by C. L. Werner
The face of every man in the tavern stared, mouths dropping wide with horror. The ogre straightened up to his full, towering height, hitting his head on the low ceiling. Then he bent his neck down and rubbed a gnarled hand against his bearskin cap.
Complete silence ruled the tavern, not a man dared to move a muscle. Vogun stared at the men, his beady eyes passing from one frozen figure to the next. He stuck a thick pink tongue between his lips, trying to concentrate. The boss had sent him here to do something. Something important. A name flickered in the ogre’s addled memory, and with it came the recollection of what he was supposed to do.
‘Brunner!’ the ogre bellowed, raising his club and smashing it backhanded across the nearest table, scattering a pair of off-duty guardsmen.
The ogre lumbered forward, backhanding a third guardsman as he charged at him, the powerful blow caving in the man’s ribcage, and sending his body hurling across the room with such force that he dented the timber wall where he struck it.
‘Brunner!’ the murderous roar boomed from the ogre’s mouth. His club crashed down onto another table, sending a shower of splinters and debris across the long room. Men were on their feet, screaming, shouting and running in all directions away from the ogre.
‘Brunner!’ the ogre rumbled again. For a second, he paused, his club raised in mid-strike, a trembling peasant huddled beneath him. The man dared to look up, saw the puzzled look on the ogre’s face, and scurried away, crawling between his column-like legs and running through the smashed door behind him. The ogre’s lips silently worked as his mind tried to remember what the word he was shouting meant. He shrugged and smashed the club down where the fleeing peasant had stood.
‘Brunner!’ the deep voice boomed once more. The hulk turned, stomping towards the bar. The bald innkeeper heard the monster coming, reached beneath the counter and retrieved the last bottle of Bugman’s Brew in the place. He downed the fine, expensive beer and mouthed his lips in a silent prayer.
‘Up here,’ a cold voice called out. The ogre turned, paused a moment, trying to remember if he was here to kill someone or just destroy the place. He shrugged again, he would just have to do both. But first he would kill. Even the ogre understood that a building doesn’t run away.
Vogun lumbered back into the hall, scanning the long common room on the other side. There was a loud whistle and the brute turned, facing the stairway. He looked up and saw a man in armour standing at the head of the stairs. The ogre’s thick fingers tensed about the grip of the club.
‘Brunner!’ he bellowed again. His massive foot smashed down on the bottom-most stair. The wood splintered and burst under his mammoth weight.
‘That’s right,’ Brunner’s cold voice called down to Vogun. The bounty hunter puffed away at his cigar, then revealed the object he held in his hand: an unhooded flask of oil from the lamp in his room. The ogre stared stupidly at the earthenware pot, then stepped forward again, crushing another stair in his advance. The bounty hunter smiled, hefted the flask and threw it full in the face of the oncoming brute. The ogre snarled, gasping in pain as the oil stung his eyes. He dropped his club, grasping at his face, trying to batter away whatever had stung him with his fists. On the stair, Brunner sighed. He lifted a twisted paper taper to the end of his cigar. Another puff, and the paper took flame. The bounty hunter let it linger for a moment, until it was well and truly on fire, a thick orange flame quickly eating the taper.
‘Hardly worth the effort,’ the bounty hunter said, tossing the flaming taper at the oil-soaked ogre.
‘How long do you think he will be?’ Drexler asked his confederate as they sat looking down at Greymere from the top of the hill.
‘That depends.’ Vincenzo replied. ‘Do you think he will be able to find his way back here?’
Drexler clucked his tongue. ‘I should have told him that I would pay him when he got back. Like as not, I could have convinced him he had already been paid for the job if I had done that.’
‘Look!’ exclaimed one of Drexler’s thuggish hirelings. Down below, the streets of Greymere were once more plunged into chaos. A massive, flaming shape staggered through the middy streets, blindly groping its way.
‘Drop to the street.’ Drexler cursed under his breath. ‘Douse yourself in mud.’ But the burning ogre just staggered on, bellowing in agony.
‘Well,’ commented one of the hirelings, ‘so much for the ogre dealing with Brunner.’ Drexler cast a withering gaze on the man.
‘Perhaps he finished him off before the bounty hunter got him.’ Vincenzo offered. ‘Ogres take a long time to die. I’ve seen many a man fighting an ogre that had an axe-blade in his skull.’
Drexler thought for a moment, then whipped his horse down the hill. ‘Yes, we must see for ourselves.’ The hirelings and Vincenzo quickly followed their employer towards the town.
The front gates of the fort were gaping wide. The mashed remains of the watch captain who had thought to turn back the ogre were lying in a puddle in the middle of the road. The rest of his command was still hiding in whatever burrow they had fled to. As Drexler wheeled his horse around the gory remains, he considered just how inept peace had rendered Greymere’s soldiery. Perhaps it was just as well that he was moving on. Because next time the orcs came up out of the Badlands, he doubted if Prince Waldemar’s men would repulse them.
The riders made their way to the inn. The streets around them had grown silent only the occasional face peering from a doorway telling them that people yet lurked in the town. The burning corpse of Vogun smouldered beside the road, his enormous vitality and dull nervous system at last overcome by the fire that still chewed on his flesh. Drexler did not give his former lackey a second glance, but reined his horse before the battered doorway of the inn.
Vincenzo and his henchmen followed Drexler into the deserted building. They made a cursory examination of the lower floor, but found nothing. Then Vincenzo set up a shout. He had discovered a trail of blood leading away from the bar, up the shattered stairway and to the hall above. Drexler smiled and ordered his men to follow the trail. If nothing else, the ogre had wounded the bounty hunter. Terrible as he might be, Brunner would be no match for Drexler’s mob wounded.
The trail of blood led to a room at the end of the hall. The men filed into the chamber, looking about. The room was empty save for a bed, a small rickety looking table, and a large lamp. The men wrinkled their noses at the rotten smell in the room. The henchmen looked under the bed, examined the small chest set in one corner, as if their prey might have crawled into it.
‘Where did he go?’ Drexler demanded. The trail of blood led into the room, there could be no doubt about that. Vincenzo looked away from the chest, back at his employer. Then the Tilean’s eyes grew wide with alarm. Drexler turned to see what had upset him, and all the colour left his face.
The lamp, its wick burning away, was no lamp. It was a small wooden keg. And, as the wick burnt away, carrying the flame into the keg, the stench of gunpowder overwhelmed the vengeful men.
Outside, Brunner stared up at the inn, slowly counting down. He reached three when there was a loud explosion. The bounty hunter spat his cigar into the mud. ‘Cut the fuse a little short,’ he commented to himself, and strode across the street, drawing his sword.
Brunner marched up the stairs, toward the end chamber where smoke still boiled. He peered into the room, his eyes studying the moaning, dying men and those already past their suffering. Then he nodded in satisfaction, gripping the chin of the nearest body, lifting the face to study its features. The dying thug’s moan grew to a shriek as the bounty hunter forced his neck to crane upward on the savaged flesh that connected it to his chest. He let the man’s head fall back. No money to be had from him.
The rest of the room was a shambles, and Brunner idly considered the steel balls embedded in the timber walls. It would take some doing to remove the steel bullets from the walls. Most likely the innkeeper would leave them, perhaps throwing some planks or paint over them
to conceal them from his next patron.
The improvised bomb had been a trick borrowed from a dwarf he had known. His entire supply of steel bullets had been loaded into a small keg, then filled with black powder. A crude, but highly effective way to attend to the gang of would-be murderers.
Brunner had guessed that the ogre represented the last hopes of whoever was trying to kill him. He surmised the man behind the whole thing would come to see for himself if the bounty hunter was dead, bringing enough muscle with him to feel safe. The bounty hunter had borrowed some blood from the dead soldier in the tavern below, thinking he would not mind anymore. It would be necessary to get them quickly to his room, lest the bomb detonate before they were inside, or close enough to be stunned by the explosion. He smiled again. It seemed that his bomb had got the entire mob, which was more than he had hoped for.
A wheezing breath brought the bounty hunter spinning around. He stared at a ragged lump of human debris that had crawled away from Brunner’s room, leaving a swath of blood behind him like the trail of a snail. The man raised a gory hand to his moustache, smoothing the curved horns of hair. He glowered at the bounty hunter, his fading eyes burning with a sullen defiance. The steel helm of the bounty hunter nodded as the eyes behind the visor drank in the wounded man’s face. There was an unmistakable air of authority about him that was evident even in his dying state. Clearly, this was the person behind all the attacks against Brunner.
Drexler glared at Brunner, waiting for him to draw his butchering knife. Now that death had set upon him, he found that he was prepared for it. He would enter the realm of Morr knowing that he had fought to the last.
‘Why?’ the bounty hunter’s cold voice rasped.
Drexler’s eyes grew wide with shock. The killer didn’t even know who he was! The bounty hunter hadn’t come to Greymere looking for him at all!
The dying man began to laugh at the absurdity of it, but the sound faded as a bubble of blood rose in his throat and burst. He had walked into his own death!
Drexler’s head slumped against the floor with a thud.
Brunner turned away from the dead man and headed back into the room, pulling the headsman from his belt. There were a few faces in the chaos he thought he recognised. One might even belong to a Tilean thief named Vincenzo, on whom some petty sum was being offered in Miragliano. And there was no sense in letting perfectly good money rot in the bellies of crows and wolves.
A few hours later, a dark armoured figure rode through the gates of Greymere, where a group of soldiers was clearing away the remains of the former watch captain. Behind him trailed the dappled grey packhorse, a large barrel strapped across its back. The kidnapper Brunner had been waiting for would never show his face in Greymere now, not with alarm rampant in the town. It would take weeks for the place to calm down again.
Brunner cast a look over his shoulder at the barrel. He might not have met up with the man he was hunting, but at least he had turned a profit by his dalliance in the border prince’s town. The bounty hunter smiled. Besides, there were those who would pay ten times more for the collection of salted meats he carried than the price on the kidnapper’s head.
The bounty hunter lashed the reins of his steed and set out on the long road back to the city states of Tilea.
THE TYRANT
Late one evening, I made my way along the dingy streets of Miragliano, bound for the Black Boar. A cluster of dwarfs was deep in debate with a narrow-eyed Marienburger, their voices hushed and low. A hairy Middenheimer and a moustached Ostlander were tossing hatchets at a target set against a wooden support post. A sinister-looking man in the colourful robes of the Colleges of Magic was intently studying a black-bound volume, some treasure no doubt procured that very day from some crafty Tilean book dealer.
As was usual for the tavern, there was a raucous crowd of men from all across the Empire drinking and telling lies of their exploits in the Tilean states. But I had eyes for none of these men, whatever tales they might have to tell, for I found my prize sitting at his usual table. The bounty hunter was sipping from a small glass, which I knew must contain his beloved schnapps. Seeing him thus engaged, I at once determined that his spirits must likewise be high, and advanced upon his table. Those infrequent periods when Brunner was in a good humour had provided me with a great wealth of material for my pamphlets. For a certain loquacious impulse would overcome him, and he would regale me long into the night with tales of his past enterprises.
The bounty hunter looked up at me, gesturing for me to sit. The gloved hand that beckoned me then caressed the sheathed blade that rested across the table. I stared at it for a long time, remarking its elegance. It was a longsword, that trusted blade of the Empire, its hilt crafted in the shape of a dragon, its guard forming the outstretched wings of the beast, the pommel forming its horned head. Hilt, guards and pommel were all gilded, the golden surface glittering in the dim light of the tavern. Brunner’s gloved hand again slid along the length of the blade.
‘It is magnificent, is it not?’ the chill voice of this grim killer asked me. I nodded my head.
‘I have seldom seen so fine a weapon,’ I confessed. ‘Even in the court of Karl-Franz, I doubt if you could find its better.’
‘It is named Drakesmalice,’ the bounty hunter’s voice spoke. ‘A weapon borne by one of the noble houses of our homeland, bound to their bloodline, a part of their very being. It is said that it was forged during the Great War against Chaos, that it was carried with the crusading army that followed Magnus to the very gates of hell.’ The gloved hand patted the gilded dragon. ‘They say there is magic in this steel, magic that awakens only in the hands of those whose birthright it is to wield it.’
I stared again at the magnificent sword, imagining its long and bloodied history of noble service to the Emperor. There was a power, a lurking strength within that sword, far beyond the might of steel.
‘How did you come to possess this impressive blade,’ I asked. Brunner stared at me, his face expressionless. A lengthy period of silence passed between us. I was certain that I had somehow offended him, that he was not going to answer me. But at last, the tense quiet was broken and the icy voice of the bounty hunter began to speak of events far from Miragliano, in the lands of the Border Princes…
Five grunting, straining bodies filled the narrow lane that wound its way between the mud-brick hovels. The men were of vastly different ages, ranging from those who had just become men to an old grey-head. But beyond their ages, the men were alike. They wore filthy breeches of much patched crude wool, held about their waists by the merest length of rope. Sweat glistened upon their bare muscular chests and trickled into the scarred grooves in their backs where the lash had done its work. The men were clustered about the wooden bulk of an ox cart, their backs bent as they tried to lift the over-laden wagon. One of their number was to slip a new wheel upon its axle, and replace the splintered disk that rested against the wall of one of the hovels.
A grim-visaged man observed their labours. His face too was scarred by a long slash that ran from forehead to cheek. Unlike the peasants’, his was the mark of a sword, not a whip. The overseer wore a suit of dark brigandine armour, a collar of chain and an open-faced bowl-like helm. A narrow-bladed longsword rested against his hip. The man’s features were hard, his nose broad, his eyes small and cruel. His skin, like that of the labourers, was dark, marked by the attentions of the hot Tilean sun. The mercenary fingered the grip of the heavy leather whip that hung from a loop on his belt.
‘Let’s not be all day!’ the soldier snapped. ‘The baron wants this grain in the keep and accounted for before the sun sets.’ The Tilean’s words were sharp and lashed at the straining peasants like the whip he carried. A few turned their heads to stare at the quickly declining sun.
Suddenly, the sound of horses made every man turn away from the disordered wagon to face the three mounted men who advanced upon the accident. The peasants hastily diverted their eyes when they saw the lead rider, s
taring at the ground with the intensity of frightened beasts. Their overseer bowed his head, but kept a wary eye on the nearby peasants.
The leader was a lean man, just beginning to show signs of a paunch. His face was thin, his cheeks high, his brow furrowed by wrinkles. The man’s hair had the salt and pepper hue of black hair becoming white, and was cropped close to his skull; he clearly enjoyed the regular attentions of a barber’s knife. His nose was a sharp beak, perched above a sharp slit of a mouth. His eyes were wide and glittered with a feverish intensity as his gaze swept over the tableau that filled the narrow lane. Velvet gloves covered his long fingers, white fur trimming the crimson garments. He wore long boots of black leather that rose to mid-calf. A sombre-hued hose and tunic completed his garb.
A slender sword hung from a jewelled scabbard at his side, fixed to a wide leather belt by a slender silver chain. The hilt of the sword was gold, cast into the semblance of a dragon, with the guard shaped like outspread wings. The golden hilt glittered in the fading light of the sun.
The two guards were dark-skinned like the overseer, but their commander had a fair northern complexion.
‘Lord baron,’ the overseer said.
The man raised a gloved hand and removed the blue cap that covered his close-shorn hair. He cast an indifferent gaze across the ox cart and the human beasts of burden beside it, trembling in their naked feet. The rider’s gaze settled upon the Tilean mercenary. There was a cool, expressionless look in the man’s sapphire eyes.
