Tales of the Old World

by Marc Gascoigne

  “Get rowing!” Jiriki yelled, and Johan grabbed vaguely at an oar. Grimcrag was already pulling with a vengeance, and the heavily laden boat surged gamely towards the rapidly diminishing entrance. Even Johan could see that the water in the cave was almost at the high tide mark, and he doubted whether there was already any room for the miniature Norse longboat to clear the cave.

  A rasping, scraping grinding sound assured him that he was right, when the proud dragon prow caught on the craggy rock of the cave roof. The boat ground to a halt immediately, throwing Keanu hard onto a heavy crate and ripping the oar from Jiriki’s hands.

  The elf lowered his head and closed his eyes. “We’ve lost!” he whispered. “We’re really stuck here now… and even we can’t beat all the lizards on this forsaken island.”

  Johan looked around wildly. Jiriki was right, there was no way that the boat was going any further. The cave roof sloped down towards the entrance, and their boat was firmly wedged in place by the ornate dragon headed prow. Glancing shoreward, he could see that the water was boiling as the lizardmen hurled themselves into the water and began swimming towards their frail craft. Johan knew in his heart what the skinks intended: they would turn the boat over and drown the Marauders by sheer weight of numbers and their superior aquatic fighting skills.

  “It can’t end like this!” Johan shouted, looking around for some way of escape, there was none. Despair clutched at his heart.

  “Unngh!” grunted Keanu, clutching weakly at his sword, the wind knocked from his lungs by the impact with the heavy crate.

  “Heads down, everyone!” Grimcrag shouted cheerfully, leaving barely a second for the Marauders to act on his sage advice, as once more Old Slaughterer was pulled back for a mighty swing. As he dove for the deck, Johan could see the sheer, grim, bloody minded expression which belied the dwarf’s easy words. As the blade swung back, Johan could have sworn that he caught the words, “Shan’t—have—me—gold!” expelled through gritted dwarf teeth, and then the axe was hurtling towards its target. And Johan understood Grimcrag’s intent the split second before the axe ripped through the proud dragon prow, sundering four feet of very solid and seasoned wood as though it was the pulpy flesh of an overripe fruit.

  From his position on the crate, Keanu could only gulp appreciatively, heaving air into his lungs as he recovered his breath.

  “That’ll do nicely, eh?” Grimcrag gasped, gesturing over his shoulder with a callused thumb. “Now we’d best get a move on, as we have company on the way!”

  Johan and Jiriki needed no second bidding, and were already at their oars, pulling for all their might. Together, their efforts just matched those of Keanu, who heaved mightily on the opposite oar, corded muscles standing out on his neck and shoulders. Freed from the grip of the rocky roof, the boat leapt forwards almost eagerly, and Johan reckoned that with their lower profile, they might make it after all. Just. If they ducked.

  “Pity; that figurehead was the best bit of the boat I reckon, good solid timber crafted by a skilled carpenter!” Grimcrag’s voice drifted wistfully across the cave.

  “Shut up and grab an oar!” came the chorus back.

  “Aaargh! Yes, me lads!” Hook Black Pugh beamed, surveying the burning village. “This’ll do very nicely indeed!” Well satisfied with the pillaging so far, Pugh grinned broadly, scratching at his stubbled chin with the business end of his hook.

  A few yards away, invisibly merged with the jungle, several hundred skinks looked on with murder in their cold eyes, sharp daggers, spears, bows and poisoned darts awaited the signal, for they were determined that none would escape. “When red bird flysssss away…” a feather-bedecked lizardman with blue-black skin hissed ominously.

  If Bligh had not been so distracted by the flight of the brightly coloured bird, he might have noticed movement in the reflection in his highly polished blade. But even if he had seen it, he would probably have thought he was seeing things. For who could believe a smallish, makeshift mongrel boat, piled up with crates and so low in the water that it looked near to sinking… or the tiny reflection of the dwarf waving rudely at him from the tiller?

  As it was, he saw nothing but an ugly red bird which caused his mates to laugh at him. And if there was one thing he hated, it was being made fun of. So he just stood at the base of the pyramid and fomented murderous plans for his captain. “No one makes fun of Arbuthnot Bligh,” he muttered, and death was in his eyes.

  With an ungainly flapping of scarlet wings, the strange bird took flight.

  “You know,” began Grimcrag, lounging on a hammock strung up on the poop deck of what was up until very recently an abandoned pirate ship, “I don’t think this could have worked out much better if I’d planned it.”

  “You mean you didn’t?” Jiriki chided in mock surprise, from his place in the shade of the mainmast.

  Grimcrag ignored the elf and continued ticking off their successes on the callused fingers of his left hand. “We’ve got a ship, lizard gold, our Bretonnian gold back, had a holiday…” The dwarf glanced around the poop deck. “Have I forgotten anything?”

  “Vot ’bout da Frogmeat stew?” Keanu shouted from the crow’s nest. “Dat vas gut!”

  “I still can’t believe you actually cooked him,” Johan muttered sulkily. “Just ’cos he tried to force you to crew the ship with lizards.”

  “You saw what he was going to do with that there spear, lad, let’s not forget, eh?” He wagged a finger remonstratively at the ex-Imperial envoy. “Him or us lad, him or us. And you do like a bit of crackling as much as the next man!”

  Johan brightened up a little at the mention of crackling, and looked over the stern of the vessel. The sun glittered on the wake of the ship, and seagulls danced in the air, no doubt hoping for any detritus from the Marauders’ last meal. “You won’t find any crackling!” Johan shouted through cupped hands, but his voice was lost in the wind in the sails.

  The Dirty Dog sailed serenely away from the island into the setting sun, and a new chapter in the legend that is Grunsonn’s Marauders drew to a close. Well, almost…

  On top of the small pyramid, grouped around the noble statue, Hook Black Pugh and the remaining pirates nervously eyed the throng of angry lizard kind gathered menacingly below them. To the pirates’ consternation, the leading lizards were wearing what looked like Norse helmets. At least one of them was frothing at the mouth and rolling its eyes in its scaly head. A disconcerting bellowing and hooting reached the ears of the beleaguered pirates, as arrows clattered about the pirates’ booted feet. “Getting dark.”

  “They’re… berserks, ain’ts they?”

  “Can’t be—can they?”

  “Remember, their arrers is poisoned.”

  “Looks like that one’s got some kind of magic.”

  “We’re doomed and no mistake.”

  “Aaargh! I’m sorry, me lads, looks like me luck’s run its course this time.”

  “Hold on, what’s this ’ere statue?” Pugh’s deafening shout of pure frustration and despair echoed across the clearing.

  “I don’t believe it! It’s that accursed barbarian! I knew THEY had to be at the bottom of this somewhere! Aaaaargh!”

  NIGHT TOO LONG

  James Wallis

  “Two beers, Frau Kolner, and a kiss for Hexensnacht!” He swooped at her, arms outstretched. She dodged around him, laughing, a tray of tankards held level with a polished skill of avoiding amorous drunks.

  “Sit down, Herr Johansen, and I’ll bring your ale presently.”

  “And the kiss?”

  “Hexensnacht’s tomorrow night. And no kisses till you finish finding those poor missing women, and pay off your ale bill.” She swept away towards the bar. Johansen watched her go, then ran his hand over his short-cropped dark hair, smoothing it into place, and sat back down next to his companion, Dirk Grenner.

  “She’s great, isn’t she?” he said.

  “She’s a short, penny-pinching shrew with a half-wit for a brother an
d a string of suitors as long as the Great North Road,” Grenner said. “I don’t understand what you see in her.”

  Johansen looked across the plain wood of the inn table with incomprehension on his face. “She’s a blonde widow who owns a pub,” he said.

  “So you say, too often,” Grenner said. “The landlady of the famous Black Goat Inn. What makes you think she’d go for someone like you?”

  “Me? A high-ranking officer in the prestigious Palisades, charged with protecting the Emperor and his Elector Counts?” Johansen puffed out his chest. “I’m a fine catch.”

  “You’re an overworked, underpaid captain in a small division most people have never heard of. You’ve got a humourless tyrant for a boss—”

  “A sarcastic ex-Watch sergeant for a partner,” Johansen said and reached for his tankard.

  “—you don’t wear a smart uniform most days, and you spend your time watching Kislevite insurrectionists or Bretonnian spies. Or, Sigmar help us, seconded to the city Watch, who couldn’t find their arses if a horse bit them.”

  “They’re not doing much better with our help,” Johansen said. “Four women missing in two weeks. It’s not good.”

  “And while we were fooling around, Schmidt gets himself killed.”

  “His own fault. He knew they suspected he was watching them.”

  “Bretonnians,” Grenner said with vehemence. “Sons of bitches. Killing him is one thing, but stuffing his mouth with his—”

  “Here’s to his memory,” Johnsen said. They raised their beer-mugs, drank, and were still. Grenner broke the moment.

  “Still, Hexensnacht tomorrow and Hexenstag the day after. Things should be quiet. The city’s practically deserted.” He pulled his tankard closer and inspected it, thinking.

  A deep boom echoed from outside. The building shook, sending ripples across the beer.

  “What was that?” Grenner said.

  “You tempting fate,” Johansen said. “Gunpowder. A lot of it. About half a mile.”

  “Not magic?”

  Johansen shook his head. “No, the echoes were wrong. Come on.” He was on his feet. Grenner stood up, staggered and leaned on the table. “Are you sure we’re on duty?” he asked.

  “We’re always on duty,” Johansen reminded him.

  “I’m too drunk to be on duty,” Grenner protested.

  “Dunk your head in the horse-trough,” Johansen said.

  They staggered to the door. Outside, flames lit the night sky above the wide empty space of the Konigplatz. Altdorf, capital of the Empire, lay still and cold under a blanket of thin snow and stars, the streets lightened by the eerie light of the two moons, one crescent and the other a day from full. Tomorrow would be Hexensnacht, witches’ night, the last night of the year.

  The Seven Stars Inn was ruined and ablaze. The fire raged against the cold, its leaping heat forcing back the crowd of gawping citizens. Stirrup-pumps forced futile jets of water into the inferno and nearby buildings were being emptied in case the flames spread.

  Grenner gazed at the blaze. Almost nothing was left except the ground floor. Nobody could have escaped this cataclysm, but he couldn’t work out why someone would blow up a prosperous merchant-inn at one of the few times of the year when it was almost empty.

  He saw Johansen moving through the crowd, circling the building. The man had studied pyrotechnics when he was in the army; he’d be able to tell where the charge had been set and how large it was. Grenner’s speciality was less technical and more dangerous. He was a student of human nature.

  “So, Grenner, what’s the situation?” The voice jolted him from his thoughts, made abrupt by its strong northern accent. Grenner didn’t have to turn to know General Hoffmann, the leader of the Palisades and the only man whose orders he respected, had arrived.

  “Probably nine dead, sir,” he said. “No survivors found so far, nor witnesses. No reports of threats or recent trouble.”

  “A hundred and fifty pounds of gunpowder in the cellar,” Johansen added as he joined them. “Blast went straight up, killing everyone inside. Very effective. Good evening sir, you’re up late.”

  “Hard to sleep with so many disturbances,” Hoffmann said, his eyes dark against the flames.

  “Don’t give us that,” said Grenner. “Something’s up or you wouldn’t be here. Why this inn, and why tonight?”

  Hoffmann held his stare for a moment. “You’re on the ball for a man who’s been drinking all evening, Grenner. Yes, this is no routine tavern-bombing. Grand Prince Valmir von Raukov, Elector Count of Ostland, is known to share a room with a female associate here late at night. We’ve warned him it’s a security risk, but…”

  “Was he inside?” Johansen wanted to know.

  “He was but he left earlier, luckily for us. Someone just tried to kill a senior officer of the Empire, and in a very public way. I need to know who and why, and I need them stopped. Your job.”

  Johansen looked mock-aghast, Grenner dismayed. “Can’t you put someone else on it?” he said.

  “There isn’t anybody else. It’s almost Hexenstag. Everyone’s out of the city or on leave, except the Meer twins who are working incognito and Schmidt, who I don’t need to remind you is dead. Get to work.”

  “We’ll start first thing,” Grenner said.

  Hoffmann’s face was in shadow, the raging fire behind him. “Someone’s trying to kill an Elector, you don’t wait till morning. Start now, and don’t stop till their bodies are in jail or cold.”

  Johansen groaned. “When do we sleep?”

  “Perhaps the explosion deafened your ears.” The general’s voice was ice. “You don’t stop until they’re jailed or dead.”

  Chains of people passed buckets of water to watchmen who flung them at the burning inn. The inferno consumed the water and blazed on, turning the sky above the city red.

  The Konigplatz is the wide market-square separating the University of Altdorf from the merchant district. By day it is crowded with traders, peddlers, goodwives looking for a bargain, street-thieves looking for unguarded purses, pilgrims, soldiers and messengers, gawkers staring at the huge statues of past emperors that dominate the square with the hundred foot-tall figure of Sigmar, the founder and patron of the Empire, towering over them.

  By night the square is quieter, the market-barrows left stacked and bare at the side of the cobbles. On cold nights between the midwinter feasts of Mondstille and Hexenstag, when the river Reik flows through the city slow and sluggish like thick blood in the veins of old tramps huddled in warehouse doors, Altdorf’s streets are deserted apart from a few drunken revellers, a few Watch patrols, those who prefer not to go home or who have no homes, stray dogs, and rats scurrying in the garbage. Those with more clandestine business suck to less well-let areas.

  “Gunpowder in the cellar,” Grenner said as they headed across the square towards the Black Goat. “How did it get there?”

  “Probably a barrel,” said Johansen. “Who’d notice an extra barrel in a beer-cellar?”

  “The cellarman would. And they’d have to get it down there. First thing, we check out the Seven Star’s regular brewers, wine-sellers, anyone who might supply them with casks. Find witnesses. Find out who’s got a grievance against the prince.”

  “A lot of work,” Johansen said, “for just two of us.”

  Grenner groaned. “I know. And I’ve got a fitting at my tailor.”

  “Oh yes?”

  “Couple of shirts and a new short-cloak. Dark blue, Tilean style.”

  “Very nice. Big evening?”

  Grenner gave him a scathing look. “Hexensnacht. In case you’d forgotten.”

  “Oh yes. Let’s hope we’re done by then.” Johansen, distracted, glanced across the empty square. “Wait, what’s that?” He pointed into the maze of shadows among the bases of the emperors’ statues.

  It was a pile of displaced paving-stones, the bare earth beside them rude and frosted. Grenner and Johansen regarded them.

  “O
dd,” Johansen said. “I didn’t see that earlier.”

  “Maybe you weren’t looking. Maybe it wasn’t here. We can check on it in the morning.”

  Johansen looked up as if realising where he was for the first time. “Why are we back here?”

  “Because we need to do some planning. And the best place for that is over a mug of mulled wine, with the chance Frau Kolner’s still around to bring it to you.”

  Johansen grinned. “Let’s get planning.”

  It was a long night. For an hour they talked and thought and speculated over hot wine brought by Frau Kolner’s idiot brother who was less interesting to look at than the landlady, but who understood instructions and did not sleep. Then they left the inn again, into the biting cold of the night to bang on the doors of informants, rousing them to answer questions in exchange for a few silver coins, a promise of future favours, leniency for relatives or associates in jail, or a stare that said nothing but threatened much. Grenner did the talking. Johansen stifled yawns, fingered his sword and blocked the escape routes.

  As six bells sounded across the city, the sky still dark, they found themselves in the merchant district a few streets away from the Konigplatz, hammering on a door that didn’t respond. Johansen looked at Grenner.

  “Probably spending Hexenstag in the country,” he said.

  “Wish I was.” Grenner gave the door a kick and stepped away. “Enough for now. Breakfast at the Goat?”

  “You’re on.” They began to walk back to the square, Grenner slapping his hands to ward off the frost.

  “And what has this wasted night taught us?” he said, only partly to his partner. “That the prince has a lot of enemies. The Bretonnians and Kislevites hate him because of his trade-treaties with Norsca, his neighbours in the north hate him because his army drove a greenskin force into their lands last year, the Chaos-worshippers hate him because the witch-hunters run freely in his province, and even his own people hate him because he left the church of Ulric and became a Sigmarite. All of which we already knew. None of them have agents working in the city, as far as we know, and he’s not annoyed anyone for at least two months. We have nothing.”