by Desconocido
THIS IS A DARK age, a bloody age, an age of daemons
and of sorcery. It is an age of battle and death, and of the
world's ending. Amidst all of the fire, flame and fury
it is a time, too, of mighty heroes, of bold deeds
and great courage.
AT THE HEART of the Old World sprawls the Empire, the
largest and most powerful of the human realms. Known for
its engineers, sorcerers, traders and soldiers, it is
a land of great mountains, mighty rivers, dark forests
and vast cities. And from his throne in Altdorf reigns
the Emperor Karl-Franz, sacred descendant of the
founder of these lands, Sigmar, and wielder
of his magical warhammer.
BUT THESE ARE far from civilised times. Across the length
and breadth of the Old World, from the knightly palaces
of Bretonnia to ice-bound Kislev in the far north, come
rumblings of war. In the towering World's Edge Mountains,
the orc tribes are gathering for another assault. Bandits and
renegades harry the wild southern lands of
the Border Princes. There are rumours of rat-things, the
skaven, emerging from the sewers and swamps across the
land. And from the northern wildernesses there is the
ever-present threat of Chaos, of daemons and beastmen
corrupted by the foul powers of the Dark Gods.
As the time of battle draws ever
near, the Empire needs heroes
like never before.
FOREWORD
IT HAS BEEN several years since I first began recording the adventures of the ruthless bounty killer Brunner. Originally published in cheap shilling dreadfuls in Tilea, I am surprised at how far these lurid publications have spread. Even the nobility of Parravon seems to have taken an interest in these stories and I am continually called upon by the Due himself to recount further exploits of this sinister personage. There is undeniably something fascinating about a man of such amoral pragmatism, and it seems even more so to the Bretonnians, who are weaned from birth on elaborate codes of chivalry and honour.
I have prepared this manuscript for publication as a single volume by Altdorf Press. In compiling these stories, I have delved deeply into my notes, spending many a long night reading the words of Brunner in all their chilling brutality. Revisiting the tales of Brunner, I am reminded of the old Miragliano witticism about the best way to remove a rat from a hole being to send in a bigger rat. It is a bit of folk wisdom which is fearsomely appropriate when discussing the bounty hunter, as the story 'Honour Among Vermin' will illustrate.
By way of introduction, it would be remiss of me to forget to state that I have decided to lead this collection of stories with a tale that was not told to me by Brunner himself, but which was instead related by a knight in service to the Viscount de Chagney. The one time I mentioned the matter to Brunner, the bounty hunter fixed me with his coldest stare and walked out into the street, abandoning his drink. I could not shake the impression that I was as near to tasting the edge of the Headsman against my neck as I have ever come. A terrifying moment, I can assure the reader and one which I do not intend to repeat. Without Brunner's corroboration, I cannot vouch for the veracity of the story I have titled 'What Price Vengeance' and I leave it to the reader to decide what is truth and what is fiction.
Ehrhard Stoecker Parravon I.C. 2509
WHAT PRICE VENGEANCE
THE RAGGED GROUP of riders slowly made their way through the craggy grey piles of jagged stone. The men wore dirty, unkempt clothes, their armour soiled by grime and fresh blood. Mud caked the legs of their steeds. The horses themselves moved slowly, their tired limbs rising and falling with an almost machine-like cadence. The animals were too tired even to protest the continuing march. Their masters, too, sagged in their saddles, fatigue wracking their bodies. They were no less spent than their animals, but, unlike the horses, a greater need urged them forward. In each of the bleary eyes that stared from the riders' haggard faces there burned an ember, a tiny coal that kept their weather-beaten bodies in the saddle.
The line of riders manoeuvred past an old, half-dead tree, its skeletal limbs pawing at the dark, rain-laden sky. Soon, the clouds would again unleash the storm.
The riders hoped to achieve their destination before the rain came upon them once more, but rain, or no, they would take no shelter save that offered by the castle of Claudan de Chegney, son of the Viscount Augustine de Chegney.
The men rode around the dead tree, their horses barely protesting the abrupt change in the tedium. The next to last horseman paused as he jerked his steed's head about with the reins. He paused, then fell, his body crashing into the mud beneath him. The man lifted his arm, reaching toward the stirrup of his saddle, his hand trembling from cold and fatigue. He pulled on the stirrup for a moment, then his hand dropped back into the mud and he was still. From a rent in his brigandine, dark crimson seeped into the mud.
There goes Tonino,' the rider in line behind the fallen man reported, his voice expressionless. He was a swarthy man, his moustached face split along one side by the grey slash of an old scar. The riders ahead of him turned in their saddles, tired eyes staring at the comrade who lay bleeding in the mud.
The man at the head of the column nodded his head grimly. It was encased in a dark steel helmet, plated chin guards framing the man's sharp features. The leader of the riders sighed, sagging a little more in the saddle as he made the sound. One hand released the reins to make the sign of the goddess Myrmidia in the air. Then, the leader turned about once more. After a moment, his men followed suit. Soon, the entire column of twenty had marched on, leaving the body in the mud, the horse to go where it would.
'We shall just add Tonino to what is owed us,' the leader of the riders declared, his voice low, harsh, and murderous. The tiny ember of vengeance burned a little more brightly in his eyes.
GOURMAND, STEWARD TO the Comte de Chegney, stared from the window of the watchtower that loomed above the gate of the foreboding castle that had once been home to the deposed House of von Drakenburg. For centuries, the barons von Drakenburg had guarded the pass through the Grey Mountains, protecting Imperial interests from the ambitions of their Bretonnian neighbours. But such was in the past. For five years now, the lord of the Schloss Drakenburg owed fealty not to the Emperor in Altdorf, but the king in Couronne. Or more precisely, the viscount in the Chateau de Chegney.
Gourmand leaned a little forward from the window, looking over at the armoured man-at-arms by his side. He pointed with a knobby hand at a number of riders slowly making their way down the slope of the pass through the mountains.
'Bandits?' the soldier remarked, straining to make out more than the general outline of the men and their steeds.
'Keep a watch on them,' he said, clapping the soldier's mailed shoulder. 'They appear to be heading towards the castle. I will inform the comte and see what he wishes to do.'
When Gourmand returned to the West Tower with his master, a young, dark-haired man who sported the rakishly short beard and moustache currently favoured in the great courts of Bretonnia, the riders had drawn much nearer indeed. Even the steward's tired old eyes could make out the battered armour and bloodstained clothes, the mud-caked tack and harness, the wearily plodding steeds and swarthy skinned men.
'Bandits, my lord,' stated the sentry Gourmand had charged to keep an eye on the approaching riders.
'Bandits thinking to storm a castle in the middle of a storm?' the Comte de Chegney shook his head. 'Mercenaries, more likely.' As he made the observation, the nobleman peered still harder at the approaching men.
'Whoever they are, they've seen some swordplay,' said Gourmand, still covering the riders with a suspicious gaze. 'Recently too. A few of them look as though their wounds are still fresh. Perhaps they are some free company that thought to raid villages and found the knights of Bretonnia more than they counted upon.'
'By the Lady, I think I recognise them,' the comte declared. 'When last I was at my father's house, he was engaging a band of Tileans. That man below I seem to remember as being their leader.' Claudan de Chegney waved at the men below. The leading rider, a man in a tight-fitting steel helm, returned his greeting.
'Call the archers off,' Claudan told his steward. 'I'd not turn away any man in such a state with the Grey Mountains in such an ill humour. That these men are of my father's house makes it doubly my duty to shelter them.'
'Your father would not think so,' grumbled Gourmand, still regarding the riders dubiously.
'I am not my father,' the Comte de Chegney snapped, a brief flash of fire in his eyes.
THE COMTE DE CHEGNEY was below in the courtyard when the gates opened and the motley group of haggard horsemen entered the Schloss Drakenburg. Two men-at-arms flanked him, each in the de Chegney livery, and by Gourmand. A scabbard and sword had been donned by the comte, but he wore no armour, the blade at his side more a facet of tradition and decorum than any foreboding of danger on his part. These men had already been in a battle, they were tired, and seemingly wounded to the man. Even were they not loyal to his father, men such as these could hardly pose any manner of threat in their condition.
'Hail and well met,' the leader of the troop called out to the Bretonnian noble, his words deeply accented as he translated the Tilean greeting into the softer tones of Bretonnia.
'I welcome you to the Schloss de Chegney.' Claudan said, though even he still thought of the castle as Schloss Drakenburg. 'You may rest here, and shelter within my walls until the foul mood of the Grey Mountains has passed.'
The leader of the horsemen smiled at the Comte de Chegney's words. 'Well, that is indeed kind of you, my lord. We were seeking cover from the rain when we sighted your castle. I hope that our presumption is forgiven.' The man's tones were the well-tutored semi-servile voice favoured by the mercenaries of Tilea, accustomed to deferring to the mad whims of the ruling merchant princes, while inwardly sneering at the idiocy of these same employers.
'How came you to be abroad with a storm in the air?' interrupted Gourmand. He stared past the leader's sharp features, casting his gaze across the entire company. He noted the blood-caked weapons and armour, the tightly bound injuries. 'And how came you to be in such a condition? Set upon by orcs, perhaps?' It was bait; anyone familiar with the region knew that there had been no orcs in this part of the Grey Mountains since the death of the Great Enchanter many long years past.
'Your castle seems a bit shabby,' the helmeted Tilean commented, ignoring Gourmand's words. 'Not like your father's.'
'I asked what happened to you,' the steward repeated, stepping forward. A glower from the massive Tilean beside the leader made the elderly servant retreat past the closest man-at-arms. The brute favoured the servant with a gap-toothed grimace.
'That's the problem with wealth and position,' the leader continued. 'Someone always has a little more than you do.'
'My steward asked you a question,' the Comte de Chegney said, his voice flat. Now he too was becoming aware of the aura of menace about these men. He had almost forgotten that trickery and treachery had claimed the lord of this castle once before. Now they would do so again.
'Still,' the leader sneered, 'that is the only problem with wealth and position.'
The comte's eyes were locked on the right hand of the Tilean mercenary, waiting for the villain to reach for his sword. Even as the Bretonnian drew his own blade, his eyes were still focused upon the right hand of his chosen foe. Claudan de Chegeny never saw the blade that whipped downwards to slash his throat. He would have understood the means of his death even less, the cunning Tilean device secreted in the sleeve of the mercenary captain, a coil of steel clenched between metal braces, triggered by pressure on a button-like contrivance to shoot a long-bladed dagger from the sleeve of the man's tunic into the grip of his hand.
As the Comte de Chegney fell, the other mercenaries sprang into action. A crossbow bolt from a weapon that had already been armed before entering the castle and was now aimed with terrible speed and accuracy skewered the throat of the man-at-arms to the left of the dying count. The other soldier was trampled by the powerful warhorse of the brutish hairy Tilean that had seconded the leader even as the Bretonnian raised his pike to ward off the sudden and vicious charge. The hairy Tilean roared like a blood-mad bear as he brought his heavy cavalry mace crashing downwards at the cringing, horrified steward. The old man raised his arm to ward away the blow. The steel weapon snapped the man's arm, but did no more than graze the old man's head. Gourmand fell, groaning. On the verge of unconsciousness, he could do no more than roll away from the hooves of the horsemen as they charged up the steps that led from the courtyard into the castle itself.
'Inside, everybody!' the leader shouted. 'Don't give their archers a clean shot!' As if to punctuate the mercenary's words, an arrow flew from the window of a tower to strike one of the rearmost riders in the back. The man fell with a garbled scream. More arrows flew downwards, striking the stone steps and walls as the Tileans charged into the safety of the keep itself.
Ursio looked at his men. Eighteen, there were only eighteen of them now. He had started with fifty-four when he had been engaged by the Viscount de Chegney. Six had fallen when they had seen to the capture of the viscount's neighbour the Marquis le Gaires's annual tithe of gold to His Majesty King Louen Leoncoeur. The others had died when the viscount's own men had ambushed the Tileans, seeking to silence these pawns of their master. Ursio vowed that his treacherous former employer would pay for every man he had lost.
'Spread out!' Ursio roared. 'Search every room! Every hall!' There was a strangled cry and a man-at-arms who had been storming down the stairs toppled down the remainder of the flight, a black bolt of steel and wood protruding from his chest. 'We find the boy, we get paid! The mercenaries roared their approval of their captain's words, many of them tearing away the bandages they had tied about their bodies, for few in the company were as injured as they appeared. The smell of vengeance and the promise of gold lent their fatigued bodies a new vigour. As if sharing in the vitality of their riders, the horses offered no protest as the mercenaries spurred their steeds down hallways and up stairs.
Betraying us, thought Ursio, is going to cost you dearly, viscount.
IN THE NURSERY, Mirella de Chegney and her sons nurse cowered together. They could hear the sounds of battle and bloodshed echoing throughout the castle all around them. A brave woman in her own right, a part of Mirella desperately wished to race from the protection of the as-yet undisturbed nursery to see what had befallen her husband. But a newer and greater concern ruled her thoughts and enthroned a new fear in her heart. A fear for the small, fragile little life she clutched against her body, trying to stifle its crying wail in her bosom.
Suddenly, the door burst inward. A massive brown stallion, flanks caked in mud and dried blood, froth dribbling from its mouth, smashed through the heavy Drakwald timber. The steed whickered in a mixture of protest and pain as the rider upon his back straightened. The man was no less horrid in appearance than his warhorse. A powerful, brutish looking man, his face encased in a mangy black beard, his head sporting a mane of black hair as caked in blood and mud as the flanks of his steed. The man cast blazing brown eyes at the cowering women. With a snarl that was only half laughter, the man dropped from his saddle, shuffling towards the women with an almost hound-like lope.
'The boy,' he grunted, his words as thick and heavy as his voice. The man's huge hands closed about the tiny crying shape pressed against Mirella's body. The Tilean began to pull the baby from its mother, his bestial strength overcoming the
noble-woman's desperate hold. The Tilean stared at his prize with hungry eyes, jostling the wailing infant in his hands as if to hear the clinking of golden coins.
'Unhand my son, scum!' Mirella screamed. The Tilean turned his burning eyes at the woman. He saw the bright flash of metal in the firelight as Mirella drove a knitting needle into the soft flesh of his groin. The improvised weapon was deflected by the metal of the mercenary's codpiece, but stabbed into the tender flesh of his thigh with scarcely impeded force. With the reflexes of a professional soldier, the Tilean ignored the pain and smashed a meaty fist into the blonde woman's face. Mirella staggered away as the mercenary ripped the needle from his thigh, ignoring the wailing child he had dropped to the fur-laden floor.
'You dropped this.' the Tilean spat as he rushed the reeling Mirella. The woman's hands left her broken nose as the Tilean drove the knitting needle into her midsection. The butcher wasted no further thought on the dying noblewoman, but turned his attention back toward the wailing baby. He saw the nurse clutching the crying child, trying to soothe its pain and terror, while casting horrified eyes on the Tilean's advancing bulk.
'Thinking of killing them too, Verdo?' a cold voice rasped from the doorway. The Tilean looked over to see his captain framed in the entrance of the nursery. 'We need the child, and unless you think you can nurse a baby, we need the girl too.'
'I can wait,' Verdo growled, snatching a fistful of the nurse's hair and pulling her to her feet.
GOURMAND GROANED AS another sharp pain rasped against his flesh. 'Don't die on me,' a voice snarled. Gourmand recognised those cold tones, that mocking sneer. It was the leader of the mercenaries, the man who had killed his master. The stricken steward groaned and forced his eyes to settle upon Ursio. The man scowled down at him.
'I have a message for you to deliver, messenger boy,' the mercenary captain tossed a leather packet down, letting it settle on the wounded man's body. 'You take that to the Viscount de Chegney. You tell him what happened here. You also tell him that we have his grandson.' Ursio gestured to the courtyard, once again filled with Tileans, and now joined by the mounted figure of the nursemaid and the swaddled form she held in her arms. 'If he doesn't want his line to die out with him, he will follow those instructions to the letter. Now on your way, messenger boy. And don't die until you deliver that to the viscount.' Ursio's face twisted into a cold, murderous leer.
