[Stefan Kumansky 02] - Taint of Evil

by Neil McIntosh - (ebook by Undead)

  But they were all quite unlike the healthy, vigorous volunteers Stefan had seen on their arrival in the city. To a man, the crowd in the courtyard were ragged and filthy, bowed down from days of toil. Their clothes hung in tatters, coated in dust or a dark brown grime. And they reeked, their unwashed bodies ripe with the stench of long labour, deep below ground. They looked and smelt like nothing Stefan had seen in Sigmarsgeist before, until now.

  The guards moved Stefan and Bruno forward, prodding them with their swords, herding them further into the confined space of the courtyard. Soon they were jostling for space amongst the ragged mob. A figure bumped against Stefan; a lank-haired man approaching middle years, but sturdily built. He still had the hawk-like look of the hunter about him, despite having clearly taken a beating from someone only recently. He eyed Stefan and Bruno warily He might not have been a man to trust, but Stefan sensed no particular evil in him, either. He doubted such a man had ever been part of any Chaos army.

  “How did you come here?” Stefan asked the man. “Were you taken in Mielstadt?”

  “Mielstadt?” the man turned the word about in his mind, then looked at Stefan as though he were deranged. “What would I be doing in a scum-hole like Mielstadt?” he demanded of Stefan, irritably. “No,” he went on. “I’m only here because of a misunderstanding. They owe me money. I captured one of the beasts, brought it all the way here.” He tugged urgently at Stefan’s sleeve. “They’ve made a mistake,” he insisted. “You tell them for me. I brought them—”

  Stefan heard the crack of a whip, and felt the sharp sting of the lash against his face.

  “Enough talk,” the guard shouted out. “From now on you can hold your tongues, the lot of you. Save your energy for the walls. Now, get moving.”

  Stefan reached out to catch hold of the other man, suddenly anxious to know who or what he claimed to have brought to Sigmarsgeist. But he was gone, lost in the river of souls beginning their weary progress through the courtyard.

  Stefan scanned the rest of the group. The prisoners were certainly not all followers of Chaos, but that didn’t mean that none of them were. His eye fell upon three Norscans, walking apart from the main group, heaping guttural curses upon anyone who came within earshot. For a moment he wondered if it could be true—perhaps a number of the mutants and their Norscan allies really had found their way to Mielstadt. There was a part of Stefan that perhaps wanted to believe that. But his heart and his head were in one accord. Wherever these Norscans had come from, it was not Mielstadt, nor any other wretched village that the Red Guard had chosen to wreak their revenge upon. Baecker was lying, and therefore Konstantin, too. He began to wonder if all of Sigmarsgeist was not a lie.

  One of the Norscans—a flaxen-haired man with a bull-like stature—he recognised from the gang of prisoners being marched through the streets as Stefan and the others had taken their first tour of the citadel. The Norscan looked at Stefan and seemed to recognise him too. He gestured, unmistakably, drawing a line across his throat with one finger. A shouted command from a guard brought him back from his thoughts. A gate at the end of the courtyard had been opened, and the prisoners were lining up ready to file out. At their head, a single White Guard stood ready to deliver their instructions.

  “Today you will have the honour of working upon the citadel walls,” he announced. “Building the fortifications that will one day protect us from the dark flood of Chaos.” He stared out at the crowd of prisoners, seeking out any who would make eye contact. Bruno tightened his fists into balls, his face taut with rage.

  “By all the gods, Stefan,” he declared. “Now, truly, we see the other face of Sigmarsgeist.”

  Stefan shook his head, slowly. How different things had come to look, and in so short a space of time. The line of men began to trudge slowly towards the gate. A line that would have looked not much different from any other of the bands of workers they had watched during their first days in Sigmarsgeist. Nothing, and yet everything, was changed.

  “There’s no middle road with these people,” he declared. “You side with them, or against them. Truly, my friend, we’ve moved to the other side of that line.”

  “We’ve got to escape,” Bruno muttered. “We must find Bea. Pray to the goddess that she’s all right.”

  Stefan looked round at the guards, sizing up their number and the weapons they carried. “Little enough chance of that at the moment,” he replied. “They’d cut us down like dogs before we got ten paces. The opportunity will come,” he assured Bruno. “But we’re going to have to bide our time.”

  The procession moved through the open portal and out into the streets. It was the first time in days that he had seen the outer reaches of citadel. Time enough, apparently, for Sigmarsgeist to change beyond all belief. Stefan’s first thought was that the citadel had somehow shrunk become smaller. Everywhere there seemed to be so much less space, so many more people. He quickly realised that, on the contrary, Sigmarsgeist had continued to grow, and grow at such a rate that the very buildings at its heart seemed to be competing with each other, jostling for precious space. Every inch of land was now given over to brick and stone, and not so much as a blade of grass had been left to grow between the tall buildings that now sprouted up on all sides.

  He could not fathom how so many new buildings could have sprung up in such a short space of time. But he understood clearly now why their lives—and those of the worn-down wretches around them—had been reprieved. The equation was simple. Sigmarsgeist was growing at an unimaginable rate, far outstripping the capacity of its workforce. Labour was their most precious commodity, and for as long as he and Bruno kept their strength, he guessed that they would be spared.

  He slowed his pace to take in the strangeness of it all. In several places, houses had been damaged, walls broken down or roofs ripped apart by pale alabaster columns that seemed to have nothing in common with the surrounding structures. The columns rose, straight and tall, out of the wreckage of brickwork, before looping and bending like branches of a tree, lacing together like a bizarre stone latticework.

  “What do you make of that?” he asked Bruno.

  “I don’t know,” Bruno replied. “But I’ve seen something like it before.” He held his hand out towards Stefan. “That’s how I got my injury, remember? Bea has seen them, too, in other parts of the city. It looks almost like something alive, growing, not built.”

  “All part of Konstantin’s grand design?” Stefan mused. “Or something moving out of control?”

  He was answered by a jab to his ribs from a sword. “I told you once,” the guard barked. “Shut up. Keep moving.”

  Stefan eyed Bruno, and walked on in silence. For the next thirty minutes or so, they marched through the streets towards the edge of the city. The townsfolk who crossed their path weren’t greeting them as heroes now, and many hurled abuse or spat upon the prisoners as they passed. Finally they had left the crowded streets behind, and had come within sight of the high walls that encircled the citadel. Walls to keep intruders out, and Stefan realised now, to keep prisoners in.

  The prisoners were driven left, herded like cattle along the line of the fortification by the guards. After a while they came to a gap, a breach the width of a pair of wagons. The stonework had been deliberately demolished, knocked through so that a new wall could be erected further out, extending the outer boundary of the citadel. The new wall already stood at twenty feet, and teams of workers were labouring upon the ramparts, building up the walls layer by layer. Along the wall was placed a row of ladders, up and down which figures streamed like ants, each weighed down with sack-loads of fresh stone for the artisans working up above. It would be back-breaking work for even the fittest of men.

  “That’s the end of your stroll,” the guard announced. “Get in line over there. Each of you’ll be given a sack. Make sure it’s filled—there’s a beating waiting for any man who doesn’t.”

  For a moment the troop of prisoners stood where they were. The open wall s
tood before them. For many, this was probably as close to freedom as they would ever get again. More than one must have thought of escape, a last desperate bid for freedom. But the soldiers guarding the work party now almost outnumbered the prisoners, and all of them were armed. In any case, Stefan realised, they were in no position yet to leave Sigmarsgeist, not with Bea still somewhere inside the citadel.

  “Come on,” he muttered to Bruno. “We’ll see this out.” He marched to the head of the line, and took a coarse fabric sack from the pile. The quarried stone was stacked in a series of wagons, waiting to be carried up to where other teams of prisoners were at work, raising the level of the walls. Stefan walked to the first of the wagons and began loading stones into the sack, all the time watched by a brace of guards. When the sack was filled he hefted it over his back and carried his load over to a ladder. The ladders were at least securely fixed against the walls; the builders of Sigmarsgeist had no intention of killing their slave workers, at least not by accident.

  Stefan put a foot on the bottom rung of the ladder, and, after shifting his load to get a better balance, began to climb up. In a few seconds he was at the top, and swinging the laden sack down off his back.

  Bruno was right behind him, both men now standing atop of the growing wall.

  “This isn’t too bad,” Bruno said, gulping down breath. “We can take it.”

  “At the moment,” Stefan agreed.

  The second sack that he loaded upon his back seemed heavier by far than the first. By the time he and Bruno had carried three more sack-loads to the top of the ladders, the burden felt as though it was doubling each and every time. Others amongst the prisoners fell by the wayside, dropping where they stood, unable to lift another stone, or toppling from the ladders under the weight of the sacks.

  The guards spared no mercy for those unable to go on. Stefan had to look on as they rained blows down upon one prisoner who had collapsed under the weight of his load. The Red Guard beat the prisoner until his whimpers turned to screams, and then they beat him some more. Casualties were of no interest to them. There would be plenty more where they had come from.

  The prisoners worked on through most of the day, without food or a break. Long before the end, Stefan’s whole body ached, and his back felt like it would break under the punishment, but he kept going. They had to get through this. The prisoners fell into their routine, hauling the laden sacks from the foot of the walls to empty them for the work party laying the stone up above. It was a routine that got harder with every load. All the while, the sun beat down upon them, unyielding and relentless. Finally, late in the day, they were allowed to rest, and food—bread, and a little water—was handed out. Even the guards acknowledged they would get no more work out of their prisoners until they had been given some rest.

  Their vantage point gave them a commanding view over the citadel. Sigmarsgeist lay spread before them through the gap in the old fortifications. The bizarre expansion of the city was now all too plain to see. From above it looked like some inexplicable multiplication was underway, a growth that was barely controlled or contained. Structures—recognisable and unrecognisable—sprouted everywhere, crammed into every available plot or space, haphazardly blocking roads and streets.

  “It looks like a city gone insane,” Bruno said quietly. Stefan agreed, but it looked like more than that. Many of the new buildings reached skywards then stopped, unfinished and without purpose, and at least half seemed to bear no relation in design or function to those that they stood next to.

  “Like a city feeding upon itself,” Stefan reflected. “Forever destroying and remaking itself anew.”

  Bruno lay back, exhausted. His hands were bloodied and chafed, and his face and hands were covered in a fine white dust from the stone, giving him the look of a man already dead.

  “Where will it all end?” he asked.

  Stefan shook his head. He had no answers now. No way of telling where the path they found themselves upon would lead.

  A party of guards moved along the line of prisoners resting on top of the walls, prodding bodies with staffs and swords, pushing those that still had strength left in their bodies back to work. Most struggled back to their feet; those that could not were thrown without ceremony from the walls. Stefan watched the bodies being collected like refuse in one of the empty wagons below.

  “Is this the great bright future that Sigmarsgeist was created for?” Bruno asked. “By the gods, they have become the very evil that they would oppose.”

  “And now we must set our face against them,” Stefan replied. “Our allies are become our enemies.”

  The prisoners were being moved on again. “Make the most of your day in the sun,” a guard sneered. “It’ll be the mines for you tomorrow. A few hours down there and you’ll wish you’d never been born.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The World Below

  However reluctantly, Bea had taken heed of Anaise’s words. Her impulse at their last meeting had been to run from her chambers, run and keep running, until Anaise and every tangled, confused thought of Sigmarsgeist had been swept from her mind.

  But years of surviving had taught Bea a measure of prudence. There was nowhere for her to go. Whatever Anaise’s motives, for the moment Bea was safer with the Guide’s protection than without it. After that last, troubling meeting, she had fled, but she had not fled far. And for the next day, Bea had confined herself to the areas of the palace where Anaise, alone, held jurisdiction. There, at least, she would be safe—if she felt anything but secure.

  She had been waiting for what seemed like hours for Anaise to return. Early that morning, Anaise had gone, apparently in search of news of Stefan and Bruno. Bea had been left alone, waiting whilst the long hours of morning dragged on. Finally, when she thought that she must indeed have been abandoned, the Guide swept back into the room. Anaise glanced at Bea, but did not speak. Bea got to her feet and rushed after her, eager to hear any news.

  “Have you seen them?” she asked, anxiously. “Are they all right? When can I go to them?”

  Anaise placed her hands upon Bea’s shoulders, steering her gently back to her seat. “Peace,” she implored. “Patience, Bea. You have so many questions, I understand that. But remember that I am like you. I have gifts. But I can not work miracles.” She waited for Bea to compose herself, then sat down beside her.

  “I have not seen them,” she began. Bea’s face fell, and Anaise quickly put a finger to the girl’s lips to cut short her protest. “No, Bea, I did not promise you that. But I did promise that I would speak to Konstantin, and that I have done.”

  Bea leaned forward, anxiously. “And?” she asked. “What did he say?”

  “He promised that Stefan and Bruno have not been harmed. He was minded to have them killed, but has been persuaded against that course for now.”

  “Then when can I see them?” Bea demanded.

  Anaise furrowed her brow in a frown. “You ask so much of me,” she sighed, as if in exasperation. “Very well—I’ll have to trust you. I’ve interceded on their behalf, I’m doing what I can. But you must understand that they killed a soldier of the Red Guard, which is a grievous offence.”

  Bea nodded unhappily.

  “I have convinced Konstantin that you played no part in any treachery. I have also convinced him that your gift of healing should not be wasted, and that you could be set to work tending to those who are building the citadel. Just like our soldiers, each one of them is valuable if the glory of Sigmarsgeist is to be realised.”

  “I will do that work gladly,” Bea affirmed. “It is my calling. But—”

  “Bruno and Stefan are to be put to work in the quarries and mines outside Sigmarsgeist,” Anaise interjected.

  “In the mines? Will they be safe there?”

  “Safer than being put to death by Konstantin’s executioner? I would say so, yes.” She looked at Bea and saw the anxiety on her face. Her voice took on a more conciliatory tone. “Look,” she said, “you�
��ll see them, soon enough. In the meantime, I am keeping them safe, as far as is possible. Bea, I am doing everything I can for you.”

  Bea bit upon her lip. “I know you are,” she said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful.” She took a breath, then sighed. “And it’s some relief to hear that they are safe.” She smiled at the Guide, recovering some composure. “Thank you, Anaise,” she said. “I know that you have taken risks on my behalf.”

  “I made you a promise, and I always honour my promises,” Anaise told her. She took Bea’s hand, and squeezed it gently. “But trust must run both ways,” she said.

  “Now, you must do something for me.”

  It was too cold in the cell for sleep, too cold for anything except to lie in the dark, nursing bruised and aching bodies. Finally, Stefan had dozed only to be woken minutes later by the sound of someone moaning in pain. He was lying on a hard stone floor somewhere within a cramped, lightless space. A thin blanket covered his body, but made little difference to the numb ache that had set deep into his limbs. His hands were shackled together with a short length of chain, anchored at the other end to the floor. Stefan tugged briefly at the metal links, expending only enough strength to be sure there was no prospect of escape.

  He stretched out one hand as far as the chains would allow. Almost immediately it met resistance—a wall, coarse flint under his fingers, slightly damp to the touch. Stefan raised himself onto his knees and stretched out in the opposite direction until he found the opposite side of what he now understood to be a cell. The two walls were little more than the width of a man’s body apart. Stefan began to map the dimensions of the cell in his mind, since he could still see nothing through the blackness.

  He remembered coming down from the ramparts with what by then remained of the work party. Around half the prisoners had not returned, and Stefan did not imagine for a moment that he would see any of them again.