“If you are determined,” the old man sighed, shaking his head. “I can assure you that your attention would be better directed elsewhere.” He waved his thin hand, the heavy signet ring gleaming in the flickering light cast by hearth and candle. Ivar Kohl strode toward his master. “Prepare a room for our guest,” Klausner told him.
It was Thulmann’s turn to shake his head. “That will not be necessary, your lordship,” he told the patriarch. “I thank you for your generous consideration, but there are questions I need to ask the common folk of Klausberg. It will be easier to conduct my investigations from the inn.” Thulmann nodded at Klausner. “I am sure you understand,” he added in his silky voice.
“Perfectly,” Klausner replied, his tone cold. The patriarch’s face split into a cunning, Challenging smile. “You will of course allow my men to assist you in your hunt. They know this district much better than a stranger such as yourself. I am certain that you will find them invaluable to your investigations.”
“Another generous offer,” Thulmann responded. “I shall take it under consideration.” He bowed before the bed-ridden patriarch, sweeping his black hat before him. “I thank you for your time. I will make mention of your kindness in my report to Altdorf. No need to show me out, I know the way,” he said, turning and opening the chamber door before Ivar Kohl could do so for him. The witch hunter stalked away, the heavy oak panel closing behind him. When it had shut completely, the servant spun around to address his master.
“We can’t allow him to stay here!” the steward swore. “He has certainly been sent here to spy on your affairs!” Wilhelm Klausner motioned for Kohl to compose himself.
“We will keep an eye on him,” he told the steward. “Make certain that he intends this house no mischief.” The old man sighed heavily. “He may be of use to us, Ivar. Our own hunters haven’t been able to track down this fiend. Perhaps the witch hunter can.”
Kohl shook his head, stamping the floor with his staff. “You can’t trust a man like that!”
Wilhelm Klausner sank back down into his pillows, a sly smile reappearing on his tired features.
“Who said anything about trusting him?”
Mathias Thulmann strode down the wide, empty stairway of the keep, descending toward the vast empty hall and its collection of grim-faced portraits. His meeting with the old patriarch had been a tense affair. The old man was suspicious, and afraid of losing control.
Despite what he had said, Thulmann had read the flickering expressions on the old man’s face. He was deeply disturbed by the horror stalking his district, and frustrated by his own inability to put an end to it. That an outsider had come to accentuate his own failure in this matter clearly added to his frustration and guilt over the murders. The witch hunter wondered if the old patriarch could lay aside his wounded pride and desperate clutching at his control over the district in order to put an end to the depredations of this “beast”.
Thulmann replaced his hat and smiled. Not for a second had he even considered the old patriarch’s assertions that the culprit was simply an animal. Wilhelm Klausner had lost his touch, he was no longer liar enough to put conviction in a falsehood he himself did not even slightly believe. No, there was some other agency at work here, an agency every bit as sinister as whatever dread influence had so hideously and prematurely aged the patriarch.
“Are you the witch hunter from Altdorf?” asked a voice from behind Thulmann. He turned to find himself staring at a younger version of the man he had just left. Thulmann’s gloved hand dropped to the hilt of his sword, thinking that perhaps he was being called to account for the events at the inn. But, no, as he looked at the man who had spoken to him, he at once realised his mistake.
The face he beheld did not have the cruel twist to its features, the sullen anger in the eyes that had characterised Anton Klausner. This man was of a similar cast, to be sure, with the heavy brow and square jaw of all the Klausners, but there was a firmness and nobility to his countenance, qualities that had long ago faded into an echo in the withered features of Wilhelm Klausner and which had perhaps never made their mark upon the face of his younger son Anton.
“I address Gregor Klausner, do I not?” inquired Thulmann. The fair-haired young nobleman inclined his head.
“You do indeed, sir,” he said. Some of the keenness and affability drained from him and his demeanour became apologetic. “I must apologise for my brother…”
Thulmann raised his hand, waving away the young man’s words of contrition. “Your father has already made his apologies,” he informed Gregor.
“Anton is rather temperamental,” explained Gregor. “I have tried to curb his excesses, but sadly, I fear that he seldom listens to my counsel.”
“Your father should take matters in hand,” Thulmann advised. A guilty look came upon Gregor, suggesting to Thulmann that the eldest son of Wilhelm Klausner had voiced such opinions to the old patriarch on several occasions. Gregor quickly regained his composure and began to usher the witch hunter down the remainder of the staircase.
“It is very good that you have come,” the young man told Thulmann as they walked.
“His lordship does not seem to view things in quite such a way,” the witch hunter replied. “I am sure he would rather settle things his own way. However long it might take,” he added.
“My father is a very independent man, very set in his ways and firm in his beliefs,” Gregor stated as they reached the bottom of the stairs and began to walk across the vast entry hall. The footsteps of the two men echoed upon the polished floor as they walked, their voices rising to the vaulted ceiling high overhead. “But his methods are not working. We need new ideas, a new approach to putting an end to this fiend.”
“There are only so many ways to catch a wolf,” Thulmann said. Gregor clenched his fist in silent rage.
“It is not a wolf,” he swore in a low voice. “You won’t find a man, woman or child in this district who believes that, no matter how many times my father tells them it is so. Though it would be easier to believe it was some manner of beast! To contemplate that a human being could sink into such depravity sickens the soul.”
“You are certain that there is a human agency behind this then?” Thulmann asked, pausing to study Gregor in the light cast by the hall’s mammoth fireplace. There was outrage, a thirst for justice about the man. Unlike his brother, it appeared that Gregor valued and cared for the people of Klausberg and their misery was something that offended him deeply.
“Several of the victims have been stolen from their beds, from behind locked doors,” Gregor said. “What beast can open a lock? What wolf ignores swine in their pen to steal a maid from her room in her cottage?”
Thulmann nodded as he heard the conviction and emotion in Gregor’s voice. There was a possibility that the young man had been sent by his father to spy upon the intruding witch hunter, but Thulmann was a good judge of character and though he had only just met the man, he felt that Gregor would be a poor choice for such duplicity.
“I am staying at The Grey Crone,” he told Gregor. “It would help me a great deal if you would meet with me there. You have, no doubt, a great insight into your father’s methods of hunting this fiend and why they have failed. Once I know what not to do, I should have a better idea of how to proceed and perhaps some inkling as to the nature of this fiend we seek.”
The young Klausner gripped Thulmann’s gloved hand in a firm grasp. “If you will give me time to fetch a cloak and have a horse saddled, I will go with you now.” The enthusiasm fell from his voice and it was with a grim expression that he continued. “Even now, I fear that this malignant power may be working its evil.”
Darkness, black as pitch, cold as ice. That was what greeted the blinking eyes of Tuomas Skimmel as he sat bolt upright in his bed. The farmer cast his frantic gaze about, trying desperately to penetrate the gloom. Not even the shadows of the room’s furnishings could be discerned, so complete was the blackness. The farmer gasped as he releas
ed the breath that had caught in his throat, immediately cringing as the hiss thundered in his straining senses.
What was it? What had broken his slumber? Had it been a sound? The creak of a floor-board, the rustle of a rat as it crawled through the walls of Skimmel’s cottage? Perhaps it had been the icy touch of a draft whispering between the cracks in the walls, or the touch of a moth as it flittered about the room? Maybe it had been nothing more than his own mind, already overburdened with anxiety.
The fiend had struck the cottage three miles away only last week. It had been reason enough for Skimmel to send his wife and sons to stay with his mother in the village. But someone had to remain behind, to feed and look after the cattle. Skimmel’s wife had considered him very brave to decide to stay alone at their home, but right now, Skimmel was more inclined to agree with her second assessment of his actions as they had made their painful goodbyes. She had said that it was foolish to stay with the fiend still abroad, and doubly foolish to do so alone.
Skimmel continued to sit frozen with fear. He could see nothing, hear nothing. He couldn’t even smell anything unusual. Yet he knew. He knew that there was something in the darkness, something horrible and malevolent. Perhaps it was standing beside him, jaws stretched inches from his face.
Any moment he might feel its hot breath blasting his face, smell the stink of rotting flesh trapped between its fangs. Perhaps it was watching him even now, waiting for him to move, waiting for him to betray the fact that he was awake and aware.
An uncontrollable tremble began to worm its way through Skimmel’s body. The farmer tried to fight the spasm, tried to crush it back down, keep it from overwhelming him, from betraying him.
The monster would see, it would see his legs as they shivered, it would see the goosepimples prickling his skin. It would see and it would know and it would pounce. The farmer gasped again, then gulped back another breath. Even breathing was difficult now. His body would not inhale unless he concentrated on it, and if he concentrated on breathing, then his limbs would start trembling even more fiercely.
What was that? The farmer turned his eyes without moving his head. He’d heard something, seen something in the corner of the room.
He tried to tell himself it was a mouse or a rat he had heard, tried to tell himself that the shape slowly appearing out of the darkness was nothing more than an old coat thrown across a chair. He tried to tell himself all of this as tears bled from his eyes, as the trembling of his limbs began to shake his bed.
The shape in the corner moved. Skimmel opened his mouth to scream, but no sound would escape from his paralysed throat. The trembling grew still more fierce and slowly, against his will, the farmer rose from his bed. The shape gestured to him with an outstretched hand, then it receded back into the darkness.
A crooked mockery of a man stepped out from the humble cottage of Tuomas Skimmel. He wore a heavy cassock, grey and threadbare, trimmed in black wolf-hair about the sleeves and neck. The robed figure stared back into the gloom of the cottage and gestured once again with his thin, spidery hand. The flesh upon that hand was pale, marked by an almost leprous tinge.
At the man’s gesture, Tuomas Skimmel emerged, eyes wide with terror, marching in stiff-legged-steps.
The necromancer smiled. His face was sallow, and the features were almost ferret-like in their suggestion Of a malicious and scheming cunning.
Ropes of ratty brown hair dripped down into the necromancer’s face as he exerted his will upon his victim. Carandini savoured the delicious terror he saw in Skimmel’s eyes, enjoying it as a healthy mind might relish a glass of wine or a beautiful painting. He could just as easily have subdued the man’s mind with his spell, but the necromancer preferred to watch his victim’s agonies. He loathed the lowing, unthinking masses of mankind, but there was an especial hatred for the men of the Empire.
Indeed, such a man had nearly ended the necromancer’s life in the Tilean city of Miragliano several years ago, an injury not easily forgotten. It was satisfying to Carandini that his knowledge of the black arts had grown tremendously since then.
The necromancer looked away from his enthralled, helpless victim, staring at the night-claimed landscape around them. He would need to be taken through the woods, led some two miles to where the ritual would take place.
Carandini pointed toward the distant trees, and watched his slave awkwardly march off into the night. How much greater would the man’s terror become when he came to understand the full horror that was planned for him? He wondered idly if perhaps his heart might burst from fright when he beheld the awful aspect of Carandini’s ally.
Yes, the necromancer thought as he followed after his victim, my knowledge of the black arts has grown, but it is still not enough. With the help of his ally, however, that situation would change. Carandini smiled as he considered his ambitions and their fulfilment. When he had his prize, then he would no longer fear death, whatever shape it wore. Rather, death would fear him.
Carandini hastened his steps, urging his slave to greater effort. The night was old and he was eager to complete tonight’s sacrifice.
CHAPTER FOUR
The long watches of the night brought with them ethereal landscapes of grey worlds and fantastic visions. In the cold and chill hours, dream and nightmare clawed at the sleeping minds of men, filling their thoughts with curious sights and unquiet memories…
The sickly sweet smell of spoiled fruit and rotting cabbage surrounded the witch hunter. The darkness within the old warehouse was almost like a living thing, tangible, reaching toward him with groping claws, clinging to his clothes like some soupy vapour.
The old dry floorboards beneath his feet creaked as he made his way through the dust and filth. Plague had done its deadly work in this part of Bechafen two years before, few had been willing to return to the devastated neighbourhood with the memory of disease and death still fresh in their minds. But someone had not been so timid, and their footprints shone out from the dust as the witch hunter’s light fell upon them. The hunter firmed his grip upon his sword, bracing himself. His quarry was very near now.
“So you did manage to keep my trail?” a cold, sneering voice rose from the darkness. The witch hunter froze, his eyes trying to pierce the clutching veil of blackness all around him. He directed his lantern toward the voice, casting the speaker into full visibility. He was a tall man, his black hair fading into a steel-like hue, his once aristocratic features beginning to sag and droop as age began to pick the meat from beneath his skin. He wore a bright red robe about his thin frame, the long garment hanging from him like a shroud. There were markings upon the hem of the garment, upon the sleeves and edges of its long cowl. These were picked out in gold and silver and azure hues, and they were no such symbols as any healthy mind should contemplate.
The sorcerer’s empty eyes blazed into a fiery life as they considered the man who had come so far and risked so much to force this confrontation. “I congratulate you upon your determination. Perhaps you are not quite the fool I had thought you to be.”
The witch hunter fought the uncertainty crawling through him. He had seen what this man could do, he had seen first-hand the awful, devastating power at his command. There was no question that the abominations he served were all too real, and there was no question that they had bestowed their dark gifts upon the sorcerer. The witch hunter had seen armoured knights cooked by eldritch flame in the blink of an eye. He had seen a steel gate break free from its frame of stone at a simple gesture and word from the warlock. And he had seen the unspeakable manner in which those who had died in the infernal rituals conducted by this madman to honour his foul gods had perished.
Who was he to challenge such awful power? What madness made him think he was the equal of a sorcerer?
Mathias Thulmann stared again at the visage of his foe. His face was twisted with contempt, as though it was the witch hunter and not the murderous heretic who was the deviant.
It was a face made all the more terrible
for its echo of Thulmann’s own. For Erasmus Kleib was the witch hunter’s uncle, though madness and lust for power had long ago stripped Kleib of all that was decent and noble, leaving only a power hungry husk enslaved to the will of insane gods.
“You have no chance against me, boy,” Kleib spoke, his thin moustache curling as his face contorted into a sneer. “You’ve only survived this long because I have allowed it. Some lingering trace of familial courtesy,” he gave a dismissive wave of his lean hand.
Thulmann shuddered as he considered the sorcerer’s words. Could it be true? Had he indeed been able to come so far solely because of the madman’s whim? He thought of his companions, his friends and comrades-in-arms. Dead, all of them, their bodies lying in graves strewn about Ostland. Even his mentor, the renowned witch hunter captain Frederick Greiber, his throat ripped out by some black and winged horror upon the road from Wolfenburg. Doubt worked its way into Thulmann’s face.
The sorcerer laughed, a short and hollow sound.
“That’s right, boy,” he snickered. “All of it, all the misery and fear, all the suffering and sorrow. All of it was needless, all of it was worthless.” The sorcerer studied the back of his hand for a moment, then looked once more at the witch hunter. “If you ask nicely, however, I might be persuaded to allow you to leave this place.” Erasmus Kleib smiled, a look of malevolence and triumph. “But you should be quick in your begging. I find myself becoming tired of this little game.”
The witch hunter found himself stepping back, the tip of his sword beginning to dip down toward the ground.
Despair, the rancid clutch of failure, coursed through his veins. It had all been madness, and now that madness would cost him his life. Somehow, the thought disturbed him but not for the reasons he had always imagined that it would. It was not death itself which he feared, but the thought that Erasmus Kleib would continue on after him; that once he was dead the sorcerer would continue to kill and commit atrocity after atrocity. It was the thought that Kleib would go unpunished that fuelled his fear.
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