by C. L. Werner
‘Would you care to explain that?’ Brunner asked.
Masario rose from his seat and paced behind his desk. ‘There was a murder recently in the household of Prince Bensario, a most vicious murder. It occurred two weeks past. The victim was a mere serving maid, one of Prince Bensario’s household, but that is not what is of concern to His Excellency. It is the senseless, savage brutality of the crime that alarms him, the fact that this atrocity was committed under his very roof. The murder could have been no more foul had some blood-mad Badlands orc been smuggled into the palace. And the fact that the murderer is from Remas—the only thing we know about him—has also earned Prince Bensario’s ire.
‘The prince’s eldest daughter, Princess Juliana, has been betrothed to Prince Gambini of Remas. Prince Gambini sent a delegation from his city to conduct his bride back to his palace in Remas.’
‘And the killer was one of the members of this delegation,’ stated Brunner.
Masario nodded his head. ‘Indeed. He was observed by one of the servants as he was finishing his crime. The man was speaking to himself as he butchered his victim’s body, in the accent of Remas. Unfortunately, it took the servant several days to work up enough courage to report what she had seen. The investigation held at the time turned up no clue as to the fiend’s identity, and it is only this witness who points the way to the killer. By that time, the delegation had already left Pavona, conducting Princess Juliana to her wedding.’
‘How many men were in this delegation?’ Brunner inquired.
‘Thirty men, including the soldiers sent to protect them on the road. The others included Prince Gambini’s nephew, a priest from the prince’s household and a few retainers to attend them on the road.’ Masario seated himself once more, staring intently at the bounty hunter.
‘The witness to the crime only saw the murderer’s back. He had bared himself, no doubt to prevent any blood from staining his clothes, and the servant had a clear look at a tattoo on his back, which she described as being a black serpent rearing backwards to strike.’
‘That won’t make finding him easy if the tattoo is the only means to identify him,’ commented Brunner. ‘Unless you propose that I force my way into Prince Gambini’s palace and start forcing his retainers to remove their shirts.’
‘No, you’ll have to be more discreet than that,’ Masario said. ‘This matter must be handled carefully. Prince Bensario hopes to form an alliance with the marriage of his daughter. The support of the Republic of Remas would be of great benefit in quashing once and for all the foolish ambitions of the princes of Trantio. Prince Gambini holds a great deal of influence with the other ruling families in the Republic, and with him on Pavona’s side, Prince Bensario thinks he may just be able to gain Remas as an ally in any forthcoming campaign against Trantio. Obviously, Prince Gambini will not smile too fondly on us should we accuse him of harbouring a maniac in his household. Nor can we simply ignore the danger to the princess by letting such a creature go on living. I mean, such a madman might be capable of anything, even attacking a princess. If the princess were to die in Remas, it would destroy at once Prince Bensario’s ambitions.’
‘All right,’ Brunner’s cold voice spoke. ‘It won’t be as easy as I had hoped, but I’ll find your murderer. What proof do you want me to bring back?’
Cruel, hungry anticipation filled Masario’s face. ‘Bring back the tattoo,’ the chamberlain answered, his voice dropping into a low hiss. ‘The priests at the Temple of Morr have their ways of verifying that the skin truly came from the man I seek.’ An almost maniacal gleam shone in the chamberlain’s eyes.
Masario noticed the curious look the bounty hunter gave him, and quickly strove to compose himself. ‘Just the tattoo,’ he repeated. Brunner nodded his head again and quietly made his exit from the chamber.
Masario waited until he could no longer hear the footfalls of the bounty hunter retreating down the corridor outside, then rose and made his way to a small table set against the wall. He removed the crystal stopper from a fat-bodied bottle of smoky glass and poured a measure of dark Pavonan wine into a glass. The chamberlain’s face became worried for a moment, but quickly some of the fire he had shown at the conclusion of his meeting with the bounty hunter returned.
It had not been a mere serving maid who had fallen prey to the murderer from Remas, it had been Masario’s own daughter. It was not the concern of the prince that motivated his hiring of Brunner, but the chamberlain’s own need for justice. The prince had told Masario to forget the matter, as if the loss of his daughter was of no greater import than the loss of a few hundred ducats at the card table. Prince Bensario was not about to let anything jeopardise his alliance with the Republic of Remas. It was instrumental in his aspirations to be the ruler who finally defeated Pavona’s age-long rival city-state of Trantio, to expand the coffers of Pavona as had no prince before him, swelling them with the plunder of conquest. Trantio had suffered greatly from their defeats by Borgio the Besieger of Miragliano, there would be no better time to strike at them. The alliance would be forged, and nothing would stop it. Prince Bensario was not worried about his daughter’s safety, he had haughtily declared that even a madman would have sense enough to seek out his victims among the lower classes.
The chamberlain downed his wine in a single swallow, his hand tightening about the glass. He would not forget his daughter, would not forgive the atrocities that had been done to her. Prince Bensario might well have Masario’s head if he were to learn what his chamberlain had done. But if that was the price of avenging his daughter, then Masario was willing to pay it.
Brunner emerged from the palazzo of Prince Bensario into the narrow, winding streets of the town. Pavona was the easternmost of the Tilean city states. The streets were haphazardly laid out, the better to confuse and disorient any enemy who managed to force their way through the city’s thick walls. Overhead, numerous bridges arched above the cobbled streets, connecting the palazzos of the ruling elite, enabling the merchants and nobles to avoid the throngs of soldiers, peasants, labourers and servants that filled the lanes as they hurried about their own petty affairs. Located almost at the middle of Tilea, south of the Trantine Hills, on the fertile plains between the River Remo and the Apuccini Mountains, Pavona was blessed by a much milder climate than the lands of the Empire, enjoying almost year round the kindly favours of the warm Tilean sun. Although small, Pavona was a wealthy city, ever at odds with its neighbour Trantio for control of the eastern trade, all seeking to monopolise the market with the dwarfs and the few hardy caravans bearing goods along the famed Silk Road from legendary Cathay. Above the reek of the bodies packed within the streets, there rose the smell of riches and the ambition to secure still greater wealth.
As the bounty hunter made his way through the narrow lanes, pushing aside those slow in clearing his path, he considered his most recent patron. Prince Bensario was a very powerful man in Pavona, second only to the ruling Princess Lucrezzia Belladonna. Indeed, it was rumoured that Bensario entertained hopes to become the famous beauty’s fifth husband, an aspiration which no doubt made Bensario’s current wife both furious and nervous. Brunner suspected that Bensario’s hopes for an alliance with the Republic of Remas were married in some way to his ambitions for the hand of Princess Belladonna. With such lofty pursuits in the balance, it did not surprise the bounty hunter that Bensario would offer such a generous reward for quietly eliminating a possible foil to his plans.
Brunner found the stables where he had left his warhorse, Fiend, and packhorse, a trusty grey he called Paychest. The bounty hunter tossed a few silver coins to the stable master and took charge of his animals. Mounted upon the back of his warhorse, leading the packhorse behind him, he found his progress through the bustle of Pavona’s slender avenues much easier, though he was often forced to bend forward when passing beneath a particularly low bridge. Despite the crowds and his slow advance through them, Pavona was a small city and Brunner soon found himself approaching the massive
stone gatehouse that loomed over the citys western gate.
As the bounty hunter drew closer to the gate, he could see the scraggly rows of mendicants and beggars squatting beside the tower. The guardsmen tolerated the wretches in exchange for a portion of their alms, another way of supplementing their wages in addition to their skim of the modest tax charged on all those seeking entry to Pavona. Yet poor and miserable as they were, sporting deformity, mutilation and the ugly sores left by the red pox and other noxious ailments, all the beggars knew better than to beseech succour from the grim horseman who marched his steed past their line. For his part, Brunner cast a perfunctory glance over the dregs, keeping his eyes peeled for any remarkable feature lurking beneath the filth and rags, something that would put a name to one of them.
The bounty hunter was somewhat surprised when one of the miserable creatures rose to its feet and stepped toward his horse. Brunner’s hand reflexively closed about the grip of his pistol, inching it slightly from its holster. If the scraggly white-headed beggar noticed the action, he was not dissuaded by it.
The man’s age was hard to guess, but he looked immensely old, his limbs thin, his hair long and matted, his beard hanging down to his belly. When he opened his mouth, he displayed a collection of blackened stumps. Foul, stinking breath escaped along with his words, increasing the wretch’s offensive smell dramatically.
‘Let me tell your fortune, sire!’ the old beggar asked in a scratchy voice. Brunner nudged Fiend away from the mendicant, seeking to pass him.
‘Sell your lies to someone stupid enough to put merit in them,’ Brunner snarled. The mendicant was determined however, stepping once more into the path of the horse.
‘Only a copper coin, master,’ the beggar said, peering up at the bounty hunter’s helm. ‘When you undertake a journey, you should see what the gods have planned. Oh yes, you should do that, yes!’ The old man fumbled at his ragged robe and removed a number of animal bones and small pond stones. With a sharp laugh, the beggar tossed the collection into the road, dropping to all fours and scrambling to where each object had fallen. The other traffic coming through the gate drew away from the deranged fortune teller, trying to give him a wide berth. In this they failed, the hooves of mules and the boots of drovers crushing many of the wretch’s divining stones into the dust. Brunner seized the opening and the man’s momentary absence to hurry his animals toward the portal.
The beggar, however, was soon trotting beside Brunner’s horse again, his face a look of imbecilic glee.
‘You set upon paths most dark, noble sire,’ the beggar declared. ‘Where you go, distrust splendour and suspect piety. Suspicion, yes! Dark things await you,’ the beggar’s voice dropped to a low whisper, ‘in Remas.’ The last word caused Brunner to turn in his saddle, meeting the old man’s gaze for the first time.
‘What did you say?’ he asked. Despite himself, the mention of Remas had intrigued him. Now he wanted to hear what else the ragged prophet might have to say.
‘You are caught in a web, bounty killer,’ the beggar hissed. ‘A web woven from darkness and Chaos. Darkness, yes! Chaos, yes! Woven by a mad spider. The spider sits at centre of his web. He feels every step those caught in the strands make. Everything caught, yes! Everything he watches, everything he draws into his plan. Oh yes, yes!’ The beggar gave voice to a short cackling laugh. ‘You’re caught in the web now, Reiklander, the spider knows you now!’
‘Who is this spider you speak of, old man?’ Brunner felt uneasy. It was possible that the old beggar had heard of him, he was certainly well known enough among the thieves and gutter trash of Tilea to be recognised as the infamous bounty hunter Brunner. But how had the man so expertly guessed the realm of his birth? Most Tileans would not know a Reikland accent from that of Talabecland, and in any event, Brunner had long ago lost the tones of his birthplace.
The beggar laughed again. ‘Ahhh, that would be telling. Telling, yes! The gods favour not humble fortune tellers revealing all before the unfolding. You need only know the spider is mad, thinks it can shape the Chaos-web of its creation to its own design. Mad little spider, yes! Thinks it can trick the Dark Gods to do its bidding.’ The old man’s voice trembled slightly as he spoke of Chaos and Dark Gods, but Brunner sensed that his faltering voice was due to excitement rather than dread. ‘Worry not, bounty killer, you will find the mad spider where you are going.’ The old man broke off into another cackle. ‘Or the spider will find you,’ he laughed.
Brunner dug a small piece of copper from a pouch on his belt and threw it down to the hoary old man. ‘Thanks for the oracle, grey one,’ he said. ‘Now I know that both spiders and snakes are in my future.’ With a contemptuous snort, Brunner edged his horse away from the fortune teller, but the beggar staggered forward once more, the copper coin forgotten in the dirt at his feet.
‘Something more. Much more, yes! A warning,’ the old man said, and this time there was a note of fear in his voice. ‘Where you go,’ the man’s voice fell into a low whisper, ‘tempt not the Mardagg.’
Brunner’s horse began to snort in alarm when the beggar whispered the final word of his prophecy, as if the animal had nearly trodden upon a serpent. It took the bounty hunter a full minute to calm his mount. When he turned about to question the beggar further, the old man was gone. Brunner cast his gaze over the ranks of the other mendicants, but the white-bearded prophet was not to be found among them.
The bounty hunter’s thoughts dwelled on the strange old beggar as he passed out from the walls of Pavona. Doomsayers and prophets were commonplace in the great cities of the Old World, deluded and crazed beggars even more so. Still, there had been something unsettling about the wretch, something that made Brunner wonder who and what the man might once have been.
The walls of Pavona began to diminish in the distance as Brunner rode through the farmlands and peasant villages that crowded outside the city, yet his thoughts were still on the old man’s strange words. What would he find in Remas, Brunner wondered?
The bounty hunter had a fair distance to travel. Remas lay to the north and east of Pavona, nearly a hundred and fifty miles as the crow might fly. But it was a much longer distance on the ground, for the roads were few and progressively more ill-tended the further from Pavona they became, marks that the land itself was no longer firmly under the domination of man. Just two days’ ride from Pavona and the only traces of civilisation were the dirt road upon which the bounty hunter travelled and the occasional ruined traces of some villa or farm house lurking just off the path. The days of peace and tranquillity had deserted Tilea, forcing the wealthy merchants from their country villas and back into the overcrowded cities. The wilds were still not quite so hazardous as those of the Empire, but there were enough unnatural things prowling the countryside to make them not so devoid of danger as they had been in ages past.
Late in the afternoon of his fifth day from Pavona, Brunner chanced upon stark evidence of the dangers presented by the Tilean country. Smoke rose lazily from a mass of charred wood and canvas strewn about the road. It soon became apparent that the wreckage was the remains of a dozen or so wagons, their cargo of sailcloth and timber consumed along with the wagons themselves. Scattered amid the wreckage were a number of rotting bodies, the wagon masters and their guards.
Brunner dismounted and inspected one of the bodies, rolling it onto its back with his steel-toed boot. The purple-faced corpse that stared up at him crawled with maggots, big black corpse-flies flitting from the body’s mouth. The skin of the slain guard was blackening, sloughing from his bones. Brunner could see a great gash in the man’s mail shirt, and it seemed to him that where the cut had been made, the metal was corroded. By the evidence of the smoke rising from the charred remains of the wagons, these men had been slain not more than a day ago. Yet the body he looked upon had the rotted look of a man weeks in the grave.
The bounty hunter stalked away from the corpse and remounted his horse. Brunner had seen such remains before, and he knew that th
e agents of such death were far fouler and more loathsome than orcs or beastmen. He did not look forward to running into such degenerates on his own.
As Brunner rode away from the scene of carnage, his eyes chanced to fall upon a body that certainly did not belong among the slaughtered men of the caravan. Clearly the murderers had not been able to enact their butchery with complete impunity; the slaughtered men of the caravan had evidently brought down at least one of their attackers. It was a bulky form in grey plate armour, great rusty chains lashed about its shoulder pads and interconnected across its chest. Gruesome, rotting trophies dangled from the chains: severed hands, tongues and even less pleasant organs. Great fat worms writhed in the decaying tissue of the trophies, filthy black things that looked like animated veins.
The warrior’s head was enclosed in a great helm fashioned like the head of a scavenger bird. The corpse flies were even thicker around the dead warrior, and rose in an irritated cloud as the bounty hunter rode nearer. As the flies took wing, Brunner could see the crude sign that was emblazoned upon the breast of the dead raider’s armour, and he felt a wave of revulsion seize his gut. It was a simple sign, three interconnected circles, each radiating a single arrow, but its power was not in its complexity, but in what it represented. It was the mark of one of the great powers of Chaos; Brunner had seen it before, in a plague-stricken district near Miragliano some time past.
The bounty hunter fought down his revulsion, spitting a blob of bilious phlegm on the dead warrior’s armour. His wary gaze considered the surrounding countryside more closely than before.
