“Liar!” they screamed in answer, as well as “traitor”, “witch hunter”, and “spy”. Then, as if their own clamour had excited their bloodlust beyond bearing, they charged.
Dieter sprinted in the opposite direction. He hoped his flight wouldn’t stop them from running close to the wagon, and, glancing back, he saw that it hadn’t. As far as they knew, they had no reason to swing wide and avoid it.
He halted, pivoted, rattled off words of power, and thrust out his arm. A tongue of flame leaped up in the wagon bed.
The kegs of gunpowder exploded, and the fiery blast tore the wagon and mules apart. Chunks of blazing wood and fragments of equine flew through the air. Burning like a torch, a mutant with the head of a bird shrieked and reeled. Squinting against the glare, Dieter couldn’t tell how many other bandits the blast had killed or injured. Not all of them, obviously. Possibly only a couple. But he hoped the blinding flash, deafening boom and sheer shock would make the others falter and so enable him to increase his lead. Willing himself not to flag—he was casting too many spells in quick succession, and it was already testing his stamina—he turned and ran on.
He veered off the trail into the trees. He hated to do it. It would be harder going, and the forest was his pursuers’ domain, not his. But his only chance was to elude the mutants, and that would be impossible if he stayed in the open.
Wishing full night would hurry and engulf the wood, he ran down one slope and clambered up another. Behind him and to the right, the raiders called to one another, some in voices so garbled or bestial he couldn’t understand them. One outlaw fired a gun, and a companion cursed him for a fool and told him to wait until he was certain he saw a target.
Crouching behind an oak, Dieter hoped that none of the brigands could see him. He whispered another spell. A pang of discomfort twisted his guts, as if he were feeling the effort tear another measure of his strength away. But when he scurried onwards, he strode twice as fast as before. Fast enough, he prayed, to outdistance his pursuers and shake them off his trail.
In fact, the ploy kept him alive and uncaught for a while longer, until darkness shrouded the land, and stars gleamed through the few gaps in the branches overhead. But eventually the enchantment ran its course, and in its aftermath, he crouched exhausted, fighting to control his breathing lest someone hear the tortured rasp. For, as the rustling brush and crunching dead leaves on every side attested, even with his augmented speed, he hadn’t succeeded in eluding his pursuers. Their superior numbers and knowledge of the terrain had made it impossible, and now they were all around him.
He smiled a bitter smile. He’d struggled as hard as he could and attempted every trick that came to mind. Now, he supposed, it was time to admit his life was over.
“It doesn’t have to be,” said a baritone voice.
Dieter jerked around to find the priest standing beside him, robe belt dangling, cowl pushed back to reveal the shrewd, sardonic face and tonsured pate.
“Don’t worry,” the man in the robe continued, “the brigands can’t hear me.”
“Because you aren’t real,” Dieter whispered.
“That assertion implies you aren’t, either.”
Dieter closed his eyes in the hope that when he opened them, the priest would be gone. He didn’t want to spend the last moments of his life mired in a hallucination. “Leave me alone.”
“To die? You wouldn’t want that. Over the past several weeks, you’ve fought hard to survive. As you can survive again, if you employ all the resources at your command.”
“Use Dark Magic, you mean. No. The spells I’ve learned wouldn’t be any more effective than my darts of light and blasts of wind, and I won’t end my life with that filth in my thoughts and on my tongue.”
“How perverse that even when your survival depends on it, you refuse to recognise the bounty laid before you. The Master of Fortune offers gifts far more precious than the small boons you’ve accepted so far. Even now, it’s not too late to accept them. All you need do is extend your hand.”
“I told you to go away!” It took him a moment to realise he’d shouted.
His eyes snapped open. The priest was gone, not that it mattered. His outcry had revealed his position, and now he could hear the bandits closing in on him.
It was frightening, but even more than fear, he felt outrage at the utter unfairness of his situation, for by every star that shined in the heavens, he was an innocent man! He hadn’t hurt anyone back in Halmbrandt, yet Krieger had been able to control him just as if he had. Nor had he murdered Lampertus, but the brigands were about to punish him for it anyway.
And surely the innocent had the right to resist unjust treatment by any means that came to hand. Straining to focus despite his exhaustion, he contemplated the spells and bizarre, paradoxical dogma he’d absorbed from the forbidden texts, seeking some deeper truth that had yet to reveal itself. A part of him clamoured that he was courting a fate worse than being shot or hacked apart, but now, with death mere heartbeats away, the raw animal urge to survive rendered the caution meaningless.
Words articulated themselves in his mind. He didn’t know how, for they didn’t occur in any of the coven’s parchments, nor did he understand their meaning, but he jabbered them as eagerly as a drowning man would clutch at a lifeline.
Sudden as a lightning strike, power burned into the tender spot on his forehead and on through every portion of his body. The sensation was ecstatic and excruciating at the same time. Above all, it was so overwhelming as to render thought or purposeful action impossible, and he jerked and stumbled mindlessly in its grip.
Then the paroxysm ended as abruptly as it began, leaving weakness in its stead. He pitched forwards onto his knees, and just barely managed to catch himself with his hands to avoid ending up with his face in the dirt.
He realised the blades of grass and dead leaves beneath his dangling head looked different, although he couldn’t say precisely how. They just did.
An exchange of excited voices and the tramp of footsteps put an end to his dazed contemplation of such minutiae. The brigands had found him.
To be exact, they’d caught up with him at a moment when he was too feeble to attempt any more magic or do anything else to defend himself. The priest had promised Chaotic lore would save him, but evidently not.
Dieter wished he could die on his feet, but he lacked the strength to rise. Still, he could at least demonstrate that he had the courage to look at his killers, and so he laboriously lifted his head.
To behold three brigands. The one on the right, a woman, appeared to have no skin, as if a torturer had flayed her. The man in the middle seemed to have leeches attached all over his body, although Dieter assumed the dark, pendulous masses were actually blemishes. The remaining fellow looked normal, and maybe he was. Perhaps he was one of the folk who, according to Mama Solveig, joined the outlaws because they couldn’t bear separation from someone they loved.
Like the ground, the three bandits looked different than they ought to look. At first, Dieter saw a dim phosphorescence crawling on their bodies. Then, for a moment, the figures multiplied, and he beheld more than one of each. It was as if, moving, they left phantasmal after images hanging in the air.
The normal-looking brigand shouldered his crossbow and squinted as he aimed. The leech man turned and shoved the weapon out of line. “Don’t!” said the mutant. “Look at him!”
Look at him? Dieter realised the sensitive spot in the middle of his brow felt different than it ever had before. Hand trembling, he reached to examine it by touch.
“Does it matter?” the crossbowman asked. “He killed the recruit. He blew up the wagon and killed and hurt some of us.”
“Still,” the leech man said.
The spot was moist and soft. A flap of skin flinched down to cover and protect it when Dieter fingered it with any force at all. Now he understood why things looked different. How could they not, when he’d grown a new eye?
In other words, he’
d transformed. His exposure to the icon had started the process, his studies of Dark Magic had advanced it, and that final invocation, which had opened his body and spirit to Chaos, had enabled it to produce overt deformity. The realisation was so appalling that for the moment it even blunted his fear that the outlaws were about to kill him.
“Well, what do you want to do with him?” the crossbowman asked, a hint of petulance in his voice.
“Take him to Leopold,” the skinless woman said, the raw wetness of her face glistening even in the gloom. “If we end up killing one of our own kind, let it be because our leader ordered it.”
“He’s dangerous,” the man with the crossbow said.
“Maybe not anymore,” she said. “He looks worn out. Anyway, you two can hold onto his arms and I’ll walk behind him with my spear, ready to stick him if he tries anything. You hear that, warlock? I will kill you if I even suspect you’re starting a spell.”
Dieter managed a nod, and the men hauled him to his feet.
Calling to their comrades that the hunt was over, his captors half-marched, half-carried Dieter through the forest. On the way, a portion of his strength seeped back, shock and horror loosened their grip on him, and he realised that, even altered as he was, he still wanted to go on living. So he strove to fix his thoughts on that goal only. There’d be time to grapple with the full implications of his transformation if he survived the night.
By the time he and his captors reached the clearing, most of the other brigands had gathered there as well. Even in the dark, the sight of so many malformed bodies, no two alike, was too complicated and sickening to take in all at once. It made his head spin, made him feel as if he were dreaming once again of Tzeentch’s legions.
But this was no vision, and he couldn’t afford to stand dazed and passive as if it were. He bit his tongue, and the stab of pain dispelled that insidious feeling of unreality.
“Kill him!” urged a familiar voice. “He’s dangerous!”
Dieter cast about and spotted Adolph standing alive and well among the bandits. He realised the latter took him for an enemy because the scribe had murdered Lampertus and then laid the blame on him. Stupid of him not to have guessed before, but then, he had been busy running and fighting for his life.
When he peered at Adolph, he perforce gave the cultist a clear look at his altered face. Adolph’s eyes widened in surprise and, perhaps, dismay. That’s right, you bastard, Dieter thought. You haven’t won yet.
His captors marched him up to a mutant as grotesquely deformed as any he’d seen, whom he assumed to be their chieftain. Despite his hugeness, his stunted legs, lack of eyes, and the way he appeared to use his elongated fore-limbs as crutches might have led one to infer he’d be helpless in a fight, but the two-handed sword strapped to his back suggested otherwise.
“Good evening, Herr Mann,” Dieter said.
The raiders in general seemed surprised at the display of civility. Leopold Mann cocked his bat-like head.
“I’ve hurt some of your people,” Dieter continued. “I regret that more than I can say. But your band attacked me. I had no choice but to defend myself.”
“We attacked you,” Mann answered in a startlingly shrill voice, “because you murdered another who bore the Changer’s mark.” He shifted the weight resting on his knuckles, and as he eased himself, his single form split into four, each slightly different from the rest.
Dieter wondered again precisely what he was seeing. The phenomenon tugged at him as if it was important he comprehend it. But it could scarcely be as important as arguing his innocence.
“I didn’t murder Lampertus,” he said. “I had no reason to, and even if I did, I’m not stupid enough to do it out here in the forest, where I don’t know my way around and scores of the god’s faithful servants were camped close at hand to avenge the treachery. Adolph killed him so he could falsely accuse me and convince you to slay me in my turn. Or, failing that, so he’d have justification to dispose of me himself.”
“Liar!” Adolph snarled. “You killed Lampertus and tried to murder me too because your nerve failed, and you were afraid to meet Leopold and his people.”
Dieter looked up at the outlaw leader. “Does that gibberish ring true to you? Isn’t it plain that even if I were a spy and afraid, the safer, more sensible course of action would be to continue my masquerade, not reveal myself and provoke your anger? Only a man lost to panic would do otherwise. Do you think the witch hunters recruit agents who are prone to panic? Did I seem like a coward or idiot as I struggled to keep your band from killing me?”
One of Mann’s several images spat, then the next, and then a third. The gob of saliva seemed to take its time splatting on the ground. “It would have been stupid for you to kill your companion,” the bandit said. “But it would have been almost as risky for Adolph to try it. Why would he want you dead badly enough to take the chance?”
“No reason!” Adolph cried. Tendrils of mauve and crimson shimmer oozed on his body.
“Every reason,” Dieter said. “Your lover forsook you for me. On top of that, I’m the better magician, and as a result, neither Mama Solveig nor the other cultists think you’re anything special anymore. Essentially, I’ve taken away I everything that made you feel like a man.”
Perhaps trying to control the fury welling up inside him, Adolph took a long breath. “Leopold, you and your comrades have known me for a while now, and I’ve never done you anything but good. This wretch is a stranger to you, and you know for a fact that he’s killed a couple of you, wounded others, and destroyed the black powder and other supplies I smuggled out of Altdorf. So I ask you: which of us ought you to believe?”
“The one who carries the Changer’s mark,” Dieter said. “If he and his friends are wise, they’ll put their trust in one of their own kind.”
“You didn’t carry the mark at the start of the day,” Adolph said.
“But I do now.” Dieter shifted his regard back to Mann. “Think about it: you have known Adolph for a long time. He’s worshipped before our lord’s icon for almost two years. Yet the god has never seen fit to mark him. Now me, I’ve only belonged to the Red Crown for a few weeks, and I’ve already transformed. If the Changer of the Ways so favours me, how can his children do otherwise?”
The mutants clustered about growled and muttered to one another. From what Dieter was able to overhear, he’d persuaded some, but not all.
Just as his followers found themselves unable to agree, Mann appeared divided and uncertain in his mind. He stood and pondered, his image split into three selves, which shifted their weight in quick succession. It seemed to take a heartbeat too long for the whisper of alar membrane dragging on the ground to reach Dieter’s ears. He wondered if that was merely his overstressed nerves playing tricks on him.
Finally Mann thumped a fist on his massive chest. The other brigands fell silent.
“No member of this clan,” the bat-thing said, “saw Lampertus die. We only know what Adolph and Dieter have told us, accounts that clash with one another. Of course, we know Adolph. He’s our trusted ally. Yet Dieter’s claims sound convincing, and he’s one of our own kind.”
With that, Mann paused, as if he’d said all that need be said. After a moment, Adolph exploded, “And so? I don’t understand! What is your judgement?”
Mann snorted, the nostrils in his blunt snout flaring. “My judgement is, I don’t know what to believe. Fortunately, the band has a way of deciding such questions: the two of you will fight. The Changer will reward his true son with victory and punish betrayal with death.”
Adolph gave a nod. “Let’s do it.”
“Adolph’s fresh,” Dieter said. “I’m worn out. Surely you’ll give me a chance to rest. Otherwise, it won’t be a fair fight.”
Adolph sneered. “I have to return to Altdorf as soon as possible. If I stay away too long, and my employer becomes suspicious, it jeopardises everybody’s safety. And besides, murderer, I thought you claimed to be the better wa
rlock. Isn’t that why I’m supposed to be jealous? Well, your mystical gifts should compensate for the fact that you’ve been running around and I haven’t.”
Dieter peered up at Leopold. “Physical exhaustion hinders spell casting as much as it would hamper a swordsman’s ability to cut and parry.”
The raider grunted. “If the god favours you, your weariness won’t matter, and if he doesn’t, you could rest for a year and it wouldn’t help.” He raised his squeal of a voice: “Clear a space!”
The other marauders vacated an oval-shaped area twenty paces long. Leopold gestured, and Dieter trudged towards the far end of it. He imagined himself whispering to the sky, asking for lightning, blasting a hole through the ranks of outlaws and sprinting through the gap, but recognised that even if there had been a storm brewing overhead, it probably wouldn’t have worked. His captors would butcher him in a heartbeat if he attempted any such escape.
He turned. Adolph had taken his place at the other end of the oval. The scribe glared, and Dieter, trying to look just as resolute and confident of his prowess, responded with a glower of his own.
“Begin!” Mann shrilled.
Adolph charged. Perhaps he meant to close the distance to punch, grapple, and bring his superior strength and mass to bear, to turn the duel into a purely physical confrontation.
Dieter rattled off words of power and slashed his hands through mystic passes. He thought he was performing the spell correctly, but with the final syllable, abruptly sensed that he hadn’t. No wind rose to slam into Adolph and hold him back. Rather, several spectators cried out in surprise as the patch of earth beneath them liquefied and their feet sank into muck, a useless, random consequence of magic gone awry.
Dieter immediately resumed chanting. Adolph kept charging. No doubt, at this point, he was confident he could reach his adversary before Dieter could complete another incantation. Dieter was all but certain of it, too, but he hoped that if he pretended to attempt another spell, it would encourage Adolph to come at him as fast and therefore recklessly as possible.
[Warhammer] - The Enemy Within Page 14
