Meanwhile, their swords leaped at him. He dodged some strokes, and so far, the others were only slicing shallow cuts. He knew that luck couldn’t hold. His defences notwithstanding, it wouldn’t be long before one of his adversaries struck hard and true enough to kill him.
He, of course, struck back at those infrequent moments when the pressure of their onslaught abated sufficiently to allow it. His new body was strong and quick—or at least it had been before enduring so much abuse—and seemed equipped with a feral instinct for physical combat that the human Dieter could never have matched. Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough to offset the soldiers’ advantages of training, teamwork, and the longer reach their swords afforded them. Nor could he cast a spell with the blades flashing at him so relentlessly.
The soldier he’d merely knocked down clambered to his feet and came running to assist his comrades, and that surely meant the end of the fight was at hand. Dieter was about to die.
Or so he assumed until he glimpsed motion from the corner of his eye. He glanced and spied Mama Solveig lashing her hands through the passes required for the binding spell. It had held him once, for a few heartbeats anyway, and she evidently assumed it would do so long enough for the soldiers to dispatch him.
It was a considerable miscalculation from someone who was generally so shrewd. Even though they weren’t looking at her, she was running a risk using magic in the soldiers’ presence, and they certainly didn’t need her aid to kill him. She should have been able to tell that, but evidently his monstrous appearance and dogged pursuit had so rattled her that she couldn’t.
Or perhaps Tzeentch had clouded her judgement because he had plans for Dieter, just as the priest had claimed.
Dieter thrust that ghastly notion out of his mind. He couldn’t afford to think about that or anything but dodging, blocking and keeping the soldiers’ blades out of his vitals for a few more tortured breaths.
A coil of darkness spun from Mama Solveig’s hand. He spoke to it, and this time pronounced the word of usurpation clearly. Two of the soldiers were standing close enough together for the length of shadow to entangle them both, and it spun around their upper bodies and smashed them together. They lurched off-balance and fell with a clash of shields and armour.
Dieter pivoted towards his remaining opponent to find the soldier’s sword streaking in a horizontal arc at his neck. He barely managed to duck beneath the cut, then grabbed the other man’s fighting arm before he could recover. He gave it a vicious yank and twist, his claws shearing muscle and his strength popping it out of the socket. The soldier’s face turned white, and the hilt of his weapon slipped from his fingers.
Now that his foe was helpless, Dieter wanted to kill him, wanted to butcher all the soldiers who were still alive. Why not? They’d done their utmost to slaughter him. But the ashen, wide-eyed face beneath the helmet looked very young, a boy’s visage, not a man’s, and perhaps that was what made him hesitate. He reminded himself Mama Solveig was the real enemy, and these wretches, merely her dupes, and it gave him the strength to throw the lad to the ground and pivot in her direction.
She fled, and he sprinted after her. His wounded leg throbbed every time his foot impacted the street, but he was too furious for the pain to baulk him.
At the last moment, she tried to turn and face him, but she was too slow. He leaped onto her shoulders and carried her down beneath him.
He hooked his claws in the sides of her neck and pulled, shearing flesh. Blood spurted from severed arteries. He knew that was sufficient, she’d be dead in a moment or two if she wasn’t already, but he was too excited to let it end so quickly. He flipped her over onto her back and ripped at her face and torso.
It wasn’t until he’d obliterated every trace of her features that he started to calm down, and then he noticed the shreds of raw, gory meat caught on his talons. It occurred to him that the old woman could give him one last meal, and the notion made him smirk. He raised his right hand to his mouth.
Like a good many of the dolts who patronised the Axe and Fingers, Niklas the pawnbroker erroneously fancied himself a wit. Leering, he served up the same lewd plays on words Jarla heard at least once a night, that she had, in fact, heard a dozen times from him. She giggled and replied in kind, leaned over as she served him his beer so he could see down her bodice, and eventually breathed an invitation in his ear.
Eager as she’d expected, he stood up so quickly he nearly overturned his chair, and inwardly, she winced. It was strange. Dieter never sneered at her for being a whore, and yet, now that he was her lover, selling her favours seemed more difficult and unpleasant than it ever had when she was with Adolph.
At least Niklas always finished quickly. She’d close her eyes and imagine herself elsewhere while he poked away at her, and maybe it wouldn’t be too bad. The pawnbroker produced a purse from within his jerkin, loosened the drawstring, and then, as if Jarla’s thoughts had summoned him, Dieter limped in the tavern door.
She gasped at his cuts, bruises and scrapes, torn clothing and dazed, sick expression. If he felt as wretched as he looked, it was lucky he still possessed the wit to hold his third eye closed.
She started towards him, and a hand grabbed her forearm from behind. “I’m first,” Niklas said.
She pivoted, wrenching herself free. “Not now,” she snapped. Niklas opened his mouth, presumably to object. “Leave me alone!” The pawnbroker flinched, then snorted and turned away.
Jarla rushed to Dieter. Up close, his clothing and breath smelled of vomit. “What happened?” she asked. He shook his head to indicate that he wasn’t up to explaining yet, or that he couldn’t do it in public.
“We’ll go upstairs,” she said. She put her arm around him, guided him in the proper direction, then noticed the barman’s glare. He wasn’t happy with her for rebuffing Niklas or for what she intended now, either, because no money had changed hands. “I’ll pay for the room,” she told him.
It was scarcely worth paying for, just a tiny stale-smelling hole even more squalid than the stall in which she made her home. But it had a door to separate the occupants from the outside world, and a bed for them to rest on. Jarla sat Dieter down on top of the straw mattress, took him in her arms, and then he started to sob.
She rubbed his back and waited for him to cry himself out. It took a long time, but he finally stopped shaking and lifted his head from her shoulder. His eyes were bloodshot. He had ruddy blotches on his face and mucus on his upper lip.
She wiped his nose. “Tell me what happened,” she said.
He hesitated, and she felt a pang of uneasiness. She was upset already, of course, profoundly upset to see him so distraught, but this was different.
He’d obviously run to her for comfort, and such being the case, she would have expected that, when the time came to explain what was wrong, the story would have gushed out like his tears. Instead, he had the air of a man calculating precisely what to say.
But surely that couldn’t be so. He loved and trusted her too much to withhold or manipulate the truth. It was just that, in the wake of his ordeal, whatever it had been, he needed a moment to collect his thoughts.
“I—” He swallowed and began again. “Mama Solveig’s dead.”
“What?”
“We were going to call on some of her patients and a creature attacked us. Not another fiery snake, but something else out of Chaos. The Purple Hand must have sent it, too. I tried to fight, but my magic couldn’t stop it. You see what it did to me. I thought it would kill me for certain, but it just cleared me out of its way, because it was really after Mama.”
Jarla felt tears start from her own eyes, heralding the bitter sorrow to come. She wasn’t truly grieving yet. The news had shocked her numb. But she knew she would. Solveig Weiss had shown her more love and kindness than her true mother ever had.
“Did she suffer?” Jarla asked.
“I hope not. At the end, when… the beast finally sank its claws into her, everything seemed to hap
pen quickly.” He started crying again, and this time, they wept together.
When that outpouring of anguish subsided, she murmured, “I don’t blame you for what happened, and I don’t want you to blame yourself.”
To her surprise, he jerked back out of her embrace to stare into her face. The third eye popped open to study her as well.
“What do you mean by that?” he demanded.
“Just that I know you did everything you could to save Mama, and if you couldn’t, no one else in the coven could have done it, either. So you mustn’t hate yourself because the daemon or whatever it was got past you.”
“Oh. I thought…” He gave his head a shake, as if to clear it. “You’re right. I did my best, and I shouldn’t despise myself for failing. Mama wouldn’t want that.”
“No, she wouldn’t. She’d want us to serve the god and take care of one another.” Perhaps because his manner was still strange, she suffered another stab of anxiety. “You are going to stay with me and take care of me, aren’t you? I’ve lost everyone else who really mattered.”
He sighed. “Yes. Of course.”
Dieter crouched in the shadowy alley with the taste of Mama Solveig’s blood and flesh in his misshapen mouth. Jarla’s voice called his name repeatedly, the sound louder, nearer, every time.
She mustn’t see him in his current monstrous guise. He recited the words intended to turn him back into a human being, but nothing happened. He tried again, and it still didn’t work.
Jarla appeared framed in the entrance to the alley. She gaped at him. “Dieter! You killed Mama! You ate her!”
He wanted to deny it, but a sort of inertia held him. He stood mute and passive, and then it was too late. She vanished, and a band of armed men materialised in her place. Some were Krieger’s assistants, some were Mann’s freakish followers, and the rest were the watch patrol Dieter had clawed his way through to reach his intended victim, up and walking despite their gory wounds.
They all charged Dieter, and he wheeled and fled before them. They cried his name as they pounded after him.
For a while he ran through Altdorf’s benighted streets and alleyways, and then, abruptly, the city gave way to sunlit fields of scarlet grass. Voices shouted his name from ahead as well as behind. He crested a rise and beheld Tzeentch’s legions arrayed in a battle formation.
If he stayed where he was, his pursuers would catch and butcher him. If he ran onwards, the god’s warriors would protect him, but it would mean joining their ranks to serve forever after.
He couldn’t choose. He stood paralysed until guns banged, and the balls hammered into his torso. He screamed, and then the vermilion grasslands vanished. Gasping, heart pounding, drenched in sweat, he lay on his back in darkness.
A nightmare, he told himself, it was only a nightmare. In reality, he wore his natural form, and he was still in Mama Solveig’s cellar. Or rather, he supposed, it was his cellar now, so long as he paid the rent.
He took deep breaths, let them out slowly, and the tension started seeping out of his body. Then a voice said, “Dieter.”
He threw off his covers and sat up on the cot. “Who’s there?”
For a heartbeat or two, no one answered, and Dieter wondered if the voice had merely been an echo of his dream. Then it repeated his name.
“I said, who’s there?” Dieter called, and when the voice again failed to answer, he, too alarmed to take the time to light a candle in the usual way, rattled off a charm. A yellow teardrop of flame flowered atop the nearest taper, illuminating the infirmary, and, to a lesser degree, the shadowy spaces beyond. As far as Dieter could see, he was alone.
Mann had told of a voice that spoke from empty air. Had Dieter’s lunatic scheme actually worked? “Are you the Master of Change?” he asked.
“I watched you,” said the disembodied voice. It was masculine, with a shivering metallic undertone like the fading note of a gong. It sounded from one point, then another, as if the speaker were physically present and flitting around the room like a fly. “I saw everything.”
Dieter swallowed. Saw everything? What did that mean? Was the Master, if this was really he, saying that he knew Dieter was a spy? That he’d watch him murder Mama Solveig?
Dieter rose from the cot. If he was in danger, he wanted to meet it on his feet. “Just tell me who you are,” he said.
“I saw you quell the curse Adolph so stupidly unleashed. I watched you teach the others. I saw you rob the armoury and journey into the forest.”
Dieter felt marginally better. It only made sense that even if the Master of Change had the ability to spy on him, he wouldn’t spend his every waking moment doing so, and by the sound of it, he hadn’t been watching when Dieter met with Krieger, or did anything else incriminating.
“Then I hope you were pleased. Assuming that you are who I think you are.”
The voice laughed, which made the hint of vibrating metal more overt. The sound had a crazy quality as well, like the cackle of a senile old man finding humour where sounder minds saw none.
“Now why would you assume that?”
“Mama Solveig is dead. If the Master of Change wants to maintain governance over the coven she assembled, he’s going to have to communicate with one of the other members.”
“But why would it be you, the new recruit? Why not someone who’s served the Red Crown long enough that his loyalty is beyond question?”
Dieter didn’t care for the implication that his own fidelity was not, but decided not to respond to it directly. Not yet, not unless he had to, for fear of making the situation worse. “The high priest of the coven needs to be an accomplished warlock, and with Mama, Adolph and Nevin dead, and Jarla’s skills so rudimentary, I seem to be the only candidate.”
“You’re arrogant,” said the voice.
No, Dieter thought, I’m the sword of Tzeentch, his anointed champion. In the long run, likely more important than you. Then he faltered, appalled to catch himself embracing, even for an instant, the venomous lie the priest had told him.
But now was not the time to agonise over this further evidence of his psychic division and deterioration. Rather, he needed to show more respect. “I don’t mean to be arrogant,” he said. “I bristle when I’m uneasy, and you rattled me by calling out of the darkness. Truly, I was only trying to answer the question you asked. But if that answer wasn’t good enough, maybe this one will be.” He opened his new eye.
He thought that when he did, he might somehow catch a glimpse of the Master of Change even though the cult leader was apparently projecting his voice from far away. Unfortunately, he didn’t. The only thing he saw that hadn’t been visible before was a purplish shimmer crawling on Mama Solveig’s worktable, the bundles of herbs hanging above it, and the thick brick pillars.
“Yes,” said the voice, “the mark of the god. It means a great deal, and yet, not all of us who receive his favour are as thankful as we ought to be.”
“I am.”
“I hope so. My divinations suggest you’re destined to accomplish much in the service of our lord. But I’ve found that prophecy by itself can prove a treacherous guide. A mage should never ignore his common sense.”
Dieter’s pulse ticked in the side of his neck. “And what does your common sense tell you?”
The voice laughed. “Nothing conclusive, but it is troubled that in the brief time since you joined your coven, the mistress and four other members have died.”
“You said it yourself: it was Adolph’s folly that killed Nevin and Maik and himself, for that matter. He forced me to strike him down. As for Mama, we assume the Purple Hand waylaid her. I certainly had no reason to do it. I liked her.”
“Yet even so, perhaps you coveted her position.”
Dieter shook his head. “Adolph did. I didn’t. Not while she was alive.”
“What about now?”
“Well, to be honest, yes. Who wants to be a common soldier if he can be a captain instead? So, if you truly doubt me, tell me what
I must do to win your trust.”
“Fair enough. I intend to summon you to the next gathering of coven leaders. When you come, bring Jarla Kubler along with you.”
Dieter hesitated. “I understood that no one but coven leaders ever attend such assemblies.”
The Master of Change chuckled. “Then you were misinformed. Naturally, we bring lesser folk. We need them. When the lords of the Red Crown pay homage to our patron, it’s only fitting that we offer a finer sacrifice than goats.”
“I’ll gladly secure one. But Jarla is a faithful servant of the god.”
“Up to now, perhaps, but she’s soft and weak. Better to send her to her reward before she fails us.”
“If you kill her, what effect will that have on the rest of our circle?”
“None, because they’ll never know what became of her. She’ll simply disappear, and then, not immediately but not long after, you’ll show them new documents full of dark lore. It will prove you’ve been to see me, and I chose you to succeed Mama Solveig.”
Dieter struggled to think of another objection, but nothing came to him, or nothing helpful, anyway. It was useless to argue that murdering Jarla would be cruel and unjust. Devotion to Chaos was supposed to transcend all such petty considerations. Nor would it help to plead that he loved her, because that was exactly the point. The Master of Change was demanding that he betray her to demonstrate his absolute commitment.
Damn it, why was he even worrying about a whore, a Chaos worshipper, when the accomplishment of his mission might finally be at hand? He’d known from the start that if he actually succeeded in taking down the Red Crown, she was almost certain to burn with the rest of the cultists. He’d reminded himself again and again that she was expendable.
Yet he realised now that she mattered to him. Perhaps not sufficiently to sway him from his course, but certainly enough to make it bitter.
“All right,” he said. “Just tell me where I’m supposed to bring her.”
[Warhammer] - The Enemy Within Page 18
