He paused; his wound had shot a bolt of pain across his chest. Motes of black swam across his vision. Lord Udo was looking at him strangely. He took a breath, held it a second, and resumed.
'Etiquette states the Grand Duke should be in the first coach. That makes it the obvious target, so it will be empty. The Grand Duke will be in the second coach, along with his nominated successor Duke Siegfried, and the rest of the family will follow in the usual order. Each carriage will have its curtains drawn, so nobody will be the wiser. Not even the coachmen will know which passengers they are carrying.'
Lord Udo sat back in his chair, holding his chin in his hand. The jewels on his rings gleamed in the candlelight.
'That sounds workable,' he said. 'And your secret plan, how many people know it?'
'Only the Palisades agents involved in the operation. And now you, my lord,' said Grenner.
'Who else? My father?'
'Nobody else, my lord.'
'Good,' Lord Udo said. 'That is enough, leave me. I must get ready for the dinner.' He turned away from them. Johansen and Grenner bowed and left.
The oak front door of the townhouse closed behind them. The sun was low over the rooftops and the street outside was filled with people on their way home.
'You think he swallowed it?' Johansen asked.
'He doesn't have to digest it all,' said Grenner. 'But if he thinks we're pinning the blame on Kislev instead of Tilea then he knows his uncle isn't going to take the fall for him. He knows he's got to act tonight, and we've given him the idea of blaming it on us. Let's hope he'll bite off more than he can chew.'
THE LONG SHADOWS of evening had darkened and melted into each other, and a few evening stars shone from the clouded sky. Below, the courtyard of the Grand Duke's townhouse was filled with carriages, horses and uniformed men. The workmen and servants had gone, leaving only a corridor of dark fabric between the house's main exit and the first of the carriages. Just inside the gate, an escort guard of Middenland soldiers waited.
Something was making Grenner's horse uncomfortable, and he leaned forward to pat its neck and adjust its blinkers. By the gate he saw Hoffmann and Johansen talking, their horses still. Even in the grey light he could see Johansen's face was pale and pained. Duty like this, even on horseback, was no place for an injured man.
He rode up to the two of them and saluted. The gesture felt odd, but this was a formal occasion and all protocol had to be observed. Hoffmann was in full uniform, his campaign medals spread proudly across it.
'Grenner. Good,' he said. 'How are the preparations?'
'Done, sir. The coachmen and servants are briefed, the family are waiting inside the house. Nobody will know who's riding in which carriage, not even the people inside them.'
'Nobody except us.' Hoffmann smiled slightly. 'Seven bells is about to sound. Give the signal.'
'Yes, sir.' He paused. 'We're putting an elector's life at risk, sir.'
'I know. But better we draw our man out now than let him try to slit the elector's throat in his bed tonight. Give the command.'
Grenner turned his horse and rode to the first carriage, the painted carvings on their ornate woodwork dull in the torchlight. He nodded to the driver, dismounted and walked through the cloth-walled passageway to the house door. He knocked twice and it swung open.
They were all there, standing in the anteroom beyond, glistening with silks, gold and jewels. The Grand Duke and his wife, Baron Siegfried and his wife and son, Lord Udo, Lord Sigismund and Lady Anna, Lord Helmut and Lady Margaret, with their attendants and servants. He snapped to attention.
'Your grace, my lords and ladies, the carriages are ready,' he said.
None of them looked at him. None of them acknowledged he was there. As Grenner turned smartly and walked back out to the courtyard he asked himself, not for the first time, why he cared.
THE CARRIAGES WERE loaded, their passengers concealed behind thick velvet curtains. The Middenland guards began to move forward, out into the street that led north to the Imperial palace. Grenner waited at the gate, signalling to each of the coach-drivers when it was their turn to move into position in the line. One started too early, following the one next to it, but he waved it back in time. If they lost the right order, they lost everything.
Outside, a thin crowd lined the route to the palace, held back by bored members of the city watch. Grenner found himself riding alongside the second carriage and deliberately slowed his horse, dropping back until he was next to Johansen.
'Are you all right?' he asked.
'I feel like hell. I shouldn't be here. I'll be useless if anything kicks off. And I wish it would - better than hanging around at the palace until these fat mosquitoes are ready to come home.'
'If something happens you can bet Hoffmann will have us making reports and interviewing witnesses until three bells tomorrow,' Grenner said.
'The old man's taking a hellish risk.'
'I know. If this goes wrong it's the end of the department. They'll hang Hoffmann. I'm worried that we've based all this on the word of the Untersuchung. Is their information good? Do you trust them?'
Johansen didn't reply. Then he groaned.
'I'm getting too old for this,' he said. 'Time to find a nice young widow who owns a pub, some tall strong blonde who's not too old, settle down…'
Grenner snorted. 'You're not thinking of that northern girl who owns the Black Goat? You wouldn't get an easy life with her. She'd keep you—'
Ahead of them, the second carriage exploded in a burst of white light and a wave of heat. Its body lifted three feet off the ground and hung for a second at the centre of a fierce bright world, until the shock wave slammed it down into the ground. A crashing roar blew past them, echoing off the buildings. Wood and metal whizzed through the air, ploughing into the walls and the crowd.
Grenner reined in his horse, turning its head away from the blast so it wouldn't be panicked. People were screaming and running around him, falling, blocking the street. The other carriages were trying to turn, to get away from the scene. He saw someone fall under the wheels, crushed. Horses were screeching and rearing. The wreckage blazed. Where debris landed, new fires were starting. People were burning, flailing as they died.
'Think fast!' Johansen yelled.
'They always attack from above!' Grenner shouted back. He stared up, looking for a figure silhouetted at a window or against the dark sky, but the after-images of the explosion were blinding him. He heard the thunk of Johansen firing his crossbow, glanced to see where it was pointed, followed the line, and caught a movement on the roof.
He dropped the reins, stood on the saddle and leaped for the front of the nearest building, grabbing its exposed corner-beam with both hands and climbing, hand over hand, grabbing ledges and windows, pulling himself up the wall. He'd done this enough times in the watch, chasing thieves and cat burglars, but never in full uniform. He could feel the heat of the fires on his back through the thick fabric.
Three storeys up he heaved himself over the eaves and looked round. The weird landscape of chimneys and tiled slopes was filled with dark shadows. Would the wizard have run, or be lying in ambush?
Grenner moved forward silently, trying to block out the sounds of panic and pain below, straining to hear anything ahead. There was a scraping of stone; a tile slipping, he guessed. He moved towards it, keeping low, climbing the inclines of the roofs. Then something exploded at his feet and he jumped back with a shout of shock. A roost of pigeons scrambled into the sky in front of him on noisy wings.
Something moved. His quarry knew he was there. Running footsteps headed south, towards the city's south gate. He followed, using chimney stacks for cover at the top of each roof, keeping to places where faint starlight let him see his footing.
There: a fleeing silhouette, robed, moving across the rooftops, not looking back. It was only thirty paces away. Grenner drew his dagger from its shoulder-sheath and moved ahead. They were getting close to the city wall; soon the
wizard would have nowhere to run. Keeping the figure in view, he crouched as low as he could and moved forward.
The robed figure reached the edge of the last house. Ahead, across a wide street, was the Altdorf city wall, bright with torchlight from its watch-towers. The wizard stopped and looked back, and Grenner saw her face for the first time. She was younger than he'd expected. A strong face, handsome, not beautiful. Long, dark hair in a braid. She looked frightened.
Grenner stood, his knife in his hand, ready to throw. For a moment neither of them moved or spoke. Then she lifted her hands, almost as if in supplication. She was saying something, but he couldn't make out the words. He moved toward her slowly.
She was casting a spell.
Grenner threw himself back, behind a chimney stack, away from the blast. When, after a second it had not come, he looked up. Her arms were spread like a bird and as he watched she lifted a foot into the air.
Grenner thought for an instant about the exploding carriage, the stampeding horse, Lord Udo, the Untersuchung, Johansen burnt and bleeding, and he flung his knife. It flashed through the air, missed her, struck the stone wall and fell. The wizard hung in the night for a second, then soared across the street and up, over the wall, out into the darkness beyond the city.
He walked to the edge of the roof and began to climb down, slowly, like a man who is thinking of other things.
JOHANSEN AND HOFFMANN were waiting on their horses on the street below.
'You threw a knife at her,' Hoffmann said.
'I aimed to miss,' Grenner said. It was a lie.
'The Untersuchung will be happy she got away.'
There was a pause.
'The authorities are going to need a good explanation,' said Johansen.
'Leave that to me. When the Grand Duke hears that Lord Udo was the only person who had been told he would be in the carriage that was targeted, he should understand.'
'The Grand Duke's safe?' Grenner asked.
'Yes, and his brother. They were in the last carriage, as we planned.'
'How's he going to take the news that his son was in the carriage that exploded?'
'A tragic error by the coachman,' said Hoffmann. 'Lord Udo will have a grand funeral, and there will be no trial for treason and attempted patricide to embarrass the von Bildhofen family. The wizard will not be mentioned. The Grand Duke knows how these things work.'
'What happens to the coachman?'
'He died in the explosion, of course.'
There was another pause. Grenner swung himself up into the saddle. 'It's been a long day,' he said, 'and I need a drink.'
'Have it at the Palisades. Johansen needs rest. And I've got a nice quiet job for the two of you tomorrow.'
'What is it?'
'Finding those Kislevites and making people believe they were behind this.'
Grenner groaned. 'More bloody donkey work.'
'No rest for the wicked,' said Johansen.
Hoffmann smiled. 'Except Lord Udo.'
Grenner was silent for a moment, thinking. 'With your permission, sir,' he said. 'I'd prefer to drink alone this evening.'
'Very well.' They rode north, back towards the Palisades. Grenner watched them go, noticing that their route would take them past the burning carriage. Then he turned and walked towards the river, and a quiet tavern he knew where he could be alone with a bottle of Estalian wine and his thoughts.
THE NAGENHOF BELL
by Jonathan Green
THUNDER ROLLED OVER the sleeping market town of Nagenhof, like the grumbling of angry giants. Under the roiling storm clouds the night was as black as the raven of Morr, god of death, himself. The wind, howling like a banshee, whipped around the rooftops and along the main street to the forbidding edifice at its end. The church of Morr appeared to be even blacker than the night shrouding it: black as the eternal night of oblivion. Above the gaping, open doors of the sanctuary the bell-tower loomed over the town like the ruler of the underworld himself surveying the harvest of souls he would inevitably reap. The doors were open even at this time of night and in such weather: the doors to the church of Morr were always open, just as the portal to Morr's kingdom was always open. The dark, brooding structure, with its one hundred-foot tall bell-tower, was taller by far than any other building in all Nagenhof.
Heavy raindrops beat a tattoo on the slates of the church roof and a wailing squall blew rain and leaves under the eaves of the belfry. The three figures labouring there blinked the rain from their eyes and continued to struggle with rope gripped in their straining clutches. With each heave the great bell suspended from it rose closer to its final resting-place.
The first man had a dark complexion, and a week's growth of stubble, while the second was taller with a gangling frame. Both gave the appearance of being people who weren't inclined to ask too many questions, if the money was right. The third was as hunched and deformed as sin itself but his hideous appearance did nothing to belie the obvious strength of his great twisted frame.
Accompanied by a cry of, 'Ho!' the rain-slicked rope slipped in the swarthy man's grasp and the great bronze bell dropped back several feet. Feeling the weight of the bell pull suddenly on his tired arms he let go of the rope altogether. His companion stumbled towards the square hole in the belfry floor before doing the same. The hulking hunchback was left holding the great bell on his own. With a growling roar, muscles corded beneath his skin, he hauled on the rope. The bell's descent was halted with a jerk, causing the clapper to swing against the side of the bell. It struck the dull greening bronze with a dull clang! The two men gagged as a sickening wave of nausea swept over them.
Otto the hunchback glowered at the two rogues with his good right eye. The eye bulged, as if barely contained in its socket, while the lid over the left one remained tightly shut. 'Take the rope!' Otto growled through clenched teeth, his face reddening. His speech was distorted by a mouth as malformed as the rest of his body. Hastily the rogues grabbed hold of the rope again and this time didn't let go until the bell was secured in position at the top of the belfry.
Transfixed, Otto gazed in wonder at the great, cracked, bronze bell suspended before him. The metal it had been cast from glittered with tiny, black-green, crystalline particles. A number of incomprehensible jagged runes adorned the strange artefact. Perhaps they were part of the original casting, perhaps they had been etched on afterwards; it was impossible to tell. It was a work of perverse beauty and insane craftsmanship. He was shaken from his awed reverie by a cough from the swarthy man. 'What?' he asked gruffly.
'Our payment?' the rogue reminded him. 'You said the old priest had a stack of money hidden away. A fortune taken from the collection plate, you said.'
'Yeah, and we want our share of it,' the taller man added.
'Ah yes,' Otto said, suddenly adjusting his manner. 'I have it here,' he added, reaching inside the sackcloth bag tied at his belt.
The swarthy man moved forward in greedy anticipation. 'Yes, here it is,' Otto spluttered and thrust his hand into the rogue's stomach. The man gasped and staggered backwards, the bloodied dagger in Otto's hand slipping free of his victim's doublet.
The rogue fell to his knees, hands pressed to the fatal wound. His companion saw the hunchback's blade and started to back away nervously, glancing from side-to-side, trying to locate the staircase that descended to the nave of the church below. Otto capered towards the tall man, keeping his bulk between the hole in the belfry floor and his quarry, guarding the only escape route. The first man slumped to the belfry floor with a gurgling moan and then was silent.
With a bellow the hunchback lunged. The panicked man sidestepped agilely and struck Otto's arm a double-fisted blow, sending the dagger clattering to the floor. Not waiting to see what his companion's killer would do next the gangling rogue launched himself across the belfry.
Before he had gone two yards a long arm swung round and clubbed him across the back of the head. The blow sent the man reeling. Barely able to keep his balance he
stumbled closer to the bell and the gaping hole beneath it. With a bound Otto was behind him. A hand like a sexton's spade slammed the man's face into the side of the bell. There was a crack as the man's nose broke followed closely by a dull bong! The rogue's eyes rolled up into his head as he blacked out. Like a puppet whose strings have just been cut, the man collapsed. His body slumped forward over the hole and, with nothing to support it, plummeted into the darkness below.
The deformed features of his face taking on an expression of grim purpose, Otto took the bell-rope that hung from the bell's flywheel and began to pull on it rhythmically and solemnly. The cracked bell began to ring, discordant peals tolling out over the sleeping town. Exactly as he did after every death in Nagenhof: as he did for every funeral.
It would not be long now before others came to him, creatures as deformed and twisted in the eyes of men as he was. Fellows who would welcome him into their pack and hail him as a hero for what he was about to do. There was no going back now. The summoning had begun.
'COME ON, DIETRICH,' the raven-haired Kislevite was saying. 'It'll be just like old times.'
The innkeeper pulled the pewter tankard he was polishing off the end of the metal hook that stood in place of his right hand and waved it in front of the mercenary. 'With this? I don't think so. It's because of this that I got out of the soldiering game.'
'Ah, come on now,' the mercenary responded. 'I'll wager you're as good with that as you ever were with a sword.'
'Well…' Dietrich considered, admiring the hook as if it were a finely honed Kislevite sabre rather than a replacement for his lost hand.
'And by the looks of you, you haven't gone to fat over the last ten years running this place, so I expect an old warrior like you has kept himself fit by training in the yard out back.' The Kislevite paused to stroke his neatly trimmed black beard and grinned. 'I've seen the notches in that old bear-baiting post. If they weren't made by a sword blade then I'm Baba Yaga's grandmother! Am I right or am I right?'
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