02 - Sacred Flesh

by Robin D. Laws - (ebook by Undead)

  “Are you deciding what you think,” Angelika asked, “or working out the best way to say it?”

  “I will say this.” Franziskus said. “They should have known what the result would be, when they confronted you.”

  “But still you think I should go back with my tail between my legs and beg for the chance to protect them?”

  “I think they need looking after. Maybe Richart can keep them safe. Though he doesn’t know the pass, he seems to have a head on his shoulders. And he can fight.”

  “I’m not so sure he doesn’t know the pass.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He was a more experienced woodsman than he let on.”

  “Why would he pretend otherwise?”

  Angelika shrugged. “Doesn’t matter now.”

  A peculiar sound issued from the woods to their right. They froze. It sounded like painful, strained chirping. Then like singing. Then it was a voice.

  “I love you,” croaked the voice.

  “What is that?” Franziskus asked.

  “I don’t want to know,” replied Angelika.

  “I need your help,” said the thing in the woods. Its timbre had changed; now it sounded like Angelika’s voice.

  Franziskus drew his sabre and headed toward the sound.

  “Franziskus…” Angelika warned.

  “I know,” said Franziskus.

  She cursed and followed him.

  “I’m so grateful to you,” said the voice.

  “Sigmar’s hammer!” blurted Franziskus. He stood over a patch of ground blanketed with puffy, pus-coloured toadstools. In its centre lay the half-digested body of a goblin, coated in translucent slime. Ropy, plant-like tendrils looped around it; thick bristles stuck into its flesh, as if drinking it dry. Portions of the goblin’s skull had become visible through its skin. Its beady eyes fixed themselves on Franziskus. Its mouth moved. It spoke to him in Angelika’s voice.

  “Thank you for rescuing me,” it said.

  “What are you?” Franziskus asked.

  Angelika put a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s not engage it in conversation, shall we?”

  “I am grateful for all you’ve done,” the creature said.

  “What is this?” Franziskus asked the real Angelika.

  She swatted him. “What do you think it is? It’s Chaos! Let’s get out of here!”

  “But how has it gained the mechanisms of speech?”

  “Chaos, Franziskus, Chaos! Who cares?”

  “A creature like this should be incapable of—”

  “You can stay here and ponder if you want—I’m leaving.”

  The goblin swivelled its head at Angelika. It spoke in a male voice that Franziskus recognised, but could not place. “I really do care for you,” it said.

  Angelika shuddered.

  “Should I go in and kill it?” Franziskus said.

  It spoke to Franziskus, in Devorah’s voice. “We can be together.”

  “That’s what it wants, for you to go in there.” Angelika yanked Franziskus’ arm, turned, and ran. Franziskus ran after her. “Come back!” the thing shrieked. They ran through the pass for a good half an hour, until Franziskus was out of breath. He stopped, hands on his knees.

  “We should go back and kill that thing,” he gasped.

  “I’m not going back there,” said Angelika.

  “We’ve got to slay it, so it can’t lure anyone else.”

  “Let some warrior of Sigmar come along and give it a good smiting. I’m not going back.”

  “What was that thing? It knew what was in our minds.”

  Angelika twitched. She breathed deep. She put her arms over her head and stretched them, trying to work the fear out of her muscles. “You heard the others going on about there being an eruption of Chaos up north?”

  “That’s why so many are anxious to go on this pilgrimage, to bless themselves against it.”

  “When Chaos stirs, all sorts of weird and terrible things can happen. I heard a scholar go on about it once, in a tavern. Said that when Chaos gets strong, it can start to leak into this world. Bubble up through the cracks and start to devour nature itself, just like a Chaos mutation can infect a person. I thought he was full of it, but I guess he was right.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “Let’s not even think about it. I don’t want to give Chaos any further invitation to go rummaging in my thoughts. Do you?”

  Franziskus thought she might mention the way it had used Devorah’s voice on him, but she did not, and he was grateful to her. He started walking again.

  Together, they rounded a bend in the pass. They saw the well-equipped pilgrims again; they’d stopped to roast a sheep over a fresh-dug fire pit. Delicious aromas of greasy meat wafted their way.

  “I don’t believe it. They’ll have every greenskin in the pass swarming over them,” Angelika said. “Let’s get clear of here.”

  Behind them, they heard their names shouted. Franziskus unsheathed his sword and spun around. He imagined he’d see the goblin creature, grown gigantic, tottering their way, translucent claws clacking at him. But it was Ivo and Richart, waving and panting.

  “How did you find us?” Franziskus asked, when they got within earshot. He was still not sure they weren’t a Chaos manifestation.

  Richart hiked his shoulder at Ivo. “Ivo thought you’d go follow the best chances for… salvage. That you’d stick to the pass.”

  “I was right,” said Ivo, pleased with himself.

  “What do you want?” asked Angelika.

  “We need you back,” said Richart.

  “No. There’s trouble up that way,” said Angelika. “There’s a bunch of foolhardy pilgrims ringing the dinner bell for orcs and goblins.”

  “I stopped and warned them,” Richart said. “They put out their fire right away.”

  “And there are Chaos things.” Richart and Ivo exchanged weighty looks. “There was a pit full of toadstools, devouring a goblin. It shouted some strange things at us. We kept moving.”

  “I’m not going back north,” Angelika said. “I’m freed from my promise.”

  “We can head through the hills, skirt clear of the Chaos and those fool orc-attracting pilgrims.”

  “No,” said Angelika.

  “We need your help,” said Richart.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The trip back took half a day and the four of them arrived at camp as twilight crept up on the pass. The pilgrims wore sullen expressions, but brightened notably when they saw Angelika. Devorah bounded through the bush to Franziskus. She embraced him and sobbed. He could not make out her words.

  Rausch sat propped against a tree, his arm in a sling, a dark bruise spreading from the centre of his face, the white of his left eye replaced by red. His once-regal nose was pushed to one side; it appeared broken. He acknowledged Angelika’s arrival with a bleary nod.

  “What happened to him?” Angelika asked.

  “A scuffle broke out,” said Richart, looking away.

  “He seems to have got the worst of it.”

  She walked past Ludwig and Waldemar, their faces lacerated and etched with remorse.

  “What was it about?” Angelika performed a quick head-count. The prioress was missing.

  “The doctor’s judgement was called into question.” Richart stepped around a large, waxy-leafed Emperor’s Bush. Behind it were the two sections of Prioress Heilwig’s corpse, cut raggedly in two, just above the waist. Set out beside her was the instrument of her demise: an ingenious, man-sized variation on the bear trap, made from logs and vines, with triangles of jagged scrap metal for teeth.

  “She went over here, I assume to relieve herself and we all heard the snap and the crunch.” Richart explained.

  “It was ghastly,” muttered Ivo.

  Angelika bent over the device. She kept her fingers well clear of the jagged teeth.

  “Goblins?” Richart asked.

  “Most likely,” Angelika said. “Could be skaven,
I suppose, but you don’t often see them around here. The trap’s old; I’m surprised the vines had still enough tension in them to do this much damage.” She stood and addressed the group. “This is why you must always be careful here. Act as if everything wants to kill you.”

  “So you’ll come back and lead us?” Waldemar said.

  “Let’s just see,” said Angelika. In a theatrical gesture, she placed a hand over her eyes and peered at each of the surviving pilgrims, in turn. “Do I have everyone’s attention?” Her gaze lingered on the resentful face of Victor Rausch. She turned and took the prioress by the arms, dragging her upper torso out of the trap. Devorah covered her face; the others stared dumbly at Angelika as she reached, with a flourish, down into the dead abbess’ bosom. She withdrew Heilwig’s silver dove pendant and held it out for all to see. She slipped it into a pocket. “Is there anyone here who does not understand the nature of my arrangement with you?” she asked.

  None spoke.

  “Good,” she said, reaching down to take the abbess’ purse.

  Telling them that the corpse-smell would attract predators, Angelika ordered the pilgrims to move out in darkness, as soon as they’d got the prioress into a soft spot in the ground. “A humble burial for a humble woman,” the summoner had pronounced, over her improvised grave. Angelika restrained her laughter. After about an hour of struggle through thick brush across a steep hillside, Angelika stopped to listen to noises emanating up from the pass. She picked out laughter, the banging of tambourines, the scraping of cutlery against stoneware plates, the whicker of horses, and the whoops of young men drunk on lager. Angelika called a halt to the procession and motioned for the others to gather round. Through the trees, down in the pass, they beheld bobbing spots of orange-yellow torchlight.

  “I’m changing the plan,” she told her charges, who now numbered only ten. There was Ivo, the pardoner; Friar Gerhold; Brother Lemoine; Advocate Recht; Ludwig, the sailor; Waldemar the summoner; the physic, Rausch; Udo, the merchant; Richart and Devorah. “Do you know why crows gather in flocks?” she asked them.

  “The same reason men band together—for mutual defence,” said Rausch.

  “It’s safety in numbers, all right, but not for the reason you think. A crow in a flock plays a game of numbers. He’s much less likely to be eaten by a fox than he would out on his own, because the fox has so many more other crows he can eat instead. Well, we’re about to adopt the tactic of crows.” She parted the branches to reveal a pass swarming with pilgrims.

  “We must be getting close,” marvelled Ludwig. “There’s enough wayfarers down there to fill a village.”

  Rausch made a sour face. “There’s music. And merriment. Scarcely befitting a holy pilgrimage.”

  Gerhold gravely bobbed his head. “Yes, listen to them. They act as if they don’t know the world’s ending.”

  “If I thought the world was truly ending,” said Angelika, “I’d be drinking and listening to minstrels, too.” She gestured to Rausch’s wounds. “Let’s contain our disapproval, shall we? The last thing we need is another fight.

  “We’ll be threading through the various parties of travellers, always keeping someone else between the hills and us on either side of the pass. So when greenskins or beastmen come crashing down from the woods, there’ll be others to get killed first.”

  “I feel that I must state the following,” Lemoine started.

  “Let’s all just pretend you said it already,” said Ludwig, tramping over to Angelika’s side. “I didn’t trouble myself knocking sense into Rausch’s head just so that you could take over as chief worry-wart.”

  “It is my obligation to say it,” Lemoine continued. “To do proper homage to Shallya, we should do as she would, and put ourselves selflessly between others and the dangers that threaten them.”

  “Shut up, Lemoine,” said Physic Rausch, stepping around him and toward Angelika, adjusting his head-bandage.

  As they walked down into the pass, Ivo sidled up to Angelika. He glanced back at his fellow pilgrims before clearing his voice to speak. “Your momentary departure—it was all a ruse, wasn’t it? To flush out the killer.”

  Altman’s murderer. Amid all the other matters concerning her, Angelika had allowed this crucial question to slip nearly completely from her mind. “Yes,” she lied. “I am deploying a clever ruse.”

  Ivo made another furtive check to see that none of the others had got too close. “I have a fact that might be of great importance. I think Richart Pfeffer’s the killer.”

  “How so?”

  “I caught him going through my pack. He’s nothing but a thief. He meant to rob me, just as he robbed Altman of that fake relic of his.”

  Angelika called out to Richart, who was already heading toward them, angry red tones rising to colour his olive skin.

  “What lies is that pusillanimous wretch telling now?” he demanded, as he reached Angelika’s side. She positioned herself between the landowner and his accuser.

  “He says he saw you going through his pack.”

  “I did no such thing!” Angelika saw Richart’s hand flit to the hilt of his scabbarded sword. “He lies!”

  “I saw it with my own two eyes!” Ivo exclaimed, his words taking on an absurd vibrato. “I confronted him! He backed away! Guiltily!”

  “Completely untrue!” Richart shouted.

  Brother Lemoine, lifting his leg high to step over an exposed tree root, placed his finger in the air. “Alas, I must bear witness,” he said.

  Richart’s head snapped around as the monk drew nearer. “Witness to what?”

  Lemoine shook his head mournfully. “Honesty compels me to say it. I witnessed Monsieur Pfeffer yesterday, on a separate occasion, also fixing to open Ivo’s pack. ’Twas I who warned Monsieur Kirchgeld to keep a close eye on his belongings.”

  “Wait,” said Angelika. “You’re sure you saw Richart open the pardoner’s bag?”

  “Yes, we were encamped, and I was returning from the side of the trail, after performing necessary bodily elimination, and there was Monsieur Pfeffer, his fingers untying the clasp on Monsieur Kirchgeld’s sack. He quickly darted them out again and made as if nothing was amiss, and I chose not to confront him directly—for I feel Shallya would frown on it—but instead issued a quiet warning to Monsieur Kirchgeld.”

  Richart seethed. “You saw no such thing.”

  Lemoine pulled his shoulders up to his neck for a long, sad shrug. “I place no interpretation on what I saw. Ivo says it proves you’re the killer. Please note that I draw no such judgements, one way or the other.”

  “It’s obvious he’s the killer!” Ivo declaimed.

  “The killer is Richart?” said Waldemar. He and the others knotted around Ivo, Richart and Angelika.

  Angelika looked up into the hills, waiting for orcs to appear and start lopping pilgrims’ limbs off. “The side of this hill is not the place for this discussion,” she said, and marched on.

  Ivo darted down to stick by her right side. “What are you going to do about this?” he demanded.

  “There’s nothing to do! I’ve done nothing wrong!” argued Richart.

  “Silence yourselves—both of you!” Angelika commanded.

  As they got closer to the bottom of the hill, a grunting sound rang out from the trees below. “Who goes there?” Angelika shouted.

  A corpulent, red-faced man wearing a breastplate came out from around a thick tree, hauling at his trousers and gesticulating at the approaching pilgrims with his sabre. “More damned pilgrims!” he shouted. “Can’t you leave a man in peace for half a minute?”

  Despite the fact that he’d drawn his weapon, Angelika judged that the mercenary—for this is what his motley garb made him out to be—planned to use it only for emphasis. The hill was too steep to allow her group to slow itself or change its course much, so she waved them onward. As she got closer to the man, her angle on the tree changed, and she saw a red-lipped woman behind it, reaching under her skirts to rearra
nge her undergarments. Angelika addressed the woman. “Doing brisk business?”

  The woman responded with a complicated obscene gesture. She took the mercenary by the arm and led him off to a more secluded tree, but he pulled himself away from her. “The moment is ruined now,” Angelika heard him hiss at her. “And I’m not payin’, neither.”

  Devorah watched them go, mouth agape. She saw Franziskus looking at her and flushed deep red. Franziskus turned a matching shade of crimson.

  “A crowd this big attracts commerce,” said Angelika. “There must be wagonloads of doxies trundling up from the domain of the Border Princes.”

  “Will this ghastliness never cease?” exclaimed the young physic. He winced, holding his throbbing head, and steadied himself by grabbing Gerhold’s shoulder. The friar patted his hand in a grandmotherly fashion.

  “Let’s go,” said Angelika, waving the others on “Like I said, let’s find the middle of this throng. And don’t think the only dangers will come from the hills. Human beings can be just as dangerous as orcs and beastmen, even when they come wrapped in cassocks and collars.”

  They meandered past shouting fruit-sellers, around wagons yawning with goods, and through a line of penitents lined up to receive sacrament from a mangy-looking priestess. She was chanting unintelligibly and holding up a chalice dripping with wine.

  Devorah wrinkled her nose. “False prophets and heretics,” she said, to Franziskus, who had given up his position at the rear of the group to walk by her side. “If the prioress was here, she’d give them what for.”

  “I’m sure she would,” said Franziskus. “What’ll you do now?”

  Devorah’s head turned as a halfling, wearing only a pair of black pantaloons, walked by, listlessly flogging his hirsute back with a knotted piece of wire. The little fellow, no more than three and a half feet tall, had shaved his head bald and tattooed it with a variety of holy signs, each significant to a different god. Blood rushed in rivulets between his shoulders and down to the waistband of his trousers. Dazed, he muttered something about the coming of Chaos and then bumped into Recht, the advocate, who shoved him away, before dabbing at his expensive outfit.