Tales of the Old World (91 page)

Reiner gathered the reins of his own horse, utterly unmoved. “How long do we
have?” he asked the witch hunter curtly.

Lenchard steadied his steed. His eyes were dark rings of shadow, his face a
pepper-wash of stubble.

“The heretic may have an hour, possibly two hours’ head start.”

Reiner turned to Valen and Vaust and said, “Ride on ahead, find his trail.”

The twins nodded as one. Sometimes their seemingly empathic synchronicity was
unnerving, Mikael thought, as he watched them mount up and ride swiftly through
the gates.

“Once Sigson is done speaking to the dead guard we will join them,” Reiner
said, noting the look of veiled disgust on the witch hunter’s face. He ignored
it and switched his attention to Mikael.

Ever since that night at Hochsleben, when Kalten had died at the hands of the
crazed mortician Merrick, the captain of Morr had watched Mikael closely. The
young templar had foreseen his comrades’ death in a vision, but spoke nothing of
it to Reiner. But he suspected something, Mikael was certain of it. Only Sigson
knew for sure.

“He yielded nothing.” The warrior priest Sigson came out of the darkness,
face drawn and laboured. Communication with the dead was a gift from their god
Morr, protector of the deceased, but it was taxing and often left the priest
weak. “He had a violent death, but that is all I could tell.”

Halbranc followed Sigson. The terrified guard came after, scurrying quickly
past the giant templar and into the courtyard.

Reiner was about to mount up when Sigson’s voice stopped him. “However, his
face bore some interesting wounds.”

The captain’s expression was questioning.

“A mark; carved after death, I believe.”

“A ritual mark?” Mikael asked, abruptly aware of Reiner’s gaze upon him, his
silence penetrating, searching.

“Perhaps. There was little time for examination. I suspect the other guard
was dumped in the sewer. I have performed the binding rites on the body we do
have though,” said Sigson, “and our dead watch sergeant,” he added for
Lenchard’s benefit.

Reiner addressed the guard who had followed Halbranc out.

“Have your men go down there and find him, it might provide some clue to the
fugitive’s whereabouts.”

“No,” Lenchard stated curtly, “I know where Krieger is going. There is but
one thing occupying his mind.”

This time it was the witch hunter who received Reiner’s questioning gaze.

“The thing that dominates the mind of any killer regarding his captors,”
Lenchard said, pausing to steer his horse toward the gate, “revenge.”

Krieger watched the road from his shelter in the trees. The chilling rain ran
off the leafy canopy above and down his face and neck. He crouched, betraying no
sign of discomfort. A figure loomed through the downpour, coming towards him. It
was a farmer, driving his cart hard, cloak wrapped tight around his body, his
hood drawn against the lashing rain. The cart drew nearer, and all other sounds
faded. Krieger heard only his own breath. He drew the stolen dagger from his
belt and waited until the cart came so close he could see into the man’s eyes.
The rain smothered Krieger’s approach. Lightning cracked. The flash from the
blade was the last thing the driver ever saw.

Count Gunther was alone in the dark, empty hall. He sat upon an ornate throne
set in the centre of the room. A large window threw grey light into the
darkness, illuminating a huge tapestry which dominated the wall before him. The
man depicted in it looked just like the count.

Gunther raised a silver goblet to the portrait as he regarded his likeness. A
twisted, haggard man bedecked in finery and the coldness of wealth, stared back
at him. At the edge of the tapestry were the names of all his forefathers. Soon
his would be added to them.

“To you, father.” His voice was edged with bitterness. “You would be proud.”

Gunther slumped in the seat, exhausted. As the room grew darker he closed his
eyes, remembering the desert.

Krieger knelt before him in the stillness of the tent, head bent low. The
night was chill and Count Gunther repressed a shudder as he regarded the
traitor. Krieger was stripped to the waist; arms and armour removed. Bastion and
Rogan waited either side, watching the prisoner. Despite the cold, he did not
shiver, nor make any sound or motion.

“You are accused of heresy,” Gunther told him. “You stole these dark
manuscripts from the tomb, why?” He brandished the scrolls before him in a
gauntleted hand.

Krieger said nothing.

“Answer me!” Gunther struck his captive hard across the face. Krieger fell to
the ground hard but, with effort, dragged himself up.

“What was your purpose here?” Gunther hissed, seizing Krieger’s chin to face
him.

The traitor’s eyes were cold and penetrating. “To kill you.”

Krieger head butted the count hard in the face. Springing forward he ripped a
dagger from Gunther’s belt, ramming it into the count’s chest.

Bastion and Rogan dove upon Krieger. Rogan punched the traitor in the neck,
bringing him down as Bastion disarmed him.

With a grimace, Gunther withdrew the dagger. Blood seeped from the wound onto
his tunic. Cries for the surgeon filled his senses as madness and panic took
hold.

Thunder resonated around the chamber. Count Gunther awoke, startled. White
heat burned in his chest, as fresh pain sprang from the wound. He looked up,
suddenly aware of someone else in the room.

Captain Bastion waited in the shadows. He had taken off his armour and now
wore a simple grey tunic and leather breeches, though he still carried a sword
at his belt.

“Bastion.” The statement held an unspoken question.

“A matter has arisen that requires your attention, my liege,” Bastion said,
bowing respectfully. “This incessant rain threatens the banks of the Averlecht;
there is a danger they may burst.”

The count saw the rain thrashing hard against the window. It was the first
time he’d noticed it.

“I have workers buoying up the bank with earth and sandbags,” Bastion told
his master. “There is little else to be done.”

“Good. Keep me informed and I will visit the site in the morning.”

“As you wish, sire.” Bastion bowed, and walked away. He was almost at the
door when Gunther spoke. “What of the other matter?” he asked.

“It has been secured as instructed,” Bastion said, without looking back, and
left the room.

Gunther nodded, looking far away into the gloom. “Good. That is good.”

About an hour after the templars left Thorne Keep, Valen and Vaust found the
body of a farmer. He lay in a growing quagmire of earth, face-down and sprawled
in the middle of a back road. A cart, presumably once owned by the dead man, lay
half embedded in a nearby ditch. The horse was gone; its traces had been
slashed.

Mikael crouched next to the farmer in the pouring rain. He’d removed his
gauntlet, and rested a hand on the man’s neck.

“Still warm,” he said, looking up at Reiner.

The captain had dismounted and was standing with Sigson. Valen and Vaust held
the reins of their horses between them, also on foot. The four knights formed a
circle around Mikael as they regarded the body. Halbranc was mounted, waiting
further up the road, maintaining a silent watch as night crept over the horizon.
Lenchard stayed near the other knights, but remained on his steed, preferring
not to soil his leather boots with the mud of the road to ascertain facts he
already knew.

“This is how you found him?” Reiner asked the brothers.

“Yes, captain,” they answered together.

The farmer’s body sank further into the mire. Sigson crouched down next to
Mikael and carefully tilted the dead man’s head to one side, brushing away the
earth clinging to his face.

“We can learn nothing more here,” Reiner said and was about to signal for
them to get back on their horses when Sigson spoke.

“There is another mark. Like the one upon the guard.”

Mikael leaned in for a closer look, pulling on his gauntlet.

“Is it a scarab beetle?” Lenchard asked the warrior priest.

“Yes,” Sigson said suspiciously, looking up at the witch hunter. “How did you
know that?”

“It matters not,” Lenchard replied, dismissively, facing the road ahead.
“Krieger has a horse now. We must press on and hope we are not too late.”

“Too late for what?” Sigson asked but Lenchard was already riding away into
the darkness.

“To your steeds!” Reiner bellowed, stirring his templars into action.

Sigson seized Reiner’s arm, before he could mount his horse. “What is this?
This witch hunter knows more than he’s telling us.”

“That is possible.” Reiner’s voice was cold and hollow. “But we are in Herr
Lenchard’s charge by the order of our temple. It is our duty to deliver him to
the heretic.” Reiner looked down at his arm. “Unhand me.”

Sigson took his hand away and stood back.

Mikael had stood up during the exchange, taking the reins of his and Sigson’s
horse from Valen, and watched as the two men parted. The tension between the
captain and priest was written upon Sigson’s face as he turned away from Reiner.

“Do you trust him, Mikael?” Sigson asked quietly as he took the reins of his
horse from the young templar.

“I don’t know,” Mikael told him, “but he is certainly hiding something.”

“I agree,” said the warrior priest, then asked, “Anymore dreams since
Hochsleben?” Mikael shook his head.

The old priest held Mikael’s gaze a moment, as if determining whether the
young knight had told him the truth or not. The rain trickled down his face,
tiny rivulets forming in the age lines, coursing to his chin and dripping off
the grey spike of beard that jutted out. In his eyes there was a warning. “Don’t
ever speak of them to Reiner.”

“I still feel his death on my conscience, Sigson,” Mikael said, watching the
others as they mounted their horses.

“As do we all, my son,” said the priest, grunting as he swung himself into
his saddle.

Mikael mounted up, trying to crush the memories and push away the dark omens
gnawing at his mind.

Overhead, the storm wracked the sky with forks of lightning and tremulous
thunder, as the silhouette of a man hurried to the outer wall of Galstadt.
Unseen by the workers, toiling hard in the downpour, he moved along the wall
quickly like a creeping shadow, before plunging into the deepening tributary
that fed the town’s wells and sewers.

Limbs aching, his muscles fuelled by vengeful desire, Krieger swam through
the shallow drain in the town’s wall, diving deep to crawl through the murky
water, beneath the rusting bars that went only halfway to the ground. He emerged
into a wide tunnel which was illuminated by a narrow shaft in the wall to his
left. Krieger crept into it and climbed up a shallow incline, the water gushing
below him. Reaching the top of the shaft, he heaved opened an iron grate
blocking his ascent and levered himself out.

He had emerged in a long chamber, probably the lowest level of the keep.
Barrels and sacks were strewn about the room. Krieger waited for a moment in the
silence, getting his bearings. He was in the east wing storeroom. Across a
corridor and up a flight of stairs he would be in the great hall. Padding
quietly down the low room, the rain thrumming distantly beyond the walls,
Krieger saw a knight ahead with his back to him.

Drawing his dagger, he crept silently towards his prey.

Count Gunther and Captain Bastion stood upon a grassy ridge at the outskirts
of Galstadt. They wore heavy cloaks, with hoods drawn, to ward off the
unrelenting rain.

“If that river is breached, Bastion, it will flood the town, the lower levels
of the keep and we’ll lose many lives,” the count told him.

“We are doing all in our power to prevent that,” Bastion replied, looking at
the workers below as they strived frantically to reinforce the bank.

Men toiled with great heaps of earth as others brought fresh mounds on wooden
barrows. Some drove carts through the worsening mire with rocks gathered from
the edge of the mountains, some three miles away, and sand-filled sacking. They
fought in the constant rain, stripped down to the waist, digging trenches to
lessen the river’s strength.

Bastion looked back to the horizon, hoping for a sign that the storm might
abate. Instead, he saw a rider coming towards them from the town.

“Knight Garrant,” Count Gunther addressed the rider as he approached. He
reined in his steed, dismounted and trod steadily up to the ridge. Garrant was a
broad man, half armoured with breastplate and vambraces, and wearing a heavy,
cowled cloak. When he got to the top of the ridge, he pulled back his hood
revealing a noble face, framed by thick reddish hair.

“My liege,” the knight’s voice was severe. “I have bad news.”

The count grew suddenly pale, his eyes questioning.

“It is Rogan, my lord. He’s dead.”

Gunther regarded Rogan’s corpse, slumped against the interior wall of the
keep’s east tower. He was joined by Bastion and Garrant, the red-haired knight
carrying a lantern. Inside, the tower was dark and fairly bare; just a bench and
an empty rack for stowing weapons. It was commonly used as a watch station. A
stout trapdoor was in the centre of the circular chamber, which led down to the
lower levels. Two wooden doors, opposite each other, allowed egress to the walls
of the keep—this was where the count and his knights had entered. Wind whipped
through a thin window that looked out over Galdstadt, making the lantern flame
flicker. It cast ghoulish shadows over Rogan’s body.

“In the name of Sigmar, how could this happen?” Count Gunther asked sombrely.

Garrant crouched down next to the body, setting the lantern down and
examining the dead man’s head. It hung limply at an unnatural angle.