[Empire Army 05] - Warrior Priest

by Darius Hinks - (ebook by Undead)

  “Where now?” gasped Fabian in horror, as he reached a wide junction at the end of a row of tenements. He had no idea which way to turn. His heart was pounding in his chest as he looked up and down the two roads that lay before him, straining to remember the last direction. He groaned in despair. Then, something familiar caught his eye: the large dovecote that sat beneath his bedroom window. He gave a howl of delight and sprinted towards it. After a few seconds he saw the narrow street that led to the Unknown House and dashed up it.

  As he ran towards the gate, he saw that just like Puchelperger’s it was swinging on its hinges and to his horror, he saw that the front door was ajar too. “I’m too late,” he panted, stumbling down the path.

  He froze as he saw Calderino’s face looming out of the darkness towards him. He drew the rapier his uncle had given him, but then he paused. There was something odd about Calderino: he was much taller than Fabian remembered him and his tanned, gaunt face was knotted in fear.

  Fabian squinted into the darkness of the hall and slowly made out a second, much larger figure, stooped behind Calderino. The colossal shadow stepped forward into the moonlight and Fabian gave a laugh of relief. Calderino was dangling helplessly in the grip of one of Kobach Ivanov’s massive hands. Fabian stepped aside as Kobach hurled the cursing Tilean out of the door. Kobach gave Fabian a brief nod of recognition before turning and closing the door firmly behind him.

  Calderino leapt to his feet, spitting insults in his own language and pulling a stiletto from beneath his cape as he stepped towards Fabian. “If I can’t have his whore, you’ll do instead,” he hissed, before lashing out with the needle-thin blade.

  A stream of droning words fell from Fabian’s mouth and the world seemed to slow. He watched the Tilean’s blade moving towards his face with a feeling of cool dispassion and stepped easily out of the way. As Calderino tumbled into the space where Fabian had just been standing, the boy casually extended his leg and sent the Tilean sprawling across the path. The man crashed to the flagstones with a grunt and his knife clattered away into the darkness.

  The world resumed its usual pace and Calderino clambered to his feet, turning to face Fabian with a look of horror on his face. “You’re just like him,” he gasped, backing away towards the gate. “You’re sorcerers, the pair of you.”

  Fabian raised his slender sword, and levelled it at the man’s head. “You should leave,” he said calmly.

  Calderino cursed as the gate flew open and Jonas staggered, gasping, onto the path.

  “I think not,” said Jonas, grabbing the Tilean’s shoulder and ramming his sword up through his chest.

  Calderino stiffened with pain as the weapon emerged between his shoulder blades, then he slumped lifelessly in Jonas’ arms. The old man laid his body down onto the path and looked back down the street to see if they were being watched. Once he was sure they were alone, he sheathed his sword and stepped towards Fabian, grasping his hand and nodding enthusiastically. “You see? You’ve begun a great journey, my boy.” He looked down at Fabian’s clean, unused blade and shook his head. “You’ve still much to learn though.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  SECRETS AND LIES

  “He’s become unbearable,” said Fabian, steering his horse through the powdery snow.

  Winter had come early to Ostland and the Berlau estate was a kingdom of ivory, frozen ponds and heavy, glittering boughs. “He was never the most rational soul,” continued Fabian, as his charger picked its way carefully through the waist-high drifts, “but since we returned from Altdorf, he seems determined to prove his holiness at every turn. Mainly by labelling everyone around him as morally suspect.” He pulled the collar of his fur-lined coat a little tighter, as a fresh flurry of snow rolled across the hills towards them. “Sigmar knows why they ordained him at such a young age, but it’s made him even more in love with his own myth. I dread to think what he wants to talk to me about. I imagine he intends to announce his impending godhood.”

  The young man riding beside Fabian threw back his hood to reveal a face that looked like it had been carved from granite; his features had a crude, brutal quality to them and his eyes were as flat and lifeless as a corpse’s. He grunted in disgust. “So why are we running back to the house with our tails between our legs?” He patted the bleeding mass of fur and teeth hanging from his saddle. “The hunting is good at this time of year.”

  Fabian shrugged. “I hear you, Ludwig, but Jakob’s been ensconced in the temple with Brother Braun since the summer, so I suppose even I’m a little interested to know what his news is. But, more than that, for the first time in my life, my father is actually allowing me some leeway.” He clutched the waxed, fur-clad sheath that held his sword. “My new-found military prowess has achieved the impossible and actually impressed the old man, so I’m determined not to do anything to upset him.” He looked over at his friend. “Finally, I’m able to remind people that the Wolffs are a family with a proud history—a family not to be trifled with.” He gestured at the grizzled head that was fastened to his saddle. “Father would never have let me roam the estates like this, marshalling the watch, and cleansing the woods of filth, if I hadn’t proved to him that I have skills as impressive as Jakob’s. How wonderful it is to finally be able to reinstate some order.”

  “And dispatch transgressors,” said Ludwig, leaning forward with a hungry grin on his face.

  Fabian looked over at his friend a little nervously. “Yes, that too I suppose. Although it might be best to keep that under our hats for now.”

  Ludwig’s head snapped to one side a couple of times in an involuntary twitch. “They deserve everything they got. The idiot peasantry only understand brute strength, Fabian. We were absolutely right to kill them. It will be a long time before anyone dares to poach from the Berlau estate again.”

  Fabian continued to watch Ludwig from the corner of his eye. He was his oldest childhood friend and had been very useful during the months since he had returned from Altdorf, but he was beginning to wonder if he had been a little too open with him. “Remember, Ludwig,” he said, placing a hand on the reins of the man’s horse and bringing it to a stop, “we should not mention any of my uncle’s training techniques either. Father knows my new-found skill is due to Jonas’ teachings, but he has no idea of the methods involved. And I don’t think he would understand. Such ancient, unorthodox practices could easily be misconstrued by people less cultured than ourselves.”

  Ludwig nodded eagerly, continuing to grin. He stretched out his arms, tensing and relaxing the muscles with obvious delight. “We wouldn’t want everyone to have such skills anyway—we’d lose the advantage.” He laughed. “I imagine that’s why your uncle made you swear that ridiculous oath of secrecy—to limit the number of people who might be able to face him in single combat.”

  Fabian flinched at the mention of the oath. With so many miles between him and Altdorf, it had seemed no great crime to share what he had learned with his closest friend; but every now and then, he felt a chill of doubt. “You’re probably right,” he muttered, steering his horse onwards down the hill. “But nevertheless, I’d rather no one else knew.”

  He smiled to himself as he remembered the other reason he was happy to visit Berlau: there was a parcel waiting there for him. Since their training sessions in Altdorf, Jonas had sent several packages containing fencing manuals, military textbooks and other, more unusual items. In his most recent letter he had mentioned some dolls, acquired through one of his guests at the Unknown House. They were things of incredible antiquity, believed by Jonas to have originated in far Cathay. The letter explained that despite their grotesque appearance, the dolls contained great power. Jonas claimed that if Fabian placed a single strand of a man’s hair beneath the wax skin of one of the dolls, he would be granted unnatural power over the flesh of that man. Fabian had thought immediately of how easy it would be to pluck a hair from his brother’s pillow.

  They crested the brow of the next hill and saw the whi
te folds of the valley spread out before them. “Someone’s burning the welcome feast,” said Ludwig, nodding to a thin column of black that was snaking up towards the bright, pregnant clouds.

  “Odd,” muttered Fabian. The smoke was coming from near the house and it gave him an unpleasant sense of foreboding. He kicked his horse into a canter and cut through the deep snow with as much speed as he could manage.

  As they approached the sprawling mass of the house, the source of the smoke became clearer: a pyre had been constructed not far from the gatehouse.

  Fabian peered through the eddying banks of snow and made out a group of figures, silhouetted against the whiteness. “What’s this?” he muttered, with growing impatience at his horse’s slow progress.

  His agitation grew as he neared the figures. A loose circle of servants, soldiers and officials was scattered around the smouldering pyre and at the head of them was Brother Braun with his head bowed in silent prayer. Next to the priest was a small, stocky figure, swaddled in a mountain of furs and bright, ceremonial robes. Fabian recognised him immediately as Tischer, the local magistrate, but there was another man by his side he could not place: a wiry, fanatical-looking priest of some kind. Fabian’s gaze passed quickly over the stranger and came to rest on a shape near to the pile of charred wood. Jakob was lying a few feet from the pyre, curled up on the snow in a foetal position and shuddering violently.

  Fabian reined in his horse as a row of ashen faces turned towards him. At a nudge from the magistrate, Braun looked up from his prayers and saw Fabian riding towards them.

  “Fabian,” called Braun, with a look of panic on his face. He began clambering up the hill towards him, but Fabian had now looked beyond Jakob and fixed his eyes on the pyre. His head felt oddly light as he focussed on two corpses fastened to the top of the wreckage. They were burned beyond recognition, but from Jakob’s shuddering sobs, he had no doubt who they were. The brightness of the snow seemed to grow suddenly, lancing painfully into his eyes and the whole scene began to spin around him as though he were drunk. He gripped the neck of his horse in an effort to stop himself falling.

  “What have you done?” he whispered under his breath, steering his horse down the hill towards his brother. “What have you done?” he repeated a little louder as he neared Braun who was still clambering up the hill. “What have you done?” he howled, as he kicked his horse into a gallop, leaving a cloud of snow behind him as he charged down the hill.

  “Wait, Fabian,” gasped Braun, reaching out in desperation as the horse thundered past.

  “What have you done?” screamed Fabian, leaping from his horse and planting a ferocious kick into Jakob’s side.

  Jakob spun across the snow and clambered to his feet. His eyes were red raw from crying and he looked across at his brother in confusion.

  Fabian strode forward and punched Jakob with such force that his head snapped back with an audible click of bone, sending a spray of red across the crisp, white snow.

  Jakob reeled backwards but managed to stay on his feet. The blow seemed to clear his head slightly and he looked at Fabian with a spark of recognition in his eyes. “Occultists,” he slurred through bloody teeth, trying to explain.

  Fabian’s face flushed a dark purple and he howled with inarticulate rage, before drawing a long hunting knife from his belt and rushing at his brother.

  “Wait,” cried a piercing voice.

  Fabian paused to see the wiry priest striding towards him, closely followed by the magistrate and a group of militiamen. The priest had odd, pale eyes that bulged out of his thin face as he approached. “Jakob only did what he had to,” he said. “Your parents were engaged in the most depraved, heretical activity. Who knows what havoc they would have wrought if your brother hadn’t reported them to me. You should thank him.”

  Fabian shook his head in disbelief. “Who are you?” he gasped, noticing that the guards lined up behind the man were drawing their weapons.

  “My name’s Otto Surman,” he replied, “and I’m a Templar of Sigmar.” He nodded to the guards and officials that surrounded him. “You should think very carefully about what you say.”

  “Surman’s telling the truth, Fabian,” said the magistrate, anxiously rubbing his hands together and cowering behind the priest. “You know how fond I was of your parents, but there was very convincing evidence. I’d never have sanctioned this if there had been any doubt.”

  “Wait a minute,” growled Fabian, ignoring the magistrate and pointing his knife at the witch hunter. “I recognise your name. You’re the man my father banished from his estate, just a few months ago. You locked a village idiot in a cage because he spoke to his birds.” His whole body was trembling with fury as he strode towards Otto. “I see what this is,” he said, his voice sounding strained and unnatural. “My father made a fool of you, and this is your vengeance.”

  The witch hunter was about to reply when Jakob cried out. “No, brother, that’s not how it is. I found the evidence. They were involved in something terrible.” His voice cracked with emotion as he turned to face the pyre. “But I didn’t realise the punishment would be so…” he placed his head in his hands.

  Fabian shook his head in disbelief. “How could you betray our parents to this charlatan?” As his eyes filled with tears, he let out another keening wail of despair. “They were starting to notice me. Finally. After all those years in your shadow.”

  Surman cautiously stepped closer to the weeping Fabian and the magistrate signalled for the guards to ready their weapons.

  “Your brother’s not to blame,” said Surman as he emptied a small bag onto the snow at Fabian’s feet.

  “What’s that?” snapped Fabian with a dismissive sneer. “Something you planted on them, no doubt.” As he stooped to examine the objects, the colour drained from his face. They were small, wax dolls; ugly, deformed little things, but there was no disguising their heretical nature. Fabian recognised them immediately from the description in his uncle’s letter.

  Surman was just a few feet away and as he saw Fabian’s look of recognition, he frowned in confusion. “Do you—?” he began. But as the magistrate stepped to his side, the witch hunter clamped his mouth tightly shut and said no more.

  Fabian’s legs folded beneath him and he crumpled silently into the deep snow.

  Jakob stepped to his side and looked down at him. “There’s nothing we could have done, brother. They brought this on themselves.”

  “No, they didn’t,” spat Fabian, “you did. You and your obsession with holiness.” He climbed back to his feet and leant towards Jakob until their noses were almost touching. “If you weren’t so wrapped up in your own twisted idea of virtue, our parents would still be alive. You’ve murdered them as surely as if you lit the fire.”

  Jakob shook his head in desperate denial, but could think of no words to defend himself.

  Fabian’s rage returned to him and he drew back the hunting knife.

  Before he could strike, the soldiers rushed forward and grabbed his arms, knocking the knife from his grip and dragging him away from his brother.

  Fabian slipped, eel-like from their grasp, leaving them stumbling through the snow in confusion. He reached down to retrieve the knife, but then, noticing the dolls at his feet he paused and glanced nervously at the witch hunter. He left the knife where it was and turned to face his brother. “Just go,” he said, trying to control his breathing. “You’ve destroyed everything. The Wolffs are ruined. Don’t make me a murderer too.”

  Jakob shook his head in a pitiful, mute plea.

  Fabian pointed at the bodies. “Look at what you’ve done,” he cried. “You must leave Berlau. If I avenge them, I’ll be ruined too.” He nodded at the surrounding whiteness. “Take your wretched prayers away, Jakob. Be anywhere but here.”

  Jakob looked from his brother to the charred corpses of his parents and his face twisted with anguish. Then his shoulders slumped in defeat and he gave a slight nod. “If it’s what you wish,” he mutte
red, giving his brother one last pleading glance.

  Fabian was still trembling with anger and refused to meet his eye. “If I ever see you again, I won’t be responsible for my actions,” he hissed, sounding close to tears. “But if you swear never return to Berlau, I won’t hunt you down.”

  Jakob swayed, as though slapped, but gave another weak nod as he turned away. He stumbled off through the valley like a dying man and after just a few minutes his stooped, lonely figure disappeared behind the whirling banks of snowflakes.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  MASSACRE AT HAGEN’S CLAW

  The Iron Duke, Kriegsmarshall Fabian Wolff, surveyed his vast army with a long sigh of satisfaction. “Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?” he asked the grey-haired captain riding beside him.

  The old knight’s head jerked sideways in a series of involuntary twitches, then he looked back at the men behind them. “Never,” he replied as he studied the sea of rippling banners.

  Fabian had begun the campaign with a force of considerable size, but over the months, it had grown even larger, becoming an unwieldy host of epic proportions. As the seriousness of the incursion became known, von Raukov had sent reinforcements from every corner of Ostland in support of his beloved protégé. It would be impossible to say exactly how many men were now marching behind him. They numbered in the tens of thousands though, certainly: knights, engineers, spearmen, pistoliers and greatswords, all eager to serve under such a revered general. Fabian’s exploits had already become the stuff of legend. After three decades of combat, his mind was as fast as his sword arm; in fact, he was almost as deadly in real life as he was in the tales his agents had spread across the province. The officers under the Iron Duke’s command followed him with a fanatical devotion and the Elector Count had placed complete trust in him. He had achieved almost everything he had ever desired.