by Death
‘So, you were an eager apprentice. I see no shame in that. You were being trained for a lifetime of holy servitude.’
Wolff shook his head and smiled. ‘But they trained me too well, you see. Unbridled faith is a dangerous dog to unleash, unless you know how to call it off. Brother Braun was summoned to Altdorf for a while and I returned to the old house.’ He gestured out through a broken window. ‘If you climbed that hill you could probably still see it, sitting smugly at the north end of the valley. Fabian was too busy chasing peasant girls to entertain his little brother, and as the summer passed I grew progressively more bored. Finally, with my parents away hunting, and the house empty, I found myself rummaging in the attics.’ He paused, and took a long breath. ‘With hindsight, the things I found were so pitifully innocent: just some wooden idols; nature gods, nothing more than that. Relics of a more innocent age, I suppose. But of course, my shining faith, as you so elegantly described it, drove me on.
‘With Braun away in Altdorf, I didn’t know where to turn. My righteous young mind was convinced their souls were in peril. I was mindless with fear, desperate to tell someone before they returned. Otto Surman was the name of my saviour.’ He looked up at Ratboy. ‘I threw myself on his mercy, much as you did mine. They told me he was a priest of Sigmar, but witch hunter would have been a more accurate description. Or maybe rabid, mindless zealot might have done better. Utterly unhinged. The worst kind of backwater tyrant. Thriving on fear like a vampire.’ He spat bitterly on the floor. ‘I betrayed my family to a monster.’
Wolff gripped the headstone and screwed his eyes tightly shut. ‘As my parents burned, the militia had to hold my brother back, or he would have torn me to pieces. He swore that if I ever stepped foot in the province again, he would rip out my heart with his bare hands.’ He looked at Ratboy with an awful, despairing grin. ‘I can still hear their cries. They begged for mercy as the flames took hold.’
Ratboy lowered his head, afraid of Wolff’s terrible gaze.
‘So you see, you’ve chosen a very poor prophet for your inspiration. I can lead no one to salvation. For these last years my faith has been no more than a useless burden. Nothing I have done in Sigmar’s name has ever eased my guilt. My pain just grew, year on year, until eventually I merely hoped to die in the most effective way possible. I thought that to sacrifice myself here might save the regiment and maybe redeem me at the same time. As soon as I saw the name of Berlau on the map, way back at the start of the campaign, I realised what a perfect symmetry it would make, to die here. I still hoped I could repay the old debt somehow.’ He gave a hollow laugh. ‘What a fool. Who could repay such a thing? Do you see? There was no occultist in my parents’ house. Just a couple of old dolls; dolls my parents had probably never laid eyes on. They burned for nothing.’ He cradled his head in his hands. ‘I saw guilt where there was only love.’
To see the priest in such despair shocked Ratboy deeply and he could think of no words of comfort. After a while he backed away, leaving Jakob to his grief. He decided to head back to the encampment and fetch help. The priest seemed utterly bereft and Ratboy feared for his sanity.
As he passed the base of the crumbling tower, however, he spotted something glittering in the dust and stopped. A metal block of some kind was sticking out of the rubble. He stooped to investigate, only to be distracted by something even more interesting. The explosion had shifted the tower’s lower stones to reveal a small staircase, leading down into the foundations of the temple. He stepped closer and realised it must have once been some kind of priest hole, now revealed for all the world to see. Intrigued, he lit a lamp and climbed down into the darkness. It was a library of sorts. Most of the abandoned temple had obviously been looted years ago, but this tiny chamber was still intact. Ratboy placed the lamp on the table and opened a book.
Months before, as a starving refugee, he had thrown himself on the mercy of the army as it marched through Ostland but the soldiers had caught him stealing food and punished him cruelly. They were men on the edge of defeat and their fear made animals of them. They spat on his tattered clothes, kicked his filthy, skinny body and christened him ‘Ratboy’. Finally, they chased him from the camp with a leather ‘tail’ nailed to his back. When Wolff found him snivelling and bleeding on the outskirts of the camp he was in a truly wretched state. The old man took pity on him and employed the boy as a servant. The priest was taciturn and ill tempered, but as the army marched on, he kept his new acolyte from harm. More than this, to Ratboy’s delight, as Wolff healed the young boy, he also taught him to read. Ratboy had surprised himself with his own aptitude and, peering now at the graceful script in front of him, he felt a familiar rush of pleasure as he began to read. It was the journal of Aldus Braun, the priest who mentored Wolff all those decades ago. Ratboy poured over the text, reliving the childhood exploits of his grizzled old master. He lost himself in Braun’s tales of his young protege, forgetting for a while the sorry state Jakob had come to.
Dates were carefully foiled on the books’ leather spines and, before leaving, Ratboy plucked a volume from a shelf to read the priest’s last words. The final entry was written in a more hurried hand than the others. It made for interesting reading:
I can live with this burden no longer. To think that the boy should spend his entire life with such guilt is unthinkable. The fault was never his and he must be told. I am riding tonight to confront the witch hunter, Surman, and demand he reveal the truth. I fully expect him to comply. It will doubtless be the end of his ‘career’ but I consider that a small price to pay for correcting such a mistake. To have burned the Wolffs on the flimsy evidence of a child was a travesty of justice in the first place, but to then discover the real occultist, and attempt to hide the truth, is beyond the pale. If Surman will not admit his mistake and reveal the true guilty party, then I will accuse him openly. I am not afraid. I have absolute faith that Sigmar himself will protect me from Surman’s hungry pyre.
I will ride out this very night to see him.
As Ratboy read and re-read the words his eyes grew wide. He snatched up the book and dashed back upstairs. ‘Jakob,’ he cried, ‘look at this.’
The priest was still crouched by the headstone, gazing into his open hands. ‘What is it?’ he muttered, taking the book. At first he flicked through the pages with a dismissive sneer on his face. ‘Braun. What a yokel he was. How little he knew of the world. Hiding out here in the comfort of his–’ As he turned to the last entry, the priest fell silent. He stood upright and held the lamp over the pages. ‘What’s this?’ he whispered, shaking his head. The colour drained from his leathery skin. ‘What’s this?’ He grabbed Ratboy by the shoulders and lifted him from his feet so that their faces were level. ‘Where did you find–’
The movement that silenced the priest was so fast Ratboy struggled to follow it.
Something flashed in the corner of his eye and he found himself on the far side of the temple, crushed against the altar, fresh blood in his eyes. He wiped his face and tried to draw a breath, but all the air had left his lungs. As he lay there, gasping, he saw Wolff stagger across the flagstones, wrapped in a vision of hell. It was the same creature Ratboy had seen earlier, but this time he could not take his eyes off it. From the furs and skulls, he guessed it must once have been the Reaver. He had witnessed the bloody champion many times, leading the enemy into battle, but he was now transformed beyond all recognition; every trace of humanity gone from him. What was once a man was now a heaving mass of charred skin, pulsating flesh and snarling, hissing jaws. As Ratboy struggled for breath, the already weakened priest struggled in vain to throw off the monster, cursing it bitterly as he staggered backwards towards the exit.
He has no weapon, thought Ratboy with horror. He forced himself to his feet and began to claw desperately around in the rubble, trying to find anything the priest could use to defend himself.
A scream came from outside. The monster had thrown the priest to the ground, thrashing him with countles
s limbs and attempting to attach one of its gaping maws to his face. Wolff was holding its deformed head at arm’s length, but he was already trembling with exhaustion.
Ratboy dashed to the priest hole, thinking he might find some kind of icon or staff.
Wolff howled in pain and Ratboy turned to see that the creature’s head was now fixed onto his neck.
He ducked down into the priest hole, but to his dismay there was nothing: just books and a desk, not so much as a quill. He groaned with despair and leapt back up the steps, deciding to fight the creature with his bare hands. As he reached the top step, he stubbed his foot on something and stopped to curse. Only then did he realise it was the same shiny object he had noticed earlier. ‘Metal!’ he gasped, and began to clear away the stones, thinking he might have found a candleholder. ‘Sigmar,’ he muttered when he realised what a treasure he had unearthed: the priest’s warhammer.
He struggled outside with it to see that the creature had climbed off the priest and was standing over him, taunting its victim. Its words were lisping and confused as they chorused through a dozen inhuman mouths: ‘Nownownow, littlelittlelittle, manman,’ it slurred as it writhed and danced gleefully over him. ‘Wherewherewhere isisis youryour firefirenownownow?’
Ratboy had intended to hand the hammer over to his master, but Wolff was barely conscious. Blood was rushing from his neck and his eyes were tightly closed in pain.
Ratboy hesitated. The monster was oblivious to him, intent on its prey as it leant closer and drew a long, sharpened bone from within its folds of flesh, all the while singing its gleeful song. ‘Wherewherewhere isisis youryour firefirenownownow?’
Ratboy tested the weight of the warhammer in his hands, unsure whether he could even swing it. I should flee, he decided. I would barely even mark the creature. It would just kill me too. He backed quietly towards the temple.
A memory halted him in his steps: a vision of kindness in the priest’s face as he nursed him back to health all those months earlier. Suddenly the weapon felt lighter. He lunged forward with all his strength, bringing the hammer down in a great sweeping arc towards the beast’s head.
The hammer connected with the misshapen skull and it collapsed inwards with a muffled crunch, as easily as a piece of damp wood. The thing’s writhing ceased and it reached up in a spasm of pain, then sank silently to the floor, dropping its bone knife at Ratboy’s feet.
Ratboy staggered backwards, shocked by his success. The warhammer suddenly regained its weight, and he let it clatter to the floor. ‘I killed it,’ he gasped, looking at his bloodied hands in disbelief. He began to giggle.
A moist popping sound silenced him and he looked down at the beast’s body in horror. In the area where he had destroyed its head, dozens of snarling mouths were quickly bursting from the bloody flesh. Ratboy reeled with shock as the mouths swelled and multiplied, each one hissing and belching merrily at him. ‘Littlelittlelittlemanmanan,’ they sang. ‘Eateateateateateateat.’
It launched itself from the floor and sent him staggering back into the temple, desperately trying to fend off its snapping jaws and flailing limbs.
Ratboy screamed for help, knowing that no one would hear him. In his panic, he barely registered the various wounds appearing all over his face and chest as the monster quickly overwhelmed him. Finally, he found himself pinned against the altar, with no place left to go. The thing pressed him firmly against the stone and placed a blackened tentacle over his mouth to silence him. A terrible stench of rotting innards filled Ratboy’s nostrils and he recognised it as the same smell that had so disturbed him earlier, outside the temple. The beast’s claws and teeth grew still as the largest of its heads stretched forward, until it was only an inch from Ratboy’s face. He could see his own silent scream reflected in the unblinking blackness of its eyes.
‘Eateateateateateat,’ it whispered to him. ‘Eateateateatthethelittlelittlemanman.’
Ratboy closed his eyes and waited for the end.
He felt the thing’s limbs tighten around his body, then its whole body grew stiff and its voices rose in pitch, turning into a furious chorus of snarls and howls. After a few seconds Ratboy opened his eyes in confusion and saw the monster’s bone knife protruding from its own glistening chest.
The creature’s limbs loosed their grip and it slid to the floor with a wheezing sound, a knife through its heart, finally dead.
Ratboy found himself face-to-face with Wolff. The old man managed to stand for a few more seconds, smiling through his pain, then he too dropped to the floor.
As the two men made their slow ascent back up through the forest, sounds of battle began to greet them: the thunder of horses crossing the plain, the lurid drone of enemy horns and the dull thud of steel against leather. Even from here though, they could tell the tide was turning. Without the Reaver to lead them, the marauders were being driven slowly back out of the valley. The long deadlock was finally broken.
Wolff paused to catch his breath, leaning heavily against a tree. Ratboy had bandaged his master’s neck as well as he could, but the cloth was already black with blood. The old priest’s face was grey and drawn with pain. The despair had faded from his eyes though; replaced with a new look of defiance. He looked down at his blistered young servant and smiled. ‘I think there was a miracle in there after all.’ He lifted his warhammer so that the metal glinted in the dappled sunlight. ‘I thought I was saving you that day, when I rescued you from the soldiers, but I think, in the end, you saved me. Thanks to you, my friend, I know my despair was needless.’ He placed a hand on Ratboy’s shoulder. ‘Come,’ he said, staggering back towards the battle.
As the priest left the trees and entered the heaving carnage of the fight, he held his hammer aloft and stood motionless for a moment, smiling up at the roiling sky as bloody figures crashed all around him, like waves breaking on a rock.
As Ratboy ran to his side, he thought he saw a light, bleeding from the old man’s skin, shining out as a beacon to those who would falter and doubt.
Noblesse Oblige
Robert Earl
The cautious scuffling was no louder than a whisper. Most men would not have heard it beneath the rumble of the ocean, or the creak of the ships at anchor, or the roar of the dockside taverns. But then, the watchman was not most men.
He had patrolled the darkness between Vistein’s warehouses for decades, and he was as alive to the rhythms of his shadowy domain as he was to the beat of his own heart. That’s how he knew when to investigate and when to remain deaf. Real criminals were one thing, but the mischief he was hearing within the windowless cube of Visgard’s grain store was quite another.
He floated over to the store’s entrance only to find it was as he remembered. The only way into the building was the narrow gap which age and usage had made between the rat-chewed timbers of the locked door and the missing cobbles of the floor beneath.
A contented smile split the watchman’s face as he stooped to examine the gap. It was too small for any but the skinniest of street children to have squeezed through. That made sense. Who else but street children would be desperate enough to risk a hanging by stealing a few handfuls of grain?
He froze as another muffled sound came from within the warehouse. It was followed by the steady hiss of sliding corn. The little thieves must have managed to get into the grain stores.
He’d make the filthy little vermin squirm before he handed them over.
He always did.
An eager grin split his features and he licked his lips as he opened the shutter on his lantern. In the flickering beam of its butter-yellow light, he selected a key and unlocked the door.
‘No point in trying to escape,’ he said, pleased with the authority that filled his voice. ‘You’re caught in the act.’
Silence.
The watchman stepped forward. Dozens of squat stone bins sat on either side of the store. The light from his lantern seemed unable to banish the oily blackness that lay between them.
; ‘I know you’re in that bin,’ the watchman said, his voice echoing back from the high vaults. ‘Come on out, now. Don’t make it worse for yourselves.’
When there was still no reply he marched over to the first of the stone bins and flung back the iron door that sealed it.
The stink that rolled out was strong enough to make him gag. As putrid as rotten fish, it had a thick, greasy tang that the watchman could taste as much as smell. He staggered back from the bin and lifted a sleeve to cover his mouth and nose.
Blinking back tears, he raised his lantern and looked into the bin. Where once there had been a healthy golden brown store of grain, now there was a black, congealed mass, a sickening porridge of rot and corruption.
Without removing his sleeve from his nose the watchman turned and selected another bin. This time he was prepared for the smell.
‘Sigmar’s blood,’ he cursed, and hurriedly slammed it closed again. He had never seen anything like this before. He wondered if it was the blight that some of the local farmers had been whining about. But how could the grain have rotted so quickly?
He never had time to give the matter another thought. As soon as he had blinked the last tears from his eyes, he realised that he didn’t have to find the thieves after all. Instead, they had found him.
There were at least a dozen of them. A dozen shapeless silhouettes, which merged indistinctly with the darkness. Some perched on top of the bins. Others lurked in the shadows between them.
Their eyes glittered, as cold as stars in the void.
The watchman felt his heart lurch, but as he squinted at the thieves his confidence returned. Despite the shadows in which they lurked, he could see that they wore the shapeless and ragged clothing of street urchins. Their hunched and twisted bodies looked wasted within their voluminous clothes, and their eyes were unnaturally bright.
