‘Refusing to defend yourself against innocent children?’ The beast’s mouth yawned as he shook with laughter.
Thyssen leered into Ditmarr’s face. ‘Shall I tell you of that innocence? Can you imagine the ecstasy of corrupting such fertile fields as these?’ Thyssen gestured to include the frenzied throng gathered about the two old adversaries. He crooked a clawed finger and motioned for one among them to come forward. Ditmarr looked at the young, blank faces of the sorcerer’s fold. Even the huge boy who broke away from the other children had about him an air of confusion. The children knew that they were changing, but they had no understanding of what they were becoming. At once, the Black Guardsman’s loathing of their corrupter increased tenfold.
‘This is Kurt,’ Thyssen beamed. ‘A more worthy instrument of the Blood God has never been seen by these old eyes.’ The sorcerer reached into his dark robe and withdrew a filthy, blood-encrusted knife. He handed the weapon to Kurt. Ditmarr stared into the boy’s expressionless face, his eyes a soul-less window into Khorne’s domain of carnage.
‘You are just in time to witness Kurt’s devotions to the Blood God,’ a vile grin spread across the sorcerer’s face. ‘Or participate in them, as the case may be.’ The sorcerer’s words were answered by a rasping, choking sound. It took Thyssen a moment to realise that the templar was laughing at him. ‘You will scream for me, cripple, when your blood feeds Khorne!’ Thyssen snapped, glaring at Ditmarr. The templar raised his head, letting his cold eyes stare into the sorcerer’s own.
‘I wonder how Morr will receive you,’ the Black Guardsman said. ‘What is the justice earned by a heretic priest?’ Thyssen continued to glare at Ditmarr, a snarl upon his face. Suddenly, the sorcerer’s eyes grew wide with alarm.
‘Where is Paul?’ the sorcerer roared, his head bobbing about trying to spot the boy he had sent to lure his enemy here. Thyssen had been too lost in gloating over his enemy to notice the flaw in his plot. Now the alarmed sorcerer was trying to recover the situation.
‘Keren!’ Thyssen shouted. ‘Look outside. Our guest may not have come alone.’ The girl released Ditmarr’s shoulder and ran to the doorway of the mill.
‘IT’S KEREN!’ GASPED Bernd Mueller from his position in the trees outside the ramshackle mill.
‘Aye,’ agreed Otto Keppler. The tavern keeper lit the torch in his hand and made ready to cast it. Mueller grabbed the man’s arm before he could cast the firebrand.
‘You know the guardsman’s orders,’ Keppler said, his voice as cold and lifeless as that of the templar himself. He tore his arm free of Mueller’s and threw the torch at the mill’s rotting roof.
‘But my daughter is in there,’ sobbed Mueller.
‘As is mine,’ Keppler whispered.
‘THEY’RE SETTING THE mill on fire!’
Keren’s shrill voice shrieked as she retreated away from the door. The other children stared at her for a moment, as if uncertain how to react to Keren’s cries when the first crackling flames licked downwards from the ceiling and the first tendrils of fire danced at the mill’s broken windows. Panic gripped the coven and they disintegrated into a frantic mob, racing about the mill, seeking refuge from the growing flames.
Thyssen shouted at his followers, trying to calm them. He did not see how few had retained their hold upon the templar, or how, their numbers lessened, Ditmarr seized the opportunity to free himself of their clutching grasp. His arm free, the Black Guardsman groped within the seemingly empty sleeve of his habit. A small silver dagger appeared in the knight’s hand. As Thyssen Krotzigk turned to observe the templar’s sudden motion, Ditmarr lashed out with the dagger. The blade passed cleanly through the sorcerer’s left eye.
Thyssen recoiled, a furred hand clutching at his face in a vain attempt to staunch the flow of blood and jelly. Ditmarr brought an armoured boot crashing into the sorcerer’s twisted leg, pitching the villain to the floor.
‘Rot in the gardens of the damned,’ Ditmarr snarled, crouching over his enemy. As the templar raised his dagger to slit the throat of the heretic, a powerful grip closed around his wrist and jerked him off the sorcerer’s body.
Ditmarr swung at his attacker, arresting his weapon when he found himself looking into the youthful face of the boy Thyssen had called Kurt. The boy stared back with eyes that were pools of crimson, windows into the gore-soaked domain of the Blood God. A slight smile tugged at the boy’s lips as he backhanded Ditmarr and sent the knight flying across the mill. Ditmarr struck his head hard against the floor. As he raised himself from the ground, he shook his head groggily from side to side, trying to clear his vision.
Something was not right. Amid a rain of blazing thatch, the boy was slowly walking towards him. But with every step the child seemed to be growing larger, rippling muscles swelling on his arms and chest. The boy’s flesh was turning leathery, taking on a red sheen. When Kurt reached the stunned templar, his features had grown sharp and inhuman; the teeth within his smirking mouth were long ivory fangs. Again the boy struck Ditmarr, crumpling his breastplate, the dented metal stabbing into the flesh beneath and sending the knight hurtling across the burning mill.
Ditmarr landed, his back striking the burning hulk of a fallen beam. The templar’s habit caught fire and Ditmarr hurried to tear it from his armoured body. As he freed himself of the blazing garment, Ditmarr felt a monstrous hand close about his neck. Like a rag doll his armoured body was lifted from the floor.
There was no trace of Kurt in the thing that held Ditmarr. The daemon that had entered the boy had now completely possessed Kurt’s body. The hands that held Ditmarr ended in long, razor-sharp claws. Monstrous black horns protruded from the abomination’s elongated head while a stink of old blood oozed from the daemon’s scarlet hide. The Bloodletter licked Ditmarr’s face with a long, sinuous tongue. The obscenity’s free hand touched itself to Ditmarr’s chest and slowly raked its claws downwards, slicing through armour and flesh as though both were made of butter.
Ditmarr screamed against the searing agony of the daemon’s touch. With a tremendous effort, he took his hand from the claw choking him and smashed the daemon’s grinning mouth. The fiend’s head snapped back and it dropped Ditmarr to the ground. The Bloodletter worked its jaw for a moment and then snarled at the templar.
Blood streamed from the gaping wounds in his chest, flowing through the rents in his armour like a cataract of gore. Despite the hideous wounds and his own fast failing strength, Ditmarr lunged at the Bloodletter. The Black Guardsman’s armoured body struck the daemon of Khorne head on, knocking beast and man through the weakened wall of the fiery mill.
The daemon rose first, grabbing Ditmarr by the leg and hurling the templar a dozen yards, the warrior landing with a crack that bespoke of broken bones and internal injuries. The monster hissed and strode away from the inferno that blazed behind it, intent upon the filthy creature that sought to deny its bloodlust. At one point, the Bloodletter stopped in mid-step, its body frozen. For a moment, it seemed to shrink, to wither, before a sudden surge of unholy power caused the beast to swell again and continue its advance.
Ditmarr crawled through the brush, every motion heralding unspeakable agony. Somewhere in his body a rib had shattered, its bony shrapnel skewering the knight’s lung. Blood trickled from his mouth and nose with every breath. The Black Guardsman could barely feel the familiar inhuman grip that closed about his arm and wrenched his body from the ground. His bleary vision could barely discern the leering daemonic face that leered into his own. But he heard the cry of terror that sounded from behind the fiend.
The Bloodletter turned, still retaining its grip upon the templar and regarded the obese man with the rusty axe who had been fool enough to attack it. The daemon reached out towards Bassermann even as the wainwright struck at it again. The blade failed to pierce the fiend’s flesh, a fact which caused the fat man’s eyes to grow even wider with fear. The Bloodletter licked its fangs at the prospect of still more blood to satisfy its hunger.
Suddenly, the monster’s form began to tremble. Ditmarr found himself falling to the ground as the Bloodletter’s arm began to wither and fade. The daemon let out a howl of rage and fury as its body shrivelled. Soon only the echoes of its scream and a pile of smouldering ash remained as testament of the daemon’s intrusion upon the realm of man. Ernst Ditmarr coughed weakly as Bassermann rushed to the templar’s side.
DITMARR STIRRED WEAKLY as one of the villagers drew near. Blood seeped through his bandages as he moved. Try as they might, there seemed to be no way to stop the wounds inflicted by the daemon of Khorne from bleeding. It had been a marvel to the villagers that the templar had endured through the night.
‘Have you found him?’ the Black Guardsman asked, his voice the barest of whispers. Bernd Mueller looked down at him.
Ever since the fire had settled, the templar had been asking them to find the twisted remains of the Chaos sorcerer. In the darkness and now, in the light, the men of Marburg had undertaken the hideous task. Now Bernd Mueller stared at the dying templar.
‘Aye, we found his filthy carcass,’ the miller declared. ‘Pinned beneath a fallen support. He must have burned to death in the fire.’ The templar sighed as Mueller finished his report. The sigh slowly trailed off into the knight’s death rattle. The taverner and miller watched as the mangled body twitched for a moment and was still. Otto Keppler leaned down and pulled the heavy wool blanket which had been wrapped about the dying knight and drew it over Ditmarr’s sightless eyes.
‘We found nothing,’ the tavern keeper whispered. Mueller smiled feebly at the man.
‘If it allows him to pass the portal of Morr easier, of what harm is that?’ Mueller did not await an answer, but slowly started the long, lonely path home.
THE BLACK-CLOAKED figure rose from the shadows and limped to the corpse lying on the other side of the hedge. Carefully, a furred hand pulled the crude stone knife from the forester’s still warm body. The creature’s single eye studied the simple blade for a moment. He did not give any sign that he heard the furtive sounds of motion at his back. Slowly he rose, turning to observe the even more twisted and grotesque figures emerging from the trees.
Thyssen Krotzigk smiled as the beastmen began to circle him. The swine-headed sorcerer dropped the knife in his left hand and the blood-caked dagger in his right. He studied the malformed, animal faces, their brute eyes gleaming with hate, their fanged mouths dripping saliva as their bloodlust rose. The beastmen began to grip their crude weapons more tightly, testing their weight with practice swipes, displaying brutal strength capable of crushing skulls.
And all is the laughter of the Four Princes, thought the sorcerer, as the beastmen closed upon him.
THREE KNIGHTS
by Graham McNeill
DARKNESS WAS APPROACHING as the three knights neared the outskirts of the village, their horses hooves thumping on the rain slick timbers of the bridge. Below them, the river foamed white, swollen by the recent rains washing down the flanks of the Grey Mountains. The roadway led within a badly constructed wooden palisade wall and lamplight from behind shuttered windows cast shafts of light in their path. The air was thick with the smell of woodsmoke.
A wooden sign nailed to an empty guard booth at the end of the bridge proclaimed the village’s name as Gugarde. An ugly name for an ugly town, thought Luc Massone as he and his two companions rode through the broken gateway into town. Luc knew that Bretonnian towns were never the most aesthetically pleasing places at the best of times, but this was a particularly offensive example. His father’s estates to the south of Couronne were much more attractive to the eye. Luc was a powerfully built figure, with a thick mane of black hair and darkly handsome face. A long, white scar trailed from his right temple to his chin, giving him a cruel, sardonic expression.
As they rode deeper into the town, he knew they were being watched. Fitful slivers of light as tattered drapes were drawn aside behind barred windows told him as much. Luc knew that three armoured knights on horseback would not pass unnoticed in a squalid little town like this.
‘This place reeks of fear,’ said Fontaine, Luc’s second brother, riding on his left. ‘They hang witchbane and daemonroot above their doors. Mayhap the stories were true.’
Luc smiled at the unmistakable edge of anticipation in Fontaine’s voice.
‘Did I not tell you so?’ answered Luc, ‘We shall find the dark ones soon, I am sure. Evil like theirs does not die easily.’
‘Then are we three enough?’ asked Belmonde, Luc’s youngest brother. ‘If the nightwalkers have truly returned should we not have come in greater numbers?’
Luc sighed in exasperation at Belmonde’s foolishness. His brother would never learn. ‘And if we brought an army and smashed down their keep stone by stone would that make you a knight? Where would the honour be? How then would you prove your manhood to father with a horde of screaming peasants at your back? No, if we are to do this, we do it alone. Only in this way can you become a knight of the realm as I am.’
Suitably chastened, Belmonde did not reply. Luc reined in his horse before a low-roofed building, the odious stench of unwashed bodies and boiled vegetables emanating from within. A faded sign above the door bore a crude etching of a many turreted castle below which were carved the words, ”The Manor”.
Luc laughed at the inappropriateness of the name as the brothers dismounted, tethering their horses to the inn’s only hitching rail while Belmonde did likewise with their pack mule. Casting a distasteful glance at the establishment, Luc and his brothers ventured within.
THE STENCH OF the inn was an almost physical thing, all-encompassing and overpowering. The sweat of hard labour, poor food and stale beer mingled into a pungent aroma that caught in the back of his throat. The inn was surprisingly full and, conspicuously, none of the bar’s patrons raised their eyes to the knights. A surly looking barkeep sat behind a trestle bar at the end of the room and Luc’s annoyance rose as he moved through them. Did these peasants not realise the honour he brought them merely by deigning to enter their stinking establishment? He drew a gold coin from a purse hanging from his sword belt and dropped it onto the bar.
‘There are three horses and a pack mule outside,’ he stated. ‘See to it that they are fed, watered and stabled adequately for the night.’
The innkeeper’s eyes bulged at the sight of the coin, more wealth than he would normally see in a year, and he snatched it up in his meaty fist. His eyes darted suspiciously around the room, frightened that others might see his sudden good fortune. He smiled and barked, ‘Antoine! Move your worthless carcass and take the lords’ horses to the stables! Hurry now!’
In response, a harried looking youth scurried quickly from the inn.
‘We shall also be requiring rooms, food and wine,’ continued Luc. ‘This should ensure that they are of the requisite quality…’ He dropped another coin on the wooden bar, its clatter causing heads to turn throughout the inn. The innkeeper scooped up the second coin as quickly as the first.
‘You shall have the very best my lords!’ said the man. ‘Best in all Bretonnia!’
‘I somehow doubt that,’ replied Luc airily, ‘but do what you can.’
He turned his back on the man and made his way to an empty table next to the window. Conversations that had been low and subdued before now ceased altogether and every man in the bar stared into his tankard as though fascinated by its contents.
‘Luc,’ whispered Belmonde urgently, ‘do you know how much you gave that man?’
‘Of course,’ answered Luc, ‘It is only money, and a Bretonnian knight needs not money.’
Fontaine smiled, thinking he understood his brother’s intentions, and said, ‘Yes, one must always be prepared to help the lower orders. You must learn this, Belmonde, if you are to be part of this, the brothers Massone’s quest…’
Silence filled the expectant gap left hanging by Fontaine’s words and he struggled to conceal his anger as no one in the bar took the bait of his statement.
Belmonde, finally grasping his brother’s vain theatrics, said, ‘Yes, Fontaine. To destroy the evil blood drinkers that dwell in Blood Keep we must be true to the vows we swore in the Lady’s Chapel in Couronne. We must…’
His words trailed off in the face of Luc’s stare. Unaware of Luc’s chagrin, Fontaine continued, ‘Indeed, brother. For such is our quest, to do battle with the creatures of the night that plague these noble people, that carry their children to Blood Keep and drain them of their souls. To face the vampires!’
Fontaine sat back in his chair, the barest hint of a self-satisfied smirk playing around the corners of this mouth. A throat cleared at a table beside the fireplace and his grin widened as an aged voice began to speak.
‘If you are truly heading to Blood Keep then you are even more stupid than you look.’
Fontaine’s grin vanished and he surged to his feet, face scarlet and his hand flashing to his sword hilt. A blur of silver steel and the blade was in his hand.
‘Who dares insult my honour?’ he roared, eyes scanning the wary crowd. A single pair of eyes rose to meet Fontaine’s. A man, bent by age and toil, his skin worn and leathery, whose eyes, despite the twin ravages of time and alcohol, were clear and blue, haunted by a wisdom that belied his appearance.
Fontaine’s resolve faltered as he met the old man’s gaze, but his pride would not allow him to back down now. He held the sword at the old man’s throat and said, ‘Were you a worthy foe I would challenge you to a duel. But I am a man of honour and will not strike one so venerable.’
The man shrugged, as though the matter was of no consequence, saying, ‘You are a fool to think you can defeat the Blood Knights. They are warriors beyond compare. I know. I stood in the ranks when the Due de Montfort fought them at Gisoreux. He was a great man, but the vampires cut him down like a child.’
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