Blackhearts: The Omnibus

by Nathan Long

  ‘Eh?’ said Dieter, and for a second Reiner thought he was going to give the game away. But then the thief smirked and drew his dagger. ‘Oh aye. And my pleasure!’ He motioned to Hals and Pavel. ‘Hold him, lads. Let an artist work.’

  The light slowly dawned in Hals’s eyes. He grinned and nudged Pavel. ‘Come on, lad. Just like Echert.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Pavel, getting it at last. ‘Oh, right. Like Echert.’

  They pinned August’s arms as Dieter knelt on him and raised his knife.

  ‘What are you doing?’ screamed Franka, jumping in to grab his hand. ‘Have you all gone mad? This isn’t our way!’

  Jergen caught her and held her tight, clapping a hand over her mouth.

  Reiner groaned. Franka had been serving Manfred dinner. She hadn’t heard Dieter tell his story of faking the death of the merchant Echert. She didn’t know it was a trick. She struggled in Jergen’s grip as Dieter’s dagger rose and fell and rose above Augustus, blood spattering everywhere. Her eyes bored into Reiner’s over Jergen’s thick fingers. Reiner’s heart sunk to see the hate and despair there.

  Reiner watched from a distance. He didn’t want to be too close for fear of ruining the illusion. If they were smart, Hals and Pavel would be telling Augustus to play dead, and it was imperative that Reiner didn’t hear their whispers or all was lost. It certainly looked savage enough from where he stood. In fact, it looked so real, Reiner had a sudden fear that Dieter had misread his command and was really killing the pikeman.

  After a moment, Dieter stood, dagger and hands dripping blood. He grinned at Reiner. ‘It’s done, jagger.’

  Reiner stepped forward, and still couldn’t be sure Dieter hadn’t killed Augustus. The Talabheimer lay motionless, his shirt shredded, and terrible, bloody gashes all over his breast. Reiner curled his lip and turned away quickly in case Augustus took a breath. ‘And no more than he deserved, the swine,’ he said. ‘Come, let’s finish this business.’

  Franka stood slack in Jergen’s arms, staring at Augustus’s body. There were tears in her eyes.

  Reiner jabbed a finger at her. ‘And not a word out of you, boy,or you’ll be next! You understand me?’ He took her from Jergen, then motioned to the others. ‘Pick it up.’

  With Augustus ‘dead’, there were only six to carry the waystone, Pavel, Jergen and Darius on one side; Hals, Gert and Dieter on the other. They grunted it up and walked it out of the vault. Franka stumbled along in a daze, Reiner guiding her with a hand on her shoulder.

  Halfway across the guardroom they heard footsteps running in the hallway, and the guard the captain had sent upstairs burst in.

  ‘Captain!’ he said. ‘Something’s amiss. The men above wouldn’t let me…’ He froze as he saw the Blackhearts. He was another boy.

  Jergen let go of his spear-end and drew his sword. Reiner waved him back and faced the boy.

  ‘Your captain is dying in the vault,’ he said. ‘Go to him.’

  The boy hesitated. ‘I don’t…’

  ‘Go to him, or die here!’ shouted Reiner.

  The boy flinched and ran for the vault, skirting wide around the Blackhearts.

  Reiner took Dieter’s place carrying the waystone. ‘Lock him in.’

  Dieter nodded, and when they had walked the stone through the guardroom gate, he knelt with his tools and locked it up.

  They carried the waystone up the stairs to the last landing before the oaken door. It was already piled with the bodies of the guards Danziger’s and Scharnholt’s men had killed and replaced. Reiner motioned the Blackhearts to set it down.

  ‘Here will be a fight more to our taste,’ he whispered. ‘Stay out of sight until I call.’

  He slipped his beak mask on again and began crawling up the stairs as they drew their swords. When he reached the door he beat on it with his fist.

  ‘Brothers!’ he cried. ‘Brothers! Open in the name of Lord Danziger! Open in the name of Slaanesh!’

  There was a brief mumble of argument and then the key turned in the lock. Reiner hoped his dramatics here would be more successful than his last.

  ‘Brothers!’ he cried to Danziger’s men as the door swung open. ‘We are betrayed! Lord Scharnholt has slain Lord Danziger and stolen the stone! Kill the traitors!’

  The Slaaneshi and the Tzeentchists looked at each other alarmed, hands on their hilts.

  ‘Murderers!’ cried one of Danziger’s men.

  ‘It is a lie,’ shouted one of Scharnholt’s men. ‘A Slaaneshi lie. Show us the body!’

  Reiner cursed. They were going to argue rather than fight! He surged up, charging the nearest Tzeentchist. ‘I’ll show you a body! To me, Slaaneshi!’

  He hacked the man across the chest. The cultist was wearing a breastplate, so the strike did little damage, but it had the desired effect. The man slashed at Reiner, as did two of his comrades. Danziger’s men bellowed, outraged, and leapt to Reiner’s defence. The two sides came together, sword on sword, screaming curses and accusations.

  Reiner parried his opponent’s attack and fell back behind his Slaaneshi ‘fellows’. No one paid him any attention. They were too intent on killing each other. He edged through the door, then hurried down to the Blackhearts, who looked up at him, concerned.

  ‘Now we wait for a victor,’ he said.

  ‘And kill them,’ said Gert.

  ‘Aye.’

  They listened as the sounds of battle rose and fell above them. Swords clashed. Men screeched. Bodies thudded to the ground. Then the sounds ceased.

  ‘Lubeck, can you stand?’ asked a voice. ‘How many are we?’

  ‘Is it true?’ asked another. ‘Did our lord mean to betray Danziger?’

  ‘We must go below and see,’ said the first.

  ‘Now!’ whispered Reiner.

  The Blackhearts rushed up into the square room. Only Franka stayed behind, staring at nothing. The fight was over almost before it was begun. Only four of Scharnholt’s men still stood, and not one of them was unwounded. Jergen cut down two with one stroke, and Pavel and Hals ran the other two through with their spears. Dieter made sure they were dead.

  ‘Now the most dangerous part of all,’ said Reiner, as the others returned to the stone and he collected Franka. ‘For if we are discovered before we reach the storeroom, no amount of murder will save us.’

  They carried the waystone up the steps past the storeroom level to the kitchens. Reiner called a halt in the dark stairwell and looked down the long kitchen corridor, which had just as much traffic as before.

  ‘We’ll brass it out again,’ said Reiner. ‘Make out it’s a dying man. Ready?’

  But just then Danziger and Scharnholt’s voices echoed up the stairs from below. Reiner could only hear snatches of words.

  ‘…killed these too?’ Scharnholt was shouting.

  ‘…Hetzau must be…’ Danziger was screaming.

  ‘Curse it!’ said Reiner. ‘They’ve found our trick too soon. Hurry.’

  They hurried down the kitchen passage, Reiner shouting, ‘Make way! This man is dying! Stand aside!’

  The cooks and serving maids scurried out of their way. Reiner thought he heard a rumble of running boots behind them, but it might have been his imagination. They turned right and passed the laundry, not bothering now to be silent, and Reiner saw the women look up disinterestedly. They had to tiptoe the last twenty yards to the store room, because the guardroom was just around the corner.

  They were almost at the door when Reiner heard running boots again, and this time he was certain it wasn’t his imagination. He let go of Franka and hurried ahead, fishing in his pouch for the storeroom key. He unlocked the door as quietly as he could and opened it.

  ‘Did some men pass here?’ came Scharnholt’s voice. ‘Carrying something?’

  ‘Oh aye, m’lord,’ a laundress replied. ‘Just now.’

  As the boot steps resumed, the Blackhearts angled around to walk the waystone through the door. They stopped short. The carrying spears were wide
r than the door.

  Reiner cursed. ‘Tip it!’ he whispered. ‘Pavel’s side down! Hals’s side up!’

  Darius, Jergen and Pavel lowered their spear-ends almost to the floor, while Dieter, Gert and Hals struggled to raise theirs over their heads. Reiner helped Darius, who looked about to drop his end. In this awkward arrangement they walked forward again. Pavel’s spear-butt just caught the edge of the door.

  ‘Left!’ he hissed.

  The party waddled a few inches left. Reiner thought his back would break. The boots were closing in. Reiner could see torchlight reflecting from the right.

  ‘Now ahead.’

  They started forward again, and this time just cleared the jam. The end of Reiner’s spear juddered noisily along the ground and he strained to hold it up.

  ‘On! On!’ he breathed.

  They continued forward, tripping over the casket. The bound guard gave a muffled cry as someone stepped on him. The Blackhearts set the stone down, grunting and hissing, and Reiner spun to close the door behind them. He fumbled his fingers under the door handle in the dark, but found no keyhole. It couldn’t be locked from inside.

  ‘Jergen. Gert. Here!’

  Reiner heard Jergen and Gert feeling their way forward. The boots passed by outside. Reiner held his breath.

  ‘You men,’ came Scharnholt’s voice. ‘Have any men passed here, carrying a heavy burden?’

  ‘No, m’lord,’ said a voice from the guardroom.

  Scharnholt cursed. ‘Have we lost them? We must go back. Cultists have stolen a valuable relic from the vault!’ he called to the guards. ‘Let none pass unquestioned!’

  ‘Aye, m’lord!’

  Sounds of commotion came from the guardroom as the boots turned in the hall.

  Reiner leaned in to Jergen and Gert. ‘Push on the door.’

  Jergen and Gert pressed their shoulders against the door with Reiner. Reiner felt pressure on the door as someone shook the handle.

  ‘Locked,’ said a voice, and the boots moved on.

  Reiner waited until they had faded completely and the men in the guardroom had run off before he relaxed his pressure on the door.

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Let’s have a light.’

  Hals lit Reiner’s long-handled priest torch and they got to work—untying the covered waystone and putting it in the casket, then struggling once again into the black priest’s robes while the gagged guard glared balefully at them from where he lay beside the dead, mutated sergeant.

  ‘Where’s the arm?’ asked Reiner.

  Darius held out the long, lumpy packet, wrinkling his nose. Reiner took it and stepped to the casket. He threaded a length of rope around the waystone at shoulder height then unrolled the packet, revealing a decaying, mutated arm with seven long sucker-tipped fingers. The stench of death rolled up from it in a solid wave, making them all gag. Reiner’s eyes watered.

  Wrapping his hands in a blanket from the storeroom shelves, he tied the arm to the waystone, so it looked like it had sprouted one greenish limb. The others draped more blankets over the carpet-wrapped waystone, making sure all of it was hidden, but leaving the arm exposed.

  ‘There,’ he said, standing. ‘Now the final touch.’

  He picked up the blanket with which he had handled the arm as Dieter continued fussing with the blankets. He stepped to Gert. The crossbowman shied away.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he cried.

  ‘Shhh! You fool!’ said Reiner. ‘Hold still.’

  As Gert cringed, Reiner wiped the blanket’s slimy residue on his robe. He repeated the process with each of them and finished with himself. The reek was inescapable. ‘Now we’re ready. Lift it up.’

  He listened at the door as Dieter closed the casket and the Blackhearts raised it. There were sounds of excitement and alarm coming from all over the manor, but none directly outside the door. He opened it and edged around the corner. The barracks room was deserted.

  He hurried back and took up his torch. ‘Right, ready.’

  The Blackhearts walked out, the casket between them. Reiner locked the door behind them. ‘Slow and dignified,’ he said. ‘The best way to be caught is to look like we’re running.’

  THEY WERE STOPPED as soon as they left the barrel keep and entered the modern part of the manor again. A sergeant of the guard with ten men at his back saw them coming out of a stairwell and raised his palm.

  ‘Halt!’ he said, striding forward, then stopped as if he had run into a wall. He backed off, covering his mouth and making the sign of the hammer. ‘Death of Sigmar, what a reek!’ he choked.

  Reiner bowed. ‘My apologies, sergeant. The corpse was in an advanced state of decay. It was being eaten by its own mutations.’

  ‘Never mind that,’ said the sergeant, as his men edged back unhappily. ‘Where is your escort?’

  ‘Er, he ran off, sir,’ said Reiner. ‘There was some uproar while we were fetching the body. He went to see what it was and never came back. Would you provide us with another? We seem to be lost.’

  ‘Let me see your order of removal,’ said the sergeant.

  Reiner pulled it from his sleeve and stepped to the sergeant.

  ‘Stay where you are!’ The sergeant cried. He snatched the paper from Reiner’s fingers and backed away to read it. He glanced unhappily at the casket. ‘Er, I’ll have to look inside. There’s been a theft.’

  ‘It’s not a pretty sight sir,’ said Reiner. ‘He is much changed.’

  ‘Open it, curse you.’

  Reiner shrugged. ‘Very well.’

  He lifted the lid. The smell of death poured from it in a cloud. The sergeant retreated, gagging, then inched forward again. The suckered fingers of the rotting arm stuck up over the lip of the casket. They crawled with flies.

  The sergeant retched. ‘Sigmar preserve us!’

  ‘Shall I pull back the blanket so you may see the face?’ asked Reiner.

  ‘Don’t you dare!’ The sergeant was furious. ‘What is the matter with you, priest! Why did you wait so long to come! You endanger the whole manor! We might all catch the madness! Take it out! Hurry!’

  ‘But sergeant,’ whined Reiner. ‘We have no escort. How are we to hurry when we will be stopped and asked to expose the body at every step?’

  The sergeant’s jaw clenched and unclenched. At last he growled. ‘Right. Follow us. But stay far back, you hear me? Far back!’

  ‘Of course, sergeant.’

  The Blackhearts fell in behind the guards and followed them through the manor. Reiner crossed his fingers. With Ranald’s luck, this was the last hurdle. The sergeant would walk them out and they would be free. But as they stepped out into the forecourt and approached the gate, Reiner saw von Pfaltzen and Danziger standing by it, talking with the chief gate guard.

  ‘Heads down, lads,’ Reiner whispered, and pulled his hood down over his eyes. The Blackhearts looked at their feet.

  ‘No one is to leave the grounds,’ von Pfaltzen was saying. ‘No one, you understand. The thieves are still within. You will hold all visitors here until they are found.’

  The chief gate guard saluted. ‘Aye, sir.’

  ‘I volunteer my men to help watch the gate,’ said Danziger. ‘The thieves may try to make a break.’

  Reiner cursed. Five minutes earlier and they would have been through and gone.

  The gate guard turned as the Blackhearts’ escort approached the gate. ‘Wait! No one is to go out, sergeant. The priests must bide.’

  ‘But, captain, the corpse is diseased. It—’

  ‘No exceptions, sergeant,’ said the gate captain. ‘Von Pfaltzen’s ord—’ He stopped as the Blackhearts’ smell hit him. ‘By Sigmar!’

  ‘You see,’ said the sergeant. ‘It isn’t safe.’

  ‘Just a moment,’ said von Pfaltzen, stepping forward with Danziger behind him. ‘Open the casket.’

  NINETEEN

  There Is Blood To Be Spilled

  THE SERGEANT SPREAD his hands. ‘Sir, I have already see
n in. I vouch for the contents. It would not be wise…’

  ‘Open it.’

  Reiner’s hands shook as he lifted the lid. Flies buzzed up from within. Here was where he died. There was no escape. Curse Ranald. The old fraud had let him down again. Reiner held his torch high so the lid cast a shadow across the casket’s interior and hung his head. Von Pfaltzen grimaced and covered his nose and mouth, but he kept coming, looking steadily into the casket. The torchlight glistened on the slimy arm.

  ‘You see, captain,’ said the sergeant.

  Von Pfaltzen ignored him and reached his sword into the casket. Reiner groaned. It was all over. They were dead. They would be chopped to pieces. Von Pfaltzen prodded the blankets. Reiner expected a hard clink as his sword touched the stone, but the tip sunk in as if into a pillow. Reiner nearly yelped. He was glad for his cowl, for he was gaping like a peasant at a magic show. He heard Darius whimper with relief. Von Pfaltzen prodded again, then coughed and stepped back.

  ‘Let them out,’ he said, waving at the gate captain. ‘They cannot stay.’

  The gate captain nodded, relieved, and signalled his men to stand aside and let the Blackhearts out. Reiner led them forward in a daze. He was baffled. What had happened? Had Ranald sent a miracle after all? Had the stone softened? Had some hidden sorcerer caused von Pfaltzen to see what Reiner wanted him to see?

  Reiner did not like the unexplained. And he was almost as frightened by their escape as he was thankful.

  When they were out of earshot of the gate, everyone sighed and cursed.

  ‘What was that?’ said Hals. ‘We should be dead.’

  ‘It was a miracle,’ said Pavel.

  ‘Sorcery,’ said Gert. ‘Did ye cast a spell, witch?’

  ‘I am not a witch,’ said Darius.

  ‘It was Sigmar’s grace,’ said Hals.

  ‘Or Ranald’s,’ said Reiner.

  ‘I only hope the filth didn’t damage ‘em,’ muttered Dieter.

  ‘Damage what?’ asked Reiner.

  Dieter said nothing. Reiner looked back, they were out of sight of the gate. There was a side street just ahead. ‘Turn in there,’ he said. ‘And set it down.’