by C. L. Werner
From his position atop the tower, the goat-headed brute watched the small group of riders slowly approach the tower. He had spied them some time ago, but he was still trying to decide exactly who they were. The black-cloaked leader might be the departed dark elf lieutenant, Drannach or Uraithen, the beastman never could tell the two apart. There were fewer riders than there had been before, and the monster was certain that some of them were not men who had left the tower with the elf. The monster considered alerting his master, but the thought seemed somehow elusive. As soon as it occurred to him, it slipped away. No, he decided, best to make certain who was approaching the tower before bothering the Black Prince. The beastman grunted as he thought about that. It was almost as if it was not his own thought, but the idea of someone else.
The brute stared down at the riders. The leader certainly looked like Uraithen, or Drannach, but then again, he didn’t… He should alert his master. Or not… The beastman shook his head, trying to clear the muddle of thoughts rattling about in his thick skull. He reached over, pulling the chain that would lift the gate from the entrance down below. If the elf had to wait to gain entry to the stronghold, he would receive a beating. But was he certain that it was the dark elf? The monster grunted once more in confusion, bashing a fist against his horned head to try and force his thoughts into some semblance of order.
One of the riders, a tall human wearing a black helmet, pulled a small device from behind his back. A steel bolt shot upwards from the small crossbow, smashing through the beastman’s eye. The brute fell from the balcony, striking the ground without a scream.
‘Nice shot,’ Lithelain congratulated Brunner. ‘Especially with such a clumsy weapon.’ The elf cast the cloak from his shoulders, and handed it back to the bounty hunter.
‘Remember, he is mine,’ the wood elf warned.
‘You can have everything but his head,’ Brunner responded, reloading his weapon, nudging his horse toward the open gate.
The party slowly made their way past the entrance, eyes alert for any sign of other guards. Last of all came the illusionist, Mahlinbois, who was wiping away the tarry residue from the small gunpowder-laced candle he had used to disorder the beastman’s mind. The magician was discomfited by the ease of their entrance to the tower. The Black Prince was a master of sorcery, so it was said. Mahlinbois appreciated that magic of any sort thrived upon misdirection and confusion. Were they the hunters, or were they the prey? Were they walking into the Black Prince’s lair, or were they walking into his trap?
Once again, the illusionist cursed the day he had ever set eyes upon Brunner. There was an aura of invincibility about the man, but Mahlinbois knew only too well that such protection would not extend to himself, or any of the bounty hunters allies. Indeed, he knew that to Brunners way of thinking, they were all expendable, just like the boy and the gaoler.
The watching brigands hooted with laughter as Sir Lutriel again narrowly escaped the lunge of the crippled griffon. The monster’s neck craned about as the man dived away, the beak snapping inches from the knight’s back. Sir Lutriel’s body was caked in sweat and sand, his breathing heavy. The effort of avoiding the lethal talons and jaws of the griffon was telling on him. Fatigue clutched at him with a suffocating grasp that would kill him if he succumbed to it. The knight doubled over and gulped air into his lungs while keeping a frightened watch on the hulking shape of the monster.
The griffon too was suffering from the speed and nimbleness of its prey, its movements becoming slower and more clumsy as it lunged and leaped about the arena, trying to fill its starving frame with the fresh meat it could smell just beyond its reach. The harder it tried to fill its belly, the more impossible the task became. As the griffon ran towards the knight, flapping the plucked stumps above its shoulders in a sorry reminder of when they had been wings, it stumbled, landed heavily on its belly, one of its legs twisting beneath it. The monster raised its head, as if to cry out in pain, but sound was beyond its infirmity. As the blind eagle-head turned about, it happened to face toward the knight as he gathered his strength. The griffon stumbled back onto its feet, taunted by the nearness of the man’s scent. With hobbling, awkward steps, the blind monster walked toward Sir Lutriel.
On the dais the Black Prince extended his hand. Without a glance or a word from his master, Drannach placed the knife the knight had discarded into the Black Prince’s outstretched hand. The mailed fingers closed about the hilt.
‘This has become tedious,’ the Black Prince stated, his voice dripping with scorn. With a quick, blinding move, the elf lifted his hand and hurled the knife down into the arena. The blade sank into the meat of the Bretonnian’s leg. The knight crumpled, his voice opening in a scream that was born more of terror than of pain. The griffon, only five steps from him now, suddenly went mad as the smell of blood reached it. It reared up on its hind legs, and emitted a deep clacking roar that was like the scream of a hawk and the bellow of a bull.
Sir Lutriel tried to leap to the side as the monster barrelled straight toward him, but his injured leg gave out. He crumpled to the floor of the pit and began to crawl away, but it was too late. His agility was gone now, while the griffon, driven berserk by the smell of blood and the gnawing hunger that wracked its frame, had found a new strength.
The beast fell upon the knight like an avalanche. One of the paws smashed into Sir Lutriel’s back like a dwarf steam-hammer, pulverising his pelvis and spine. The black talons sank deep into the flesh and bone. Even as a bloody cry of agony bubbled from the Bretonnian’s lips, the powerful neck of the griffon craned downwards and the beak closed about his head. The jaws closed with a snap, and the knight was instantly decapitated. The griffon raised its head, swallowing Sir Lutriel’s head whole. Then the gore-stained beak descended once more, tearing bloody goblets of flesh from the mangled body beneath its paw.
‘Mongrel cur!’ roared Josef, lunging at the seated noble, the chain about his neck arresting him so that his clawing fingers were just unable to reach the Black Prince. ‘He didn’t have a chance!’ the youth accused.
‘I know,’ said the elf, his melodious voice rising above the coarse merriment of the bandits despite its softness. ‘But that spectacle was becoming uninteresting. I shall have to think of something more special for you.’ The dark elf’s armoured visage stared down at Josef, and he cringed away from the merciless cruelty in those almond-shaped eyes. Then the Black Prince stared at the farther end of the hall. A cry of alarm sounded from one of the bandits near the southern extremity of the chamber, a cry that trailed off into a scream.
Brunner let the arming mechanism of his repeating crossbow pistol load a second bolt, and took aim once again. Not for the first time, he considered the weapon a fair exchange for the gold the skaven had cheated him of. At his side, Lithelain held his bow at the ready. Stoecker gripped his sword with a steady look of determination, while Ferricks licked his lips as he fingered the small sword the bounty hunter had given him. His eyes darted from one side to another, looking for some avenue that would take him away from the bounty hunter and the armed brigands that now faced them. Behind all of the men, the illusionist Mahlinbois readied another of his curious firework-candles. Only the sweat beading on his forehead betrayed the calm, concentrated effort the magician put into his work.
Before them, the long chamber was filled with the followers of the Black Prince. Thirty armoured brigands stared in a mixture of surprise and outrage as the man Brunner had shot writhed on the floor, clutching at the bolt buried in his belly. The lows and grunts of the beastmen added to the snarls of the bandits. Men began to draw their swords, a few scrambled toward the walls of the chamber to pluck spears and halberds from ornamental brackets set into the stonework. On the dais, the armoured figures of the Black Prince and his lieutenant glared at the intruders.
‘Kill them,’ the Black Prince commanded. ‘Kill them all.’ He gestured with his hand, stabbing a clawlike finger at Brunner. The bandit throng roared and surged forward. Even
as the first men began to move, the bounty hunter fired. The bolt sped across the hall, smashing into the breastplate of the bandit lord. The Black Prince staggered for a moment, then turned, glaring at the bounty hunter, a dent marring his engraved breastplate. Brunner did not have time to send another shot at the dark elf, for the oncoming bandits demanded his attention more.
‘You have a sorry notion of a fair fight,’ complained Mahlinbois, still fiddling with his magical implements. The illusionist risked a look up, seeing three more bandits lying on the floor: two with the feathered shafts of the wood elf nestled in their bodies, a third with a bolt between the eyes.
‘Then do something to balance matters,’ snarled Brunner, firing the last bolt into a mangy-pelted beastman that was nearly upon him. The monster staggered away, mewling as it pawed at the spike of metal jutting from its cheek. Brunner spared the monster not a second thought, and drew Drakesmalice from its sheath in a flash of steel. Beside him, Lithelain sent a final arrow speeding into another bandit, then tossed his bow aside, drawing his own sword.
The Black Prince watched for a moment as his minions crashed into the flashing steel of the bounty hunter and his allies. He could hear the sounds of conflict, howls of pain and cries of triumph as men matched swords. He had seen its like often before. But he had not expected it this day. The bounty hunter should never have gotten so far, not with the precautions that had been taken. The dark elf smiled beneath his armour. Of course, he had been betrayed. How could he have been so stupid? He had been reared on treachery and double-dealing, it was in his blood. How could he not see it when it stared him in the face? But he would know how to deal with his betrayer.
‘This battle vexes me,’ the Black Prince said, his tone redolent with boredom. Drannach looked up at him, a puzzled look marring his fine features. ‘Attend to this,’ the noble declared, stepping down from the dais, the silk robe swirling about him. The Black Prince strode the short distance to the door, disappearing into the dark corridor beyond. The lieutenant watched him go, then drew his sword, stalking away from the dais and toward the knot of fighting men.
Left alone on the dais, Josef struggled against the iron chain that held him. As he struggled, his eyes turned to the open doorway. The sight of the corridor down which his father’s killer had gone let a new strength, an energy of pure hate, fill him. The young merchant tore at the spiked collar, his hands becoming raw and bloody as the spikes bit into his flesh. But despite his determination, the metal held fast.
Brunner’s sword lashed out once more, clipping a bandit’s hand. The man fell back, cursing, then screamed as he stared at the red stumps of his fingers. Brunner had no more time to consider the man, however, for other opponents were filling the space left by the maimed man. At his side, Lithelain was keeping seven enemies on their guard, the elf’s astounding speed confounding their best attempts to surround and butcher him. But the elf was doing no more than holding his foes at bay. He was unable to do more than deflect their steel, lest he expose himself to another’s blade by extending his reach too far. A gash in the elf’s side told of where one halberd-armed bandit had been able to momentarily defy the intercepting curtain of flashing steel, but no other had been able to match that feat. The weapon he had wielded lay upon the stone floor, cut in two by the elf’s vengeful return.
Perhaps realising that they were almost inconsequential, Stoecker and Ferricks found themselves faced by only a few of the bandits. Even so, the two men were far from experts with the sword, and were hard pressed to preserve their lives. The writer kept his back against the wall, knocking back the swords of the two bandits who faced him. He was trying to recall the time he had spent in the company of a Reiksguard fencing tutor, to slip back into half-remembered patterns of feint, parry and thrust.
The wiry Ferricks, a steady deluge of pleading and begging slithering from his tongue, kept worming around the steel of the men vainly trying to kill their former comrade. Despite his whining pleas, the thief was not averse to striking back, stabbing one through the knee when the brigand’s lunge carried him too far forward, slicing another along the side when he wormed his wiry body around the man’s sword.
From the pit, the roars and bellows of the griffon rose as the sounds of violence and the smell of blood drifted down to the creature. The monster’s cries provided a sinister accompaniment to the battle, and nearly all the combatants paused when the sounds suddenly stopped.
The great brown-and-yellow shape of the griffon lunged upwards from the pit, tearing two of the jutting fangs of steel from the stone-work, one of them digging deep into its shoulder. The monster’s hind legs scrabbled at the edge of the pit for a moment, gaining purchase, then it propelled itself upward. The plucked stumps of the creature’s wings beat furiously as it stepped forward. The bandits drew away to look in horror at the huge bestial shape that had leapt into their midst. The griffon’s blind head rolled from side to side for a moment, then the beaked maw opened once more, uttering a loud, frenzied shriek.
The griffon leapt forward, pinning an ape-like beastman beneath its mass, and crushing its ribcage with a loud crack. The griffon’s jaws snapped around, slashing through the armour and collarbone of another bandit, and dropping him in a screaming pile of wreckage.
As the bandits scrambled to attack this new and unexpected adversary, Brunner gave voice to a cry of his own. Two bandits found the bounty hunter’s steel in them before they remembered their original opponents. At his side, Lithelain pressed his attack, racing through the men who had held him at bay, sweeping his sword in a blur of motion that none of the brigands could individually counter.
The bounty hunter watched the elf’s actions with some misgiving. Lithelain was not seeking to finish off his enemies—he left many of them with only painful scratches or disarmed. The elf was only trying to make his way past the men, towards the door at the far end of the hall. Brunner brutally smashed the dragon-hilt of his sword into the nose of his current enemy, splattering the man’s face with his own blood. As the man clutched at his disfigured face, the bounty hunter kicked his groin with his steel-toed boot. The bandit doubled over and Brunner flung him aside, over the lip of the fighting pit.
A shriek and a satisfying liquid impact carried up from the arena.
Beyond the edge of the battle, Mahlinbois watched as the griffon wreaked havoc among the bandits. The huge monster was bleeding from dozens of wounds, not the least of which being the great tear in its shoulder where the spike had bitten into the beast’s flesh. But the frenzied monster seemed not to even notice the many injuries that had befallen it. It was a berserk engine of death now; already seven mutilated bodies lay strewn about it, where its claws and snapping jaws had done their work. Only death would stop it now.
Perhaps, in some way, the monster was exacting its own brand of vengeance against the Black Prince for the suffering that had been inflicted upon it. The illusionist smiled, snuffing the candle out with his finger. There was no need to concentrate further: in its current state, the griffon was beyond any of his mind-tricks. He had employed his craft to convince the creature to forget the crippling injuries done to its wings, to convince it that its feathery body was whole once more. So simple a mind, it was easy to disorder the past. The griffon had recalled the time when it had soared high above the Grey Mountains, when it had dived from the heights to fall upon prey its keen gaze had found far below. Convinced that it could fly once more, the griffon had lunged upwards, towards the sounds of battle, the smell of blood; its conviction drove it with a strength that its captors had believed beyond its tortured form.
The illusionist considered the battle at large. Stoecker, the writer, was matching swords with a single bandit now, and gaining the better of the man. Able to concentrate his attention on one man, Stoecker was proving himself a capable swordsman.
Ferricks was nowhere to be seen, though Mahlinbois could see one of the men the thief had been fighting lying on the floor with a deep gash in his belly. The magician’
s gaze followed the battle back to the griffon. He watched as Lithelain made his way past the hulking monster, ducking under the sweep of the beast’s claws as he matched swords with another bandit. The elf spun about, catching the bandit’s steel on his own. He twisted his hand and rolled the blade past the man’s steel, ripping into his face. The injured bandit dropped, howling, and the sound was his undoing. As the bandit looked up from his mutilated face, the griffon’s claw disembowelled him with a sweeping slash. But the wood elf was already beyond the beast.
Brunner had advanced around the flank of the griffon, carefully keeping his distance from the monster. He lashed out at another bandit, puncturing the man’s lung with the point of his blade, then hurled the injured man into the pit to join his comrade. A slender fang of steel struck the edge of Drakesmalice, and the bounty hunter found himself staring into the inhumanly slender face of the dark elf lieutenant. The creature sneered at him.
‘You shall regret coming here, animal,’ Drannach spat. ‘I shall carve every inch of your flesh before I allow you to die.’
The bounty hunter pushed the elf back, blocking his return with a hastily drawn knife. ‘You’re not worth a shilling to me,’ the bounty hunter snarled. ‘Step down, and I may let you live.’ The man’s words brought a look of outrage to the pale features of the elf and he lunged forward, catching the bounty hunter’s knife on the projections on his vambraces. He turned the blade and broke it with a snap. Drakesmalice and the elf sword groaned as they slid across one another, as their wielders glared at one another from behind the crossed steel.
The dark elf suddenly twisted his blade, escaping the guard of the bounty hunter. Then he dropped low, sweeping his blade at the bounty hunter’s legs, seeking a crippling blow. The sword slashed at Brunner’s calf, but he dodged backwards just as Drannach made his attack. The bandit’s steel scraped across the surface of Brunner’s leg armour. Drannach hissed, lunged forward, then twisted his sword about at the last instant, turning the feint into a sidewise slash.
