02 - Taint of Evil

by Neil McIntosh - (ebook by Undead)

  “No money.” The voice was cold and toneless, void of emotion. By now Durer had decided their quarry certainly was mad, and the realisation disappointed him a little. Perhaps this wasn’t going to be fun after all. The night was cold and his belly was griping incessantly. Perhaps they should just kill the idiot and be done with it, then strip the body of whatever they could find. Carl Durer was already starting to tire of his evening’s sport. A ride to the nearest village—even a scumhole like Mielstadt, with its sour beer and its pox-ridden bawd-house—was beginning to sound a better prospect than this.

  The tall rider turned away and took up the reins, making ready to ride on, oblivious to the men blocking his path. As he moved, the sleeve of his tunic slid up to reveal his arm. At that instant Carl Durer registered something odd about the arm—the flesh extensively bruised or stained—but it was not the flesh that caught his eye. Fixed upon the man’s wrist was a band of gold metal, the like of which Carl Durer had never seen before. He glimpsed it only momentarily, glittering under the moonlight, but for that moment it shone with a depth and lustre that told Carl he must possess it at all costs. Even if the madman was travelling without so much as a copper penny in his pockets, this would surely be an ample reward for their night’s work. Carl Durer fixed the other man with a leering, crack-toothed grin.

  “We’ll start with that little trinket there,” he said. “Give it over.”

  The rider raised his arm a fraction, as though examining the golden band by the light of the two moons. “Go on,” Durer continued, warming to his theme. “Slip it off nice and slow and maybe we’ll go easy on you.” Perhaps there was some fun to be had in this after all.

  There followed a moment of absolute stillness. The rider sitting as if frozen in the saddle, eyes fixed upon an indeterminate point in the far distance. Behind him, the barrel-shaped bulk of Erich Wahl and his sadistic brother, waiting for the command that would let the slaughter begin. In front of him, Carl Durer, the bandit king with the blood of more than fifty on his hands. And Lief, the scrawny man-boy, polishing the face of his axe upon his breeches. When they’d done, Carl decided, he’d let Lief skin him alive if he fancied it.

  Without warning, the rider suddenly brought his horse about and rode off, resuming his journey, apparently without a thought to the men barring his way. Carl spat a curse.

  “A plague on the gods!” he yelled. “We’re finished with this fooling. Cut his arm off, then bring me that gold bangle.”

  Erich Wahl drew his sword with evident relish and moved to block the path of the oncoming rider.

  Carl Durer would not have believed what happened next, had he not witnessed it with his own eyes. The fat man hefted his blade and swung it in a swift arc towards the exposed right arm of the rider. As the blow fell, the other man drew out his own sword with his left arm. It was not the speed of the answering blow that dismayed Carl Durer so much as its unimaginable force. Force enough to knock the blade clean out of Erich’s meaty grip and then keep moving, slicing the night air in an unstoppable trajectory.

  There was no howl of pain, nor bellowing of wounded rage from the fat man. Only the dull thud of an object hitting the ground, then a second, far heavier crash, as the severed head fell to earth, followed a moment later by the rest of Erich’s body.

  Carl Durer stared in paralysed disbelief at the bloody carnage seemingly wrought out of thin air before his eyes. But Kurt Wahl was not so dumbstruck. Screaming murderous vengeance, he charged full tilt towards the man who had killed his brother. The stranger kept his sword hanging down by his side, resting against the horse’s flank. There was no attempt to defend himself against the assault. He waited passively whilst Kurt bore down upon him, the flailing hooves of his horse raking clouds of ochre dust from the valley floor. The stranger still hadn’t moved when Kurt cut across his path and lashed out, delivering a sweeping blow with a sword heavy enough to cut through armour. The stranger nudged his mount to one side with a delicacy that belied the bulk of both horse and rider, dancing away from the blow. The sword-stroke sliced uselessly through thin air as Kurt Wahl shot past.

  Carl Durer glanced across at the youth sitting by his side. Lief’s bloodless face was as it ever was, as bereft of emotion as his tongue was of words. But he could read the way the battle was running as well as his master, and when Carl Durer nodded he pushed his horse forward, moving in a slow circle around the combatants like a snake closing upon its prey.

  Twice more Kurt surged forward towards the traveller, seized by an unquenchable rage, desperate to avenge the blood of his kin. Both times the result was the same, the tall stranger holding his ground, drawing the attack to him, before pulling out of range of his enemy’s blade at the last possible moment.

  Playing with him, Carl realised. Toying with the fiercest and most dangerous of his men. This was not how it had been meant to be. On the third pass, the playing came to an end. This time Kurt correctly anticipated the manoeuvre. This time his blow was on target, the sword scything down towards the other’s unprotected face. The stranger raised his sword, and met the blow, effortlessly. Steel bit upon steel. The stranger lifted his blade higher, twisting Wahl’s arm, lifting the bandit clear out of the saddle and tossing him onto the ground.

  Things moved quickly now. Before the stranger could turn his horse about to finish off Kurt, Lief took his chance, leaping from his own horse to fasten like a limpet upon the man’s back. Lief’s bird-claw nails closed around his enemy’s neck, closing off his windpipe and scouring the flesh from his throat. From the ground, Kurt saw what was happening and climbed briskly to his feet, encouraged that the tide of the battle was now turning. His optimism was rewarded with a blade that traced a perfect line from his breastbone to the line of his scalp, spitting him then paring him open like a ripe fruit. His blood mixed with his brother’s, draining into the dry earth.

  The pale boy now redoubled his efforts, trying to choke his opponent with his left arm, freeing the right to lift the axe free of his belt. Sensing the blade about to fall, the stranger twisted to shake him off, and, in the struggle that followed, both fell from the saddle on to the ground below.

  Carl Durer dismounted and strode forward smartly, sword in hand. Sport be damned, he was in no mood to fool with a madman like this. He’d cut the trinket from the fellow’s wrist whilst the two of them were still fighting, and then be off. The boy could take his chances. The figures on the ground broke apart and Lief stood up, trying to escape. As he stepped away the stranger reached out and caught hold of his arm, hauling him back. The youth turned and lashed out with the axe, but the stranger appeared to meet the blow with nothing more than his bare hand, knocking the weapon out of the boy’s grip.

  Carl watched the two figures standing in the moonlight. Lief was now battling for his life to break free of the stranger standing over him, one hand fastened upon his arm, the other cupped around the boy’s shoulders. There was a popping sound like splintering wood as the stranger broke the boy’s neck, and Lief tumbled lifeless upon the ground.

  Carl Durer launched himself at the anonymous figure, this maniac who had laid waste all three of his men in a matter of moments. As he ran, he noticed the stranger’s sword, a flash of silver in the moonlight, lying where it had fallen, well out of arm’s reach. He knew this was probably his only chance. His clumsy sword-stroke fell well wide of the mark, but the impetus of his run carried him, charging into the other man and knocking him off balance. Carl struggled maniacally to stay on his feet and keep hold of the sword. He was filled with a sudden, giddy elation that, after all, his was to be the final victory.

  The stranger started to get up again, moving with that same mechanical precision. Carl Durer aimed a heavy, satisfyingly accurate kick into the man’s chest, sending him back into the dust.

  “No you don’t, you bastard. You’ve given me quite enough trouble for one night already.” The cheap brandy had long worn off and he felt all too vividly sober, but, for all that, he was beginning to warm to
his task at last. The muscular figure shrugged off the blow and climbed off the ground a second time. Durer lashed out with his boot again. Once more the blow connected, knocking his victim back. The earth shuddered beneath the stranger’s heavy frame.

  Carl Durer stepped forward, casting a moon shadow across the outstretched body of the other man. He levered the point of his blade against the other’s chest, pressing it lightly against flesh and bone. The other man made no response.

  “Come on, then,” Carl spluttered, fighting for breath. “Let’s hear you sing.”

  The other man’s features were masked in shadow. Carl could make nothing of him beyond the profile of an angular, unshaven face. Yet, eerily, he sensed there would be no fear registering on the stranger’s face. No fear, no recognition of his now desperate plight. Not the slightest readiness to yield.

  Very well, Carl decided, let’s help him find his voice. He pressed the sword in harder against the other’s chest, turning the blade as he did so in a slow, corkscrewing motion.

  He watched the stranger’s arm lift, assumed he was ready to beg for mercy. But he assumed wrong.

  The other man locked his hand around the naked steel of Carl Durer’s blade. The bandit cried out, more in surprise than anything else, and tried to pull the blade back. But he could not twist it, could not move it at all. The stranger was holding the razor steel gripped in his bare hand, holding it as fast as a vice. Seized with a sudden panic, Carl pulled again on the sword, but the stranger tugged first, and much, much harder. Suddenly Durer was on the ground, spitting dry dust from his mouth, the sword gone from his hand.

  He lay for what seemed like an eternity, face down in the dust, his mind grappling to find answers to this impossible reversal of fortune. The only response came in the shape of a leather boot, weather-beaten and crusted with the filth of long journeying. The booted foot flipped Carl Durer over onto his back as easily as though he were a baby.

  He was now looking directly into the eyes of the man bearing down upon him: the man now carrying his sword, the man who now held his life in the balance. The dark eyes radiated a terrible strength and a harsh indifference quite unlike Carl’s own cruel greed.

  “Get up.” The voice, when at last the man spoke, was cold and distant, like an echo from a far country. Carl Durer struggled to his knees. He was powerless to resist the command, powerless to stop the tremors taking hold of his body. He knew how it would go now. He was an old hand at this. Except that now it was he who would do the begging-He looked up into the man’s face, meeting the other’s dark unyielding eyes. Still the other man seemed to look straight through him, as though his gaze was fixed upon another world. Blood oozed steadily from a weeping gash across the man’s left hand, but he seemed immune or indifferent to the pain. He’s insane, Durer guessed, but maybe I can talk him round.

  “Listen,” he began, cursing himself for his faltering voice, “let’s call it quits, eh? No hard feelings. We’d be a good team, you and me. We could clean up round these parts, easy.”

  He knelt, hand held out, waiting for a response. When it came there was no anger, no thirst for vengeance colouring the other man’s voice. Carl heard only the flat tones of the executioner, words tinged with the faintest disgust.

  “You are nothing,” the stranger said. “You are weak.”

  As the stranger drew his sword arm back, Carl Durer was granted one final sight of the amulet fastened upon his arm, the prize that he had promised to himself above all else. The polished gold sparkled in the air, as though filled with unnatural energy. For a moment Carl was filled with a sick longing, a half-glimpsed knowledge of the power the amulet could grant him, a power which would never now be his.

  He saw a second, last, glimmering as the sword passed through the air. Carl followed its shimmering arc, his body held fast by a horrified wonder. He watched the movement whilst he could, then screwed his eyes shut. He knew he had been granted his final sight of this world.

  The bounty hunter had watched the destruction of Durer’s gang with growing incredulity, a disbelieving spectator at a grotesque carnival of death. He had been edging closer to the scene of the battle, keeping well hidden beneath the cover of the trees. By the time Carl Durer spat out his last, blood-flecked breath, Lothar Koenig and the killer were no more than twenty feet apart.

  Looking on from the safety of the trees, Lothar had first thanked Sigmar for what was surely divine intervention. The stranger had proved to be far more than a distraction; without Lothar lifting a finger he was doing his work for him, whittling away the odds separating the bounty hunter from his prize. But it was clear that Durer was not going to survive, Lothar Koenig wouldn’t be taking the bandit back to Talabheim alive. He felt a rush of something like grief stab through him as he realised Carl Durer’s value would be halved by virtue of his imminent death.

  A voice inside Lothar urged him to intervene, step into claim what remained of the bandit leader, alive or dead. The traveller could have no quarrel with that. He had only been protecting himself from a murderous assault. Would he not be happy to see Durer led away, a prisoner, to face his retribution? But he held back whilst the slaughter reached its bloody conclusion, sensing that he was witnessing something abnormal, a display of berserk beauty from a cold, mesmerising force. He held back, yet he knew that he could not delay indefinitely. If he could not have Durer alive, then he must have him dead. His body, delivered intact for a bounty of eighty crowns. That was the deal, and he knew his grieving yet fastidious patron would brook no other arrangement.

  Wait, Lothar told himself. Wait until the other man has climbed back into the saddle. Give him time to be on his way. He has no business with you. But now he was moving forward through the trees, moving from shadow into the stark light cast by the watching moons. Moving towards confrontation with the all-conquering warrior. Later he would say to himself that it was determination that drove him on. Who was to say that the madman would not butcher Durer’s dead body, every frenzied blow from his sword devaluing what was righty his—Lothar Koenig’s—property. He had not come so far to be denied his rightful bounty.

  But, even as the other man turned, almost casually, at the sound of his footsteps upon the stony path, Lothar knew that it was greed that had brought him to this moment of recklessness. Greed, and the knowledge of what certain people—the right people—might pay to possess a creature such as this, a killing machine the match of any mercenary Lothar had ever seen.

  A thousand possibilities were tumbling through Lothar Koenig’s mind as the two men came face to face. To the value of Carl Durer’s corpse he now added a sum at least double that for the bounty he might earn, if he could but take the warrior captive. Could he take the man alive? Of course he could. He was Lothar Koenig. Not just a bounty hunter. He was the bounty hunter. The best. He would find a way. He always did.

  Then Lothar looked into the eyes of the other man, and, in that moment, all of his imaginings crumbled away. It was he, not the other man, who was mad. Mad to ever think he would have a chance of pulling this off.

  Lothar Koenig’s hand moved towards the hilt of his sword, then dropped away. Almost by instinct he raised both arms in a gesture of conciliation and contrition.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, aware of how stupid his words now sounded. “I mean you no harm. That man—” he pointed towards the bloodied carcass that was all that remained of Carl Durer. “I need the body, that’s all. Just the body.”

  The traveller glanced briefly in the direction of Durer’s body, then turned towards Lothar Koenig. His face was unshaven, weathered by what looked like many weeks upon the road, but his eyes burned bright with a hungry fire. Lothar saw in that face neither good nor evil, only power. Unassailable power. The stranger gazed at him without favour or pity, and his features formed into something that might have been a smile. There was a moment of stillness as the stranger paused, as though listening to a distant sound, a voice that spoke to him alone. Then he raised his sword, and polished th
e blade slowly against the fabric of his tunic. Lothar saw the burnished gold of the amulet, but it was what lay beneath that held him transfixed. In the shadows the man’s arm had appeared almost black covered with a vivid bruise. But now he saw that it was no bruise. Almost the entire length of the man’s lower arm was covered in some kind of tattoo, a tableau of runes and images etched upon the killer’s skin.

  As the killer raised his sword, the images began to move, suddenly animated with a life of their own. Figures came together in combat the dark hues of the tattoo suddenly flushing blood red. With a sudden shock of recognition, Lothar realised he was watching a re-enactment of the battle with the bandits, and the death of Carl Durer.

  Lothar Koenig took a step back and looked around for any aid or refuge amongst his surroundings. Finding none, he sought a last, desperate comfort from his thoughts. We all have to die, he reminded himself again. We all have to die sometime.

  But, in the final moment of truth, he found that the words held no comfort at all.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Rough Justice

  For some reason, Stefan Kumansky found he was not, after all, very hungry. They had been on the road for weeks, travelling through the northern marches of Ostermark, the barren wilderness that straddled the borders of the Empire and Kislev. Much of that time, living off what little could be taken from the land, he had sustained himself with dreams of feasts to come once they returned to what passed for civilisation round these lonely parts. Now, seated at their table in the tiny inn, he and Bruno finally had hot food in front of them, and Stefan found he wanted none of it. It might have been the wretched food itself—though there had been times on the trail when he’d have eaten just about anything. More likely it was the nagging ache of disappointment in his gut that had dulled his appetite.

  Stefan took another spoonful of the thin, oily gruel and spat a knot of gristly meat back onto the table. Save for a few other drinkers—a group of labourers making a poor job of pretending not to stare at the two swordsmen—the inn was deserted. From the ramshackle look of the place, it hardly ever saw any custom. With food like this, it was hardly surprising. Stefan slid the bowl towards his companion.