Dead Winter

by C. L. Werner

  By custom and stricture, he should never have brought Aysha here. A suicide was a damned soul, a thing cursed by Morr and abandoned to the infernal hells of his murderous brother Khaine. The Sylvanians believed that the flesh of a suicide attracted ghouls from their forest lairs. The proper thing to do was to bury such a wretch in the middle of a crossroads, a great stone stuffed in the corpse’s mouth and the bones of its legs broken with a spade.

  Frederick cared neither for custom or stricture. This was Aysha, his sister by marriage, a woman who, if he had remained in Marienburg, might have been even more to him. He was willing to commit sacrilege for her, to spare her anguished spirit the indignity of a nameless grave. For her, he was willing to do even more.

  The priest looked over at the black candles laid out around the body. It had taken him most of the day to make those candles, a labour that still made his gut churn with disgust. He glanced over at the darkened niches, picturing the mutilated bodies hidden in the darkness. It was blasphemy for a priest of Morr to do such a thing, but the books of Arisztid Olt had been adamant regarding the corpse-candles and their necessity to the ritual.

  Frederick stepped away from the table, slapping his hands together in nervous agitation. He had long studied the tomes of Olt’s secret library, studied them when he should have consigned them to the flames. Until now, he had never been tempted to exploit that occult knowledge. He had considered the esoteric secrets with the detached appreciation of a scholar. He had never intended to put such obscenities into practice.

  It was heresy for a priest of Morr to even contemplate what Frederick was doing. If they hadn’t been taken by the plague, the Black Guard would have executed him for even thinking about such a thing. The servants of Morr had a connection to death and the world beyond the mortal plane, but the magic Frederick thought to invoke was something else entirely. It wasn’t part of death, but a blasphemous attack upon it. It wasn’t a connection to the world beyond, but rather a violent assault upon the gateway between planes.

  With a moan of despair, Frederick rounded upon the table. His arm was raised to sweep the candles to the floor, to turn away from this heresy before he committed the ultimate sacrilege. But his eyes focused upon the pretty features of Aysha. Conviction faltered and temptation flooded into his heart. Instead of dashing the candles to the floor, he took a rushlight and ignited the hempen wicks. One by one, the corpse-candles sputtered into stagnant life, their eerie blue flame seeming to increase rather than lessen the darkness of the mortuary.

  The priest circled to the foot of the table, staring up at Aysha’s shrouded form. He placed the edge of a stone knife against his palm, cutting deep into the flesh, gritting his teeth against the pain. With his own blood, he drew a symbol upon the floor, tracing from memory the ancient Nehekharan hieroglyphs. From a wicker cage, he retrieved a red-breasted wren. Sacred to Taal, killing a wren was an affront against the gods of nature. Frederick paused only a moment, then snapped the bird’s neck, tossing the pathetic body to the rats creeping among the corpses.

  Frederick could feel the mortuary growing colder, a chill that was somehow more profound than the mere bite of winter. It was a chill that seeped down into the soul itself, the clammy clutch of dark magic and Old Night. He could almost see fingers of darkness reaching through the shadows, drawn to his rites of blasphemy and horror. He hesitated as he stared down at the last object required by Olt’s spell. The priest gagged at the thought of what he must do. Only the thought that he had come too far to hesitate now steeled him for the perversion. In one swift motion, he scooped up the gelid bit of flesh, trying not to visualise the empty socket from whence it had come, and popped it into his mouth. His body rebelled as he swallowed the abomination; he clamped his bleeding palm across his mouth and forced the sickness back down.

  At once, the darkness came rushing in. Frederick could feel it pawing at his robes, slithering against his skin. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled and his face felt as though it had been plunged into the maw of an ice troll.

  Frederick shook himself from the sensations crawling across his body, from the frozen talons clawing at his soul. He stared again at Aysha and from his lips streamed the harsh notes of an ancient tongue, the language of vanquished Khemri whose streets were dust a thousand years before the birth of Sigmar.

  The peat-lamp sputtered and died, leaving only the blue flames of the corpse-candles and the sickly light of Morrslieb streaming through the mortuary’s single window to illuminate the room. Frederick’s flesh turned to ice as the eldritch emanations summoned by his spell came rushing in. Rustles and squeaks heralded the fright of rats as they scurried away from the fell energies summoned by the priest.

  A cold glow suffused Aysha’s corpse. From her pursed lips, a smoke-like wisp began to rise. Seeping into the atmosphere like an uncoiling snake, the glowing mist assumed the rough semblance of shoulders and head, the faint echo of limbs and torso. Only the most fevered, deluded imagination could have said the ghost bore the slightest resemblance to the woman it had been. It was a thing of shadows and reflections, a memory and nothing more.

  Frederick smiled as he looked into the face of Aysha. Forgotten was the horror and blasphemy. All that mattered was her presence and the chance to speak to her one last time.

  ‘Aysha,’ the priest whispered. The wisp shifted slightly as the name was spoken.

  A thin, rattling voice, like the scratch of talons against glass, hissed through the room. ‘There are doors that must not be opened,’ the phantom words took shape in Frederick’s mind. ‘Powers that must not be invoked. Beware of calling that which you cannot dismiss.’

  Frederick stared into the ghostly visage, doubt flickering through his heart. The enormity of this sacrilege pressed against him, squeezing him like the grip of a python, crushing the breath from his lungs. For any man to draw upon this unholy magic was crime enough, but how much worse was it for him, a priest of Morr, a man dedicated to the sanctity of the grave?

  ‘There are sympathies of spirit and mentality that must never be made,’ the ghost warned. ‘Do you wield the Power or does it wield you?’

  Frederick closed his eyes, refusing to accept the spectre’s warnings. He knew what he was doing. It was evil, abominable, but it would only be this once. He would never draw upon this magic again. He would have no use for it. Just this one time, this once so he might speak to Aysha one last time. Just this once so when his time came, his soul might find peace.

  The priest opened his eyes again, gazing into the cold wispy image of Aysha. Grimly, Frederick exerted his will over the ghost, forcing its doleful tidings to subside.

  ‘Why have you called me?’ the apparition demanded.

  Frederick leaned against the table, remembering only at the last moment Olt’s precaution about not stepping out from among the symbols he had drawn upon the floor. ‘I had to see you, had to speak to you. I had to let you know.’

  ‘There is nothing to be said to the dead,’ the ghost admonished.

  ‘I had to let you know what I felt,’ Frederick persisted. ‘I had to tell you I have never stopped loving you. I know you had to marry Rutger, I know it was the right thing for you. I have never begrudged that decision and I have always been indebted to him for what he did. Both for you and for me.’ The priest turned his face towards the sanctuary. ‘I have placed Johan in the mausoleum of the templars, the most sacred place in the garden. He will be at peace there. Your body will rest there as well. I won’t let them take you away.’

  The wisp shifted once more, at once seeming to swell and diminish. ‘You should not have called me. Johan and Rudi are waiting. They beckon to me. You should let me go to them.’

  Frederick shook his head, tears in his eyes. ‘Every time I saw you, every time I saw Johan, I thought of what could have been. I like to think that I could have made you happy. I want to think I would have been a good father to Johan.’

  ‘He belongs to Rudi,’ the ghost spoke. ‘He is waiting with
his father. You must let me go.’

  The priest slumped away from the table, the magnitude of the ghost’s statement twisting in his gut like a knife. All these years, he had believed Johan to be his own. He had never dared speak of the matter with Rutger, had never pressed the point with Aysha. He had always believed it was for the best if Johan never knew. It had been a privation of the soul, to look on in silence, but his quiet suffering had given Frederick the strength to go on. Now that his pain was revealed to be a lie, all that was left was a terrible emptiness.

  Through the melancholy of his mind, an alarm began to flash. Frederick stared hard at the ghost’s formless face. It was the second time she had spoken of Rutger waiting for her. But his brother was alive. He couldn’t be waiting…

  ‘Why do you speak of Rutger as one of the dead?’ Frederick demanded, horrified anger contorting his face. ‘My brother is alive! He is alive!’

  ‘Rudi waits for me with Johan. They beckon to me.’

  Terror filled Frederick’s heart. He had left Rutger only the night before, when his brother had helped him bring the bodies to the temple. It was impossible that the plague had struck the merchant down in so short a time. Rutger was all the family he had left now.

  ‘How is it that my brother waits in the realm of Morr?’ Frederick demanded.

  The wisp wavered. For an instant the eyes of Aysha gleamed from the flickering shape, imploring the priest to relent. Frederick squeezed his hand into a fist, sending more of his blood dribbling to the floor, strengthening the black magic he had evoked.

  ‘Rudi went to seek justice for our son,’ the ghost answered. ‘Havemann was ready for him.’

  Frederick’s body sagged as the ghost’s words pressed upon him. The corpse-candles sputtered and died. As they winked out one by one, the ghostly wisp drained back into the body laid out upon the table.

  ‘The line has been crossed,’ the spectral voice whispered. ‘Sympathies of spirit and mentality have flung open the gate that can never be closed again.’

  The priest didn’t even notice the apparition’s retreat. He was thinking of his brother.

  And the man who had murdered him.

  Middenheim

  Ulriczeit, 1111

  Night once more cast its sinister pall over the roof of the Ulricsberg, the clean light of Mannslieb warring against the ugly glow of Morrslieb for domination. The watchfires upon the walls of Middenheim stood stark against the black sky, clearly marking the locations of gatehouses and guardtowers. Smaller lights, flickering as they passed behind the battlements, revealed the lanterns of patrolling sentries.

  From the Graf’s private hunting preserve, the little garden forest called the Ostwald, Mandred studied the revolving patrols. The prince crouched beneath the boughs of a snow-covered fir tree, waiting for the token Othmar had described, the beckon that would summon the smugglers to the wall.

  ‘You said we were going to get more men,’ Othmar whispered at the boy’s ear. Unlike Franz, the Reiklander was managing to refrain from invoking Mandred’s title. The fact that the prince had stubbornly refused to inform his father of this venture had grated against the knight’s sense of duty and it was hard for him to keep a touch of resentment out of his voice.

  ‘We aren’t sure they’re going to be there,’ Mandred whispered back. ‘We can get help later if we need it.’

  Franz rubbed his calloused hand across his bald head, sweeping away the snow that had settled on his scalp. Anything touching his head made the knight uncomfortable – snow, rain, hats, even his own hair had been sacrificed to his sensitivity. At moments of stress or when his mind was anxious, that was when his scalp was at its most irritable.

  ‘I don’t like this, your grace,’ Franz coughed. ‘It might be wiser to tell the Graf what is going on.’

  Mandred shot his bodyguard a stern look. It was enough of an irritation to have the Reiklander questioning his plan; he didn’t need one of his own subjects voicing doubts.

  The prince was about to call Franz to task when a sudden change in the pattern of the lantern on the wall above the Sudgarten drew his attention. Instead of continuing along the regular route, the light suddenly came to a stop. Up and down it rose as the sentry holding it signalled to someone in the city below. The gesture was repeated thrice, then the light went out. If someone didn’t know what they were looking for, there was little chance of noticing the irregularity.

  ‘Looks like your friends will be heading for the wall,’ Mandred told Othmar. ‘You said they used ladders to climb up to the battlements?’

  The Reiklander nodded. ‘That is how they brought us down from the wall,’ he said. ‘It stands to reason that would be how they got up there.’

  Mandred stepped out from the cover of the fir, knocking snow from its branches. ‘Let’s see if the ladders are there. Then I’ll know better how to proceed.’ The look Othmar gave him made it plain to the prince that he still thought the Graf should be informed and more men sent to deal with the smugglers. Mandred felt a twinge of regret that he had to deceive the knight. In the little time he had known Othmar, he had been impressed by the man’s integrity. He rationalised the deceit by reminding himself that there were bigger things at risk than a single knight’s pride. The lives of countless unfortunates down in the shantytown were what was really at stake.

  The three men crept through the garden forest, picking their way into the hedgerows and flower beds of the Sudgarten. Vast swathes of the park had already been ripped apart, cleared of trees and shrubs, getting the ground ready for the plough once the spring thaw came. The torn-up earth made Mandred think of a battlefield, the piled dirt evoking images of earthworks, the deep furrows resembling jagged trenches. It was a resemblance that made the prince uneasy. Middenheim was his home. The thought that war might soon be battering at its gates was not a pleasant one.

  The bells were tolling in the temple of Shallya, the closest of Middenheim’s temples to the Sudgarten. There were no priestesses left in the temple; they had all taken Graf Gunthar at his word and left the city to tend the sick down in the shantytown. Only a single deacon had remained behind to maintain the temple and ring the bell, to remind the people of Middenheim that even without her priestesses, the goddess was still with them.

  Such was the clamour of the bells that Mandred didn’t hear Othmar when the knight called to him. The Reiklander had to grab his arm to get his attention. He followed Othmar’s hand as the knight gestured towards the wall. As he had promised, a pair of tall ladders were leaning against the barrier. They were peculiar looking constructions, made of a soft white pine and with strangely spaced rungs. It took Mandred a few moments to realise what they were – trellises from the ruined park. The smugglers had scavenged them from the debris and lashed them together with ropes to create their ladders. It was an ingenious idea. When they were finished they could simply cut the trellises from one another and dump them back with the other debris from the park. No need to worry about dragging the things to and fro, the trellises would be waiting for them on the junk pile the next time they were needed.

  ‘Now we tell the Graf, your grace?’ Franz asked, anxiety in his voice, one hand rubbing his head.

  ‘Now we go up there and see who it is,’ Mandred said, still trying to play for time. He turned a commanding gaze upon each of the knights. ‘If we send for help and they don’t come in time, at least we will know what these smugglers look like.’

  ‘There were seven of them when I was brought up the cliff,’ Othmar reminded the prince. ‘And you’ll have to take into account the sentries they’ve bribed.’

  ‘We’re just going to have a look,’ Mandred promised. ‘They don’t even have to know we’re there.’ He felt guilty lying to these men, but he didn’t have time to make them see his point of view. Mandred’s motives were pure, but he knew from past experience that some men were too cynical to believe in simple humanity.

  Franz led the way to the ladders, Mandred’s one concession to his bodyguard
’s incessant demands for caution. The prince followed close behind, with Othmar climbing up the second ladder. The Reiklander had described in some detail the arduous climb, made all the more difficult by the irregular spacing of the rungs. Even so, Mandred found himself panting by the time they reached the top of the wall.

  No light shone upon this section of the battlements. The bribed sentries had doused their lantern, leaving the smugglers to work by the light of the moons. This, it seemed, was more than sufficient. Mandred could see where a crude windlass had been constructed, thick ropes uncoiling from it to drop down over the side of the wall. Somewhere below in the darkness would be the basket Othmar had described, perhaps even now bringing another clutch of refugees over the cliffs.

  Three men dressed in a motley assortment of furs attended the windlass, grunting with effort as they gradually brought the ropes winding back around the timber spool. Two soldiers in the livery of Wallwardens watched the operation, worry etched upon their faces. Another pair of men in cloaks paced back and forth, their every move betraying an attitude of wary vigilance.

  There were two other men present. Like the sentries, they seemed intent upon watching the smugglers working the windlass. One was a broad-shouldered, stoutly built man, his head covered by a bearskin hood. There was an unmistakable air of authority about him; even without Othmar’s description, Mandred would have marked the man as the chief of these smugglers.

  The chief’s companion was a little fellow, wiry and nervous, his scrawny body covered from head to toe in a ragged robe of dyed wool. He capered about the chief, seemingly unable to keep still, his head twitching from side to side beneath the folds of his hood. Mandred took an instant dislike to the little man, finding his every gesture somehow disturbing and repulsive.