A murder in Marienburg w-1

by David Bishop

  “There could be hundreds more where these six came from, coming up behind their advance scouts. We need to get out of here and now.” The Black Cap turned to his colleagues. “Who can move?”

  Holismus simply nodded. Faulheit raised a weak hand, his other clamped round the dagger stuck in his bulging stomach. “I’m coming with you,” he replied. “I’m not dying down here, not in this hole.”

  “Good,” Scheusal said, before shifting his gaze to the other watchman. “Willy?”

  The white-faced Bescheiden was cowering in the corner beside Cobbius, his entire body quaking and quivering with fear. “Y-Yes… I-I’m r-ready…” he whispered.

  “Then let’s get going,” Scheusal commanded. “Move with a purpose, people!”

  Hoffman grabbed the watchman by the arm. “Where are you going?” he demanded.

  “Upstairs. The tide’s still rising and this place is a death trap.”

  “But those… things… are upstairs!”

  “The ratmen are down here as well, in case you hadn’t noticed,” Scheusal retorted. “My captain is upstairs, he’ll devise a strategy for beating these things. Our place is at his side. You and your men can come help us, or find your own way out-that’s up to you.”

  Hoffman jerked a thumb towards the frightened prisoner. Cobbius was still shackled to the wall, his eyes staring at them in mute terror. “What about Abram?”

  Scheusal glared at the man who had tortured and murdered Mutig, amongst others. “I hope the ratmen eat him alive. Come on, let’s get up these stairs!” Within a minute of the first deaths, Three Penny Bridge was swarming with ratmen. The black shapes appeared from the shadows, carrying shields and swords, blades and slingshots, creeping forwards from the darkness. As they advanced the mercenaries collapsed inwards, some men gibbering in terror while others cursed and sneered at the enemy, daring the ratmen to attack. Henschmann ordered his hired killers to form a protective circle around him and his coach. He still had hopes of escaping this unspeakable menace, even if his driver had been the first to die. By Sigmar, he’d drive himself off the bridge if he had to. Whatever else happened, Henschmann had no intention of dying here. “I said get into circles, one inside the other. I want at least three men between those monsters and me at all times!” he bellowed at the mercenaries.

  When the first ratman onslaught came, it was swift and merciless. A hundred of the creatures charged at the outer circle of mercenaries, squealing in a high-pitched war cry that deafened the men and drove fear deeper into their hearts. As the ratmen got closer, so did the sickening stench of their rancorous fur and hungry breath, a stomach-turning odour worse than any rotting corpse. Then the creatures were upon the mercenaries, flinging themselves at the ring of hired killers, running fearlessly into swords and daggers. The men responded with blade and bow, bolt and courage, slaughtering wave upon wave of the ravening vermin.

  But still the ratmen came, their numbers unceasing, their attack unchecked by losing so many so quickly. A few minutes before the mercenaries had enjoyed superior numbers over the handful of Black Caps defending the station on Three Penny Bridge. Now the advantage was reversed, with countless ratmen surrounding and relentlessly driving themselves at the ring of mercenaries.

  Henschmann watched as his outer circle slowly, inevitably, crumbled beneath sheer weight of numbers. Overhead the moon emerged from behind thinning storm clouds, bathing the bridge with a pale, blue light that made blood look black. A fitting metaphor for this ill-matched battle, he decided. His warriors were fighting well, their weaponry and skills a match for the savagery and sheer volume of ratmen, but soon the mercenaries would lose heart. They had come expecting a simple conflict, a few minutes of fighting followed by a rich and deserved victory celebration. Captain Schnell had frustrated them with a well organised and executed defensive strategy, despite having vastly inferior numbers. Now this new enemy had emerged from the catacombs, intent on slaughter and conquest.

  What did the ratmen want? Henschmann knew that was the key. They had remained beneath the surface of Marienburg for generations, perhaps centuries, rarely venturing above ground. Now the ratmen had burst forth, all their attention focused upon Three Penny Bridge-why? The crime boss cursed himself for leaving that fool Abram Cobbius to negotiate with the ratmen. Sweet Shallya, what a mess. Henschmann pushed his recriminations to one side. Either there would be time for them later, or it wouldn’t matter what mistakes had led him to this time and place. He needed to find a way out of this mess. That had to be his sole priority now.

  He staggered sideways, pushed in that direction as the rings of mercenaries encircling him moved across the bridge, driven sideways like a crab by the ratmen horde’s attacks. Henschmann realised his thugs were being pushed away from the coach, away from his best chance of escape. He yelled at them to reverse the enemy’s thrust but nobody was listening. All the mercenaries were too busy fighting for their own lives to worry about anything their paymaster had to say.

  In a matter of moments Henschmann abandoned the coach to its fate and was already working on a new strategy. If Schnell and his watchmen had been able to defend the station against a vastly superior force, why couldn’t they do the same? No sooner had the thought occurred to Henschmann than a dozen men burst out of the station, all armed with blades and flaming torches. Schnell was leading them on to the bridge.

  “Henschmann! You’ve got to fall back into the station! You and your men haven’t got a chance out there. Fall back into the station,” the captain shouted, bellowing to be heard above the melee. Hoffman and Scheusal were the last to leave the basement, both staying behind while the rest of the watchmen and mercenaries made their way up the stairs. The pair was turning to leave when a host of ratmen sprang up from out of the water. More than a dozen of the ratmen crowded into the flooded hallway, chattering their teeth hungrily, their black eyes gleaming with malevolent hatred. “Go!” Hoffman bellowed at Scheusal, who was closer to the staircase. “Move!” Metal flashed through the air and the Black Cap instinctively ducked, narrowly escaping a cluster of throwing stars. They thudded into the wall beyond Scheusal’s head, their green poison eating its way into the stone. He looked back to see Hoffman stricken by a star in the chest, its venom already devouring the mercenary’s flesh. “Go, damn you!”

  Scheusal fled up the stairs, leaving the hired killer to hold back the advancing ratmen. Within moments Hoffman’s screams were echoing up the staircase, before being abruptly silenced. Scheusal quickened his pace, all too aware of the ratmen close behind. He raced up the stairs and on to the station’s ground floor. “Are you the last?” a voice demanded of him. Scheusal looked round to see who had asked the question and was surprised to see Henschmann standing nearby. “Are you the last?” the crime boss yelled.

  “Yes,” Scheusal gasped. “The ratmen slaughtered the rest.”

  “Right, he’s the last!” Henschmann shouted to a cluster of mercenaries. “Seal it up!” The hired killers pushed a barricade of broken furniture across the staircase, blocking the ratmen’s progress. Scheusal glanced across at the other steps that came up from the basement, but they were already blockaded with doors torn from the holding cells. The other barricades were back in position over the station’s doors and windows. About thirty mercenaries were guarding the blockades, while Schnell and the other Black Caps were gathered in the centre of the room. Scheusal lumbered over to join them.

  “Good, you made it too,” the captain said on seeing Scheusal’s approach. “Now, where’s Jan?”

  “The sergeant’s dead,” Bescheiden sobbed.

  “Jan’s dead?” Schnell gasped, staggering back a step as if stabbed in the heart. “How?”

  “I killed him,” the weeping watchman replied.

  Schnell’s hand moved to the dagger sheathed at his side. “Why?”

  “He didn’t kill him,” Scheusal cut in, “not like you’re thinking. The sergeant found a secret tunnel. Mercenaries were using it to get into the basement. He
went into the tunnel and ordered Willy to wedge the doorway shut, seal it off. The sergeant sacrificed himself to save the rest of us.”

  The captain stared at Bescheiden, murder in his eyes. “Is this true?”

  “I sealed the tunnel,” he confessed. “The sergeant died because of me.”

  “You were only following orders,” Scheusal said, trying to console the weeping watchman.

  “That doesn’t make what I did right,” Bescheiden cried, before slumping to the floor.

  Gerta was busy tending to the other watchmen’s wounds with limited resources. She was tearing strips of cloth from her petticoats to bandage stabs and cuts, but it was a losing battle. “I need to get Faulheit upstairs,” she said. “I daren’t take that dagger out of his guts, otherwise he’ll bleed to death. We need a healer and an apothecary if he’s to survive much longer.”

  “Thanks for the encouragement,” the pale, perspiring Faulheit commented from the floor.

  “Alright,” the captain agreed. “Scheusal, you and Gerta take Martin upstairs.”

  Scheusal looked about. “Where’s Narbig?”

  “He’s already up there,” Belladonna replied. “Something happened to him when he saw the ratmen outside on the bridge. It’s… It’s as if his mind has broken. We had to leave him up there.”

  As Scheusal helped Gerta get Faulheit to the stairs, the captain told Bescheiden to go with them. “You can stay up there, help her look after Martin and Narbig. Scheusal, come straight back once you’ve gotten Faulheit settled. We’ll need all the able-bodied fighters we can get down here.” Henschmann was directing his mercenaries to reinforce the barricades when the captain and Belladonna approached. The ratmen horde outside was throwing itself against the blockaded doors and windows, smashing against them with fearful force. Each blow pushed back the barriers a little further, threatening to break them apart altogether. Each fresh attack resounded with an almighty thud, as if the ratmen were crushing their own kind against the station exterior, such was the hunger to get inside. The noise was quite unnerving, the building shuddering beneath each blow. Henschmann was relieved to step away from the barricades to speak with the Black Caps. “Happenstance makes for strange bedfellows, don’t you agree?”

  “Trust me, the last thing we’ll ever be is bedfellows,” Schnell retorted.

  “Nevertheless, thank you for offering the sanctuary of your station.”

  “Once they had finished slaughtering you and your men, we would have been next,” the captain said. “Combining our forces was a strategic imperative-nothing more, nothing less.”

  “He’s not one to accept thanks gracefully, is he?” Henschmann commented to Belladonna.

  “Can you blame him? Not that long ago you gave orders for your thugs to butcher us as an example to the rest of Suiddock and the city. We don’t have much reason to trust you.”

  “A fair point,” he conceded, before looking around the station. “You know, I’m not sure I’ve ever been inside this building. Not much to look at it, is it?”

  “It does the job,” Schnell growled. “So do we.”

  Henschmann sighed. “Much as I appreciate your anger, may I suggest we put our mutual dislike aside until this current crisis is resolved? Sniping at each other will not help our present situation.”

  “Fine,” the captain snapped. “But don’t expect me to shake your hand when this is over.”

  “Understood.” The crime boss studied his surroundings. “How long do you think we can-”

  Belladonna held up a hand for quiet. “Listen!” The ratmen had stopped pounding against the station exterior, creating an eerie silence. But a new sound now took its place, one even more disturbing than the thudding of bodies against blockades. An itching, scratching noise started in one corner of the building, and quickly spread, until it felt as if all the walls were under attack. Henschmann and the Black Caps moved to the barricades, trying to get a glimpse of what was happening outside. Through the gap in the blockade the crime boss could see one of the ratmen gnawing at the barrier with its fangs and claws.

  “They’re trying to gnaw their way inside,” he realised. “How strong is this building?”

  Schnell shook his head. “Not strong enough to withstand a sustained attack-of any kind.”

  “Well, there must be a way out of here,” Henschmann said, a tremor of fear in his voice.

  “Not anymore, thanks to you and your men,” Belladonna replied.

  The gnawing and scratching was getting louder by the moment-and closer. The crime boss swallowed hard, aware his men were looking to him for leadership. This was no time to show weakness or terror, no matter what he might be feeling. “There’s a tunnel in the basement-”

  “We know,” a watchman replied as he came downstairs. “But the ratmen control that level now.”

  Schnell pointed to the hidden door that led to the adjacent bordello. “What about Molly’s place?”

  “I checked that earlier,” Belladonna said. “I could hear the ratmen in there, too.”

  “You can take that as a no,” the captain concluded. “There’s no way out of here. Not alive, anyway.”

  “What do these monsters want?” one of the mercenaries asked, fear obvious on his features.

  “A shard of warpstone,” Schnell said. “Not just any warpstone, but a particularly rare one.”

  “How can you know that?”

  “I don’t-at least, not for certain. But why else would the ratmen risk discovery with such an overt attack in the middle of Marienburg? They want this shard more than anything else we can imagine.”

  “Give it to them,” Henschmann urged. “Once they’ve got the shard, we’ll be safe.”

  “There’s no guarantee of that,” Schnell said. “I wouldn’t surrender Cobbius to you and I won’t surrender the shard to those monsters outside. It’s a matter of principle.”

  “Your principles will get us all slaughtered!” the crime boss snarled.

  “Maybe. But I can’t surrender the warpstone fragment, even if I wanted to-it isn’t here. I smuggled the shard out of the station, not long before your mercenaries attacked. I had my suspicions the ratmen would come looking for it. No matter what happens to us, it will not fall into their possession. We don’t know what power the warpstone will have if they secured the shard, and I dare not sacrifice all of Marienburg for the sake of my own life. That’s the coward’s way, Henschmann. It’s the sort of deal you would strike to save your sick, twisted soul-not that it’s worth saving.”

  “Damn you, Schnell!”

  The captain smiled. “No need, Casanova, I’m already damned.” Belladonna was first to see the wall giving way. At first she thought it was exhaustion playing tricks on her tired eyes. A section of the front wall that faced out on to Three Penny Bridge seemed to shimmer and shift as her gaze passed over it. She looked closer and realised the surface was moving, crumbling, giving way. “Captain, I think you’d better come look at this!” Schnell was at her side within moments, after abandoning his argument with Henschmann. By the time he arrived, a hole had appeared in the wall. Then claws burst through the tiny gap, tearing at the stone, smearing green poison over the edges. Belladonna watched in horror as the stone rotted away, dissolving. Soon the snout of a ratman was forcing its way into the gap, so the long fangs protruded into the station. Schnell cut off the creature’s snout, a blade slicing clean through the bones and skin and rancid flesh. Black blood spurted from the hole as the ratman withdrew, shrieking in pain. But another took its place, again attacking the hole, endeavouring to make it bigger.

  Scheusal shouted from another part of the wall, where a similar intrusion was happening. “We’re losing the station,” Belladonna whispered, not realising she was thinking out loud.

  “I know,” Kurt agreed, surprising her. “We have to retreat to the upper level, it’s our last chance. Tell Holismus and the other Black Caps, before getting yourself upstairs. We haven’t got long now.”

  By the time Bella
donna reached the nearest stairs Henschmann was already hurrying up them. “I want to get a better view of the enemy,” he said, embarrassed to have been caught fleeing the ground floor.

  “Of course you do,” she replied, disgusted by his blatant cowardice. But all thoughts of him vanished when Belladonna reached the upper level, for one simple reason. It was swarming with ratmen. Kurt felt a sick, churning sensation at the base of his stomach as more and more holes appeared in the station walls. Within a few moments of the first breakthrough there were more gaps than they could defend, even with all of Henschmann’s surviving mercenaries to help. He looked round, searching for the crime boss, so they could agree on a strategic withdrawal. But Henschmann was nowhere to be seen. He must have fled upstairs, Kurt realised. Time we were doing the same. “Everybody, prepare to retreat. We’re moving to the upper level, see if we can’t hold them off from up there.”

  The mercenaries didn’t need to be told twice. Most of them turned and ran towards the staircases, only too eager to withdraw. As soon as the men fled, the barricades started collapsing inwards, giving in to the weight of ratmen outside the station. Kurt shuddered, seeing the fangs and nails of the ravening monsters as they shoved their way inside. Tooth and claw, that’s what they’ll use to kill us-tooth and claw. Realising that holding the ground floor was a lost cause, he sprinted towards the east staircase where most of the mercenaries were already climbing upwards. But the men turned back, blocking his way, as if they were more afraid of what was above than below. “For the love of Manann, we need to go up! Now!”

  The first corpse that came flying down the stairs was that of Narbig, though half his face had been gnawed off. The second corpse was that of a mercenary that Kurt did not recognise. More and more bodies rained down the steps, flung down from above. They were followed by a flurry of throwing stars that buried themselves into the mercenaries still clustered on the staircase. Kurt staggered backwards, the full horror of what must have happened on the upper level sinking in. The ratmen had found some way in and this was the result. At the same time the barricade that had been blocking the station entrance finally gave way and the horde of ratmen gathered outside poured into the building. Kurt dropped to one knee, his legs no longer able to support him. It was over. They were vanquished. Now all that remained was death. He tightened his grip on the two short swords, one in each fist, as the invading ratmen formed a circle around him. Muttering a prayer for the souls of all those who had died in this battle, he flung himself at the ratmen, hacking and slicing his way deep into their number, cleaving heads from torsos and severing limbs with brutal abandon. Then a mace thundered into the side of his head and he knew only darkness. As his senses slipped away, Kurt imagined he could see Sara in the distance, beckoning to him. “I’m coming, my love,” he whispered. “I’m coming…”