by James Wallis
Holger made no reply.
“You, Holger, alone among your colleagues you see the bigger picture. Kratz was too fanatical, and Rhinehart was too willing to compromise. I’ve seen you work, I know you could keep your vows and oaths, and follow the spirit of the laws of the Order of Sigmar, if not their exact words.” He looked down at the bodies of Kratz and Rhinehart, bathed in blood. “It is the hardest trials that test us the furthest. They were tested and they broke. You bent and sprang back.”
“What are you saying?” Holger asked.
“I’m saying you’re a man much like me. In the great war against Chaos we are on the same side, and for the same reason: we have seen the corruption at the heart of the Empire, and we know it must be cut out.”
“It betrayed us both,” Holger said.
“This is not about revenge,” Karl said. “But we are also both fugitives. So, Brother Holger, I have three questions. Do you trust me? Will you come with me? And do you have two horses that can get us to the city gates before Brother Karin raises the alarm and has them closed?”
Holger, standing in the light, stared at him. From the shadows Karl stared back. He knew that Holger knew that if his answers were no, if the witch hunter persisted in trying to arrest him, then they would both be arrested as criminals, heretics and Chaos-worshippers.
But Holger was a still a witch hunter. It was possible that he might believe the importance of taking down the noted criminal Karl Hoche, the Chaos Hunter, was more important than his own safety. It was also possible that he might want to be arrested. A man who has just learned that the organisation to which he has sworn his life, and the person to whom he has sworn his loyalty are both on the side of his enemies—such a man is liable to make unpredictable decisions.
This could go either way.
Holger made a clicking sound at the back of his throat. “You should not call me ‘Brother Holger’,” he said, “as it seems I am no longer a witch hunter. Call me Anders.” He lowered his sword and sheathed it.
“We must hurry, Anders,” Karl said.
The former witch hunter stepped off the apse of the ruined temple, and followed Karl into the shadows.
The horses were tethered to a rail by a water-trough two streets away. The two men unfastened them and checked their tack and saddles. Both tried to avoid looking the other in the face, not wanting to meet the other’s eyes, lest they decide they had made the wrong choice.
Karin had got away, Karl thought bitterly. He had been given an opportunity to kill her and he had failed. If he had done more research, better research, he could have learned that she was mutated and had special gifts from her god. Now she had escaped, her rage and desire for vengeance more vicious than ever. She would not rest until he was dead.
But the day was not wasted. Huss and Valten were even now meeting with the Emperor and the Grand Theogonist, and in a few days would lead the armies of the Empire northwards to battle the threat of Archaon and his vile forces. That was good work, and he had made many allies there.
He had discovered how the Cloaked Brothers operated; how they recruited new members from the desperate and the dispossessed, and how they manipulated forces and units into doing their work for them—and how ruthless they could be, since they must have certainly known that they were sending Rhinehart to his death. And Anders had believed his lie about Brother Heilemann, the lie he had needed to tell to set the whole scheme in motion. Karin had been involved in the mess at Priesdicheim, he knew that from senses he could not even name much less describe, but if Heilemann had been involved, then that was purely coincidence. But if a thing ends well, that justifies the means.
And he had a companion now. For a while, at least.
But Brother Karin still lived. And now she would be a ferocious and desperate adversary, even more than before. Still, if his continued existence and her desire for vengeance distracted her from other schemes of her Chaotic lord, then simply by staying alive he was fighting against her. That thought cheered him a little, but not much.
“Where are we riding?” Anders asked. “Which gate?”
Karl considered the question. “What really happened to Kunstler?” he asked.
“He left the city this morning, in the first Middenheim coach.”
“Middenheim.” The great fortress-city of the north, built on a pinnacle of rock that reached high above the forest. Karl had never been there, and he knew little of it. “Do you think he has business there?”
“It seems unlikely. They say it is besieged,” Anders said.
“Besieged? Who does?”
“Messengers, arrived today. The word is all over the city: the Chaos forces have ringed it.”
“Then I think we should see what business Herr Doktor Kunstler has in that area,” Karl said, “and put an end to it.”
“The north gate, then,” Anders said.
They rode swiftly, and passed through the gate without incident. The guards were unlikely to stop a man in the uniform of a witch hunter and a man in the robes of a Sigmar priest, even if there had not been something set, something dangerous about their expressions. All the word on the streets was about the massacre at Saint Botolphus’ Square and the theft of the steam tank Conqueror. Nobody seemed to have heard anything from the Grand Theogonist’s palace yet, nor from an obscure abandoned temple in the mercantile district.
They rode away, leaving the Empire’s capital behind them. The road seemed empty, the horizon a long way away. They rode as fast as they could without tiring the horses, since it seemed likely that chase would be given. None was forthcoming, and after three miles they slowed to a trot. A mile further there was a stream and they stopped to water their mounts and fill the skins in their saddlebags.
“Back in the temple,” Anders said, “there was something you said. About one of us being as bad as you, and one being worse.”
“Erwin and Karin, of course.”
“You didn’t include me as one of them.”
Karl looked puzzled. “Why should I? Erwin feared he was becoming a mutant, abandoned his oaths, betrayed his brotherhood and went over to the Cloaked Brothers, who he hated, to save his selfish soul. And Karin is a worshipper of Khorne—and a mutant too. Bad and worse, as I said.”
“So you don’t think I’m as bad as you?” Anders asked.
Karl’s eyes, as he looked at him, were full of darkness. “If I thought you were as bad as me, I’d kill you on the spot,” he said.
Anders let his eyes stray over the figure of the inhuman man next to him. Karl’s body-language gave away nothing that suggested he wasn’t entirely serious.
“I think I’m reassured by that,” Anders said, remounting his horse, “but I’m not sure.”
Karl looked up at him. “And that in turn reassures me,” he said, “because when you are sure about me, when you finally know what it is I am, then Brother Anders, that will be the time you must complete the oath you swore to me.” He swung himself up into his saddle.
Anders looked puzzled. “I swore you no oath.”
“You swore to kill me,” Karl said, “but not yet. And I will hold you to that. Because one day, when Chaos grips me too hard for me to resist anymore, then I must die.”
Anders’ stare was long and considered, but it had an edge of steel. “Then those are the terms on which I will ride with you,” he said. “Not your follower, your partner or your friend. Your guardian.”
“My assassin,” Karl said, and held his gloved right hand out across the gap between the two horses. Anders leaned across and grasped it. Leather creaked from the strength of their grip. Their eyes met.
“But not yet,” Anders said.
They broke their grasp, spurred their horses and rode away to the north, into the gathering darkness.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
James Wallis started his first magazine at fourteen. Since then he has been a TV presenter, world-record holder, games designer, political firebrand, auctioneer, convention organiser and internet
commentator, and has written for publications from the Sunday Times to the Fortean Times. He launched the magazines Bizarre and Crazynet, and his books have been translated into eight languages. His proudest moment is being called ‘sick’ by the News of the World. He lives in London, has no cats, hears everything and does not sleep.
For my parents Simon and Ann, with love and respect.
For Marc and Maggie of course.
Thanks to Psion5 and the staff of Caffé Nero in Clapham Common
A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION
‘Fire and Earth’ first published in Apocrypha Now, a supplement for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay © 1995, Games Workshop Ltd.
‘Rest For The Wicked’ first published in Inferno Magazine Issue #32 © 2002, Games Workshop Ltd.
‘Night Too Long’ first published in Inferno Magazine Issue #37 © 2003, Games Workshop Ltd.
‘Mark of Damnation’ © 2003, Games Workshop Ltd.
‘Mark of Heresy’ © 2003, Games Workshop Ltd.
First published in 2003 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK
Cover illustrations by Clint Langley.
Map by Nuala Kennedy.
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