“How does she seem?” the captain asked.
“Guilty. Sure as Sigmar’s sausage.”
Belladonna arched an eyebrow at Grist, who was busy muttering under his breath, trying to avoid her eye. Let him sulk, she decided. Damphoost believed in her, even if most of his men placed no stock in what she did. Before Belladonna could speak, a flicker of movement caught the corner of her eye. She looked round, but the corpses remained where they were, bobbing up and down in the water. “Did you see that?”
“See what?” the captain replied.
Belladonna stared at the bodies. “I could have sworn…” She shook her head. “Must have imagined it.” A bell tolled in the distance, its mournful chimes ringing across the water. “It’s getting on. I should have been back at the station by now.”
“Always hurrying home to Captain Schnell,” Damphoost sighed.
“You know the drill,” she said. “I’m happy to help the River Watch any way I can, but I’m still officially assigned to the watch station at Three Penny Bridge.”
“Apply for a transfer. We’d be grateful to have your expertise full-time.”
“I’ll think about it,” Belladonna said. “But I’m not making any snap decisions. Not until I’ve had a chance to talk about it with my captain.”
Kurt emerged from a humble house on the northern side of Three Penny Bridge, not bothering to lock the door. There was precious little worth stealing inside. Besides, the house stood directly opposite the station. If the steady flow of Black Caps coming and going from their task of patrolling Suiddock failed to stop thieves from entering the captain’s home, a heavy padlock on the oak door would do little to dissuade them.
Kurt had moved into the house out of necessity. The station was all but gutted by the battle for Three Penny Bridge, requiring massive renovation. In truth, Kurt was grateful for a chance to remodel the former tavern. There had been a makeshift quality to the place when he first reopened it. Now the interior was more to Kurt’s liking, a proper base for a working station. No longer did the insides reek of stale ale and rat droppings, nor did drunks wander in expecting to be served dregs or drugs.
Instead there was a purpose-built set of cells in the centre of the ground floor, ensuring those in custody were in plain view of anyone passing across the busy bridge. This had the effect of shaming potential prisoners into paying a swift fine to spare their blushes, or chastening them from offending in the first place. The old bar had been cut in half and converted into the desk sergeant’s domain, while Kurt had his own office on the ground floor, better to keep an eye on events as they happened.
Upstairs was devoted to sleeping quarters and ablutions, the kitchen and mess, plus secure storage for weapons and important evidence. The basement was now used for interrogations, but a jetty had also been built enabling ease of access to the waterways that comprised Marienburg’s fastest form of transport. Use of this was sometimes shared with Suiddock’s complement of the River Watch, though relations between those responsible for policing dry crimes and those policing wet crimes were often fractious.
Kurt arrived as the graveyard shift watchmen were pushing the last of the night’s drunk and disorderly culprits into the holding cells. Meanwhile each member of the dayshift was getting individual assignments from Three Penny Bridge’s desk sergeant, the formidable figure of Jacques Scheusal. “Silenti and Kramer, you two are patrolling Riddra today. It’s been all quiet there the last three days, so keep your eyes peeled.”
The two Black Caps given this assignment were new to the station, but had been doing good work so far, according to Scheusal. Both nodded their understanding of his orders. The sergeant barked out another two names, and their assignment.
“Holismus and Ganz, you’ve got Luydenhoek. Watch for smugglers trying to bring goods ashore from along the Bruynwater, we’ve been hearing whispers of a new kind of crimson shade being sold from the Anchor and Albatross.”
“Yes, sergeant,” Holismus said. But the watchman stood next to him was too busy glaring at Kurt to respond. There was little love lost between Kurt and Marc Ganz.
“Ganz!” Scheusal snarled, getting the Black Cap’s attention.
“Yes, sergeant.”
“Luydenhoek for you and Holismus!”
“Yes, sergeant.”
“That’s better.” Scheusal glanced over at Kurt, the two men exchanging a knowing look. Ganz was a powderkeg of resentment, waiting to explode. Of all the newcomers to the station in the last year, his arrival was the least welcome. Ganz was a good watchman, but his issues with Kurt were creating too much friction. Scheusal returned to the rest of the dayshift. A small, weasel-faced figure was lurking at the back. “Bescheiden, you and Speer will be staying close to home today. Stoessel for you two.”
The greasy-haired watchman cleared his throat. “I haven’t seen Belladonna yet today I think she said something about helping Captain Damphoost with a case.”
“Never heard it called that before,” Ganz hissed, just loud enough to make sure Kurt heard him. The others laughed, until Scheusal silenced them with a glare.
“Very well, you’re on your own until midday. Can you cope with that?”
Bescheiden nodded.
“Good,” Scheusal said, making a note in his logbook. “I want everybody back here, in full dress uniform, by noon. We march to the Temple of Morr where the ceremony will take place. Gerta will remain here in case of emergencies, but attendance is mandatory for everyone else, and absence will be punished by a month on graveyard shift.” There were some dark mutterings among the newer recruits. Scheusal slammed his logbook down on the desk, the mighty thud ending the complaints. “I know many of you were not here a year ago, were not involved with what happened then. I don’t care. Sergeant Woxholt and the other men we’ll be honouring today gave their lives to keep this station open. Without them, you wouldn’t have a job. The least you can do is mark their sacrifice, and hope you can equal their valour should you ever be called upon.”
“Yes, sergeant,” Holismus and Bescheiden replied in unison. Both had lived through those dark days, seen their friends and colleagues die beside them. The others nodded their agreement, however unwillingly.
“Very well,” Scheusal glowered. “Dismissed.”
The dayshift filed out, Ganz making sure his shoulder bumped into Kurt as they passed one another. The captain stood his ground, keeping a close check on his temper. Kurt did not suffer fools or the arrogant gladly, but the unfinished business between him and Ganz would have to wait. Scheusal was hovering in the background, eager to report on the night’s events across Suiddock.
Frode died first, screaming his mother’s name as bones extruded themselves from his body, one at a time. A hundred tiny slivers of white burst from the skin on his hands, followed by his ribs ripping their way free from his abdomen. The toes exploded next, spraying those nearby with blood and flaps of skin. The loss of his jawbone finished Frode off, a merciful ending to seventeen minutes of pain and terror.
Captain Haaland watched it all from his vantage point, floating in the air above the deck of the Altena. The vessel was trapped inside the fog, the air coloured a sickly yellow with smudges of darkness. Haaland choked on the bilious, foetid fumes. A pink spray soothed his face until the captain realised it was blood from one of his sailors, death made airborne, murder flung at him. Haaland gasped at the scenes all around him, unable to shut his eyes, no matter how much he willed the lids downwards.
When the last crewman had perished and only the captain remained, the malevolent mist parted to reveal its progenitor. Haaland gasped, a scream dying in his throat, trapped there and unable to escape, much like Haaland himself. A voice rattled in his mind, like a knife-edge on flint, razor on flesh—cutting, cruel, certain.
“Amazing how many bones there are in the human body, don’t you think?”
The terrified captain couldn’t reply, his larynx clutched in some unseen grasp.
“It’s only when we see th
em all laid out like this, one beside the other, that you realise just how many there are,” the voice continued. It had a sibilant tinge, but Haaland could determine no accent, no hint of where the speaker might once have called home. Then again, it only took one glance at what was speaking to know its place of origin: some hellish domain, where carnage was all that mattered.
Haaland had never been a religious man. He muttered and uttered the names of various gods as expletives when shocked or angry, he gave to various charities run by religions if they looked after retired seafarers, and he liked to believe there was a higher power behind the strange, inexplicable catalogue of events known as life. But no firm faith had ever been there to comfort him on the long, dark nights of the soul when the thought of dying shook the captain to his very core. On such occasions Haaland had always felt he was utterly alone in the world. This was such an occasion.
The thing that held him in its thrall moved closer. “I wonder how long you would survive if I broke your bones, one at a time?” Haaland heard a snap, not unlike a twig breaking underfoot in an autumnal forest. Then came the pain, a sharp, serrated edge of hurt that jagged up from his left foot. It was followed by a second snapping, and a third and a fourth. By the time the twenty-seventh bone in his body had broken, the captain was close to unconsciousness, unable to sustain each fresh assault on his nerves.
“No, no, no, no,” whispered his tormentor, cooing the words like a lover. But the breath was closer to stale game and rotten cheese, foul and bitter and flavoured by death. “I saved you until last for a reason. The others were experiments. You shall be my masterpiece. You shall be my vessel, just as this ship has been your vessel.”
Something punctured Haaland’s chest, stabbing into his torso just below the sternum. Once inside, a feeling both warm and insidious spread outwards from the fleshy barb lodged in the captain. Something was invading him, possessing him, consuming him. Haaland felt his insides being eaten away, gnawed and chewed and gnashed.
“Nothing to say? No final words, no grand statements?”
The captain wanted to respond, but his throat remained frozen.
Something sniffed at him, and a long, leathery tongue licked the side of his face.
No, Haaland had never been a religious man. But now he prayed for death.
“Two robberies, one allegation of attempted murder, three domestic disputes, a case of spying and the usual selection of drunkards who couldn’t make it home without urinating in places they shouldn’t,” Scheusal said, running his finger down the previous night’s page in his logbook. “Nothing out of the ordinary, to be honest.”
“You’re calling an allegation of attempted murder and spying nothing out of the ordinary?” Kurt laughed. They were sat in his office, going over arrest logs and paperwork. Having survived an ordeal by sword and claw a year ago, the station had won a reprieve from the city’s scheming watch commander. He now seemed intent upon drowning the Black Caps of Three Penny Bridge in paperwork instead, requiring an endless stream of reports, all filed in triplicate.
Scheusal shrugged. “I was trying to liven up our crime figures. The attempted murder happened next door at the bordello. A visiting sailor from Lustria tried to leave without paying and Molly took off his right earlobe with a flying dagger.”
“Let me guess—he was foolish enough to come in here, pressing charges?”
The sergeant nodded. “Didn’t seem to realise she was within her rights to claim a pound of flesh as compensation for his failure to meet his part of their contract agreement, as stipulated under Marienburg’s municipal mandates and bylaws.”
“He should count himself lucky it was the earlobe that got cut off,” Kurt observed.
“Our lusty Lustrian did, once I’d explained things to him. Allegation withdrawn.”
“And the spying?”
“Result of a citizen’s arrest, actually Cook from the Cormorant and Crab caught a customer copying down a list of thirteen secret herbs and spices used to make the tavern’s special Bretonnian fried seagull.” Scheusal jerked a thumb towards a sorry-looking, white-haired figure cowering in one of the holding cells. “Planning to open a chain of stalls selling his speciality, apparently. Nineteen secret herbs and spices.”
Kurt shook his head, never ceasing to be amazed at the lunatic schemes launched by some residents of Marienburg eager to make their fortune. “Anything else?”
Scheusal’s smile faded. “Yes. When are you going to do something about Ganz?”
“Not today, that’s for certain. We’ve got enough on our plate.”
“He’s not just disrespecting you, he’s disrespecting the whole station.”
“I told you, leave it alone.”
The sergeant sighed as he stood up. “Well, you can’t let it go on much longer. Either settle whatever’s going on between you two, or get him transferred. His attitude is tainting the other new recruits. We had to fight tooth and nail to get some decent Black Caps. Don’t let one bad apple spoil the rest.”
“Ganz isn’t bad. He was a good soldier.”
“Maybe he was, once. But he’s a liability now, captain.”
The Altena sailed out of the fog, though no breath of air touched its sails. The blood that had caked them was gone, borne away by some unseen power. The vessel gathered speed as it neared Rijker’s Isle, but there were no sailors on deck to acknowledge the sentries standing guard atop the prison walls. The single figure visible on board the ship stood behind the wheel, gripping the circle of wood, a rictus grin fixed upon his face. Haaland stared straight ahead, his features frozen as if utterly numb.
He was coming home, but it was already too late for the sea veteran. A pool of blood seeped into the wooden deck beneath his boots. The stench of death filled the captain’s nostrils, but he did not breathe it in, did not flinch, did not notice. A gaping wound lingered in the centre of his chest, and deep inside his body something was hungry. The feast of the flesh was come and all hell followed along behind.
CHAPTER TWO
The Knights gathered in a cold, stone chamber two floors above the oubliette, their faces hidden behind dark hoods, their clothing concealed by heavy cloaks. To be a worshipper of Solkan was uncommon in Marienburg, to say the least. The god of vengeance was full of wrath and fury, his followers were prone to extremism and pitiless rigour. But their strict adherence was nothing compared to the ruthless fervour exhibited by the Knights of Purity. Twice in the past this covert cabal had stepped forth from the shadows to strike down those thought to carry the taint of Chaos within the city’s hierarchy. The consequences had been bloody and bitter, whipping up a frenzy of retribution from the ten families that controlled most legitimate businesses in Marienburg.
The city was a tolerant, open-minded place, where the majority were willing to look the other way if it would benefit them. Marienburg depended upon its port for trade, inviting all and sundry to its docks, canals and narrow streets, so long as they brought valued goods or a rich purse. The merchants of Marienburg had little time for religious extremists, and the Knights of Purity were most certainly that. They were never officially banned—that was not the way things were done in the city—but their activities had been forced underground. Meetings were held in secret, no lists were ever made of disciples’ names and none spoke of their beliefs. After decades forced to remain in the shadows, the knights knew it was best to keep their identities hidden, even from one another.
As a consequence, none of the cabal at the hasty gathering dared look upon the face of another present. A few knew each other outside these walls—it was rumoured at least two of the knights were high-ranking officials within the city’s administration—but no names were ever spoken, no greetings exchanged. Rare was the occasion when more than three were gathered in Solkan’s name, lest they be discovered. Now twelve of them had come together in this place at the same time. They all knew the significance of this moment, the terrifying implications of their assignation.
One from among
them stepped into the centre of the chamber, black leather gloves denoting his rank as leader of the cabal. “It has begun. As the sun rose above the city, the first tears of blood fell from the holiest of holy relics. The end is upon us.”
A murmur passed among the others, fear and excitement in equal measure. Generation upon generation had waited for this moment, to hear those words. Now it was here, the curse passed from father to son over the centuries come true. Fate had chosen them to stand before the coming tempest and not let it pass. Their leader held up a hand for silence, the slightest of movements enough to hush them, cold proof of his authority.
“We know not from where this doom comes, nor what guise it shall wear. We know only it is coming and the waters surrounding the city shall run red with blood. Return to your homes and your resting places. Make yourselves ready for whatever lies ahead, the torments to come. The city may fall, but we must not fail in our duty.”
A newcomer stepped into the chamber, sweeping past the outer circle to confront the leader. “It may already be too late for us and the city,” the late arrival said, his voice gruff and coarse. “My sentries have reported seeing a bleak, sinister mist on the horizon. It’s rolling towards Marienburg with unnatural speed.”
“It is merely another portent,” the leader replied. “No doubt one of many that will be seen in the days to come. We must not confuse signs and portents with danger.”
“You’re wrong,” the newcomer snapped. He swept back the hood from his head, revealing a swarthy face and dark, malevolent eyes that blazed like burning coals. The others gasped at his decision to stand revealed, especially as they all recognised him at once. The late arrival was Herman Prost, the deputy governor of Rijker’s Isle, a man notorious for converting prisoners into Solkan worshippers by any means necessary. Rumour suggested he had killed more men than the pox in his quest to instil purity and belief into the convicted criminals of Marienburg. His regime at Rijker’s was considered little more than barbaric. “It is the enemy, coming to storm the citadels of Marienburg. We have one chance to stop our foe—now, on the water, before it sets foot in the city.”
[Marienburg 02] - A Massacre in Marienburg Page 2
