by C. L. Werner
‘Does this man have a name?’ Brunner asked, keeping the pistol trained upon Josef.
Josef paused, gathering his thoughts, recalling the frightened whispers of the peasants in Gambrie. ‘It is my understanding that this animal is known as the Black Prince.’
A trace of amusement crawled across the bounty hunter’s face, and tugged at the corners of his mouth. ‘You come all this way chasing a fable. There is no Black Prince. Better to ask me to bring you the head of Thorgrim Grudgebearer, the dwarf high king, boy. At least he is real.’
‘I have seen him!’ Josef roared. ‘I watched him kill my father with my own eyes. With my own hands I took this from him!’ Josef reached to his belt and drew the thorn-shaped dagger from its scabbard. Brunner’s gaze fixed upon the weapon.
Brunner returned his pistol to its holster and stalked forward. He motioned for the boy to hand over the dagger. The bounty hunter stared intently at the weapon, turning it over, letting the light of the morning play across its dark metal surface.
‘You took this from the Black Prince?’ he asked.
‘He was very substantial for a myth,’ the youth shot back. Brunner snorted a brief chuckle.
‘If this really came from who you say it did, then we should talk.’ The bounty hunter stared at the young merchant. ‘Meet me in the stables.’ Brunner reached forward and tucked the dagger back in its scabbard on the boy’s belt. ‘And don’t go showing that to anyone else.’
‘Then you will help me?’ Josef asked, his voice still flat, betraying neither hope nor suspicion.
The bounty hunter had to admit that the young merchant was very good at giving nothing away. He nodded his armoured head.
‘That remains to be seen, but you have my interest now,’ the bounty hunter replied.
Brunner found Josef Kretzer sitting upon a low wooden box beside a pile of yellowed hay in the shadows of the village stable. The building stank of dung and the sweat of animals, yet the bounty hunter could detect no sign of displeasure on the merchant’s face. Perhaps he was a bit tougher than his soft-skinned hands indicated.
Brunner strode past the youth, not pausing to greet him as he rose from his seat. He walked straight to the massive bay tethered to the rear wall of the wooden stable, the animal’s reins looped through a simple ring of iron. The bounty hunter laid a soothing hand on his steed’s neck, stroking away some of the horse’s tension.
‘Have you considered my offer?’ Josef asked, following the bounty hunter as he stepped away from Fiend and made his way over to his sturdy grey packhorse, Paychest. Brunner removed a small carrot from one of the pouches on his belt, giving the treat to the often over-worked animal. He looked up, staring at the youth.
‘That dagger you stole,’ Brunner watched as a venomous quality fought its way through the boy’s calm facade. The bounty hunter chuckled. ‘Let us say claimed then,’ it was as close to a word of apology he had given for five years. ‘Do you have any idea what it is?’
Josef drew the knife again, trying to discern what the bounty hunter gleaned from the weapon during his brief examination of it. ‘The balance is wrong, the space between hilt and pommel is unwieldy for a single-handed blade,’ Josef observed. ‘Probably some foreigner’s weapon, where they have curious ideas about warcraft and swordplay.’
Brunner nodded his head, reaching to the massive burden that was balanced upon the back of Paychest. He undid several straps and a long length of leather fell open, displaying an elegant-looking bow and a number of steel arrows, their heads barbed.
The bounty hunter undid the thongs that held the bow and lifted the weapon from its pack. The bow was slender, crafted in pale, almost white wood. Engravings scrolled across almost all its length.
It was quite possibly the most beautiful weapon Josef had ever set eyes upon, more like a work of art than a tool of war. The bounty hunter tossed the weapon to the merchant. Josef studied the bow, again astounded by the curious grip and the awkwardness the weapon was imbued with. A sudden realisation made him look back at the bounty hunter.
‘It is like the dagger,’ the youth exclaimed. Brunner motioned for Josef to return the weapon.
‘I took that from a hired killer in the Border Princes a year past,’ the bounty hunter said, ‘but it was crafted for no human hand.’ Brunner let that knowledge sink in a moment as he returned the bow to its place and refastened the leather roll to his pack horse’s burden.
‘Elves?’ the boy gasped. He had seen elves a few times in his life: tall, graceful and impossibly beautiful beings. There were a few who could be found in Altdorf, and a veritable community of so-called Sea Elves in the city-state of Marienburg. Josef thought again about the unwieldy grip of the dagger. Shaped for hands longer than those of a man, for fingers thinner and more delicate than the harsh paws of a mere human?
Brunner nodded. ‘It is the only thing that makes any sense.’ The bounty hunter stepped away from Paychest, facing the young merchant. ‘How much do you know about this Black Prince?’
‘Only what I have been told by the villagers in Gambrie and what the Viscount de Chegney told me when I petitioned him for aid in hunting down my father’s killer.’ Josef thought again about that humiliating encounter in the viscount’s castle. De Chegney had been displeased to hear about the entire affair, but had done no more than provide Josef with a set of battered and discarded armour and a feeble horse that must have been selected as supper for the viscount’s kennel before he had given it to Josef. Only one other thing had the viscount given him, a word of warning that he should forget about everything and return to the Empire and enjoy his father’s estate.
Brunner shook his head at the mention of the viscount, but kept his thoughts to himself. Instead, he spoke in a low, icy voice. ‘They have been telling stories about the Black Prince for hundreds of years,’ he said. ‘He is always described as an arrogant, tall, slender figure in black armour. An expert swordsman able to best even the noblest of knights. He commands men and beasts; he is a bandit host that preys upon the land like a murderous plague.’ The bounty hunter let a thin laugh rasp from his throat. ‘You have heard, no doubt, of Bretonnia’s Grail Knights, who search all across the kingdom in quest of the holy cup of the Lady of the Lake? The Black Prince is a bounty hunter’s holy cup. Three hundred years ago, the then king of Bretonnia placed a price of five thousand pieces of gold for the head of the Black Prince after the death of the envoy from the forest realm of Loren. Yet in all that time, no one has claimed that reward. Most men of my calling consider him a myth, a bogeyman called upon by inept sheriffs and larcenous caravan masters to explain every theft this side of the Grey Mountains.’ Brunner paused, staring at the boy again, a crafty look narrowing the icy eyes behind the visor of his helm. ‘Tell me everything that happened that night, exactly as it happened.’
Josef began to relate the events of the night his father died. He told of the sinister traveller and his duel with the leader of the bandits. He told of the impossible speed with which both of them moved and the amazing swordcraft of the Black Prince. He told of the monster’s cruel mockery of his overmatched foe and of his equal savagery when he casually commanded his minions to burn down the tavern and its occupants. He especially detailed for Brunner the strange armour the Black Prince wore, that was at once hideous and beautiful. When he had finished, the bounty hunter moved toward Fiend, untying the animal from the iron ring.
‘You will help me then?’ Josef asked as the bounty hunter led his animal from the stall.
Brunner removed a rag from the pack on the side of his saddle and tossed it to the boy. ‘With five thousand gold crowns in the balance, I may not even charge you.’ Brunner pointed a gloved finger at the dagger. ‘Cover that up, and don’t show it to anyone unless I tell you.’ He smiled. ‘We don’t want anyone else getting any ideas about where that dagger came from.’
The seated figure gazed towards the balcony, watching the morning sun turn the grey stonework white as its rays banished the shad
ows. Such a glorious morning: not a cloud in the sky. Once again, the noble on the black throne felt melancholy spirits tugging at his normally steadfast heart. Once again, he thought of the perpetual darkness and gloom of his home, the icy northern gales that howled through the towers and battlements of his city like a legion of screaming banshees. They bore with them the soft white snow of the north, which glittered with the chromatic taint of the Chaos Wastes—magic captured by the clouds and born to the south by the power of Naggaroth’s sorcerers.
Dralaith sighed and adjusted the sleeve of his long silk khaitan, as he remembered his lost homeland. He would return some day, not as a corpse, or as a prisoner. He would return as a conqueror. Even the Dark Gods would not deny him this. For were they not the cause of his exile? Were they not the reason he had become the Black Prince?
He cast his eye upon the locked box of blackened teakwood that rested upon a cushion beside his throne. It was an heirloom of his family, captured by some long-dead ancestor during a raid on Cathay. Within the box, however, was an artefact of far more recent vintage, captured by Dralaith himself, and torn from the neck of a Norse seer when Dralaith’s ship had met the barbarian’s dragon boat.
Dralaith thought back to that day, when he had led the corsairs down onto the deck of their captured prize. The Norse were rugged and powerful for humans and far more manageable than orcs in the mines and slave pits. The dark elves fought a bitter battle, hindered by a reluctance to kill too many of the barbarians lest their slavetaking be reduced to unprofitable levels. In fact the corsairs had been almost bested by the Norse. Then withering blasts of eerie blue light had come, and the flame that struck down dozens of corsairs, left their armour steaming, but their skin unmarred.
Dralaith had fought his way to the prow of the ship as his corsairs perished all around him. There he had found the cause of the sorcerous assault: a huge human dressed in a mangy black robe of dyed leather, the leering skull of some fanged and horned beast over his head like a helmet. The seer had been a massive, powerful man once, but now he was like a withered giant. Weak of arm or not, as the seer turned about, his clawed hand opened to reveal the gleaming jewel it held. Dralaith knew that he was dead then. Yet it was not the dark elf’s eyes that showed fear, but those of the seer. He snarled a brutal oath, but the jewel in his hand did not obey—sheets of mystical fire did not consume Dralaith’s body.
The dark elf had not waited for the seer to recover, but had darted in at once and removed the Norseman’s hand. A pair of corsairs lunged forward to secure the maimed mystic while Dralaith recovered the jewel from the pools of blood that swamped the deck.
He had learned later, after his torturers had administered their art upon the seer—that the jewel was called the Eye of Tchar. The Eye acted as a focus for mighty powers, powers that could instil vitality and strength in a man, powers that could summon daemons from the nether realms to rend the flesh of the wielder’s foes. But this was not the greatest of its powers. He had learned that it showed its owner the future, that the depths of the gem would reveal any danger that threatened, and that it would show the owner of the jewel how that danger might be undone.
But there had been one question that had troubled Dralaith. Why had the Eye of Tchar not warned the seer about him? The seer had laughed then, laughed until the torturers had broken him beyond the point of return. Only as life seeped from his mutilated form did the Norse stop laughing. He smiled up at the dark elf noble. He commended Dralaith on his wisdom, but he could give him no answer, for the seer had never thought to ask that question when he had taken it from a marauder chieftain long ago before he was a sorcerer.
The Black Prince gazed back to the long table set before his throne. A nervous human was seated there, his garments reeking of filth, his hair greasy with dirt and grime. The dark elf tried to recall the man’s name, but could not. He could not even remember why he had been imprisoned in his dungeons. He dismissed his concerns. Whatever he had done, it was unimportant. The Black Prince snapped his fingers. Four servants shambled into the chamber. The first carried a crystal bottle, something that had been salvaged from the cellars of the tower when the Black Prince had reclaimed it from the goblin vermin who had lived there for centuries. The dark elf smiled as he saw the dark crimson liquid within the bottle. The second servant bore a large goblet, its surface covered in silver. The cup of the goblet was crafted from the skull of the latest assassin that sought his life.
The last two servants laboured under a heavy tray, upon which a pile of meat steamed. The Black Prince inhaled, savouring the odour. Then he snapped his fingers and all three objects were set before the prisoner.
‘You are hungry,’ the Black Prince declared. ‘See what a feast I have prepared for you?’ The man looked up at the dark elf, then cast his eyes again at the steaming roasted meat before him. ‘Eat,’ the dark elf commanded as the man hesitated. One of the servants began to pour the thick red liquid from the bottle into the skull-goblet, careful to spill not a single drop, lest he too be asked to join in the hideous repast.
Trembling with loathing and terror, the prisoner clutched at the goblet, and fought down his disgust as he let the salty fluid pass his lips. As he did so, the seated lord began to murmur almost inaudibly, the melodious sounds drifting across the room with a life of their own. The almond-shaped eyes of the Black Prince began to glow with a mystical light and he let out a satisfied hiss. ‘Exquisite,’ he declared. ‘Now try some of the meat.’ The prisoner moaned, but reached forward and tore a small morsel from the tray. The Black Prince smacked his lips as the diner reluctantly ate.
It had been hundreds of years since Dralaith had savoured food with his own mouth. The venoms with which the nobility of Naggaroth coated their bodies invariably killed the senses of taste and touch. Only by sorcery, or by forcing his mind to bond with that of another, could the Black Prince experience the taste of food and wine. It was not something that he could do often, for there was always a toll exacted by such frivolous use of magic. But sometimes there arose occasions when he would indulge himself.
The Black Prince considered what the Eye of Tchar had shown him upon his return to the stronghold. One of his bandits, a weaselly little Bretonnian named Ferricks, a close confederate of the traitor Bors, had not returned with him. The Eye of Tchar had revealed the thief hastening back to his home village. He was filled with terror that Bors would implicate him in their crude little plot. But what the Eye had shown him afterwards, the way the Black Prince might steer events, that had been truly enlightening. The dark elf smiled, not even noticing that the diner had stopped eating and was trying his best not to vomit up what little he had consumed.
It was such a simple plot, and the Black Prince was astounded that it had never occurred to him before. And the Eye of Tchar had not shown him such a scheme before this. Not for the first time, the dark elf wondered if he was in control of the jewel, or if it was in control of him. The Black Prince dismissed such concerns as soon as they took shape. It was a talisman, nothing more. And there was nothing he needed to fear with it guiding him. Certainly there was nothing he had to fear from some coarse human bounty killer.
The Black Prince pointed a slender finger at the diner, then pointed again at the steaming ribcage on the tray. ‘More meat,’ his melodious voice commanded.
The Black Prince settled back in his throne, adjusting his body on the fur coverings. He would enjoy to the fullest measure this meal. It was not every day that he had meat from Naggaroth to savour.
III
Josef fought to stay awake and remain upright in the saddle of his horse. The bounty hunter had left the village almost as soon as they had met. They were riding south, despite Josef’s words of protest. After their talk in the stable, Brunner had become silent. Not a word had passed between them in all the long miles they had covered since the morning sun had faded into darkness. Whether the bounty hunter was in some foul mood or whether his mind was lost in thought, the youth could not decide. Jo
sef had long ago resolved to stop trying to disrupt the killer’s silence.
Abruptly, a dark expanse rose ominously before them, stretching as far as Josef’s tired eyes could see. A forest rose from the expanse of meadows and fields like a living wall. Josef could see small dark objects scattered between the edge of the forest and the meadowland. In the darkness he could not decide if they were merely boulders or something of design, monuments or cairns perhaps. Josef’s horse stopped as Brunner brought his own animals to a halt. Josef rubbed his eyes, trying to force awareness into his mind. Without a word to the youth, Brunner swung his leg over the horn of his saddle and dropped to the grassy ground.
Somewhere in the night, an owl hooted. Brunner strode forward, advancing toward the dark boulders. Josef wondered idly if he should follow the bounty hunter, but decided that in his state he would be more likely to fall in a hole than be any assistance if anything was lurking in the shadows. For a moment, alarm raced through his fatigued frame, fear that a horde of beastmen and goblins might erupt from the dark expanse of the trees. But the fear quickly died away As tired as he was, Josef could not care less. His head sagged forward, his chin resting on his chest. A moment later, the boy slipped into a half-sleep.
Brunner made his way through the old standing stones, not pausing to consider the curious markings that had been burned into the rock. Instead, he bent down to gather some small white pebbles. When he had a fistful of the small stones, he began to clear a small patch of ground by kicking rocks and twigs away with his boot. He crouched down, carefully arranging the small pebbles on the ground. Then he stood up again, and stared down at the design he had marked out with the stones. He looked up, his icy eyes considering the dark, brooding shadow of the forest. Then he turned and walked back to Josef and the horses. Brunner climbed back into Fiend’s saddle and reached a gloved hand over, to shake Josef back into a semblance of wakefulness.
