by C. L. Werner
‘I’ll second that,’ shuddered a tall mercenary, his face framed by the close-fitting cheek-guards of his Tilean-style barbute helm. ‘I’ve drunk with ogres that were better company.’
Zelten considered his fellow mercenaries for a moment, then rose from his camp chair. ‘If that Chaos warband is still about, you’ll be glad to number him with us,’ he stated. ‘That caravan we passed today was twice our size. If fortune betrays us and we run afoul of those marauders, you’ll be glad of every sword.’ So saying, Zelten departed, to seek his own bed. Schtafel watched his captain go.
‘The captain can think what he likes,’ the marksman confided to his companions. ‘But I’ll feel better the further I am from that bastard.’
II
Behind the thick stone walls of Remas, among the clustered warehouses, tenements, inns, taverns, shops, palazzos, temples and barracks, innumerable shadowy, hidden places existed, forlorn refuges for thieves, murderers and men guilty of still darker crimes. In one of these secret places, a single candle burned, its flame dancing in the pitch black all around it.
A figure moved within the tiny circle of light cast by the lone candle. Soft hands, their fingers long and thin, worked within the light, moving with an almost inhuman grace. The hands performed long sweeps above the floor, with each movement allowing a trickle of dark powder to fall upon the rough stones. As the hands continued to weave their invisible, intangible pattern, the trickle of dust described the movements upon the stones. By degrees, the shape of an octagon began to form. When the shape had become firmly established, when the last trace of the powder had fallen from the cupped fists of the hands, the figure drew away from the light. The crinkle of rustling cloth sounded within the dark, secret place as the shadow rummaged about in the blackness. Soon the opening and closing of some box with a ponderous wooden lid added to the rustle of the garments. Then the hands appeared once more in the flickering candlelight.
Now the hands did not hold something so insubstantial as powder. The left was closed about the hilt of a wavy-bladed copper dagger, the blade defaced by a gruesome skull totem set close to the guard of the knife. The other was closed about something even more unsettling: a tiny, struggling grey-furred form. It might have been a field mouse once, before corruption had settled into its flesh and bone. Now it was a disgusting thing, two scaly heads squirming against the fingers that held it, a long tail bearing suckers like an octopus curling about the wrist of the hand. The mutant thing had no voice and continued its struggles in silence. Those struggles ceased entirely when the copper dagger slashed through both its throats in one swift motion.
The dead aberration spilled its corrupt sapphire-hued blood into the centre of the octagon. Instantly the steaming blue liquid began to disperse, running in straight lines to each point of the octagon. Where bare stone had been before, now a crude arrow had formed. The blood of the slain mutant began to glow, shifting colours as it grew in brilliance, fading from red to green then to blue once more.
Steam began to rise from the unnatural blood, forming into a cloud of weirdly glowing smoke. As the smoke changed colours, a hazy image began to form within it, a small caravan encampment somewhere in the wilderness of Tilea’s countryside. The conjurer could see that the wagons had been formed into a barricade to protect the wagon masters, their beasts and their wares from the night. Mercenary soldiers patrolled the perimeter of the camp, wary eyes studying the dark for any sign of danger. Yes, there was danger here. The caravan was destined for Remas. There was a man in the camp who could prove dangerous if he were to reach the city, dangerous to the magic-maker’s schemes. He should have dealt with him before, but had always hesitated to do so. Now there would be no more doubt, and no more delay.
A pale hand swiped at the swirling smoke. The image faded, the smoke bubbled like boiling soup as it congealed to show a new scene, the shape of an immense armoured warrior, slumped against a rotting log. The magic-maker’s head nodded as the image took form, pleased by what had been revealed. From the darkness, soft words whispered. The warrior stirred slightly as the words intruded upon his dreams. The magic-maker spoke again, the words becoming more forceful. The armoured warrior shook his head, the grotesque insect-like helm shaking as the conjurer’s words consumed and supplanted his dreams. The words stopped flowing and the caster smiled once more. All that had been needed to be done this night had been accomplished.
The pale hands moved within the yellow glimmer of the candle once more. This time they moved only twice above the octagon and the glowing cloud hovering above it. Then the left hand dropped a silver coin into the centre of the octagon. Instantly, the mist vanished, as though it had never been. A terrible chill filled the dark chamber, blowing out the feeble candle. It was the icy cold of unclean, fathomless reaches, of places beyond the confines of time and substance, the chill of ancient and inhuman evil. The conjurer paid the chill no notice, for many times had he felt its touch. He relit the candle, and bore it away as he made his way through the silent, benighted passages that led away from this secret, profane place.
The caravan decamped in the small hours before dawn. By first light the wagons were once more under way, their mercenary guards walking alongside. Ahead of the wagons, the few mounted members of the mercenary band rode ahead of the column.
Beside them rode Brunner, though his inclusion in the marching order had drawn a number of complaints from some of the mercenaries, chiefly the crossbowman Schtafel, but the protests had been overruled by Zelten. Again, the captain pointed out to his men that they would appreciate every sword if they were set upon by raiders. However, the captain’s words were not enough to keep suspicious eyes from glaring at the bounty hunter, nor nervous fingers from staying close to the hilts of knives and swords.
Zelten rode beside Brunner, as much to forestall any impetuous act on the part of one of his men as to assure his soldiers that he was keeping a watchful eye on the bounty hunter. For his part, Brunner seemed to pay no notice to the quiet hostility around him, his keen eyes scanning the stands of trees, patches of thick brush and piles of boulders that dotted the landscape.
‘You expect trouble?’ the mercenary asked, trying to follow the direction of the bounty hunter’s ever shifting gaze.
‘I always expect trouble,’ Brunner replied, not looking at Zelten. ‘It’s what keeps me alive.’
Zelten smiled, clearly having expected such a response from the hired killer. ‘We made a thorough search of the site of the massacre. One of my men used to be a game warden on the estates of Count Capritti of Luccini. He reckons there were about fifty in the warband that hit the other caravan.’
Brunner nodded his head, eyes still scanning the trees. Zelten noticed that the bounty hunter’s hand lay upon the grip of his pistol, gloved fingers slowly drumming on the polished wooden frame of the gun. ‘That sounds about right. It would take at least that many to hit a caravan of that size and prevent anyone from escaping.’
‘Fifty,’ Zelten said, as if considering the number. ‘We have about that many among us.’ The mercenary snorted a humourless laugh. ‘Of course, that includes the labourers and wagon masters. Our actual fighting strength is nearer to thirty-five.’ Zelten laughed again. ‘Of course, a few of my men are worth more than most I’ve fought beside. Horst, for instance, is worth five men on his own.’
‘That might count for something,’ Brunner replied, his voice grim, ‘if we were worried about fighting men. But what destroyed that other caravan long ago abandoned any right to call themselves human.’
‘I’ve fought the servants of the Dark Gods before,’ Zelten commented, his tone somewhat defensive. ‘I know all too well what to expect from their kind.’
Brunner faced the mercenary for the first time.‘I’ve dealt with their kind as well, often enough to know one thing. Where Chaos has extended its hand, you can never know what to expect.’
It was an hour after sunrise when they saw the raiders. The keen eyes of the bounty hunter noticed th
em just as the foremost of Zelten’s riders did, the swarthy former game warden Guglielmo. The Tilean turned around in his saddle shouting a warning to the rest of the column. The mercenaries began hastily readying themselves for conflict, breaking into small groups of four: three men armed with spears or swords providing support and protection for a fourth man armed with either a crossbow or a long-barrelled black powder weapon. The wagons tried to manoeuvre themselves into a defensive wedge behind the groupings of mercenaries, but it was taking the wagoners time to force their animals to obey, despite the orders and curses being shouted by the merchant Emiliano Tacca.
Ahead of the column, at the top of a small rise, a cluster of armed shapes could be seen, numbering at least a score. They had been hidden from view until the caravan had rounded the last rock pile, yet they were still far enough away for Zelten’s marksmen to knock down their numbers before the raiders would be able to reach the formation. Or perhaps not, the bounty hunter reconsidered as he noticed the nature of their foes. Most of them wore armour, and lots of it, though Brunner knew from experience that even the thickest armour was no proof against a bullet, nor certain protection from a close-fired crossbow bolt. And he suspected, these were no normal men, but vile followers of corruption and pestilence. Their flesh would be bloated, puffy with disease and corruption. Followers of the plague god were almost immune to pain, even more so than orcs and their ilk. Their necrotic flesh was largely eaten away by disease, there was little left of them that could be injured or hurt. The fire of Zelten’s marksmen would have to be very good, for only a kill-shot would bring one of these degenerates down.
‘Prepare to repel attackers!’ Zelten called out in strong, harsh tones. The mercenary captain brandished his sword overhead, waving it like a standard. ‘Let’s make them regret taking on Zelten’s Dragons!’ The officer’s words were greeted with whooping war cries from his men. The other horsemen readied their own weapons, forming a line before the infantry. Zelten gave orders to the other cavalry to stand their ground until the raiders had come halfway across the gap between them. The idea was to give the marksmen as much time as possible to whittle down the numbers of their attackers. Then the cavalry would strike the weakened enemy, holding them back for the marksmen to gain still a few more opportunistic shots before their enemies could reach the small infantry formations.
Brunner watched as the armoured warriors upon the rise began to advance, setting up a fierce howl of devotion to their profane god. The keen eyes of the bounty hunter studied the ranks of the hideous Chaos warriors.
‘I count thirty-two,’ the bounty hunter observed.
Zelten nodded his head as the first volley of fire struck the armoured raiders. Four of the warriors were hit, one of them dropping his halberd as a bullet exploded his unarmoured shoulder, another falling with a bolt through his neck. The other two just shrugged off the attack; whether the bolts had failed to penetrate their armour or whether they had simply failed to hit a vital area, it was impossible to say. The crippled warrior tossed his heavy shield aside and retrieved his weapon from the ground, gripping it in his other hand.
‘They seem to be taking their own time about getting over here too,’ commented Zelten. The mercenary shouted at one of the other horsemen. ‘They’re baiting us!’ he told the horseman, the same old veteran who had produced the flask the previous evening. ‘Leave Horst here with me and take the rest of the horse to the rear. Be ready for an ambush!’
The veteran saluted with a sharp, precise gesture more befitting one of the Empire’s knightly orders than some ragtag Tilean mercenary company. The old warrior barked orders to the other horsemen and at once they were racing to the rear of the column. Left behind, the bear-like Horst swung his heavy flail back and forth beside his horse, clearly eager to crack an enemy’s skull with the brutal weapon. Zelten watched them go, then turned his attention forward. He was slightly surprised to notice that the bounty hunter was still at his side.
‘Not joining the rearguard?’ he asked. Brunner continued to watch the plague warriors advance as another volley struck their ranks. Once again, only one of the armoured warriors fell, though this time the other warriors struck seemed to notice their injuries a bit more. The marksmen had learned where to place their shots after the first barrage.
‘I think the real action is going to be up here,’ Brunner commented, drawing his pistol. ‘Even if your bearded bear is worth five men, I think you’ll need me here.’
‘You don’t think the rest of them are planning an ambush?’ Zelten asked, a worried note in his voice. There were any number of reasons why the number of their enemies was so low. The rest of the warband might be watching another part of the road, lying in reserve, or perhaps they had simply overestimated how many of them there could be. However, the deliberate hesitance of the raiders’ advance could only be evidence of some subterfuge.
‘Oh, they are going to spring something on us,’ Brunner commented as a third salvo struck the plague warriors, this time felling two of the diseased madmen. ‘But this is where the main assault is going to be.’ Brunner nodded his head toward the slowly advancing ranks of armoured reavers. ‘I suspect these are his good troops. The ambush is a double-bluff to draw your best troops elsewhere. The real attack is going to be here.’
Zelten cursed, the hand gripping the reins of his steed slapping his leg in frustration. ‘Damn it man, why didn’t you say so before I sent the cavalry back!’
‘Because if you hadn’t, we won’t be able to draw out their leader,’ replied Brunner in a cold voice. ‘Bringing him down is going to be the only way to rout this vermin. Do that…’ the bounty hunter’s words trailed off as he noted a horseman appear at the top of the rise.
The horseman was surrounded by a cloud of flies, leaving no doubt as to his allegiance. The horse itself looked like something that had been rotting in a field for upwards of a week. Clumps of fur had fallen out, exposing sickly green skin. Great pustules clumped about its neck, trailing off towards its belly, open sores wept yellow filth from each of its legs. Leather barding studded with spikes of rusting steel and bronze covered the diseased animal, a mask of leather enclosing its entire head, save for its drooling, black-toothed mouth and rheumy eyes.
Atop the plague steed was an even more disordered apparition, a huge shape in a grimy suit of plate armour, the green, corroding metal covering every inch of the rider, baring not the slightest portion of the form within. The armour itself was green with corrosion, grimy rust-like crust dripping from every edge or join upon the pieces of steel plate, as though the metal had become contaminated by whatever disease the vile plague god had seen fit to gift his servant. Visible between the rotting trophies that dangled from thick leather cords fastened to studs on the warrior’s shoulder guards, the interlinked circle symbol of the Grandfather of Pestilence could be seen etched across the breastplate of the armour.
The helmet that rose above the breastplate was fashioned in the shape of some noxious insect, numerous tiny holes in the bulging eyes of the insect mask allowing the warrior within to see the world upon which he preyed. Gripped in the gauntlet of the bloated Chaos champion was a huge sword, its blade pitted with decay, clotted encrustations of blood and brain staining the length of the giant weapon.
Brunner saw the rider, swearing under his breath. ‘Pulstlitz!’ he snarled. Zelten glanced over at the bounty hunter as he heard Brunner name the Chaos rider. It had been nearly a year since Brunner had crossed swords with the filthy plague knight. The bounty hunter was not looking forward to repeating the experience.
Zelten roared an order back at his men. ‘Concentrate your fire on the leader!’
‘Keep firing on the foot soldiers!’ Brunner snarled, his voice riding the echo of Zelten’s order. ‘Foul magics watch over that bastard, don’t waste your shots on him!’ After a moment of indecision, the marksmen opened fire again, still directing their shots at the slowly advancing plague warriors. Zelten cast a suspicious look at the bounty hun
ter, but did not protest his countermand of his orders.
Pulstlitz stared down at the battlefield for a moment, then lifted his sword overhead, swiping it through the air and the cloud of flies hovering about him. Then the plague knight charged, barrelling down the slope of the rise. As he did so, the slowly advancing foot soldiers broke into a run, roaring their profane war cries. The war cries were answered from a large pile of rocks behind and a few score yards to the right of the caravan. A motley mob of enraged, howling creatures scrambled out from the cover of the rocks. They wore little armour, many of them were just scrawny, sickly peasants with rusted swords and axes, but mixed among their numbers were a half-dozen or so larger loping shapes, filthy fur hanging in mangy strips from their twisted bodies, massive horns rising above their bestial heads. In all, the ambushers added another thirty to the numbers of the caravan’s attackers.
The spirits of the mercenaries faltered as they saw the diseased mob sprinting toward them. Many of the wagoners gave cries of horror and despair, leaping down from their seats and racing to escape the beset convoy. The mercenaries watched them flee with contempt. They were not any more hopeful about their chances, but to a man they would prefer to die standing their ground and smiting their enemies rather than cringing in the woods to be hunted down and slaughtered like an animal once the battle was over.
‘Sigmar watch over us!’ grunted the bear-like Horst, making the sign of the hammer with the hand that gripped his horse’s reins.
