Blackhearts: The Omnibus

by Nathan Long

  ‘And the horses,’ added Gert.

  ‘And polish the boots,’ said Franka.

  ‘You needn’t blame me for it,’ said Reiner. ‘It was Manfred’s plan. Not mine.’

  Reiner sighed. What would have been jovial banter in the days before Abel Halstieg’s death was now in earnest. The poison of suspicion had curdled the Blackhearts’ comradeship. He wished he could think of something to say that would make it as it had been, but when he knew one of them was a spy, and would report anything he said to Manfred, he was at a loss for words.

  The Blackhearts stood shivering and rubbing their hands in the carriage yard behind the Reiklanders’ Law Quarter townhouse. The sun had not yet risen and the morning mist swirling in the torchlight was bitter cold. They were dressed in the livery of Manfred’s house guard—black doublet and breastplate painted with his white and gold lion—and armed with swords and daggers in addition to their preferred weapons. Augustus and Rumpolt were stealing curious glances at Franka in her soldier’s kit, but said nothing. Darius and Dieter looked more ridiculous as soldiers than they had as surgeons.

  Ten of Manfred’s Nordbergbruche spearmen stood by them in two neat lines before their captain, a brawny youth named Baerich. They shot dirty looks at the Blackhearts, who slouched and yawned in utter disregard for military discipline.

  There was a rap at the back gate and Captain Baerich opened it to admit Danziger and ten swordsmen, all in kit as plain and black as his own.

  ‘We go rabbit hunting with this army?’ muttered Hals. ‘They’ll hear us coming miles away.’

  A few minutes later Manfred and Teclis stepped out of the house, followed by Teclis’s guard. The elves had exchanged their snow white garb for dark blue surcoats worn over their gleaming armour. Teclis too was dressed for war, with a long, thin sword strapped to his back, though he still walked with his white staff.

  Danziger gaped when he saw him. ‘Lord… Lord Teclis comes?’ he asked Manfred.

  Manfred nodded gravely. ‘Certainly. The thieves may have magic of their own. It would be foolish to attempt to wrest the waystone from them without a mage.’

  Danziger licked his lips. ‘Of course, of course.’ But he looked suddenly much less enthusiastic about their venture.

  Manfred smirked behind his back.

  As Captain Baerich’s men were opening the gate so that the party could get underway, there came a rumble of running boots from the alley, and the men in the yard went on guard.

  Men in green and buff uniforms stopped in the gate, a smaller squad in blue and burgundy behind them. Reiner peered at them in the darkness and recognised Captain von Pfaltzen with fifteen of the countess’s personal guard, and behind them Lord Rodick Untern, the countess’s cousin—and Lady Magda’s husband—with eight men of his own.

  ‘What is this assembly?’ demanded von Pfaltzen, panting from running. ‘Where do you go so armed?’

  Manfred sighed, annoyed. ‘We go, captain, to recover the waystone.’

  ‘You have learned its whereabouts?’ von Pfaltzen asked, shocked.

  ‘We follow a rumour.’

  ‘And you neglected to inform the countess?’ said Rodick. ‘I find that very strange.’ He had a high, piercing voice.

  ‘We thought,’ said Manfred, ‘that the fewer persons party to the secret, the less the chance that those who hold the stone would learn of our coming. Apparently we were not covert enough.’ He looked to Teclis for support, but the elf was glaring at them all with equal disgust.

  ‘I think I see more reluctance to include Talabheim in the recovery of the stone,’ said von Pfaltzen, ‘than any concern for secrecy.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Rodick. ‘You seek to cheat us of our share of the glory.’

  ‘Am I invisible, sirs?’ said Danziger, indignant. ‘I am a Talabheim man. The city is represented.’

  ‘Are you, m’lord?’ asked Rodick sharply. ‘Would not a true Talabheim man have informed his countess had he news of the city’s salvation?’

  ‘I must insist this venture not continue unless I and my men are part of it,’ said von Pfaltzen.

  ‘And as kin to the countess, I must come as well, in order to represent her interests.’

  Manfred frowned. ‘This is folly, gentlemen. You impede the great Teclis in his work. The thing requires stealth and swiftness. We are already too many. If your men are added, we will surprise no one.’ He turned to Teclis. ‘Fair one, can you not say something to make them understand that…’

  ‘I care not who stays or who goes,’ said Teclis coldly ‘As long as we go quickly. Too much time has been wasted already.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Manfred, reluctantly. ‘All may come.’

  As the companies began organising themselves into marching order, Reiner saw Danziger biting his lip, his eyes darting from one commander to the other, then to the man who was to guide them to the waystone.

  Reiner stepped quickly to Manfred and whispered in his ear. ‘M’lord, Danziger is not pleased. I don’t believe he wishes to recover the stone under these circumstances. Given the chance, he will tell his man to lead us astray.’

  ‘Then he cannot be given the chance,’ said Manfred. He crossed to Danziger, speaking loudly. ‘So, m’lord. Who is the fellow who will lead us? I would like to meet him.’

  He put an arm around Danziger’s shoulders, ignoring the exchequer’s discomfort, and remained at his side as they, Teclis, von Pfaltzen and Rodick Untern, and the sixty-one men of their combined companies, marched from the townhouse, following the guide through the city under the strangely glowing clouds that capped the crater and hid the dawn.

  The Blackhearts marched behind Reiner in surly silence, all but Augustus. ‘Glad to see von Pfaltzen with us,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Didn’t seem right, going behind the countess’s back. A Talabheim man should lead in Talabheim.’

  Danziger did not share Augustus’s pleasure at von Pfaltzen’s company. ‘That’s the trouble with men of this city,’ Reiner heard him whisper in Manfred’s ear. ‘They think of nothing but their own advancement!’

  ‘Aye,’ agreed Manfred, without a hint of sarcasm. ‘It makes it that much harder for honest men such as ourselves to get things done.’

  Manfred beckoned to Reiner as Danziger and von Pfaltzen spoke to the chief guard at the Schwartz Hold barricade. ‘In the unlikely event this bloated company manages to recover the waystone,’ he whispered, ‘you are to make sure that only Teclis or your Blackhearts or my Nordbergbruchers comes away with it.’

  ‘Yes, m’lord,’ said Reiner. ‘Er, are we permitted to use force?’

  ‘Eh? No!’ said Manfred. ‘We are unwelcome here as it is. Just be in the right place at the right time.’

  ‘Very good, m’lord,’ said Reiner, pleased that he managed to keep a straight face.

  Manfred returned to Danziger’s side before von Pfaltzen left him alone.

  The further into the blighted neighbourhood the company went, the more oppressive the clouds above them seemed. A damp wind whimpered around them with an almost human voice. Just as the black curve of Talabheim’s crater began to stand out against the grey sky behind it, the men reached the gutted granary. As the Blackhearts waited for the other companies to pick their way down into the wreckage, Reiner saw Dieter squinting over his shoulder.

  What is it?’ he asked.

  Dieter shot him a sullen look. ‘Nothing, jagger.’

  ‘Nothing? Or nothing you care to tell me?’

  Dieter glared at him, then shrugged. ‘We’re being tailed.’

  Reiner started to turn.

  Dieter stopped him. ‘Damn fool! Don’t let on! Nothing to see anyway.’

  Reiner looked sceptically at the thief. ‘You can hear a tail in the midst of this army?’

  ‘Can feel it,’ said Dieter. ‘Like an itch on the back of my neck.’

  ‘So who is it, then?’

  Dieter shrugged. ‘Ain’t shown himself. Canny cove, and no mistake.’

  Reiner shive
red and thought back to Jergen on the road to Talabheim, looking out into the night. He had said the same thing.

  IT TOOK A quarter of an hour, but eventually all the soldiers descended into the burned-out cellar and through the black hole into the sewers. The companies lined up in single file on the narrow ledges that flanked the reeking channel, which ran down the centre of the low, barrel-vaulted brick tunnel. In the channel ran a sluggish brown stream, thick with bobbing lumps that Reiner didn’t care to identify. It was bridged at regular intervals by granite slabs, and fed by pipes that ran down the walls. Rusting rungs set into the walls disappeared up into chimneys, which led to iron storm grates in the streets above.

  Manfred lined up the Blackhearts and his Nordbergbruchers on the left side of the channel behind the elves, while Danziger’s men and von Pfaltzen, with the countess’s guard, lined up on the right. Rodick’s men were somewhere in the darkness at the back. When all were in position, the companies marched forward behind Danziger’s guide, who trotted ahead of them like a hound.

  Rats scurried away before them, pushed into drainpipes and holes by the light of their torches. And there were other vermin. Fleeing human shadows disappeared down cross tunnels and skulking shapes peered at them from behind fallen rubble. Hunched forms huddled around meagre fires far down long corridors. Some were not quite human. Reiner got fleeting glimpses of twisted limbs, and misshapen heads, and heard distant subhuman growls. None seemed inclined to attack so large and well armed a force.

  There were places where holes had been broken through the walls. These opened onto dirt, or shadowed cellars or flooded chambers. From one came a reek of rat so strong that it overpowered the omnipresent stink of the sewer. Reiner and the other Blackhearts exchanged uneasy looks, but said nothing. Some things were better not speculated upon.

  At an intersection, above which were painted faded street names, Danziger’s guide paused, frowning, as he looked left and right.

  Reiner saw Danziger’s eyes light up and he stepped forward. ‘Er, Elger, did you not tell me you had made a left at Turringstrasse?’

  The man blinked back at Danziger. ‘Er, no, m’lord. Now that you say it, I believe it was a right.’

  ‘Are you certain?’ said Danziger, through clenched teeth.

  Elger didn’t take the hint. ‘Yes, m’lord. A right at Turringstrasse. It’s come back to me now.’ He led the party right as Danziger tried to keep his face calm.

  Reiner chuckled. Elger would be receiving a hiding later on, that was certain.

  A short while later, they came to another rubble littered hole, and Danziger’s swordsman entered it. The companies followed. It opened high in the wall of the cold cellar of an old warehouse. Smashed barrels and terracotta jars littered the floor. Wooden shelves had been propped against the wall under the hole as a ladder, and two of Danziger’s men held it steady while the rest climbed gingerly down two at a time.

  The storeroom was the first in an odd maze of interconnected basements, corridors, sections of unused sewer, earthen tunnels, crawlways and foundations, all with shattered walls and slumping ceilings propped up with bits of lumber. The company tramped up and down stairways and through knee-deep pools. Some passages were so low the soldiers must bend double, and some so narrow they must turn sideways. Reiner cringed at these choke points. Not the place to be caught if things went wrong.

  The black circles of old fires were everywhere, as were broken bottles, half gnawed bones, and piles of stinking waste. Graffiti in several languages was scrawled on the walls. Reiner read, ‘The countess is a whore!’ and ‘Peder, where are you?’ and ‘Rise and burn!’ There were worse things too—evil-looking runes and smeared drawings of unmentionable acts and screaming faces. Withered corpses lay in the shadows, eyeless skulls staring at the soldiers as they passed.

  At last, Danziger’s guide stopped in an ancient corridor and pointed ahead to a pair of rotten wooden doors that hung off their hinges on the left-hand wall. ‘Through them doors,’ he said, ‘is a big room with a hole in the far wall. Some guards are watching it. That’s where they took the stone.’

  ‘We must remove the guards before they raise an alarm,’ said Danziger. ‘Perhaps two of my—’

  ‘I have a lad who can shoot a pigeon’s eye out at fifty paces,’ said Manfred, interrupting him. ‘He—’

  ‘There is no need,’ said Teclis. He signalled two of his elves forward. They strode silently to the doors, nocking arrows on their bowstrings. They peered in, then, so swiftly it was hard to believe they had time to find their targets, they pulled and fired. Then they entered, fresh arrows ready. A moment later, they reappeared in the door and beckoned. ‘We may proceed,’ said Teclis, starting forward. The companies followed. Reiner saw a flicker of motion further down the ancient corridor as he stepped through the doors, but there had been timid movements in the shadows all along the way. He ignored it.

  The room inside was wide and deep, and reeked like stale beer. The left wall was hidden behind a row of enormous wooden vats. On the right, pyramids of giant hogsheads rose out of the darkness. Not one of them was still whole. Their faces had all been staved in, and dried, sticky puddles of evaporated beer pooled around them.

  By the far wall was a small fire, illuminating two bodies which lay beside it, white arrows sticking from their necks. Behind the bodies, the thick stone wall was pierced, like a block of lard that had been impaled by a red-hot poker, with a perfectly circular man-high hole, its curves as shiny as glass. Frozen ripples of rock spread below it like melted wax. Reiner shuddered at the implications of the hole. Who or what had the power to do such a thing? And was the thing that had done it in the next room?

  Reiner saw the same thoughts were going though Manfred’s mind. Danziger, however, seemed to have no fear. He was urging his men forward eagerly.

  ‘Come along,’ he said. ‘Before they know we are here.’

  Manfred hesitated. ‘Er, fair one? Is it—’

  ‘Fear not,’ said the elf. ‘It is centuries old. The portal and halls beyond it are crudely warded, but I will clear them as we go. Proceed.’

  Manfred nodded and signalled the Blackhearts to catch up to Danziger. Von Pfaltzen and Rodick moved their men up as well.

  The weird hole opened into an old prison. The air inside smelled of smoke and made hazy halos around the torches. The elves led the way down a cell-lined corridor, Teclis moving his hands and whispering under his breath constantly. The air before him would occasionally shimmer like a soap bubble before popping with a relaxation of pressure Reiner could feel in his chest.

  Three times men appeared far down the hall, then turned to run, and three times the elven archers cut them down before they could take a step.

  ‘Might as well have left us at home,’ grumbled Hals.

  Teclis turned one of the dead men over with a pointed boot and pulled aside his shirt with the tip of his sword. A strange rune had been branded over the man’s heart.

  ‘A cultist,’ said Teclis. ‘This is the mark of the Changer of the Ways.’

  Reiner swallowed, and though he was not by nature pious, he made the sign of the hammer. The men around him did the same. Teclis stepped over the corpse and moved on.

  The hall ended in a stairwell. The smoke that filled the prison came from the stairs. Teclis and his elves crossed the room and began to descend them. The companies followed, coughing. To Reiner’s annoyance, the elves seemed unaffected.

  At the bottom was an arched doorway that glowed like the red mouth of hell. The Blackhearts and Danziger’s men followed Teclis hesitantly through the door and onto a balcony that overlooked a deep, square pit. The other companies tried to crowd in behind them, but there was no room. The balcony was enclosed in a cage of iron bars. Left and right stairs led down to the pit. These had once had gates, but they had been ripped from their hinges. The smoke was so thick in the pit that at first all Reiner could make out was that an enormous fire blazed in its centre, but as he wiped his eyes he could
see men surrounding the fire. They were raising their hands and chanting. A man in blue robes led them.

  ‘The stone!’ hissed Franka, pointing. ‘They’re destroying it!’

  Reiner squinted. In the heart of the blaze was a roughly cut oblong menhir, black with soot.

  Teclis smiled faintly. ‘They may try,’ he said. ‘But it took a falling temple to unseat it. Will a fire unmake it?’

  There was a hoarse shout from below as a chanter noticed the intruders. One of Teclis’s elves shot him in the back and he crashed through the men and landed with his head in the blaze. The men at the fire leapt up, grabbing weapons and turning toward the balcony. The robed man began chanting and making elaborate motions with his arms.

  The elves fired at him. Their arrows bent away as if pushed by a wind. The cultists charged, roaring, for the two stairways. There were at least fifty of them.

  ‘Nordbergbruchers!’ called Captain Baerich, drawing his sword. ‘Hold the left!’

  ‘No!’ cried Manfred. ‘My guard goes first!’ He pushed Reiner forward as Baerich glared. ‘You must get in ahead,’ Manfred whispered. ‘Go!’

  Reiner grunted and drew his sword. ‘Right lads, let’s get stuck in.’

  ‘And about time too,’ growled Hals.

  The Blackhearts charged down the left-hand stair with Manfred and the Nordbergbruchers behind them, as Danziger and his men ran down the right. The cultists met the companies at the bottom, a frenzied mob of frothing degenerates, armed with daggers and clubs, and bare of armour.

  Pavel and Hals gutted two with their spears immediately. Reiner hacked at a fellow with purple boils covering his face, then kicked him back into his comrades. Jergen, the swordmaster, impaled one, then another, and cleaved the skull of a third. Augustus stabbed with his spear from the second row while Rumpolt, having fired his gun, now waved his sword around to no effect. Franka and Gert shot over their shoulders, burying shafts and bolts in unprotected chests and necks.

  Behind them, Darius and Dieter did nothing but try to stay out of the way. There was little they could have done anyway, or any room for them to do it. The Blackhearts were in a tactically perfect position; they held the high ground in a narrow, easily defended choke point. All they had to do was hold here and…