Necromancer

by Jonathan Green - (ebook by Undead)

  Only Dieter and Katarina attended the brief funeral service, which was taken by Engels with the sexton Josef standing by. The threatening clouds gave up their rain at last, as if Morr himself mourned the passing of his servant, even if no one else in Hangenholz publicly did. Albrecht had been a black-hearted old curmudgeon after all, and Dieter would be the first to admit it.

  The day of the funeral had been and gone, and Dieter had shed no more tears. Katarina, on the other hand, was devastated. Keeping house for her father, shunned by most of the villagers for being the priest’s flesh and blood, might not have been much of a life but it had been the only life she had known for so many years. And at this time of crippling grief she clung to it still.

  But Dieter’s soul was troubled too. For what seemed like his whole life he had wanted to become a healer, that he might alleviate the suffering of others. It had become the sole purpose in his life. It was his reason for being and now he had failed to fulfil the vow he had sworn himself. And if he was a failure in his chosen profession, then his life meant nothing. Medicine was as much a vocation to him as service to Morr had been to his father.

  Perhaps things might have been different if he had somehow reached Hangenholz sooner, if he had tried a different cure, if he had not lacked the necessary skills to revive his feather, if he had been a better physician. Despite all the hours of study, it had not been enough. Perhaps it was the old methods that had failed him. It was as if he had been as impotent to prevent his father’s death as he had been to do anything to save his mother all those years before, the very failure that had set him on the path to become a physician.

  Perhaps it was the practice of medicine that needed to find another way. Perhaps the guild’s tried and tested methods were now out-dated and not progressive enough if he were to be able to ease people’s suffering and save them. But whatever the case, Dieter himself had been found wanting, and however he set about achieving it, if his life was to be of any consequence whatsoever, he had to train harder, put in longer hours, and become a better doktor. And to do that he had to learn as much as he possibly could, so that the same thing would not happen again. He had to return to Bögenhafen and, for the time being at least, the physicians’ guild.

  Dieter’s suggestion that Katarina return with him was met with a furious refusal. Now sixteen, she acted as much the part of widow as that of grieving daughter. But then she was filled with remorse and kissed her brother and said that she would be thinking of him every day, looking forward to the day when he would return.

  At that moment Dieter vowed, once again, that he would return to the village of his birth when he had finished his studies, and practise medicine there. No longer would their family name be synonymous with death in Hangenholz; he would make it a new association with life!

  Dieter spent the subsequent week in Hangenholz putting their father’s affairs in order. But on the thirty-second of the month, the day before Dieter was due to return to Bögenhafen, he received a shock almost as momentous and life-changing as that of his father’s death, when the Notary Wilhelm Krupster knocked on the door of the Heydrich house.

  It appeared that the life of a priest of Morr, being responsible for the offerings made to the temple of Morr, was not without its benefits. His father had been a frugal man; those of an unkind disposition might even have said miserly.

  But their father’s frugality was now to prove of benefit to his orphaned offspring. Dieter found himself master of his father’s fortune, a not inconsiderable amount of money. So, having made sure that his sister was comfortably accommodated for, he set off for Bögenhafen the following morning, on the last day of Pflugzeit, considerably better off than he had been when he’d arrived in Hangenholz.

  Now he was a man of means and life in decadent Bögenhafen had taught him that there was little that money could not buy, even with regards to knowledge. And it was a well-known tenet that with knowledge came power; the power to determine the course of one’s life rather than be tossed about on the fickle currents of fate. With money to his name, a man might remake his world.

  SIGMARZEIT

  The Corpse Takers

  I have always wondered why it is that the living so fear the dead. Why do people fear the soulless cadavers? What reason can there be? Unless the dead have been given back some mocking semblance of life by a necromancer’s conjurations, what can they do? What danger can they possibly pose? How can they threaten a person of living, breathing flesh and blood?

  And also, why do people fear body snatchers so? If they believe that their eternal souls go on to a better place after they die, what does it matter what happens to the rotting husk that was once their body? Why should they care?

  The dead should not be feared for there is much the living can learn from them. It could be argued that if it were not for the resurrection men then medical science’s understanding of the human body and its ailments could not have advanced as far as it has. But then the same could be said of the necromantic arts.

  But is the truth of it that society’s fear of those who despoil graves and desecrate charnel houses is born of their doubts regarding their supposed faith? Is it because they secretly do not believe what they are taught in temples and chapels throughout the principalities and provinces of the Empire? Is their fear really born of the failing that they really believe that there is nothing beyond this existence, except a horrific eternity in the grave, and anything that would disturb that would merely make that hellish non-existence infinitely worse?

  The stagecoach rattled and rumbled through the encroaching Sigmarzeit night, the lanterns swinging at the corners of its roof beside the driver’s seat seeming to leave trails of flickering flame behind them in the deepening darkness. The driver, Gustav Haltung, was hunched over the reins, his travelling cloak wrapped tight about him, his wide-brimmed hat pulled down tightly over his head. The seasons might be on the turn again, but the nights still bore spring’s chill touch.

  The coach sped along the rutted road between the shadows of trees encroaching on the track. It passed a roadside milestone that, if it had been light enough to see, the driver would have read in lichen-patterned carved gothic letters that there were only two miles remaining to Bögenhafen.

  Gustav lashed the panting pair of horses with the reins and a shout of, “Yah!” The animals’ hooves drummed against the compacted surface of the road, beating their own tattoo in counterpoint to the creaks and groans of the carriage itself. They were on the home stretch and Gustav didn’t want anything befalling them now that they were so close to their destination.

  He was eager to reach the safety of the town as quickly as possible. It didn’t do to be out after dark, if it could be helped, even in this pocket of civilisation of the Reikland. If it hadn’t have been for the pale, intense young man’s added incentive, he would have stopped at Vagenholt for the night and finished the last leg of the journey to Bögenhafen the next morning.

  Beneath the driver’s position, a glimmer of lantern light escaped the inside of the carriage from between the thick, moth-eaten velvet drapes drawn shut across its windows, barely even hinting at the discomfort the customers of the Four Seasons Company might be suffering within.

  The lantern hanging from the roof of the coach’s interior swung crazily as the vehicle bounced along the road, throwing wild shadows across the faces of the passengers.

  Just as the last time he had travelled to Bögenhafen, Dieter was not the only passenger on board the stagecoach, although this time it was he who had paid the driver the tip to get them back to the town as quickly as possible. He had tarried too long in Hangenholz; he would be getting behind with his studies. Hence it was that rather than stop at the staging post hamlet, they had kept on into the encroaching dark towards Bögenhafen.

  Sitting opposite Dieter was a man of law clutching a scratched and scuffed leather satchel, not unlike Dieter’s own battered scrip. The lawyer was well into middle age, his beard grey and teased to a point. He had appar
ently been summoned from Altdorf to defend a merchant accused of unnatural and debauched acts by the Templars of Sigmar.

  Sitting next to Dieter was a man in his late twenties who appeared to be a collection of contradictions. He looked like he might very well have come from aristocratic stock but he travelled with the minimum of luggage and had no servant in attendance. He appeared to be a dandy for he wore the clothes of the latest fashion—a frill-wristed shirt, tightly fitting, gold-buttoned doublet, red velvet duelling cape, linen trousers and calfskin boots—but the blade he carried at his waist was a heavy, soldier’s sword and certainly no duelling rapier. The dandy wore his hair in a ponytail tied back with a ribbon and had a close-cropped, carefully-cultivated goatee beard, but his face bore the scars of a life lived at the rough end, on the borders of civilisation or even beyond them. He looked like he would be equally at ease within the Imperial court as he would be battling trolls at the World’s Edge Mountains.

  Dieter had not ventured to discover any more about his fellow passengers beyond what little he had gleaned by their appearance and what information they had volunteered themselves. When the lawyer had asked the black-robed, pale young man with unkempt, raven-dark hair and an intense look in his eyes what his business was in Bögenhafen, Dieter had replied simply, and honestly, that he was a student of the physicians’ guild there. He had offered no more.

  For the most part, Dieter was lost in his own thoughts as he tried to resolve the many different conflicting thoughts and feelings raging within him. It was still only twelve days since his father had died and Dieter was still in mourning—as much for his sister’s loss as for the hole that he felt had opened up inside him.

  It had been three days since he had left Hangenholz and, with the second day of Sigmarzeit coming to an end, he was almost back in Bögenhafen where he could put behind him all that had happened over the last two weeks. For back in Bögenhafen he could pretend that nothing had happened at all.

  Gustav peered into the night from beneath the brim of his hat. The walls of the town rose out of the darkness, black against the velvet blue of night, their battlements limned with moonlight.

  Half a mile away to his right he thought he saw the orange flicker of lantern light, but in that direction there lay only the town cemetery. Perhaps Morr’s priest was working late this night, preparing another body for burial; there would certainly be a steady stream of townsfolk requiring his attentions and blessings before they made their final journey into Morr’s twilight kingdom.

  Then, the gleam of metal on the road ahead of the coach. Two figures, both on foot, were standing in the middle of road. Gustav’s heart skipped a beat. But then a calm warmth passed through his agitated body. They were flagging the stagecoach down and, as the carriage neared them, Gustav could see that they were wearing the uniforms of Imperial roadwardens: armoured hauberks and visor-helms over leather jerkin and britches. Practically level with them now, he could also see that one of them was holding a warhammer casually over his shoulder. The other had an unsheathed sword in his right hand.

  Gustav reined in the sweating horses. “Evening, officers,” he said, smiling nervously. “What can I do for you on a night like this?”

  The squatter and sturdier of the two patrolmen, the one with the sword, sauntered up to the stagecoach and the driver’s position, whilst his companion approached from the other side, hefting the heavy hammer in both hands.

  “I don’t know if it’s so much what you can do for us,” the roadwarden said in a lazy voice, “as what your passengers can do for us.”

  It was only then that Gustav noticed how poorly fitting the wardens’ uniforms were and how tarnished, and ill-cared for, their armour.

  “Driver, why have we stopped?” a voice came from inside the carriage. Gustav recognised it as the man of law’s.

  “Now you just get down and don’t cause us any trouble and we’ll let you live.” The highwayman raised his sword and poked it at Gustav.

  The coach driver glanced to his left at the taller of the two opportunist scoundrels who was getting closer to the carriage door on the other side.

  “What sort of cargo are you carrying tonight then?” the talkative highwayman asked. His tone was unpleasantly jovial and he treated Gustav to a broken, gap-toothed smile. The tip of his sword never wavered from its position at his stomach.

  Gustav said nothing in reply. Deep down he had known that he should have stopped at Vagenholt. He shouldn’t have travelled at night, not without an additional guard on the coach. He would be lucky to keep his job now, that was if he even escaped from this with his life. He needed to do something about the situation and quickly.

  “Why don’t we just take a little look, eh?” The more gangly of the highwaymen snickered and, adjusting his grip on the hammer, put a hand to the handle of the carriage door.

  Dieter turned his head to the left as all inside the carriage heard the door open. The dandy, who was closest to that side of the carriage, put a hand to the sword sheathed at his side.

  The door was opened fully and the ugly, stubble-bristled face of a roadwarden appeared in the space beyond.

  “Well, well, what have we here?” the patrolman slurred.

  “Look here, what’s going on?” the lawyer demanded.

  Dieter wasn’t able to answer that question but there was certainly something not quite right about this roadwarden patrol, they could all sense the wrongness of it.

  “Ambush!” the driver’s voice came down from the roof of the carriage above them, confirming all their suspicions.

  Then several things happened very quickly, within seconds of each other.

  Without saying a word the gentleman swordsman was suddenly out of his seat. He grabbed the carriage door with both hands and yanked it shut. Startled, the roadwarden himself let go and stumbled forwards, the weight of the warhammer in his other hand helping to unbalance him.

  An instant later, the soldier of fortune forced the door open again, ramming it directly into their would-be robber’s face. Dieter thought he heard a crack as the man’s nose broke.

  There was a shout of “Yah!” and the pistol-crack of leather reins being cracked.

  The swordsman was half through the door, ready to finish the idiot highwayman, when the carriage lurched forward again, the horses neighing in distress. Wrong-footed and sent off balance himself, sword now in hand, the man fell headlong out onto the road.

  The lawyer gasped and leant forward as if to help the other. Dieter, who was already half out of his seat, fell backwards, his elbow hitting the door handle behind him and pushing it down. That door then opened too and Dieter tumbled backwards out of the coach. Fortunately for him he landed on the soft verge at the edge of the road, rather than the harder, stonier surface of the highway itself.

  His scrip, which he still clutched reassuringly to himself, came with him. Dieter rolled over amidst thick tufts of grass, wet with night-dew, ending up almost on his knees. The turf was soft beneath his feet and hands as he pushed himself up into a crouch.

  The coach rumbled away down the road before coming to an abrupt halt again. Slowly and yet with the inevitability of a felled tree, the coach driver toppled out of his seat and crashed onto the road; doing nothing to break his fall. He lay there motionless. The sword-wielding brigand was still standing where the coach had been moments before, his blade now held at his side as if he had just made a thrust with it, looking at his victim’s body.

  Dieter knew that the driver was dead. Having goaded the horses forward to get the stagecoach and its passengers away from the bogus roadwardens, the highwayman had lunged at the driver, managing to deliver a fatal blow. And then, just like that, the poor wretch was dead. The driver’s brave attempt at facilitating an escape had resulted in his own premature death.

  Dieter could hear the lawyer, still inside the carriage, yelping in fear and panic. The bandit could hear him too. He jogged over to the now stationary coach and then disappeared from view as he climbe
d on board. Dieter heard loud protests followed by an angry muffled exchange, which finished abruptly with a chilling womanly scream. Dieter closed his eyes tight, a cold chill seeping through his body, biting his own tongue to stop himself crying out in terror as well. The killer had added another coldblooded murder to his list of crimes.

  The terrified physician’s apprentice opened his eyes again. If he kept them shut for too long it could spell his own end. A ragged shroud of cloud moved away from the face of the moon Mannslieb, bathing the scene on the road in its unearthly, silvery light.

  Across the road from him, Dieter could see the swordsman sprawled in the dirt. The leaner bandit wobbled over him, blood pouring in a thick dribble from his nose, still unsteady on his feet, reeling from the blow to the face he had received. The dandy swordsman appeared to be injured as well. He was having trouble moving one leg—had he twisted his knee, or sprained it?—and couldn’t get to his feet. At the same time he was trying to bring his sword to bear, to defend himself as the brigand was still managing to raise the hammer above his head, ready to strike.

  Dieter froze, laying himself flat in the long wet grass at the side of the road. No matter how skilled at arms he might be with his sword or how many foes and horrors he might have bested in his life, an unhappy accident and cruel fate were going to bring about his demise. The only one who could do anything to help him now was him, and he was too terrified to do anything.

  The hammer crashed down. Dieter heard the sickening crunch quite clearly.

  The cry the swordsman gave out was like that of a wounded animal rather than a sound that Dieter would have thought a human being was capable of making.

  Dieter felt his gorge rise in his mouth. He swallowed hard, trying to keep the contents of his stomach down. The swordsman rolled over onto his back, holding up the broken mess of his sword arm, the hand flopped backwards, the fingers twitching spasmodically. The man’s sword lay on the road out of reach, useless.