closer.
“I’m warning you,” Ravensberg shouted, his voice full of fear. “Stay back!”
The bolt fell from his trembling fingers, so the quick-thinking watchman swung the weapon round, turning the heavy wooden stock into a club with which to ward off this implacable figure. He flailed at the stranger with his crossbow, but they brushed aside the blow, and the weapon fell apart in Ravensberg’s hands. He took another step backwards and found himself trapped against the side of the building, black cap tumbling from his head. “Nagel! Silenti!” he cried out.
The stranger brushed back their hood to reveal a face criss-crossed by scars and tattoos, the eyes blazing with malevolent fury, black lips parting to display a mouth full of broken, decaying teeth. The stranger rested a hand across Ravensberg’s face, almost tender in their touch, like the caress of a lover. The watchman had time to scream once before dark magic overtook him. His limbs grew heavy, too heavy to support his rapidly aging body. Grey hair sprouted from his puckering scalp, turning white as it billowed outwards. Wrinkles coursed across his features and infirmity thickened his arteries until they closed, shutting off the blood supply to his brain and heart. Ravensberg crumpled to the cobbles, ancient skin flaking away like autumn leaves, his bones turning to dust inside his body, clothes changing to rags before dissolving altogether.
Silenti and Nagel came running, having heard the cry for help from the far side of the building. By th
e time they reached Ravensberg, his remains were naught but a pile of dust, blowing away on the light afternoon breeze. Only his discarded black cap gave any hint of what had happened to the unfortunate watchman. Farrak’s acolyte had melted away into the shadows, their blood-red cloak wrapped around them like a shroud.
“Silenti! Where the hell are you?” a voice bellowed.
The two watchmen sprinted back round to where Silenti had been standing guard. Sandler and Scheusal were waiting for them, the captain pointing at an empty black space where a wall had been before. Through the doorway a staircase could be seen, descending into the secret temple beneath the empty building. “You left your post, and look what happened,” Sandler snarled.
“We were gone for less than a minute,” both watchmen protested. “Something killed Ravensberg, turned him to dust. He cried out for us.”
“A trick, to lure you away,” Scheusal sighed.
“Dust, you say?” the captain asked.
Silenti nodded.
“He was killed by some foul incantation,” Sandler surmised. “Only a necromancer or one of their acolyte apprentices could cast such a spell without being consumed by it.”
Scheusal was nursing his left hand. The right sleeve from his tunic had been torn off, and wrapped round the injured hand. “What happened?” Nagel asked.
“The enemy took his fingers,” the captain replied. “Scheusal, Silenti—come with me. Nagel, you remain here on guard. Don’t let anybody else in or out of here. Defend this entrance with your life.” Sandler strode through the doorway and raced away down the staircase, followed by the sergeant. Silenti lingered a moment, looking at Nagel.
“Good luck,” he said, before going inside.
“To us all,” Nagel replied, a flintlock clutched in both his trembling hands.
Farrak watched through the window of blood as his apprentice murdered Ravensberg. Good, the skull of the undead champion would soon be in his grasp. It had been amusing to torment and tease the citizens of Marienburg, but the necromancer was tiring of this place. He had far grander plans than the subjugation of a single city. Farrak had an entire world to conquer and remake in his image. And then? Then he would become a god.
The rotting remains of Jan Woxholt shuffled into view, the corpse given but a semblance of life, no more than a plaything. “Outsiders have entered your domain, lord.”
“Have they now? How bold of them, and also how foolish. Still, it might provide some sport while I wait for the return of my apprentices with the spoils of their mission.” Farrak glared at the window of blood. “Show me!”
Kurt and his cohort let the boat drift into the side of Riddra, not far from where the Altena had rammed the island a few days earlier. When their arrival brought no response from above, they slid over the side of the craft and clambered up a set of steps cut into the side of the island. The cohort emerged beside the Golden Lotus Dreaming House, not far from Three Penny Bridge. Kurt hadn’t been sure what to expect on Riddra. Any citizens left behind on the island would have long since been discovered and slaughtered by Farrak’s horde, before being resurrected to bolster his undead army. Only the bravest or the most foolish would attempt to retake Suiddock from the necromancer by force of arms, so Farrak had no need to post guards within the district. But Kurt still expected they would encounter stronger resistance before they got within sight of Three Penny Bridge.
The captain dropped into a crouch, holding a clenched fist by his chest to signal all those behind to wait. He wanted to get the lay of the land before charging into combat against Farrak’s forces. The spell cast by Otto seemed to have done its job well enough, keeping their approach a secret from the enemy. But the side effects left Kurt weak as a baby, his limbs heavy, his breathing laboured and his stomach churning over with nausea. Manann knows when he’d last been able to eat a proper meal. They’d snatched at food brought by Otto and the witch hunters before embarking on this suicidal mission, but now the sickness in Kurt’s stomach was questioning the wisdom of that. He felt in no fit state to fight a battle, let alone fight for his life or the future of an entire city. But how he felt made no difference now. Fight they must to have any hope of victory.
Kurt could see the long street that led to Three Penny Bridge, and the span itself, rising up as it curved over the cut between Riddra and Stoessel. The road ahead was empty, the cobbles bereft of any impediment. The walking dead shuffled about on the bridge, their actions inexplicable from this distance. A tall man stood out among them, head and shoulders above the resurrected corpses clustered around him. The imposing figure wore robes of black and blood-red. His skin looked yellowed by age or jaundice, his scalp barren of hair. Kurt could not see the man’s face, but the way the ghouls and skeletons surrounding him were paying deference, it left no doubt to his identity. Nathaniel crept up to join Kurt, squinting to see what was happening on the bridge.
“That’s Farrak,” the witch hunter confirmed.
“How can you be sure?”
Nathaniel pointed at the necromancer’s right hand as Farrak directed his servants with an imperious gesture. The sun caught a glint of metal on one of the long, spindly fingers. “See that ring? It’s the focus of his powers.”
“So if we can remove that, he’s vulnerable to our weapons?” Kurt asked.
“Would that defeating a necromancer were so simple.” The witch hunter rested a hand on Kurt’s shoulder. “Let my brethren and I go first. We can test the strength of Farrak’s bodyguard, winnow their numbers.”
“No. You’d be throwing your lives away, along with any element of surprise we have. We need to get as close as we can, before attacking with all our forces at once.”
“As you command,” Nathaniel agreed.
The sun was sliding across the sun and down towards the horizon, casting long shadows down one side of the road. Patting a hand against his chest to ensure the Stone of Solkan was still hanging safely inside his tunic, Kurt rose to his feet and motioned for the others to follow. They crept towards Three Penny Bridge, hugging the shadows as they advanced. Nathaniel stayed close to Kurt, the other five witch hunters behind him. Auteuil and Bescheiden were next, with Otto and Potts bringing up the rear. The cohort was almost within crossbow range when Farrak swivelled round to glare at them.
“Gentlemen! Welcome to Suiddock. Welcome to my domain.”
Nagel emptied his flintlocks into the two figures advancing at him, their crimson cloaks like shrouds of wet blood. One of the creatures swept back its hood to gaze at the watchman, and Nagel felt the skin across his face tighten until the pain was intolerable. He touched a finger to his right cheek and it blistered, the skin peeling away in black flakes. Flesh withered before the malevolent gaze, sloughing away from the bones of Nagel’s face. He wanted to cry out, such was the pain lancing through his body, but the watchman was dead before he could give voice to his torment.
Nagel collapsed in front of the black doorway, reduced to a clatter of bones and cloth. Farrak’s acolytes stepped over the body, hitching up their cloaks so as not to have them stained by the watchman’s remains. They swept down the staircase, into the dark.
The sound of Nagel’s pistols was audible in the chamber where the Knights of Purity had met so often in recent days. All twelve of them stood in a circle now, watched from one side by Scheusal and Silenti. Captain Sandler addressed his brethren, all of them armed with blades and bows. “Prophecy is upon us, my brothers. The necromancer’s apprentices have come to claim that which Farrak would cherish as his own. Our duty is clear, our purpose is pure, and our faith is resolute. Go forth, friends, and do the will of Solkan!”
“The will of Solkan!” the other knights echoed, raising their left hands in salute. As one they marched from the chamber, the watch commander’s adjutant among them. He nodded to Sandler in passing, but did not acknowledge the other Black Caps. Once his brethren had gone, the captain called Scheusal and Silenti to the centre of the room.
“Below this chamber is an ou
bliette, storehouse to many precious relics and unholy artefacts. That is what Farrak’s fiends seek, and what we must defend with our lives. I will not tell you where the entrance is, lest you be taken and tortured to reveal its location. Remain here and kill anyone you do not recognise. Understand?”
The sergeant nodded, but Silenti had a question. “What happens if the intruders capture you, or one of the other knights?”
“We will kill ourselves before we forsake what we know. That is the strength of our faith.” Sandler strode from the chamber, a short dagger in each fist.
Scheusal stroked a hand across his beard. “I suggest we stand back to back, that way nothing should be able to sneak up on us—agreed?”
Silenti nodded. His boot slipped in something sticky. Looking down, the watchman realised he was standing in a pool of congealing blood. “Charming,” he muttered, before moving to stand back to back with the sergeant. Already the sounds of a bitter, bloody conflict could be heard echoing along the tunnels, blade clashing against blade, men crying out for help from Solkan. The killing had begun.
Kurt and his cohort fought a savage battle against ghouls and skeletons, zombies and wights. They hacked and slashed, shot and sliced their way through wave after wave of attackers. The cohort took up a diamond formation, with Kurt at the front and Auteuil at the rear. Otto stayed in the middle, surrounded by the watchmen and witch hunters, while Potts moved about inside the diamond, handing fresh ammunition to those with projectile weapons. But for each step forwards the cohort made, a new attack wave of walking dead joined the battle, forcing them back two steps. Kurt realised they were being driven back from Three Penny Bridge, away from their target: Farrak. “Otto, get up here!” he shouted.
The priest forced his way forwards between the witch hunters and watchmen, until he was close behind Kurt. “Captain?”
[Marienburg 02] - A Massacre in Marienburg Page 29