Witch Finder

by C. L. Werner

  The grey seer snarled for the fury of the weapon to be unleashed. The leather-clad ratmen hissed and squeaked in response, swinging the wide mouth of the weapon towards the combat raging before them. With a wild roar it was loosed, a gout of liquid fire rushed from the mouth of the weapon, spraying flaming ruin across a wide stretch of the hall. The black, viscous fire clung and burned, charring flesh and fur, blackening steel and melting skin. Soldiers, zombies, nurglings and ratmen alike were consumed by the horrific discharge, for the skaven cared little for their fellows caught in the flame. It was enough that the enemy perished alongside their own.

  Skilk chittered happily as he watched the warpfire-thrower do its ghastly work. But the sorcerer’s glee turned to horror as his eyes darted back to the huge, plague-ridden monstrosity that slobbered and roared at the foot of the stairs. The hulking monster had been surrounded by dozens of enemies, both human and ratman, the blades of both sides doing little more than scratch its polluted surface. Only the burning sword of the man-thing wizard seemed to deal the daemon any harm, and that threat was ended when a sweep of the monster’s claw lifted his head from his shoulders. With that single threat destroyed, the unclean one’s diseased gaze fixed upon the black flames spewing from the warpfire-thrower. Uttering an inarticulate, slobbering bellow, the bloated daemon barrelled through the ring of foes that surrounded it, smashing aside those too slow to react to its charge, ignoring the half-dozen blades that sank into its body as it thundered across the hall.

  The skaven sorcerer shrieked to the warpfire holders to turn it upon the bellowing daemon. The gunner dutifully turned, fear of Skilk overwhelming the urge to flee, but the skaven carrying the fuel tank wanted no part of it. Desperately, the ratman struggled to free itself of the wooden cask strapped to its back, succeeding only in snagging the fuel tube. As the gunner pulled back the lever that would bathe the unclean one in devouring flame, only a pitiful trickle dribbled from the nozzle. The ratman stared incredulously at its weapon, then squeaked in terror as the massive paw of the daemon smashed into it, throwing its broken body a dozen feet across the hall. Still connected to the gunner by the thick ratskin tubes, the fuel carrier hurtled after it, landing with a sickening crunch as the heavy cask crushed the ratman’s spine.

  Skilk snarled at the daemon, his sorcerous energies gathering in his black paw. Warpfire-throwers were difficult and expensive to obtain, and could only be had from the warlock-engineers of Clan Skryre. Monster, man or preternatural abomination, Skilk was determined that the daemon would suffer for this inconvenience. The grey seer unleashed the crackling energy, sending a bolt of swirling black lightning stabbing into von Gotz, scorching a hole clean through its chest, shocking the gibbering horror’s heart into a crusty cinder. Smoke and steaming filth rose from the crater in the daemon’s chest, Skilk admiring his own marksmanship when his glands suddenly spurted the scent of fear into the air. The abomination was still moving, still alive, even with its heart cooked! Worse, the formerly wavering, vacant gaze of the daemon was now focused on the skaven sorcerer-priest.

  Awed by the power and strength the monster had shown, Skilk backed away from the monstrosity, barking orders at the mob of black-furred warriors to defend him. The armoured ratmen demurred, cringing alongside their master. Skilk hissed angrily, unleashing another charge of black lightning, directing its baleful energies not at the daemon but at the nearest cowering warrior. The ratman squealed in agony as a gaping hole the size of its own head was blasted through its torso, tearing through flesh, bone and armour as easily as wet paper. Their terror of the grey seer restored, the black skaven firmed their grips on spears and shields and surged forward, attacking the hulking monster in frantic desperation.

  Skilk hid behind the protective wall of steel and fur, lips writhing as he muttered spells to bolster the flagging courage of his defenders, filling their minds with a reckless bloodlust that would swiftly burn out their brains. But the loss of a few dozen warriors mattered little, especially if it kept his own hide intact.

  Thulmann found himself swept up in the skaven assault, desperately slashing and thrusting at the inhuman warriors of the underfolk. Rodent muzzles snapped and chittered inches from his face as the vermin pushed deeper and deeper into the hall. Beside him, valiant soldiers screamed and died, noble aristocrats spilled their blue blood upon the floor as curved skaven blades gnawed hungrily into their bellies. For every man that fell, two furry corpses littered the ground, but still it was not enough. They could not fight a battle of attrition with the skaven, for the vermin might lose ten of their own for every man they killed and still carry the day.

  Then the witch hunter saw the warpfire-thrower brought forward. Alone amongst the men who struggled against the monsters, Thulmann recognised the weapon for what it was. He threw himself to the floor as the skaven fired, as a blast of sizzling fire incinerated those around him. The screams of dying men and ratmen filled his ears, as the incredible heat, the stench of singed fur and burnt flesh filled his other senses. Thulmann felt the dripping mass of a charred skaven topple onto his prone body. He rolled away, ripping his cloak from his shoulders as some of the liquid flame from the ratman’s corpse began to devour it. Only the mind of an inhuman monster could have conceived so ghastly an invention, could have imagined fire that clung to its victims like paste and would consume flesh down to the bone.

  Even as Thulmann recovered, he was borne down to the ground, his sword flying from his fingers. A shrieking, clawing, rodent shape straddled him, slashing him and snapping at him with its fangs. By luck or cunning, the skaven warrior had survived the fratricidal blast of the warpfire-thrower, but the nearness of such a death had unhinged the creature’s mind. Like a mad beast, it clawed at the witch hunter, frenziedly trying to bury its fangs in his neck. Thulmann tried to hold the snapping jaws away, pressing upward on the underside of the ratman’s muzzle. His other hand groped across the marble floor, struggling to reach the sword just beyond his reach. The skaven’s frenzied strength was starting to win, despite the creature’s slighter mass.

  Thulmann struggled to shift his attacker’s weight and stretched once more for his sword.

  Gregor Klausner stood above the withered ruin of Sibbechai’s body, glaring down upon it with a cold, lifeless hate. He held the crude wooden spear in his hands, poised for the final, lethal stroke that would impale the vampire’s heart and end its profane existence forever. But he found that his limbs would not obey him, that his body would not heed his command. A terrible will beyond his own held him frozen in its grip, a force just as powerful as the vile thirst that coursed through him, just as alien to the mortal being he had once been.

  Sibbechai’s wilted form began to shift and move, leathery lids rolling back from smouldering eyes. The Black Guardsman’s blow had been a killing stroke, even for a vampire. But the foul breed of the necrarchs were more than mere vampires. They were powerful sorcerers, versed in all the black arts. Where another of its kind might have perished, Sibbechai had merely retreated until it could call its shadowy energies back into its body, could magically repair the damage done to its dead husk. A cruel smile spread across Sibbechai’s skeletal visage as it saw Gregor standing above it. Like an expanding shadow, the vampire rose from the floor, its gaunt frame looming before him.

  ‘Now you understand,’ it laughed. ‘Few there are among men with the will to resist that of an immortal. Fewer still are those thralls with the strength to harm their masters!’ Sibbechai’s cruel laughter grew as it saw despair fill Gregor’s features. ‘Perhaps in a few hundred years you may be strong enough to try again. If you are still human enough to care, that is.’ The vampire ripped the wooden shaft from Gregor’s frozen hands, hurling it against the wall with such force that it shattered into a shower of splinters.

  Sibbechai’s gaze scoured the chaotic battle for the man it sought. It found him staggering toward one of the corridors connecting with the great hall, blood streaming from a gash in his forehead. Furchtegott moved a
wkwardly, his wits rattled by the blow to his head inflicted by the vampire. He had somehow escaped the notice of the opportunistic skaven. But the only thing that mattered to the vampire was the forbidding tome still clutched in the wizard’s arms.

  The writhing skaven pressed itself downward, fangs designed to gnaw through wood, to chew solid earth asunder, now eager to worry the witch hunter’s throat. Thulmann’s fingers groped at the hilt of his sword, his fingertips brushing against the cold metal pommel. Desperately he tried to close even a single finger around the sword, to pull it back towards him. The ratman’s efforts were growing more desperate too, more frenzied and frantic with each passing breath. The monster understood the deadly game it played with the man pinned beneath it and was just as determined to survive. Claws raked through the templar’s chest, digging deep furrows in his skin. Blood welled up from the wounds, spilling across the skaven’s paws. Thulmann could feel his strength fading, could feel the arm that held the rodent muzzle away from him begin to falter.

  Abruptly, the contest was decided. Steel erupted from the ratman’s forehead as a sword was thrust through the back of his skull. The twisted, inhuman corpse flopped to the floor, twitching as death spasms racked its nerves. Thulmann breathed deep, staring up into the face of his rescuer. Gregor Klausner glared down at him, kicking the witch hunter’s sword within reach of his grasping hand.

  ‘It is time to finish this farce,’ Gregor snarled. He waited for Thulmann to gain his feet, then thrust at the witch hunter’s throat. Thulmann swatted the stroke aside with his own blade. Gregor gave him little time to recover, thrusting at him with inhuman speed. The battle unfolding all around them no longer existed for Thulmann and Gregor, their world narrowed to the clash of steel, thrust and parry, attack and counterattack. Gregor’s strength was tremendous, his speed incredible. Thulmann had been hard pressed in his duel with the vampiric monster that Sibbechai had made from his brother Anton, now he discovered Gregor had been far better with the blade than his sibling. The witch hunter found himself increasingly on the defence, giving ground to his foe, retreating before his strikes. He knew that retreat was death, that there was no chance of survival unless he could mount his own assault and put his enemy on the defensive. But his struggle against the von Gotz daemon, against the nurglings and the skaven, had already tried his strength and endurance. Soon he would tire, his guard would falter and Gregor’s sword would spill his life onto the floor. Thulmann was experienced enough a swordsman to be under no illusion that there was any other outcome.

  Then, as Gregor overextended his thrusting sword, Thulmann saw an opening. There was no time for thought, no time to ponder the providential moment. The witch hunter’s sword stabbed into Gregor’s chest, crunching through ribs to transfix his heart. Thulmann pressed his weight into the attack, forcing the point of his weapon deeper until it emerged from his enemy’s back. It was only then, as he heard Gregor’s sword fall from his dying fingers, that the templar considered the amateurish sloppiness of the manoeuvre that left his enemy exposed for the attack.

  ‘Why?’ he asked as darkness began to creep into Gregor’s eyes.

  ‘I could not… destroy Sibbechai… could not destroy myself,’ Gregor’s voice rasped. A faint tinge of respect briefly flickered in his eyes, a last gleam of friendship and admiration for the man who had killed him. ‘Could not… could not give you time… for pity…’ Gregor’s body trembled. Thulmann watched it topple to the floor.

  The witch hunter shook his head sadly, bending down to retrieve Gregor’s sword. With a savage thrust, he stabbed the dead man’s blade into his chest, then withdrew his own sword from Gregor’s heart. Without the penetrating steel transfixing it, there was the possibility that unholy life might return to the vampire. Thulmann would leave no chance for that to happen. Gregor Klausner had earned the peace of the grave.

  The templar looked to the wall where Sibbechai’s body had lain, not surprised to see it gone. His fist tightened about the grip of his sword, fatigue vanquished from his body as a fresh surge of fury filled him. This time the necrarch would not escape him.

  Furchtegott staggered across the great hall, his bleary senses regarding the battle with cold detachment. The wizard tried to focus, to clear the clouds from his mind, but the discordant din within his skull would not be silenced. Even the pain pulsating from his shattered nose seemed numb and unreal, as though he were remembering rather than experiencing the injury.

  The wizard’s mouth suddenly dropped open, a dry rattle sounding from deep within his body. Furchtegott’s limbs grew slack, his head lolled downward. Only the thin, skeletal claw buried deep in his back held the conjurer upright. The gaunt shade of Sibbechai twisted its hand, ripping still deeper, puncturing his lungs with its sharp talons. The vampire hissed a curse upon the dying wizard, tossing him away like rubbish. The wizard was of only minimal interest to the necrarch, it was the treasure he had thought to steal that blazed within its brain.

  Almost reverently, Sibbechai crouched before the massive tome, gazing upon it with the same intense fascination as might shine from the eyes of a weirdroot addict. Das Buch die Unholden. Long centuries had passed since the grimoire had been stolen, and many had been the secrets Helmuth Klausner had added to its already copious store of profane knowledge. With those secrets, Sibbechai might become the most powerful of its sorcerous breed, its mind filled with arcane lore that few minds had ever known. The vampire’s hand stretched forward to grasp the book, trembling. For the first time in centuries, Sibbechai felt nervous anticipation shudder through its veins. Flesh of its flesh, bound in skin flayed from the vampire’s own body, now it would reclaim its own.

  A piercing scream ripped from its withered lips as the necrarch’s hand touched the evil binding. Crackling green light rippled up its arm, scorching and consuming the vampire’s body. Even as Sibbechai tried to pull away, its arm crumbled into ashes, the charred corruption spreading to its chest as the fell sorcery worked its horrific magic. Long had the Klausners known the nature of their nemesis, and long had they prepared for Sibbechai’s moment of triumph. Potent wards had guarded Klausner Keep from Sibbechai, but still more potent were they that protected Das Buch die Unholden.

  The vampire slithered back, legs crumbling into dust as the green light devoured them. Sibbechai’s skeletal jaws gnashed and cursed as its withered face cracked and crumbled. Its clawed hand fell apart, fingers dropping to the floor as the flesh burned away. Finally, its entire body seemed to collapse upon itself, into a pile of corpse dust from which the vampire’s skull glared, before it too fell into ruin and ashes.

  From behind the defence of his bestial warriors, Grey Seer Skilk observed Sibbechai’s destruction with deep satisfaction, but also a keen malice. The skaven sorcerer had seen the magical tome the vampire had killed in order to claim. Had felt its power as its protective wards consumed Sibbechai. Feral greed gleamed in Skilk’s beady eyes as the ratman considered to what purposes he might put such potent magic. He dragged one of his warriors from where it stood jabbing at the daemonic von Gotz abomination with an iron spear.

  ‘Fetch-bring, quick-quick!’ Skilk snarled, gesturing with his claw at the book of sorcery lying beside the ashes of the vampire. The black-furred warrior demurred, sensing the unnatural energies it exuded. Skilk lashed the ratman’s face with his tail, repeating his command in a low growl of fury. The warrior scurried forward, recalling all too vividly the black lightning that devoured one of its comrades. The strange book might very well kill him, but the grey seer most definitely would.

  Trickles of saliva fell from Skilk’s muzzle as he watched the warrior pick up the book. The armoured skaven hesitated, as though waiting for a strange and ghastly death to fall upon it. Skilk snapped an impatient command and the warrior scurried back. The grey seer snatched the book from his slave, squeaking happily as his furry paws caressed the skin-binding. He could feel the fell energies trapped within the tome, taste the dark sorceries crying out to be released. Skilk
had invaded the human fortress for revenge and had instead found power. Surely the Horned Rat was smiling upon his humble servant.

  Many of his warriors still stood, forming a wall of shields to contain the bloated daemon’s advance. Skilk could also see a number of humans waging desperate combat against the abomination. He watched as an older man with one arm bound against his chest slashed his sword into a skaven corpse still smouldering from the warp-fire attack. A length of burning rag from the corpse’s tunic was cut away by the stroke as the blade swirled through the air, wrapping the burning cloth around his weapon. He returned to his attack, opening a sizzling wound in the monster’s back. The daemon roared in anger, returning its attention to the humans.

  Skilk had little interest in which side would win. It was enough that the foolish humans had diverted the daemon’s attention. The grey seer barked another order, commanding his warriors to retreat back into the tunnels, an order the terrified ratmen lost no time in obeying. Skilk hastened to slip into their midst, scurrying along as they raced back along toward the castle’s cellars. One of the oldest axioms of skaven wisdom was that of safety in numbers. Skilk wanted plenty of bodies between himself and any lingering foes they might encounter as he made good his escape.

  Thulmann watched with impotent rage as the skaven scurried back to whence they had emerged. He had seen the horned grey seer retrieve Das Buch die Unholden from its resting place beside Sibbechai’s ashes. The witch hunter did not like to ponder what purpose so loathsome a being might put the tome to, but there was nothing he could do to thwart the monster’s escape. The unclean one stood between him and the skaven. There seemed little hope of destroying the daemon before the ratmen disappeared back into their subterranean world.