Blackhearts: The Omnibus

by Nathan Long

  ‘Wasn’t one of them Lossberg or Lassenhoff or…?’ asked Gert.

  ‘Bromelhoff?’ asked Hals. ‘Bramenhalt?’

  ‘It was Lundhauer,’ said Pavel definitively. ‘Or… Loefler? Lannenger?’

  ‘So we don’t know their names,’ said Reiner, sighing. ‘We’ll have to speak to more guards.’

  ‘Captain,’ said Hals, looking queasy. ‘Ye’d have to carry us back if we was to drink answers out of more guards tonight.’

  ‘And I doubt we’d remember the names even if we got ‘em,’ mumbled Pavel.

  ‘I’ll go,’ said Reiner. ‘You lads haven’t learned the gambler’s trick of only seeming to drink.’

  ‘Bad news,’ said Dieter’s voice behind them.

  The Blackhearts jumped. The thief stood at the bottom of the stair. No one had heard him approach.

  ‘How unexpected,’ said Reiner dryly.

  Dieter crossed to the fire and dipped a cup into the open cask of beer. He took a swallow, then sat. ‘I looked in on Scharnholt like you asked,’ he said. ‘Found a place outside his library window where I could listen to his comings and goings without being seen.’ He grinned, showing sharp teeth. ‘Not a happy jagger, Scharnholt. Someone he called his “master” ain’t very pleased with him. Had a few messengers come by to tell him that.’

  ‘That’s bad news?’ asked Gert. ‘Trouble for Scharnholt ain’t bad news to us.’

  ‘I ain’t got to the bad news,’ said Dieter, annoyed. ‘The bad news is that Teclis is recovered, or so says Scharnholt. And he means to work his magic on the stone tomorrow. It’s to be locked somewhere deep down in the earth with wards and curses and spells so thick no one’ll ever find it, let alone steal it.’

  ‘So,’ said Reiner, his heart sinking. ‘We have tonight.’

  ‘Tonight?’ said Hals, dismayed. ‘Captain, is that possible?’ ‘There’s worse yet,’ said Dieter.

  Everybody turned to look at him.

  ‘If we try for the stone tonight,’ he said, ‘we’ll have company. This “master” has ordered Scharnholt to get it. He’s called a meeting an hour past sundown to make their plans.’

  There were groans from the Blackhearts, but Reiner smiled. ‘Ha!’ he said. ‘That’s better news than we’ve had.’

  ‘Eh?’ said Pavel. ‘Why so?’

  ‘Another gambler’s maxim,’ said Reiner. ‘Out of confusion comes opportunity.’ He looked at Dieter. ‘We must attend this meeting. Do you know where it is?’

  Dieter shook his head. ‘No, but it won’t be any trouble following Scharnholt to it.’

  ‘Even with me along?’

  Dieter gave him a contemptuous once over. ‘We’ll manage.’

  REINER HAD EXPECTED Scharnholt to sneak out of his house by the back way, cloaked and masked and furtive, and consequently, they watched the back gate and almost missed Scharnholt when he left openly, in his coach, and made his way through the Manor district by the main streets.

  Dieter and Reiner followed him to an old stone building built at the edge of a large green park called the Darkrook Downs. There were many such buildings around the edge of the park that bordered the Manor district, all with a banner hanging above their door. These were the chapter halls of Talabheim’s knightly orders. Some were local chapters of orders that had knights all over the Empire. Some were orders founded by noble Talabec families or by bands of knights who had come together here for some great purpose in times past.

  Reiner and Dieter watched from the shadow of a high yew hedge as Scharnholt entered the hall of the Knights of the Willing Heart, whose device was a crowned heart held in two red hands. More coaches arrived, as well as men on horseback and some on foot.

  ‘Can it be here?’ asked Reiner. ‘Perhaps he just stops here on his way.’

  ‘This is the hour,’ said Dieter.

  ‘A corrupted order?’ wondered Reiner aloud. ‘Or do they not know what is done under their roof?’

  Dieter shrugged. ‘Better have a look.’

  Reiner looked sceptically at the hall. It had the proportions of a townhouse, but was built like a castle, with a courtyard behind a fortified gate and little more than arrow slots for windows. ‘Are you certain you can get us in?’

  ‘Always a way in,’ said Dieter as he started down the street, away from the chapter hall. ‘Although sometimes it’s murder.’

  He led Reiner half a block before crossing the street and slipping between two tall houses. Like all the chapter halls, they had large stable yards behind them, the gates of which opened onto the park. This was divided into common-held riding rings, tilting yards, racing ovals and archery lanes, all deserted at this hour. Reiner and Dieter crept along hedges back to the Order of the Willing Heart.

  ‘Hold here,’ said Dieter. ‘Might be a patrol.’

  And there was. Moments later two guards in the colours of the house rounded the right corner of the stable yard, then turned into the grassy alley between the chapter and its left-hand neighbour. Jutting from the left wall was a small chapel of Sigmar. There was a faint glow behind its stained glass windows.

  ‘In there, maybe,’ said Dieter.

  ‘In a chapel of Sigmar?’ said Reiner. ‘There’s cheek for you.’

  Dieter sized up the chapel. The stained glass windows rose up two storeys with griffin-capped buttresses between them. ‘An easy climb,’ he said. ‘I’ll go up and lower the rope. Tie it to your belt when you climb up, so it comes with you, aye? Don’t want it dangling where they can see it.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Reiner.

  When the guards had turned down the green alley again, Dieter set off low and silent, then spidered up one of the buttresses with no apparent effort. At the top he took a rope from his sack and tied it around a gargoyle.

  Reiner was about to start forwards when Dieter held up a hand. Reiner hid until the guards once again appeared and disappeared, then Dieter dropped the rope and beckoned him on. He hurried forward, trying to be as noiseless as Dieter, but his shoes thumped on the grass and his elbows scraped noisily through the bushes. He felt as quiet as an orc warband on the march.

  Reiner reached the buttress and tucked the rope into his belt, then began pulling himself up. For all his recent running and fighting and climbing, this was not easy. His arms shook before he was halfway up. His foot rasped across the masonry as he braced himself, and he heard a disgusted grunt from above. At last, Dieter hauled him onto the buttress by his belt and he lay over it like a sack of flour, wheezing.

  ‘Ye’ll never make a second storey man, jagger.’ Dieter whispered.

  ‘Never wanted to,’ answered Reiner. ‘It’s Manfred puts me in these undignified positions.’

  ‘Hush.’ Dieter drew up the rest of the rope as Reiner held his breath. The guards appeared below them, muttering to each other, then passed on without looking up.

  ‘Now,’ said Dieter. ‘Let’s see what we can see.’

  He took a tiny stoppered jar from his pouch and pulled out a ball of putty, which he pressed against a square of stained glass. Next he drew a glazier’s tool around the putty in a rough circle, then, holding the putty with one hand, he tapped the glass very gently. There was a click, Reiner froze. Dieter wiggled the putty and a disk of glass came out with it.

  ‘Try your eye, jagger,’ he said, edging behind Reiner on the narrow buttress.

  Reiner braced his shoulder against the chapel wall, and leaned in toward the hole. A low mutter of voices reached him, but at first he could see nothing but crossbeams and pews. However, with a little shifting he found the altar—and nearly fell off the buttress.

  It might have once been a chapel of Sigmar, but it was no longer. The plain altar had been covered by rich velvet of the deepest blue, embroidered in gold with eldritch symbols that seemed to twist before Reiner’s eyes. Three shallow gold bowls sat on the cloth, coals of incense glowing in them. The hammer of Sigmar that should have hung above the altar had been replaced by what appeared to be a child’s skeleton, hung by
one ankle, and covered entirely in gold leaf and swirling lapis traceries—and it was this that had made Reiner’s heart jump, for there were eyes in the skull and they seemed to look directly at him.

  When the thing didn’t stretch out a skeletal arm and point at him, Reiner steadied his breathing and continued perusing the room. A cluster of silhouetted men sat in the pews near the altar, facing another man who stood. All were dressed in robes, most of blue and gold, but a few in purple and black. The man who stood wore the richest robe of all, more gold than blue, and wore a mask as well. Though his face and every inch of him was covered in heavy cloth, he had a presence about him that was tangible even from Reiner’s perch.

  Reiner put his ear to the hole and the muttered words became clearer. He held his breath and listened as hard as he could.

  ‘Master,’ came Scharnholt’s voice, whining. ‘Master, in all humility I object to this alliance with the followers of the purple one. Did they not, only a few days ago, lead the forces of the accursed Hammer God to our secret invocation chamber and disrupt the ritual of unmaking?’

  ‘They did,’ said the master in a whispery hiss. ‘And that is precisely why we invite them to this colloquy. The goals of the Changer of Ways and the Lord of Pleasure do not always coincide, but here our paths run parallel. It is foolish to fight one another when the return of Talabheim to Chaos honours both our patrons.’

  ‘These are pretty words,’ said another man whose face Reiner couldn’t make out. ‘But how can we trust you? It is not for nothing that Tzeentch is known as the God of Many Faces. This one shows a smile, but what of the others?’

  Reiner’s jaw dropped. It was Danziger’s voice. The tight-laced little bookkeeper was a follower of Slaanesh?

  ‘Have we not trusted you with the location of our secret headquarters?’ asked the master. ‘Could you not betray us to the countess with a word? Surely that is proof enough of our intentions.’

  Danziger was silent for a moment, then said, ‘Very well. And have you a plan to take the stone?’

  ‘We do not take the stone,’ said the master.

  The hooded men looked up, surprised.

  ‘Why risk having it taken from us again when there is a better alternative?’ he continued. ‘Unfettered by the unseating of the waystone, the warpstone beneath the city gives the spells of our sorcerers more potency than they have ever had. Where once it took a hundred initiates to call forth even the most minor inhabitant of the void, now ten may raise a daemon lord. And that is what we will do. Once we open the vault, we will summon an infernal one within the manor, and beg him to take the waystone into the void with him, removing it from Teclis’s reach forever.’

  ‘A brilliant plan, master,’ said Scharnholt obsequiously.

  ‘But the vault is heavily protected,’ said Danziger. ‘Could the lord not break it open and take the stone for us?’

  The master sighed. ‘That is the trouble with the followers of the Lord of Pleasure. They dislike work. Unfortunately, only in the deepest levels, far below the dungeon beneath the countess’s manor, will the emanations of the warpstone be strong enough to allow our magi to call forth a great one of sufficient power. We must bring the stone there or fail. ‘Fortunately,’ he said, ‘our patrons have blessed you both with position and power that allows you to walk your men through the gates of the Taalist bitch’s castle without question. We must therefore only find a way to pass through the door to the dungeons and open the vault.’

  ‘We will easily defeat the men who guard the dungeon gate,’ said Scharnholt. ‘And if my men then hold it and say that the guards were killed by cultists who we chased away, we will divert the attention of von Pfaltzen’s fools.’

  ‘One of the captains who hold the keys to the vault is ours,’ said Danziger, ‘and will surrender it for the cause.’

  ‘Then there are only two to steal, and the men at the vault to defeat,’ said the master.

  ‘We will take Captain Lossenberg’s key,’ said Scharnholt.

  ‘And we will take Captain Niedorf’s,’ said Danziger.

  ‘And together you will defeat the men at the vault,’ said the master. ‘And then descend to the nether depths. Our goal will at last be attained. All glory to Tzeentch!’

  ‘And Slaanesh,’ said Danziger.

  ‘Of course,’ said the master.

  Reiner pushed back from the hole, deep in thought, then turned to Dieter. ‘We must find a place to watch them leave.’

  ‘LORD DANZIGER!’ REINER called. ‘A moment of your time!’

  Reiner and Dieter had followed Danziger’s coach, which, like Scharnholt’s, had travelled openly to and from the Order of the Willing Heart, until its path had diverged from those of the other conspirators. Then Reiner had told Dieter to hang back out of sight, and ran after the lord, seemingly alone.

  Danziger looked back, and his two guards, who sat with his coachman, stood with their hands on their hilts.

  Danziger’s eyes bulged when he saw who approached him. ‘You!’ he cried. ‘You dare show your face, you dirty cultist? Horst! Orringer! Cut him down!’

  Reiner stopped as the coach drew up and the swordsmen hopped from their perch. ‘I am indeed a cultist, m’lord,’ he said without raising his voice. ‘Indeed, we attended a meeting of cultists just now, you and I.’

  ‘What?’ yelped Danziger. ‘I a cultist? Preposterous!’ The whites showed all around the lord’s pupils. ‘Kill him.’

  ‘Kill me if you will, m’lord,’ Reiner said, backing away from the guards. ‘But you should know that Scharnholt means to betray you.’

  ‘Eh? Betray…?’ He waved his hand. ‘Desist, Horst! Bring the villain to me. But take his sword and pin his arms.’

  Reiner surrendered his sword belt and stepped into the coach. The two guards crushed him between them on the narrow bench opposite Danziger.

  ‘Are you mad?’ said the exchequer in a fierce whisper. ‘Speaking such things in the street?’

  ‘My apologies, m’lord,’ said Reiner. ‘But I was desperate to warn you of Scharnholt’s treachery.’

  Danziger looked Reiner up and down. ‘Who are you, sir? It seems I have seen you on every side of this game. How do you know Scharnholt’s business? The last I saw, you fought each other tooth and nail.’

  Reiner inclined his head. ‘M’lord, you are right to be cautious. And I admit that my actions may appear, from the outside, strange. Please, allow me to explain.’

  ‘By all means,’ said Danziger. ‘And explain well, or you leave this coach with your throat cut.’

  ‘Thank you, m’lord,’ said Reiner, swallowing. ‘Earlier this year, my master, the Changer of Ways, saw fit to allow me to place myself and my compatriots in the service of Count Valdenheim, one of the most influential men in the Empire. As his secretary, I was privy to the Emperor’s most secret dealings, and I have used this knowledge to advance the glory of Tzeentch.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Danziger, sceptically.

  ‘When the Reikland legation arrived in Talabheim, I intended to contact Lord Scharnholt and offer him what help I could, but before I was able, you approached Valdenheim, betraying your Tzeentchist rivals to him so that you might try for the stone for yourself.’

  ‘It is only what he would have done to me,’ huffed Danziger.

  ‘Indeed, m’lord,’ said Reiner. ‘Unfortunately, this meant that I was forced, so as not to expose myself, to fight the very men I meant to help.’ He sighed. ‘Naturally, Lord Scharnholt, when we did at last meet, thought me a false Tzeentchist, saying that I should have turned on Manfred in the sewers and helped those who held the stone. I explained to him that this would have been suicide, which, because of my unique position, would be displeasing to Tzeentch. But he refused to see it,’ Reiner sniffed. ‘And would not include me in his plans for recovering the stone.’

  ‘That does indeed sound like Scharnholt,’ muttered Danziger. ‘The pompous ass.’

  ‘As you know, I then tricked von Pfaltzen and the others
into the caves so that I might steal the stone while they were engaged with the ratmen, only to have Scharnholt attack me from behind and try to take it for himself. After that, I… well, I had had enough.’

  Reiner sighed. ‘Perhaps I am a poor student, but I had always thought the followers of the Great Betrayer were meant to betray unbelievers, not one another.’ He looked sadly at Danziger. ‘That is why I have come to you. I wish to learn more of Slaanesh, to whom treachery is not a sacrament, and to warn you that Scharnholt may once again endanger the cause of Chaos by trying to take all the glory for himself.’

  The exchequer leaned forward. ‘What does he intend?’

  Reiner lowered his voice. ‘He means, m’lord, to bring von Pfaltzen down upon you once the ceremony in the manor depths is done. He will help von Pfaltzen kill you, denouncing you as a cultist and making himself out a hero for discovering your plot.’

  Danziger sneered. ‘Always he has cared more for his worldly position than for the good of Chaos. He wants to both destroy the Empire and to rule it. But,’ he bit his lip. ‘But how will he do this?’

  ‘You recall how he said that his men would guard the entrance to the lower levels?’ asked Reiner. ‘That is so they can let him out and trap you within, while he calls von Pfaltzen.’

  Danziger paled. ‘But… but how am I to keep this from occurring. We must destroy the stone, and yet—’

  ‘It is simple,’ said Reiner.

  ‘Simple?’ Danziger asked hopefully.

  ‘Indeed.’ Reiner spread his hands. ‘Never let Scharnholt’s men hold any position on their own. Say that you wish to share the honour of holding the stairs to the dungeon. If he says his men must go do such and such, you send your men too. Warn your men to be wary of a dagger in the back, and return any such attack tenfold, and swiftly, so no alarm is raised by your fighting.’

  Danziger nodded. ‘Yes. Yes, of course.’

  ‘I will help you, if you wish,’ said Reiner demurely. ‘My men would welcome a chance to help Slaanesh, and get back a bit of our own.’

  Danziger frowned. ‘Surely Scharnholt will recognise you and know something is afoot?’