Harald wondered what it must have been like in the Vanquishers. Had they been heroes or monsters? Or a mixture of both?
'Kept to himself, did Warhawk. Always with his precious birdies. Minya, Sebastian. Cheep cheep cheep. They were his childlings. The only things he cared for, the only things real to him.'
'He had a name?'
Gurnisson paused, took another swig.
'Robida,' he said. 'Andrzej Robida, curse his dead and rotten-to-Khorne guts.'
Now it had come, it was a disappointment. Sometimes, the answer to a mystery was like a daemon dust rush, a sudden influx of understanding and vision.
The name Andrzej Robida meant nothing to him.
XVIII
He took out his father's falconer's clothes, and laid them on the floor. With the lamp behind him, his shadow filled the suit. Old Andrzej had been a bigger man than his son. But Warhawk would outgrow the dead man's stature.
Belle flexed her wings on the stand, as Warhawk took a knife to the old clothes, ripping the rotten material apart, scratching the floor.
The birds reacted to the noise, and began calling to each other, screeching, squawking, scratching.
Warhawk stabbed the shadow, gouging the wood of the floorboards.
Soon
XIX
Rosanna waited until they were out on the street to tell him. Since meeting Ruger, she had become cautious. She had scried something from the weirdroot dealer that made her trust only Harald. Treachery was a part of this thing.
'I know of an Andrzej Robida,' she said.
Harald stopped in his tracks, and turned to her. In the lamplight, his face seemed set as a statue's.
'He was well known a few years ago, especially at the Temple of Sigmar. He was a patron of the sciences. He knew the old lector, Mikael Hasselstein. They used to debate the possibilities of human invention.'
'Tell me, quickly,' Harald said.
'Robida was the sponsor of the inventors' contest. You remember, he offered one hundred thousand crowns to anyone who devised a machine which could fly under its own power. A machine, not a magic trick. All those rickety winged creations plunging from the walls of the city, into the Reik, into the trees. The crowds assembled to laugh at each new failure. Wax wings, inflated silk bladders, man-lifting kites.'
'Wings,' Harald said. 'All through this, I've been hearing the cursed flutter of wings.'
There was a watchman coming down the street, on his rounds. And an unoccupied carriage trundling, idling, looking for trade.
'Robida is a rich man. He has a big house near the palace.'
'He must be the Warhawk.'
'Yes,' she said, thinking, 'he must.'
Shockingly, suddenly, Harald embraced her, kissed her. Then, he was hailing the carriage.
'Get to the Luitpoldstrasse and send the watchmen after me,' he said, climbing in. 'Klove,' he shouted to the watchman, flashing his copper, 'look after this woman.'
Her mind was racing. During their brief contact, Harald had poured images from his mind into hers. She knew he was going after Robida alone, leaving her behind to protect her.
There was something else nagging her.
She watched the carriage rattle off down the street.
'Miss?' the watchman, Klove, asked.
Rosanna was about to say something, but a drunk was expelled from Bruno's Brewhouse, and staggered against them.
Klove clouted the man, and sent him reeling into the gutter.
'Be off with you, Ruger,' he shouted at the drunk. 'And keep quiet, or I'll confiscate your pouch.'
Wheels were whirring inside her head.
'Is that Mack Ruger?' she asked the copper.
'Yes,' he spat, 'the pest. Not worth the trouble of hauling him in.'
Ruger twisted in the gutter and looked up, grinning. He was not just drunk. Weirdjuice dribbled down his chin, and his eyeballs were swimming.
Rosanna had never seen him before.
XX
A big house near the palace.
That wasn't much of an address, but it would have to do. Harald had ordered the carriage-man to take him to the palace district. Former Lector Hasselstein×whom Harald had no cause to remember fondly×had retired from public life and entered a secluded order, but Harald hoped he could scare up someone at the Temple of Sig-mar who could tell him where Andrzej Robida lived.
It felt right in his guts. Robida was the Warhawk.
This all had something to do with wings.
'Faster,' he ordered the intimidated carriage-man. 'This is life or death.'
He would find Robida's address within the hour, even if he failed at the temple. If necessary, he would break into the palace itself and find some toady who knew the patron of the sciences.
It would be over soon.
XXI
Belle was too good a bird to be impatient.
Warhawk stroked her wings.
The blood of twelve was on her beak. Soon, it would be the blood of thirteen.
The Device was almost complete.
The blood of just one more sacrifice was needed.
He regretted the time he had wasted on the mechanical sciences. All those strange flapping, churning, straining machines plummeting from the walls. He should have thought of magic first.
It was all so simple.
Thirteen sacrifices, and the freedom of the skies would be his.
Kleindeinst must be out there already, on his way. Warhawk had been spacing out the sacrifices, waiting until he knew Gotrek Gurnisson was in the city.
Gurnisson was a part of the Device too. Just as they all were, all the dead, all the flies buzzing around the sacrifices. The witch-woman, Kleindeinst, the criminal he had impersonated, the poor dupes Viereck had hanged
It was as his father had told him, so many years ago. Thirteen must die by one bird, and that bird's master would be free of the ground.
But there were other rules.
The first sacrifice must be a child.
The fifth a woman of the aristocracy.
The tenth a man of authority.
The twelfth a slayer of innocent men.
And the thirteenth
Belle's head rubbed against his black leather glove. Kleindeinst was out there, coming closer
The thirteenth must come to the sacrifice of their own accord.
XXII
Magister Spielbrunner did not relish being hauled out of his bed by a scryer and quizzed intently about alchemical spells. But he was coming around to accepting it.
'Flight,' the wizard said, 'that's an old one.'
Spielbrunner was young for a wizard, almost boyish. Rosanna had met him briefly when she was with the temple, and remembered his obvious interest in her. He was still interested, and that meant he was putting up with this intrusion into his home.
'After lead-into-gold, rejuvenation, invincibility, sexual potency and foretelling the future, flight is the most popular lunatic fancy. People always come to wizards begging for wings. As if we could work miracles'
They were in Spielbrunner's study, a modern and uncluttered room, with a no nonsense air about it. His books were dusted regularly and well-kept, and his equipment was stored precisely and in order.
'There are many methods for attempting the power of flight,' he continued, flattening his hair with one hand, and pulling his night-robe tight about his thin body. 'None of them work, of course,' he added. 'Not really. Not for long. Although temporary power of flight×to get you out of a tight situation, say×is comparatively easy for the trained magician. Ten years of study and contemplation, a strict spiritual discipline and a few of the right incantations, and whoosh!'
'Our man isn't interested in a temporary power of flight. He wants actual wings.'
'Some altereds of Chaos sprout wings. And other things.'
Spielbrunner was picking through books, looking for something.
'This would have to involve murders,' she prompted. 'A number of them.'
'Oh, you mea
n a Device,' he said, with disgust. 'Superstitious rubbish, like all short-cuts. Popular for a while with unlettered idiots trying to poach some of the benefits of wizardry×meagre though they are, I assure you×without going through the irksome business of actually acquiring magical skills. Everybody wants to be a magician'
Not everybody, she thought.
'But nobody wants to give up their entire life to becoming one. And that, I am sorry to say, is the only way to get there. As for Devices×nasty, barbarous things×nobody bothers with them any more.'
'Someone still bothers,' she said, unpleasant pictures in her mind.
'Oh dear.'
XXIII
It was nearly dawn, and he had wasted time at the temple, going through the former lector's neglected papers while a dim-witted novice held the candle and shivered. Finally, a couple of Templars turned up and he had to dissuade them from throwing him out. But, as it happened, he had found nothing. In the end, Harald got the address the way he should have done in the first place, by asking a watchman.
On this side of the river, the watchmen weren't what he was used to on the docks. Patrolling the palace, the embassies and the temple districts×all well equipped with their own armed guards×these coppers spent more time making sure their uniforms were smart than chasing cutpurses or roughing up Hooks and Fish.
Still, a flash of the badge got him cooperation from an officer in the Templeplatz Station, and precise directions to the Robida Estate. Harald had looked around at the languid night staff of the station and decided he would do best to go alone.
Knife in hand, he stood before the nondescript but elegant house. Above the door, the name 'Robida' was picked out in elaborate scrollwork, a soaring hawk bas-relief above it.
It was as if Warhawk were announcing himself.
The door was open. Inside, he fancied he heard the flutter of wings.
The first light was in the sky as Harald walked up to the house, and pushed the door open with his boot.
'Don't,' a familiar voice shouted from across the street, 'you're expected!'
XXIV
Rosanna had tracked Harald from the temple to the watch station, pushing Spielbrunner's carriage-man to speed at each turn. The wizard had explained the Device to her and let her have the use of his coach. She now owed him favours, and that was sunk into her like a fish-hook. It was not generally a good thing to be in a wizard's debt.
'He's been pulling you here all along,' she explained.
Harald stepped over the threshold, into the gloomy hallway. Dawnlight streamed in through a dull window at the far end.
'It's part of the Device.'
She kept up with Harald, but he ignored her explanations.
The house was filthy, its floor matted with dry birdlime and trodden-in feathers. The wall-hangings had been rent apart by beaks and claws. There were chewed bones everywhere.
They went upstairs, following the point of Harald's knife.
'If he kills one more, he believes he'll be able to fly.'
Harald snorted a laugh. 'That's madness.'
'Yes, madness.'
They looked around the landing. There were paths on the floor, but wherever the master of this house chose not to venture was abandoned, cobweb-ridden rubbish.
The smell was worse than Mundsen Keep.
They followed the largest path, where a track had been worn through the bird droppings almost to the faded carpet.
At the end of the corridor was a ladder, which led up through an open trapdoor in the ceiling. Above, she heard the small sounds of birds.
She scried danger.
Carefully, Magnin out, Harald pulled himself up one-handed. Birds squawked, but no attack came.
She followed him. There was a hatch in the attic, a gable leading to the roof. A slight wind blew in. Rosanna saw the sun rising over the roofs of the city.
'He's out there,' she said. 'Waiting.'
XXV
It was perfect.
They came through the hatch and stood on his roof.
'He's brought you here,' the witch-woman was saying, unsteady on her feet, 'for the Device. You're to be the last sacrifice.'
Warhawk laughed silently inside his hood, and stood up. Belle's wings spread. 'No, my dove,' he said, 'not him, you.'
Belle glided in silence, beak aimed at the scryer's heart.
Warhawk saw the mask of fear on her face. He had known earlier, when they met in the Street of a Hundred Taverns, that Kleindeinst was the string which would pull her to this site.
'You came of your own accord, remember.'
Belle's arched wings flattened out, and she began to dive. The witch-woman's feet slipped, and she fell away from Kleindeinst. Warhawk realised she was terrified up here, afraid of heights.
He was almost there. In an instant, the Device would be complete and he could fly from this rooftop.
Kleindeinst's hand moved, and something shiny flew from it, turning over and over, scything the air.
Belle tumbled from the sky, and Warhawk felt a beak in his own heart. His bird, his twelve-times-blooded bird, thumped against the slates.
Screeching himself, he attacked, leaping across the gap between the roofs, his boots steady on the shifting tile, and scooped up Belle in his arms.
She was still living.
It could still be done.
XXVI
The hooded figure charged them, waving his bird like a shield, and leaped from a ledge a man's height from their level, landing hard on Rosanna. He set about lashing her with the bird.
She couldn't see anything, but she could feel what he was doing. The bird's beak bit into her.
'Die, die, die,' he grunted through his mask.
She imagined the face of the man who had represented himself to her as Mack Ruger, contorted behind the black leather.
The beak tore at her clothes. The bird was still alive, spitted with the knife, but clinging on until the Device was complete.
'Die, die, die'
The Warhawk×Andrzej Robida×sounded like a bird himself, a pecking, gouging bird.
'Die, die, die'
Gods, she thought, what if Speilbrunner was wrong? What if the last thing she were to see in this life was the Warhawk taking to the skies, proud wings spread, blood dripping from his talons?
Fear had enveloped her as soon as she had emerged from the attic hatch and realised how far above the cobbles of the city street she was. Now, the fear was threaded through with pain and panic.
The force of Warhawk's rage, of his need, pummelled her as much as his blows. She scrabbled with her hands, biting back her screams, praying
'Die, die, die'
XXVII
Harald's stomach churned and tore itself apart.
The Warhawk was on Rosanna, battering her with his dying bird. He made bird sounds as he assaulted the scryer. Again, Harald had sought a monster and found only a madman.
He strode across the roof, his hands out. The Magnin had taken care of the damned bird, and now it was down to him to deal with the bird's master.
He took Warhawk by the back of the neck, gripping the collar of his leather cloak, and pulled him away.
The murderer was no stronger than the average man, but he was frenzied and determined. He scratched at Harald's arms, twisting in the copper's grip.
Rosanna, sobbing and bleeding, crawled away and clung to a chimney. She was scratched, but she would live.
The Warhawk kicked backwards at Harald's shins. He couldn't hurt him any more than he was already hurting. The murderer could not stop him. It was all over.
Harald turned the Warhawk around, and looked into the mad eyes that stared out through his mask.
He lifted the man off his feet.
'So you want to fly, do you?'
Warhawk squawked.
He heaved the murderer above his head, and tossed him as far as possible out over the street. For the briefest of moments, the black leather silhouette hung in the air, cloak spread behind him.
/>
'Try flapping your arms,' Harald suggested.
THE IBBY THE FISH FACTOR
I
It was the worst kind of sunset. The sky, red to the west, churned with cloud the angry colour of fresh-spilled blood. Even squat statues cast shadows as long as temple steeples. Passersby were fringed incarnadine in the dying sun. At the eastern end of Konigplatz was the colossal building that housed Altdorf's law courts and the headsman's offices: its thousand leaded windows caught the last light and flashed vivid, painful orange into her sensitive eyes.
As the dark crept across the 'platz, her vampire senses quickened. Mites and motes dancing in the summer evening caught her attention. Genevieve could distinguish each and every speck×dust or insect×and chart its random course. The background chatter of city noise rose like an orchestra tuning up, and she could make out words spoken in anger or affection across the square. The calls of birds pecking each other over scraps of food and the cries of competing proclaimers became an assault on her ears. Despite her need to pass as ordinary, nightfall brought her to full life, pricking the red thirst she must not slake. Sharpening nails cramped inside her too-tight velvet gloves, curling in on themselves like hooks. She ground her teeth, trying to keep her lips demurely clamped over swelling, razor-edged fangs.
Her eyes hurt most. She saw too many ghosts in the last light of day.
This season, with Clause 17 proclaimed all over the capital of the Empire, it wasn't a good idea to wear smoked glasses on the streets.
Let alone affect a red-lined black cloak, sleep in a coffin, neglect to cast a reflection, shapeshift into a bat or wolf, flinch from an icon, or ask for six hundred and seventy-six candles on her birthday cake.
Or smile too sharply.
Genevieve had never been a cloaks-and-coffins sort of vampire. She couldn't transform into anything except an angrier, sharper-toothed and clawed version of her regular self. She could bear garlic, a useful trait in a person forced occasionally to subsist on the blood of Tileans who bathe their food in the stuff. Her conscience was clear enough that holy emblems held no horror for her.
But sunlight made her eyes ache. Enough of it would start her skin peeling.
Warhammer - [Genevieve 04] - Silver Nails Page 19
