The Corrupted

by Robert Earl - (ebook by Undead)

  Maybe they killed him before his last supper, Grendel thought, and giggled again. It was a shrill, broken sound, neither laughter nor sobbing, but something in between.

  As he rummaged through his grisly materials, there was an imperious knock at the door.

  “Go away,” Grendel snapped without looking up. “I’m busy.”

  The latch lifted and the door was flung open.

  “Grendel, you old stoat,” Zhukovsky said as he swaggered into the room. “I need something special from you today. I’m feeling a bit jaded.”

  The wizard spared him a single contemptuous glance, and snorted. A month ago, he wouldn’t have even considered displaying such disdain. A couple of weeks ago and he wouldn’t have dared, but now things had changed. As Zhukovsky’s appetites had grown, so had his dependence on the wizard, and dependency never inspires much respect.

  “You are sick,” Grendel said, turning back to his work. “Go and rest.”

  For a moment, Zhukovsky seemed about to argue. Then he shrugged. What argument was there? His skin had become so loose and flabby that he looked like a glutton after a month of dysentery, and burst blood vessels had left his eyes as pink as a rat’s.

  Even Zhukovsky’s swagger was a stiff legged thing. Wasting muscles and numbed bones had put paid to his youthful exuberance, and he had taken to carrying a silver-topped cane, but his viciousness, at least, remained unabated.

  “It’s funny,” the count said, squinting at the afternoon light that poured in from the window, “but I could have sworn you just snorted at me.”

  Grendel, busily weighing powders into a brass scale, ignored the comment.

  For a second, Zhukovsky’s expression twisted into a silent snarl, but only for a second. By the time he had reached the window, he was smiling again, or at least, trying to smile. The nerveless flesh of his bottom lip hung loose, revealing the remains of his teeth.

  “Grendel,” he said, turning so that his silhouette was framed by the window.

  “What do you want?” The sorcerer frowned and turned to stare at him. “Can’t you see that I am busy?”

  “I can see that you are ignoring your count,” Zhukovsky said, whacking the silvered head of his stick into his hand. “That’s what I can see. Another man did that once, but only once. I had him taken down to the kitchen, tied to a spit, and roasted like a pig. You should have heard him scream.”

  Grendel, who a month before had been begging at this man’s feet, looked at him with something approaching pity.

  “Count Zhukovsky, I do not mean to ignore you, but I find it difficult to work with interruptions.” The count opened his mouth to reply, but Grendel cut him off. “Imagine what would happen if something went wrong with my spellcasting.”

  The count imagined. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down and he plucked nervously at the loose skin that clung to his wrist.

  “It won’t go wrong,” he decided, although he didn’t sound convinced. “Slaanesh wouldn’t allow it.”

  Grendel winced at the mention of the name and looked around.

  “Not here,” he said.

  Zhukovsky shrugged.

  “Well, I can’t stand here bandying words with you all day. You have work to do. Morrslieb is due to rise in a fortnight’s time and we are to have a… a celebration.”

  Grendel nodded thoughtfully. For the first time, Zhukovsky had arranged for an assembly of his entire coven, and the sorcerer was looking forward to it. He felt like an artist who has been offered a pallete full of brand new colours.

  “How many celebrants will attend?” he asked.

  “Maybe a dozen,” Zhukovsky shrugged, “but they don’t matter. What does matter is that we will have a guest, a very special guest. So it has to be…” He paused, seeking the right word. Eventually he gave up. “It has to be good.”

  Grendel giggled again. If he noticed the look of surprise on the count’s face, or the way he took a cautious step back, he didn’t show it.

  “Oh, it will be more than good.” The sorcerer rubbed his bony hands together. “It will be more than good.”

  With a new gleam in his eye, Grendel turned back to his work. As an afterthought, he threw a vial of powder to the count, tossing it like a morsel for some favoured pet.

  The vial fumbled through the nobleman’s shaking fingers and cracked on the floor. He fell to his knees and scooped it up.

  “Mix the powder with water and drink it,” Grendel said, already rummaging amongst his equipment for some new ingredient.

  “What does it do?” Zhukovsky asked, his haughty demeanour replaced by pathetic eagerness.

  “It will make those who look at you see the man you used to be.”

  “Is that it?”

  “Look in the mirror,” Grendel snapped, “and answer that question yourself.”

  For a moment, it seemed that Zhukovsky was about to berate the sorcerer. Before he could, a sudden fit of twitching seized one side of his face and so, without saying another word, he turned to go.

  Grendel didn’t notice him leave. He was too deep in thought. If only those fools in the college could see what I have achieved, he thought. If only they could see what I am about to achieve. Curse them all, he would show them. One of these days, he would bring such a cataclysm down on them that they would think him a god.

  He was still muttering to himself when Zhukovsky slipped back out of the room and closed the door silently behind him.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “Good evening, gentlemen. Good evening. Please, step right this way. I hope that Menshka has been treating you as befits your station?”

  Vaught looked at the gaoler with all the warmth of an ice pick.

  “Are you mocking us?” he asked, his tone indifferent.

  The gaoler seemed almost shocked.

  “No, of course not,” he said, and placed one meaty hand over his chest. “You are the gentlemen from Altdorf, yes? Yes, of course you are, and I’ll warrant that your prince regent will honour your bills.”

  Vaught looked at Menshka and frowned.

  “What the gaoler means,” Menshka explained, “is that, because you are the agents of a prince, he will give you the best quarters.”

  The witch hunters looked around the dank cube of the vault they had been brought to. Apart from the rotting straw on the floor, it was little more than a stone box.

  There was neither window nor fireplace, just an iron cage door and a foul smelling bucket.

  “These are the best quarters?” Fargo asked.

  The gaoler shrugged.

  “If you had been anybody else, you would have been put in the yard, and believe me, sir, you don’t want to stay there, with such awful people, and with the weather getting worse everyday. No, here it is much better, and first thing tomorrow we’ll get you some furniture.”

  Vaught opened his mouth to say something, but the gaoler waved him into silence.

  “Don’t you worry, I have played host to your prince regent’s men before. I’ll put everything on the slate, and you can write to him. Tell him that you are in comfort and safety, and that the cost is modest.”

  Menshka barked with laughter, and the gaoler turned on him.

  “If you would like to remove your property,” he said, pointing to the manacles with which the witch hunters were bound, “you can be on your way.”

  “What, and miss your welcome speech?”

  “I don’t want to keep you from your work. There must be keyholes all over the city without anybody to peep through them.”

  Menshka laughed humourlessly.

  “Keyholes. Yes, very funny, but do you know what’s even funnier? Some of the stories we hear about you.”

  The gaoler shrugged.

  “Prisoners make up stories all the time. It’s something for them to do.”

  Menshka nodded.

  “Yes, but tell me, what is in your pit?”

  The gaoler’s bonhomie deserted him, and his face creased with sudden anxiety.

&nb
sp; “Not my pit,” he whined, “I just keep it locked. Whatever goes on down there is nothing to do with me.”

  Menshka shrugged.

  “I’ll be sure to put your explanation in my report.”

  The gaoler licked his lips, and looked shiftily around the room.

  “Look,” he said, “tell you what, I’ll see to having these manacles removed and sent back to you, and you know what? Somebody sent me some cases of vodka, a grateful client. Why don’t I send you one of those around too?”

  “As you like,” Menshka said. “Then I’ll bid you all goodnight.”

  The gaoler waved as the man left the room. Vaught didn’t deign to reply.

  “What is that man, gaoler?” he asked as Menshka’s footsteps faded. “He dresses like a peasant, yet he acts like an official. A high official.”

  The gaoler looked at the witch hunter as if trying to decide whether he was having his leg pulled.

  “There are lots of people like that in Praag,” he said. “They are the Cheka. Never heard of them? Well, I suppose you might not have, being from so far away. They’re a sort of secret army, and a good job they do too.”

  The gaoler looked nervously back over his shoulder before he continued.

  “Don’t worry about them. Now, I have to go. Here is the key to your manacles, if you would care to pass them through the gate when you have unlocked them, I will send you some blankets down, and some soup. In the meantime, I will leave you these candles and wish you goodnight.”

  “Goodnight,” Vaught said. He turned to unlock the first of his men as the gaoler scuttled out of the cell.

  “Do you think that the prince regent will pay for our upkeep?” Fargo asked, rubbing some life back into his wrists.

  “I have no idea,” Vaught answered, “and I don’t expect to stay here long enough to find out. You saw the gatehouse on the way in? Good. Here is what we will do.”

  Menshka was pleased to be back at his post. He lolled on his barrel, watching the traffic that dawn had brought to Praag’s great gate, and enjoyed the freshness of the air.

  There wasn’t much movement yet, just a string of couriers, their saddlebags bulging with correspondence, and the lumbering shape of an approaching haywain.

  Menshka watched it approach, and then turned to light his pipe. It had been a shame about those witch hunters. They had a reputation for efficiency, and it would have been nice to have seen them at work, the leader especially. He had looked like a man who knew how to deal with magic-using vermin.

  He spat and studied the wagon as it drew nearer. It occurred to him that it was a little late in the year for farmers to be bringing hay into the city. A second later, he realised that the vehicle wasn’t a haywain after all, it was a grain cart.

  Lowering his eyes, he concentrated on blowing a smoke ring. The perfect “O” floated up into the sky, and Menshka’s thoughts turned lazily over. Damned trusting merchant to send his goods along this road with no armed guard.

  When he looked back at the grain cart, he noticed the driver for the first time. Now that it was so close, he could see that the man was massive, his armour barely able to cover his barrel chest. No wonder the merchant had decided against the added cost of outriders.

  As the wagon lumbered into the shadow of the walls, the gate captain, alert in his new post, looked at Menshka. He shook his head slightly and looked away. The guards waved the wagon through the gates, and stopped an outrider who looked a little too fresh for somebody who had been riding all night, instead.

  One of Menshka’s lieutenants, a wiry ferret of a man called Plenk, sidled over to take a light.

  “Did you see the state of that dung cart?” he asked, borrowing Menshka’s pipe and using it to light his own. “No wonder the guards looked so relieved not to have to stop it!”

  “Dung cart? You mean the grain wagon.”

  Plenk frowned.

  “No, the dung cart. It just went past now with that skinny little lad driving it.”

  Menshka took his pipe back and stared at it thoughtfully.

  “The last thing I saw go through those gates,” he said, speaking carefully, “was a grain wagon driven by a man who looked as big as an ogre.”

  “I saw a dung cart driven by a boy.”

  “Damn,” Menshka swore once, and sprang to his feet. Without waiting to be told, his men followed him as he raced towards the gate, pushing past the guards and looking frantically into the street beyond.

  Of dung cart, grain wagon or haywain, there was no sign.

  The smell of bacon filled the chambers they had hired. Titus and Kerr sat at the same table, the food that the innkeeper’s wife had just brought piled up in front of them. Although hardly silent, neither of them was speaking. Ever since the two had started eating together, mealtimes had become a race, with Kerr trying to eat his share before Titus cleared the table.

  The joys of apprenticeship, he thought, cramming a roll of pork fat into his mouth and following it with a hard-boiled egg.

  “Don’t eat so fast,” Titus told him, as he smeared marmalade onto a piece of ham, “you’ll give yourself indigestion.”

  Kerr watched with awe as his master chewed through the entire slab of meat in three easy bites.

  “I can see that there is much to learn before I become a wizard,” he said, watching his master swallow. It was like watching a boa constrictor wearing a napkin.

  Titus belched before he replied.

  “You have much to learn,” he agreed, “but never mind. You are adept enough. How’s the knitting coming along?”

  Kerr reached into his satchel and held up a pair of socks. One was smaller than the other, despite the fact that it had two feet.

  Titus laughed.

  “Better not let the witch hunters see that,” he said.

  Kerr grinned.

  “Not even they would see bad knitting as proof of mutation. Then again, maybe they would. I remember when old man Schmidt’s son was born. He’d only had daughters before, so he went to the strigany and asked for a potion. You know, so that he’d finally be able to have a male heir. Anyway, it all went well until the babe was born.”

  Titus grunted as he started work on a plate of scones.

  “When it was born, it looked alright at first, had the right number of arms and legs, and fingers and toes. It cried like a champion too, but then the midwife noticed something terrible. Schmidt’s son,” Kerr paused for effect, “had been born without… You know, with a bit missing. There was talk of curses, and then there was talk of starting a pogrom against the strigany. In fact, there was so much talk that the witch hunters turned up, like they always do.”

  “And they told your friend Schmidt,” Titus interrupted, “that he should be congratulated for having such a healthy daughter?”

  “Oh, you’ve heard it before.”

  Titus glared at his apprentice before getting back to the task in hand. Kerr shifted uncomfortably.

  “Anyway, you should let me see one of your socks if I’m to start knitting them,” he said. “It won’t be long until I get the hang of it.”

  Titus waited until he had finished the last of the scones before replying.

  “You aren’t learning knitting so that you can mend my socks,” he said. “At least, you are, but that’s not the main reason.”

  “What is the main reason, then?”

  Titus pushed himself back from the table.

  “What do you think?”

  Kerr looked down at the wool and needles. Then he flexed his fingers.

  “I see,” he said, holding up his hands and miming the action of knitting. “You have to learn other movements to cast spells. As well as snapping your fingers, I mean. Is it something different for each one?”

  “Just so,” Titus nodded, “but for the moment, your education will have to wait. The sooner we find the traitor, Grendel, the sooner we can get back to Altdorf. You might help by asking around. I don’t think that he has much sense, and he must be feeling pr
etty desperate by now. Listen out for any stories of false gold.”

  “Will do,” Kerr said, “but how do you know he’s desperate? If he’s a cultist then he’ll have friends everywhere. Maybe they have taken him in.”

  Titus shook his head.

  “Grendel is a fool, not a cultist. Sometimes things go wrong and people panic. Whatever the witch hunters say, the whole world isn’t one big bundle of plots. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll take a nap. I need to get my strength back up.”

  Kerr didn’t ask what for. Instead, he checked that he’d slipped enough bacon off the table for the day, accused himself, and went out to explore Praag.

  “Hot as toast and soft as butter. Smooth enough to melt a moneylender’s heart. Get it while it’s hot!”

  Kerr strolled past the baker’s stall, a contented smile playing across his face.

  “Sausage, hams and fresh meat puddings,” another merchant bellowed, “only three days old!”

  Kerr glanced towards the tray of meat just as the butcher turned away to serve a customer. His fingers twitched, and he instinctively glanced around to see if there were any watchmen nearby.

  Then he scolded himself and walked on.

  It felt good to be back in a city: the feeling of cobbles beneath his feet, the warm jostle of hurrying strangers, the smell of cookhouses and sewers—it reminded Kerr of how much he had missed civilization.

  He wandered along through the market, passing everything from bolts of silk to baskets full of piglets. Although he had no intention of reverting to his old profession, still he studied the place with a practiced eye. Everything faded into the background apart from escape routes, distractions, and merchants tired or the worse for drink.

  It reminded him of the good old days.

  He was almost past the last of the stalls when he felt the hand on his purse.

  “Dried oranges!” a man bellowed in his ear. “Sweet as the Sultan’s daughters and all the way from Araby!”