[Marienburg 02] - A Massacre in Marienburg

by David Bishop - (ebook by Undead)

  Belladonna took hold of Kurt’s hand, but he shook her off. “What are you still doing here? Haven’t you got somewhere to go?”

  She took a step backwards, stung by the venom in his voice. “Fine. I’ll go. One of the River Watch can come back and collect my things for me.” Belladonna strode from the station, fighting back tears as she departed.

  Arkensword arched an eyebrow at this incident. “Still a hit with the ladies, I see.”

  “Say your piece and get the hell out of here,” Kurt warned.

  “Very well,” the adjutant agreed. “On her deathbed your mother asked that you and your son be reunited. The general has wrestled with this for several weeks but finally decided he could not ignore the dying wish of the woman he’d loved all his life. He is willing to pass Luc into your care, if you prove yourself worthy of that trust.”

  “How?”

  “The general’s barge will arrive in Marienburg a few days hence. He’s visiting old army friends who’ve settled here, and is bringing Luc with him. If your father’s satisfied you can be trusted with the boy’s upbringing, Luc will remain behind with you when the general goes home. If not, Luc will be taken back to Altdorf and you won’t see the boy.”

  Kurt stared at the envoy, struggling to take in this news.

  “I have done my duty,” Arkensword said. “Expect your father before the fifth of Nachgeheim.” He marched from the station, leaving Kurt stunned and speechless.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Potts was enjoying his patrol with the surly Ganz. Captain Sandler had never let the watch commander’s nephew out of the Goudberg station, for fear the young man would come to some harm or mishap. Potts did not enjoy his time in Goudberg, finding the district stuffy and lifeless. Sandler was a pompous, self-absorbed man too wrapped up in his own advancement to worry about what happened to the district’s citizens. In less civilised parts of Marienburg that would have been disastrous, but Goudberg was so well-to-do Sandler could prosper. Private militia did most of the dirty work, while the Black Caps were mere functionaries, marking time until retirement from active duty.

  Suiddock was a far livelier place. In the space of a morning’s patrol Ganz had roughed up two thugs running a crude protection racket among stallholders on Stoessel, broken the fingers of a cutpurse who had the temerity to pick the watchman’s pockets on Hightower Isle, and attempted to seduce three buxom barmaids in three different taverns on Luydenhoek. Ganz had broken more rules than Potts could count, but the veteran was also remarkably effective in clearing away crime from the streets of Suiddock. It was a roughhouse kind of place and that suited Ganz’s roughhouse approach.

  Throughout the morning the former soldier had regaled his rookie with salty tales of battles fought, women conquered and glories won. But Ganz’s mood soured when Potts was foolish enough to bring up the subject of Captain Schnell.

  “Don’t call that coward a captain, not in my presence,” Ganz growled. “He doesn’t deserve that rank or any other. He’s a disgrace to the uniform he wears!”

  “But weren’t you in the same regiment together? How could he have been a soldier if he was such a coward?” Potts persisted.

  “His father got him in, of course. Old Ironbeard was a great general, but he had a blind spot when it came to his firstborn. Couldn’t believe his own son was afraid of anything or anyone. But I knew, I always knew.”

  “How?”

  Ganz sneered at the raw recruit. “Why are you asking so many damn questions?”

  Potts shrugged. “I’m here to learn. You’ve got the most experience of anybody at Three Penny Bridge, so I can learn more from you than anybody else.”

  The grizzled watchman glared at him. “That’s good thinking, boy. My first day as a soldier, General Schnell saw me boasting about something. He took me aside and told me I’d learn best by saying less and listening more. He was right, and so are you. Maybe we’ll make a Black Cap out of you yet, Potts! Now, where was I?”

  “Telling me about Cap—About Kurt Schnell, how you knew he was a coward.”

  “We were friends for a while, me and the general’s son, same regiment and everything. Thought I’d been wrong about him, that he was a chip off the old block after all—until the battle at Middenheim. We were given orders to advance, Archaon’s Chaos army was coming and we had to stop it. But the coward didn’t want to come with us, even dared to use his pregnant wife as an excuse. Made me promise I’d keep an eye on his younger brother, Karl, who’d joined the regiment. But the enemy was too strong and I lost Karl on the battlefield. By the time the coward turned up, his brother was dead. He left his own brother to die at the hands of Chaos. Now that’s what I call cowardice.”

  Potts was shocked by what the watchman said, but noticed that Ganz absolved himself of any blame for what had happened at Middenheim. Perhaps there was more to the incident than Ganz was willing to admit. After all, hadn’t he agreed to protect the younger Schnell from the Chaos army? But Potts knew better than to question the former soldier any further. Ganz had long ago decided what he believed was the truth. In his eyes, Captain Kurt Schnell would always be a coward, no matter what.

  Otto was praying for guidance when two of his brethren arrived at the temple. Like him, they wore the simple robes of a priest, but the quality of the cloth was ample evidence they resided in a wealthier part of the city. “Seth, Benedictus—thank Morr you’re here,” Otto said, getting up from his knees. “How was your journey?”

  Seth smiled and shook Otto’s hand. He was the taller of the two visitors, his back still ramrod straight, skin unmarked by age. Seth had trained for the priesthood alongside Otto, and the two of them had been close friends before taking their final vows. “Difficult. We got your message, and came as soon as the mist cleared. But we were forced to take a riverboat, as the Hoogbrug was so choked by people leaving Suiddock. It seems many in the district were visited by ghostly visions last night. The message said you suspected dark magic was loose in Suiddock?”

  “I’m certain of it now. The undead rose during the night, here, in the temple.”

  The new arrivals glanced at each other, shocked at such an incident in a temple of Morr. “We feared as much,” Benedictus said. He was older and more infirm, his shoulders hunched by age and worry, but his eyes sparkled with the vigour of a far younger man. Benedictus had been mentor to both Seth and Otto during their training, guiding their spiritual journey. Age had withered his body, but the spirit was still strong. “The families of the Ten have all been plagued by similar incidents in the night, though few will talk of it in public.” The old priest told Otto about incidents of the dead rising up from crypts beneath wealthy merchants’ homes, such as the House of Rothemuur in Goudberg. “Fortunately, they all have recourse to their own private militia and could suppress the uprising. Thus far news of the resurrections has also been suppressed. But I fear that will not stand for long, once word reaches the witch hunters.”

  Otto outlined his theory about the mist acting as a means of transmission for the dark magic. “What can we do to stop this, if the mist should return?”

  “Not if, but when,” Benedictus said. “The mist will return, I feel that in my bones.”

  “We saw a great fog reforming over the water as we crossed the Rijksweg,” Seth added. “It is already coming towards the city, blotting out the sun in some areas.”

  Otto told them how his spells had failed. “Alone, I could not stop the undead, and this is our faith’s only temple in the district.”

  Benedictus gave a grim smile. “Exactly. That’s why our master chose this part of the city as his base of operations. The rest of Marienburg is too well protected.”

  Otto stared at his former mentor. “What did you just say?”

  Benedictus straightened up, the joints in his spine snapping and cracking like frozen twigs underfoot on a cold day. The old priest sloughed off decades of physical debilitation as if he was shedding a cloak. “The accursed temples of Morr are too plentiful i
n other parts of the city, their interfering priests too strong in number to be easily overcome. But you stand alone here in Suiddock.”

  Seth had moved close behind Otto, his face cast in sinister shadows. “One man of faith against an army of darkness—what chance do you have?”

  Otto twisted round between the two priests, men he’d been proud to call friends. “I don’t understand. Is this a vision sent to torment me? Why are you doing this?”

  Benedictus licked his lips, the blackened tongue that ventured out like some venomous serpent. “We must break you, Otto. We must destroy you before our master can set foot here.” He reached out a wizened hand and stroked the side of Otto’s terrified, trembling face. “Give in to us, surrender to our master and you can sit at his right hand.”

  Seth leaned close enough to whisper in Otto’s ear, like a lover. “Why spend the rest of your days in this place, forsaken and forgotten, a lost soul in a sea of vice and filth? You can become like us, one with the master. You can become an immortal!”

  Otto collapsed to the floor, overwhelmed by the whispers in his mind.

  Belladonna found Damphoost asleep when she arrived at the boathouse and jetty that served as station for the Suiddock River Watch. Most of the men were out on the water, patrolling the canals and byways that splintered the district into island after island. But the door to the captain’s office was ajar, and Damphoost’s silhouette visible beyond it. Belladonna ventured inside, knocking on the door as she entered. “Ruben? It’s me.”

  He jerked awake, his hair wild and unkempt. “Sorry?”

  “Didn’t you get much sleep last night?”

  Damphoost shook his head. “Very little, and none of that restful. Troubled dreams were common among my men too. I don’t know if it’s the trauma of what happened at Riddra yesterday, or side effects from this damned fog. Feel as though I’ve been drinking canal water after a spillage of lantern oil.”

  “I know what you mean.” Belladonna sat opposite him. “Where do you want me?”

  “Beg your pardon?”

  “I’ve resigned from the Black Caps with immediate effect. Kurt—Captain Schnell—gave me leave to join the River Watch straight away.”

  “That was fast.”

  “Gave me leave is putting it kindly,” she admitted. “He practically threw me off the Three Penny Bridge. Couldn’t wait to get rid of me.”

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  “Well, it’s the truth. Don’t know why I stayed there so long, not when I could be doing something useful, working for someone who appreciates what I can do for them.”

  Damphoost smiled. “Good. We’ll do great things here, in time. But for now it’s all hands to the pump, keeping this place afloat until we can get some more watchmen.”

  “Do you always speak in nautical terminology?”

  “Occupational hazard.”

  She grinned. “Aye, aye, captain.”

  There was a knock at the door and a messenger hurried into the office. “Sealed orders from headquarters, captain. You’ve got to sign for them.” Damphoost did as required, before sending the messenger away. Once the youth had gone, the captain pulled a stiletto knife from his boot and used the blade to break the wax seal. He skimmed the contents of his orders, shaking his head in dismay at the contents.

  “What is it?” Belladonna asked. “What’s wrong?” Damphoost threw the document across to her. She read it, her brow furrowing. “They can’t really mean this, can they?”

  It was noon when the mist fell upon Suiddock once more, coming in with the turning of the tide. The sun fought against the fog, throwing some light onto the benighted streets and canals below, but visibility soon shrank to a few paces on both land and water. The sunlight did dissipate the worst effects of the mist, keeping visions and hallucinations at bay, but all who dared venture into the streets without a cloth over their noses and mouths soon felt too ill to continue. The oily droplets induced vomiting and nausea, driving more and more people back to their homes. Then came the black gulls.

  Sea birds were a constant presence in Marienburg, their cries a backdrop to every conversation that took place outdoors, their opportunistic swoops to steal away neglected food a frequent nuisance for stallholders and citizens alike. But the sky had been empty of birds ever since the fog first appeared away to the north, as if the greasy yellow mist had driven them away from the city.

  When the fog returned to Suiddock, it brought a flight of black gulls, unlike any ever seen in the district. They flew in clusters of five and seven, always keeping tight formation, ranging backwards and forwards low above the streets and alleyways and canals as if they were on patrol. That was perturbing, but most people were prepared to ignore it, until the attacks started.

  The gulls swooped down as a unit and set about unwary citizens, pecking and clawing at them with vicious beaks and talons. Hair was torn from scalps in bloody clumps, skin was ripped from hands and chunks of flesh were pecked away from arms and faces. One man was blinded in the middle of a fish market, both his eyes plucked out by the sinister black gulls. Traders and shoppers beat at the birds with any weapon they had to hand, but the birds kept pecking at the poor man until his eyes were gone. The fish market closed immediately, but word of the gull attack soon spread across the district.

  Next came the snails, slithering their way up from the canals and waterways that honeycombed the district. Like the sea birds, they were a constant presence and nobody normally noticed them, except bearded Bretonnian immigrants who favoured the mollusc as a cooked delicacy. It was the profusion of snails that made them apparent, hundreds of the small creatures in their shells emerging from the water, creeping along the cobbles or sliding up the sides of walls. People put it down to the inclement weather, the amount of moisture in the air.

  It was a child who first saw the snails blink. The boy was waiting for his mother outside a bakery when he noticed a snail stuck on a wall. The boy tapped the shell with a nail, as if it were the front door to a home. “Hello? Anyone in there?” He noticed the shell was softer in the middle, and there seemed to be hairs growing out of it in a semi-circle; short, soft hairs that curled up at the end. The boy brushed a finger along the hairs and they sprang upwards, taking the soft centre of the shell with them, to reveal an eyeball inside the shell. The eyelid blinked several times, the glistening black eye inside glaring out with a piercing malevolence. The boy screamed.

  Across the city thousands upon thousands of eyelids opened on snails. Eyes swivelled about, taking in their surroundings, staring at all those who passed. The reaction of Suiddock’s citizens was swift and brutal. They’d already suffered through choking fog and freakish gull attacks. Now the streets were awash with snails, all of them with what looked like human eyeballs, glaring and staring. The result was an orgy of squashing the snails underfoot or against walls. But the more snails that were pulverised, the more that slithered their way up from the water.

  Stallholders that had ventured out in the sunshine soon surrendered, heading home as fast as they could across the damp, slippery cobbles. With no markets left open for shopping, the streets emptied of any citizens still out in search of a bargain. The sickly, yellow cloud of mist also closed down the closest thing to a heartbeat that Suiddock possessed—the docks. No vessel had made it to port for two days, not since the cloud of fog had appeared beyond Rijker’s Isle. With no vessels coming in to unload, none were available to be filled with fresh cargo for export. The quayside was choked with fully laden vessels all waiting for a break in the weather so they could sail, perishables in their cargo rotting with unnatural haste.

  The same was true of all Marienburg’s fishing boats. A few had dared to venture out that morning, when the rising sun burnt off the mist over Suiddock, but all had turned back when they reached Rijker’s Isle. Superstition was not uncommon among sailors, and stories were already spreading that the offshore fog was not of natural origin. Those who did bring back a catch found the fish rotting i
n their nets. Something was poisoning the waters around Marienburg, like a sickness blown in from the sea.

  Whatever the cause, all that the port authorities knew for certain was their docks were at a standstill. That unleashed an army of disgruntled day workers up on Suiddock, burly men who depended on the docks to sustain them. By early afternoon Kurt was beset by a delegation from Suiddock’s council of concerned citizens, protesting about drunken dockworkers staggering around the district causing trouble; an emissary from Lea-Jan Cobbius at the Stevedores’ and Teamsters’ Guild, demanding amnesty from prosecution for his members due to the extraordinary circumstances; and a bloated merchant from the Market Traders’ Association seeking assurances that the port would reopen soon. Kurt sent them away, his temper frayed to the breaking point by their impossible demands.

  The captain almost welcomed the news that Suiddock’s new alderman had called a meeting of all concerned parties, to take place an hour before sunset. Ulric Haan was elected to the Burgerhof earlier that year, swept into the lower house of Marienburg’s parliament by a groundswell of popularity. His predecessor in the Stadsraad, a bloated warthog of a man called Loodemans, had depended on the support of stevedores and boatmen for his place in the Burgerhof. But Loodemans asked for one backhander too many and was found floating face-down in the Rijksweg one morning, quite dead.

  Haan was a charismatic leader who had won Kurt’s favour by not trying to meddle with the Black Caps. He had fought well for the interests of Suiddock in the Stadsraad and, to the surprise of everybody, appeared utterly resistant to blandishments, bribes and any inducements from special interest groups. It seemed the district had found itself the first honest politician in the history of Suiddock. Kurt was not sure how Haan had stayed alive so long, but was grateful when the alderman called the gathering. The captain was less enamoured of the venue: the Marienburg Gentlemen’s Club, better known as headquarters for the notorious Thieves’ Guild.