Blackhearts: The Omnibus

by Nathan Long

  Franka shot him a questioning look.

  ‘Hals and Abel saw you in your dress,’ Reiner said softly.

  Franka groaned. ‘So they know my secret?’

  Reiner chuckled. ‘No, no. They think I have one.’

  ‘They…?’ Franka’s eyes widened. ‘Oh, no!’

  The divided party continued on in uneasy silence, but after a while, Pavel looked over his shoulder. ‘So, what do ye know of these rat-things.’

  Reiner cocked an eyebrow at him. ‘You’re speaking to me?’

  ‘We only ask as it concerns the safety of the garrison,’ said Gert.

  ‘Ah.’ Reiner hid a smirk. ‘Well, they mean to take the fort, and Aulschweig after that. Shaeder’s in with them, betraying Gutzmann for the gold in the mine.’

  Hals stopped and turned. ‘Is this the truth?’

  ‘Ask Giano. He heard him too, talking to their leader.’

  Pavel looked at Giano. ‘Tilean?’

  ‘Aye. Is true. He tell them attack tomorrow.’

  Pavel gaped. ‘Tomorrow!’

  Hals spat. ‘Chaos take Shaeder. Jagger’s more rat than these vermin.’

  ‘Worse than Gutzmann,’ said Pavel. ‘That’s certain.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Gert. ‘Filthy turncoat. Ought to be fed his own guts.’

  Karel shook his head. ‘I can’t believe that a knight of the Empire would do this. Is honour dead?’

  The Blackhearts laughed. Karel looked baffled.

  ‘You forget the company you keep,’ said Reiner. ‘We are all too well acquainted with the honour of knights.’

  ‘This is bad,’ said Hals. ‘We’ve to warn the fort.’

  Gert laughed. ‘And will you be the one to tell ‘em ratmen are coming to kill ‘em? They’ll lock you up.’

  ‘Why warn ‘em at all?’ asked Dag. ‘They be no mates of ours. Let’s put these cursed mountains behind us and find someplace warm to hole up.’

  ‘Forgotten the poison in our blood, lad?’ asked Pavel. ‘We’ve still a job to do, ratmen or no. And it may take longer than a day to finish it. We have to warn ‘em.’

  ‘Someone does,’ said Hals.

  The pikemen slid another glance toward Reiner.

  Hals coughed. ‘Er, captain…’

  ‘Is it captain now?’ Reiner drawled.

  ‘You think you can trust him?’ asked Gert.

  ‘I trust him to save his own skin,’ said Pavel, cold. ‘He always looks after that.’

  Reiner grunted. ‘All right. I’ll speak to Gutzmann. But it would serve you right if I lit out on my own.’

  ‘But… but we’re to kill Gutzmann,’ said Karel, frowning. ‘Gutzmann is a traitor to the Empire.’

  ‘Who else would you have us tell?’ asked Franka. ‘Shaeder?’

  ‘Shaeder’s a traitor to mankind,’ said Gert.

  Karel was upset. ‘So we ask Gutzmann to save us one moment, and then kill him the next?’

  ‘It ain’t all roses is it, laddie?’ said Hals.

  ‘Blame your future father-in-law if you don’t find it to yer liking,’ said Pavel.

  ‘Manfred couldn’t have known what we would find here,’ said Karel defensively.

  ‘There is a way Gutzmann might be spared,’ said Gert. ‘We’re to kill him only as a last resort, aye? Maybe he gets a chance to fight for the Empire for once, he might think twice about leaving.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Pavel, brightening. ‘That’s true. He might.’

  Hals nodded at Reiner. ‘All right, captain. You tell him. Let’s go’

  ‘As you wish.’

  IN THE MAIN entry chamber of the mine all was chaos. The Blackhearts heard it before they saw it: bells ringing, horns braying, guards bellowing orders. As they crept out of the closed tunnel, they saw miners streaming from the two open ones, picks on their shoulders and worried expressions on their faces. The guards herded them towards the exit with shouts and shoves.

  ‘What’s all this?’ asked Reiner of a guard as they joined the crush.

  ‘Commander Shaeder’s orders. Engineers say the lower tunnels could collapse at any moment. Mine’s to be closed until further notice.’

  ‘Shaeder ordered this? When?’

  ‘A few minutes ago, sir. Now on your way.’

  Reiner frowned. The last he had seen of Shaeder he had disappeared down a side passage in the ratmen’s tunnel. It must come out somewhere up here. He wondered where.

  IT WAS DUSK when they at last reached the fort, wheezing and gasping from the long run.

  The gate guard saluted Reiner and stepped in his way. ‘Pardon, sir,’ he said, covering his nose. ‘But Captain Vortmunder asks that you see him immediately about absenting yer duties all day.’

  Reiner dodged around the man. ‘My regards to Captain Vortmunder, and tell him I will see him as soon as I am able.’

  ‘Ye might have a bath first!’ the guard called after him.

  Reiner made directly for Gutzmann’s quarters, the rest of the Blackhearts trailing behind him. Reiner kept a weather eye out for Shaeder or his guards, the Hammer Bearers, but they didn’t appear.

  Two of Gutzmann’s personal guard stood outside his door, chatting together. They came to attention as Reiner and the rest rumbled down the hall.

  ‘Easy now, sirs,’ said the first, holding up a hand. ‘What’s all this?’

  Reiner saluted, breathing heavily. ‘Corporal Meyerling reporting, sir. I wish to speak to General Gutzmann about danger within the mine and treachery within the camp.’

  The guard stepped back, hand over his nose. His mate gagged. ‘You must take it through the proper channels, corporal.’

  ‘This is an emergency, sir,’ said Reiner, drawing himself up. ‘It cannot wait to go through channels.’

  ‘Sorry, corporal. I got my orders…’

  The door opened behind him and Matthais looked out. ‘What’s the trouble, Neihoff…?’ He broke off as he saw Reiner. He sniffed, frowning. ‘Meyerling. What are you doing here? And what’s that horrible stink?’

  ‘Never mind the stink. I’ve something to tell the general. What are you doing here?’

  ‘Er, a fellow made a disturbing report to me. I brought him to Gutzmann.’

  ‘Well, what I’ve to say is disturbing as well. Can you ask him if he’ll see me?’

  ‘I, er, yes. I will. Wait here.’

  Matthais closed the door, and there was a wait, during which Reiner and the others caught their breath, and the guards held theirs. Reiner wondered what was troubling Matthais. He was far from his sunny self.

  After a minute he reappeared and held the door open.

  ‘All right, he’ll see you,’ he said. ‘The rest are to wait in here.’ He indicated the general’s anteroom.

  Reiner and the Blackhearts filed in as Matthais spoke to the guards. He then beckoned Reiner into Gutzmann’s inner office and followed him in.

  Gutzmann sat in a deep chair by the fire with his booted feet up on the fender. He waved as Reiner saluted. ‘Ah, Hetzau. You wished to see me?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I…’ Reiner froze as he realized that Gutzmann had called him by his real name. ‘Er…’

  ‘I believe you know my guest?’

  There was another chair at the fire, which faced away from Reiner. Its occupant leaned forward and looked around.

  It was Abel.

  Reiner cursed inwardly. A damned neat trick. He would have applauded if it hadn’t been directed at him.

  ‘My lord, I don’t understand.’ He spoke automatically, his mind racing. What was Abel’s game? Why betray him when he was betraying himself as well? He would hang from Gutzmann’s battlements right beside Reiner.

  Gutzmann snorted. ‘Don’t be tiresome, Hetzau. You understand perfectly well. Quartermaster Halstieg has told me everything. How you were commanded by Count Valdenheim to assassinate me. How you joined my army under false pretences to do so. How you spied on my officers to discover my plans. How you attempted to recruit Halstieg and others to
help you in your plot.’

  ‘I beg your pardon, my lord?’ Reiner’s heart thudded in his chest. Now he was beginning to see. He’d underestimated Halstieg. The quartermaster was cleverer than he looked. He had found a way to at once betray Reiner and clear himself. This way he could remove Reiner, take Manfred’s job for himself, and win his way into Gutzmann’s confidences all at the same time.

  Gutzmann scowled at him. ‘Do you deny the charges?’

  Reiner hesitated. He might try to brass it out and deny everything; try to use his powers of persuasion to convince Gutzmann that Halstieg had made it up out of the whole cloth, but there was little chance of success that way. Reiner had already condemned himself out of his own mouth. He cleared his throat. ‘I do not deny that I was sent by Valdenheim, but not as an assassin. Halstieg and I and the others of my group were ordered by my lord Valdenheim to travel here and discover who was taking the Emperor’s gold, and then to stop those responsible. Execution of the culprit was not beyond the purview of our brief, this is true, but neither was it our only option. We might have found a way to convince you…’

  ‘We? Our?’ cried Abel. ‘Don’t try to tar me with the brush of your guilt, deceiver. I had nothing to do with it.’

  Reiner looked at Gutzmann. ‘Is that what he has told you, my lord?’

  ‘Hetzau came to me here, my lord!’ said Abel. ‘The first day he arrived! He approached a number of us, trying to turn us against you.’

  ‘My lord,’ said Reiner. ‘Halsteig has been with us from the beginning. There are ten of us. We came, all of us, from Altdorf. We…’

  ‘And the others wait in my anteroom?’ asked Gutzmann. ‘Have you decided that I am your culprit? Did you come to kill me?’

  Reiner pursed his lips. ‘My lord may accuse me of treachery, but I hope he doesn’t think me unsubtle.’

  Gutzmann laughed. ‘Then why did you come? Other than to foul my offices with your odour. Sigmar, Matthais, you warned me, but I had no idea.’

  Reiner paused. Caught flatfooted by Abel’s betrayal he had almost forgotten why he had come. But now…

  He sighed. He had been close to convincing Gutzmann that he was a more honest villain than Abel; and given time, he might have found a way to salvage the situation, but now, now he must mention the ratmen, and all his credibility would wither away in a storm of laughter.

  Unfortunately, ridiculous as it sounded, the danger was real. The camp would be overrun, the garrison slain, Aulschweig enslaved—and most distressing of all, he and Franka and the other Blackhearts might be caught in the middle of it. Someone had to do something. He only regretted that that someone appeared to be him.

  He licked his lips. ‘Know, my lord…’

  Muffled cursing and shouting came from the anteroom. Reiner could hear the sounds of a scuffle. He looked at the door.

  ‘Pay it no mind, corporal,’ said Gutzmann. ‘It is merely your men being arrested. Pray go on.’

  Reiner groaned. He was beginning to think that, poison or no poison, Manfred or no Manfred, he and the Blackhearts should have turned north when they ran out of the mine, and just kept running. ‘Yes, my lord.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Know that when I speak you will call me mad. But if you are wise, you will see that its very lunacy is proof of the truth of my warning. For only a terrible danger would cause me to squander what little goodwill you feel toward me at such a delicate moment.’

  ‘What are you babbling about?’ said Gutzmann, confused.

  Abel laughed, a high nervous giggle. ‘He’s about to tell you about the ratmen!’

  ‘The…?’ Gutzmann looked at Abel.

  The ratmen,’ Abel repeated, still chuckling. ‘It was the tale he meant to tell to lure you away. Ratmen in the mine. He would, er, lure you there and then bury you in a rock fall, claiming an accident.’

  Gutzmann frowned. ‘You said nothing of this before.’

  Abel shrugged. ‘Can you blame me, my lord?’

  Gutzmann turned to Reiner, an eyebrow raised. ‘Is this true? Is this the ruse you meant to use?’

  Reiner cursed inwardly. Abel had twisted his words before he had even said them. But he had no choice but to go on. ‘Except that it is no ruse, my lord. There are ratmen mustering in tunnels below the mines. And they mean to attack the fort.’

  Gutzmann laughed and looked at Abel wonderingly. ‘You were right. He prates the stuff of fairy tales. It is beyond understanding.’ He turned to Reiner. ‘Come sir, why do you persist? Ratmen? Could you think of nothing better?’

  ‘They exist, sir. I have today seen them with my own eyes. We fought them. I have their blood on my clothes. The odour that offends you is theirs.’

  Gutzmann stared at him with his bright blue eyes, as if trying to see into his soul. ‘You don’t seem mad…’

  ‘There is worse to come, sir. But still I must tell it.’ Reiner coughed and continued. ‘While returning from their tunnels, we came upon a party of these ratmen talking to a man. We crept forward and discovered that it was Commander Shaeder.’

  ‘What!’ Gutzmann banged his hand on the arm of his chair. ‘Sir, your foolishness goes too far. How dare you malign the commander’s name?’

  ‘He betrays you, my lord. It seems that the ratmen mean to take Aulschweig for a grain farm, and Shaeder has promised them an easy victory over you so they might cross over the pass. In exchange, they promised him all the gold from the mine. The reason…’

  Gutzmann laughed uproariously. ‘Now I know you are mad.’ He raised his voice and called through the door. ‘Neihoff!’

  After a moment, the guard poked his head in the door. ‘General?’ ‘Fetch Commander Shaeder here. He must hear this.’

  The guard ducked his head and disappeared again.

  Gutzmann tipped back in his chair. ‘You’ve betrayed yourself, for you don’t know Shaeder. There isn’t enough gold in the world for that old Sigmarite to turn his back on the Empire. He loves it more than life itself. If he were to betray me, it wouldn’t be for gold, it would be to stop me from leaving.’

  ‘I only repeat what I heard, sir,’ said Reiner. ‘The cave-ins are a lie. The reason he shuts the mine is so that the ratmen may use their digging machines, which they have heretofore used only at night, all this day and night to widen their tunnel to the mine in order to bring up their siege engines and attack the fort tomorrow after dark.’

  Gutzmann was red in the face. ‘Enough sir, enough. Digging machines? Siege engines? It is already madness to believe in ratmen, but to credit them with the ability to build machines of such complexity?’

  ‘My lord, please!’ Reiner held out his hands. ‘Think for a moment. Why would I put myself at such great risk to tell you a foolish lie? I have found already the proof Manfred asked me to seek out. I know you intend to desert the Empire and help Caspar usurp his brother’s throne. I know of the shipments of gold.’

  ‘You…!’ Gutzmann’s eyes bulged. ‘Quiet, you fool!’

  Reiner ignored him. ‘If I had wanted to betray you, I would have found a way to kill you and escaped north with the gold you hide in the crates in the third tunnel.’

  Reiner saw Abel’s head come up at that.

  Veins were throbbing in Gutzmann’s temples. ‘You know all this?’

  ‘And yet,’ said Reiner. ‘Still I came here to warn you, when a fortune and Manfred’s favour were within easy reach.’

  ‘But…’ said Gutzmann. ‘But, ratmen?’

  There was a knock at the door and Shaeder entered. ‘You wished to see me, general?’

  ‘Shaeder, come in,’ said Gutzmann. He wiped his brow and composed himself. ‘I… I thought you should face your accuser.’

  Reiner thought he saw Shaeder pale a little as he turned and saw him. The commander had recognized him in the tunnel then—and undoubtedly thought him killed by the black rats.

  He recovered instantly, however. ‘Corporal Meyerling? Of what does he accuse me?’ His nose wrinkled. ‘And why does he smell so?’

&n
bsp; ‘He says that you conspire with ratmen who live in tunnels below the mine to overrun the fort and make of Aulschweig a, what was it you said, sir? A grain farm? And that you did all this for the gold in the mine.’

  Shaeder laughed, long and loud. But stopped when he realized that Gutzmann hadn’t joined him.

  He frowned. ‘I’m sorry, general. It is no laughing matter. For whether the man is mad, or has some more sinister purpose in spouting this nonsense, he is dangerous, and should be locked up before he tries to do you injury. You can’t possibly believe him?’

  Gutzmann shrugged. ‘I don’t know what to believe now.’

  Reiner swallowed. ‘My lord, I don’t ask you to believe me. Only go to the end of the closed tunnel and see what you find. If after that you find nothing, you may do with me what you will.’

  ‘You see, general,’ said Abel, ‘he seeks to lure you to a cave-in. Hang him.’

  Reiner thought he saw a sly smile flick across Shaeder’s lips as he turned to Gutzmann, chuckling. ‘No no, my lord. I could not live with your suspicion hovering over me. I insist that you come to the mine and see for yourself the falseness of Meyerling’s story. Merely allow the engineers tomorrow morning to make sure that he hasn’t planted some vile trap and I will have them escort you down to the cave-in that blocks the tunnel.’

  Gutzmann nodded. ‘I will. I have meant to see it for myself anyway.’ He turned to Reiner, his face sad and hard. ‘I can pity a madman, sir, but I do not care for liars. As you will discover.’

  Reiner cursed himself as Gutzmann motioned for Matthais to take him away. What a fool he was. He had played directly into Shaeder’s hands. He had given him the perfect excuse to deliver Gutzmann to his doom. He didn’t resist when Matthais took his arm, or notice when he gave him a hurt look. He didn’t even spit at Abel as he passed. He was too absorbed in flagellating himself.

  THIRTEEN

  Do You Still Say I Lie?

  THE REST OF the Blackhearts were sitting in sullen silence when Matthias and two guards threw Reiner into a dank, straw-strewn stone cell deep beneath the keep. He could barely see them as they raised their heads, just their eyes glinting in the dim torchlight that found its way through the oak door’s heavily barred window. Franka nodded to him, but said nothing. She sat apart from the others.