[Warhammer] - The Corrupted

by Robert Earl - (ebook by Undead)

  Titus rocked back as if he’d just been slapped on the face.

  “Are you saying,” he said, with the same dangerous calm that lies at the heart of a cyclone, “that an emergency convocation was called without me?”

  “I suppose so,” Kerr replied, and licked his lips nervously. He’d heard rumours that his master was already in some sort of trouble. The last thing he’d wanted to do was to goad him into some fresh controversy, but it was too late.

  Despite the fact that he’d barely eaten enough for two men, the wizard pushed his platter away, shrugged off his cloak, and started pulling his robes on. As he did so, his face, which had gone as pale as linen, slowly regained its flush.

  “I don’t know that they actually did anything,” Kerr said, trying to think of a way to appease Titus’ rage.

  For once, he wracked his brains in vain. Titus, his jowls wobbling with indignation, was obviously beyond listening. He crammed the felt box of his hat onto his head so hard that it buckled, grasped his staff, and marched to the door.

  He actually had his hand on the latch when somebody on the other side knocked.

  “Who is it?” Titus bellowed, his temper finding a target on the visitor.

  “Arch Magister Grunwalder.”

  Kerr could almost see Titus deflate.

  “Well then,” he mumbled, opening the door, “come in, won’t you?”

  “Thank you,” Grunwald said as he swept into the room. Although he lacked Titus’ bulk, there was the unmistakable mark of authority in his voice and in his step. The formal robes that he had donned for his meeting with the prince magnified this, so that neither Titus nor Kerr were in any doubt that they were in the presence of a master.

  “Good to see you, magister,” Braha said, warily eyeing Grunwalder’s robes of office. “I was just going to see a colleague.”

  “Ah yes. You are due for sentencing, aren’t you?” The arch magister asked. “Liebham mentioned that he was quite looking forward to it.”

  “Sentencing?” Titus’ voice lilted with sudden unease. “I don’t think so. I was just going to hear the council’s findings and recommendations.”

  The arch magister frowned.

  “I’m sorry,” he tutted, and shook his head. “I’m such a fool sometimes. It seems I’ve let the cat out of the bag. Well, never mind. The council can wait.”

  Then, as if he was the host and Titus his guest, he waved towards a chair.

  “Take a seat. You, servant.”

  “Yes master?” Kerr asked.

  “Stop skulking around over there and make yourself scarce.”

  Kerr looked at Titus, who nodded distractedly.

  The arch magister settled himself in a chair and waited until Kerr had closed the door. He listened to the footsteps that retreated down the passageway outside and then, as Kerr padded silently back to listen outside the door, he began to speak.

  “Well, Titus, I must say we will miss you. The order will miss you. Your Convex of Fog is fast becoming one of our standard spells. It has that touch of genius about it, you know? That apparent simplicity that makes us wonder why we didn’t think of it ourselves.”

  “Why will you miss me, chancellor? Surely you don’t think that I’m going to resign.”

  “Oh, come now, Titus, you know how things are. We can usually turn a blind eye to the occasional accident, but not now, not anymore. You’ve heard about the disturbances last night? Well, I’m afraid that our fellow citizens are calling for blood.”

  “But we protect them from necromancy!” Titus snapped, stung by the injustice of it all. “And anyway, that has nothing to do with me. I admit there was some fire damage, but…”

  He trailed off as Grunwalder shook his head.

  “The details don’t really matter. This has nothing to do with our noble art, and everything to do with politics. Dirty business, politics, but then so is night soil collection, and where would we be without that?”

  Titus thought about saying that he didn’t see how the streets of Altdorf could be any worse, but decided not to. Instead, he got to the point.

  “So are you suggesting,” he asked, “that I might be asked to go into some sort of temporary exile?”

  “Oh no, goodness no.”

  Titus sighed with relief.

  “I’m saying that we’re going to have to expel you from the college.”

  “What! You can’t do that. If you do that, I won’t be able to practise magic anymore, but how can I not? You know what the witch hunters are. You know what they do to those of us who are cast out.”

  The arch magister let him ramble on. When it was apparent that Titus had seen the full horror of the abyss that yawned beneath him, he hinted at an alternative.

  “I know, it will be terrible for you. If I could find any way of saving you, I would, but as I say, the college is more important than any individual, and if we have to give the mob a pound of flesh from time to time, well then, so be it.”

  Titus pulled at his collar. He seemed to be finding it difficult to breathe. The arch magister was pleased to see it.

  “Of course,” he commiserated, “it’s all so damnably unfair.”

  “Yes it is,” Titus nodded feverishly.

  “What makes it even worse is that we actually know who caused the disturbances last night: one of our own, I’m afraid. That’s another reason why we can’t show any mercy to you, you see. If we could have punished the actual perpetrator of the crime, then you would have been alright, but obviously, as we can’t do that, you’ll have to do in his stead.”

  “Why can’t we hand this man over? I don’t understand.”

  The arch magister permitted himself a brief smile. In the thirty years that they had known each other, this was the first time that he had heard Titus make such an admission.

  “Yes, that’s a good point. It isn’t that we won’t hand the man in question over, it is that we can’t. He left this morning, no doubt fleeing to his daemonic allies.”

  Titus sprang to his feet and started to pace around the room.

  “Only this morning? Well, that’s not too bad, not too bad at all. We can catch him.”

  The arch magister shook his head regretfully.

  “It is possible,” Titus pleaded. “The winds of magic blow strong this season, and it is easy enough to follow the path a wizard cuts through them. In fact, I have made something of a study of the technique. Braha’s Second Sight, I was thinking of calling it. If you would like to study my notes…”

  “I won’t, if you don’t mind. Anyway, it isn’t just the catching.” The arch magister sighed. “A man who can dabble in such corruption as necromancy is beyond redemption. No, catching him alone wouldn’t be enough. Even though he is one of our brethren, he’d also have to be executed.”

  Titus didn’t even pause.

  “Of course he would, but that would be easy enough.”

  He stopped pacing and looked at the arch magister. The fear on his face had been replaced with understanding. He had just realised that Grunwalder hadn’t come to pass sentence. He had come to make an offer.

  “At least,” he continued, “it would be easy enough for a mage with the proper experience and motivation to hunt down this traitor.”

  “Hmmm.” The arch magister plucked at his neatly manicured beard and pretended to think. “I suppose so, but who would you suggest for such a task?”

  The two men looked at each other.

  “You know how eager I have always been to serve the college, arch magister. Perhaps if the council rethought its decision, then I might be able to go myself.”

  “You don’t even know who it is yet.”

  Titus shrugged.

  “It doesn’t really matter.”

  The arch magister, knowing that he had found the right man for the job, smiled.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  When she awoke, her first thought was one of gratitude. Wherever this place was, it was nice and warm. For the past month, she had spent her nights
shivering in the slums of Altdorf, praying all the while for the summer to return, and, for once, it seemed that her prayers had been answered.

  In the darkness, which was complete, she had no idea where she was. Nor did she remember how she had come to be here. Another girl might have been alarmed at such a realisation, but not Gerta. Ever since her mother had died, she had spent her nights being driven from one sheltered doorway to another, stupefied with exhaustion as she stumbled through the streets.

  The fear only came when she woke up enough to realise that she couldn’t move.

  With a whimper, she pulled at the ropes that bound her ankles and wrists, wriggling on the smooth wooden pallet like a rabbit in a trap. When she realised that the knotted hemp was too strong to give, she lay back, and blinked back the first of her tears.

  It wouldn’t be the first time that this had happened to her, and although it hurt, and although the shame was even greater than the pain within, she knew that it wouldn’t kill her.

  At least, not if she didn’t struggle.

  A moment later, she heard the footsteps approaching, and a doorway opened in a burst of light. After the darkness, and the potion with which she had been drugged, the oil lamps seemed as bright as the sun.

  Gerta squinted her eyes and gritted her teeth, trying to be brave. It wasn’t until she realised how many of them there were that she started sobbing.

  There were a dozen at least. A dozen! They would tear her apart.

  If her tears moved the men who had gathered around her, they didn’t show it. They couldn’t show it. The hoods on their robes had been drawn down so that they were as faceless as executioners. As Gerta wept, they filed around the wooden table to which she had been trussed, each man finding his allotted position and then standing dead still.

  Gerta looked up at them through the prism of her tears. Here and there, she caught glimpses of the eyes that watched her. They glittered as hungrily as a spider’s that has just found a web full of flies.

  When the final figure paced into the room, all eyes turned to him.

  He was dressed in the same hooded robe as the others. He walked at the same, slow pace as the others, and yet, he was different from them: horribly different.

  It wasn’t just the coldness that followed him into the chamber, nor was it the way that his fellows drew back, nervously shifting as he drew nearer. No, it was something more, something that made Gerta want to scream.

  She had no idea what was so terrible about this figure. It was nothing that could be seen or smelled or heard. Yet there was an air about him that was as pungent as the smell of a fish rotted to slime, as nauseating as maggots in an open wound, and as cold as death.

  The newcomer paused, perhaps to savour the sound of her terror. Then he paced forwards to take his place at the end of the table. She watched him as he loomed above her wriggling feet, and when he started to pull his hood back she bared her teeth in sudden terror of what it might reveal.

  It didn’t reveal much. The man who wore it was bland looking, as plump and pale eyed as any prosperous Altdorfian that might have tossed her a copper on the street. Gerta fought the panic that had seized hold of her, telling herself that this would be no worse than the last time, not much worse, anyway.

  Then the man spoke.

  “Brothers,” he intoned, speaking as casually as a grocer discussing prices, “we are gathered in the darkness to praise one who has no need of light. We are gathered in the darkness to pay him the tribute that he demands. We are gathered in the darkness to feast on his behalf.”

  “Tell me, brothers, who is he who flows through every thing living?”

  The reply came in a whisper, the men scarcely speaking any louder than the hiss of blood that raced through Gerta’s veins.

  “Tell me brothers, who is it that gives us the courage to do his will?”

  Again the reply came. It was louder this time, loud enough for her to hear.

  “Khorne,” the gathered men intoned, a terrible passion trembling in their restrained voices.

  “And tell me brothers,” their leader asked, “who is it that will sanctify our feast tonight?”

  “Khorne!”

  This time they cast off their caution and let their god’s name ring loud from the stones of the cellar. Before they had drawn away from their master, but now they leaned closer, moths drawn towards his flame.

  Gerta watched him too. She had stopped struggling, as mesmerised by the pale-eyed man as a mouse by a cobra.

  Behind him, she had started to see shadows flitting through the darkness, phantoms of previous victims, perhaps.

  The cultists, perhaps numbed by long familiarity, seemed oblivious to them. Their leader’s face distorted as he bared a mouthful of strange teeth, each as sharp and yellow as an ivory needle, and for the first time Gerta could see the insanity that burned within his pale eyes. Then he lifted up one hand and, as slowly as a priest performing some sacred rite, he peeled back the glove that covered it.

  When she saw the claw, her paralysis broke and she started to scream. It was the shape of an eagle’s, each black talon a viciously curved thorn. He laughed at her fear, a shrill giggle that accompanied the sound of tearing fabric as his acolytes sliced through her clothing.

  It was only the sight of her soft flesh that sobered him.

  “Blood,” he hissed, leaning forwards and reaching towards her belly with his mutated hand, “Blood for the Blood Go…”

  But it was not her blood that was to be spilled. Even as the cultist flexed his talons there was a sudden movement and a dull thud. He paused, surprise replacing the obscene glee that had been smeared across his podgy features. Then surprise turned to shock.

  Gerta looked up at the mutant, confusion warring with her horror. Then she looked down and saw the tongue of pink-smeared steel that jutted out through his stomach. Even as she watched, it twisted, corkscrewing its way back out of the dying man and leaving him to flop bonelessly forwards.

  For a single, breathless second, the cultists paused, confusion making fools of them all. It was only when their attackers bellowed their challenge that they realised that they were no longer alone.

  This time, Gerta did recognise the name that rang out through the darkness, the syllables as clear as the impact of a hammer on an anvil. It was a name that every child in the Empire knew, for it was the name of the father of them all.

  “Sigmar!” the attackers roared as the cavern erupted into light. Lanterns that had been as dark as stone were unhooded, and cloaks that seemed woven from the very shadows themselves were thrown off to reveal gleaming armour.

  What ensued was more massacre than battle.

  Bereft of their leader, the cultists were slaughtered like cattle: the screams of the stricken, the crunch of dismemberment, the splatter of the blood and the slaughterhouse stink—all this lasted for scarcely more than a moment.

  It was only when the last of the cultists was felled, his head lopped off as neatly as an apple, that Gerta began to wonder what the victors would do with her.

  For a moment, it seemed that they would do nothing. With the blood still warm on their blades, they stood amongst the bodies of their victims, grim faced even in victory. As one, their shaven heads bowed, and their lips moved in silent prayer. Only then did they return to the bodies of their foes, cutting throats and cleaning blades on their torn robes.

  It wasn’t until this grisly work was done that one of them turned to Gerta. Within the carapace of his harness he was a giant of a man, and the cicatrice of scars that cob-webbed his face made him look even more fearsome.

  “Who are you?” she asked as him as he began to examine her. He prodded her here and there, occasionally peeling back scraps of clothing to see the skin beneath. All the while, his white-scarred face remained blank, as passionless as a butcher’s examining a side of beef.

  Without deigning to answer her question, the man opened a pouch and drew out an iron charm, a twin tailed comet no larger than his thumb
. With an icy look into the girl’s eyes, he pressed it into her forehead.

  “Ow,” she said, “it’s cold, but please, who are you?”

  “I am Vaught, a humble servant of Sigmar,” he told her, putting the charm away, and drawing a dagger. “It is my sacred duty to cleanse his world of all who traffic with the Ruinous Powers.”

  The knife glinted in his fist as he reached for her, and his face grew even harder.

  “Please don’t,” Gerta begged, pulling away from the blade.

  For the first time Vaught’s stony expression changed.

  “Don’t worry,” he said, and smiled as if the expression hurt him. “It’s your bonds I will cut, not you.”

  So saying, he sliced through the hemp that bound her, leaving her free to sit up and rub some life back into her limbs. All at once she began to shiver.

  “Where were you taken?” he asked, watching her dispassionately.

  “Don’t know,” she answered. “I sleep where I can. I am, well you know, one of the Strasseratten.”

  Vaught frowned.

  “You are one of Sigmar’s heirs,” he scolded her, “not a rat.”

  “No I didn’t mean… it’s just what people say.”

  Vaught scratched his chin thoughtfully and watched Gerta trying to reassemble her ragged clothes.

  “We’re finished here, captain,” one of his men said, interrupting his reverie. “Shall I go and get a cart for the bodies?”

  “Aye,” Vaught nodded. “The sooner they are purified by flame the better.”

  “What about this house?”

  “No, it is too close to others. We will leave it to the temples to clean. The prioress of the temple of Shallya is a good woman, bring her.”

  “As you say, and what about this one?” The man gestured towards Gerta. He was older than the rest, and despite the blood that spattered his armour, there was something comfortable about his wrinkled face.

  “We should take care of her,” Vaught said, “or at least, give her to the prioress to take care of. It seems that Sigmar has smiled upon her this day, and we should respect that. A second later and she would have been no more than so much offal.”