by Warhammer
'Then you knew where we were going?' Dietz asked, earning a surprised look followed by an approving nod from Alaric. 'When we were searching the Howling Hills, when we were combing the riverbank, you knew where the statues were?'
Fastred shook his head again. 'No. Not precisely, anyway. I knew we were going to the Hills, and roughly which part of them we'd need. I knew the second one would be near the river and roughly centred in von Drasche's lands. I didn't know anything beyond that. I wasn't the one who made the actual travel plans. I just pointed out some areas on the map.' His face was red and dripped with sweat as he glanced at Alaric! 'I didn't know what he wanted, Alaric! You have to believe me! Dietz, you believe me, don't you? I thought it was just for trade routes! I never would have helped him if I'd known about the statues!'
'He told me where to send them,' Kristoff argued, glaring at the larger man. 'He told me where to get the statues and where to take them, but nothing about what they were or what they could do. When I asked he said I didn't need to know.' He looked embarrassed. 'I couldn't argue. He'd have destroyed my career, my reputation, everything. I couldn't risk it.'
'More lies!' Fastred attacked again, just as wildly as before, and Kristoff blocked again. He didn't counterattack, however. Alaric and Dietz looked on, both wanting to stop the fight, but both realising that to intervene physically would only put them in danger as well.
'So you ordered the wagons,' Alaric said to Kristoff. 'You both agree upon that, but who commissioned the statues themselves?'
'He did!' both men shouted, pointing their swords at one another.
'Of course,' Alaric agreed, 'and we can't ask Rolf to describe his client any more, can we? That was a clever move on someone's part.' His face hardened. 'And all it cost was the life of an innocent man.'
'I didn't even know the stone carver!' Fastred called out, wiping sweat from his forehead. 'I never met him!'
'I'd never heard the name Rolf until just now,' Kristoff claimed. 'I deal with merchants and traders, not craftsmen.'
'One of you knew him,' Dietz said softly, 'hired him, and killed him.'
'I didn't kill anyone/ Fastred said almost in a whimper, 'but he did!' he jabbed his sword at Kristoff. 'He killed Renke!'
'I? I didn't kill him/ Kristoff replied, shouting. 'You did!' He glanced at Alaric. 'During the fight with the baron/ he explained, his sword steady even while he looked away from his opponent. 'I saw it - he moved behind Renke, drew his dagger, and-' he trailed off, apparently unable to continue.
'I was nowhere near Renke during that fight/ Fastred bellowed. 'You were alone with him before that, while we were destroying the statue. You stabbed him then. What had he learned?' he sneered. 'Had he figured out your plans and threatened to expose you?'
'The two of you had been talking a great deal up until then' Kristoff snapped back. 'He must have found out about your crazed schemes and denounced you. You killed him before he could tell anyone!'
Alaric had gone silent, his eyes no longer seeing the scene before him, and Dietz knew his mind was elsewhere. His employer was remembering the conversation he'd had with Renke right before the battle. Renke had wanted to speak with him privately. The little geographer had looked awful, pale and sweating, but Alaric had thought it was concern about the baron. What if he had already been stabbed at that point and his appearance had been caused by pain and blood loss?
'One of you is a killer/ Dietz confirmed, eyeing them both, 'but both of you were involved in this somehow. I say we summon the city guard, or perhaps the witch hunters, and let them sort this out. I'm sure Kleiber could find out the truth quickly enough.'
'That ham-handed fanatic!' Kristoff snarled. 'I wouldn't trust him to find his own boots in the morning! He's a witch hunter - they're not interested in truth or justice, just blood and death. He'd try us all for heresy, you two as well, and tighten the ropes himself at the gallows.'
'Aye, he might,' Fastred replied. 'Hot that you don't deserve it, but that wouldn't solve anything.' He glanced at Alaric again. 'There must be some way to prove my innocence.' Seeing Dietz's glare, he amended his statement. 'To prove I was not the one who commissioned those hideous statues.'
Alaric started to reply, but Dietz beat him to it.
'There is one thing,' he said, and all three men stared at him.
'There is?' Kristoff asked, parroted by both Fastred and Alaric.
'Oh yes,' Dietz said, shooting his employer a glance. Fortunately they had travelled together for over a year, and Alaric had learned to read many of Dietz's subtle cues.
'Oh, that,' he replied, nodding wisely. "Yes, we could use that, I suppose. I'd hoped to avoid it, but I see there's no other way.'
'None,' Dietz agreed. 'At least we'll know for certain.'
'Yes, of course,' Alaric said, but whatever he'd meant to say after that was cut off. Kristoff said something to Fastred, too softly for them to hear, and Fastred snarled a curse in reply. Then blades clashed and the time for talk was past as the two men circled, each seeking an opening for his sword.
Dietz looked at Alaric, who shrugged. There was nothing they could do now other than watch and wait.
Fastred had a clear advantage in height, weight, and possibly strength, and he used it eagerly, lashing out with strong blows and dancing back from Kristoffs parries. Kristoff, on the other hand, was considerably faster than his opponent. He also used a longsword while Fastred had a short sword, the weapons' size difference reducing Fas-tred's height advantage.
The two men paced and charged and back-pedalled, blades weaving about. Fastred lunged again, his blade narrowly missing Kristoffs arm and scraping along his side instead. Then Fastred overextended and had to slash downward, blocking what could have been a disembowelling blow if it had landed. Kristoff swivelled his sword out of the block and looped around, slicing down and across, and leaving a bloody trail across Fastred's chest.
'What can we do?' Dietz asked Alaric softly as they watched, but his employer only shrugged.
There's nothing we can do,' he said finally. 'We wait for them to finish, one way or another.'
The end did not take that long. Kristoff swept his blade across, but the blow was surprisingly clumsy and slow. Fastred laughed, his short sword descending to block the blow and then arcing up again to pierce the trader's chest or stomach. Then suddenly Kristoffs sword spun in his hand and reversed course as if Fastred's own blade had caused his return. The longsword slashed across and back again, and suddenly Fastred's blade was falling to the floor. The big man staggered, hands moving to his chest as blood fountained forth, and Kristoff stepped back, his own sword tip tapping the floor.
'Damn!' Alaric dropped his rapier at once and leaped past the assembled chairs. He was too slow to catch Fastred, but by the time the explorer's head reached the floor Alaric was there to cradle it and to check his wounds. 'Fastred!'
The portly traveller peered up at him, his face chalk-white. 'I'm... sorry... Alaric,' he whispered, blood already bubbling up with each breath. 'Tell... Waldemar... to start class... without me.'
The big man's eyes glazed over, a rattling cough emerged from his slackening lips, and he shuddered and went limp.
'Damn!' Alaric said again, still bent over Fastred's body. 'He's gone.'
So wrapped up in mourning his friend, Alaric never even saw the longsword that flashed towards his neck - or the heavy candlestick that slammed into it, knocking the blade aside. Turning at the sound of metal upon metal, Alaric stared up at Kristoff behind him, the trader's lips pulled back in a rictus of either hate or fear. His sword was down at his side, still vibrating from the force of the blow, and glancing around Alaric saw Dietz beyond, climbing over the nearest chair.
'It was you,' Dietz snarled as he tried to reach his friend and their treacherous former companion.
'Yes,' Kristoff admitted, grinning at them both even as he backed away. 'It was me. That bloated fool,' he gestured towards Fastred, 'had it right all along!' Now that the pretence was gon
e, the trader seemed delighted to take credit for his villainy. 'I commissioned the statues. I hired the wagons. I blackmailed Albers into helping me select locations. I killed Renke.'
'Why?' Dietz demanded, now past the chair and standing between Alaric and Kristoff. 'Why kill Renke?'
The trader laughed. 'He found out, that pathetic little fool! He realised I'd deliberately caused a scene with the gypsies, hoping they would kill us.'
You wanted to die?' Alaric asked, laying Fastred's head gently on the ground and rising to his feet.
Kristoff shrugged. 'Death has no fear for me,' he replied proudly. 'My master will raise me again in his service, and with our deaths the statues would have remained safe.' He shrugged. 'But you talked your way out yet again, and Renke noticed my frustration. He figured out my real motives and I couldn't let him tell you. So I stabbed him while the rest of you were off playing hero, just as Albers claimed.'
Why are you telling us all this?' Dietz demanded, keeping himself in front of his employer. This was no time for Alaric's famous tendency to leap in blindly. 'We will tell Kleiber everything and he will bring the witch hunters down upon you.'
Kristoff laughed. 'Do you think I fear those arrogant, power-mad fanatics? They do my bidding without even knowing it!' He smiled a cold, unpleasant smile. 'Besides, you may tell Kleiber anything you like. It will do you no good.'
'Why, because he won't believe us?' Alaric asked.
'Because I won't be here for him to accuse,' Kristoff replied. He lashed out with his sword, causing Dietz to step back and shove Alaric behind him. The blow never landed - Kristoff pulled his blade back even as it darted forward, and then turned. 'K'ra'tick will be exalted! The Blood God will claim this land!' he shouted. His free hand grasped the arm of the nearest chair and he heaved it at them, striking Dietz in the chest and knocking him back. He slammed into Alaric, whose feet became tangled in Fastred's cloak on the floor, and they collapsed in a heap, the chair sliding down to partially pin Dietz's legs. Kristoff was running from the room before Dietz's feet had left the ground.
'Get off me!'
'I am trying,' Dietz snapped. 'Stop wriggling!'
'I'm wriggling because you're crushing me,' Alaric gasped, 'and because I'm lying on a dead man.'
'Just sit still a moment,' Dietz said sharply. He groped about him with both hands, feeling fabric and wood. Finally his fingers found a corner, and he traced that to another corner with his other hand. Gripping both corners firmly, he shoved up and forward and the chair flew off him, striking the table beyond and sending crystal and wine to the floor. Dietz didn't waste any time mourning the loss of good liquor, however. As soon as the chair's weight was off him he levered himself to his feet and turned to give Alaric a hand up as well.
'Thanks.' Alaric brushed himself off, grimacing at the dark stains on his back and side where he had brushed against Fastred's corpse.
'Are you all right?' Dietz asked him, retrieving his knife and, after a moment's thought, the short sword that had been first Renke's and then Fastred's. When Alaric nodded he turned and glanced around the room. 'Where did he go?'
'Not out the front,' Alaric replied, looking as well. 'We'd have seen that.' The room had two other doors, one on either side. The one to the right stood slightly ajar. 'That way.'
Dietz collected Alaric's rapier from where he'd dropped it and handed it over. Then, sword in hand, Alaric pushed the door open and stepped beyond.
It had to be the dining room, they both realised at once. The room was smaller than the one where Fastred's body lay, but equally sumptuous. The walls were handsomely panelled and another fireplace filled the far wall, though this one was cold and dark. A long table of polished wood dominated the room, high-backed chairs arrayed around it, and a handsomely carved sideboard occupied one wall, several decanters sitting atop its polished surface. Another door stood in the opposite wall and they skirted the table to reach it.
'Kitchen,' Dietz said when they entered, and Alaric nodded. The fireplace was larger and wider, with spits for roasting meat and hooks for heating kettles and pots. A table against the far wall held knives, forks and platters, while a wide basin beside it was for washing and preparing food. This room had only one other door, a smaller one of unpolished wood fitted more loosely together, and they could feel a cool draft from between the boards even as they hauled it open. Beyond the door was a narrow staircase leading down.
Thinking privately that, despite everything else, he envied Kristoff his house, Dietz led the way down the stairs. The basement was a single large room with crates and barrels strewn about, and sacks and small casks piled off to the sides. Salted meat hung from hooks above and various household implements hung from the walls or leaned against them. Torches sat in black iron sconces nailed to the wall in several spots, and one of them had been lit, providing a dim, guttering light. The floor was straw and earth strewn over rough stone, and the room had no other entrance. Nor was there any sign of Kristoff.
'He can't have vanished,' Alaric protested, spinning about and squinting to see better. 'Did he go the other way instead?'
Dietz shook his head. That door was closed tight' he pointed out, 'and we'd have heard him open it. He came this way.'
'Where is he, then?' Alaric demanded, gesturing around them. 'Hiding in one of these barrels? Perhaps curled up inside a flour sack? Maybe he's hanging from the ceiling, playing at being salted pork!' When Dietz stared at him he shook his head. 'Sorry, I'm sorry/ he muttered. 'It's just -I'm-' he stared at his own bloodstained hands. 'Fastred is dead, Dietz. Kristoff killed him. All those weeks and months we travelled with them, they were both our friends. Now one's dead and the other's a heretic.'
Dietz sighed. 'I know. I hate it too. I wish none of this had happened, but it did, and now we have to finish it. We cannot let Kristoff get away. We owe Fastred that, and Renke.'
Alaric rubbed his cleaner hand across his face. 'You're right. We have to find him. So where is he?'
They looked around the room again, but could barely see their own feet, let alone any signs of the missing trader. Dietz grabbed the torch from the wall, waving it around to help. It did brighten the space right around him, but it darkened the rest of the room as a result.
'Here, light this one/ Alaric suggested, grabbing a second torch from its wall sconce. 'Then we can - Taal's teeth!' That last part came out as a yelp as he leaped backward. When he had removed the second torch its wall sconce had swivelled down. A click had echoed through the basement, much like the sound Dietz had gotten from the front door, but louder. Then a stack of crates shifted towards them.
Dietz's first thought was that Kristoff was in the crates after all and was attacking them. Then he realised the crates had stopped moving. Beside them, where they had rested a moment before, was a hole in the floor - a large, rectangular hole.
'The tunnels/ he muttered, more to himself than to Alaric. 'Of course. Where else could he hide a statue that size without it being noticed?'
Alaric was glaring at the hole with distaste and even a little fear. 'Does this mean we have to go down there?' he asked plaintively.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
'How can you stand this?' Alaric asked. They had lowered themselves through the hole and were now walking as quickly as they dared through a narrow tunnel carved from the black rock on which the city had been built.
The tunnels; Dietz had heard stories about them all his life and had even ventured into them once or twice, usually as a dare from other kids. Middenheim had been carved atop a single spire of black granite, but some said the rock had already been riddled with holes, created by some unknown race that had dwelt there before and fled at the coming of men. Others said the city's founders had created these passages as a way to move through the city undetected and as an escape route if the city was ever taken. No one knew for certain.
Dietz had never heard of a map of the tunnels, though he had heard men claiming to know their way through the narrow, winding passages. Most
of those men had been drunk at the time and probably bragging about nothing, but a few might have had some truth to their claims. The city's sewers ran through here, and someone had to clean them out from time to time - it was not a pleasant job, but it was a necessary one, just like being a rat catcher. Such men would know their way around, at least through their portion of these catacombs. He doubted anyone knew the entire system, however.
It had been years since he had been down here, but the tunnels had not changed. They were still narrow, still tight, and still rough, but far too smooth to be completely natural. The passage they were in now, the one they had found upon using Kristoffs bolthole, had an almost flat floor and ceiling with almost vertical walls, all carved from the same glossy black rock of the mountain. The walls reflected his torchlight back as a dim glow, and flecks within the stone glittered like eyes. Dietz had to hunch over and keep his arms close to avoid catching on the rough walls, but it was Alaric who looked pale and kept starting at every sound.
'Stand what?' Dietz replied, holding the torch carefully before them. He wasn't thrilled about bringing an open flame down here - too many stories about strange gases and liquids underground, and people catching fire by breathing them or stepping in them - but they had little choice. Even with the torch they could barely see twenty paces, and the water sloshing around his boots was nothing but a single dark, roiling plane. It was probably better that way. One man had claimed that if you stared at the walls of the tunnels for too long you began to see faces in them, faces of people who had died long ago - faces that moved and spoke to you and called you to join them. He thought the man had been deranged, but was not interested in discovering he had been right.
'This!' Alaric gestured around them. He had sheathed his rapier and had only a dagger in his hand, which he clutched tightly. He winced when the tip scraped against a wall. 'Being surrounded by so much rock. We're beneath the city! This tunnel could collapse any second, and we'd be crushed. There's no way to escape!'
