by Jack Yeovil
Johann followed the halberdiers and found himself in step with a growing number of men as he followed a path through the interlocking courtyards. The noises beyond the gate were getting louder and there were more voices being raised. He heard a rattle and recognized it as the sound of the main portcullis coming down. It was as if the hordes of Chaos were inside the walls of the city, and the Imperial Guard were falling back to the last position of defence. But that could not be the case.
There was such a crowd of soldiers by the gate that Johann could not see through. He judged by the din that there were a lot of people beyond the portcullis gate, and that they weren't happy. It was always something. If it wasn't the incursions of Chaos it was the thumb tax, and if it wasn't some new religious zealotry it was a mob demanding that some unpopular felon be turned over to them for swift justice. The mob of Altdorf was a byword throughout the Empire for unruliness.
He heard one of the halberdiers saying something about the Beast and knew this was worse than any of the other causes. A ball of dried mud and dung sailed through the railings and burst against an arch, showering dirt down on a troop of the Imperial Guard. Halberds were being rattled.
Johann found himself standing next to a tall cleric of the Cult of Sigmar. His hood was up, but he recognized the man as Hasselstein.
'What's happening?'
Hasselstein turned his face and paused a moment×Johann imagined him weighing in his mind whether the Elector of Sudenland was important enough to be told anything×before giving a curt report. 'It's Yevgeny Yefimovich, the rabble-rouser. He's been whipping the mob up into a frenzy about the Beast murders.'
Johann had heard about the Beast murders. The news of each pathetic drab butchered down by the docks had filled him with a secret dread. The slayings were so savage that many could not believe a human being was responsible. The Beast must be a daemon, or a beastman. Or a wolf.
'But Yefimovich is an insurrectionist, isn't he?' Johann protested. 'I understood he was always rabbiting on about the privileges of the aristocracy and the suffering of the peasants. Just a typical fire-breather.'
'That's what's so silly,' Hasselstein said. 'He alleges that the Beast is an aristocrat.'
A phantom blade slipped between Johann's ribs and he felt his heart stop. After a long pause, it beat again, and again. But he would remember that thrust for quite a time.
Very deliberately, he asked, 'What evidence does he have?'
Hasselstein sneered. 'Evidence, baron? Yefimovich is an agitator, not a jurist. He doesn't need evidence.'
'But there must be something.'
Hasselstein looked into Johann's eyes and for the first time the elector noticed how ice-sharp the cleric's gaze was. Something about the man reminded him of Oswald von Konigswald. There was the same ferocious deadness in his eyes, the same compulsion for total control. Johann would not have liked to face Leos von Liebewitz over duelling swords, but he fancied that Mikael Hasselstein would be ah even more dangerous enemy.
The cleric reached into his robe and took out the emblem of his cult. It was a heavy-headed hand-hammer. Obviously, it had some religious significance, but it looked as if it would be mainly useful if the Emperor's confessor ever felt the need to smash in someone's skull. Johann got the impression that the calm and suave Hasselstein often felt like smashing in someone's skull. It was always these icewater-for-blood, no-emotion-on-the-surface types that ended up in the town square taking an axe to the market-day shoppers in the name of some unheard-of lesser godling.
'Let me through,' the cleric said. The halberdiers parted and a path was cleared to the gate. Another dirt bomb exploded and Hasselstein shrugged it off. Johann stood back.
Yefimovich was held at shoulder height by his followers and was ranting.
'For too long have the titled scum of the noble houses of the Empire trampled us under their perfumed boots!' he was shouting. 'For too long has our blood been spilled in the services of their pointless squabbles. And now one of them walks the night, dagger in hand, carving up our women'
Hasselstein looked up calmly at the fire-breather, gently slapping his hammerhead into his palm.
'If it were duchesses and the like being butchered, you can be sure that the Beast would be in Mundsen Keep by now, properly chained and tortured. But no, just because these women don't have lineages dating back to the time of Sigmar, the Imperial court doesn't give two pfennigs for them'
Hasselstein spoke calmly to a captain of the guard. Johann couldn't hear their conversation. Yefimovich was shouting too loud. However, musketeers were joining the halberdiers. Surely, the cleric wasn't planning to fire on the crowd. The Emperor would never allow that.
'We know who the beasts are!' Yefimovich shouted, his hands gripping the bars of the portcullis gate. 'You can see them in their cage, just like in a zoo'
He shook the bars, his long hair flying behind him. One of the musketeers propped his rifle on its stand and took aim at the agitator, flicking back the flint catch with his thumb.
Johann knew he couldn't stand by and watch Hasselstein start a riot that would lead to a massacre.
He looked up at Yefimovich. He had heard a lot about the man, had even read some of his pamphlets, but this was the first time he had seen the agitator. He really was a fire-breather. His face seemed to glow as if there were flames under the skin and his red eyes shone like a vampire's. He was from Kislev originally and had got out a few horselengths ahead of the Tsar's cossacks. Some said his family had been killed at the whim of a nobleman, others that he was himself of the aristocracy, tainted by the blood of the vampire Tsarina Kattarin, and had turned against his own kind.
'Here I am!' he shouted. 'Are you afraid of me, you lackeys and minions? I drink the blood of princes, break the backs of barons and crush the bones of counts!'
Johann could see why Yefimovich had such a following. He was as magnetic as a great actor. If they ever wrote a play about him, only Detlef Sierck could take the part. Although, considering the fervour with which he advocated bloody revolution, perhaps the late and unmourned Laszlo Lowenstein would have been better casting.
Beside Johann, someone gasped. 'So that's Yefimovich.'
Johann turned. It was Luitpold. Johann felt a knot of anger, but pulled it straight.
'Highness,' he said, 'I thought×'
'It's always 'highness' when you're being dutiful, Uncle Johann.'
Leos was with him, his hand on his swordhilt, his face blank. A man like the viscount could be useful just now. Like Johann, he was sworn to protect the House of the Second Wilhelm, and if Luitpold got into trouble, he would need the protection.
Hasselstein had finished talking with the captain, who rushed off to execute some order or other. Calmly, the cleric looked up at Yefimovich. If they had strained, they could have touched one another.
Johann felt as if he were witnessing an invisible battle of wills. It was almost intriguing, the man of fire outside, the man of ice inside. In their hearts, they must have a lot in common.
'Where is he?' Yefimovich was shouting. 'Where is the arch-coward himself? Where is Karl-Franz?'
Luitpold started forward, about to shout back. Johann laid a hand on the heir's shoulder.
'My father is a good man,' Luitpold said, quietly.
Johann nodded.
'Does he care about the murdered women of the dockland? Does he?'
Yefimovich drew breath, preparing for another speech, but said nothing.
'Citizens,' Hasselstein said in the pause, his voice surprisingly loud and strong, 'you are requested to disperse and return to your homes. Everything possible is being done to catch the Beast. I can assure you of that.'
Nobody made a move. Yefimovich was smiling, the sweat pouring from his burning red face, his hair streaming behind him like flames. He wore many badges on his tunic: the hammer of Sigmar, the sickle of the outlawed Artisans' Guild, the fish of the waterfront gang and the red star of the Kislevite underground. So many symbols, but just
one cause.
'The palace, as you may remember, is equipped with many defences,' Hasselstein said. 'During the War of Succession, the troops of the false Emperor Dieter IV besieged this place and Wilhelm II repelled them by disgorging molten lead from the row of exquisitely carved gargoyles you see perched above the main gate. Note the fineness of the detail work. Dwarfish, of course. The faces are caricatures of the five daemon princes the young Wilhelm encountered and overcame during his years in the wilderness.'
The crowd, as a man, started to edge back. Yefimovich was sweating hatred and glaring death. Hasselstein continued with his lecture, as if pointing out features of architectural interest to a visiting dignitary.
'Of course,' the cleric continued, 'those were barbarous times and the current Emperor would never consider using such methods on his loyal subjects.'
Held breaths were released and the crowd pressed forward. Yefimovich grabbed the bars again and showed his teeth. He snarled like an animal and seemed fully capable of chewing his way through the portcullis.
'However, it is a simple matter to connect the palace's ingenious sewage and waste disposal system to the old defence pipes'
He nodded and the gargoyles vomited filth.
A stream of liquid waste hit Yefimovich full in the face and he cried out in rage. His bearers deserted him and he was left hanging from the gatebars. Behind him, the crowd was running from the rain of ordure. People were knocked down and trampled in the panic. The smell wafted through the gates and Johann covered his mouth and nose.
Luitpold laughed out loud, but Johann wasn't sure if it was funny or not.
Yefimovich fell away from the gate. Someone had jabbed him with the blunt end of a halberd. Johann wondered whether it wouldn't have been more sensible to use the business point. The fire-breather slipped on a lump of fecal matter and fell badly. This experience certainly wasn't going to make the agitator change his views and become a lover of the nobility. Children were crying and people, covered in filth, were limping away. The halberdiers were laughing and jeering and making comments.
'You talk it,' one shouted, 'you might as well be covered in it!'
Yefimovich stood up, holding his side, blood leaking from his nose. Bright eyes opened in his brown-coated face. He had a scary kind of dignity, even in his current condition. He spat through the bars of the gate and walked away. The last of the crowd went with him, wiping themselves off.
'There,' said Hasselstein, a thin smile on his face, 'that is that dealt with. The Emperor has authorized me to say that there will be an extra ale ration this evening as a reward for your valorous service in his defence.'
The halberdiers cheered.
'What started this?' Luitpold asked an officer of the guard.
'Some whore down by the docks,' the man replied. 'The Beast got her, ripped her apart.'
Luitpold nodded, thinking.
'The fifth, she was,' the officer continued. 'They say it's a bad business. The Beast just tears them up. It's like he was an animal or something. A wolf.'
A wolf! Johann's heart stopped again as he remembered the face of a boy who was also a beast.
'Uncle Johann,' Luitpold said, 'if the people are unhappy because of this murderer, then it is our duty to catch him and make things right again.'
Knowing better, Johann lied to the boy. 'Yes, highness.'
II
The Beast's first memories are painful, but exciting.
'Don't touch yourself there! That's disgusting!'
Then, blows. The Beast tastes blood in its mouth. It sees a face in the mirror, with bruises. A face that could be anything, anyone. It doesn't have to recognize the face as itself. It is lumpy and bleeding, pathetic. It is just the face of the boy-shell. For the first time, the Beast roars. It does not have claws yet, but knows they will grow.
Later: 'Here, kitty-kitty here, let's play together. There now, there's a nice cat. Whose mama loves you, then? That's right. That's nice. Purr, purr for your mama'
A sharp claw appears in the Beast's hand. It slides through fur and skin, and punctures muscle.
The cat shrieks like a daemon.
'Here, kitty-kitty come to mama. Kitty? Kitty!'
Still later, a different voice.
'There now, slip into your trousers. What a fine, handsome boy you are. You'll make your father proud. What's this in your pocket? Careful, you'll tear the cloth. It's expensive. It's velvet. Like they wear at the Emperor's court in Altdorf. There now, you've torn it. I told you to be careful, boy!'
More blows. By now, the Beast is used to blows. It doesn't feel them, no matter how hurt the boy-shell is. The boy-shell stops crying eventually and with each hurt the boy recedes and the Beast becomes stronger.
When they are ten years old, the Beast kills again, for the first time since the kitten. The Beast is clever. It knows it is not yet as strong as it will become. So it picks Old Nikolas, the family's retired gamekeeper. Old Nikolas had to retire on a pension when gored by a hog during a hunt. His legs are bent and he spends most of the day in his hammock in the old lodge. He is slow and will not be able to escape the Beast. The boy-shell thins and the Beast pokes out its claws, taking down father's two-edged sword from his last campaign. It is heavy in the Beast's hands, but not too heavy. The weight is important. If the Beast can heft the weapon up high enough, the weight will increase the force of the blow, compensate for the weakness of the boy-shell's arms. It has all been thought out perfectly. The sword slices down and parts Old Nikolas's neck as if it were soft cheese, chopping also through the canvas hammock.
The gamekeeper's head rolls free and the Beast kicks it like a ball.
'It's horrible, horrible, horrible. My little boy mustn't see. He mustn't. Don't you understand?'
The Beast waits for a long time, pretending to be the boy-shell. They grow up, are educated in the arts of a gentleman.
On their twelfth birthday, the Beast comes out again and takes an axe to a drunken guest in the garden. It's Uncle Sergius, who had bounced the boy-shell up and down on his knee. He looks strange with the split in his face. The wound reminds the Beast of the forbidden places of the female body. Then the Beast makes its first and only mistake. Kneeling by Uncle Sergius to get a better look at the split, the Beast dips the boy-shell's fingers into the blood, probing the wound.
'Sigmar's hammer!'
It is Natasha, the girl who travels with Uncle Sergius. The boy-shell's father calls her his brother's mistress. The Beast knows what that means. They think that sort of thing is disgusting.
Natasha just stands there, not saying anything, her mouth getting rounder, her arms stuck out like a scarecrow. She looks funny. The boy-shell smiles at her and the Beast takes out the claw from its waistsheath.
'It's all right, 'Tasha. Don't be sad.'
The boy-shell gets up and slips an arm round Natasha's waist. She is shaking, but can't move. The Beast licks her face with a rough tongue. She doesn't flinch.
She enjoys it really, the Beast knows that. Women are disgusting like that. Absolutely disgusting.
The Beast takes its hard, straight claw×eight inches of sharpened steel×and puts it into Natasha's stomach.
She gasps in delight and blood comes out of her mouth.
The Beast takes its claw out of Natasha's stomach and puts it into her chest. Then, it puts the claw somewhere else. And somewhere else.
Split-face Uncle Sergius looks up at the moons. And Natasha doesn't say anything.
This is the best thing the Beast has ever known. From now on, it will hunt only women. It will kill only women. The boy-shell agrees.
Women, it has finally realized, are its natural prey.
Women. Disgusting women.
* * * * *
III
As usual, the tally was coming up three barrels short. Benning, the clerk, was scratching his chin with his quill, squirting a little ink into his beard as he looked in bored bewilderment at the cargo barge moored up by the Reik and Talabec Trading C
ompany Warehouse. Ruprecht, the night man, was yawning enormously, making the point that he wanted to go home and sleep. Judging by his breath, the fat hog could have accounted for all three casks of l'Anguille wine by himself. If the shipyard dog licked Ruprecht's sweaty crotch one more time, it would be as drunk as a priest of Ranald on Trickster's Day.
'Count it again,' snarled Harald Kleindeinst.
Benning, who was sensibly afraid of him, complied, and began checking the cargo against his manifest.
The River Rat, pride of the Reik and Talabec line, had the Marienburg to Altdorf run, carrying wines from Bretonnia, cloth from Albion and scrimshaw baubles from Norsca. And, during its twenty-five year life, it had never arrived in Altdorf with exactly the same cargo that had left Marienburg. Rather, while the cargo might have entered Altdorf intact, it always seemed peculiarly diminished by the time the unloaded goods were inventoried.
Harald was going to do something today that would change that record.
'I wish you'd hurry up,' said Warble, the supercargo, 'I have business in the city that won't wait.'
Warble was a halfling, but he wasn't the fey, childlike creature halflings were supposed to be. He was chewing a cheroot and sitting on a deckstool, calmly waiting for Harald to let him disembark.
'Take your ease, Warble,' Harald told him. 'Nobody leaves the wharf until the cargo is accounted for.'
'I'm here on business, thief-taker,' the halfling said.
'So am I.'
Sam Warble shrugged and looked at the pointed toes of his boots.
The dock crew were also sitting around, impatient. Krimi, the young foreman, was fraying the end of a rope with a marlinspike and casting the occasional threatening glance at Harald when he thought the day watch wasn't looking at him. Krimi was a Fish, and in addition to the colours sewn onto his jerkin, had fish tattooed on his cheeks. That marked him as a war chief and made him think he was a tough character.