Haan couldn’t help smiling. “I thought she was a streetwalker.”
“Not lately. Put her back out last week, hasn’t worked since.”
“There’s not much gets by you,” the alderman observed.
Frau Vink tapped the side of her nose. “Not if I can help it. I find that—” But she stopped in mid-sentence, the words dying on her lips.
“Are you all right?” Haan asked, perplexed by the sudden silence.
The widow shook her head, eyes widening in terror.
“Is something wrong?”
Frau Vink pointed a trembling finger along the alleyway. Haan glanced over his shoulder, wondering what could silence a woman who could talk the sea into submission. What he saw stayed with the alderman for the rest of his life, but that wasn’t long.
An undead horde was moving through Suiddock like some evil stain. A horde of skeletons marched with military precision along the cobbles, spears clutched in one bony hand, rusted metal shields in the other. Three ghouls lurched along behind them, ravening creatures with blotched skin and snarling lips, row upon row of jagged teeth visible within their slavering mouths. Next floated a pair of wraiths, cloaks billowing out to reveal nothing but an eternity of darkness inside, pitiless as the night. Last came a zombie quartet, lurching and staggering, the stench of rancid, rotting flesh three steps ahead of the undead corpses. Fresh blood stained their chins, and scraps of angry red flesh hung from dull, chomping mouths. It was an army of horrors, a gathering of foul and festering evil unlike anything Haan had ever witnessed or imagined.
The alderman stood quite still, transfixed by terror. He heard wooden shutters slamming shut above him, dimly aware Frau Vink had retreated to the relative safety of her home. But there was no such sanctuary nearby for Haan. He wanted to run, to flee screaming from this narrow alleyway, this deadly corridor into which he’d come with such good intentions. The alderman recalled an old adage his father used to mumble after one too many ales: no good deed goes unpunished in Marienburg. The old man had been a fool and a drunkard, but for once Haan wished he’d listened to his father’s wisdom.
The skeletons marched by, not bothering with a lone, unarmed figure. They were warriors resurrected from battlefields of centuries past seeking foes worthy of fighting. The ghouls were not so discriminating. All three of them lunged at Haan, their mouths already masticating the air as they attacked. The alderman cried in pain as the trio sank their teeth into him, jaws tearing away at cloth and skin, ripping chunks of flesh from his bones. The searing pain they inflicted broke the terror that had held him spellbound.
Haan lashed out with his fists, beating and battering the ghouls, smashing their bones and bludgeoning their bodies. He fought his way free of them, staggering forwards to the next wave of attackers—the wraiths. Their skeletal faces had just enough flesh and skin left to produce some leering mockery of a smile at his approach. Haan stumbled into one of the wraiths, his bloody right arm plunging inside the dark cloak. The alderman howled in anguish as cold and terror numbed his limb to the bone, the skin crackling like dry autumn foliage in a child’s fist. The other wraith slid an ethereal arm into Haan’s chest, squeezing his right lung until it collapsed with a hollow pop.
The wraiths swept onwards past the dying man, their chuckles at his plight like the rattling of dried husks. Haan gasped, unable to get his breath. He staggered two more steps towards safety, but the four zombies were waiting, their eyes betraying an evil hunger. They finished what the ghouls had begun, feasting on the alderman’s flesh, supping on his life blood as it pulsed away, licking the crimson spoils from the cobbles. Haan’s last thoughts before they broke open his skull to eat his brain were fishing off the Hoogbrug as a boy, and the look on his mother’s face when the citizens of Suiddock had elected him alderman. She’d been so proud that day, so proud.
* * *
Frau Vink shivered as she listened to the alderman’s screams for mercy, hands trembling beneath the shawl, her toes cold as ice. But the fear got worse when Haan’s voice was silenced, cut off by Manann knew what horror. At least she was safe inside, the door bolted and barred, sturdy wooden shutters closed across the windows. She’d enough food to last a week if needs be, plenty of water and wine to drink, candles for light.
The widow closed her eyes, but couldn’t stop the images of skeletons and ghouls lurching along the alleyway that burned inside her memory. None of the monsters could get into the house, of that she was certain—this was sanctuary. But the halfling woman had not noticed the spirit hosts outside, their ghostly presence lost amid the melee of bones and blood and flesh-eating horrors. She had not reckoned with the ability of these lost souls to walk through walls and doors as if such barriers were insubstantial as them.
The spirit hosts glided into her sanctuary, floating above the flagstone floor as if wafted in on a spring breeze. They shimmered with unnatural lights, no word escaping their silent lips, their presence both incorporeal and terrifying. Frau Vink’s eyes widened as the monsters came, her last thoughts of poor, dead Titus as the ghosts reached out for her. One touch and her heart stopped, frozen by fear and terror. The blood in her veins and arteries ceased to move, and her frail body crumpled to the floor. One last breath escaped those wizened lips to whisper a final prayer: “Forgive me…”
The spirit hosts drifted onwards, seeking out other souls to consume, fresh life to steal away for their master. Behind them the corpse of Frau Vink cooled, awaiting the command to arise and take its place among the ranks of Farrak’s grisly army of death.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“The killing’s started.” The Keeper knelt in the centre of the temple, twelve Knights of Purity stood around him in a circle. The cabal watched the Keeper mutter and whisper, pupils rolled back into his head, eyelids fluttering like butterfly wings, lips mouthing silent words and incantations between bulletins from beyond the temple. “The necromancer stands within Marienburg now. His taint is spreading, spreading…”
The Keeper stabbed the air with a finger. “Suiddock! He makes Suiddock his domain. He bleeds it dry, stains it with his daemonic seed, eats of the citizens, devours them flesh and bone, blood and soul, body and mind. He is come, he is come.”
“A name,” the cabal leader hissed. “We need a name.”
The Keeper shook his head. “He sees me, he knows I am watching…”
“Give us his name!”
“Farrak—his name is Farrak.”
That brought an audible gasp from the cabal leader, and murmurs of fear from among his brethren. “Then there can be no doubt any longer. Doom is upon us, and the prophecy has come to pass. Our time in the shadows is over. We must emerge.” The leader pushed back his hood and stood revealed.
One by one, the other cabalists followed his example. Three were members of the Stadsraad, four came from the families of the Ten, and one was the watch commander’s adjutant. They looked at each other, finally able to acknowledge the identities of their brethren. The leader gave a rueful smile. “Strange that it should take such catastrophe to bring us together at last, but Solkan works in ways far beyond our understanding or our comprehension. His will is our command, his ways our beacon.”
“Please,” the Keeper gurgled, blood pouring from his eyes and nostrils. “Let me die before the necromancer claims me. Don’t let me become his weapon against you.”
The leader nodded to his fellow knights. As one they drew ceremonial daggers and stepped forwards, plunging them into the body of their medium. The Keeper died with an expression of beatific gratitude on his face, released from his burden of torment. As his blood pooled out across the floor, the cabal leader muttered a prayer of benediction.
“Solkan, we thank you for the life of this messenger. He served you well all the years of his life, most of them locked inside an oubliette protecting your holy relics. Now he has made the ultimate sacrifice in your name. Take him unto you as a true servant of Solkan, and let him know all your splendour and glory.” The ot
hers echoed his words, all the while wiping the blood from their daggers. Once finished, the knights returned to their places at the edge of the circle, waiting for their leader to speak.
“Thanks to the prophecy, we know what comes next,” he told them. “We all have our roles to play in the coming tragedies. The gutters and waterways of Marienburg shall run red with blood and the people shall suffer torments beyond imagining. But if we stay true to our course, keep to our beliefs and our credo, we shall emerge triumphant.” He looked round the circle, seeing fear in some eyes, excitement in others. “Ours is a god of vengeance and we are his instruments. We shall defend our holy trust until death and beyond. We shall be the true servants of Solkan, a light against the darkness. We shall prevail, if we keep faith. You know what to do, so go forth my brethren. Now is the time of our greatest test, our greatest torment and our greatest triumph. Farewell.”
The leader strode from the room, hands hidden inside his cloak so the others would not see him trembling. Each new commander of the cabal was given access to a single scroll seen by no other living member, a lone sheet of papyrus that carried a fragment of prophecy deemed too great a burden to be shared. Once they had seen the words on that papyrus, every leader prayed to Solkan the prophecy would not come true in their lifetime. This leader had done the same in his turn, but he could not escape the fate entrusted to him. He could only hope the fatal prophecy was wrong, otherwise Farrak would remake Marienburg into a city of the dead within days and there was nothing any living soul could do to stop that. Dear Solkan, the leader prayed as he strode from the temple, let it not be so. But if it is so, let me die before the necromancer takes my soul.
Ganz staggered from the tavern on Luydenhoek, his breath reeking of ale. He’d been drinking since dawn, delighted to find most of the alehouses between Three Penny Bridge and Hightower Isle standing empty and unguarded. The managers had abandoned their posts, no doubt hastened on their way by the stevedores and teamsters bleating about dark magic and the injustice of quarantines. Let them run, the former soldier had decided. Just leaves all the more for me to sup, and free of charge too.
Now well lubricated, he decided it was well past time to confront the man who’d ruined his life—Captain Kurt Schnell. They had joined Old Ironbeard’s regiment at the same time, but it was always Kurt who got promoted first, Kurt who won the medals and commendations for valour. What was once a friendly rivalry became a searing, bitter hatred that consumed Ganz like some malignant tumour. Maybe somewhere, at the back of his mind, Ganz knew Kurt had earned those accolades. It was common knowledge that General Schnell was a bluff, distant father who never uttered a word of praise for his firstborn. But all Ganz saw was a favoured son getting preferential treatment.
It was Sara who drove the men apart forever. Ganz and Kurt had been together the night she met her future husband, but it was Ganz who made the first move. He tried in vain to woo her, but the beautiful young woman only had eyes for the general’s son. When they married, the news was like someone thrusting a dagger of ice into Ganz’s heart. When Kurt announced his blushing bride was with child, Ganz drank enough Bretonnian brandy to drown the world’s sorrows, without finding remission for his own.
The battle for Middenheim was savage and severe, a slaughterhouse conflict that cost more lives than Ganz thought possible. In the midst of this carnage, Ganz found himself playing nursemaid to Kurt’s little brother. Karl was another chip off Old Ironbeard’s block, another rising star in the ranks. Given custody of the young soldier, Ganz took his revenge for ten years of humiliations and perceived slights at the hands of Kurt bloody Schnell. In the heat of battle, Ganz found himself alone with Karl, a broken sword once wielded by a warrior of Chaos lying nearby. When Karl wasn’t watching, Ganz snatched up the weapon and plunged it into the younger man’s back, sliding neatly through a vulnerable gap in the recruit’s armour. Karl bled to death, still unable to grasp it was Ganz who had murdered him, asking bewildered questions as his life ebbed away.
Afterwards, the shocking, terrible truth of what he’d done shook Ganz back to reality. He had murdered a comrade, a fellow soldier, as some petty act of vengeance. He had broken every rule, every code of conduct he held dear. Ganz knew he must pay for this treachery, must confess his crime, and the sooner the better. But he was still weeping over Karl’s corpse when the general found them both, bringing the newly arrived Kurt. The words Ganz had said then still haunted him: “This wouldn’t have happened if Kurt had been here.” They were not meant as accusation, but sounded that way to the general.
Kurt was dishonourably discharged, and Ganz was left to consider what he’d done. Unable to face his crime, Ganz try to kill himself with the same blade that had slaughtered Karl. But cruel fate chose to save him, the general discovering the fallen soldier bleeding to death. The regimental healer was called and Ganz’s life was saved. All his suicide attempt did was end a promising military career. Ganz was invalided out and sent home. But there was no reason to go back, no family waiting for him. Unable to face returning to Altdorf, he’d drunk his way through a succession of taverns and menial guard jobs before stumbling into Marienburg and joining the Watch on a whim.
When Ganz was transferred to Suiddock, he had been excited. There was talk of a dynamic new captain turning around the city’s most lawless district. Ganz didn’t think to ask the name of this charismatic new leader before he arrived, never dreaming it could be the same man who had so tormented him. Far as the former soldier was concerned, being assigned to Kurt’s detail was just one more kick in the teeth from fate, destiny or whatever cruel deity watched over his miserable excuse for a life. Every time he made an effort to set aside the past, Kurt was there to scupper his chances. The humiliation of being rejected for leadership of a simple quarantine blockade was the final straw for Ganz. He’d stormed out of the station, determined to drink himself into a stupor until this crisis ran its course. But no matter how much he supped, Ganz couldn’t find the oblivion he wanted. So now it was time to report back for duty.
He lurched out of the tavern and sniffed the air. The fog that had soured all of Suiddock these past few days was in abeyance for now, but something else was fouling the breeze—a ripe aroma like rotting fruit and rancid meat, vile and sour on the tongue. Ganz had been drunk when he staggered from the alehouse. But when he looked around for the source of the rancid stench, what he saw sobered up the bleary-eyed watchman in moments. Two ghouls were gnawing on the bones of an old man, using their razor-sharp teeth to tear strips of flesh off their victim’s legs. That was shocking enough in itself—the fact the old man was still alive, still trying to fight back against his attackers, beggared belief.
Ganz retched his stomach dry as the ghouls shifted attention to their victim’s loins and belly, the old man’s intestines spilling out as merciful death claimed him. Wiping the flecks of vomit from his jowls, Ganz drew two short swords from the sheaths at his waist. “Leave him be,” the Black Cap growled at the ghouls. One ignored him altogether, the other hissed a warning: stay back or you’re next. “Have it your own way,” Ganz said.
He took the hissing ghoul’s head off, swiping both blades through the air towards each other so they crossed while severing the creature’s blotchy neck. The other ghoul clambered over the old man’s corpse to get at Ganz, its deadly claws flashing through the air so like so many tiny blades, drips of poisonous black slime flying from the nails. The watchman jumped backwards, keeping his body one step clear of those vicious weapons. He let the ghoul come at him, retreating further and further back so it had to attack from a lurching position, off balance. As the ghoul staggered on a loose cobble, Ganz sliced through its right wrist, the hand still twitching as it fell.
The ghoul snarled at him, baring row upon row of jagged, sharpened teeth. “All the better to eat me with, right?” Ganz taunted. “Come on, handsome—come and get me.” He didn’t notice the half-eaten corpse lying in the shadows behind him until it was too late. The watchman tum
bled over backwards, the thump of impact spilling both blades from his grasp. Before he could get up the ghoul launched itself at him, the poisonous claws of its left hand aimed straight for Ganz’s fearful face.
Kurt waited on an empty street, the unconscious Otto slumped against him. Brother Nathaniel had dashed away down an alley, promising to be back in a moment. But moments had turned into minutes and still the witch hunter did not return. Kurt knew they had to get across the narrow bridge into Luydenhoek before the undead horde overtook them. Without the delirious priest to slow them down, the witch hunter and the watch captain might still make it to the Hoogbrug unimpeded. But Otto was a dead weight, the burden made worse by his twitching and jerking, no doubt caused by whatever unknown torments were plaguing his subconscious.
At last Nathaniel reappeared, a burning torch in each fist. He threw one to Kurt.
“What are these for?”
“I got them from Otto’s temple. They’ve been blessed with magic, imbued by the power of Morr. Ordinary weapons are no match for many of the undead, but these flames could save our lives.” The witch hunter slid an arm round Otto, sharing Kurt’s burden.
They moved with all possible haste, but were not far into Luydenhoek when the first monsters appeared on the cobbles ahead, five wraiths drifting across the street to block the way. “Don’t let them touch you,” Nathaniel hissed.
Kurt glanced over a shoulder to see a horde of skeletons approaching from behind, their movements jerky and unnatural but all of them marching in unison, moving as one. He could hear citizens screaming nearby, pleading for mercy, and the sounds of flesh and cloth being torn apart. “Well, we can’t stay here,” he spat at Nathaniel. “We’ve got to keep moving. You’re the witch hunter—stopping unholy monsters like this is your mission in life, isn’t it? How do we fight an enemy we can’t even touch?”
[Marienburg 02] - A Massacre in Marienburg Page 17
