[Mathias Thulmann 03] - Witch Killer

by C. L. Werner - (ebook by Undead)

  A WARHAMMER NOVEL

  WITCH KILLER

  Mathias Thulmann - 03

  C.L. Werner

  (An Undead Scan v1.1)

  This is a dark age, a bloody age, an age of daemons and of sorcery. It is an age of battle and death, and of the world’s ending. Amidst all of the fire, flame and fury it is a time, too, of mighty heroes, of bold deeds and great courage.

  At the heart of the Old World sprawls the Empire, the largest and most powerful of the human realms. Known for its engineers, sorcerers, traders and soldiers, it is a land of great mountains, mighty rivers, dark forests and vast cities. And from his throne in Altdorf reigns the Emperor Karl Franz, sacred descendant of the founder of these lands, Sigmar, and wielder of his magical warhammer.

  But these are far from civilised times. Across the length and breadth of the Old World, from the knightly palaces of Bretonnia to ice-bound Kislev in the far north, come rumblings of war. In the towering Worlds Edge Mountains, the orc tribes are gathering for another assault. Bandits and renegades harry the wild southern lands of the Border Princes. There are rumours of rat-things, the skaven, emerging from the sewers and swamps across the land. And from the northern wildernesses there is the ever-present threat of Chaos, of daemons and beastmen corrupted by the foul powers of the Dark Gods. As the time of battle draws ever near, the Empire needs heroes like never before.

  PROLOGUE

  The man’s breath came short and sharp, his pulse quickening as he heard the scratching of verminous claws upon naked earth. There is no shame in fear, he thought, only in how you confront that fear. He reached into his shirt, his hand closing around an icon set upon a silver chain. He smiled as he felt the hammer-shape press upon his palm. Whatever haunted the darkness, he did not face it alone.

  Alone, once again Mathias Thulmann cursed himself for being such a fool. Nearly a hundred men had entered the gloom beneath the Schloss von Gotz, invading the black underworld below Wurtbad. Soldiers from the Ministry of Justice, veteran witch hunters from the Wurtbad chapter house, elite troops from the palace guard of Baroness von Gotz, even half a dozen templar knights of Morr, the forbidding Black Guard, had placed themselves under Thulmann’s command, following his lead into a grotesque labyrinth of nightmare and horror: nearly a hundred men, the most disciplined fighters Wurtbad could offer.

  Thulmann uttered a hollow laugh. A thousand would have been too few to explore the insane network of tunnels under the city. Passageways snaked and writhed through the dripping, stagnant earth without pattern or scheme. After a half hour traversing the madhouse corridors, Thulmann had been unable to decide if he was a few feet beneath the surface or a few hundred.

  Their foe had struck, erupting from numberless openings in the walls, floor and ceiling of the tunnel. A living tide of snapping fangs and slashing claws, the ratmen had set upon them in feral savagery. Only with blood and steel had the vermin been driven back squealing into the darkness, leaving their dead littering the floor. The victorious men had given pursuit, hounding the fleeing monsters through their burrows.

  It was then that the tunnel began to shake and quiver. Thulmann recognised the sound and the sensation all too well. Looking over to the hulking armoured form of Captain-Justicar Ehrhardt, he saw that the grim templar recognised it too. Both men shouted a frantic warning and the entire company took to its heels, fleeing the passageway as the skaven collapsed it in upon them.

  Thulmann shook his head at his own audacity. His newly-lit torch had revealed something else to him — he was alone. None of his soldiers had reached the safety of the side tunnel he had sheltered in. Lost and alone, with only the feeble light of his torch to guide him, he had enough to worry about without wishing for a confrontation with the skaven sorcerer who had drawn him down into the darkness.

  The scratching of claws on bare earth came more distinctly, with a suggestion of whispered hisses. Thulmann pulled his sword from its sheath. They’d found him at last, the scuttling horrors of this black underworld. With their inhumanly sharp senses, he had known it would only be a matter of time before the skaven tracked him down. The possibility of running passed through the witch hunter’s mind, quickly subdued and killed by his iron resolve. If he were fated to die in the skaven warren, he would do so with honour, with his wounds to the front.

  Chittering laughter crawled through the darkness. A loathsome shape crept forward, its scrawny body covered in lice-ridden fur. The face that snarled at him from beneath a rusted steel helmet was that of a monstrous rodent, chiselled fangs jutting from the lips of its muzzle. In an extremity that was more paw than hand, the ratman held a crooked sword crusted with decay. A long, scaly tail lashed the floor behind the creature as it squinted at him with hungry red eyes. Thulmann felt disgust fill him as he watched the skaven creep forward. He prepared himself for the monster’s attack, knowing only too well with what frenzy the ratkin could fight.

  The shrill, inhuman laughter was repeated. More of the under-folk emerged, their fanged faces slavering at the lone human they had cornered. Thulmann’s hopes of survival withered before him as more and more rodents emerged from the darkness. They stood there for a moment, squinting against the light of Thulmann’s torch, squealing and hissing to each other in hungry anticipation. The witch hunter knew it would only be a matter of time before the skaven overcame their trepidation and pounced upon their prey. Thulmann firmed his grip upon his blade. Whichever monster was first to dare his steel, that one at least would accompany him into the kingdom of Morr.

  A furry body slammed into Thulmann from behind, clawed feet digging into his legs as they scrambled for purchase, a wiry arm wrapping around his throat while sharp fangs snapped beside his ear. Only the witch hunter’s heavy cloak prevented the would-be killer from ending his life, turning the murderous knife gripped in its paw so that it merely slashed along the flesh. Thulmann cried out in pain and outrage. Even as the skaven clinging to his back pulled its knife back to make another strike, the witch hunter’s arm was swinging upward, thrusting his burning torch into the ratman’s face. The skaven dropped away from him, its shrill screams deafening as it writhed across the floor.

  There was no time to savour the cringing killer’s agony. As soon as the ambusher had attacked, the other skaven were in motion, lunging forward like a pack of starving mongrels. Thulmann’s sword licked out into the darkness, bisecting the snout of one attacker as it scurried towards him, gashing the shoulder of a second. Then they were on him, a burly black-furred monster crushing him to the ground as its powerful arms closed around his midsection. A clawed hand ripped his sword from his fingers as he struck the ground while furred feet kicked dirt upon his dropped torch, causing its light to flicker and dim. Ravenous eyes glared down at him, ropes of drool dripping from fanged muzzles. Mathias Thulmann had always expected his service to the Order of Sigmar would end in a hideous death, but being eaten alive by the skaven was a more ghastly end than his worst nightmare.

  Suddenly the shrill scream of a skaven rattled through the passageway. The monsters turned around in fright, noses twitching. Thulmann saw the body of a ratman fly through the air, filthy blood streaming from an enormous gash in its chest, a hulking shape beyond it. The witch hunter laughed aloud as he renewed his struggle against the ratmen holding him down. The monsters had been so intent upon tormenting their prey they had failed to notice their new adversary.

  It was not a battle but a massacre, and one the skaven quickly decided they wanted no part in. Thulmann could hear the meaty impact of his saviour’s massive sword as it cleaved apart the bodies of the ratmen. The feral courage of the skaven swiftly crumbled, squeals of fright and the a
crid reek of fear replacing their hungry snarls and mocking laughter. The monsters holding the witch hunter broke and ran, leaving only the black-furred warrior straddling his midsection. The ratman snapped its fangs in fury at its craven comrades, and transfixed Thulmann with its malicious gaze. Before the monster could bring its crooked sword stabbing down, an immense length of steel flashed through the darkness, sweeping through the ratman’s body, bisecting the creature at the waist. The spurting wreckage of the skaven’s lower half crumpled to the floor.

  Thulmann painfully lifted himself to his feet, accepting the gauntleted hand that reached down to him. The witch hunter wiped the reeking filth of the slain ratman from his clothes. Gazing around him, he recovered his sword and hat.

  His rescuer leaned upon his mighty zweihander, the point of the giant sword stabbed into the bloodied floor. Covered from head to toe in black plate armour, the warrior did not seem even slightly fatigued by the brutal battle that he had fought. The only concession to comfort he made was to lift the rounded cylinder of his helmet from his head, exposing his hard features and bald pate. Captain-Justicar Ehrhardt of the Black Guard of Morr watched Thulmann while the witch hunter recovered his gear.

  “It seems I am not the only one who escaped the trap these thrice-damned fiends set for us,” Thulmann observed as he restored the wide-brimmed hat to his head.

  “Indeed, Brother Mathias,” the knight growled. “These creatures seem determined to increase the retribution I owe them.” Looking at the carnage Ehrhardt’s sword had visited upon the underfolk, Thulmann almost felt pity for the vile creatures.

  “I have seen some sign that others made it clear,” Ehrhardt continued. “You are the first I have actually found, however.”

  “It is well that you came when you did,” Thulmann said.

  The Black Guardsman shrugged off the witch hunter’s gratitude. Thulmann could understand the sentiment: Ehrhardt did what he did out of duty, not for recognition.

  The witch hunter took stock of his injuries. Most were little more than scrapes and bruises; only the dampness along his back worried him. He winced as his fingers probed where the skaven’s dagger had cut him. The wound was shallow, for all its painful-ness, and seemed to have stopped bleeding. Infection was a more pressing concern than bleeding to death, but there was little he could do about this at the moment.

  “You are injured?” Ehrhardt enquired.

  Thulmann nodded his head as he set a linen handkerchief against the dripping wound. If it was infected it would prove every bit as lethal as the mutilating strokes of Ehrhardt’s zweihander.

  “Nothing that will prevent me from doing Sigmar’s work,” Thulmann said. He studied the black openings that peppered the passageway before them. “Shall we see if we can’t find more survivors?”

  “And if we do?” the knight asked as he fell into step beside Thulmann.

  “We pursue our original purpose,” the witch hunter replied after a pause. “We track down this skaven sorcerer and visit the justice of Sigmar upon it.”

  CHAPTER ONE

  The chapter house of the Order of Sigmar in Wurtbad stood on a winding street some small distance from Wurtbad’s temple district. The building was a squat, two-storey affair, its gabled roofs pointing towards the north, a plaster icon of the twin-tailed comet fixed above its entrance. The chapter house was not immune from the caprices of change that had settled on Wurtbad. One of the dungeons beneath the structure had partially collapsed after being penetrated by the inhuman skaven, damaging the foundations themselves. More far-reaching, however, would be the death of the chapter house’s master, Witch Hunter Captain Meisser, a final casualty in the fierce fighting that had raged within the Schloss von Gotz. It would be months before Meisser’s successor was appointed and installed in Wurtbad.

  A more immediate change, however, was what interested the man who had devoted himself to watching the chapter house since dawn. From the window of the house of a petty Sigmarite official, he had watched the comings and goings associated with the brooding structure across the cobbled street, with keen interest. With a quill, he carefully made a note of every person arriving and leaving. As darkness settled, he at last turned his eyes from the chapter house door, consulting the notes he had scratched into a sheet of vellum. A smile twisted his features.

  By his calculations, there should only be two or three men left in the chapter house, one of them wounded. He considered the rather numerous household of the owner of the home, patiently waiting for him in the parlour below. Eight against two and a half were the sort of odds he was willing to entertain, especially since his eight would be a bit more durable than the denizens of the chapter house.

  Yes, he decided, the risk was slight, and the potential reward, promising.

  Eldred hurried through the lonely halls of the chapter house. He had been long in the service of the witch hunters and knew well the priceless value of speed. With such dark powers at work in Wurtbad, even the slightest delay might mean damnation and death. Certainly the relentless, steady pounding upon the oak doors of the chapter house bespoke urgency.

  The pounding on the door continued unabated as Eldred rushed towards it. Had something gone wrong? Did the witch hunters need help? And if they did, what sort of aid could Eldred possibly render them? With a sense of grim foreboding he placed his hand on the thick steel bolt that held the door shut and peered through the narrow grate set into the portal.

  The man who stood outside the chapter house was not one of the templars, although he was not unknown to Eldred. Constantin Trauer was a clerk for the temple of Sigmar, maintaining the many accounting ledgers that monitored the temple treasury. He was a small, nondescript man, with an almost effete demeanour. In the light brown cloak of his office, his thinning hair plastered against one side of his forehead, there was certainly nothing about the man that suggested menace. Yet Eldred found himself instinctively recoiling. The clerk seemed oblivious to his alarm, barely registering the fact that the door had swung open, his right hand half-raised as if to strike upon it once again.

  Eldred’s fingers tightened around the slim dagger he wore upon his belt. Ever since the attack in the dungeons, Thulmann had ordered all the servants to go about armed. Eldred was thankful for this edict as he watched Constantin stagger forwards, his steps clumsy and awkward. The clerk’s head swayed brokenly upon his neck and Eldred gasped as the blind, lifeless chill of Constantin’s eyes met his gaze. The servant rushed forwards, dagger clenched in his fist, determined to slam the door shut before the clerk could stagger into the room.

  Eldred barked a command for the clerk to withdraw, and threatened him with the dagger, but Constantin continued to shuffle forwards. His bleary eyes did not even react to the sound of the servant’s voice. The eerie lack of response from the clerk sent a shiver of fear wriggling down Eldred’s spine, but what he saw beyond the clerk caused him to gasp. More figures were stepping out from the darkness, moving with shuffling, swaying steps. Whatever was wrong with Constantin, he was not alone in his affliction. Too late, Eldred realised he had allowed the intruder to stand between himself and the warning bell set beside the door.

  The old servant cried out, screaming an alarm to the other occupants of the chapter house. There were two other servants in the building and Franz Graef, a witch hunter who had been injured in the battle with Baron von Gotz. He only prayed that his warning came in time.

  Eldred flung himself at Constantin. For all his ungainliness, the clerk was immovable, and held his ground against the charge. Eldred’s fingers stabbed his dagger into the thing’s shoulder. For the first time, the zombie seemed to take notice of him, lifting its cadaverous fist and smashing it into Eldred’s skull, spilling the servant to the floor. Head swimming, Eldred struggled to rise to his feet and face the monster once more.

  “I need one of you alive,” a sneering voice hissed from the doorway. Eldred turned towards the sound, seeing a man who was almost as corpse-like as his undead followers. He wore
a grey cassock around his lean body, trimmed in thick brown fur. The exposed skin of his hands and face was pallid and sickly, his black hair stringy and unkempt. But there was a malevolent life in the eyes that stared from the man’s thin, hungry face, exuding an almost tangible sensation of the profane and the evil. Here, then, stood the master of the corpse-puppets.

  The necromancer waved his leprous hand and the zombie of Constantin shuffled back towards Eldred. “If you behave, you can be my prisoner,” the sorcerer said as he strode into the building.

  With arcane gestures, the necromancer ordered the zombies into the chapter house, and watched them march silently into the building.

  It was not long before screams banished the eerie silence. The necromancer’s pale features pulled back in an appreciative smile as the sound reached his ears. Eldred groaned in horror as he heard his comrades murdered.

  The sorcerer glared down at his captive. “Do the sounds of death disturb you?” The necromancer laughed. “This is but the prelude to the symphony!” He crouched down to stare into Eldred’s eyes.

  “If there was one thing I learned from the tedious operas of my homeland, it is that every instrument has its part to play” Impossibly, the smile on the sorcerer’s face became even more menacing. “Now it is time for you to play yours. I will ask a question, you will provide an answer. Where did they put the vampires?”

  Eldred moaned in renewed horror as he heard the necromancer’s words, but a fresh string of screams from deeper within the chapter house killed any thoughts of refusal. The sorcerer rose to his feet again, motioning for the zombie of Constantin to lift their captive from the floor. With an extravagant flourish, the necromancer motioned for Eldred to lead the way. The servant complied with shocked subservience, moving almost as lifelessly as the zombies.