Warhammer - [Genevieve 04] - Silver Nails

by Jack Yeovil (epub)

  Having recently learned that the nervous landlord of the Staff of Verena was paying the highest rate of protection money on the street to both the Hooks and Fish, as well as a retainer to the regulars of the Holy Hammer of Sigmar, all to ensure the safety of his business and patrons, Harald paid the Staff a visit and did as much damage as possible. He left the place a ruin, and the landlord howling at how little protection his illicit outlay had actually purchased. Finding a couple of officers from the Dock Watch standing guard outside an illegal dice tourney in the basement of the Von Neuwald Arms, he slammed their skulls together and tossed their badges into the sewers. Then he stormed into the tourney, breaking heads, hands and legs with a stout oak chair. He took the gamblers' coins from the grid and threw them into the gutter for the beggars.

  It was a watchman's maxim that the solution to every crime in the Empire could be discovered on the Street of a Hundred Taverns. Still, there were other places, and so in the small hours, Harald ventured off the thoroughfare. The Fish had a place on the docks, a warehouse where they stored all the goods that 'slipped overboard during unloading', and Harald broke in while the guards were snoring drunkenly. He emptied a cask of Estalian brandy over a dozen bolts of Bretonnian silk, and then carelessly dropped a flaming torch onto the soaked material, leaping through a trapdoor to escape the resulting explosion.

  The daemon dust in his mind prevented the cold of the river from biting through his flesh and he didn't come out of the Reik until he was past the Three Toll Bridge. He found 'Count' Bernhard Brillhauser scraping the pavement with his feathered cap on Temple Street, offering to take any provincials who were new in town on a tour of the 'exciting' underworld of the city. It was said that you hadn't really visited the capital city of the Empire unless you'd been fleeced by the 'Count'. Along with the changing of the Imperial Guard, a visit to the Konigplatz and the latest presentation at the Vargr Breughel Memorial Playhouse, it was one of the experiences of Altdorf.

  Leaving the 'Count' with his hat in the back of his throat, Harald barged into the Temple Street Gymnasium, where a trial of strength was on between Hagedorn, the famous wrestler, and Arne the Body, the gym's proprietor. Arne was known for his perfectly-developed limbs, and, from time to time, for his availability to any of his wealthy clientele who might require some discreet pain-infliction.

  Harald pulled Arne out of the ring, just as the contestants were bending iron bars with much bicep-flexing and neck-straining, and tossed him against a climbing frame, the dust-strength in his body giving him an edge over the perfect physical specimen. As far as he knew, Hagedorn had never broken the law, so he left the bewildered hayseed×a blinking column of muscle surrounded by fawning women×alone. With the second pinch of daemon dust up his nose, he felt he could probably have tangled with the master of the mats and won. He took Arne's half-bent iron and wrapped it around his neck, fixing him to the frame. Then he punched the trainer's rock-hard gut muscles a few times. The Body swore he knew nothing about the Warhawk, and Harald told him he'd be coming back if Arne were lying.

  He didn't need sleep. In fact, he felt stronger by the moment and jogged through the early morning streets, bursting with energy he needed to burn off. A dozen or so people had come to him with spurious help, trying to frame their enemies for the Warhawk crimes, others sincerely dumping information on him, or just flapping their lips. Nothing usable had come to light.

  He made his way across the city to the University, where he wanted to throw a scare into the cut-ups of the League of Karl-Franz, and shake the cobwebs of the revolutionist movement. The Imperial loyalists×all of whom, he suspected, were supported by that shadowy kingmaker, Graf Rudiger von Unheimlich×and the revolutionists×split into Brustellinite, Kloszowskist and Yefimovite factions, but still tied together by hatred for the aristocracy×were closely linked with the rest of the city's human vermin, and he didn't see why, if he was coming down so hard on pimps and killers, he should let them off lightly.

  In one of the coffee houses near the university, he found Detlef Sierck, the actor, drinking off a hangover and moaning to anyone who would listen about the fickleness of women, all the while handing out flyers for his latest production, She Served Him III.

  One of the early murders had taken place outside Sierck's theatre on Temple Street, and Harald had questioned the man×and his now-vanished vampire mistress×closely. Sierck was still too drunk to remember him and, since he was completely ruled out of the investigation, Harald left him to his headache.

  In the university square, he encountered Brand, a soberly-dressed cleric of Ranald he remembered from a series of assaults on priestesses of Shallya. None of the victims had been willing to identify the cleric as the degenerate, but Harald had known the man was guilty. Judging that this was as good a time as any to make up for the deficiencies of the justice system, Harald dragged Brand to the gates of the Ueli von Tasseninck School of Religious Studies, and beat a confession out of him, continuing the beating long after the culprit had yielded up all his sins, then draping his battered but breathing body over the statue of that invert Ueli von Tasseninck that his uncle, Grand Duke Hals, had sponsored. The statue reminded Harald of the time he had first been expelled from the watch, for foolishly assuming the laws against rape and murder applied even to people whose uncles were electors of the Empire, so he prised an iron bar out of a fence and returned to chip away Ueli's sainted face. Quite a crowd gathered×students, harlots, lecturers, guilty bystanders×and he made his speech to them.

  It got better every time.

  'My name is Harald Kleindeinst, captain of the Dock Watch,' he began. 'Filthy Harald. I'm declaring my own war'

  Suddenly, like a towel falling from his eyes, the daemon dust wore off. All the pain of the world flooded into his body.

  He didn't even scream, he just collapsed.

  XIV

  Even two days after Harald's rampage, the Street of a Hundred Taverns looked as if a raiding party of Chaos Knights had laid waste to the thoroughfare. And then a wave of goblin scavengers had gone through, mistreating the wounded and breaking whatever had been left whole by the first assault. It was hard to believe one man×even Harald Kleindeinst×had done this much damage.

  As usual, beggar children tugged at Rosanna's shawl. As usual, she gave them more than she should. Every loiterer on the street seemed injured in some way, superficially or seriously. Workmen were every-. where, repairing windows, carting away broken furniture, re-hanging smashed signs, painting over bloodstained walls. The gutters glittered with shards of broken mirror glass.

  A couple of patrolling watchmen were exchanging jokes, where usually they would be venturing carefully, hands on clubs. The ordinary run of street crime had dropped almost to nothing in the last two days. Pickpockets had broken fingers, whores bore unsightly facial bruises, and cudgel-artists wouldn't be hefting a weapon until broken elbows set. But none of this had stopped the Warhawk.

  Twelve dead×one since Harald's rampage. Rosanna felt a Harald-like need to put an end to the killing spree. With every death, the whole case changed, turned about-face. She wondered how Harald would feel when he heard about the latest atrocity.

  'Miss Ophuls,' a voice called.

  She turned. A nondescript man, in early middle age, leaned against a lamp-post, painfully eating an apple. His lip was split and bruised. She had a presentiment that the Warhawk case was about to crack open down the middle.

  'Rosanna Ophuls?'

  She couldn't scry much from him. He was a typical non-entity, nothing strong enough inside him to count as an identity.

  'You work with Kleindeinst?'

  Rosanna nodded.

  'Mack Ruger,' he said, introducing himself with a thumb to his chest. 'Your friend paid me a visit two nights back.'

  'So I see.'

  He rubbed his face. 'I got off easy compared to some.'

  'Pimp, right?'

  'Your reputation is exaggerated. Weirdroot.'

  'A thriving trade, I suppose.
'

  'I do bearably. Everyone has a right to dream.'

  'If they've money.'

  'I'm a businessman.'

  Rosanna would have laughed, but there was an image in Ruger's mind he could not keep shielded. A swooping bird.

  'You know the name?' she said, suddenly intuiting.

  He shook his head. 'No, but Stieglitz wasn't the last of Vastarien's Vanquishers. There are other survivors. One can be found on this street.'

  'How much?'

  He shook his head. 'This is a gift. Just be sure you tell Kleindeinst this came from me. He already owes me for the face. I'll want concessions.'

  Rosanna almost felt as if she were Harald, the rage boiling inside until it had to volcano through the top of her skull.

  'Give me the name,' she said, 'or I'll be sure to tell Captain Kleindeinst you withheld it.'

  Ruger paled behind his bruise.

  'Gurnisson,' he said. 'Gotrek Gurnisson.'

  'A dwarf?'

  Ruger nodded. 'He's at the Crooked Spear, with a human tagalong, Felix Jaeger.'

  Rosanna thought she might have heard of Gurnisson. Dwarfs were long-lived and had good memories. If he had served with the first Warhawk, Gurnisson would know his true name.

  'Tell Kleindeinst to be careful with the dwarf. Gurnisson won't appreciate his usual rough treatment. He's a trollslayer.'

  'That won't matter,' Rosanna said.

  'I warned you,' Ruger said. 'That's all I could do.'

  Without thanking the man, Rosanna left, looking for a vacant carriage.

  XV

  In his dreams, Eleni had been alive again. There was no crime in the city. Pattern killers were mythical creatures. His stomach didn't play up. And the Emperor was concerned with the welfare of his subjects.

  When he woke up, the world was a festering wound and he was a squashed maggot writhing inside it.

  The daemon dust was flushed from his body, and his first urge was to reach to his belt for the third leaf-twist. Everything ached, hurt, screamed or burned.

  He was out of his clothes, in a bed, under blankets. The dust was gone.

  'Easy,' a voice said. A cool, feminine voice. An angel's.

  Sitting up, he felt hammerblows to his head. He was strong. He told the pain to go away. It was stronger.

  Gripping the edge of the bed, he stayed upright.

  'You're in the Luitpoldstrasse Station,' the voice said. 'You've been asleep for two days.'

  'Eleni?'

  His eyes focused, and he saw Rosanna. She looked surprised.

  'Eleni?' she asked.

  'Never mind.'

  Rosanna was by his bedside. There were others in the room. Rasselas was there, bowed low beside his master, Mornan Tybalt. And Graf Rudiger von Unheimlich, sneering with distaste at the commoners.

  'What happened?'

  'You're back on the case,' Rosanna told him.

  Harald looked at Tybalt and von Unheimlich. They both nodded, brief acknowledgements that this was true.

  'Viereck?'

  'The twelfth victim.'

  Harald clutched the blankets and started forwards, a wave of agony convulsing him.

  'What?'

  'He was on execution dock,' Rasselas explained, 'supervising the hanging of the acrobat. The bird came from nowhere and took his head almost off.

  'The hawk left a message, like a carrier pigeon. It was for you.'

  Rosanna gave him a slip of paper. He managed to hold it with his banana-clumsy fingers, and focused on the few words.

  'COME AND GET ME, KLEINDEINST.'

  It bore a seal with the imprint of a hawk's clawfoot.

  Rosanna, while close to him, whispered, 'I have a name. Another of Vastarien's Vanquishers.'

  She didn't want the others to hear. He understood immediately. In this case, no one could be trusted.

  'Get me some clothes,' Harald shouted at the dignitaries, 'and a pot of strong coffee.'

  He thought Rasselas might be smiling, but the Imperial Chancellor and the Patron of the League of Karl-Franz remained grim and set in their expressions.

  'By the way' said the chancellor, 'that business of you brutalising every criminal in the city?'

  'Yes.'

  'Disgraceful. Consider yourself reprimanded.'

  'Got to keep the customers satisfied, eh?'

  Tybalt looked as if he had mistaken an onion for an apple and taken a big bite. Praying for the pain to go away, Harald got out of bed.

  XVI

  His back was on fire now, only the leathered weight of the cloak, so like wings, could cool him. Venturing out without his Warhawk suit had been torture today. From now on, until the Device was complete, he would wear the leather constantly. He adjusted the hood, until it settled like a new skin.

  One more sacrifice, and the air would be his realm.

  The watch captain had died pitifully, screaming and fouling himself. Viereck was a poor specimen next to Kleindeinst.

  He thought back to the night of Kleindeinst's rampage. The watchman had mistaken him for a panderer, and roughed him up a little. Warhawk had been almost amused and unable to stifle his laughter. The watchman must have thought him mad, or one of those inverts who gain pleasure from pain. Kleindeinst had pushed him into the gutter outside the Beard of Ulric, and left him giggling.

  'We have chosen our instrument well. Belle,' he told his bird. 'He shall be the last component of the Device.'

  The hatch in the roof was open, and beyond was the sky.

  XVII

  In the saloon of the Crooked Spear, it was impossible to miss the dwarf. He had climbed a stool and was hunched over the long bar, an axe half his size set down amid a small forest of foam-smeared empties. To Harald, the trollslayer looked like what you'd get if you sawed off Arne the Body's legs at the knees. He was still drinking, despite the occasional complaints of a reedy-looking young man at his elbow. Harald knew Gurnisson had a reputation as a brawler, and it was said the last time he'd been drunk enough to be penned in a cell he'd got out by chewing through the bars.

  There was a piper in the corner, half-way through an assault on a popular Sea-shanty. Rosanna was the only woman in the place. The other drinkers were heavily muscled warrior-types, proud of their fighting scars, prouder of their barrel-shaped limbs. Doubtless, they all exercised daily at Arne's gymnasium, and nightly in the back-alleys of the Street of a Hundred Taverns, exchanging blows with each other. The Sullen Knight was the inn for amateur bruisers and brawlers. The Crooked Spear was where the seriously violent misfits came.

  And Gurnisson was the most seriously violent misfit in the place.

  Well, maybe the second

  'Gurnisson,' he announced, loud enough to shut up the piper.

  The dwarf didn't turn from his drink, but his shoulders heaved enormously, straining the stitching of the back of his jerkin.

  'Couldn't you try just asking him politely?' Rosanna suggested. 'Maybe he'll want to help.'

  'Gotrek Gurnisson,' he said, louder.

  The trollslayer looked over his shoulder, a bleary eye casting around for the man who'd spoken his name.

  'Who wants to know?' he asked, hand tightening on the shaft of his axe.

  'Captain Harald Kleindeinst of the Dock Watch.'

  Gurnisson's companion, who'd obviously heard about Filthy Harald, rolled his eyes upwards and prayed silently for deliverance. The inn was thick with the scent of impending combat.

  'Bastard,' someone shouted behind him, 'you broke my brother's arm!'

  An enormous young man who didn't look familiar lunged at Harald. He stepped out of the way, and made a simple move with his elbow, listening for the crack of bones giving way in the hulk's forearm.

  'There,' he said, 'now you're twins.'

  Screaming in a high-pitched yelp, the would-be avenger retreated. Gurnisson grinned.

  'Nicely done, copper.'

  'It was nothing,' Harald said, pulling up a stool next to the troll-slayer.

  'We don't
serve her kind here,' the ear-, nose- and lip-ringed barman said, nodding with distaste at Rosanna, who was being given a chair by Gurnisson's companion.

  'Witches,' the barman said, and spat.

  'You just changed your policy,' Harald told him.

  The barman considered it a moment, and went along with Harald's suggestion.

  'Schnapps for me, sherry for the lady, and whatever these gentlemen are drinking.'

  The drinks came.

  'You made a noise on the street a few nights gone, copper,' Gurnisson said.

  Harald agreed.

  'A good thing you didn't run into me.'

  'Good for you, or good for me?'

  The dwarf showed his sharp yellow teeth, and his face flared in an angry-looking grin.

  'Let's say it was good for the city,' Gurnisson's companion suggested as a compromise.

  'Felix Jaeger,' he said, shaking Harald's hand and kissing Rosanna's.

  'Why do you seek me out, copper? Have there been complaints?'

  'No more than usual. I just want a name from you. The name of a criminal.'

  'I be no snitch.'

  'This be no ordinary criminal. I'm talking about the Warhawk.'

  Gurnisson looked puzzled. 'The murderer? Why should I know his name?'

  'You knew his father.'

  'Knew a lot of people's fathers, and grandfathers, and great-grandfathers.'

  'You were with Prince Vastarien?'

  Gurnisson's thick features twisted into an expression approximating the wistful. 'A long time ago. We were fools then. All of us.'

  'There was another Warhawk.'

  Gurnisson looked as if he'd just bitten into a rancid rat. He tried to wash the taste out of his mouth with a swig of ale.

  'A bad one, he was. Some like soldiering too much. It lets them do things they couldn't do as civilians without being chased by people like you.'