[Warhammer] - The Corrupted

by Robert Earl - (ebook by Undead)

  “I’m sure that the child will find your sentiments most comforting.”

  Vaught glared at the older man.

  “I don’t have time for idle words, and neither do you. I must go and make my report to the prince regent, so I will leave you in charge of cleaning this up.”

  “Right you are, captain,” the other man said. He threw his cloak around Gerta’s trembling shoulders and turned back to his comrades.

  The girl felt the warmth from the cloak and realised how cold she had been. It was a fine material, and grey, at least, it was sometimes grey. The colour seemed to change as she moved, blending into the background as effortlessly as ink into water.

  It was only after her teeth had stopped chattering that she looked up to thank Vaught, but by the time she had done so, he had already gone.

  Vaught was scowling as he stomped out of the cellar, into the warmth and richness of the house above.

  His boots, soft-soled for the stealth his profession demanded, were silent as he marched across a carpeted study and into the marbled hall beyond. In one corner, as miserable as a flock of sheep after a rainstorm, the servants stood, their hands bound. Two of his men watched over them, and they turned to salute as he passed them by.

  “The heretics below have been pacified,” he told them as he stalked past. “You can begin questioning their servants.”

  “Yes, captain,” the youngest of his men said, saluting again. His comrade smiled at him good naturedly. The lad had only been apprenticed to Vaught’s group for three months, and he was still eager to impress.

  “Make sure,” Vaught added as he left the room, “that you question them closely.”

  The sudden sobbing of the captives followed him out into the street beyond. It was broad and well paved, and the shadows of the mansions on either side loomed large as afternoon faded into evening.

  Vaught remained silent as he made his way through a tangle of side streets and out onto the main thoroughfare. The cobbles had long since been stolen to reveal the mud beneath, and the stink of human and animal waste hung heavy in the air.

  Sniffing it approvingly, Vaught pressed on. He had been born and raised on such a street, and he felt at home with the honesty of the people who lived here. Thieves stole, merchants haggled, and whores sold their wares: all straightforward professions, in their way, and nothing like the hidden sickness that he fought.

  Although such thoughts lifted his mood, the crowd still parted before his gaunt figure. It wasn’t just the size of his armoured frame that lent a spring to their step, it was also the constellation of amulets that he wore about his harness. They marked him out for what he was, and nobody, no matter how innocent, wanted anything to do with a witch hunter.

  Even the gatekeepers did little more than cast a cursory glance in his direction as he marched through the stone vaulted gates of the prince regent’s palace, and when he met the prince’s herald, the man emerging into the shadowed courtyard at the same time as Vaught, the servant’s reaction was one of sheer terror.

  “Menheer Vaught,” he squeaked, eyes goggling, “how did you know?”

  Vaught stared at him, stony faced.

  “Oh! Alright, I’m sorry. Please forgive my inquisitiveness. How you know that the prince regent wants to see you is none of my business. My job was only to carry the message, and now you’re here.”

  Vaught remained impassive. His face became as inanimate as a mirror, a blank surface onto which the herald could project his fears. The witch hunter had learnt the trick during numerous inquisitions.

  “Anyway,” the herald swallowed and licked his lips. “I must be going. I have to, erm…”

  “You look nervous,” Vaught told him.

  The herald reacted as if his death sentence had just been read out.

  “Must go,” he whimpered, and fled.

  Vaught smiled briefly and marched into the palace. He padded through a great hall, hung with chandeliers and peopled with petitioners, and into the antechamber to the prince regent’s chambers.

  Here, at least, the guards had no fear of him. There were four of them, scarred veterans who had been with Gustav since his earliest years. They sat around a card table, their well-greased mail and hobnailed boots a stark contrast to the gilded finery of the room.

  They looked at Vaught as he prowled in, relaxed even when he turned the fire of his gaze upon them. Perhaps alone of all the palace staff, they knew themselves to be beyond the reach of the witch hunters. It made them surprisingly friendly.

  “Vaught, you old charmer,” one asked as he threw his cards onto the table, “have you been drinking again?”

  “I never drink. It dulls the senses,” Vaught answered. He knew that he was being mocked, but he could never work out quite how.

  “I bet he has,” another said, “and quite right too. You know what bon vivants these witch hunters are, and you can’t dance on the tables all night without a brandy or two inside you.”

  Vaught looked at the men with a haughty disdain.

  “It is duty I come to discuss with the prince regent, not merriment.”

  For no reason Vaught could discern, the men burst out laughing. Perhaps they were drunk themselves.

  “You’re alright, Vaught,” one of them said, wiping his eyes. “Just go on through. The boss is expecting you.”

  And the prince regent was. His reception room was a display of wealth, with everything from the frescos on the ceiling to the golden pillars that supported it, designed to impress, but the rich surroundings had obviously done little to calm the prince regent’s nerves. He paced up and down the great hall, fondling the hilt of his sword.

  “Vaught,” he said as the witch hunter bowed, “about time. Right then, sit down. We have a problem.”

  “More zombies?”

  “No, even worse.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “Shame about the rain, your honour. It really damages a horse’s coat, especially one as hard ridden as yours. Gets into the nap of it, see, causes pie balding.” The ostler lifted his lamp and touched the horse that stood steaming in the middle of his stable. “Where did you say you’d come from again?”

  “Altdorf,” muttered Grendel, wringing rain from his beard. “No! Not Altdorf, I meant Nuln. I’ve come from Nuln.”

  “That’s what I thought you said. Nuln. That must be two hundred miles if it’s a dozen. Now if you’d come from Altdorf, I could have given you half price for him, winded and rain scourged as he is, but Nuln…”

  The ostler shook his head regretfully and looked at Grendel. Even without the white flecks of exhaustion that speckled his horse, it was obvious that this gangling man was some sort of fugitive. Honest men didn’t gallop into the village in the middle of the night and beg for fresh mounts. Nor did they follow him to his stable, pathetically eager to buy a horse they’d only see by lamplight.

  “No, I can’t really give you much for him at all. Tell you what, though, if you aren’t too sentimental I’ll buy him off you for the meat. Couple of copper crowns, perhaps.”

  “Yes, whatever,” Grendel waved the sordid business of payment away, “but what about a fresh horse? Can you sell me one?”

  Again the ostler shook his head.

  “Wrong time of year, really. Everyone needs horses to bring the harvests in. Now, if you were to come back in autumn that would be different.”

  “Autumn?” Grendel yelped. “But I want to leave tonight, right now. Look, what’s wrong with that horse over there? Or that one?”

  The ostler shrugged.

  “Already spoken for,” he said.

  “But you are an ostler, you must sell horses.”

  “I do, only too well,” the man smiled ruefully. “These are fine beasts, but all promised to others. The bay is for Farmer Schweinporker. Both greys are for the militia, and old Brinnie here is my own horse. I raised him from a foal, so I did.”

  “All right, I’ll buy him.”

  The ostler contrived to look scandalised. />
  “What? Buy Brinnie? No, I don’t think so. Begging your pardon, your lordship, but I’ve seen how you treat horses.”

  “I’ll give you a gold crown.”

  The ostler shook his head.

  “You’re very generous, but I couldn’t, not Brinnie. When I was a lad, he got me away from a pack of orcs. Saved my life, so he did.”

  “When you were a lad? It doesn’t look that old.”

  “Very kind of you to say so, sire,” the ostler said, quickly moving away from his mistake, “and a gold coin is fair value, but, like I say, old Brinnie and me… well, we’re like friends.”

  “Two gold coins.”

  The ostler paused. Then he smiled regretfully.

  “Not even for two.”

  “All right, name your price.” Grendel made the offer and looked back out of the stable to the rain that sheeted down outside. It hadn’t stopped since he’d fled that morning, racing through the nightmare that he had accidentally created. Perhaps, he considered miserably, the weather was some sort of judgement.

  Not that what had happened had been his fault. How could he have known? There was no warning that the spell he’d found in the book had been… well, had been necromantic.

  There had been no requirement for horrible substances or human sacrifices, or whatever such filthy magic required, and the spell itself hadn’t even been difficult to cast. He had merely allowed his words and his thoughts to flow along the lines that had been written on the page. Then there had been that familiar lift, the moment of ecstasy in which he could feel the winds of magic filling him with the power of the gods.

  And then…

  He shuddered and refused to think about the agony of what had come next: the pain, the bleeding, and the visions. It wasn’t until he had seen the arch magister leaning over him that he had known the nightmare was past.

  Thank all the gods for Grunwalder, he thought. If he hadn’t warned me in time, shown me what I’d actually done…

  Grendel shivered, thoughts of the witch hunters’ pyres flickering through his head.

  Lost in his own desperate world, he missed the ostler’s pitch. That was a shame, because it was a good one. It was full of personal tragedy, broken hearts and entreaties to Grendel’s better nature. At one point, the man even managed a tear.

  “So, how much?” Grendel asked, interrupting a tale about the ostler’s sick daughter and the medicines she needed to come all the way from Araby.

  “Fifteen gold crowns,” the man said, and held his breath.

  “Fine. Get him saddled up, will you?”

  For a moment, the ostler stood, too stunned to speak. Then he was moving, desperate to complete the deal before this lunatic changed his mind.

  “If you’ll just count out the coin, sire,” he said as he lifted the soggy saddle from Grendel’s old horse and carried it over to the new. “I’ll have Brinnie ready in just two minutes. He’s well fed, as you can see. A real winner. I’ll be sad to see him go, but my daughter…”

  “Yes, of course. Very sad,” Grendel muttered and turned away from the ostler. He fumbled inside his tunic and bent furtively over his purse. His fingers moved and he muttered something under his breath.

  “What’s that, your lordship?” the ostler asked, looking back over his shoulder.

  “Nothing,” Grendel said and, with a clink of coins, he turned back to the newly saddled horse.

  “There you go, your lordship. All ready to go. Now, if I might just see the coin?”

  “Here.” Grendel poured the coins into his outstretched hand as carelessly as if they had been pebbles. The metal glinted in the lamplight, filling the ostler’s eyes with a rich, warm glow.

  They were real all right. He could scarcely believe it, but they were. He weighed one, bit another, and held a third up to the light.

  By Ranald’s left ball, he was a rich man!

  Grendel, meanwhile, had climbed awkwardly up onto his new mount and was edging her towards the door.

  “I’ll miss that horse,” the ostler lied, slipping the coins into his purse. Grendel just grunted and dug his heels into the animal’s sides. It jolted into life, and trotted reluctantly out into the hissing rain.

  The ostler watched them go, still scarcely believing his luck.

  “Come again,” he called out after the retreating figure, but Grendel was already out of earshot, cloaked in darkness.

  After the rain, the forest smelled so fresh that it might have grown the night before. The scents of pine sap and oak bark mingled into a heady perfume, and even the musk of the warm soil smelled sweet.

  A light breeze whispered through the endless branches of the endless trees, its fingers chilly with winter’s approach. Occasional clouds of butterflies, each as big as a hand, burst from the canopy in silent explosions of colour.

  The time had come for them to journey south, first to Tilea and then to Araby. Thousands of miles lay ahead of them; thousands of miles of floating on winds they could not control, helpless but hopeful.

  Kerr knew how they felt. He had spent the days since leaving Altdorf perched on the top of his master’s carriage, an uneasy teamster. In one hand he held the reins of the horses and in the other a whip. He didn’t need to use either. The four horses were a well trained team, and he had realised at the very beginning of this journey that the best thing he could do would be to leave them well alone.

  He’d made the same decision about Titus. However much the carriage rattled and bumped, his master still managed to spend the days sleeping like a baby.

  Well, not exactly like a baby, Kerr thought. Babies don’t weigh twenty stone. Nor do they snore like an entire herd of pigs. In fact, over the. noise of the horses, the carriage and its occupant it was impossible to hear anything else.

  Which was why, as the sun rolled from morning to afternoon, the riders who used the forest to pass their carriage unseen, remained unheard.

  It was only when the path narrowed to squeeze through a cleft between two hills that Kerr had any inkling of what was about to happen. The fallen tree could have been a coincidence, of course, but to Kerr, who had never been out of site of Altdorf’s spires, everything in this forest looked suspicious.

  As the horses drifted to an uncertain stop, he leapt from his seat, stretched, and thought about waking Titus. Then he thought better of it. Although usually as cheerful as any servant had a right to expect his master to be, the magician was like a bear with a sore head when he was woken; and like a pig with a blocked nose when he was asleep, Kerr thought with a grin.

  He liked the fat man well enough. He was a pleasant enough old duffer when humoured, and although Kerr mocked him within the privacy of his thoughts it was usually with affection.

  He was still smiling as he sauntered past the horses to examine the deadfall that blocked their path.

  It was only when he reached the tree that he realised how much trouble they were in. The forest here was oak, gnarled and yellowing in the season’s chill, but the tree that lay across the path was a dark pine. Even to Kerr’s untrained eye it seemed as out of place as a raven amongst a flock of peacocks.

  Kerr scowled with suspicion and ran his fingers over the rough bark. Then he noticed the axe marks that flashed at its base.

  “Shit,” he said, stepping back and looking around warily.

  Then the ambushers struck.

  From all around, there came a sudden hiss, and the air splintered into a hail of arrows. Kerr had no time to run. Even if he had, there was nowhere to run to. A second before, the forest had been as empty as a drum. Now, there were so many archers that it seemed as crowded as an Altdorfian marketplace.

  They were everywhere. Some were beyond the roadblock, and some behind the carriage. Others sat in the branches, balancing as effortlessly as birds even as they loosed their arrows. There were even half a dozen who came bursting up from the ground, monstrous beneath their camouflage of netting and leaf mould.

  Kerr realised that he was dead. He was
too shocked to feel any emotion at the realisation, but he was grateful that the last blink of his life wouldn’t be too painful.

  Everything became sharper, somehow: brighter. The air around him became as clear as ice cold water. It flowed like water too, warping and weaving so that the lines of the arrows bent like reeds caught in an eddy.

  The archers themselves also shimmered, their images distorting as if seen through a moving lens.

  It was the last thing Kerr noticed before the arrows bit home.

  He heard the thunk of them as they cut into soil and timber, and felt the whip of flights as they cut past him. There was a sudden sting as an arrowhead grazed his arm, another as one sliced open his earlobe.

  When the volley had finished, he stood dazed amongst a forest of feathered shafts. His attackers stared at him, open mouthed. He stood amongst their arrows, as safe as a babe behind the bars of a cradle.

  Then, in the midst of their confusion, Titus emerged from the carriage.

  As he hopped down from the running board, the carriage squeaked and bounced up on its springs. The wizard hit the ground running, moving quickly, more quickly than Kerr had ever suspected was possible.

  Even as the bandits notched a fresh volley of arrows, he had hurled himself into the first knot of them, arms outstretched in embrace.

  But quick as the fat man was the arrows were quicker. Bowstrings hummed as busily as a hive of bees, and a volley homed in on his meaty shoulders.

  It passed effortlessly through them and into the men beyond.

  Their stricken screams pierced the darkness of the shadowed forest, only to be eclipsed by the boom of Titus’ laughter. He turned from their fallen bodies, some writhing and some still, and rushed towards the next group of ambushers.

  Kerr barely recognised him. The transformation that had taken place was terrifying, although he couldn’t say exactly what that transformation had been. Titus’ form remained the same. His chubby features and rolling gut were as familiar as ever.

  Now, though, his body seemed lit from within, his bulk a furnace of terrible energy. It was as if some daemon had slipped into the wizard’s skin and was wearing it as his own.