The witch hunter strolled into the ruddy half-light of his workroom, humming under his breath. He sagged into a chair, fingers rapping on the armrest. Presently, he turned to the rat that lurked silent in the shadows by the doorway. It watched him - as always - with a malevolence compounded by cyclopic asymmetry, its single beady eye glistening. The Templar made a decision.
‘Dinnertime, vermin…’ he trilled, reaching into a pocket for the confiscated pills.
TIME PASSED. WINTER reached Talabheim, an icy breath squalling from the north. The few remaining leaves, already revealing their spidery skeletons to the onset of seasonal decomposition, quit their lofty positions and were borne away by the chill. Puddles crystallised treacherously, the ruts and grooves of cobbled streets no escape from the gathering ice.
The crows shivered and puffed themselves up, miniature spheres of black indignation. They eyed each other distrustfully, aware that a starving scavenger was just as ample a meal to its brethren as any other.
In his workroom, Richt Karver warmed his hands over a well stoked fire and ignored the stream of groans and curses from the nearby wall. The whole place reeked of overcooked meat.
‘…rrnnn… nnneeed medicine… glow glow glow…’
Karver sighed, pushing the branding iron back into the fire to re-heat. ‘Spare me, Villhelm. I have a headache.’
‘…glow glow glow…’ Muttering, Karver turned to the figure manacled on the wall. A burn mark already blistering across his chest, the man’s contorted form writhed uselessly: swollen muscles spasmed, tumourous growths pockmarking his flaccid skin. A dappled blemish coiled colourfully across his shoulders and chest, just one of the gaudy signs of his Taint.
Unmoved by such alterations, Karver leaned in close. His expression - far from the contempt one might expect - instead mirrored the countenance of a disappointed parent whose child has been disobedient once too often.
‘Now come on, Villhelm. You know I don’t enjoy doing this to you. Just tell me where you bought those tablets, eh? It’s for your own good.’
Such was the sincerity in the Templar’s voice, such was the element of concern, that the mutant paused incredulously in its cursing to stare at its tormentor.
At which point Karver placed the firebrand against the creature’s flesh and pushed. Smoke rose, flesh curled and charred and the Chaos-thing screamed and screamed and screamed. The pain overcame it rapidly; its jagged head sagged forwards in a dead faint.
Karver returned to warming his hands, grumbling quietly to himself: ‘A bit of bloody quiet, Sigmar be praised.’
It didn’t last.
Within moments there came a thumping at the door and a muffled voice beyond. In the gloom of its alcove, the chained rat slunk to its feet.
‘It’s me, captain - Kubler!’ came the call. ‘I’ve found Vassek! I’ve got him right here!’
‘Very good, Kubler. Send him in, please.’
The door inched open slightly and unseen hands propelled a small, greasy man into the room. Karver mentally placed himself in the sweaty individual’s unenviable position as first reactions were gauged.
The smell hit him first; assailing his nostrils, the miasmic stench of charred skin made him gag and spin on his axis, whereupon he was faced with the limp mutant, hanging scarred and smoking from the wall. Attempting to repress the biliousness that rose in his belly at such horrors, the man twisted away and sunk to his knees…
Coming face-to-face with hissing, snarling death.
The rat had changed. Since the autumn, when its diet of Glow had begun in earnest, a dreadful transformation had occurred. Now its one eye glowed with an internal fire, no longer rotating with insane misdirection. Its lank fur hung loose and decaying in infected strips, the corpulent flesh beneath glistening in decay. Weird ridges and sores pockmarked its ulcerous skin and its long tail had sprouted a forest of spines in between the weeping lesions that punctuated its length.
It opened its cadaverous mouth and shrieked in the small man’s face, straining against its chain.
Vassek DuWurz emptied his bladder and blubbed like a baby.
Karver hauled him upright and dumped him bodily in an empty chair, where he sat quivering with eyes like dinner plates.
‘Hello, Vassek.’ The hunter smiled, his friendliness utterly incongruous with his dismal surroundings. ‘We’ve been looking for you for quite a while. How have you been?’
‘D-damn you, Karver! What’s all this about?’
‘I just wanted a chat, really. It’s so rare that I get to see old friends, these days.’
‘Don’t start that! Don’t start that ”friendly” rubbish! I’ve been down here before. Remember? I know the routine!’
‘Oh, come now! I’m too much maligned, old fellow. Surely a conversation isn’t too much to ask?’
‘Too bloody right, it is! Unless you’ve a reason for keeping me here, I’m leaving right no-‘
There was a cold, metallic hiss. Vassek, suddenly frozen, examined the glittering blade that had materialised at his throat. Karver’s ebony cane lay hollow on the floor, its secret contents exposed.
Karver’s voice was quiet, but no less friendly. ‘How’s that… what did you call it last time we met…. that ”birthmark”, Vassek? Covers half of your back, I seem to recall. Most unusual.’
‘J-juhst a… hkkk… buhhthmrrk!…’ the porcine man choked.
‘Mm. Maybe. It’s funny, you know, how many of my, ah, ”patients” say that.’
‘Whtt d’y wnnt?’ Vassek burbled.
‘Ah, that’s more like it…’ Karver smiled happily, releasing the pressure on the quivering man’s throat. ‘That’s much more like it.’ He settled back into his chair, delicately fingering the blade. ‘I know you like to… how can I put this?… ”listen” to things, Vassek. Now that we’re friends again, how about you tell me everything you’ve heard about this.’
In his hand lay a pile of Glow tablets. Over by the door, the rat-creature began howling and hissing, straining at its chain. Vassek shuddered in horror.
Karver winked conspiratorially, ‘Oh, don’t worry about him - he just wants his supper. Between you and me… I think he has an addiction problem.’
KARVER STRODE FROM his workshop purposefully, buckling on his pistol belt. The other Templars jerked to informal attention.
‘We have an address!’ he exclaimed, donning his hat with a theatrical flourish. ‘Come, come, gentlemen! We have holy work to attend to!’
‘Sir! You trust the word of that maggot?’ Kubler grunted, nodding towards Vassek, who was edging his way past the snarling rat-beast.
‘Oh, there’s no harm in him… He keeps poor company - but he remembers things and seems, now at least, keen to keep me informed… I dare say he’s more use to us at large, as it were. Let’s reacquaint him with the outside world, shall we? We have far greater fish to fry! Besides… I think Herr DuWurtz knows only too well what’ll happen if we can’t trust him.’
In a tangle of billowing black fabric, dragging Vassek DuWurtz behind them, the Templars passed from the catacombs like a malignant storm cloud.
DESPITE THE FILTH and the poverty, the people of the city’s working quarter walked with heads held high. Possessed of a ridiculous quality of embittered imperiousness, their indomitable pride glimmered in their demeanour. We may be poor, their expressions contrived to announce, but by Sigmar we’ll not show it!
This was a world of starched clothing, of saving-up-for-a-rainy-day, of keeping up appearances, and of fierce, unconditional piety.
In the lowliest of places does Sigmar find his champions, thought Karver with a sad smile, passing along the cobbled streets. He hated entering this district - not out of any great distaste at wallowing in conditions below his station, but rather for the reactions that such visits earned. These people weren’t witches or heretics, they’d sooner kill themselves than invite the Taint into their disinfected little world - and yet still they lowered their gaze, still they clutched at their
hammer pendants silently, still they sweated in cold, guilty fear at the passing of a witch hunter.
These people didn’t deserve to be afraid of him, Karver knew, and he hated himself because they were.
The Templars passed into a side alley, leaving the wide eyes and the whispers behind. They gathered around their leader, who nodded towards an ill fitting door at the alley’s end. ‘There.’
‘They have such fear of us,’ Spielmunn whispered, peering back over his shoulder at the thronged street, where already rumours would be breeding and accusations cast.
Karver smiled sadly. ‘Mm. You’ll quickly learn that fear can be a powerful weapon, my boy. Then again, it can also be a great hindrance. An innocent man has no need to fear the Templar’s knock upon his door, but he fears it anyway… What, then, is the hunter’s other greatest weapon?’
Spielmunn’s smooth features contorted in uncertainty, cheeks already blushing red. Hoist sniggered and hefted his pistol, caressing its barrel.
‘Put it away, Hoist,’ Karver muttered, one exquisite eyebrow arching. ‘A man who reveres such clumsy things has no right to them in the first place. No, Spielmunn? Any ideas, the rest of you?’ The teacher-to-class routine came easily, and Karver, in his secret soul, basked in his acolytes’ reverence.
‘Kubler? I daresay you know the answer.’
Kubler thought for a moment, then nodded. ‘A templar’s greatest weapon, captain - besides fear - is an open and smiling face.’
‘Correct. The man who is reticent when threatened may well be loose tongued in the face of simple friendliness.’
Hoist spat in disappointment. He preferred his gun.
Karver went on with a flourish, ‘The Templar must be, above all else, a gentleman! He walks with poise, is polite at all times and strives to bring light - be it the light of purity, of truth, or of refinement - into places of darkness.’ The Templars, in varying degrees of understanding and accordance, nodded.
‘Look at Kubler, if you will.’ Karver grinned, reinforcing his point and embarrassing his star pupil in one deft move. ‘He’s clean - well, mostly clean - his boots are well shined; why, his face is so open one could walk through it and exit the other side!’ The Templars sniggered, enjoying the street theatre. Karver could sense their anxiety at the forthcoming raid and knew exactly how to coax their relaxation. ‘See here,’ he said, pointing at Kubler’s ebony-swathed chest, ‘he even wears a brooch in his buttonhole! Quite the Bretonnian court dandy today, isn’t he?’ Karver’s gloved hand darted out and snatched up the bauble, inspecting its bright emerald surface. ‘A most exquisite jewel too, I’d say. Where did you find it?’
Kubler squirmed, clearly uncomfortable with the attention, ‘I… ah… I bought it, sir. Got it from a peddler up in the platz. All different sorts, she had.’
‘Well next time you visit your peddler, my boy, you be sure to purchase enough of these trinkets for all of us, you hear?’ Smiling benignly, Karver handed the token back to Kubler. ‘And now gentlemen,’ he nodded, twiddling his cane, ‘if we’ve all quite finished admiring this blushing model of Talabheim sophistication, what do you say to a little exercise?’
An element of apprehension returned to the group; but Karver could sense their calm professionalism. It was an altogether better prepared squad that turned as one towards the door at the foot of the alleyway.
Karver drew his pistol.
Boom.
A flare of light and a vicious geyser of smoke.
The decayed timber erupted in a maelstrom of whirligig splinters and corroded bolts. Messily bisected planks slumped mournfully in their dislocated bindings, the dismal light from beyond the ruined door spilling into the gloom within.
Dust motes capered in a flurry of concentric eddies as a gloved hand, ebony sleeve avoiding snags on the jagged wood, hastily reached into the room and tore back the deadbolt holding the door closed.
In the darkness someone - or something - moaned dolefully.
The door lurched open, hinges squealing in protest at the twisted wreckage of their load. Cold air rushed into the room like the surge of a broken dam, and again something within keened to itself.
Richt Karver strode into the gloom, pistol in one hand and swordstick in the other. Squinting into the shadows, he braced himself for whatever evils might be lurking within - tensing the muscles of his leading leg, preparing for combat.
Nothing moved.
Accosting him from the cloying darkness was an exotic melange of herbaceous aromas, strange and tantalising scents, carrying with them visions of distant lands and wondrous flora. Hoist spat, shattering the silence. ‘Stinks like a privy in here.’
Rows of bundled herbs hung drying from the ceiling, an inverted forest of miasmic odours. The chamber - poorly lit as it was - looked for all the world like an apothecary’s workroom.
Again came that low murmuring moan, and instantly the Templars tensed, weapons levelled, eyes desperate to penetrate the darkness. Karver cocked his head, owl like, attempting to locate the source of the sound. Gradually, like a sundial’s shadow point, he pivoted around the room, coming to rest with all his formidable attention focused upon a wide, flat topped cabinet.
‘Show yourself,’ he growled.
Something moved fractionally in the gloom, curled under the low top of the table. It began to draw itself upright, tattered rags hanging around it like dead flesh, a distinct metallic chiming accompanying its stiff movements. A heavy hood shadowed the thing’s face, a few errant strands of blond hair hanging loose.
Quivering, it groaned horrendously. The Templars spread out across the room, blocking the twitching creature’s escape.
‘Come out in the open,’ Karver grunted. His command was ignored. Frowning, Karver slowly lifted a leg and stamped down hard on the floor. The resulting thump had the desired effect.
Like a startled rodent, the hooded head snapped around to regard the black clad apparition blotting the light from the door.
‘Muaa…’ it gurgled.
‘Come out into the open,’ Karver repeated, gesturing with his pistol. ‘Understand?’
Again, a moment of recognition - perhaps even a half nod - and Karver felt sure that he could hear the thing breathing, sharp, panicked intakes of breath.
And then, with lightning rapidity the figure twisted to reach for something hidden from view beyond the cabinet. Karver felt a hot rush of adrenaline pulsing through him, senses surging ahead so that glacial slowness seemed to clutch at his movement.
‘Weapon!’ yelled Kubler in astonishment. All around the room the Templars were reacting, eyes wide - slow, too slow!
Karver didn’t even think. His finger tightened fractionally on the trigger and the world went white.
Only when the echoes of the pistol crack had fled from the chamber did time appear to flow freely again. Dry fragments of cloth capered briefly in the air, blown clear of the shambling figure by the force of the impact. The creature itself had folded away neatly: no whalespout of chaotic fluids followed its descent, no mad thrashing of limbs and gnashing of teeth. It collapsed with a strangled yelp, the clink of metal upon metal, and lay still.
Karver inched forwards cautiously. Finally convinced of its death, he stooped to peel back the ragged hood. He instantly understood his horrible mistake.
It was a girl - perhaps twelve - and she had been insane.
Her eyes betrayed her madness; not the volatile, explosive insanity of the Taint, but rather a wide eyed horror, an expression of untold hardships barely endured that had robbed her of her sanity and replaced it instead with an endless fount of terror.
Her lips were open in a silent moan, betraying the mutilated flesh within.
‘Her tongue’s gone,’ he murmured quietly.
And then, with morbid curiosity, Karver allowed his eyes to travel along her outstretched arm to whatever she had been twisting to grab in her final moments of life. Cold reflected light on metal glimmered beneath the rags festooning her frailty, and
, horrified, Karver understood his error.
A thick manacle was set around her bruised and bloody leg - a manacle securing her, by means of an iron chain, to an immovable stanchion cemented into the floor. She had been reaching to expose the chain - a mute explanation for her inability to comply with Karver’s order to move out into the open.
This girl had been a prisoner. A voiceless innocent, mutilated and abused by her captor, held here for who knew what reason.
And Karver had killed her. He felt sick.
‘Get out,’ he hissed, teeth grinding together.
‘But s-sir,’ Lars stammered, ‘you couldn’t have kno-‘
‘Get out.’
Exchanging glances, the hunters withdrew, leaving their leader with the grim trophy of his error. Hunched over, he closed his eyes and hissed a litany, forcing down the bile in his stomach.
‘… Sigmar forgive… Sigmar forgive…’
Silence sank gradually into the room. Slowly, precariously, struggling all the way, Karver allowed a sense of resolution into his mind. Witch hunters were predators. They weeded out the weak and the defective and felt no remorse at the execution of their holy work: holy work, Karver knew, that could brook no inner guilt. No guilt! - a commandment that shrieked through his skull and demanded acquiescence.
He’d killed before. Oh, countless times. So many bodies gathered at his feet, so much blood spilled on his polished boots, so many vengeful bullets fired in Sigmar’s name. How many fires had he lit in the communal platz? How often had he heard screams of denial turn to anguished, meaningless shrieks of admission in the Stygian dungeons of the Temple?
Compared to such overwhelming carnage - he lied smoothly to himself - what did the accidental extinguishing of one tiny, innocent life truly matter?
Warhammer Anthology 13 Page 27
