Warhammer Anthology 07

by Way of the Dead

  The stiff wind blew at ground level too, crumpling the treetops and sending gusts between the trunks. Night-eyed as he was, Jahama had to crouch in the shelter between two thick roots and strike one of the little tapers the assassins used, designed to burn for just a moment and to be easily shielded with a cupped hand. It showed him the piece of yellow parchment, the one with the forest, the road, the little river-bridge, the village, and the Castille d’Argent on its hill. In the seconds it took for the taper to burn down and extinguish he had fitted the map to the clearing he stood in, tucking it into his belt he could turn and look into the night in the direction he now knew the castle lay.

  ‘I understand my orders, lord,’ he said again, and now his voice was full of a soft, easy amusement. His cloak sat warm and close about his shoulders as he began a gentle jog away through the woods to the killing ground.

  SEATED IN THE coach, Khrait Maledict sprawled his legs out in a finely calculated pose of carelessness and listened to the sparring between his uncle and the Scorpion’s Daughter. He hooded his eyes and tilted his helm forward a little to obscure where his gaze was resting, and idly rested his head on his hand in such as way that he could grin without it showing. This was interesting.

  ‘And so, my Bride of Khaine, was your assassin ready? Had he prepared himself adequately? He needed no further tutelage from you?’ The lord’s tone was heavy and bantering, more so than it would normally have been. Dark elves, particularly their nobility, never conversed - the most trifling exchange of words was always a subtle, studied contest of insult and counter-insult as each tried to saw away at the other’s composure. Khrait knew it irritated his uncle that the game didn’t seem to work with witch elves, whose manners tended to the simple and brutal. Miharan didn’t seem to have the wit to feel the barbs that Khreos had constantly thrown at her on the Exultation’s voyage out - but that fact nettled the lord so intensely that Khrait couldn’t believe it wasn’t a deliberate gambit by Miharan herself. He wondered why his uncle hadn’t picked that up. Perhaps the old fool really was starting to lose his edge.

  ‘He is the equal of the task you have set him and more, my Lord Maledict. When you came to me at Naggarond, you demanded the finest assassin under my tutelage. I promised I would provide no less. I was sent for that night and told to bring Jahama to your docks. My finest pupil. I could hardly have sent anyone less.’

  ‘You do credit to yourself, Daughter of the Scorpion,’ said the lord. ‘Your reputation, your skills as a tutor…’ Miharan waved a hand airily as the coach bounced over a rough spot. They were moving faster now, the driver more sure of himself and their cargo delivered.

  ‘It takes a certain eye, lord, and the providence of Khaine. I took Jahama personally, of course. A small manse over Karond Kar harbour. I understand they were master shipwrights of some kind.’ She shrugged. ‘Their blood was as red as anyone else’s.’

  Khrait suppressed a shudder. He had wondered, as had everyone he knew when they were young, whether the eyes of the witch elves would ever fall on him. How could they not when sometimes on the dazed, shattered morning after Death Night houses were found with the families and retainers butchered, even the animals cut apart, but the children not dead but simply gone? And then years later, as an army drew up for battle, one might hear among the witch elves’ battle-cries the particular voice of a girl not heard since childhood, or move to let an assassin take his place among the soldiers and glimpse for half a second under a cowl the features of a playmate vanished a quarter of a lifetime before…

  Jahama had seemed about his own age. Khrait shuddered again and wondered if the assassin would have been someone he would have grown up to know.

  THE WIND HAD been Jahama’s friend. It gusted and eddied and stung the skin in a way that reminded him of the training grounds outside Ghrond. And it would also break up his scent and stop more than a scrap of it reaching the giant hunting-hounds that seemed to be tethered outside every farmer’s cottage he passed. He had rubbed his tunic and plastered his hair with the oil that Bretonnians used on their leather jerkins and tack, and that confused them further: he had triggered nothing more than the occasional puzzled, hesitant bark. Had this been Naggaroth, these ones would have been dead in their sleep at their own brothers’ hands five times over, with guards that soft.

  Deep night though it was, the countryside was not as deserted as the bay and forest had been. Not long after the road left the forest for farmland he had come up behind a pair of wagons pulled by great slab-muscled horses, decked with lanterns and with men-at-arms jogging beside them. Whatever was urgent enough to have such a cavalcade out at night Jahama did not try to guess, but they created a useful commotion, setting dogs barking and flocks of geese honking and making the farmers more likely to ignore them. He had shadowed them for the time it took to pass by the village, then peeled off and flitted away through the vineyards.

  ‘DOUBTLESS JAHAMA HAS profited by his… change in circumstances.’ Khreos said silkily. ‘Quite an upbringing! A life among the Brides of Khaine - stepchild of the Lord of Murder, as it were. A respectable lineage, even by proxy. And to have excelled in the deadly arts as he has… If, of course, you have described his abilities properly.’

  ‘You seem satisfied enough with my claims about Jahama’s capabilities, my lord. You accepted him to be your agent tonight, after all.’ Khrait smirked at the lord’s questioning of her truthfulness being elegantly turned on its head. If Khreos doubted her confidence in Jahama, she was saying, then to have picked him anyway for this mission was doubly foolish. Oh, she was sharp. No drug-addled beast-woman, this one.

  Lord Khreos, glowering, shifted tack.

  ‘The Shades I sent to spy out the land were unable to approach the castle, you know. The peasants are loyal and tenacious. They keep vigils of their own at night, with dogs and wardens, and are quick to answer an alarm from the castle walls - why, you saw for yourself that we could not go even halfway through the forest before we had to leave Jahama to go on by himself. This is a troubled part of the coast, you see, and its people are well prepared. Two of my Shades tracked a warband of Gor that came out of the swamps to the south and into the Due d’Argent’s lands, and the Due’s response was well marshalled indeed. If he should make it to the castle, he had best be careful when he flees it. I expect the yeomen will be combing the countryside for him. Perhaps we should have warned him that our last three spies were all captured.’

  Miharan’s face betrayed nothing.

  ‘I would not concern yourself. Jahama was sent last year beyond the Watchtowers and into the east where the Chaos tribes wander. His mission was to poison the wells of a tribe that had been harrying our border. The land was alive with roving warbands - there was some great strife between the Marauder chieftains that had them hunting each other and everything else they found - but Jahama slipped by them all. None found him. Watchful or no, the Bretonnians will not find him either.’

  AROUND THE VILLAGE Jahama began to see the wardens and slowed his pace. In country like this the Due’s patrols would be no idle night-wanderers, podgy with the bribes they took from the poachers they were supposed to catch. The first he found were on a little footbridge near the village mill, three men in Ducal livery leaning on the bridge wall with a brazier between them. Jahama did not think of taking chances; he moved in a wide semicircle around them and soon found their two companions. Two more yeomen in a grove thirty paces from the bridge, dark capes over their surcoats, easy to overlook if an intruder were intent on the lanterns and conversation of the guards around their little fire. Safely out of reach of their inferior human night-vision Jahama eyed them balefully, fighting down the urge to put a blowpipe dart into each of them. Sentries who knew enough to set up a twofold guard like this would also know enough to keep regular contact with each other, and the instant anyone found any of these men gone there would be an alarm raised. It was not the time for that yet.

  It took him ten minutes to circle about them, triple-checkin
g every bush and shadow for a third hidden watcher. There were none. Jahama shrugged out of his cloak and bundled the thick material into a parchment-thin hide envelope - wet, it would cling to him and weigh him down. Then he slipped into the water and darted eel-quick across to the far bank, pulling his cloak about him again as he listened intently. His breathing had not quickened; his face showed nothing but quiet concentration. There were fresh horse tracks on this side of the river, meaning night-time patrols, but he could hear no hooves and so he began to move again. The hillside below the Due’s castle was bare and he was grateful for the lack of moonlight: invisible in the dark, he looked up at the black bulk of the castle and grinned.

  ‘I AM PLEASED to hear it,’ declared Khreos. ‘The quieter and more skilled he is, the greater his chances of catching the Due in his bed. The advantage of surprise would be crucial, I imagine. The Due has something of a reputation as an opponent. Were he to face Kouran of Naggarond himself, I might still hedge my bets.’ Khreos kept his voice carefully casual. ‘My spies’ accounts of his battles against the bestigor war-chief were really quite chilling to read, and he has by all accounts bested vampires, trolls, greenskins of all-‘

  ‘Jahama is unmatched at all the assassin’s arts. As I told you.’ Miharan cut him off, sounding impatient - or was it defensiveness? Miharan’s expression was still unreadable above the fur she had wrapped around herself, but Khrait thought he was going to give his uncle this one on points - she seemed rattled.

  ‘I hope for his sake he is.’ They were back on shingle again and Khrait realised with mild surprise that they were back at the bay - they had been moving faster than he had realised. Next to him, his uncle was letting his smugness show. ‘Jahama will not have the assassin’s usual advantage for too long. There will only be a few soldiers he will be able to take by surprise; the rest he must fight while looking them in the eye, and with no others to support him. Or not for many hours, at least. I know he can pounce like a cat, but should he have to fight the Due toe-to-toe, blade against blade… well, we must have hope, eh?’

  The lord cocked a triumphant eyebrow. Miharan’s gaze was stone.

  GUILLAUME SHIFTED FROM foot to foot and eyed the brand guttering in the bracket above him. From the castle rampart he could just hear the singing and the banging of goblets on tables from the feasting hall. Jacqueline would be in there, he supposed, carrying the big jugs of coarse red wine back and forth. If he hadn’t been bullied into taking Marcel’s watch tonight he could have worked his way in, and he was sure that tonight he would finally have found the courage to talk to her. His grandmother in the village had told him that the west wind knew all about love, if you said the name of the one you loved just as you held a burning torch up high and watched the sparks…

  He looked about again, didn’t see anyone, switched the halberd to his left hand and started trying to wrestle the torch out of its bracket. If the sparks blew straight, it meant your love would be returned, but if they corkscrewed in the wind… Guillaume frowned. He must have strained a muscle or something - there was a sharp pain in his neck. And then his legs crumpled under him.

  Jahama fielded the halberd before it could clatter on the stones and slid his stiletto free of Guillaume’s body, then took a deep breath of chilly air. The moment in a mission when there was no more need for secrecy and he was free to kill was always the most delicious one. He flicked the blood from his knife, selected a broader, heavier blade for his other hand and looked around.

  The wooden roof inside the gatehouse, that would be the stables. Important work: a little poison dust scattered there and any surviving knights would be without mounts come the dawn. That tower to the left: he knew that was the quarters of Sir Roland, the Due’s adjutant, and of Jules the Rash and the brat pack of knights-errant that he led. Important men. That should be his next stop after the stables, to deal with any who had retired early and then lie in wait for the rest as they came in, rolling on their feet and flushed with drink. The gatehouse itself, of course, must not be overlooked: there would be the capstans and counterweights for the drawbridge and portcullis, to make sure that the Lord Maledict could march straight into the courtyard upon his arrival.

  Hours until dawn, but not that many. Jahama looked up and down the wall, saw no other sentries, then went leaping down the stairs and through the shadows, away from the gatehouse and stables and straight past Sir Roland’s tower to the servants’ quarters.

  THE EXULTATION WAS nothing like the quiet bulk against the stars that it had been when the skiff and its coach had left. Now the lower reaches of the Ark were strung with lamps, and the air rang with shouts and splashes as boat after boat was lowered to the water and dark elves thronged at the docks to board them. Cold ones were being hooded and shoved into longboat corrals and bundles of crossbow-bolts passed from shoulder to shoulder from the armouries. Lord Khreos surveyed the activity and gave his nephew an indulgent smile as their own skiff was hoisted from the water.

  ‘Nearly time now, Khrait. You are already in armour, of course, and our mounts are prepared. We will move straight to begin our march. Enough bickering over our little assassin friend, eh, Miharan? We shall find out if he has done his work soon enough.’ The Lord laughed, and Khrait could tell he considered the argument with Miharan over, but the little elf was talking again.

  ‘A pity our trip ended so soon. I had hoped to have time to tell you another story of Jahama before we marched. The manner in which he was made a full assassin is not known to many outside our cult, but the tale is a good one.’ She stretched inside her fur cloak, indifferent to the way the skiff hung fifty feet over the Exultation’s marshalling yards.

  ‘The year Jahama reached his final training the winter was bitter and the stars in a vile alignment, and Hellebron was in an ill humour. Decreeing a special test for the assassins, she stationed her own master assassin Hakoer beside her, the one they called the Breath of Ice for his coldness.’

  ‘No one I have ever heard of.’ Khreos was inspecting the back of his gauntlet, feigning indifference.

  ‘Oh, you will have heard of him, my lord. All Naggaroth has heard of him, simply not his name.’ Miharan allowed herself a smile as the implication sank in. The air turned grey as the Ark’s shield of enchanted fog swirled around them.

  ‘Jahama was barely six-score years and scrawny with youth. No one else would be his patron, but I knew I had found a quality in the boy. The test was simple. Hellebron locked her palace. Her best artisans set their traps in every room, her own assassins and her guards hunted through her tower with orders to strike down any elf they did not know as one of their own. And to Hakoer she handed her own blade, the Deathsword, to use on any that approached them.

  ‘All they had to do, you see, was make their way to Hellebron’s audience chamber, and pluck from Hakoer’s neck his silver collar with its single ruby. Then Hellebron would declare it a gift to them and we would have our newly anointed assassin. She laughed as she told us that she would see the hearts of our pupils on Khaine’s altar by the next sunrise, and that if any got close enough even to set eyes on Hakoer’s silver collar she would reward his trainer richly.’

  The skiff came to a gentle landing on its rest, and servants hurried to roll a ramp into place. Dotted with baleful lamplights, the Black Ark’s spires skewered the night sky around them.

  ‘But I have wasted time, lord, I apologise. I am sure you have better things to do than listen to old tales of a simple functionary of yours.’

  Miharan walked past the two nobles, ignoring their glares, and stepped lightly down to the deck where her handmaidens waited. The lord watched her for a moment, then shrugged her off and turned back to his nephew.

  ‘Well now, Khrait. If you ever wish to take a place in the great hall of House Maledict I trust you have learned from what you saw tonight. We could have followed the urgings of your infantile friends, marched ashore from the Exultation as soon as we came to the bay and tried to smash our way inland. Within a day we
would have been surrounded by those ham-handed human knights and brought to battle. By the time we had felled them, what then? Our energy dissipated in barbarous hacking-matches with a foe beneath our dignity.

  ‘Attend! See the way that the edge, the steel, the very spear-point of our army is assembling and moving to shore. Our cold ones are waiting, our retainers and lieutenants. But as we advance through the night, as we move like armoured shadows along the road, our first strike will come sooner still! Like the tongue flicking out ahead of the snake, Jahama is stealing ahead of us. Like the night wind he will pass into the baron’s fortress and descend upon the sleeping knights like Khaine himself Blade and venom throughout the halls and walls and chambers!’ Khrait, leaning insolently against the rail, rolled his eyes - his uncle’s penchant for melodrama had slipped its reins again.

  ‘Tomorrow when we reach the castle, there will be nothing! A gutted husk, its gates standing open before us, its knights lying naked in their beds, their throats open, the watchmen struck down in their towers with never an alarm sounded! And then - attend, nephew - then we shall turn to the countryside at large, to the farms and villages. Then the slavers will bring out their shackles and whips, then the cold ones can gorge, then we shall have our hunts and our fights. And those animals will scurry and cry ”where are our knights, where is our Due?” but their defenders will have been cut from the tale before it begins! By the time messengers can reach any other castles, the Exultation of Blighted Hopes will be sailing for Karond Kar, and our holds shall groan with slaves!’

  ‘The crashing invasions and battles that you youngbloods seem to favour are well enough in their way. But save them for those repugnant little inbreeds on. Ulthuan! Why waste warriors against these sweaty, hairy savages? Brute force is one thing, Khrait, but this is House Maledict. And a plan like this has…’ he matched the words to the closing of a fist, ‘…elegance.’