Count Gunther and Captain Bastion presided over the body on one side of the table, while on the other Sigson examined the dead knight, the witch hunter having convinced the count that the priest of Morr might be able to learn something useful. Gunther had refused communication with the corpse though.
Reiner, Mikael and the other knights of Morr waited patiently behind Sigson. The warrior priest conducted his work in silence. Mikael caught the dark glances of the Sigmarites – Garrant and two others waiting in the shadows at the edge of the hall – and saw they were still armed. The tension was almost palpable. He didn’t need the prescience of Morr to tell him there was danger here. And there was a stench about the place too. Perhaps this was a sign from his god, for it reeked of death.
‘Strangulation,’ Sigson asserted, pointing out the lividity around the neck. He too had stripped out of his breastplate and arm greaves. He moved the head to one side, inspecting the cheek. ‘No mark,’ he muttered.
‘What do you mean?’ Count Gunther asked.
‘Krieger has killed two already, that we know of,’ Sigson told him, ‘and each had a mark carved into the cheek.’
‘Perhaps he was interrupted,’ Bastion suggested.
‘Whatever the cause, Bastion, I want Krieger found and brought before me,’ Gunther ordered, before returning his attention to the priest. ‘My men and I are tired and their forbearance is stretched to the limit. This is over,’ he said, pulling the blanket back over Rogan’s body, much to Sigson’s chagrin.
‘Garrant, conduct a full search of the keep. I want double watches come nightfall.’
Garrant uttered his compliance and left the room.
‘And what would you have us do, count?’ Reiner said. It was the first time he’d spoken since entering the keep.
‘I will make a barrack house available, other than that keep out of our way.’
Reiner nodded, but his cold eyes never left Count Gunther’s face.
‘I have some questions,’ Lenchard said from the shadows then added, addressing Reiner, ‘Your men look weary. I suggest you get them to the barracks.’
‘Halbranc,’ the captain of Morr said, without averting his icy gaze from the witch hunter, ‘you heard Herr Lenchard.’
Halbranc nodded and looked over to Sigson.
‘I’ll follow shortly,’ said the priest, washing his hands in a clay bowl. Reiner showed no signs of movement. Clearly, he wanted to hear what the witch hunter had to say.
With that, Halbranc and the other knights left the chamber.
The barrack house was at the end of a long corridor, past the keep’s training ground. Mikael watched as knights paired off and sparred with each other using wooden swords. He felt a sudden pain in his skull – it had happened before, in Hochsleben, just before he’d been attacked by Merrick. Wincing, Mikael saw four Sigmarite knights approaching.
Halbranc tensed beside him, but they continued towards the barrack house.
As they passed, the Sigmarites regarded Mikael and his comrades darkly, and one leant out, jarring Vaust’s shoulder deliberately.
‘Little better than necromancers,’ the Sigmarite muttered.
‘What did you say?’ Vaust demanded, whirling on his heel to confront him.
Mikael went to lightly restrain him, but Vaust shook the young templar off. ‘No, speak up!’
The Sigmarite, a thin-faced, white-haired youth flashed a contemptible smile. ‘Those who consort with the dead are not to be trusted,’ he spat.
Vaust drew his sword, Valen likewise behind him. Mikael tried to stand between them, but the Sigmarites had drawn their blades too.
‘Knights of Morr, sheath your swords,’ Halbranc warned, placing his massive form between them. Even the belligerent Sigmarites backed down before the giant templar. But the white-haired Sigmarite felt the presence of his fellows behind him and found his courage. Eyes filled with violent intent, he was about to act when a command stopped him.
‘Put down your sword!’ Garrant bellowed, stalking towards them. ‘What is going on here?’ he demanded angrily.
‘Nothing, just a misunderstanding,’ Halbranc said. ‘We’ll be on our way,’ he added, holding Vaust hard by the back of his neck and turning him around. Mikael followed suite, and as the knights were walking away he heard Garrant mutter. ‘The sooner, the better.’
Halbranc stopped. An uneasy silence filled the corridor. Mikael heard the leather of the giant’s gauntlets crack into a fist. He could feel the gaze of Garrant and his fellows boring into him. Halbranc released his grip. They walked away. Mikael breathed again.
It was night. The scrape of Halbranc’s whetstone against his sword blade penetrated the frustrated silence. He sat on the end of a small cot and worked hard at the weapon – a mighty zweihander and one of several blades he carried – until its edge was razor-keen. He seemed lost in the routine of it as if scraping out past sins that tarnished his blade. Mikael knew little about the giant templar, save that he was a mercenary once and had fought in many armies, across many continents. Halbranc never spoke of it. Perhaps he didn’t care to.
The two brothers, Valen and Vaust, were sitting on stools at a low wooden table in the middle of the room. They had found a deck of cards and were playing out a game of skulls. Like Halbranc, they were restless, preferring action instead of prolonged bouts of inactivity.
Reiner and Sigson were still absent, doubtless conversing with the witch hunter, Lenchard. None of them had slept.
Mikael sat on the opposite cot to Halbranc, his attention on the window next to him. Outside, in the flickering light of several lanterns, the shadows of workers still toiled. As he stared up into the blackened sky, Mikael felt his eyelids grow heavy as a dream engulfed him…
A great sun burned down upon the barren desert.
Mikael was alone in a mighty desert that seemed like it was on fire. Yet he felt no heat or wind.
Cresting a mighty rise he looked across a deep valley. An old man dressed in black robes was standing upon a high dune. With a gnarled finger he beckoned Mikael across the valley towards him.
Mikael took a tentative step forward. His foot plunged into a mire of sand and suddenly the entire side of the dune was shifting, collapsing beneath him!
He fell, tumbling down the side of the valley. Spitting sand from his mouth, he looked up into the sunlight. The man had gone.
A sudden trembling began beneath him. Mikael scrambled back, clawing handfuls of sand as he did so. A great spike pierced the valley floor before him, reaching ever higher into the burning sky. A tower of obsidian followed, surging upwards, pushing out great waves of sand. Slowly, a huge black skull emerged like some terrible, mythic beast. Rivulets of sand flowed from the gargantuan eye and nose sockets and as the mouth broke through the churning dunes created by its emergence, a huge black door was revealed. It opened and there stood a towering figure.
Its mummified flesh bore the taint of ages and it wore the armour of a knight of Sigmar. It reached out towards Mikael with a filthy talon-like hand. The creature’s mouth opened and uttered, ‘Setti-Ra…’
Mikael woke with a sudden start. There was a commotion outside. Halbranc was on his feet, a short sword in his hand, going for the door. Valen had fallen asleep at the card table but sprang up, alert at the sound. Vaust was nowhere to be seen.
Grabbing his own blade, Mikael went to join Halbranc. He pulled the door open and saw three Sigmarite knights running away down the corridor. Another knight was running towards the barracks. It was Vaust.
When Vaust reached the door, he was panting heavily for breath. ‘They’ve found another body,’ he gasped.
Twenty knights had gathered in the hall of the east wing when Mikael and the others arrived, Count Gunther and his retinue amongst them. They encircled the body of a slain knight and the Morr worshippers had to force their way through.
‘Back away,’ ordered the count, fighting to get past the throng of knights. ‘Holy Sigmar,’ he breathed. The knight lay slumped within an alcove, his face covered in shadows.
Reiner and Sigson appeared amidst the crowd. The warrior priest went instantly to the dead knight, crouching down to examine it.
The knights fell abruptly into silence. Mikael heard mutterings of discontent. Valen and Vaust closed in around him, Halbranc at their back. Reiner kept his cold gaze on Sigson but held his sword hilt ready.
‘He has been strangled,’ Sigson told the count. ‘With some force – his neck is broken.’ Sigson carefully tilted the dead knight’s head, searching for another mark. Light spilled onto the corpse, illuminating the face.
‘By the hand of Morr,’ Vaust gasped. It was the knight he had confronted in the corridor.
‘You argued with this man,’ said Garrant, accusingly. ‘Where were you tonight?’
‘I was restless,’ Vaust admitted, ‘So I toured the east wing.’ He cast a sideways glance at Reiner. There would be repercussions from this. The captain took disobedience very seriously.
‘And you met up with this knight,’ Garrant continued, ‘to settle your differences.’
There were angry murmurings from the Sigmarites. Mikael felt the same tension he had back in the corridor with Halbranc.
‘No. I saw no one,’ Vaust protested through gritted teeth.
‘You drew swords first,’ Garrant said. ‘I saw it with my own eyes.’
Some of the Sigmarites nodded in agreement. Mikael noticed that the count had moved to the back of the group, Bastion alongside him.
‘Is the chamber intact?’ he heard Count Gunther mutter above the increasingly belligerent Sigmarites.
The captain nodded.
‘You killed him,’ one of the knights from the crowd spat suddenly, stepping towards Vaust. Valen put him down with one punch.
The hall exploded into chaos. Three Sigmarite knights waded forward to take on Valen, but Halbranc and Reiner intervened. Halbranc smashed the first two into the crowd, while Reiner brought the other to his knees with a powerful uppercut. Several of the knights of Sigmar bellowed battle oaths and charged in, weapons drawn.
Mikael drew his sword. Valen and Vaust followed his lead.
A pistol shot rang out, reverberating around the mighty hall. Lenchard stood upon a table, smoke rising from the barrel of the weapon.
‘Cease!’ he commanded. ‘Listen.’
From outside there was a sound like thunder.
‘The river,’ Count Gunther realised suddenly. He turned to Garrant. ‘Gather up all the men,’ he said. ‘If the bank breaks the flood waters will take this keep and us with it.’
Garrant nodded, gave a last dark glance at the knights of Morr, and started bellowing orders.
Reiner approached the count. ‘This is what Krieger has been waiting for,’ he said. ‘To slip away and kill again in the confusion.’
Gunther looked him in the eye. ‘I need every man on that river bank.’
‘Then let us help.’
The count hesitated at first then nodded. ‘Very well.’
Reiner turned to his knights and gestured for them to follow.
As they were leaving Mikael saw Gunther conversing with Bastion once more. ‘Take two men,’ he said, ‘and guard the vault – lock it.’
Mikael had no time to linger and left the hall to join his comrades. Again the strange stench of death assailed him.
‘This place reeks of the dead,’ Mikael whispered to Halbranc.
‘Careful lad,’ said the giant, ‘they’ll be blaming us for that too,’ he added, smiling.
Thunder raged in the heavens and lightning split the blackness.
Mikael carried two heavy sacks of sand towards the breach in the bank. At the river there was chaos.
A cart lay on its side, sinking into the earth. Men heaved at it, trying to free the thrashing horse trapped beneath. Others held ropes onto workers wading into the river itself with sacks and rocks. Workers and knights battled together, heaving great clods of earth into the raging river flow. A great train of them moved from the keep to the riverbank, bringing earth in barrows, pails and tools in an effort to save the keep and the town. The rain battered men down as they struggled to lift the sodden earth, digging the crude trenches ever deeper to divert the water.
Mikael slung down a second sack. Straightening his back and wiping the moisture from his brow, he looked up at the keep. A flash of lightning cast it in stark silhouette. It was a dark and forbidding image. Another bolt lit up the night and through the lashing rain, Mikael thought he saw a figure, away from the river, creeping up a shallow embankment towards the keep. Blinking back the rain and buffeting wind he looked back again, but the figure was gone. He trod back up the shallow rise to the keep.
Halbranc was in the courtyard.
‘Works up a sweat eh, lad?’
Mikael nodded. His muscles burned, they’d been fighting the flood waters for over an hour.
They headed towards the cellars, through a trapdoor in the courtyard and down shallow steps, where supplies of sand bags and barrows were kept.
Mikael stopped part way down the stairs. ‘Something is wrong,’ he said.
‘What is it, Mikael?’ Halbranc drew his short sword, searching in the half darkness.
Mikael advanced slowly. The torches set in the cellar walls spluttered and cast flickering shadows. The floor shimmered and moved.
‘It’s flooded,’ Mikael said, taking the last of the steps and plunging, waist deep, into the water.
‘Can you smell that?’ he whispered. The storm outside was dulled down here, resonant and foreboding. Suddenly the rest of the knights seemed very far away.
‘Smells like death.’ Halbranc watched the darkness ahead.
An ill-feeling grew in the pit of Mikael’s stomach as they waded through the flooded cellar.
‘Wait,’ he hissed. Something was floating down towards them on a light current. Mikael drew his sword.
The thing drifted into the corona of light cast by one of the torches. It was a man’s body, partially decomposed.
‘Another knight?’ Halbranc asked, covering his mouth at the stench.
‘I don’t know,’ Mikael said, leaning in close. ‘His neck is broken,’ he added, looking back towards Halbranc, ‘and I’ve smelled this stench since we arrived. This man has been long dead.’
A shadow passed over the entrance to the cellar above.
‘Down here!’ Halbranc bellowed.
Four men entered the trapdoor into the cellar; Lenchard followed by Count Gunther and two of his knights.
‘We may have another victim,’ Halbranc told them, picking a torch off the wall to illuminate the man’s rotting features.
Gunther’s eyes grew wide and fearful. ‘That’s Karl Krieger,’ he rasped.
‘Then we are looking for the wrong man,’ Mikael told them.
Realisation dawned upon the count’s face. He plunged into the water, pushing past the templars of Morr and the floating corpse. ‘The vault,’ he muttered, wading down the flooded corridor, fuelled by anxious desperation.
Mikael sheathed his sword and followed. After a few minutes they reached a corner, around it a shallow slope led up to a massive iron door. Count Gunther stopped. The rain outside throbbed against the walls as the door swung open on creaking hinges.
At Mikael’s urging, they moved towards the door. Halbranc gripped it and heaved it open.
Inside was a simple stone room. At the centre rested an ornate throne, encrusted with jewels and worn gold filigree. At the foot of the throne lay three dead knights. Mikael recognised one of them as Bastion. They had all been strangled.
‘Just what did you bring back with you from the desert?’ Mikael asked Count Gunther, drawing his sword.
The count turned on him, initially shocked the templar even knew of it then said, ‘My father… Falken Halstein…’
In the thick shadows at the back of the room, something stirred. Stepping out of the gloom was a creature that resembled Gunther. Its tarnished armour bore the emblem of the fiery heart. Its flesh was desiccated, worn to shrivelled leather by the hostile conditions of the desert. As it lumbered towards them, its eyes flared with remembered hate.
It came at Gunther. The Sigmarite knights rushed forward to protect him. Swinging its mighty arm, the creature smashed one of the knights into the wall with a sickening crunch of bone. From a rotting scabbard it drew a rusted sword and ran the second through, lifting him screaming into the air. As the beast withdrew its sword, the knight slipping off like discarded meat, Halbranc charged at it, hacking down two-handed upon its arm but his blade rebounded.
‘Its skin is like iron,’ he cried, fending off a blow that almost knocked him down. Mikael went to his side.
The creature held up a withered hand. Mikael couldn’t move, halted by the malevolent will of the undead knight. It spoke with a voice that held the weight of ages. ‘I am Setti-Ra. A reign of terror shall sweep your lands and beyond at my rebirth. Slumbering legions will rise once more and bathe the deserts in blood. Kneel now before me.’
Mikael felt a terrible weight pressing down upon him. His legs were buckling against it. He tried to mutter a prayer to Morr, but was unable. Halbranc was on his knees; sweat coursing down his reddened face.
‘Only fire and the will of Sigmar can purge the creature from this body.’
The voice of Lenchard was like crystal water as it broke the power of Setti-Ra. With the burden lifted, Mikael arose. Halbranc struggled to his feet beside him.
The Black Knights backed away.
Around the chamber, the torches spluttered and died as the water lapped languidly at their feet.
‘We must get to higher ground,’ Mikael said, ‘draw the creature out.’
‘No.’ It was Count Gunther. Sword drawn, he blocked the doorway. Mikael noticed the creature’s gaze was fixed upon the count.
The Empire Omnibus Page 104