[Marienburg 02] - A Massacre in Marienburg

by David Bishop - (ebook by Undead)

  Kurt backhanded Nathaniel across the face. “I’ll happily beat you black and blue myself if it’ll get me some answers! Who is this necromancer? What’s his name?”

  “Farrak, I believe his name is Farrak.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  The witch hunter nodded. “I’m not surprised. He hasn’t been seen for more than a century. It was thought he must have perished. Perhaps we hoped more than believed it.”

  “Who hoped? The witch hunters?”

  “Yes. It took many of my brethren to defeat Farrak last time he surfaced, and then the necromancer was in the wilderness with but a handful of acolytes by his side. Now he has an entire city at his disposal, to lay waste and raise up as his disciples.”

  Kurt rubbed a hand across the stubble on his jaw-line, unable to remember the last time he slept or ate, exhaustion nagging at his judgement. “But the witch hunters have defeated him before, so you can defeat him again, right? I mean, necromancers are still human, even after all their spells and incantations and dark magic?”

  Nathaniel laughed, but it was all bitterness. “You know nothing of what you speak.”

  “Fine. Teach me.”

  “There isn’t time. If Farrak is coming, we’ve already lost.”

  “He must have been human once, maybe we can use that against him.”

  The witch hunter shook his head. “Farrak was a pitiless wizard who traded every trace of humanity to escape death, believing dark magic could preserve him forever.”

  “And will it?”

  “All things perish eventually—”

  “Good, then there’s still a chance—”

  “—but a necromancer of Farrak’s power could survive for millennia,” Nathaniel concluded. “Surrender yourself to the truth, Captain Schnell. The situation is hopeless.”

  “No,” Kurt replied. “I don’t believe that. I’ve stared death in the face more times than I can remember, so I’m not going to give in to it now. And I’m surprised to discover a witch hunter from the Temple Court despairs so easily. Where’s your faith?”

  “You don’t know what Farrak’s capable of, the atrocities committed in his name.”

  “Maybe that’s an advantage,” Kurt snapped. Behind him the unconscious priest lying on the bridge gave a loud moan of pain. “Otto’s coming to his senses. We need to get him out of here. He’s in no fit state to face Farrak or whoever is behind all of this.”

  “True,” Nathaniel agreed. “With the quarantine broken, we can get him away from Suiddock. Better he’s not here when Farrak comes ashore. Better for all of us.” The two men strode over to the priest and lifted him up from the cobbles.

  “Why do you believe the necromancer will come ashore here?” Kurt asked.

  “Before he collapsed, Otto said this is where it ends—here on Three Penny Bridge. That was a prophecy. The fog is one of Farrak’s favourite weapons, the perfect way to debilitate and torment his foes. Suiddock has taken the brunt of that weapon thus far, so it seems there is something here that Farrak wants. Put that with the prophecy and it doesn’t take a genius to deduce our enemy will likely be coming ashore here.”

  “This from the man who’s only just figured out what we’re fighting after two days and nights of ghostly visions, nightmares, deadly fog and corpses rising from the grave!”

  Nathaniel shrugged. “Nobody’s perfect.”

  “You think this is funny?” Kurt snapped. “Open your ears and listen. People are dying, and that’s not going to stop anytime soon!”

  Belladonna closed her eyes, expecting an explosion of pain at any moment as the harpoon punctured her chest. Instead she heard it rip through another person’s terrified scream. She opened her eyes to see the barbed end of the harpoon protruding from Damphoost’s chest, his arms thrown out sideways, his head tilted back in a spasm of unimaginable pain. He had dived in front of her, sacrificing himself in her stead, surrendering his life for Belladonna’s. “You’ve got to warn Kurt and the rest of the city,” he gasped. “Tell them what’s coming. Tell them—”

  Then the chain attached to the harpoon went taut and Damphoost was ripped backwards through the air, his barbaric howl of pain far worse than the cries of any wounded animal. Belladonna turned away, unable to watch her lover’s torment as he was dragged off by the mighty vessel of bones and metal sailing towards Suiddock. She clung to the capsized River Watch boat, her tears falling uselessly into the sea.

  Kurt saw the necromancer’s ship above the buildings on Stoessel as he and Nathaniel dragged Otto east. The priest kept drifting in and out of consciousness, his body a dead weight between the two men as they retreated from Three Penny Bridge. The huge vessel towered over the houses and storehouses of Suiddock, its prow taller than the windows of homes occupied by people who lived above their shops and workplaces. “Taal’s teeth, that thing’s a monster,” he hissed, half in awe and half in horror.

  “According to legend Farrak sailed the world for generations,” the witch hunter said, “laying waste to everywhere he landed. Sailors unfortunate enough to encounter him at sea were offered a choice; join his crew of the damned, or suffer an eternity of pain at the hands of that crew. No ship’s ever survived such a meeting.”

  Kurt saw citizens inside their homes peering out, terror all too obvious on pale faces. “There are hundreds of people still here in Suiddock. Good people who didn’t listen to the warnings of Cobbius, people who chose to stay home rather than risk excommunication by your brethren on the bridges. What will Farrak do to them?”

  “If they’re lucky, they’ll be slaughtered and their bodies pressganged into service as an undead army,” Nathaniel admitted.

  “And if they’re unlucky?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “Yes, I do,” Kurt insisted. “It was you who decided to quarantine Suiddock. Now the people of this district will suffer for your folly. Their blood’s on your hands.”

  “I know,” the witch hunter said. “When the time comes, I will give penance for my sin of pride. For now I must do everything in my power to warn my brethren and the rest of the city. The sooner Marienburg knows what it faces, the better.”

  “Pious to the end,” Kurt sneered. “You make me sick.”

  Molly and her girls had sprinted across Suiddock in an effort to beat the blockade, but still arrived at the southern tip of Luydenhoek too late. Holismus and his men had already manoeuvred the Draaienbrug swing bridge out across the Bruynwater, so it ran parallel with the canal instead of spanning it. Most people soon gave up and headed north to the Hoogbrug, knowing that the bridge could only be barricaded. But Molly told her girls to stay where they were, Kurt’s warning still fresh in her memory.

  Every fool in Suiddock would be fleeing over the Hoogbrug, given half a chance. For once, the path less travelled might be the better route to safety and an escape from the city, if needs be.

  So she told her girls to use all their skills on the men guarding the bridge controls, and see if they couldn’t be persuaded to retract the Draaienbrug. Molly focused her attention on Bescheiden. The short, weasel-faced watchman had been a frequent customer at her bordello before the battle of Three Penny Bridge, though where he’d found the funds to pay for his pleasures was never clear. But Bescheiden had not darkened the doorstep once since the battle, scuttling past with a guilty look on his face. He stood to one side of the gathered Black Caps, glowering and alone.

  “And how’s little Willy these days?” Molly asked, one hand gently caressing the watchman’s stringy upper arm. “Not looking for love in all the wrong places, I hope?”

  Bescheiden brushed off her hand. “Keep away from me.”

  “Why? Everyone deserves a little fun in their life.”

  “Not me,” he said, shaking his head. Molly peered into Bescheiden’s dark, beady eyes. There was that guilt again, the inability to hold her gaze more than a few moments.

  “Yes, Willy, even you,” she continued. Her fingers had found their way t
o his waistband, wandering lower to tease him into life.

  Bescheiden shook his head. “No, I don’t.”

  “You really mean that,” Molly realised. “Why? What it is, what’s wrong?” He didn’t reply. “You can tell me, Willy, whatever it is. Trust me, I’ve seen it all and done more than most. There’s nothing you can say that’ll shock me.”

  “I murdered someone,” he hissed, before clamping a hand across his mouth, mortified the words had been spoken aloud.

  “Who?”

  Bescheiden didn’t reply.

  “Taking a life hardly makes you unique,” Molly said. “We’ve all done things of which we’re ashamed.” Her eyes wandered to the canal beyond him, while her thoughts went back to that dawn when the last vestiges of her innocence were drowned. Before she knew it, Molly was crying, tears streaming down her freckled face.

  The watchman stared at her. “You understand,” he whispered.

  Molly nodded, wiping her face dry.

  “I know I’m already damned,” Bescheiden said, “but if I told you my confession, would you listen? If I could just share the burden with someone else…”

  She smiled. “I will, once this is over. But first I need you to do something for me.”

  Brother Daniel was busy elsewhere when the Draaienbrug bridge swung back into place. He’d been given command of all the witch hunters posted south of Suiddock. A hundred men drafted from various private armies were supposed to be bolstering the blockade below the Bruynwater. But the militiamen had all retired to the nearest taverns and bordellos when they saw the swing bridge was impassable. Daniel threatened them with excommunication, but the motley crew of mercenaries and roughnecks couldn’t care less.

  They were the dregs of the militia, the drunks and the dullards, men nobody cared about. They’d been sent to enforce the southern quarantine because their rich paymasters north of Suiddock couldn’t care less what happened to working class districts such as Winkelmarkt, Doodkanaal and Kruiersmuur. So long as the mansions of Paleisbuurt and Goudberg were safe, the fate of those living south of the Rijksweg was of little concern.

  Daniel raged at the militia until he was puce with anger, but it did him no good. He sent half his witch hunters after the deserters, while the other half remained in place. But an unholy apparition above Doodkanaal put paid to Daniel’s efforts. The district’s crematoria burned night and day, belching black fumes and ash into the air, creating a permanent cloud above the chimneys. It was one of Daniel’s brethren who first saw the grisly shape in the sky. Brother Bartholomew dropped to one knee and held out a holy book as a defence, his thin lips muttering incantations to dispel the evil overhead.

  “Bartholomew, what is it?”

  The other witch hunter didn’t reply, but jabbed a finger upwards. Daniel looked and saw what had so disturbed his colleague. A grinning skull had appeared amidst the cloud of ash and smoke. The mouth opened and shut, as if the death’s head was laughing at them, at their attempts to stem the tide of dark magic sweeping out from Suiddock. Daniel had no doubt what this apparition signified.

  “Necromancy,” he hissed, recognising the symbol of unholy resurrection. The witch hunter hailed from Altdorf. He had never been south of the Rijksweg before that day, did not know the area. But his praying colleague had been born and raised within five minutes’ walk. “Bartholomew, what’s making those clouds?”

  “The crematoria—that’s where the people of Marienburg burn their dead.”

  Daniel stared at the darkness overhead. “That means every particle, every speck inside that cloud is a tiny fragment from an incinerated corpse?”

  Bartholomew nodded, the horror of creeping realisation engulfing his face.

  “If a necromancer’s behind the dark magic, those chimneys are fuelling the fog,” Daniel snarled. “We have to stop the furnaces, before they choke the whole city.”

  “What about guarding the bridge?”

  “Look at the sky!” Daniel spat, his finger stabbing at the cadaverous apparition mocking them from the cloud of ash and fumes. “Does it look like the quarantine’s keeping the dark magic confined to Suiddock? Forget the bridge—we’ve souls to save!” The witch hunter stalked off, followed by his brethren.

  No sooner had they gone than the Draaienbrug swung back into position, reconnecting Suiddock with the rest of Marienburg’s southern archipelago. Molly and her girls poured across the span, carrying their worldly goods. The madam paused to wave goodbye to Bescheiden and the other Black Caps. “Watch your backs!” she shouted.

  The mighty ship slid along the side of Riddra, grinding its hull of metal and bones against the buildings and stone to slow down. It came to a halt beside the cut that divided Riddra from Stoessel, the waterway spanned by Three Penny Bridge. A spiked anchor was thrown from the back of the ship, and another from the front, mooring the sinister vessel across the northern end of the cut. Skeletons clambered up the rigging, gathering in the sails of skin and securing them to the yardarms with hanks of human hair. At a bellowed command from the ship’s captain, a gangplank was extended from the side of the ship until it rested on the side of Three Penny Bridge, passing between buildings.

  Farrak was first to go ashore, striding along the gangplank with a contemptuous swagger before jumping down onto the bridge. He crouched to kiss the cobbles, his crimson and black robes splaying out around him. Having desecrated the bridge, Farrak stood and clicked his fingers, an ostentatious gesture. The crew poured across the gangplank, cackling and laughing with glee at the sight of their new domain. On board the vessel a hatchway was opened in the deck, releasing yet more of Farrak’s crew upon Suiddock.

  Skeletons crawled out of the hold, the joints of their ancient bones clicking as they made for dry land. Zombies staggered and lurched, their rotting flesh providing carrion for the black gulls that flew and dived round the deck. Ghouls and wraiths drifted up from the ship’s interior, floating through the air like the clouds of fog that were rolling back in from the sea. The necromancer’s crew gathered around him on Three Penny Bridge, eager to hear their master’s voice, to carry out his commands.

  Farrak smiled on his children. “You know your mission. Go forth and make this place our own. Find me an army and make them my slaves. In short: unleash hell!”

  * * *

  Henschmann was still packing his belongings when Helga burst in with the news. “Sir, the quarantine’s been breached. People are pouring across the Hoogbrug to Paleisbuurt, escaping the district, and your lookouts report that smugglers have broken through the River Watch’s blockade in at least two places.”

  “Good. Perhaps this madness is over now.” The crime boss was relieved. He’d no wish to flee his home or his base of operations. The Marienburg Gentlemen’s Club on Riddra was the perfect place from which to command his empire, pulling the strings of a hundred corrupt political puppets and collecting a healthy portion of the takings from every crime committed in the city—on land or sea.

  Helga shook her head. “The last runner to make it back from the frontline said some kind of vessel has docked by Three Penny Bridge, crewed by the undead. Sir, the runner said it looked like Suiddock was being attacked by an unholy invasion force.”

  “Dark magic—the witch hunter was right, curse him.” Henschmann grimaced. “If they’ve taken the bridge, that cuts off any chance of escape over land.”

  “You still have the sloop,” his bodyguard suggested.

  “The last thing I want is some dolt from the River Watch impounding all of this,” Henschmann snarled, gesturing at a fortune in precious gems spilling from his bags. “No, I’ll have to use the tunnels, find a way out via the catacombs.”

  “That will be easier since the ratmen evacuated them.”

  The crime boss snorted. “I should have followed their example.” He shoved a last handful of gems in his satchel before tying off the leather straps that secured the contents. The bulk of his fortune had to remain inside the building —it was simply too heavy to c
arry. Henschmann trusted his vicious reputation would keep it secure until he could return. He pointed at two similar satchels already packed and sealed. “Can you carry both of those, and a lantern? I’ll need your help to find a path through the maze beneath us.” Helga smiled.

  “It’d be an honour, sir.”

  Haan was among the first to die at the hands of Farrak’s undead horde. The alderman had been going from door to door across Suiddock all morning, reassuring citizens there was no need to flee the district. He did not believe in the witch hunters’ claims that dark magic had infested Suiddock, so he would not be leaving his home on Stoessel. Haan appealed to those still left to stay in their homes, promising they would be safe from harm there.

  Most doors on which he knocked brought no response or a torrent of abuse from citizens who’d already been visited by stevedores or teamsters. So it proved again when he ventured up the quiet alleyway where Frau Vink lived. The first five homes stayed quiet when he knocked, while two others flayed his ears with curses. The eighth door belonged to the halfling widow. She opened her shutters and leaned out to remonstrate with him, but her expression changed on seeing Haan standing below her window.

  “Is that you, alderman?” Frau Vink asked in a querulous voice.

  “It is. How are you keeping, my dear?” Haan had been friends with her late husband, and visited the widow twice after Titus was murdered.

  “Better now those thugs belonging to Cobbius have chosen to leave us in peace! You’d think they had more profitable things to do with their time than disturb ordinary, law-abiding citizens. It’s a disgrace, alderman, an absolute disgrace.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” he said. “I’ve got a much different message to offer—”

  “No need to repeat yourself,” the widow interjected. “I heard what you said to my neighbour. Forgive that flat-nosed hussy, she’s all the manners of a streetwalker.”