Witch Finder
Page 23
The thing that had been Baron von Gotz showed no sign of tiring. Liquid filth that might have been its internal organs drooled from the gashes in its diseased hide. Still it clawed and slashed at its foes. Only the touch of flame seemed to pain the beast, and it lashed out at all who threatened it with purifying fire. The pyromancer who had joined the attack was dead, his head ripped from his shoulders by the daemon’s claws. The skaven warpfire-thrower had been similarly dispatched. Now, it was the crude expedient of burning cloth wrapped around steel that troubled the monster as it lashed out with enraged, if clumsy, swipes of its enormous hands.
Meisser’s courage had not broken, doubtless because a few of Wurtbad’s notables had not yet fled or been killed. Thulmann had to reluctantly credit the scheming Meisser for improvising his fiery weapon, a tactic many of the remaining defenders were quick to emulate. Yet the stabbing flames could do little more than annoy the bloated monster. If they would destroy the beast they had to find a way to engulf it in fire.
The skaven with the fuel cask lashed to its back was writhing upon the floor, trying to crawl away. Inspiration suddenly gripped Thulmann. He reached a gloved hand out, pulling the fighter beside him away from the battle.
‘We’ve got to try and work that damnable machine!’ he yelled, pointing at the skaven weapon. The witch hunter dashed toward the crippled ratman, smashing his foot into the creature’s neck and stilling its mangled form. He cut the rat-gut straps binding the cask to the ratman’s body. Beside him, the other warrior removed the wide-mouthed fire-thrower from the creature’s companion. Thulmann was surprised to find that his helper was Silja. She nodded grimly to him, handing the witch hunter the arcane device.
‘Do you have any idea how to work it?’ she asked as he made a hurried study of the weapon.
A grim smile flashed upon his face as he hefted the heavy metal cylinder and directed its nozzle toward the rampaging beast. ‘None at all,’ the witch finder admitted. ‘It may be wise to step back.’ Whispering a final prayer to Sigmar, Thulmann’s fingers tightened around the brass lever protruding from the underside of the weapon and pulled it back.
The unclean one’s gaping mouth twisted in a burbling moan of agony, as liquid fire bathed its gruesome bulk in flame. The abomination staggered and swayed, slithering about the great hall as the flames greedily devoured its obscene flesh. In its agonies, the creature’s fiery touch set tapestries and carpets burning, its pain-maddened tread grinding corpses into cinder beneath its splayed feet.
Thulmann dropped the unclean skaven weapon, appalled by its horrific power. A daemon beast that had slain over a dozen men, whose unnatural flesh had resisted hundreds of blows from sword and axe, had been consumed in an instant by the technosorcery of the ratmen. He watched the thing fall, shuddering upon the floor as its polluted hide blackened and blistered.
‘Justice for my father.’ Silja’s words were as chill as ice. Thulmann acceded.
‘Yes, and justice for Wurtbad,’ he announced, as the thing that had been Baron Friedo von Gotz shrivelled and died.
Witch Hunter captain Meisser advanced on the daemon as it burned, intending to bury his sword in its dying bulk. It was as good as dead already, a fact even the grim Black Guardian seemed to accept as he stepped back, but Messier was determined to impress the handful of soldiers and noblemen still able to bear witness. When Meisser cut the head from the dying abomination, it would be he, not Thulmann, who was named slayer of the beast. In the weeks to come, it would be important for Meisser’s name to be held in higher regard than that of Mathias Thulmann, if he were to wrest back control of the Wurtbad chapter house.
But, as Meisser stepped forward, thunder roared across the room and the witch hunter captain’s schemes exploded from the back of his skull. A shock of disbelief contorted Meisser’s face as his body crashed forward into the burning carcass of the daemon.
‘Shit! I missed.’ Streng snarled, from where he lay crumpled upon the marble tiles. The mercenary let the smoking pistol fall from his fingers, reaching up to dab his hand against the gash that the skaven had torn across his scalp. Thulmann hurried to his henchman’s side, Silja following close behind him. The witch hunter removed linen bandages from a pouch on his belt, kneeling to treat Streng’s injury.
‘Very slovenly marksmanship,’ Thulmann reprimanded him. ‘I don’t think you’ll ever master the pistol.’
The fires from the dying daemon had spread from the main hall, racing through the castle as though possessed of a malevolent intelligence of their own. Or perhaps a benevolent intelligence, Thulmann considered. Everything the daemon horror had touched might have become tainted by contact with it. The fires would consume the taint as certainly as they had consumed the walking pestilence that had been Baron von Gotz.
Thulmann wondered how the baron had come to such an end, how he had so swiftly changed from a mortal man into a living effigy of the Lord of Decay. Doubtless the answer lay with Das Buch die Unholden. He shuddered to think what awful uses the underfolk might find for such a work of arcane knowledge.
Beside him, Silja turned her eyes from the inferno. ‘Is it over?’ she asked. Thulmann shook his head sadly.
‘It is a beginning, not an end,’ he replied. ‘We’ve won the battle, but the war rages on. The skaven have retreated back into their tunnels, but the threat they pose is more terrible than before. And Doktor Weichs is still out there, somewhere. While he lives, sickness and plague could run rampant at any time.’ Thulmann sighed deeply, returning his gaze to the castle.
‘Small victories are sometimes hard to accept, Fraulein Markoff, but sometimes they are the only ones the gods see fit to offer us.’
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
C. L. Werner was a diseased servant of the Horned Rat long before his first story in Inferno! magazine. His Black Library credits include the Chaos Wastes books Palace of the Plague Lord and Blood for the Blood God, Mathias Thulmann: Witch Hunter, Runefang and the Brunner the Bounty Hunter trilogy. Currently living in the American south-west, he continues to write stories of mayhem and madness set in the Warhammer World.
Visit the author’s website at
www.vermintime.com
A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION
Published in 2007 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK
Cover illustration by Stefan Kopinski
Map by Nuala Kinrade.
© Games Workshop Limited 2007, 2011. All rights reserved.
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ISBN 978-0-85787-342-2
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Warhammer
Map
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
About The Author
Legal
eBook license
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Warhammer
Map
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
About The Author
Legal
eBook license