by Nathan Long
Killing the Shallyans had seemed stupidity when she thought it was a living man calling for their deaths, but for an enemy of the Empire it was brilliant. Disguised as a staunch upholder of Imperial values, the Sylvanian could attack the very institutions that made the Empire strong. With the Shallyans decimated and feared as Lahmian dupes, disease would run rampant. And his previous tirade, where he had suggested that Countess Emmanuelle’s court might be riddled with vampires, had been calculated to sow dissent among the masses, causing them to mistrust their leaders and make them less likely to defend them. He was the enemy within, making sure the centre would collapse when the invaders attacked from without. It was vile but brilliant.
As the watchmen started to drive the mob back, the Sylvanian slipped away with a few lieutenants, vanishing into an alley as the rest of his followers fell to cudgels and tip-staves. There he whispered to his comrades and they dispersed. Ulrika wished Famke was with her so she could follow one of the others. Instead she could only follow the leader, and even that proved difficult. Despite her speed and her heightened senses, she had difficulty keeping him in sight, and had to play a delicate game, leaping from roof to roof to keep up with him, but not getting so close that he could sense her.
She had hoped he would quickly go to ground, but instead he moved about unceasingly for the rest of the night, stopping at a tavern to rile up the drinkers with talk of vampires in high places, murdering a sergeant of the Army of Nuln in a cul-de-sac and leaving obvious bites on his neck, ranting on a street corner about how the watch could not protect the Sisters of Shallya from a crazed mob, writing with blood from his finger upon the front door of a wealthy townhouse, ‘Vampires live here!’ and then, after the city had gone to sleep and the streets were quiet, meeting with a handful of shadowy conspirators – all human by their heartbeats – in the cellar of a gutted building in Shantytown.
Ulrika thought this last might be his hiding place, but when the meeting broke up a while later, he left too, which she thought was wise. It would not do to have untrustworthy underlings know one’s true abode. Even the most loyal might give him away under the witch hunters’ brands and thumbscrews.
After that he made a patrol of the Neuestadt, wandering every neighbourhood south of the Altestadt wall and pausing here and there to observe various houses and check various places as if looking for left messages or packages.
Finally, just as the grey of dawn was lightening the east, he made his way to the Halbinsel District, where he knocked upon the door of a modest townhouse not far from the barracks of the Army of Nuln and was let in. Ulrika wasn’t sure the place was his final destination, and so watched it for as long as she dared, but as the sky turned from grey to pink and he still hadn’t come out, she decided she must have found his lair at last, and hurried across the bridge into the Faulestadt with a grin splitting her face. She couldn’t wait to tell Famke the news.
She’d found her nemesis, she knew his disguise, she knew where he lived and how he operated. With Famke’s help she could follow his conspirators and learn his network, then catch him, kill him, and bring his head and the details of his organisation to Gabriella and Hermione. She laughed out loud at the thought. The look on Hermione’s face would be worth everything that had come before.
The madness of the city seemed to have started early south of the river, for as Ulrika crept through the burnt swath on her way to the stonecarver’s cellar she heard the cheering and jeering of an angry crowd in the distance. She paid it no mind, however, and concentrated on making sure that no one was lurking around the ruins. She saw nothing and sensed no heart-fires or pulses, so ducked through the broken timbers of the workshop to the stone that covered the hole to the cellar.
It had been moved aside.
Ulrika’s first thought was, Damn the girl! Does she want to be discovered? Why didn’t she close it behind her? Then she noticed a dozen boot prints in the dusty rubble around the hole, and when she looked within, saw other ropes hooked to the rafters next to the one she had tied there. Ice filled her guts. What had happened? And when? Were the intruders still there? Had Famke been there when they came, or was she still making her way home?
She pushed her senses down into the cellar – no heartbeats – but that was no guarantee of safety. If the Lahmians had found them again they could be lying in wait and she would hear nothing.
Ulrika slid down a rope so fast she might as well have jumped, landing with a thump and puff of dust. She drew her rapier and dagger and stared around into the darkness. There was no one she could see, but there were many places to hide. She took a quick circuit of the chamber, checking behind every statue and looking into every alcove. No one was there, but by the mound of blankets that had served her and Famke for a bed, she found blood on the floor, still wet, and the signs of a struggle.
The ice in her stomach turned to lead, and her ribs seemed to clench like a fist. Someone had taken Famke. But who? And where?
The roar of the distant crowd filtered down to her, carried on a breeze, and over it, faint but sharp, like the scream of a hawk, a voice she knew.
Ulrika scrambled back up the rope and out of the hole in a blind rush, then sprinted in the direction of the roaring. It was coming from the dock-side tenements that bordered the burnt swath – the neighbourhood the harlot and her friends had been heading for when they had met. Ulrika pelted for it, vaulting fences and bounding over rubble in a crazed panic as Famke’s shrieks and the shouting of the crowd got louder and clearer – and the light of daybreak brighter and more painful.
Finally, as she skidded around a last corner, she found the source of the cries, and stopped in horror. In a little square, bordered on two sides by tenements, and on the other two by burnt ruins, a jeering crowd of Faulestadt slum dwellers had gathered around an old and weathered pillory where a handful of witch hunters in wide hats and long leather coats were stripping Famke naked and locking her into the stocks, directly in the path of the rising sun.
chapter twelve
ETERNAL VENGEANCE
A burnt-out building cast its shadow over Famke, shielding her from the poisonous light, but the sun would shine through its gutted windows in mere moments, and already, in just the faint grey ambience of dawn, she was writhing in pain, her skin steaming and reddening.
Ulrika plunged forwards, drawing rapier and dagger and kicking through the crowd to leap for the low platform of the pillory. The witch hunters turned at her approach and reached for swords and pistols, but not quick enough. She ran the first through before he cleared his blade, piercing his steel breastplate like it was paper, and knocked two more off the platform with slashes and kicks as the crowd screamed and backed away.
‘Famke! I’m here!’
She chopped at the iron lock that held the wooden halves of the stocks closed as Famke turned terrified eyes to her.
‘Ulrika! Oh, gods! Please…’
Famke pulled against the stocks but she was already sun-sick and could not break them. Ulrika slashed again, biting deep into the bolt. One more strike would do it.
A crack to her left deafened her, and a punch like a mule-kick knocked her sideways. She crashed down at the edge of the platform, pain blossoming in her thigh and making her nauseous. She’d been shot. She looked up, panting with shock, and saw the oldest of the witch hunters advancing on her, a smoking pistol in one hand and a glass globe filled with blessed water in the other. It was Templar Captain Meinhart Schenk, who had nearly exposed Countess Gabriella and Lady Hermione during the troubles with Murnau the Strigoi.
‘We’ve flushed another,’ he said, then stopped dead as he saw her face. ‘You! I know you, fiend! You were that woman’s lady in waiting. I saw you dead!’
‘And I’ll see you dead,’ sneered Ulrika.
She surged up, ignoring her screaming thigh, and slashed the globe from his hand, then thrust for his chest. A witch hunter with an eye-patch
knocked her blade aside and he and Schenk squared off against her, shoulder to shoulder, blocking her way to Famke, while behind her, the other two climbed back onto the platform, aiming pistols at her back. She was surrounded.
‘Ulrika! It’s coming!’ screamed Famke. ‘It’s–!’
A sliver of sun lanced through a window in the ruined building and struck Famke’s naked shoulder like a brand. She shrieked and jerked, trying to pull away as her flesh sizzled.
Ulrika dived between Schenk and his man, slashing left and right as the two men behind her fired and bullets whizzed over her head. She came up again beside Famke with Schenk and Eye-Patch falling behind her, great cuts in their legs, but as she chopped again for the lock on the stocks, the witch hunters who had fired at her surged forwards and tackled her off the platform.
‘No! Famke!’
Ulrika lashed out as the two men tried to pin her down, stabbing one in the throat with her main gauche and braining the other with the guard of her rapier. Above her, Famke’s shoulder was in flames. With a sob, Ulrika wrenched the long coat from the second man’s shoulders. Every movement was pain. The ambient light was cooking her too now, and her bullet wound felt a furnace in her thigh – hot and throbbing.
Schenk and Eye-Patch limped towards her across the platform, trailing blood and plucking more globes from their bandoleers. She ducked down and pulled harder, but a roar from behind made her look behind.
‘Get her! Kill her! She’s one too!’
The crowd was coming for her, the maroon-haired harlot and her friends in the lead, knives and clubs and brass knuckles in their fists. Ulrika tore the witch hunter’s coat free at last and lashed out at them, cutting some and driving more back, but the rest pulled her down in a frenzy of fear.
‘Fools!’ roared Schenk. ‘Stand aside! We have her!’
The crowd did not hear. They swung and kicked and flailed at Ulrika like terrified children. Ulrika howled with rage. They were keeping her from Famke, holding her back as the blade of sunlight carved across her sister’s naked body. Now it was searing her head and neck, blackening her cheeks and lips and burning her long blonde hair to the roots. She was no longer screaming, though her mouth was wide and her neck corded.
With a shriek of frustration, Ulrika shot out her fangs and claws, letting the beast within her surface completely. The crowd fell back gasping, terror trumping their rage, and she bounded onto the platform, straight at Schenk and Eye-Patch as they hurled their glass globes.
She swept one away with her stolen leather coat and hacked at Eye-Patch, severing his right leg above the knee. He toppled, screaming, as the other globe shattered on her blade. The water splashed her, burning like acid, but then the sun rose fully from behind the obstructing building and struck her in the face, and that pain faded to nothing beneath the agony of the blinding white light.
Famke arched and jerked like she had been struck by lightning as the sun bathed her from head to toe. Flames were licking up all over her naked body.
‘Sister!’
Ulrika bashed past Schenk, knocking him to the planks, and reached Famke at last, her own pain forgotten. She threw the long leather coat over Famke’s head, then chopped again at the lock. It shattered and she tore the stock away, then caught Famke as she fell. She could hear her blackened flesh crackling as she cradled her.
Ulrika bundled Famke in the coat and leapt from the platform, scattering the crowd again, and stumbled desperately for the truncated shadow of the building that had earlier protected her. She shuddered with relief as the blessed shade covered her, but they were far from safe. It was full day now, and there were enemies all around, and the pain of her burns was unbearable. How could she get Famke away? She looked up. Schenk was still down, clutching his knee, but the witch hunter she had dazed was up again, holding his head and limping around the platform towards her, while the crowd reassembled its courage and advanced behind him.
‘Stay back!’ he cried, thrusting a hand behind him. ‘This is templar business.’
They obeyed and Ulrika sneered. The fool had just doomed himself, and perhaps saved her and Famke in the bargain. With the crowd at his back, he might have brought her down, but alone…
She looked at the building behind her. There were gaps in the walls where falling rubble had collapsed them, and the interior was dark but for a few stray beams of light piercing it from the other side. She hefted the whimpering Famke over her shoulder and darted in, then hurried through the shattered rooms, dodging the sun rays as she heard the witch hunter shout after her.
Towards the front, where the walls were mostly collapsed, there was too much light, but there was a room off the central corridor, no more than a closet, the walls of which were whole, and she ducked into it, then set Famke down.
‘Hold on, sister,’ she said. ‘Just another minute.’
Famke didn’t answer, but just lay where she had been put and stared at the ceiling with cloudy white eyes.
Ulrika looked at her helplessly, then turned to crouch by the closet door. The witch hunter’s cautious bootsteps were echoing through the darkness, and she could sense his heart-fire through the intervening walls. He was getting close, creeping and pausing, then moving on. He entered the corridor. He reached the door. He thrust his blade in, then edged in after it, on guard, staring over her head into the darkness.
It was too easy. Ulrika caught his neck and yanked him down to slam his head against the floor. He went slack and let go of his blade. She threw it into the corridor, then bit his neck and drank – only a few gulps to fight the pain of her burns and the weakness of her limbs – then she dragged him back to Famke.
‘Here, sister,’ she said, laying him down next to her. ‘Drink. Heal yourself.’
Famke didn’t move, didn’t even acknowledge her, just continuing to stare at nothing.
‘Famke, please. You must feed.’
Ulrika got her arms under her and rolled her over so that her mouth was against the witch hunter’s neck where she had bitten him. Still she did nothing, only whispered wordlessly. Ulrika cursed, then took her dagger and slit the witch hunter’s carotid artery lengthwise and lifted him so that it pumped over Famke’s mouth. Some got in, but she did not swallow, and instead started to choke.
Ulrika threw down the witch hunter and turned Famke’s head, sobbing with grief and terror. Why wouldn’t she drink? She was going to die.
More bootsteps entered the building, and she could sense a handful of agitated heart-fires coming closer. The mob was coming after all. She had to get out. She had to get Famke someplace where she could recover.
With shaking hands, she tore off the bleeding witch hunter’s leather coat and struggled into it, then took his hat and pulled the wide brim of the hat down as far as she could. The footsteps were getting closer, converging towards her. She wrapped Famke in the other coat as best she could, then put her over her shoulder, picked up her rapier, and turned to the door.
Someone was just outside, creeping cautiously forwards. Their lantern cast swooping light on the walls. Ulrika leapt into the corridor, roaring and slashing at the lamp. In the last flash as it fell from his hands she saw it was Schenk. He cursed and fell back as her blade bit into his wrist, and she ran on, heading for the front of the building and the sun.
Cries and halloos followed her as she crashed through the rooms, then she leapt through a break in the wall and landed in the street. Instantly the sun beat on her, as hot and heavy as a molten anvil, but the thick coat and wide hat kept her skin from burning, and she staggered on, Famke now twice as heavy.
A dozen Faulestadters poured out of the building behind her, howling and gaining rapidly, invigorated in the sun where she was crippled by it. She squinted around to get her bearings. The Eisenstrasse, the Faulestadt’s main east-west street, was just to her left. She careened that way, praying to her father’s gods that she would find the sa
lvation she sought, and, yes! Not half a block on a covered coach was coming her way, a coachman in livery cracking on its horses.
Ulrika ran towards it, then veered into the street in front of it.
‘Stop!’ she shouted, pitching her voice as low as she could. ‘Stop in the name of the temple of Sigmar!’
The coachman’s eyes widened in alarm and he pulled up sharply, making his horses rear and throw their heads.
Ulrika pointed at him but kept her head low so he couldn’t see her face under her hat. ‘I require the use of this coach in the pursuance of my duties to the temple. You will take me to the Altestadt!’
A balding head stuck out of the window of the coach, and looked around angrily. The man was richly dressed, with the gold chain of a guild officer around his neck. ‘What is this?’ he bawled. ‘Peitr! Why have we stopped?’
Ulrika tore his door open and hauled him out by the collar, then climbed into the coach with Famke over her shoulder as he fell face-first into the mud. The dozen Faulestadters were turning the corner and running forwards, shouting at the coachman to stop. Schenk limped doggedly behind them, reloading his pistol as he went.
‘Ride them down!’ shouted Ulrika as she lay Famke on the leather bench. ‘They are cultists! They have killed many witch hunters!’
‘But–’ said the coachman.
‘Ride them down!’ roared Ulrika. ‘Or are you a cultist yourself? Are you interfering with a templar of the Order of the Silver Hammer?’
‘No! No!’ cried the coachman, and whipped up the horses with a will. They were just getting under way when the Faulestadters reached them. Ulrika threw open her door and hacked wildly at them as they tried to leap on the running board. They fell back, but as the coach turned north, Ulrika saw Schenk aiming his pistol at her. She ducked back and the ball splintered the door frame beside her, then they were away and the horses were picking up speed.
Ulrika sank back upon the bench and let out a sigh, then looked at Famke, next to her, and swallowed hard. Famke’s face, peeking out from the under the heavy leather of the witch hunter’s coat, was a black, shrunken skull. Her teeth showed all the way to her gums, and her sunken skin was cracked and falling away to reveal cooked meat below. Ulrika would have thought her dead but for the faint pained hissing she made each time the coach bumped over a rut.