02 - Taint of Evil

This is a dark age, a bloody age, an age of daemons and of sorcery. It is an
age of battle and death, and of the world’s ending. Amidst all of the fire,
flame and fury it is a time, too, of mighty heroes, of bold deeds and great courage.

At the heart of the Old World sprawls the Empire, the largest and most powerful
of the human realms. Known for its engineers, sorcerers, traders and soldiers,
it is a land of great mountains, mighty rivers, dark forests and vast cities.
And from his throne in Altdorf reigns the Emperor Karl-Franz, sacred descendent
of the founder of these lands, Sigmar, and wielder of his magical warhammer.

But these are far from civilised times. Across the length and breadth of the
Old World, from the knightly palaces of Bretonnia to ice-bound Kislev in the far
north, come rumblings of war. In the towering World’s Edge Mountains, the
orc tribes are gathering for another assault. Bandits and renegades harry the wild
southern lands of the Border Princes. There are rumours of rat-things, the skaven, emerging from the sewers and swamps
across the land. And from the northern wildernesses there is the ever-present threat
of Chaos, of daemons and beastmen corrupted by the foul powers of the Dark Gods.
As the time of battle draws ever near, the Empire needs heroes like never before.

Lothar Koenig tugged back on the reins with a practiced ease, bringing his
horse to a rapid halt upon the stony path. With the pounding of the hooves
suddenly stilled, the land seemed improbably, unnaturally quiet. Lothar sat
motionless in the saddle, head tilted towards the sky, scanning his
surroundings. It was a cold, crisp night, poised on the cusp of autumn. Up
above, the sibling moons Mannslieb and Morrslieb shone like newly minted coins
in a star-flecked sky, dappling the rolling hills with a pale silver light.

In that moment everything looked so pure and untainted. The world, Lothar
reflected, could be a cruel and deceitful place. And lonely. Here, on the edge
of the mountains, within sight of the great river that snaked its path from the
borders of Kislev to the very heart of the Empire, a man might well believe that
he was the very last soul alive upon the face of the world. But he would not be
alone. Not for much longer.

Lothar Koenig kicked in with his booted heels and drove his mount forward, on
towards his destination. He rode quickly, threading a path through the barren
forest that skirted the edge of the hills. He would leave nothing to chance. Not now,
when he was so near.

Soon he reached his vantage point, a narrow ledge hidden within a cluster of
trees which overlooked a second, better-trodden path that ran through the base
of the valley some twenty yards below. Lothar pulled a spyglass from the pocket
of his padded hide jerkin and scanned the length of the valley. At first he
could see nothing beyond a tar-like blackness tinged at its extremity by the
moonlight. Koenig cursed, cupped a hand around the lens so as to shade it from
the prying moons, and tried again. Now he could see the outlines of the trees
lying directly below. The rising profile of the mountains stretched out like a
boundless ocean of blackness, in each direction as far as the eye could see. The
expanse of land known as the Ostermark was vast, vast enough for a traveller to
lose himself in utterly. But Lothar Koenig was not lost. He was exactly where he
needed to be.

He made use of the few moments that remained to take stock of his tools in
trade. Neatly stowed about the saddle of his horse were all the means by which
he earned his living: a sword, light but honed to a keen sharpness, always
ready: a length of rope, and a shorter length of linked metal chain wound tightly
around a wire net strong enough to hold the wildest of beasts; a glass bottle,
tightly stoppered, containing a potion capable of subduing a man in seconds and
a short steel knife, useful only for close combat, the sort of combat that could
only end in death. This was Lothar’s tool of last resort. He was a bounty
hunter, not a killer. If death was to be the only currency, then he could deal
it as well as any man. But his clients generally paid better money if their
prizes were delivered alive, not dead. What happened to them after that was
another matter, and one that Lothar was careful never to pry too far into.

He shivered, aware as if for the first time of the biting chill held in the
still night air. Cold or not, he would have to wait for as long as it took.
Patience. He must have patience. That was a quality that his trade depended
upon.

He lifted the spyglass again, tracking back along the length of the path
below. Not long now, surely, if his calculations were correct. Soon his quarry would emerge from between the hills into the
bottleneck of the valley below. Then the familiar ritual would begin again.
Sometimes it ended in death. And eventually, he reflected, the Gates of Morr
would open for him too. He lowered the glass, contemplating the prospect of his
death at the hand of an as yet unknown opponent. It would probably come in a
place such as this, a vast expanse of wilderness in a distant part of the
Empire. His body would fall and rot amongst the trees, unnoticed by all except
the devouring worms. No one would miss him, no one would mourn his loss. Such
friends as he had ever known had gradually melted away, and his wife and child
lay long dead in the cold earth.

For a moment something akin to self-pity washed over him, a bittersweet
savouring of loss and a life that might have been. Lothar allowed himself the
moment of weakness then crushed the emotion down, locking it away with the
impatience, the fear and the weariness that lay heavy in his bones. This job
called for a clear head and a cold, empty heart.

Patience, patience. His calculation had been exact. They would appear along
the path below any minute now, emerging into the bright moonlight. He thought
again about his target, the man who would put enough money in his purse to spare
Lothar the need for these nocturnal adventures for many a night to come.

The man he was waiting so patiently for was a bandit, a common cut-throat set
apart from his peers by his singular reputation for cruelty. A man who plundered
lives and property indiscriminately, for gain or for fun, as it suited him.
Normally, and—from Lothar’s perspective—thankfully, their paths would not
have crossed. But this particular cutthroat had gone too far. He had kidnapped a
girl, noble-born, a proctor’s daughter from Talabheim. The ransom demanded had
been paid, but it hadn’t ended there. It seemed the kidnappers hadn’t known
where to stop with their fun. Things had gone too far. Now the girl was dead,
and her captor had a price upon his head, a generous purse laid by the grieving
father.

There was no doubting that his quarry was a loathsome and despicable man, but
Lothar Koenig carried no especial hatred in his heart. He thought of his target
dispassionately, perhaps, even, with a strange affection. It was through men
like this he earned his living, and for that Lothar gave thanks. He looked
skywards and said a prayer to whatever gods might bless him this night.

Carl Durer was not a complex man. He rarely had room in his head for more
than one idea at the same time. Tonight his mind was upon hunting, not being
hunted.

They had picked up a trail a little way west of Baumdorf—a lone rider,
heading south. These days few travellers were stupid or foolish enough to travel
the mountain trails alone at night. People were running scared—though scared
of what Carl Durer was never quite sure. There was vague talk of trouble
brewing, of war beyond the border, of strange beasts and mutants stalking the
land.

None of it much interested Carl Durer. All he knew was that merchants and
traders rarely ventured out other than in convoy now, and pickings for men like
him were growing thin. But this one, this one was surely a beauty. Durer and his
men had followed him from the outskirts of the village, a single horseman
oblivious or indifferent to the perils of the Ostermark. The bandits followed at
a distance at first, content to let their victim run awhile. A few miles ahead
the path narrowed, then dropped down into a valley. The only way out was up a
steep climb at the far end. That was where they would take him and whatever
treasure he carried.

Durer enjoyed the anticipation almost as much as the kill. As the four of
them closed in on their prey, he started to think about the sport ahead. Usually
they put up a bit of a fight, at first. If they did, so much the better, Carl
enjoyed a fight. Then, when it became obvious they weren’t going to escape, they
would beg, beg for their lives to be spared. Sometimes—often, in fact—Carl
would silence the begging with a blade through the guts, and keep twisting it
until the wretch shut up. Other times, if he were in the mood, he might listen
to what they had to say. They might have a bit extra to offer—money stashed away where Carl might not have thought to
look. He enjoyed watching wealthy gentlefolk grovel at his feet, on their knees,
pleading for their lives to be spared. Carl thought about it and laughed. It
made no difference, really. He killed them all in the end.

Soon they’d reach the valley. He spurred his mount on, ready to overhaul the
horseman ahead, and glanced around at the riders on either side of him. Filthy
Erich Wahl: as fat and gluttonous as a pig a man who would watch his mother
starve if it meant he could feed his belly. His brother Kurt, who’d killed more
men than he could remember, most for no particular reason. And the strange,
whey-faced boy, a northerner known only as Lief, with a deep, unfathomable
something about him that scared even Carl. They were Durer’s men, but he wasn’t
stupid enough to think they were his friends. In truth he despised the lot of
them, and they’d knife him in the back as soon as he would them—which was soon
enough. But so long as they were useful to each other, then they were in it
together.

Right now they probably hated his guts, blamed him for the foul-up in
Talabheim. That business with the girl had got out of hand. They should have got
out as soon as they had the ransom, but Carl had wanted a bit of fun, and then
it had gone too far. That didn’t matter in itself—nobody gave a damn about the
girl. But even Carl hadn’t reckoned on the little whore’s father being such a
vengeful bastard. Carl wasn’t used to being a fugitive, and it didn’t much agree
with him. The hungry ache in his belly agreed with him even less. It was time he
lived off the fat of the land again.

As they crested the top of the valley Carl looked down to see the other rider
barely fifty yards ahead of them. He was either deaf, had no sense of instinct,
or both, or he would have had some sense of the riders behind him by now. But
the horseman varied neither his speed nor his course, just kept on at the same
steady pace, riding bolt upright in the saddle, staring out at the night ahead.