
A WARHAMMER NOVEL
THE CORRUPTED
Robert Earl
(A Flandrel & Undead Scan v1.0)
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.
The shop smelled of many things. It smelled of mildew and of dust, and of cheap pipeweed, but mostly it smelled of its owner. As plump as a toadstool, Brandt spent his entire life slumped within the confines of his store, idling the hours away in slovenly contentment.
Unless forced into action by thievery or commerce, the merchant's body scarcely moved from one hour to the next. His eyes, though, were a different matter. They flitted constantly between the door, his customers, and the long tables upon which his wares were displayed.
In any other city, the nature and the range of this merchandise would have been remarkable, maybe even illegal, but this was Altdorf, the city of a thousand dreaming spires and the home of the great colleges of magic. Here, reading was almost commonplace, and the trade in ideas was every bit as important as that in salt fish or tar.
The best thing about those who trade in ideas, Brandt always thought, was that cheating them was as easy as drowning kittens.
One such innocent was stooping over his wares now: a tall, bearded man, as bony as a pauper, despite the richness of his robes. Brandt watched him flick through the pages of a book with practiced fingers. He stopped and read a little, his lips barely moving as he did so. Then he returned the volume to its place and wandered further down the table.
Brandt's pulse quickened as the customer browsed his way through the books. When the man's fingers closed on the red bound book, he made the unaccustomed effort of licking his lips.
Brandt watched as the customer tried to prise the covers apart. They gave a little at first, and then snapped back shut, just as the man who had given him the book had said they would.
Not that the merchant had doubted that man's word. He wouldn't have had the courage to. He had seen what the fellow could do during previous... transactions.
Brandt forced himself to look away as the customer wrestled with the book. He would be examining the binding for springs, trying to find some mechanical reason for the book's strange behaviour.
When he realised that the book's reluctance to be read was no clockwork trick, well, then he would...
"Ahem. Excuse me?"
Brandt fought to keep the look of smug satisfaction off his face.
"Yes? What is it, menheer?" he asked, blinking towards the tall man as if he had only just noticed him.
"It's this book," the customer said. After an uncomfortable moment it became clear that Brandt had no intention of getting up, so the tall man brought it over for his inspection.
"Oh." The merchant studied the tome. "Would you like to buy it?"
"Yes... No. I'm not really sure. There seems to be something wrong with it."
"Something wrong with it?" the merchant repeated, as hurt as a kicked puppy. "No, surely not. I assure you, menheer, that all of my stock is chosen by me personally. I mean that: absolutely personally. Now, what does the problem with this book seem to be?"
"It's just that I can't open it."
Brandt, stirred to action by this criticism, reached out a podgy hand to take it. His grimy fingers prised at the covers, and he scowled with concentration. For once, he spared no effort, and after a moment, a runnel of sweat trickled down from beneath his tangle of hair.
"Well, well, well," he said, breathing deeply and putting the book down. "I don't know what to say, menheer. I can only assume it is... bewitched."
He dropped the book with an expression of feigned horror.
"I see," the customer said, cracking his knuckles with barely suppressed excitement. "How interesting. I wonder if you have any idea what the book's about?"
Brandt dragged a dirty handkerchief across his face and shrugged. "Well, no... It's in some strange language, lots of diagrams and symbols, pictures of jackals... Well, that's what I was told..."
The customer snatched the book off the table and tried again, but this time there was no give in the covers at all. He pulled at his beard with one hand and weighed the volume in the other.
"I can only apologise, menheer." Brandt plucked the book from his grasp. "Obviously this volume is magical. I'll have to hand it in to the colleges of magic, or perhaps call in the witch hunters. I wouldn't mind so much," he continued, letting real grievance come into his voice, "but they never pay full market value, even to somebody like me, who bought the thing in good faith."
The tall man cracked his knuckles again, all ten of them. Then he shifted from foot to foot, and cleared his throat nervously. Brandt waited for him to find the words.
"That does seem unfair," he managed at last, and began to blush beneath his beard. "Perhaps I can help. I wouldn't mind buying the book, you know. Just as a... a curio."
Brandt frowned.
"I really should hand it in, you know," he said. "I don't want any trouble, and if the witch hunters were to find out that I'd been dealing in magical artefacts..."
He trailed off, and looked worried, but the tall man, who seemed to have overcome his initial embarrassment, was obviously too big a fool to take no for an answer.
His type always was, thought Brandt, and bit back another smile.
"The thing is," his customer was almost pleading, "I can take it off your hands, and if I just pay you what you paid for the book, well then, that's not commerce, is it? It's just me doing you a favour."
Brandt grunted noncommittally.
"I suppose that's one way of looking at it," he allowed, "but are you sure? I mean, you know what the colleges are like about things like this. Let alone the witch hunters."
A momentary flash of anxiety furrowed the customer's brow, but it soon melted beneath the heat of his desire.
"Don't worry about that," he said, lowering his voice. "It can be our secret. I've always liked this shop, you know. I'd hate to see you get into any trouble."
Brandt composed his pallid features into a grateful smile.
"It's nice of you to say so, menheer, very nice. In fact, I think that it will be all right for you to take the book, but I won't take a single copper more than I paid for it."
"Excellent, excellent." The tall man retrieved the book and slipped it into a pocket within his robe. "Oh, and how much did you pay for it by the way?"
With a silent prayer of thanks to the gods, Brandt named his price.
Nobody knew when the Grey college had been built, although it had certainly been before the college itself had been created. Nobody knew who had built it, either. All that remained of those ancient masons were the bones of their architecture, the stonework polished smooth by time.
And what stonework it was. Even after countless centuries, the echoing chambers and shadow-haunted halls remained intact. The knowledge that this masonry was older than any tomb sometimes weighed down on those within, oppressing them with the weight of its years.
However, in the review chamber, such ominous feelings were not left to chance. Everything about it had been designed to intimidate. From the strange angles of the walls, to the granite carved statues that stood in the corners, the review chamber loomed.
The statues themselves were particularly unsettling. It wasn't their height that did it, so much as their realism. Somehow, in the flickering light of the chandeliers, the agony that twisted their stooped forms seemed real enough to make the stone sweat, and their pain maddened eyes seemed to fix on all who entered the hall.
Titus paid them no heed as he marched between them.
He was a large man, almost as round as he was tall, but whereas some fat men grow nervous beneath their blubber, this certainly wasn't true of the wizard. His footsteps rang out the measure of his absolute confidence, and his head was held so high that only two of his jowls showed.
It was not the sort of attitude the council liked to see.
There were six of them in all. Most were old, their faces lined by the terrible demands of their profession. All of them wore cloaks, shapeless grey things that faded into the stonework behind them, and they all sat raised up on a dais that dominated all who stood below.
At least, it was supposed to dominate all who stood below it, but when Titus came to a halt beneath the platform, he looked up at its occupants as if it was they who were about to be judged.
The grey robed men returned his look of disdain, vaguely aware that this wasn't supposed to be how things went.
"Well?" Titus boomed, the acoustics lending his voice an authority that had no right to be there.
The chairman of the council scowled at this impertinence.
"Wait until you are addressed before replying," he snapped.
Titus bridled at the man's tone of voice.
"Then perhaps you would get on with addressing me," he said, hands resting on his elephantine hips. "I'm a busy man."
For a moment, none of the council could think of a suitable reply. The chairman recovered his wits first.
"Just as you like, Titus," he said, his voice dangerously calm. "Just as you like. Scrivener elect, read the charges would you?"
"Yes, menheer." The scrivener elect, a smoothly shaven man with a carefully expressionless face, snapped open a rolled parchment with a well-practiced gesture. He cleared his throat, held the parchment out in front of him, and began to read.
"The Council of the Order of Grey Magic, first amongst all colleges of Altdorf and chosen of mankind, today does summon Brother Titus Hieronymus Braha to face the judgement of his peers."
The scrivener elect paused for long enough to glare haughtily down at the man who stood below him. Titus glared haughtily back up.
The scrivener elect coughed, and carried on.
"The reason is that, for the good of the entire order, Brother Titus has been reported by his more honest brethren as a miscreant. To whit, it has been said that he knowingly and with full forethought, attempted to turn his hand to a lesser magic than our own. And, on Sigmarzeit he cast a petty conjuration, the nature of which is far beneath the dignity of any of our order. Such spells are reserved for our weaker cousins in the College of Fire for a reason."
Here the scrivener elect coughed again, and looked down at the accused for the first signs of remorse, or at least fear.
"Is that it?" Titus asked. The scrivener elect, caught off guard, lost his place on the parchment. By the time he had found it again he had turned pink.
"Erm, no, not quite. I mean... ah yes. Here we are, yes. Such spells are reserved for our weaker brethren in the College of Fire for a reason, and that is that. Should one as skilled and puissant as those of our order use such magic, it will inevitably become too powerful. Titus Hieronymus Braha, you knew this as well as any of us, and yet still you cast such a conjuration. What have you to say in defence of this most heinous of actions?" Titus shrugged. "We all make mistakes." The scrivener elect goggled, obviously lost for words. Not so the chairman.
"We all make mistakes!" he thundered, his face mottling with rage. "Mistakes! We lost almost fifty books to the fire you caused. Fifty! And some of them, no all of them, irreplaceable. Do you have any idea how many hours were spent copying them, each word checked and checked again? Or how difficult it was to get them in the first place?"
"I have some idea, yes," Titus replied, his voice ice to the chairman's fire. "After all of the work I have done for this college, I have a very good idea indeed."
"Twelve people were also killed," the scrivener elect added, and then sat down as Titus looked at him.
"Apprentices often have accidents," he said, looking uneasy for the first time. "I know that your chairman has got through the same number whilst practising established incantations of no research value."
The chairman's face went from red to white. The quill he held crumpled between his fingers, but then, with a superhuman effort, he mastered his temper.
"But it wasn't just apprentices you killed, was it?" he asked.
Titus waved his hands in a way that made the seasoned wizards of the council distinctly nervous.
"Oh them. Yes, well. It's always sad to see our brothers fall by the wayside, but this is a hard path we have chosen, and not everybody is cut out to walk it; and anyway, I didn't kill them. In fact, had they survived, they would have been here now to help explain the value of our research."
"Although I doubt if they'd have been any more capable of doing so than you," another committee member sniped. One of the dead men had been an old acquaintance of his.
Titus frowned.
"Who knows?" He waved the question away with an airy gesture. "Anyway, it's a moot point. I've decided not to pursue this particular area of research any further, at least not for a while. There are some neglected areas in our own canon that need work done on them: the truly effective concealment of large bodies of men, for example. Think of how grateful the Emperor would be to see his regiments turned to mist and shadows."
The chairman barked with humourless laughter.
"I think you've turned enough people into mist and shadows recently, don't you?"
"No, no, no," Titus said, oblivious to the sarcasm. "I meant..."
"Never mind what you meant. All we want to know is whether or not you want to deny the charges against you."
"What charges?"
The chairman nudged the scrivener elect, who had been listening to the exchange from behind the safety of the parchment roll.
"Oh," he said, and cleared his throat nervously. "Brother Titus has been reported by his more honest brethren as a miscreant. To whit, it has been said that he knowingly..."
"Well of course I admit that," Titus cut in impatiently, "although 'admit' is hardly the word. I am famed for the value of my research. This accident was unfortunate, but there it is. You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs."
The entire board glared at him.
"Very well, Titus," The chairman spoke for them all. "I think we've heard enough. Return to this room at the same time tomorrow, and we will hand down our judgement. I have a feeling that it will be unanimous."
"Good," said Titus, his mind already slipping away to other matters. "Well then, I won't detain you any longer."
With that, he turned on his heel and left the room.
"So, brothers," the chairman began after Titus had slammed the doors shut behind him, "how do we find?"
"Guilty," the board chorused.
"Quite right," said the chairman. "Right then, let's go and have lunch."
"Evening, sir." The senior gatekeeper, who had been leaning against the college wall, stood to attention and snapped off a salute of his own invention.
"Yes," Grendel agreed distractedly. He forgot the guard as soon as he had seen him, and scuttled beneath the portcullis, impatient to be back within the peace of the college, and even more impatient to be alone. The book he had bought was tucked beneath his arm, as safely as an egg beneath a hen, and he was fighting the temptation to stop and study it.
"I don't know why you bother to greet them," the gatekeeper's mate said as the lank figure disappeared into the courtyard. "They don't care if you do or not, and none of them ever returns the salute."
The gatekeeper, who had reached his position by outliving most of his peers, shook his head sagely.
"Never hurts to show respect to the gentlemen. Although it occasionally hurts not to."
"Oh, I don't know. Back on the farm I heard all kinds about wizards. It's all stories, though. They're no worse than any other sort of merchant."
"Merchants!" the gatekeeper snorted. "Morrslieb must be out tonight. If you think that this lot are anything like merchants, you're crazy."
"They're easier than merchants, is what I meant," the other man said. "I used to work on the caravans up to Praag, and the bosses there were nine times the bastards these wizards are."
The gatekeeper waited for a wagon full of barrels to rattle between them before he replied.
"Maybe they were, but that's not much comfort to Frenk, is it?"
"Who's Frenk?"
"Your predecessor. He worked here twenty years, ever since he got out of the regiment; leant on his halberd instead of saluting, took it easy, and looked forward to getting drunk when the week was finished."
"So, what happened to him?"
The gatekeeper shrugged.
"Difficult to say, really, burnt doesn't really cover it, and anyway, fire doesn't have a mind of its own. The fire that came out of the college, though... Well, it was alive, and it had a shape."
"Everything has a shape," his comrade said, but the gatekeeper shook his head impatiently.
"No, I mean a real shape: a man shape. It had eyes and teeth and claws, and when it grabbed poor old Frenk..."
He trailed off, eyes glazing over as he focused on the memory. It wasn't a pleasant one.
For a moment, the other man fell silent too, struggling with his scepticism.
"Supposing that this fire did kill your mate." he said at last. "Are you saying it was some sort of punishment for not saluting?"
"Don't know," the gatekeeper admitted. "All I know is that I always saluted, and out of the two of us it was him that got took."
"You're saying the wizards killed him for being cheeky? I don't believe that. Why didn't they just tell him to snap to it?"
"Because they never notice, and no, the thing that killed Frenk wasn't doing anyone's will but its own. At least," he lowered his voice even further, "that's what they said. Even so, makes you think, doesn't it?"
His companion thought. A moment later, a mild looking old man, glasses as thick as pebbles perched upon his nose, doddered past them.
Both men saluted. Both men were ignored.
"I suppose," the gatekeeper's comrade said as the wizard wandered off into town, "that it's better to be safe than sorry."
The gatekeeper smiled. People learned fast around the college. Fast, or not at all.
Grendel would have agreed with him. As soon as he'd reached his chambers, he'd locked his doors, dragging home iron bolts that squeaked with misuse. Then, after placing his book reverently amongst the clutter of his workbench, he dragged a chair over to the door and wedged it beneath the handle.
He stepped back for a moment and regarded his handiwork. He briefly considered dragging over his bookcase too, but impatience decided him against the idea. Instead, he hurried back to his find.
The little red book had been expensive, but that only made it more intriguing; that and the fact that Grendel knew that he should have reported it to the proper authorities.
The proper authorities, he thought as he cleared a space on his bench, were idiots. He, on the other hand, was a wizard: one of the chosen, and when the winds of magic blew, how could he pretend not to feel them? To do so would have been like trying to live his life with his eyes closed.
Pleased with the analogy, and the warmth of self-justification it brought, Grendel sat down in front of the book. He took a moment to enjoy the sense of anticipation he got from embarking on the study of this mystery. Then, rolling back his sleeves and flexing his fingers, he placed his bony hands on the leather cover of the slim volume.
It was cold and smooth, and he wondered what sort of leather it was. Then he dismissed the question and started to empty his mind of all such chattering thoughts.
Even after decades of practice, it still took time to achieve the necessary inner silence, but Grendel was patient, and eventually his mind grew as still and as silent as a frozen ocean. Only then did he begin to speak.
His voice was as soft as his body was hard. The words themselves were also soothing. They pulsed with the well-honed rhythms of a balladeer's lyrics, vibrant with a life of their own. When they drifted up into the dusty rafters, the spiders stopped spinning, as if eager to listen, and even the sparrows that nested in the tiles above fell silent.
Grendel let the words flow out of him, reciting the incantation with an ease that came of long practice. How many hours had he spent stumbling over these words, his tongue tripping over the unfamiliar sounds? Thousands, probably. The first few years of his apprenticeship had seemed to consist of little else.
Some said that the language of his art came from the elves. There was certainly little of the guttural Imperial tongue about it. The words flowed as smoothly as quicksilver, a silken whisper that insinuated itself into the deepest recesses of a listener's mind.
There were some, Grendel knew, whose mastery was such that they could kill with a single word. That was not his path, though. He had no time for the petty squabbles of princes, or the foolish pride that set his brothers against each other.
No, Grendel cared only for knowledge, and eventually, as day turned to night, and the shadows in the unlit chamber spread like so much spilled ink, he succeeded in gaining it.
After uncounted hours of channelling his power against the enchantment that bound the book, the spell broke silently, invisibly. One moment, the thing was as well sealed as a Khemrian tomb, and the next it lay open on the table.
It wasn't until Grendel paused to wipe his glistening forehead that he noticed that night had fallen. He reached across for a lantern and fumbled around in the detritus that covered his table for his flint and steel.
Sparks struck the oil soaked cord and it sputtered into life. Grendel's eyes watered at the brightness of the sudden flame. The book lay open in front of him, its grubby pages as inviting as the sheets of a dockside brothel.
Grendel scratched at his beard and paused. For a moment, a single moment, some instinct warned him of the precipice that he was about to step over.
It wasn't just the severity of the rulings against practising unauthorised magic, he'd known of those right from the start, and had often bent them in the past. Nor was it the penalty that such a transgression might incur. He paid little attention to the outside world, and the horrors that Altdorf's witch hunters inflicted upon rogue magic users scarcely seemed anything to do with him.
No, it wasn't these thoughts that lay behind his sudden anxiety. It was something more, some animal instinct that had nothing to do with thought or judgement, but everything to do with survival.
Grendel's bony fingers, which seconds before had been smoothing the pages as gently as a lover's skin, started to tap nervously. Sweat dampened the pallid skin of his forehead, and he began to gnaw at the rat-tails of his moustache.
It was then, within the confusion of his thoughts, that a small, quiet voice spoke up.
It said, "You're a wizard, not some silly apprentice." Grendel, a little surprised by the clarity of the thought, nodded to himself. It was, after all, no more than the truth.
"Whatever secrets this tome contains," the voice continued, "you will surely be the equal of them."
Grendel's crooked back straightened. Of course he would!
Don't be a coward, he thought. Open the book and discover the wonders within.
For there are wonders within, probably more than you can imagine.
The wizard's beard jutted out and his doubts evaporating like dewdrops before a rising sun. He began to read.
"Ulric freeze the testicles off those fools!" Titus roared, pacing around his chambers like some captive beast, "especially that pig's bladder, Liebham. I remember him from apprenticeship, the snivelling little weasel, always creeping about and telling tales, and always copying from those of us with real talent. To think that he's got the cheek to tell me what to do!"
Titus, his jowls wobbling with outrage, turned on his servant as if it had been his fault. Another man might have been shaken by this wrath. Not Kerr; after all, he had famously dragged his master from the fires that had been caused by his ruinous experiment. He still bore the burn marks to prove it.
"It's terrible, master," Kerr said, eyeing the fat man as a matador eyes a bull. "Terrible, heinous, irksome and gratuitous."
"Speak normally," Braha snarled, some of his rage finding a lightning rod in the slim form of his servant, "or I won't let you read the Lexigraph again."
Kerr winced. Since entering Titus' employ he'd discovered both the ability and the opportunity to read. His master's Lexigraph was the cornerstone of this new pursuit, and he spent his days hunched over it, lips moving as he shaped new words.
"Sorry," he said, trying to sound contrite. "What I meant to say was that the council sounds like a bunch of wan---"
"I didn't mean you to speak that normally." Titus cut him off. "They are, after all, still my colleagues, although I don't know how some of them managed it. That slimy little clerk, for example, I don't see how he could ever have joined our ranks. I don't even know his name."
"It's Corvin," Kerr told him.
"How do you know?"
"The cook's apprentice told me. He said he was up half the night practising reading out the charges."
"And how did he know that?" Titus asked, curiosity getting the better of his rage.
"Apparently, this Corvin kept sending down for wine. Lennard said he looked damned nervous. It must have been the thought of facing you, eh boss?" A wolfish grin spread across Titus' chubby features. "Nervous was he?" he asked, delighted. "And well he might be. In fact, I've half a mind to challenge one of the council to a duel. See how they like that."
"Corvin wouldn't. Lennard said that he even drank at breakfast."
"There's nothing wrong with that."
"Not even when it's two bottles of claret?"
Titus roared with laughter.
"That explains why he kept losing his place on that damned parchment. Ach, to the hells with them. Why should I let them spoil my appetite? I think I'll eat up here tonight. I don't fancy listening to those idiots blathering on in the main hall. Go and get my supper, would you? Oh, and here."
Kerr stopped, his hand already on the doorknob. Titus sent a coin spinning through the air towards him. Kerr snatched it out of the air, his fingers as nimble as any conjuror's.
"Thank your friend for the information. Tell him the sharpness of his ears does him credit."
"Will do, boss," said Kerr, pocketing the coin. He made a half bow, turned, and left his master in the chambers behind him.
He smiled as he made his way down towards the kitchens. Even now, a month after he had fought his way off the streets and into the wizard's service, he could hardly believe his luck. Everything about his new life, from the shoes to the clean flagstones upon which he walked, seemed almost too good to be true.
Still, what he had found with luck he would keep with cunning. He studied the coin his master had thrown him, and then slipped it into his purse. He had already paid Lennard for the information, and with a lot less than this.
He paid other informants, too. The guards he paid with meat stolen from the kitchens, the porters with the strength of his back, and the cleaners with change from the coins that Titus occasionally threw at him.
And every day he made new friends, new allies.
Kerr hadn't needed to read the inscription carved over the college's gates to know that knowledge was power. It was one of the truths that had kept him alive in the gutters and rat runs of his orphanhood.
His smile hardened into a determined line as he descended a winding stone staircase. Every dozen steps or so there were little alcoves containing oil lamps to light the way. His fingers itched as he trotted past them, but as always he resisted the temptation.
"Think bigger," he mumbled as he reached the bottom of the staircase and stepped out into the hall beyond. He followed the smells and the noise through a double door at the other end of it, and found himself in the furnace heat of the rotisserie.
It was more like a battlefield than a kitchen. Dozens of men were running, screaming, fighting with roasting animals and boiling cauldrons. It was the same every night, which was why Kerr always chose this hour to scrounge around for whatever he could find.
Not tonight, though. Tonight he came as an emissary of the great wizard, Titus Braha, a man whose talents had almost been the death of them all.
"Chef!" he shouted, waving at a man whose sweating face was as pink as a skinned rabbit.
"What the hell do you want?" he swore horribly, and changed his grip on the ladle he held. The foot of steel served as badge of office, tasting spoon or weapon as the mood took him.
"My master wants to eat in his chambers."
"What mas... Oh."
The chef's mood mellowed suddenly.
"Follow me," he said, barging through the mass of frenzied activity to the table where the food was laid out for the waiters. One of them bumped into the chef. He was driven back with a whack from the ladle and a curse.
"Take a platter. Do you know how to fill it with what Menheer Titus likes? Good. The high table seem to be celebrating something tonight, so I don't have time."
He thrust a silvered tray into Kerr's hands and returned to batter the chaos around him into some sort of order.
Celebrating, Kerr thought as he heaped the tray with delicacies. What are they celebrating?
Well, no matter, he'd find out soon enough.
Pausing only to slip two bottles of wine into his satchel and another into his tunic, Kerr staggered back out of the heat of the kitchen.
Titus' platter, as full as a trough, took all of his attention as he staggered back up the winding stairs. By the time he reached the wizard's chambers, he was damp with sweat, and he set the platter down for a moment to regain his breath before entering the room.
As he did so a scream echoed down the corridor.
It was shrill enough to be a woman's, but Kerr doubted that it was. They weren't allowed up here. For a moment, he considered going to investigate, but only for a moment. If he went to investigate every scream that he heard in the college, he'd never get any work done, and with that comforting thought he got back to the task in hand.
It was a clear night. The heavy clouds that had earlier threatened to drench Altdorf had melted away, leaving in their wake nothing but the black immensity of the sky and the shining face of Mannslieb.
The moon rode low tonight, its silvered face peering between the gothic spires and steepled roofs of the city. Most of the citizens welcomed it. It shed a rare light on the perilous streets, and painted the buildings that glowered above them with a false elegance.
Most of all, the citizens welcomed Mannslieb, because it was not the other, more terrible moon. Morrslieb was mercifully absent from the sky tonight, and for that all men were thankful. When it rose above the city there were always those who succumbed to its influence. The Chaos moon could devour a weak man's humanity as surely as maggots could devour his brains. It always left streets stained red, lunatics still at large, and crimes too numerous to count.
But not tonight: tonight's moon was as cool as a hand on a fevered brow, and although vice still flourished beneath it, it lacked the feverish intensity that Morrslieb brought.
In fact, it was this very lack of intensity that was causing the row between the two men who had slipped, unnoticed and uninvited, into the garden of Morr.
"What's wrong with that spade?" Staufman whispered, unable to contain himself any longer.
Schnell, whose turn it was to dig, looked up from the hole he was in.
"What do you mean?" he whispered back, blinking away the yellow glow of their hooded lamp.
"I mean," Staufman hissed, "it doesn't seem to be working. We've been here an hour already, and you're hardly half way down."
Schnell's eyebrows furrowed in anger.
"Do you want to do it?" he asked, offering the short handled spade to his partner.
"Oh no," Staufman recoiled, "not tonight. It's not my turn."
"Maybe you should shut up and keep a look out then."
"Don't tell me to shut up," Staufman snapped. "Just dig faster, will you? It'll be light soon."
"Don't be daft, and keep your voice down. Do you want to get caught?"
"You keep your voice down," Staufman muttered as Schnell turned back to the grave. It shouldn't have taken him this long. They were in the poorer section of the burial ground, and there was usually little more than a smearing of mud over the bundled bodies that were left here.
The grave robber turned and looked around nervously. If the keeper had started burying his charges properly, might he have also started guarding them? It didn't seem likely, but then...
"What was that?"
Staufman jumped, and looked back down into the grave.
"What was what?"
"I thought I heard something," Schnell said, his face drawn with suspicion.
Both men fell silent, ears straining to catch a sound. There wasn't much to hear: distant noises from the city beyond the walls and the occasional call of a nightjar.
"I didn't hear anything," Staufman breathed after a long, tense moment.
Schnell shrugged.
"Must have been the soil moving beneath me," he muttered.
"That'd make a change," Staufman said bitterly, and turned away before his partner could start arguing again.
A forest of wooden posts stretched away on all sides, marking the graves of the dispossessed. There were enough of them in this city: the starving, the homeless, and the broken. Their corpses dotted the streets on most mornings, and on most mornings Staufman and Schnell would have plucked one from there.
Today, annoyingly, there hadn't been a single one. At least, not one that had met with their customer's specifications. A woman he wanted, and the younger the better. The two grave robbers hadn't asked him why. They had more sense. Instead, they'd taken his coin and promised to have the corpse by tonight.
This afternoon, wandering through the wooden grave markers, they had found her: Grisolde Klempman, she was called. She had died in childbirth not three days before, which meant that she was perfect. She couldn't have been more perfect if she was still warm.
"Staufman!"
Staufman jumped, and almost dropped the lantern.
"Will you stop doing that!" he hissed, anxiety lending his anger a razor's edge.
However, Schnell was defiant.
"Be quiet and listen," he said, shifting his grip on the spade so that he was holding it like an axe. He peered over the top of the twice dug grave, his eyes glittering like a rat's in the darkness.
Staufman looked down at his partner, and then out over the graveyard. He cursed the light of the moon. The illumination wasn't strong enough to be much use, but it did reveal them as they went about their work.
It was easy to imagine that they were being watched, stalked even. Then, suddenly, a noise like sliding gravel. The two men froze.
Schnell hefted the reassuring weight of the sharpened spade. Staufman closed the lantern, placed it on the ground and unsheathed his cutlass. They waited.
Staufman was just about to sidle over to where the sound had come from when he heard another movement, this time from behind him. There was no mistaking it. Somebody was in here with them, maybe more than one somebody.
That was enough for him. Deciding that an irate client was better than an equal fight, let alone an unequal one, he bent down to whisper a retreat into Schnell's ear.
Even as he leant towards his ear, his partner broke their silence with a high-pitched scream.
Staufman staggered back, his ears ringing, and at first he could make no sense of his partner's rantings. "Get it off me. Get it off me!"
There was no mistaking the hysteria in his voice. Nor was there any mistaking the sounds of quickening movement that were coming from all around them.
"Shussh!" Staufman hissed, and reached out to put a hand on the other man's shoulder.
Schnell was not to be shushed. He screamed again, even louder this time, and grabbed at his partner's arm. "Get me out of here," he wailed. "Get it off meeeee!" The last word degenerated into a squeal, and Staufman felt his comrade's fingers tighten around his wrist. He could feel his bones grinding beneath them.
"Shut up," he snarled, eyes wide with terror. He tried to pull his arm away, his head whipping back and forth as he tried to make out where the enemy was coming from.
But Schnell was no more going to let go of his partner than a drowning man would a lifeline. He held Staufman's wrist like a dog with a bone, screaming all the while.
"It won't let me go," he shrieked. "It's got a hold of me and it won't let me go. Oh no, its teeth, I can feel its..."
It was all too much for Staufman. Trapped in the vice of Schnell's inhumanly strong grasp, revealed by his shrieking, surrounded by who knew what predators... well, what choice did he have?
"Let me go," he told his comrade one last time, his voice barely a whisper as he lifted the cutlass.
Schnell was too far gone to hear him. Ever since they had started this business, the nightmares had always been the same: the bony fingers erupting up beneath his feet, the yellowed teeth that were even now tearing at his flesh, the sudden, crippling weakness that made him feel as if his blood had already been drained.
When the razored edge of Staufman's blade sliced through his wrist, he hardly noticed. Beneath the horror of this assault his sanity had snapped, and even as blood spurted from his severed wrist he was giggling, smiling down at the living nightmare below him.
Staufman watched his comrade collapse into the grave, a sob on his lips. Even through the waves of panic, his conscience, hard and leathery as it was, was twisting his stomach into a knot.
Still, no time for that now. Tearing his eyes away from the pale, twitching shape that had once been Schnell's hand, he turned away from the freshly filled grave and sprinted towards the wall.
He was already too late. All around him, so clumsy that they might have been made of the clay that clung to them, the dead sought their revenge. Hollow eyed and naked boned, they crawled or limped, or wriggled their way towards the fleeing grave robber, their rotten flesh animated with a terrible purpose.
Whimpering with fear, Staufman snatched a glance towards the things that were following him. As he did so, he felt an impact on his shins, and pitched forwards into the mud.
Before he could even pull his face out of the dirt, the thing that had tripped him had seized him. Staufman screamed as he felt its weight roll on top of him. Then he smelled the nauseating stench of putrefaction that greased the air, and closed his mouth with a snap.
The corpse's fingers, hard as knitting needles, scratched across the skin of his face. They dug towards the softness of his eyes with a gentle insistence: a terrible patience.
Staufman fought back. He fought hard. His knee jabbed into his assailant's groin. The blow would have crippled a living man, but not Staufman's nemesis.
Nor was it affected when Staufman locked his skilled fingers around the putrefying mess of its pulse-less throat. The windpipe, as soft and yielding as the rest of the ancient flesh, collapsed. The veins tore open as easily as wet paper, and the flesh smeared away to reveal the vertebrae. The bones felt as hard as marbles beneath Staufman's strangler's grip.
The corpse's only response to this violation was to grin and to redouble its efforts.
Staufman looked into the hollows of its eyes, and saw the gleam of reflected moonlight on its teeth.
It must be a nightmare, he decided.
And with that he passed out.
He awoke later that night. His eyes blinking open, he gazed up at the vastness of the night sky above him. After the insanity that had led to his collapse, the silent void was as welcome as the freshest of dawns.
Mannslieb had sunk low towards the horizon. Its light sent the shadows of the wooden grave markers stretching hungrily towards him. One of the shadows, greater than the rest, was cast by Schnell. The big man was leaning patiently on his spade, his back turned as he kept watch.
There was no sign of the corpses that had... that had...
Staufman almost sobbed with relief. Of course he had fainted. The fever that he thought he had shaken off must have returned, and in this place, bent upon this business, there was no wonder that his delirium had taken the form it had.
"Hey, Schnell," he said. His voice was hoarse, so hoarse that Schnell didn't hear him.
Staufman cleared his throat and called again.
"Schnell, sorry about that. Must still be sick. Let's finish up here and go back."
Still Schnell didn't move. He just leant on his spade, staring out across the field of the dead.
Staufman had recovered enough to feel a flash of irritation. His partner was one of the laziest men he had ever met. He probably hadn't even finished digging up the body yet.
With a silent curse, Staufman got to his feet.
"All right," he said as he brushed the mud off himself. "To hell with this. Give me the spade and I'll do it, but next time I'll find somebody else to help."
Schnell's continuing silence fuelled Staufman's anger.
"I said give me the..."
Schnell turned around.
For a moment, Staufman thought that the ruin of his friend's flesh was no more than a trick of the night. What else could it be? Ribbons of skin seemed to hang down from his throat, flapping like streamers in a madman's carnival, and shreds of flesh were all that remained to cloth the bones of his face.
Schnell lifted the spade. He lifted it one handed.
Staufman's eyes widened into circles as bright as the moon. He had seen the ragged stump in which his partner's other arm ended, and he had realised that tonight had been more than some delirium.
Much more.
Schnell, barely cold, moved with a terrible speed. The spade sliced through the air. There was a chunk of metal into flesh, and the thump of a body hitting the ground.
Then, dropping the spade, the remains of Schnell turned back to watch the moon.
As it sunk even further there was the sound of movement from behind him. It was slow, but determined, inelegant, but relentless.
When Staufman had lurched back to his feet, Schnell turned back to face him, and the two of them, all grievances forgot, lurched off into the night.
Despite the fact that the Furled Sail lay at heart of the docks, it was hardly a dockland tavern. There were no women here, at least, none of the usual women, young things with bodies as supple as their morals. The only example of the fairer sex came in the robust form of the taverner's wife, a red faced old woman who ruled husband and customers with the lash of her tongue.
Nor were there any of the racks of wines or brandies that glittered so seductively in the other establishments of this quarter. There was a barrel of ale and a stone jar of gin. The only thing remotely exotic was the cauldron of watery stew that bubbled in one corner, and the only thing exotic about that was that it was free.
At one time or another, most of the Furled Sail's clientele had had reason to be thankful for that. Sometimes it wasn't only women and brandy that they couldn't afford.
They were old, these men, although not as old as they looked. Aboard herring boats or merchantmen they had battled the sea, and in return it had leathered their skin and knocked out their teeth. Later, as their failing fortunes had washed them up the river Reik, they had often fallen to battling their fellow men.
Many were scarred. Many were mutilated. Some had families, although not many. Once these men had been heroes, the unnoticed heroes that are the lifeblood of the Empire, but now, they were no more than the detritus of Altdorf. They eked out a living as best they could. Their scant savings were supplemented by the occasional scrap of work from foremen who knew that they would eventually be such men themselves.
Although their tempers occasionally flared, they were comrades. The fire, the stew, and the ale that could be put on an endless tab---all these were comforts, but greater than them all was the sense of fellowship.
After all, their mates were the only valuable things that these men had ever had.
It was out of comradeship that they were drinking now. One of their number, a grizzled old Bretonnian whose adventures had led him to this cold northern city, had died. They had buried him the week before and now, as the fire burned low and the mist gathered outside, they talked of him.
They talked for the pleasure of it, but also because they knew that fond voices ease a spirit's passing better than any priestly dirge.
"Remember the time that shipment of glass demijohns came up the river?"
A dozen grey heads nodded at the memory.
"For the colleges, they were, and all the way from Bretonnia, too. That's why we all thought they were great big brandy jugs. They were the right shape, and they were so well padded with hessian you couldn't see the markings."
The men, the story as familiar as their pipes, smiled at the memory.
"Well, old Jacques loved his brandy. All Bretonnians do. It's mother's milk to them. So after we'd been passing these demijohns along for a while his fingers got slippery. He dropped one of 'em right smack on the cobbles."
"It was a good shot, too," someone interjected. "Cracked it open as easily as an egg."
"Didn't he just? And as soon as the hessian started dripping he was there with his mug."
"I tasted some of it," somebody else said. "Even now I can't believe he drank half a pint."
"Strong stuff, was it?"
The man grimaced at the memory.
"Let's just say, I found out then why the Bretonnians speak so funny."
There was a rumble of laughter, soon lost in the crackling of the fire.
"Yes, well he drank a lot," the storyteller continued, reluctant to lose the punch line, "so much that he didn't even mind when the merchant came along and started cursing. By Sigmar, did he curse, and to be fair to the tubby bastard..."
There was some good-natured booing. The storyteller grinned and waited for it to die away.
"To be fair, he had managed to get the thing over a thousand miles only to have it broken fifty yards from the client's front door. Anyway, when he finished cursing, he unwrapped the padding to see if the jar was all right."
"It wasn't, though," somebody interrupted. "It was split open."
"Into pieces," the storyteller interrupted back, "but it wasn't a brandy bottle. It was a clear jar and inside, floating in the alcohol, there was a thing."
"A thing?" somebody asked, knowing, but asking anyway. "What kind of thing?"
"I don't like to say."
"Come on, you can't not tell us now."
"Well, all right, but this is between us. I don't want no trouble with the wizards."
A dozen men spat in unison, their phlegm hissing on the fire.
"It was a baby: an unborn baby. All curled up and pink, it was, and so well pickled that you could even see the eyes."
The men scowled.
"A curse upon all wizards."
There was another volley of spit, and then silence.
It was the youngest man, a stripling of fifty years old, who broke it.
"So what did Jacques do when he found out?"
"Said he didn't mind sharing the bottle."
The room erupted into roaring laughter. When it subsided, the men refilled their tankards, raised them, and toasted their old comrade.
"To Jacques."
"To Jacques!"
Which is when, as if in answer, there was a thud against the door.
The men looked over, surprised. None of their number was missing, and the night was late. The sign outside the Furled Sail had long since rotted away, and passing custom was rare.
There was another thud, this time louder than the last, and the latch started to lift.
An unaccountable shiver ran through the assembled men. It was foolish to fear the knock at a tavern's door, they knew that, but their instincts, honed over countless years, told them it was even more foolish not to.
A dozen gnarled fists closed around the hilts of a dozen knives as the latch snapped up. A moment later, the door swung open with such force that it crashed against the wall, and in from the night, swathed in mist, stepped Jacques.
Burial had not suited him. His permanent tan had mottled into a patchwork of greens and greys, and beneath the mould, the leather of his skin sagged horribly. In some places, it had torn open to reveal the blackening flesh beneath, and the busy things that burrowed within it. In others, the skin had disappeared completely, already devoured.
Only his eyes, previously slate grey with cysts, looked better. They shone silver with the coins that had sunk into the sockets.
Nobody moved as, step by stumbling step, Jacques lumbered across the familiar flagstones. Even the taverner's wife, her eyes and mouth wide open, stood petrified behind the bar as the dead man closed in on her.
She knew that she should move, should run screaming out into the night. The only thing that stayed her was that first slap of horror. It had so numbed her that she felt perversely safe, cocooned in shock.
She watched the corpse stagger forwards with perfect disinterest, and when she spoke, her voice seemed to belong to somebody else.
"What'll it be?" she heard herself ask.
The corpse seemed surprised by the question, and so did his mates.
"Why, it'll be the same as always, I reckon," one of them said, speaking with the steely calm of a tightrope walker.
"That's right," somebody else added. "Give him a brandy. I'll pay."
"Not at all," the taverner's wife felt herself smile. "It'll be on the house."
For once, there was no need for her generosity. With a lurch that made everyone jump, Jacques drew back his arm and slammed one clenched fist onto the bar. He loosened his fingers, using his other hand to prise them open, and pushed a purse across the stained woodwork.
The taverner's wife lifted it up. It was bloodstained, red and damp from its previous owner. It was also heavy.
She untied it, looked inside, and then smiled again. This time the expression was for real.
"Well, I always did say you was a gentleman, Jacques," she told the rotting thing that stood in front of her. "Drinks all around, is it?"
Perhaps the corpse understood, or perhaps it was a coincidence that his head jerked forwards in a nod. Either way, the taverner's wife laid out the glasses and started pouring out the gin, hardly spilling any of it despite the trembling of her hands.
As the men gathered around, Jacques tried to wrap his clumsy fingers around one of the glasses. He almost managed to lift it before it slipped through the greasy flesh. The man next to him caught it, pressed it back into the cold meat of his hand, and gently wrapped the bones of his fingers around it.
"There you go, mate," he said, ignoring the hanging meat stink and leaning forwards to clink his glass. "Salut."
"Salut!" The rest repeated the toast.
And with that they drank, both the living and the dead. Then they settled their old comrade by the fire, close enough to steam, and carried on retelling the old stories.
Although they lacked coin, they revelled in the wealth that they did have, and the sure knowledge that it would last forever.
"Mama!"
Frau Beetman shrugged apologetically. The man she was with frowned. Her husband's funeral had only been a week ago, and they were both still enjoying the novelty of her widowhood.
"Mama!" Her son's voice was louder now. He must be standing outside the bedroom door.
"Stop making that noise," Frau Beetman shouted back, "or Uncle Rudolf will beat you again."
There was a moment's silence, and the two lovers slipped back into each other's arms.
"But Mama!"
"I'm warning you!" she shouted back. "Rudy will give you a thrashing."
"No he won't. He has to leave."
"What do you mean, you cheeky young whelp?" Rudolph Beetman's irritation finally got the better of him. Unlike his lover, he still felt the odd pang of conscience over his brother's untimely death, and guilt made him savage.
"I'll tan your hide," he promised, "and just why do you think I have to leave?"
"Because Dad's back."
Frau Beetman drew the covers around her as Rudolph sprang to his feet. He pulled on his breeches and picked up a belt. The mood was spoiled anyway, which had obviously been the little brat's intention.
"Stay there, you little liar," he snarled as he stumbled towards the door.
But when he opened it, he discovered that his nephew hadn't been lying at all; far from it.
"Told you he was back," the boy said, and stood back as Herr Beetman lurched forwards to reclaim home and wife both.
As the night wore on, more and more of Altdorf's graves disgorged their contents. Many of them returned to their homes, or to their workshops. The resultant screams brought the neighbours to the streets, and their screams brought others. Soon, the whole city was as wide awake beneath the moonlight, as it would have been beneath the light of a market day sun.
It was soon as busy, too. For the most part, the dead showed little aggression towards their living brethren. They lacked the malignity that those who summoned them usually bore, and because of this, they were content to wander, or to wait.
The same could not be said of the citizens of Altdorf. At first, it was horror that sent them out to do battle, but as the night wore on, and as wits cleared, many began to see the night's events as the opportunity they were.
After all, bodies intact enough to be walking about were also intact enough to carry jewellery. Even the coins in their eyes were worth the effort of recovery, and many a pauper spent the night plucking silver from twice battered skulls.
Other citizens, especially those of a more spiritual bent, found their god's work in these truant corpses. The priests of Morr especially were busy that night. Black cloaked and fierce eyed, they prowled the streets, incantations ever on their lips as they ushered the dead back into their god's embrace.
Then there were those, both living or dead, who sought revenge. Seizing the opportunity of that bustling night, they stalked through the darkness, eager to settle old scores and to right old wrongs.
More than one murderer awoke to find himself locked in the impossible horror of his victim's grinning embrace, and more than one swindler found warmer fingers around his throat, his executioner secure in the knowledge that he would not be blamed.
Elsewhere, panic blossomed in the darkness, and on its heels, fire.
Soon, the night was lit with the cheery red glow of burning buildings. When the warm glow reached the docks, one of the whores, goaded on by her satiated clients, started dancing with the corpses that lurched past. She whirled them around as if to rekindle them with the heat of life, and the debauched crowd that gathered around her clapped a rhythm as they spun through the light of the flames.
As the moon set and the stars faded beneath a rosy dawn, the dead slumped back down. Whatever energy had lifted them fled before the sunlight, leaving them strewn about the streets like the wreckage of some terrible carnival.
None of the Altdorfians spent much time wondering who had awoken the dead. They had known right from the start. With hardly a word spoken, the activities of the night gave way to the activities of the day. The fires were put out, stones were gathered, and the citizens made their way towards the colleges.
The sun was hardly in the sky before the first of the riots had started.
Prince Regent Gustav of Altdorf had requested and commanded that the heads of all the colleges assemble at the palace an hour after dawn. The fact that they had actually arrived almost in time for lunch was a measure of the worry that the night's events had caused them all.
The prince regent reminded himself of this reality as the last of them sauntered into the audience chamber. He was a flabby little man swathed in a padded silk robe that made him look like a sausage roll.
Not that any of them were much to look at, not really. The flamboyant colour of their finery only served to make them look even more sickly than they already were. Their pallid skins and hollowed eyes contrasted so starkly with their bright robes that they looked like failed experiments in taxidermy.
Gustav fought to keep his contempt off his face. As Regent of Altdorf, he knew that the Emperor expected him to play the politician. Even so, after a lifetime spent hacking his way from one battlefield to the next, the old warrior found it difficult to shrug off his prejudices.
Steel and muscle, strength and cold, clear honour: that was where virtue lay, not in the unnatural practices of the colleges of magic. And yet, despite their lack, the colleges commanded respect. How could they not? Between them, they commanded as much sheer power as all of the Emperor's armies combined.
The regent's fingers drifted to the Sigmarite charm that hung around his neck. He had every sympathy with the mob that had taken to the streets outside. He had even more sympathy with the witch hunters, who had been straining at their leashes ever since the horrors of the night before. Nothing would have given him greater pleasure than to unleash them. It would be a fine thing to remove the scourge of magic, of all magic, from this city.
Frowning, he fought the temptation. If the Emperor wanted the colleges protected from the mob, then so be it.
He watched the latecomer settle himself into one of the chamber's twelve wooden chairs. Apart from the candelabras, they were the only furnishings in this audience chamber. It had been Gustav's decision to use this stripped room: no room for spies to hide in such a simple room, or for assassins.
"Gentlemen," he said, and the wizards turned towards him. "I'm very grateful that you all agreed to meet me here at such short notice. I know that, as arch magisters of your colleges, you are busy men, and I thank you for your time."
A polite murmur ran around the room.
"As you are all no doubt aware, there was quite a disturbance last night, quite a disturbance."
He paused, waiting for somebody to own up. Instead, they all looked shifty.
No honour at all, Gustav thought. He swallowed his disgust and carried on.
"The dead, it would appear, came back to life, and so, here I am. It isn't only the good citizens of Altdorf who want an explanation, the Emperor does, too."
"Good citizens." One of the assembled mages laughed bitterly. "That's a good one. Some of the filthy swine almost set upon me whilst I was making my way here."
"Almost?" the prince asked.
"I frightened them off."
"Did you now?" Gustav studied the metallic embroidery that shone against the blackness of the wizard's robe. Unbidden, the memory of the Siege of Geint sprang to mind. It had been ended by a rain of molten lead, the stuff dropping from nowhere onto the heads of the defenders, and also onto the heads of the defenders' families, of course.
Curse all wizards.
"Well, let's just hope that you didn't frighten them too much. I have my hands full with the riots that already exist. Half my men are already tied up in the Tilean quarter. Whatever the cause, riots always seem to gravitate towards the wine importers first."
"I must say," a cadaverous looking wizard in turquoise robes interrupted, "I don't think that it's very fair to blame us for what happened last night."
Gustav looked at him for a moment before he replied.
"In the middle of the night, for no apparent reason, the dead claw their way up from their graves. They then proceed to dance around the streets, terrorising the town and causing Sigmar alone knows how many crowns' worth of damage, and all this before Morrslieb has even risen. Now, where do you think I should be looking for the culprits? The candle makers' guild?"
"No need to be sarcastic. Anyway, I can put your mind at rest on at least one point. This certainly wasn't the work of anybody in any of the colleges."
A murmur of assent greeted this comment.
"How can you be so sure?" Gustav asked.
"Because such magic is not allowed."
Gustav looked at him blankly.
"I know it isn't allowed, but, and call me cynical if you will, just because such magic isn't allowed doesn't mean that it hasn't been practised. Or perhaps I'm being slow. I am, after all, only a soldier. Who do you think has been practising this revolting magic if not magicians?"
The twelve men shifted uneasily. It was Arch Magister Grunwalder, who broke their silence.
"You say magician, prince regent, but what does that truly mean? On the way here today I saw a man calling himself a magician setting up a street show. Quite an unwise decision, as it turned out. One can only assume that he somehow slept through the events of last night. Anyway, assuming that the charlatan is still alive, it is as linguistically accurate to describe him as a magician as it would be to apply that sobriquet to one of our own number."
The prince regent felt a twitch beginning in the corner of his left eye.
"Then again," Grunwalder continued, pleased to see it, "consider the smith in his forge. He can turn iron bars into the finest horse shoes. Is that not a sort of magic? And then there are other alchemists and practitioners, thousands of them and not a single one regulated by the colleges of magic. In fact, it is as Rudolphus of Nuln once said, 'We are...'"
The prince regent had heard enough.
"So what you are saying," he interrupted, "is that this was the work of someone outside the colleges. A hedge wizard? A rogue sorcerer? A necromancer?"
"Well... In so many words."
"I thought you were supposed to prevent such... such people from entering the city."
Grunwalder shrugged.
"We are. That isn't to say that we are always successful."
The prince regent sighed.
"So we have a necromancer at large. We also have an even bigger problem."
"What could be worse than that?"
"The rioting; most of the warehouses have been emptied already, which means that they'll soon turn on your colleges."
"Our colleges are well protected." Grunwalder waved his concerns away. His own robes were as heavy and grey as a storm cloud, and Gustav decided that he looked a little like a necromancer himself.
"Yes," Gustav said, "I saw that when I first arrived in this town. Not even my horse wanted to walk though the wall that serves as your gate. The problem for you is that the mob's hatred of you won't go away, and the problem for me is that I have to protect you."
"The populace," another wizard, red cloaked and bejewelled, sneered with contempt, "what of them? They are no more dangerous than a herd of cattle."
One of his colleagues snorted.
"You've obviously never seen an Estalian bull ring."
"And you obviously lack faith in your art."
"This from a man whose abilities consist of setting fire to things."
"Gentlemen, please," Gustav cut in. Much as he enjoyed a good fight, now was hardly the time. "I'm not sure you realise the severity of the situation. There are a great many people in the Empire, a great many influential people, who think that the colleges should be closed."
"Yes, I've heard of such talk," Grunwalder shrugged. "It will never happen. We are as valuable now as we were when the Great Sigmar founded us. After all, magic will exist, with or without the colleges, and if it wasn't for us, who would regulate it?"
"The witch hunters," Gustav told him, and a thoughtful silence filled the room. "In fact, I have men within my own employ who would be the equal of the task. Their methods may be fairly indiscriminate, but..."
Gustav trailed off, and let the shadow of the threat do its work. The assembled wizards stared thoughtfully at the empty spaces between the chairs.
"Now that you mention the populace," Grunwalder broke the silence, "I have given the matter some thought. It is unfair for them to blame us. Perhaps we should balance things out by taking the credit."
"The credit?" Gustav asked. "For what?"
"For undoing the work of the necromancer. For sending the dead back to wherever they came from. They do all seem to have gone."
"I see," the prince nodded slowly. "So we put it about that your good selves were the solution, not the cause, but would we be believed?"
"Oh, I think so. They just need a lightning rod for their outrage, somebody to torment."
"The strigany, perhaps?" suggested another of the wizards. "They usually make excellent decoys. I remember once, when I was a novitiate attached to one of the regiments, one of my water purification spells went wrong. The soldiers, ungrateful swine that they were, started to get angry, so I told the survivors that... well, never mind."
Gustav's attempt to kept the contempt from his face had finally failed. The wizard's anecdote withered beneath the fire in his eyes, and it was only with a supreme act of will that he kept his words civil.
"No," he said, "you have to find the necromancer. If you don't, and if things are repeated... Well, Sigmar alone knows what will happen."
"As arch magister of the Grey College, I am pleased to say that we have already discovered who the necromancer is."
All eyes turned on Grunwalder, and he savoured their jealousy while he could. He knew that it wouldn't last long.
"Really?" Gustav made no effort to hide his surprise. "You found him? You should have said so. Who is he?"
"In the Grey Order," Grunwalder said, waving his arms in a grand gesture, "confidentiality is our watchword."
"In the Empire, obedience is our watchword," Gustav countered. "Who is he?"
"It would be wrong of me to divulge my sources at such a delicate time." The wizard shook his head. "Our investigations are already under way, and our most capable man is on the case."
"I see." The prince regent looked at the wizard as if he was a lock to be picked. "One of yours, was he? Gone rogue?"
Grunwalder felt as if he had been punched in the stomach. He licked his lips, and started to waffle, but it was already too late. The guilt on his face had been there for all to see.
The other wizards frowned and shook their heads in happy disapproval. All of the colleges suffered from defections from time to time. It was just pleasant that, today, at least, the embarrassment wasn't theirs.
"No need to be so humiliated, Grunwalder old man," said the wizard whose blue robes marked him as a Celestial, "although, right after your misfortune with that escaped daemon, I can't blame you. Maybe you should visit us some time. Divination is always a useful counterbalance to bad luck."
"You're very kind," Grunwald nodded, "but we have our own methods of divination. In fact, as I said, the matter is already in hand. We already know where this malefactor is."
"Well then, let's get him," the prince regent exclaimed, his hand dropping to his sword hilt.
"Our best man is already preparing for the task. As soon as the meeting is finished, I will set him to it."
"This meeting is finished," Gustav said, and stood. "Now, if you gentlemen will excuse us, Arch Magister Grunwalder and I need to discuss exactly where this damned necromancer is. I have some men of my own who I'm sure would be glad of the exercise."
And at the mention of the witch hunters the wizards, powerful as they were, hurried to leave the room.
"Interesting night," Kerr said as he carried Titus' breakfast tray into his chambers. He set the tray down and went to open the curtains. Sunlight flooded the room, illuminating the clutter that filled it, and turning the dust motes that filled the air to gold.
"Interesting morning, too."
The wizard sat up in his bed, blinking sleepily. With a yawn, he stumbled out of the four-poster, which groaned with relief, and wrapped a fur cloak around his nightgown. Combined with the black buttons of his eyes, it made him look like a bear newly awoken from hibernation.
"Interesting?" he mumbled as he made his way to the food that Kerr had laid out on his table. "How so?"
"Lots of ways," Kerr told him, and took the lid off a tray of steaming kippers.
"Don't be obtuse," Titus growled.
"Obtuse: lacking quickness of perception or intellect."
His master glared at him.
"Anyway, about last night," Kerr continued hastily. "It seems that the dead got up out of their graves and started walking about, looting, killing and burning things down, by all accounts."
"Talk sense," Titus told him. "Only necromancers can bring the dead to life, and there are none of their filthy sort in Altdorf. The witch hunters would never allow it."
"Well, somebody brought them to life. They were dancing around all over the place."
"Were?" Titus asked through a mouthful of porridge.
"They seem to have all died again."
The wizard snorted.
"Sounds like so much hot air to me, and anyway, what would a reanimated corpse be doing looting?"
Kerr, who had spent the early hours picking through the chaos left in the wake of the dead, shrugged.
"Force of habit?" he suggested.
"No, take it from me, somebody's been pulling your leg. If there had been such a disturbance, I would have known about it. The college would have had me woken up. You might not guess it to look at me, but I cut my teeth on the battlefield before I made my name in research."
"I think I remember you mentioning it," said Kerr, anxious to avoid another retelling.
"Yes, those were the days," Titus gesticulated with a half-eaten kipper, "heady days. Terrible thing, battle magic, terrible; damned interesting though."
"I don't think they got around to that."
"What? Who?"
"The wizards the chancellor assembled when he got news of the emergency."
Titus rocked back as if he'd just been slapped on the face.
"Are you saying," he said, with the same dangerous calm that lies at the heart of a cyclone, "that an emergency convocation was called without me?"
"I suppose so," Kerr replied, and licked his lips nervously. He'd heard rumours that his master was already in some sort of trouble. The last thing he'd wanted to do was to goad him into some fresh controversy, but it was too late.
Despite the fact that he'd barely eaten enough for two men, the wizard pushed his platter away, shrugged off his cloak, and started pulling his robes on. As he did so, his face, which had gone as pale as linen, slowly regained its flush.
"I don't know that they actually did anything," Kerr said, trying to think of a way to appease Titus' rage.
For once, he wracked his brains in vain. Titus, his jowls wobbling with indignation, was obviously beyond listening. He crammed the felt box of his hat onto his head so hard that it buckled, grasped his staff, and marched to the door.
He actually had his hand on the latch when somebody on the other side knocked.
"Who is it?" Titus bellowed, his temper finding a target on the visitor.
"Arch Magister Grunwalder."
Kerr could almost see Titus deflate.
"Well then," he mumbled, opening the door, "come in, won't you?"
"Thank you," Grunwald said as he swept into the room. Although he lacked Titus' bulk, there was the unmistakable mark of authority in his voice and in his step. The formal robes that he had donned for his meeting with the prince magnified this, so that neither Titus nor Kerr were in any doubt that they were in the presence of a master.
"Good to see you, magister," Braha said, warily eyeing Grunwalder's robes of office. "I was just going to see a colleague."
"Ah yes. You are due for sentencing, aren't you?" The arch magister asked. "Liebham mentioned that he was quite looking forward to it."
"Sentencing?" Titus' voice lilted with sudden unease. "I don't think so. I was just going to hear the council's findings and recommendations."
The arch magister frowned.
"I'm sorry," he tutted, and shook his head. "I'm such a fool sometimes. It seems I've let the cat out of the bag. Well, never mind. The council can wait."
Then, as if he was the host and Titus his guest, he waved towards a chair.
"Take a seat. You, servant."
"Yes master?" Kerr asked.
"Stop skulking around over there and make yourself scarce."
Kerr looked at Titus, who nodded distractedly.
The arch magister settled himself in a chair and waited until Kerr had closed the door. He listened to the footsteps that retreated down the passageway outside and then, as Kerr padded silently back to listen outside the door, he began to speak.
"Well, Titus, I must say we will miss you. The order will miss you. Your Convex of Fog is fast becoming one of our standard spells. It has that touch of genius about it, you know? That apparent simplicity that makes us wonder why we didn't think of it ourselves."
"Why will you miss me, chancellor? Surely you don't think that I'm going to resign."
"Oh, come now, Titus, you know how things are. We can usually turn a blind eye to the occasional accident, but not now, not anymore. You've heard about the disturbances last night? Well, I'm afraid that our fellow citizens are calling for blood."
"But we protect them from necromancy!" Titus snapped, stung by the injustice of it all. "And anyway, that has nothing to do with me. I admit there was some fire damage, but..."
He trailed off as Grunwalder shook his head.
"The details don't really matter. This has nothing to do with our noble art, and everything to do with politics. Dirty business, politics, but then so is night soil collection, and where would we be without that?"
Titus thought about saying that he didn't see how the streets of Altdorf could be any worse, but decided not to. Instead, he got to the point.
"So are you suggesting," he asked, "that I might be asked to go into some sort of temporary exile?"
"Oh no, goodness no."
Titus sighed with relief.
"I'm saying that we're going to have to expel you from the college."
"What! You can't do that. If you do that, I won't be able to practise magic anymore, but how can I not? You know what the witch hunters are. You know what they do to those of us who are cast out."
The arch magister let him ramble on. When it was apparent that Titus had seen the full horror of the abyss that yawned beneath him, he hinted at an alternative.
"I know, it will be terrible for you. If I could find any way of saving you, I would, but as I say, the college is more important than any individual, and if we have to give the mob a pound of flesh from time to time, well then, so be it."
Titus pulled at his collar. He seemed to be finding it difficult to breathe. The arch magister was pleased to see it.
"Of course," he commiserated, "it's all so damnably unfair."
"Yes it is," Titus nodded feverishly.
"What makes it even worse is that we actually know who caused the disturbances last night: one of our own, I'm afraid. That's another reason why we can't show any mercy to you, you see. If we could have punished the actual perpetrator of the crime, then you would have been alright, but obviously, as we can't do that, you'll have to do in his stead."
"Why can't we hand this man over? I don't understand."
The arch magister permitted himself a brief smile. In the thirty years that they had known each other, this was the first time that he had heard Titus make such an admission.
"Yes, that's a good point. It isn't that we won't hand the man in question over, it is that we can't. He left this morning, no doubt fleeing to his daemonic allies."
Titus sprang to his feet and started to pace around the room.
"Only this morning? Well, that's not too bad, not too bad at all. We can catch him."
The arch magister shook his head regretfully.
"It is possible," Titus pleaded. "The winds of magic blow strong this season, and it is easy enough to follow the path a wizard cuts through them. In fact, I have made something of a study of the technique. Braha's Second Sight, I was thinking of calling it. If you would like to study my notes..."
"I won't, if you don't mind. Anyway, it isn't just the catching." The arch magister sighed. "A man who can dabble in such corruption as necromancy is beyond redemption. No, catching him alone wouldn't be enough. Even though he is one of our brethren, he'd also have to be executed."
Titus didn't even pause.
"Of course he would, but that would be easy enough."
He stopped pacing and looked at the arch magister. The fear on his face had been replaced with understanding. He had just realised that Grunwalder hadn't come to pass sentence. He had come to make an offer.
"At least," he continued, "it would be easy enough for a mage with the proper experience and motivation to hunt down this traitor."
"Hmmm." The arch magister plucked at his neatly manicured beard and pretended to think. "I suppose so, but who would you suggest for such a task?"
The two men looked at each other.
"You know how eager I have always been to serve the college, arch magister. Perhaps if the council rethought its decision, then I might be able to go myself."
"You don't even know who it is yet."
Titus shrugged.
"It doesn't really matter."
The arch magister, knowing that he had found the right man for the job, smiled.
When she awoke, her first thought was one of gratitude. Wherever this place was, it was nice and warm. For the past month, she had spent her nights shivering in the slums of Altdorf, praying all the while for the summer to return, and, for once, it seemed that her prayers had been answered.
In the darkness, which was complete, she had no idea where she was. Nor did she remember how she had come to be here. Another girl might have been alarmed at such a realisation, but not Gerta. Ever since her mother had died, she had spent her nights being driven from one sheltered doorway to another, stupefied with exhaustion as she stumbled through the streets.
The fear only came when she woke up enough to realise that she couldn't move.
With a whimper, she pulled at the ropes that bound her ankles and wrists, wriggling on the smooth wooden pallet like a rabbit in a trap. When she realised that the knotted hemp was too strong to give, she lay back, and blinked back the first of her tears.
It wouldn't be the first time that this had happened to her, and although it hurt, and although the shame was even greater than the pain within, she knew that it wouldn't kill her.
At least, not if she didn't struggle.
A moment later, she heard the footsteps approaching, and a doorway opened in a burst of light. After the darkness, and the potion with which she had been drugged, the oil lamps seemed as bright as the sun.
Gerta squinted her eyes and gritted her teeth, trying to be brave. It wasn't until she realised how many of them there were that she started sobbing.
There were a dozen at least. A dozen! They would tear her apart.
If her tears moved the men who had gathered around her, they didn't show it. They couldn't show it. The hoods on their robes had been drawn down so that they were as faceless as executioners. As Gerta wept, they filed around the wooden table to which she had been trussed, each man finding his allotted position and then standing dead still.
Gerta looked up at them through the prism of her tears. Here and there, she caught glimpses of the eyes that watched her. They glittered as hungrily as a spider's that has just found a web full of flies.
When the final figure paced into the room, all eyes turned to him.
He was dressed in the same hooded robe as the others. He walked at the same, slow pace as the others, and yet, he was different from them: horribly different.
It wasn't just the coldness that followed him into the chamber, nor was it the way that his fellows drew back, nervously shifting as he drew nearer. No, it was something more, something that made Gerta want to scream.
She had no idea what was so terrible about this figure. It was nothing that could be seen or smelled or heard. Yet there was an air about him that was as pungent as the smell of a fish rotted to slime, as nauseating as maggots in an open wound, and as cold as death.
The newcomer paused, perhaps to savour the sound of her terror. Then he paced forwards to take his place at the end of the table. She watched him as he loomed above her wriggling feet, and when he started to pull his hood back she bared her teeth in sudden terror of what it might reveal.
It didn't reveal much. The man who wore it was bland looking, as plump and pale eyed as any prosperous Altdorfian that might have tossed her a copper on the street. Gerta fought the panic that had seized hold of her, telling herself that this would be no worse than the last time, not much worse, anyway.
Then the man spoke.
"Brothers," he intoned, speaking as casually as a grocer discussing prices, "we are gathered in the darkness to praise one who has no need of light. We are gathered in the darkness to pay him the tribute that he demands. We are gathered in the darkness to feast on his behalf."
"Tell me, brothers, who is he who flows through every thing living?"
The reply came in a whisper, the men scarcely speaking any louder than the hiss of blood that raced through Gerta's veins.
"Tell me brothers, who is it that gives us the courage to do his will?"
Again the reply came. It was louder this time, loud enough for her to hear.
"Khorne," the gathered men intoned, a terrible passion trembling in their restrained voices.
"And tell me brothers," their leader asked, "who is it that will sanctify our feast tonight?"
"Khorne!"
This time they cast off their caution and let their god's name ring loud from the stones of the cellar. Before they had drawn away from their master, but now they leaned closer, moths drawn towards his flame.
Gerta watched him too. She had stopped struggling, as mesmerised by the pale-eyed man as a mouse by a cobra.
Behind him, she had started to see shadows flitting through the darkness, phantoms of previous victims, perhaps.
The cultists, perhaps numbed by long familiarity, seemed oblivious to them. Their leader's face distorted as he bared a mouthful of strange teeth, each as sharp and yellow as an ivory needle, and for the first time Gerta could see the insanity that burned within his pale eyes. Then he lifted up one hand and, as slowly as a priest performing some sacred rite, he peeled back the glove that covered it.
When she saw the claw, her paralysis broke and she started to scream. It was the shape of an eagle's, each black talon a viciously curved thorn. He laughed at her fear, a shrill giggle that accompanied the sound of tearing fabric as his acolytes sliced through her clothing.
It was only the sight of her soft flesh that sobered him.
"Blood," he hissed, leaning forwards and reaching towards her belly with his mutated hand, "Blood for the Blood Go..."
But it was not her blood that was to be spilled. Even as the cultist flexed his talons there was a sudden movement and a dull thud. He paused, surprise replacing the obscene glee that had been smeared across his podgy features. Then surprise turned to shock.
Gerta looked up at the mutant, confusion warring with her horror. Then she looked down and saw the tongue of pink-smeared steel that jutted out through his stomach. Even as she watched, it twisted, corkscrewing its way back out of the dying man and leaving him to flop bonelessly forwards.
For a single, breathless second, the cultists paused, confusion making fools of them all. It was only when their attackers bellowed their challenge that they realised that they were no longer alone.
This time, Gerta did recognise the name that rang out through the darkness, the syllables as clear as the impact of a hammer on an anvil. It was a name that every child in the Empire knew, for it was the name of the father of them all.
"Sigmar!" the attackers roared as the cavern erupted into light. Lanterns that had been as dark as stone were unhooded, and cloaks that seemed woven from the very shadows themselves were thrown off to reveal gleaming armour.
What ensued was more massacre than battle.
Bereft of their leader, the cultists were slaughtered like cattle: the screams of the stricken, the crunch of dismemberment, the splatter of the blood and the slaughterhouse stink---all this lasted for scarcely more than a moment.
It was only when the last of the cultists was felled, his head lopped off as neatly as an apple, that Gerta began to wonder what the victors would do with her.
For a moment, it seemed that they would do nothing. With the blood still warm on their blades, they stood amongst the bodies of their victims, grim faced even in victory. As one, their shaven heads bowed, and their lips moved in silent prayer. Only then did they return to the bodies of their foes, cutting throats and cleaning blades on their torn robes.
It wasn't until this grisly work was done that one of them turned to Gerta. Within the carapace of his harness he was a giant of a man, and the cicatrice of scars that cob-webbed his face made him look even more fearsome.
"Who are you?" she asked as him as he began to examine her. He prodded her here and there, occasionally peeling back scraps of clothing to see the skin beneath. All the while, his white-scarred face remained blank, as passionless as a butcher's examining a side of beef.
Without deigning to answer her question, the man opened a pouch and drew out an iron charm, a twin tailed comet no larger than his thumb. With an icy look into the girl's eyes, he pressed it into her forehead.
"Ow," she said, "it's cold, but please, who are you?"
"I am Vaught, a humble servant of Sigmar," he told her, putting the charm away, and drawing a dagger. "It is my sacred duty to cleanse his world of all who traffic with the Ruinous Powers."
The knife glinted in his fist as he reached for her, and his face grew even harder.
"Please don't," Gerta begged, pulling away from the blade.
For the first time Vaught's stony expression changed.
"Don't worry," he said, and smiled as if the expression hurt him. "It's your bonds I will cut, not you."
So saying, he sliced through the hemp that bound her, leaving her free to sit up and rub some life back into her limbs. All at once she began to shiver.
"Where were you taken?" he asked, watching her dispassionately.
"Don't know," she answered. "I sleep where I can. I am, well you know, one of the Strasseratten."
Vaught frowned.
"You are one of Sigmar's heirs," he scolded her, "not a rat."
"No I didn't mean... it's just what people say."
Vaught scratched his chin thoughtfully and watched Gerta trying to reassemble her ragged clothes.
"We're finished here, captain," one of his men said, interrupting his reverie. "Shall I go and get a cart for the bodies?"
"Aye," Vaught nodded. "The sooner they are purified by flame the better."
"What about this house?"
"No, it is too close to others. We will leave it to the temples to clean. The prioress of the temple of Shallya is a good woman, bring her."
"As you say, and what about this one?" The man gestured towards Gerta. He was older than the rest, and despite the blood that spattered his armour, there was something comfortable about his wrinkled face.
"We should take care of her," Vaught said, "or at least, give her to the prioress to take care of. It seems that Sigmar has smiled upon her this day, and we should respect that. A second later and she would have been no more than so much offal."
"I'm sure that the child will find your sentiments most comforting."
Vaught glared at the older man.
"I don't have time for idle words, and neither do you. I must go and make my report to the prince regent, so I will leave you in charge of cleaning this up."
"Right you are, captain," the other man said. He threw his cloak around Gerta's trembling shoulders and turned back to his comrades.
The girl felt the warmth from the cloak and realised how cold she had been. It was a fine material, and grey, at least, it was sometimes grey. The colour seemed to change as she moved, blending into the background as effortlessly as ink into water.
It was only after her teeth had stopped chattering that she looked up to thank Vaught, but by the time she had done so, he had already gone.
Vaught was scowling as he stomped out of the cellar, into the warmth and richness of the house above.
His boots, soft-soled for the stealth his profession demanded, were silent as he marched across a carpeted study and into the marbled hall beyond. In one corner, as miserable as a flock of sheep after a rainstorm, the servants stood, their hands bound. Two of his men watched over them, and they turned to salute as he passed them by.
"The heretics below have been pacified," he told them as he stalked past. "You can begin questioning their servants."
"Yes, captain," the youngest of his men said, saluting again. His comrade smiled at him good naturedly. The lad had only been apprenticed to Vaught's group for three months, and he was still eager to impress.
"Make sure," Vaught added as he left the room, "that you question them closely."
The sudden sobbing of the captives followed him out into the street beyond. It was broad and well paved, and the shadows of the mansions on either side loomed large as afternoon faded into evening.
Vaught remained silent as he made his way through a tangle of side streets and out onto the main thoroughfare. The cobbles had long since been stolen to reveal the mud beneath, and the stink of human and animal waste hung heavy in the air.
Sniffing it approvingly, Vaught pressed on. He had been born and raised on such a street, and he felt at home with the honesty of the people who lived here. Thieves stole, merchants haggled, and whores sold their wares: all straightforward professions, in their way, and nothing like the hidden sickness that he fought.
Although such thoughts lifted his mood, the crowd still parted before his gaunt figure. It wasn't just the size of his armoured frame that lent a spring to their step, it was also the constellation of amulets that he wore about his harness. They marked him out for what he was, and nobody, no matter how innocent, wanted anything to do with a witch hunter.
Even the gatekeepers did little more than cast a cursory glance in his direction as he marched through the stone vaulted gates of the prince regent's palace, and when he met the prince's herald, the man emerging into the shadowed courtyard at the same time as Vaught, the servant's reaction was one of sheer terror.
"Menheer Vaught," he squeaked, eyes goggling, "how did you know?"
Vaught stared at him, stony faced.
"Oh! Alright, I'm sorry. Please forgive my inquisitiveness. How you know that the prince regent wants to see you is none of my business. My job was only to carry the message, and now you're here."
Vaught remained impassive. His face became as inanimate as a mirror, a blank surface onto which the herald could project his fears. The witch hunter had learnt the trick during numerous inquisitions.
"Anyway," the herald swallowed and licked his lips. "I must be going. I have to, erm..."
"You look nervous," Vaught told him.
The herald reacted as if his death sentence had just been read out.
"Must go," he whimpered, and fled.
Vaught smiled briefly and marched into the palace. He padded through a great hall, hung with chandeliers and peopled with petitioners, and into the antechamber to the prince regent's chambers.
Here, at least, the guards had no fear of him. There were four of them, scarred veterans who had been with Gustav since his earliest years. They sat around a card table, their well-greased mail and hobnailed boots a stark contrast to the gilded finery of the room.
They looked at Vaught as he prowled in, relaxed even when he turned the fire of his gaze upon them. Perhaps alone of all the palace staff, they knew themselves to be beyond the reach of the witch hunters. It made them surprisingly friendly.
"Vaught, you old charmer," one asked as he threw his cards onto the table, "have you been drinking again?"
"I never drink. It dulls the senses," Vaught answered. He knew that he was being mocked, but he could never work out quite how.
"I bet he has," another said, "and quite right too. You know what bon vivants these witch hunters are, and you can't dance on the tables all night without a brandy or two inside you."
Vaught looked at the men with a haughty disdain.
"It is duty I come to discuss with the prince regent, not merriment."
For no reason Vaught could discern, the men burst out laughing. Perhaps they were drunk themselves.
"You're alright, Vaught," one of them said, wiping his eyes. "Just go on through. The boss is expecting you."
And the prince regent was. His reception room was a display of wealth, with everything from the frescos on the ceiling to the golden pillars that supported it, designed to impress, but the rich surroundings had obviously done little to calm the prince regent's nerves. He paced up and down the great hall, fondling the hilt of his sword.
"Vaught," he said as the witch hunter bowed, "about time. Right then, sit down. We have a problem."
"More zombies?"
"No, even worse."
"Shame about the rain, your honour. It really damages a horse's coat, especially one as hard ridden as yours. Gets into the nap of it, see, causes pie balding." The ostler lifted his lamp and touched the horse that stood steaming in the middle of his stable. "Where did you say you'd come from again?"
"Altdorf," muttered Grendel, wringing rain from his beard. "No! Not Altdorf, I meant Nuln. I've come from Nuln."
"That's what I thought you said. Nuln. That must be two hundred miles if it's a dozen. Now if you'd come from Altdorf, I could have given you half price for him, winded and rain scourged as he is, but Nuln..."
The ostler shook his head regretfully and looked at Grendel. Even without the white flecks of exhaustion that speckled his horse, it was obvious that this gangling man was some sort of fugitive. Honest men didn't gallop into the village in the middle of the night and beg for fresh mounts. Nor did they follow him to his stable, pathetically eager to buy a horse they'd only see by lamplight.
"No, I can't really give you much for him at all. Tell you what, though, if you aren't too sentimental I'll buy him off you for the meat. Couple of copper crowns, perhaps."
"Yes, whatever," Grendel waved the sordid business of payment away, "but what about a fresh horse? Can you sell me one?"
Again the ostler shook his head.
"Wrong time of year, really. Everyone needs horses to bring the harvests in. Now, if you were to come back in autumn that would be different."
"Autumn?" Grendel yelped. "But I want to leave tonight, right now. Look, what's wrong with that horse over there? Or that one?"
The ostler shrugged.
"Already spoken for," he said.
"But you are an ostler, you must sell horses."
"I do, only too well," the man smiled ruefully. "These are fine beasts, but all promised to others. The bay is for Farmer Schweinporker. Both greys are for the militia, and old Brinnie here is my own horse. I raised him from a foal, so I did."
"All right, I'll buy him."
The ostler contrived to look scandalised.
"What? Buy Brinnie? No, I don't think so. Begging your pardon, your lordship, but I've seen how you treat horses."
"I'll give you a gold crown."
The ostler shook his head.
"You're very generous, but I couldn't, not Brinnie. When I was a lad, he got me away from a pack of orcs. Saved my life, so he did."
"When you were a lad? It doesn't look that old."
"Very kind of you to say so, sire," the ostler said, quickly moving away from his mistake, "and a gold coin is fair value, but, like I say, old Brinnie and me... well, we're like friends."
"Two gold coins."
The ostler paused. Then he smiled regretfully.
"Not even for two."
"All right, name your price." Grendel made the offer and looked back out of the stable to the rain that sheeted down outside. It hadn't stopped since he'd fled that morning, racing through the nightmare that he had accidentally created. Perhaps, he considered miserably, the weather was some sort of judgement.
Not that what had happened had been his fault. How could he have known? There was no warning that the spell he'd found in the book had been... well, had been necromantic.
There had been no requirement for horrible substances or human sacrifices, or whatever such filthy magic required, and the spell itself hadn't even been difficult to cast. He had merely allowed his words and his thoughts to flow along the lines that had been written on the page. Then there had been that familiar lift, the moment of ecstasy in which he could feel the winds of magic filling him with the power of the gods.
And then...
He shuddered and refused to think about the agony of what had come next: the pain, the bleeding, and the visions. It wasn't until he had seen the arch magister leaning over him that he had known the nightmare was past.
Thank all the gods for Grunwalder, he thought. If he hadn't warned me in time, shown me what I'd actually done...
Grendel shivered, thoughts of the witch hunters' pyres flickering through his head.
Lost in his own desperate world, he missed the ostler's pitch. That was a shame, because it was a good one. It was full of personal tragedy, broken hearts and entreaties to Grendel's better nature. At one point, the man even managed a tear.
"So, how much?" Grendel asked, interrupting a tale about the ostler's sick daughter and the medicines she needed to come all the way from Araby.
"Fifteen gold crowns," the man said, and held his breath.
"Fine. Get him saddled up, will you?"
For a moment, the ostler stood, too stunned to speak. Then he was moving, desperate to complete the deal before this lunatic changed his mind.
"If you'll just count out the coin, sire," he said as he lifted the soggy saddle from Grendel's old horse and carried it over to the new. "I'll have Brinnie ready in just two minutes. He's well fed, as you can see. A real winner. I'll be sad to see him go, but my daughter..."
"Yes, of course. Very sad," Grendel muttered and turned away from the ostler. He fumbled inside his tunic and bent furtively over his purse. His fingers moved and he muttered something under his breath.
"What's that, your lordship?" the ostler asked, looking back over his shoulder.
"Nothing," Grendel said and, with a clink of coins, he turned back to the newly saddled horse.
"There you go, your lordship. All ready to go. Now, if I might just see the coin?"
"Here." Grendel poured the coins into his outstretched hand as carelessly as if they had been pebbles. The metal glinted in the lamplight, filling the ostler's eyes with a rich, warm glow.
They were real all right. He could scarcely believe it, but they were. He weighed one, bit another, and held a third up to the light.
By Ranald's left ball, he was a rich man!
Grendel, meanwhile, had climbed awkwardly up onto his new mount and was edging her towards the door.
"I'll miss that horse," the ostler lied, slipping the coins into his purse. Grendel just grunted and dug his heels into the animal's sides. It jolted into life, and trotted reluctantly out into the hissing rain.
The ostler watched them go, still scarcely believing his luck.
"Come again," he called out after the retreating figure, but Grendel was already out of earshot, cloaked in darkness.
After the rain, the forest smelled so fresh that it might have grown the night before. The scents of pine sap and oak bark mingled into a heady perfume, and even the musk of the warm soil smelled sweet.
A light breeze whispered through the endless branches of the endless trees, its fingers chilly with winter's approach. Occasional clouds of butterflies, each as big as a hand, burst from the canopy in silent explosions of colour.
The time had come for them to journey south, first to Tilea and then to Araby. Thousands of miles lay ahead of them; thousands of miles of floating on winds they could not control, helpless but hopeful.
Kerr knew how they felt. He had spent the days since leaving Altdorf perched on the top of his master's carriage, an uneasy teamster. In one hand he held the reins of the horses and in the other a whip. He didn't need to use either. The four horses were a well trained team, and he had realised at the very beginning of this journey that the best thing he could do would be to leave them well alone.
He'd made the same decision about Titus. However much the carriage rattled and bumped, his master still managed to spend the days sleeping like a baby.
Well, not exactly like a baby, Kerr thought. Babies don't weigh twenty stone. Nor do they snore like an entire herd of pigs. In fact, over the. noise of the horses, the carriage and its occupant it was impossible to hear anything else.
Which was why, as the sun rolled from morning to afternoon, the riders who used the forest to pass their carriage unseen, remained unheard.
It was only when the path narrowed to squeeze through a cleft between two hills that Kerr had any inkling of what was about to happen. The fallen tree could have been a coincidence, of course, but to Kerr, who had never been out of site of Altdorf's spires, everything in this forest looked suspicious.
As the horses drifted to an uncertain stop, he leapt from his seat, stretched, and thought about waking Titus. Then he thought better of it. Although usually as cheerful as any servant had a right to expect his master to be, the magician was like a bear with a sore head when he was woken; and like a pig with a blocked nose when he was asleep, Kerr thought with a grin.
He liked the fat man well enough. He was a pleasant enough old duffer when humoured, and although Kerr mocked him within the privacy of his thoughts it was usually with affection.
He was still smiling as he sauntered past the horses to examine the deadfall that blocked their path.
It was only when he reached the tree that he realised how much trouble they were in. The forest here was oak, gnarled and yellowing in the season's chill, but the tree that lay across the path was a dark pine. Even to Kerr's untrained eye it seemed as out of place as a raven amongst a flock of peacocks.
Kerr scowled with suspicion and ran his fingers over the rough bark. Then he noticed the axe marks that flashed at its base.
"Shit," he said, stepping back and looking around warily.
Then the ambushers struck.
From all around, there came a sudden hiss, and the air splintered into a hail of arrows. Kerr had no time to run. Even if he had, there was nowhere to run to. A second before, the forest had been as empty as a drum. Now, there were so many archers that it seemed as crowded as an Altdorfian marketplace.
They were everywhere. Some were beyond the roadblock, and some behind the carriage. Others sat in the branches, balancing as effortlessly as birds even as they loosed their arrows. There were even half a dozen who came bursting up from the ground, monstrous beneath their camouflage of netting and leaf mould.
Kerr realised that he was dead. He was too shocked to feel any emotion at the realisation, but he was grateful that the last blink of his life wouldn't be too painful.
Everything became sharper, somehow: brighter. The air around him became as clear as ice cold water. It flowed like water too, warping and weaving so that the lines of the arrows bent like reeds caught in an eddy.
The archers themselves also shimmered, their images distorting as if seen through a moving lens.
It was the last thing Kerr noticed before the arrows bit home.
He heard the thunk of them as they cut into soil and timber, and felt the whip of flights as they cut past him. There was a sudden sting as an arrowhead grazed his arm, another as one sliced open his earlobe.
When the volley had finished, he stood dazed amongst a forest of feathered shafts. His attackers stared at him, open mouthed. He stood amongst their arrows, as safe as a babe behind the bars of a cradle.
Then, in the midst of their confusion, Titus emerged from the carriage.
As he hopped down from the running board, the carriage squeaked and bounced up on its springs. The wizard hit the ground running, moving quickly, more quickly than Kerr had ever suspected was possible.
Even as the bandits notched a fresh volley of arrows, he had hurled himself into the first knot of them, arms outstretched in embrace.
But quick as the fat man was the arrows were quicker. Bowstrings hummed as busily as a hive of bees, and a volley homed in on his meaty shoulders.
It passed effortlessly through them and into the men beyond.
Their stricken screams pierced the darkness of the shadowed forest, only to be eclipsed by the boom of Titus' laughter. He turned from their fallen bodies, some writhing and some still, and rushed towards the next group of ambushers.
Kerr barely recognised him. The transformation that had taken place was terrifying, although he couldn't say exactly what that transformation had been. Titus' form remained the same. His chubby features and rolling gut were as familiar as ever.
Now, though, his body seemed lit from within, his bulk a furnace of terrible energy. It was as if some daemon had slipped into the wizard's skin and was wearing it as his own.
The swordsmen who had waited buried beneath the leaves were his next victims. They stabbed at him, their blades slashing through his form as if it was no more than shadow. More arrows came, a panicky flight that cut down two of the bandits even before Titus had reached them.
Eight men were already down before he even touched the first of his opponents. It was more caress than blow. The magician merely turned the man's head so that the two were looking eye to eye.
The bandit's mouth fell open, although it wasn't to scream. He didn't look particularly frightened. In fact, he didn't look particularly anything. Every hint of emotion drained out of his face, and he swayed as his sword dropped from nerveless fingers.
It was too much for the surviving ambushers. Before Titus could turn that hellish gaze on them, they were fleeing, falling from trees like overripe apples and racing away into the trackless wastes of the forest.
Kerr watched them go, and fought back the urge to follow them. Suddenly his master didn't seem like such a pleasant old duffer anymore. Far from it.
Kerr waited until the sound of the bandits' retreat had faded. When it was clear that Titus had no intention of following them, he forced himself to walk over to him. Uneasy or not, fear would do him no good here.
To his relief, whatever terrible energy had possessed the magician was gone. He looked exhausted. His usually florid cheeks were pale, and shadows, as dark as those that sickled Mannslieb, lay beneath his eyes.
"They've all run off," Kerr said, although only because he wanted to say something.
"That they have," Titus nodded, and rubbed his face with two podgy hands. Kerr looked at the bandit whom the wizard had touched. The man remained standing. He was drooling, his chin glistening as he stared blankly into space.
"His hair..." Kerr began, and then stopped. He didn't want to know. He really didn't want to know.
Somehow he found himself asking the question anyway.
"Was his hair white before you looked at him?"
Titus shook his head.
"No. I'm going to rest. Clear the way and get going as soon as you can. I want to find a village before nightfall."
"And what about him?" Kerr gestured towards the man. Blank faced and slack jawed, he looked as if he didn't have a care in the world.
Titus shrugged as if the question was of no consequence.
"Leave him. Sigmar will see to him, if he deserves it."
Kerr swallowed.
"What about that one?" Another of the highwaymen lay writhing around the agony of the arrow that had found his stomach. "Will Sigmar see to him too?"
"No," the wizard said, already returning to the pillows of the carriage, "the wolves will."
Kerr shivered. Then, taking a last frightened glance at the victims, he hurried over to start rolling the tree clear of the road. The shadows were lengthening, and he had discovered a sudden reluctance to be alone with his master in the dark.
"What do you think happened to him, captain?"
Vaught turned from the living meat of the petrified man and back to his comrades. There were a dozen, their bald pates covered in identical black felt hats and their armour swaddled in riding cloaks. The horses they rode were thickset beasts, and although mud splattered, they were not winded.
Captain Vaught was too capable a campaigner to force a gallop before he needed to, especially in the midst of this tangled forest.
"I don't know what happened to him," Vaught shrugged, "although I'll warrant that it's some sort of foul sorcery."
Although unwilling to lose any more time, the witch hunter passed his reins to a comrade and swung down out of the saddle. They had found this frozen man standing beside the road, his eyes as dead as a scarecrow's, despite the pulse that beat within his wrist.
Vaught snapped his fingers in front of his face. Then he twisted his ear. He might as well have been trying to wake up stone.
"Do you think that it was the necromancer?" Peik asked eagerly. Vaught smiled. He had done well in his choice of apprentice. The lad had the instinctive enthusiasm of a terrier for a rat.
"It could well have been the necromancer. We are sure he was travelling this road, and there has been some sort of battle here. See the arrows that lay about? And that furrow over there? It looks like a body was dragged away. Maybe some footpads found our quarry before we did."
"Then perhaps he is dead already." Peik sounded disappointed.
"Perhaps, but unlikely. Why would his assailants have left one of their comrades behind if they had won?"
Peik looked at the frozen man. For the first time, he noticed the way that he swayed gently back and forth, a white haired metronome keeping time with some invisible melody.
"Maybe he was one of the necromancer's followers."
Vaught frowned.
"Doubtful. It is unlikely that footpads would have been able to work such magic, and I doubt whether two sorcerers would have passed this way. Magic users are like cockroaches, they prefer to skulk around cities rather than the wilderness."
Peik seemed satisfied.
"I'm sure you're right, captain," he said. "I wonder what we should do with this one?"
Vaught shook his head.
"We have no time to tend to him. Perhaps when we slay the necromancer the enchantment will break."
Peik looked at the swaying figure. Then he slapped him on the shoulder.
"Don't worry," he told the man, whose drooling face remained as slack as ever, "we'll set you free."
The witch hunters murmured approvingly, and when Vaught and his apprentice had swung themselves back into the saddle, the captain had come to a decision. He'd spared the horses enough. It was time to gallop.
It was nearing dusk when Kerr first heard the thunder of approaching hooves. They came just as the dying sun was casting a last few golden bars through the darkness of the forest, and it was the lateness of the hour that made him so glad to hear approaching riders.
He had spent the afternoon wondering whether or not to suggest that they stop and make camp tonight. On the one hand, the horses were tired, the road grew ever worse, and even the brightest moon left the track beneath the forest canopy as black as pitch.
But on the other hand... Well, on the other hand, he didn't want to spend the night alone with Titus. That was the truth of the matter.
Ever since the battle against the highwaymen, he had been trying to convince himself that what the magician had done wasn't so bad. If you killed a man, you killed him. It didn't really matter how it was done.
However, it wasn't the men that the magician had killed that preyed upon Kerr's mind. It was the man he hadn't killed. All it had taken had been a look, and the poor bastard's soul had snapped, evaporated like a drop of water cast into a furnace.
Kerr found himself wondering how many other men Titus had left as empty shells, condemned to stand in their own drooling hell until something hungry found them.
He had told himself that his master had had no choice. He also told himself that he had seen regret in his eyes afterwards. Eventually, after he had told himself that enough times, he began to believe it.
Even so, the sound of riders rolled a great weight off his shoulders. It would be good to have company, if only for a while.
"Ho there!" he called out as the cavalcade appeared behind him. They were solidly built men on solidly built horses, and the last flashes of sunlight glittered on the armour they wore beneath their riding cloaks.
Kerr waved both his arms in greeting as they drew nearer.
"Well met, menheers," he called out, a grin splitting his face. He'd just noticed that the riders wore the tall hats of witch hunters. In the past, he would have instinctively hidden from them, but now... Well, now things were different.
Despite his greeting, none of them made any reply as they approached, nor even when they drew level.
"Where do you come from?" Kerr called to their leader. He sat tall in the saddle, his features as stern as a hawk's. Without even bothering to glance at Kerr, he rode by.
"Where are you going?" Kerr tried again, gesturing to the younger man who rode behind him. Again there was no reply, or any response.
The last of the riders galloped past, their horses ignoring the friendly whinnies of those harnessed to the carriage.
"Do you want some wine?" Kerr asked the last of them as he disappeared into the forest ahead.
"They can't see us."
Kerr looked down to see that Titus was leaning out of the carriage window. His face was a pale moon against the shadows, his eyes two dark hollows.
"Why can't they see us?" Kerr asked. "The sun hasn't even set yet. What... Oh. I see."
Braha nodded, and opened the door of the carriage. The vehicle shifted as he stepped out and stretched, his bulk wobbling as he rolled his head.
"Yes, it is a minor conjuration. It makes people see past us, or around us. After what happened today, I thought it a wise precaution."
Kerr looked at the horses, the harness, and the solid wood.
"You won't see anything odd from there," Titus told him. "As long as you're sitting on the carriage you're part of the spell."
Kerr vaulted down from his seat. His master, obviously back to his old self, laughed uproariously.
"Don't worry," he boomed. "You won't turn into a frog."
Kerr laughed too, although without his master's enthusiasm. Then he turned back to collect his cloak, and saw that the carriage was gone.
Alone in the blossoming darkness of the night, standing between the wizard and his works, Kerr came to a decision: there was no point in being afraid, not now.
After all, what could he do but hope for the best?
With that thought, he took a deep breath and turned to start collecting firewood. He stumbled through the gathering darkness, rooting around through the detritus that covered the forest floor, whilst behind him Titus gazed up at the first stars and thought about the gods alone knew what.
"Tollmuller," Vaught called out from the taproom. Tollmuller, who had been trying to sneak past the room unobserved, cursed inwardly. Then, with a sigh, he went to attend his guests.
"Good afternoon, menheer," he said. He wiped his meaty hands on his apron and nodded to the witch hunters who had gathered here. There were only three of them. Tollmuller, ever the optimist, wondered if that meant that the others had left.
"You gentlemen are looking very well rested," he said. "I suppose you'll be leaving with your friends today. We'll certainly miss such illustrious company."
Vaught shook his head.
"Our comrades will be back tonight. None of us will leave until we find out where our quarry has gone."
"Oh." The innkeeper tried to keep the disappointment off his face.
"In fact, that is why I want to speak to you, Tollmuller. Here, come and sit down by the fire."
Once more, the innkeeper wiped his hands on his apron. Then he swallowed and took a seat, although not the one that Vaught had indicated. In the past, the fireplace had been the cheery heart of the inn. Now, though, with the witch hunters' implements glowing within it, cheery was the last thing it was.
No wonder he was losing all of his custom.
"Well, Menheer Vaught, I can see your problem. The crossroads here mean that he could be anywhere by now, and if you don't leave soon the snows will keep you here all winter."
It was a horrible thought, and for a moment, it made Tollmuller even more miserable than the sight of the figure that was tending the fire, but only for a moment.
One of the witch hunters' irons, he noted, ended in a spiral. He tried to tell himself that it had been designed as a corkscrew.
"Don't worry," Vaught said, seeing the expression on his face. "We have enough coin to pay our way. Our only problem is that you aren't being as cooperative as you might be."
Another of the witch hunters shifted, strolling over to casually block the door. The man by the fire lifted an iron, checked the dull red of the tip, and then returned it to the flames and started working a bellows.
Tollmuller started to sweat.
"Not cooperative?" he whined, and tore his eyes away from the fire. "I don't know what you mean, menheer. I'm sure that if there's anything you need we'll find it for you. More blankets, perhaps?"
Vaught glared at him.
"Last night, you told a group of muleteers that we were staying here."
Tollmuller tried to look innocent. It wasn't easy.
"Well, yes, I might have mentioned it." He shifted uneasily. "But what of it?"
"After you told them, they rode on. They didn't come into the inn, which meant that we couldn't question them."
Tollmuller twisted his apron into a tight little ball.
"They... I... They were in a hurry. That's why they didn't come in."
"One of my men heard you tell them that witch hunters were staying in the inn, and you aren't a fool. You know how superstitious people are about our profession, especially those with something to hide."
"One of your men heard me? But I didn't see..."
"I know," Vaught snapped. He leapt to his feet and stalked over to where the innkeeper sat.
"Menheer Tollmuller," Vaught said, looming over him, "from now on you will tell nobody that we are here. Your guests will come. We will question them. You will not interfere. Is that understood?"
Despite the fact that he was surrounded by professional killers, Tollmuller's fear was suddenly overcome by wounded pride. This really was too much. After all, he was the innkeeper, as his father and his father's father had been before him, and to be an innkeeper in the depths of this vast forest was a position worthy of respect. His high stone walls and thick oak gates made him castellan as much as merchant, and he had fought his own share of battles over the years.
"If you don't like the service, gentlemen, then you are welcome to leave."
In the sudden silence that followed his challenge, Tollmuller couldn't quite believe what he had said.
Nor could he believe it when the witch hunters burst into laughter. Even their captain, a man who seemed incapable of joy, managed a painful smile.
"You have the heart of an honest man, innkeeper." He slapped Tollmuller's shoulder, "Although you talk too much. It would pain me to have to treat you as a traitor to the Emperor, but if you warn travellers of our presence again," the humour left his eyes as suddenly as it had come, "I will have no choice. Do you understand this?"
"Yes," Tollmuller nodded.
"Good. Now then, we'll say no more about it."
The innkeeper realised he had been dismissed. He got to his feet and stomped out of the room.
Curse all witch hunters, he thought as he made his way down to the cellar. No wonder he was losing so much trade. They had been here for three days; long enough for news of their unwelcome presence to have spread along the four roads that met beneath his gates, and long enough to have lost him a week's worth of custom.
Now if they'd been road wardens, that would have been different. In fact, road wardens stayed for free. They gave the clientele a sense of security. But who wanted to stay in an inn full of professional torturers?
Tollmuller grunted with disgust as he realised that the barrel of wine he'd meant to change was still half full. If old Heffner and his muleteers had stayed last night they would have finished it already.
"Curse 'em all," Tollmuller muttered.
In fact, he decided as he stomped back upstairs, the only things worse than witch hunters were wizards.
He was still muttering under his breath when the bell that hung over the gates started clanging. Cheered by the thought of some custom, he hurried to welcome his new guests.
Titus sat in the darkness of his room. His bulky frame dwarfed the chair he had chosen, and his falling robes hung down to the floor beneath it. When he had first sat down, the joints had squeaked most alarmingly. Now, though, he was sitting as still as water turned to ice, as immobile as a gargoyle's grin; as patiently as a spider in a web.
Even his breath had slowed. He was inhaling no more than once a minute, and the rise and fall of his chest had become as imperceptible as the movement of tectonic plates. The only sign of life was the movement of his hands. They flitted like albino bats in the darkness, flexing and tapping with a mute eloquence.
Still, Titus was not inactive, far from it. The concentration this effort had cost him dampened the cloth of his robes, and sent rivulets of sweat trickling down his back. No trapeze artist could have matched his iron composure as, lips moving in silent incantation, Titus wove the spell.
There it was, finally, that first tug on his consciousness. It was as insistent and as fleeting as the wind beneath a kite, and it held the same promise of borrowed power.
Ignoring the surge of elation he felt, Titus concentrated on his art. His fingers maintained their pace, and his lips continued to form the same unspoken words. For a while, it seemed that his moment had past, and that these hours of effort had all been in vain, but as soon as the thought left him the conjuration flared into life.
With a feeling of impossible lightness, he opened his eyes to find the darkness gone and the world lit from within. The floorboards glowed as gorgeously as if they'd been polished with honey, and the walls were warm with the kiln spirit of the bricks.
Titus ascended towards the ceiling, marvelling as always at the beauty of this other world. He looked down to where his physical form remained, the beat of its heart and the pulse of its blood a symphony of life.
Then, tearing himself away from this contemplation, he drifted through the dozen tiny panes of the window. The brush of them against his new form was as bracing as a dash of ice cold water, and he felt even more invigorated as he hovered above the world outside.
The night time forest was no longer dark. Crescendos of life throbbed through the trees, and the world around them glowed with a thousand vibrant colours. Above, stars shone with a fire that no ordinary man would ever see. No icy pinpricks these, but gems of white fire that seemed ripe for the plucking. Between them, brighter than any borealis, the winds of magic blew down from the north.
Titus basked in the splendour like a lizard in the sun. It was only with an effort of will that he managed to bring himself back to the task in hand.
It didn't take long. Amongst the ethereal brightness of this otherworld, the darkness of Grendel's path was as clear as a fire in the night. It sliced along the road, a thread of nothingness through the river of energy left by countless travellers.
Titus hovered above the trail for a moment, studying the shape of Grendel's flight. He would be leaving his own trail behind, he knew. Not that that mattered. After all, he was the hunter, not the hunted.
With that happy thought, the magician floated up and then forwards, flying along the road with the speed and the ease of a diving hawk.
Even so, it took him a while to find the errant wizard. No doubt driven on by panic, he had made good time. Titus studied him from a thousand feet above, noting the drained quality of the sleeping form.
With a sudden rush of excitement, he realised that this was his chance. He had assumed that he would have to catch up with Grendel in the flesh before daring battle---without wearing his own flesh and blood, Titus retained only a sliver of his power.
The more he studied the grey shape beneath him, the more certain he became that a sliver of his power would be sufficient. Grendel was drained, little remaining of his energy but for cooling embers. He was also completely unaware.
Titus bit back a sudden pang of conscience and began making his preparations. He wouldn't try anything complicated, just a physical death, he decided as he began to flex the images of his fingers: a creeping death for a running man.
It was as well that, for once, Titus had restrained his ambition. As he started to weave the spell, he could feel the lonely pull of his flesh and bone. The air eddied around his floating form, and the world around him started to spin as his concentration was stretched to near breaking point.
Finally, he was ready to strike. At least, as ready as he was going to be. He mouthed the last few syllables, drew back his arms and... and paused.
He and Grendel were no longer alone. Whilst Titus had struggled to juggle two spells at once, a pack of figures had emerged from the world below.
It was difficult to see exactly what they were. The energy that warped through them was a sickly green. Of all that he had seen so far tonight, they were the only things that were repulsive to behold. Titus almost thought that he could smell them, although of course, that was impossible.
What did it matter what they were? The power of the unleashed spell was burning his fingertips as his target lay below. He raised his hands to strike, and in that instant there came agony. He screamed as the world blurred around him, the symphony of colour exploding into a thousand stabs of pain. For a moment, he became aware of something moving in the north, something hungry.
Before it could reach him, he was falling from his chair onto the grubby floorboards of his unlit room. He didn't realise that he was still screaming until the door burst open and Kerr appeared, lantern in one hand and dagger in the other.
"Are you alright?" he asked, glancing fearfully around the room.
"Yes," Titus lied, hoisting himself to his feet and staggering over to the bed, "just a bit... a bit sick."
"You look it," Kerr said, coming closer.
Titus held up his hand to shield his eyes from the light. Sweat glistened on the palm.
"I'll be all right," he said, and took a long, shuddering breath. Then he squared his shoulders. Magic was no art for the faint hearted; it took cunning and strength. It also took bravery.
"Can I get you something?" Kerr asked, lowering the lantern. For the first time, Titus saw the dagger that gleamed in his other hand. It was no more than a pocketknife, really, not even long enough to cut a loaf of bread. Still, it had been weapon enough for Kerr as he had rushed to battle the unknown.
"Food," Titus said, his pulse beginning to slow, "and wine... and Kerr?"
"Yes, boss?"
"You did well to come so quickly. In fact, you always do well don't you? Tomorrow we should talk, you and I, about your future."
"Oh, well, thank you."
"In the mean time," Titus continued, already regaining his composure, "off to the kitchens with you. I can't remember the last time I had such an appetite."
When he had gone, the wizard let his head fall to his hands and sighed ruefully. This wasn't the first time he had skated over the brink of catastrophe, nor would it be the last. Thank Sigmar, he decided, deliberately turning his thoughts from the subject, for the gift of gluttony.
There's nothing like meat and wine to comfort a man after a night like this.
He slapped the great mound of his stomach appreciatively and licked his lips.
Peik paced up and down the tap room, his boot heels drumming out his agitation.
Vaught and old Fargo watched him. They sympathised with his frustration. All true witch hunters were cursed with it. Even so, theirs was a world of necessary evils, and discipline had to be maintained.
"I just don't see how it can be right," Peik said, waving a hand up towards the ceiling.
"The Emperor has his reasons," Fargo said.
"And so do our own superiors," Vaught added.
"Politics." Peik spat the word as if it was poison.
"Be careful, lad." Vaught's sympathy evaporated. "You are coming dangerously close to disrespecting our order, and, through our order, Holy Sigmar himself."
The younger man was immediately contrite.
"I apologise. Obviously our masters know best. Even so, I find it difficult to bear the stink of sorcery."
Fargo grunted with amusement.
"You could bear it well enough before you found out he was a wizard. Try not to get so worked up. If he's a member of the college then we can't touch him. He might even be useful. Nobody seems to have seen our quarry. Maybe he can tell us which road to take."
Vaught frowned.
"Sorcery is an abomination," he decided, "but I think you might be right. Every hour we waste here hurts more than a week in the saddle."
Vaught seized an iron at the thought of sorcery and jabbed it into the fire. A burning log burst asunder and sparks filled the air. He sighed.
"We will give our pickets until noon. If they haven't gleaned any information by then, we will ask."
Peik looked as if his two comrades had just sprouted horns. "We will ask a wizard for advice?" He was incredulous. "But how do you know... Well, he could be our quarry. Magicians know well how to warp the appearance of things."
"Come now," Fargo said. "You saw what the man wanted for breakfast. Does he look like a necromancer to you? Anyway, it's unlikely that a man on the run would have allowed his servant to announce his profession to witch hunters."
"He did look worn out," Peik said, a desperate gleam in his eye, "maybe from dealing with the Dark Powers. Maybe telling us that he's a wizard is a double bluff. You know, like that butcher in Rope Street."
"Fargo is right," Vaught decided. "We will question the wizard before he leaves."
Peik looked hopefully at the torture implements that they had left on display. The sight of them had loosened many a reticent tongue since they had arrived, although to no effect. Grendel's trail of exhausted horses and cheated horse traders had ended here, at the last outpost before the deep forest.
"Do you want me to question him?" Peik volunteered, but Vaught distrusted his eagerness.
"Not that sort of questioning," he said.
Peik looked disappointed.
"Don't worry, lad," Fargo told him. "You'll get through your share of the damned, in time."
Peik looked at him, wide-eyed. Fargo saw something suspiciously like fear through the veil of the younger man's fanaticism, and wondered what had made him join their profession. He came from a wealthy family; he could have done anything.
"Anyway, your enthusiasm does you great credit, lad. Doesn't it, captain?"
"He is worthy of our mark," Vaught said, "as are all of our troop."
Fargo winked at Peik. "I remember when I was your age," he said. "I thought I was going to save the world."
"But we have to," Peik said, his voice almost a plea. "Without us, Chaos will spread like a cancer across Sigmar's lands!"
Fargo looked at him, taken aback. It was Vaught who broke the silence.
"All you have to do," he told Peik, "is your duty, and if the Emperor says that your duty is to spare his pet wizards, then so be it. Anyway, come on, we might as well do it now. Let's go and talk to the gods' cursed thing."
Fargo spat into the fire and let Peik and the captain lead the way upstairs. The wizard's servant had already told them which room his master was staying in. Fargo smiled as he remembered how closely Peik had questioned him about its dimensions, doorways and windows.
No wonder he had been so disappointed to learn that there would be no assault.
He also looked disappointed when, instead of axeing through the door, Vaught knocked on it. There was a grunt from within, and Peik dropped a hand to his cutlass. Fargo lifted it off and shook his head.
"We are in the Emperor's service," Vaught said, his voice as sharp as a headsman's axe. "We want to speak with Menheer Titus."
"The Emperor's service?" a voice bellowed back. "And how exactly do you service the Emperor out here in the wilderness?"
Vaught and Fargo exchanged a glance. The captain pursed his lips, and then decided that they could afford honesty. After all, where was there for the man to run to?
"We are witch hunters," he answered.
It was a declaration that would have chilled the hearts of most men, even the most innocent, but the wizard's only response was irritation.
"Sod off, then," he rumbled. "There are no witches here, just a grey wizard trying to sleep."
For a moment, Vaught was too surprised to reply. Then he scowled and banged on the door again, as hard as if it had been the occupant's head.
"You have nothing to fear if you are an honest man," he said, falling back on the usual routine.
"Ha!" The reply was followed by what sounded like the squeak of bedsprings. "What I fear is that you'll carry on scratching at the door until I let you in. Damned cheek."
The voice muttered on, becoming ever more distinct, and finally the door was pulled open. It made a perfect frame for Titus; the rolling expanse of his linen-clothed bulk and the tangled mass of his beard just about fitted into it. "Well? What do you want?"
Vaught gazed at him, stony faced. Although Titus was big, Vaught was bigger, and he stepped forwards so that he could look down at the fat man.
"Why didn't you come to see me?" he demanded. "Didn't the innkeeper tell you that all guests are to report to me or my subordinates on their arrival?"
Titus grunted with amusement.
"Don't be a fool. You servants can sort yourselves out without disturbing me."
"We are hardly servants," Peik snapped. Vaught turned to glare at him, not looking away until the apprentice had started to sweat.
"I can only apologise for my colleague," Vaught said, his words as smooth as a sword being drawn from a scabbard, "but we have had a tiring time of late. The fact is, we have been looking for a wizard, a wizard of the Grey Order. We have orders..." Vaught paused with the anticipation of a man about to play an ace, "...to visit Sigmar's justice upon him."
"Well if I were him I'd hardly be concerned about that," Titus sneered. "If you are content to waste time disturbing my sleep, I doubt if he has much to fear. He's probably in Praag already."
"So," Vaught spoke slowly, "Praag. You do know where this man is heading. Being from the same order, you are a friend of his, I suppose?"
There was a serpent's hiss as Peik drew his sword. This time Fargo didn't stop him. He was too busy drawing the string of his crossbow.
Titus looked at them, amusement twinkling in his eyes.
"If you are trying to implicate me in that idiot's crimes, then you're an even bigger fool than I took you for, and if you think that I, a master of the Grey College, have any fear of your peasant's tools, you are insane."
Fargo lifted the crossbow so that the bolt was centred on the fat man's forehead. Peik lowered the point of his blade for a disembowelling thrust.
Only Vaught seemed unconcerned by the wizard's words. His face remained as still as porcelain, and his voice was low. "There is no need to be impolite," he told the wizard. "After all, you'll admit that it seems a coincidence to find you here. Two masters of the same craft, on the same stretch of road, just after the same incident."
"Grendel was no master," Titus snorted. Somehow it was difficult to remain annoyed at this captain. Although he had the scars and harness of a warrior, he lacked any of the usual quarrelsome passion. Trying to stay angry with him was like trying to stay angry with a piece of wood.
"So you did know this Grendel, then." Vaught nodded, as if in sympathy.
"Not really," Titus shrugged. "I'd seen him from time to time; heard his name mentioned. He didn't have much imagination, that was his trouble. It made it all the more surprising the way he went bad."
"The quiet ones are always the worst," Fargo said, and lowered the crossbow.
"Not for much longer," Titus told him. "The college has ordered me to revoke his licence."
"It's already been revoked," Vaught said. "That's why we're after him."
Titus studied the man. For a moment, he considered suggesting an alliance, but only for a moment. After all, he was Titus Braha, wizard of the Grey College. It wouldn't do to be seen with these vagabonds.
"No," he decided out loud. "No, my task is to permanently revoke it."
Vaught nodded.
"Might I ask how you know that this Grendel creature is going to Praag?"
"No," Titus shook his head, "you may not, but he is, so if you want him, you'd better hurry up."
With that, the wizard slammed the door. Vaught thought about knocking again, but decided against it. The creature's words had had the ring of truth to them, and they had wasted enough time already.
"Well then," he said, turning to the other two. "Praag it is."
They turned to go, when Titus' door opened once more.
"Hoi, scarecrow."
Vaught turned back.
"There are some things in the woods ahead, dangerous things. Keep an eye out for them."
The witch hunter nodded stiffly.
"Thank you," he said, and hurried to round up the men.
Grendel had resigned himself to another night spent shivering amongst the roots of the forest. Although his horse was so exhausted it could barely stand, he tied it to a tree trunk anyway. Then, after checking the knot, he wandered a little way off. He spent a few minutes looking for somewhere comfortable before giving up, wrapping himself in his cloak, and collapsing onto the ground.
As the sweat dried on him and the cold sharpened, he considered lighting a fire. It didn't take him long to reject the idea. Apart from the effort it would take, there was no way of knowing what the bright warmth of a fire might bring. In the endless vaults of this dark forest it would certainly be more than moths.
So instead, he curled up into a miserable ball, and comforted himself by brooding over the injustice of his plight. The memory of the disaster that had brought him here was like a bone in his throat, a constant nagging discomfort that he could never quite forget.
He had had no idea, no idea at all. He had thought that the agony, and the blood that wept from his eyes, had been the result of a simple miscast. Only when the arch magister woke him from his stupor did he begin to understand what he had done.
Grendel allowed himself a single sob and decided to think about his hunger instead.
In the past, he had never given much thought to food. Whenever hunger had driven him from his studies he had just sent down to the kitchens. Night or day, all that was required was a word from him and laden platters had appeared, their provenance as mysterious to him as his own work was to the chef.
Things outside the college weren't so easy. All he had eaten in the past week had been a loaf of bread, some salt fish, and a hatful of small green apples that had made him sick. If Grendel had been gaunt before his flight he was emaciated now.
The thought dampened his bony cheeks with cold tears of self pity. They didn't stop until he had ached and shivered his way into something resembling sleep.
Grendel awoke with a rush of complete disorientation. For one hysterical moment, he thought that he had been struck blind, but then he saw the faintest glimmer of grey light above and remembered where he was. The reason he could see nothing was not that he'd been struck blind, but that his exile had led him to this horrible place.
The realisation didn't come as much of a relief.
He blinked and tried not to think about the nightmare he had been having. At first, he thought that it was a horrible dream that had awoken him. Then his horse whinnied again and he realised that the beast's disquiet must have broken his troubled rest.
"Hush," he muttered, and then cursed the animal. He would never get back to sleep, and it couldn't be much past midnight.
Even if the horse heard the command, it paid it no heed. As Grendel tried to rub some feeling back into his freezing ears, it whinnied again. It was louder this time, and for the first time, the wizard heard the fear in it.
No, no, something more than fear, he decided. It was more like terror.
Grendel's pulse exploded as panic flooded through him. If only he wasn't alone, so terribly, terribly alone.
Blinking in the darkness, he rose shakily to his feet and clenched his jaw to stop his chattering teeth. He couldn't see, even as far as his own feet. There was a flash of movement that could have been the horse, a tiny halo of half-seen foliage around a gap in the forest canopy above, and that was all.
Although Grendel couldn't see what had spooked his horse, he could certainly smell it. He was amazed that he hadn't noticed it before. The stink was acrid enough to cut though the scent of oak leaves and rotten mulch. It was something he had never experienced before, but even so the hairs rose on the back of his neck.
He tried to tell himself that it was a herd of goats that he could smell. He tried to tell himself that that was what he could hear rustling through the undergrowth, oh so cautiously.
His horse began to scream.
Grendel felt an answering scream trying to escape from his own bony chest, and for one awful moment, he thought that he wouldn't be able to hold it in.
He didn't scream, though, and neither did he run. Even now, trembling with the adrenaline that coursed through his wasted body, he managed to compose himself. He was, after all, a wizard of the Grey College.
The horse's scream spiralled upwards until it was sharper than broken glass. There was something horribly human about the emotion in the cry, and it was almost a relief when it ended with a meaty thud.
Grendel paid no heed as the soggy sounds of tearing flesh replaced the horse's cry. As for the copper scent of fresh blood that mingled with the stink of the unseen predators, he didn't even notice it; he was too busy concentrating.
A moment later, the first of the beasts stalked past him, its nose wrinkling with suspicion. It snuffled around him, sometimes so close that Grendel could almost feel the heat of its massive body. Again, that treacherous scream rose up in his throat. Again, he fought it down.
After what could have been a lifetime, the shapeless thing stopped its prowling around and lumbered towards the wizard. It loomed over him, its unseen bulk blocking out even the grey patch of light above, and it grunted a series of low, wordless sounds.
Grendel remained as frozen as a rat caught in a cobra's gaze. A trickle of urine flowed unnoticed down the inside of one scrawny thigh, and he started to feel dizzy from the effort of controlling his breath.
Then the thing was moving again. Perhaps deciding that there was nothing here, but for a particularly stunted tree, it turned back to fight for its share of the feast. A few minutes later, the wizard could hear a sudden snarl and the crunch of splintering bone.
By the time morning came, Grendel was numb. His shattered nerves and the agonising cold of the night had left him feeling as dead as his horse.
There was no sign of its carcass. Long after the sounds of dismemberment had ended, and long after the light had chased the last of the night into the shadows, the fugitive had staggered over to where his mount had been. There was nothing left of it. Even the scrap of rope that he'd used as a bridle had been chewed.
Too exhausted to think, Grendel had stumbled back onto the road. It stretched emptily away in both directions, fading away into a forest that might just as well have been endless. Starving and alone, the wizard couldn't even remember which direction he'd been travelling in.
He sat down on a boulder by the side of the road, and dropped his head into his hands. After a while, he started to giggle, and then he wept. When he ran out of tears, he slipped into a mindless daze that was almost sleep.
It was afternoon when he awoke. His head throbbed like a broken bone and his mouth was so dry that he could barely peel his tongue from the roof of his mouth.
For a while, he thought about just lying down and dying. By nightfall, all of his problems could be over, vanishing like dust into the immensity of this wilderness.
It was an appealing idea, but one that Grendel knew he would never succumb to. Even now, when there was nothing left of him but despair, the instinct to live still coursed through him, burning within his frail chest like a lantern left in a sinking ship. So he got to his feet, chose a direction, and started staggering down the road.
Above him, the first of the ravens had started to circle.
The galloping hoofs of the carriage team drummed through the hard packed earth of the road. Grendel could feel them through the worn soles of his shoes. He could hear them too, although the sound meant nothing to him. He had long since retreated into the soft grey world of his own collapse.
It was painful in this world, and frightening, but it was nowhere near as bad as the real one. In the real one, his feet were bleeding from a cluster of popped blisters, and his muscles ached with a thousand bruises and strains.
Then there was the thirst. It had gripped him in a fever of desire that was almost a madness. The inside of his mouth was torn from where he'd chewed at it. Even the coppery taste of his own blood had become a relief from the sealed throat.
The worst thing in the world, he'd decided, was thirst, and the best was water: water in clay pots, cool and refreshing, water in crystal, fizzing with sherbet, hot water, steeped with herbs, even water from a puddle would have done. Although it had poured with rain only days before, the forest was now as parched as a desert.
Grendel was beyond the appreciation of such ironies. Even the possibility of rescue couldn't cut through his stupor. The beat of the horses' hoofs filled him with nothing but fantasies of hailstorms, delicious with ice, and the squeak of the harness reminded him of nothing but the sound of corks being pulled from bottles.
His lips, dry as leather, pulled back into a crazed grin at these dreams. From somewhere deep in the back of his throat there came a gurgling sound.
Grendel was still laughing when the shadow of the carriage fell upon him. He carried on walking, oblivious to the cries of the coachman, and would have marched the last few miles to his death had the carriage not pulled up in front of him.
It had barely stopped when a gilded door was flung open and the passenger emerged. He was beautiful. The immaculately shaved lines of his face looked like the work of a sculptor, and although he had the jaded look of middle age, his skin was as smooth as a child's.
Even when his nose wrinkled in distaste, he still looked sublime, his sneer as coldly perfect as a crescent moon.
Leaping easily down from the carriage's running board, the man took a step towards the wizard. He wore tunic and hose beneath a flowing cloak, and the clothes revealed the immaculate proportions of his body, just as the diamonds that twinkled in his ears reflected the lustre of his flawless skin.
For the first time, Grendel realised that he was no longer alone. He staggered to a halt no more than a foot away from the man, and held out a filthy hand to touch him.
"Are you real?" he whispered, the words painful in his parched mouth.
The traveller looked down and smiled, the expression as joyful as the rising of the sun.
"I certainly am," he said in a smooth baritone, "and you seem to be real, too. Although," he added with a twinkle in his eye, "only just!"
He laughed at his own joke.
"Water," Grendel begged, scrabbling at the fine cloth of the man's tunic. "Please, do you have any water?"
Before he replied, the traveller reached down, gripped Grendel's bony wrist between thumb and forefinger, and prised the shaking hand off his clothes.
"Yes, I have water," he nodded, pushing Grendel away before wiping his fingers on his cloak, "gallons of it, but it's for the man I have come to meet."
Grendel's eyes flared with the desperation of a rabid dog. The traveller decided to stop toying with him.
"I am looking for a man called Grendel," he said, studying the emotions that twitched across the wizard's face. "A friend of mine said that he had been wronged, and that I was to offer him my help."
"I am Grendel," the wizard said, all caution gone.
"Yes, I was afraid that you might be."
"Then you will give me the water?"
"Yes, but first, I have to ask you something."
"What?"
"What is the name of your master?"
Grendel looked at him in painful confusion.
"I have no master," he rasped, "not anymore."
"Yes you do. Don't be coy. We are all friends here."
Understanding dawned in Grendel's bloodshot eyes.
"What is your name?" he asked, his voice no more than a whisper.
"Count Otto Zhukovsky," the traveller said, and bowed.
"Then you are my master?" Grendel offered.
Once again the count laughed. The sound was perhaps the only ugly thing about him. It was as harsh as a seagull's caw.
"No, thank you for the offer, but you are wrong. I'm sorry to have bothered you, old man. I must have made a mistake."
He turned to go, and panic flared in Grendel's bony chest.
"Wait," he hissed, "I cannot think. Please tell me who my master is."
The count turned back to him. He studied the soft hands and the rags that had once been robes. He saw the signs of true dehydration, too, which any child knew could've been helped by chewing the blue fronds that grew everywhere here.
"Very well, Menheer Grendel, I will tell you, and you will tell me if I am right. Your master is my master. Isn't that so?"
Grendel's eyes bulged, and he took a step back. His cracked lips moved, but no sound came out.
The count watched his suffering with some amusement.
"The water I have," he said, "is in a cool earthenware pot, a big one, but it is only for the servants of my master, greatest of all the gods, Lord of Pleasure. Are you his servant too?"
For a moment, Grendel balanced on the brink of his decision. Or, maybe he only thought that he did, maybe his decision had been made long, long ago.
"Yes," he hissed.
He didn't try to tell himself that a single word couldn't be binding. He was too much the wizard for such foolishness. When he spoke, he spoke in the knowledge that words such as these were the truth: always the truth.
"Yes, he is my master too," Grendel said, a sudden bitterness seizing him, "and why not? In all the world, he is the only one to have helped me."
"Well said, brother." The count nodded to his coachman, who leapt down from his bench. He held a jug in his hand. It sloshed, the most beautiful sound that Grendel had ever heard, and when the coachman handed it over it was just as cool as promised.
Hugging the jar between his spindly arms, the wizard drew the cork out with his teeth. Water glittered inside, and an animal whimper of pleasure escaped his parched lips.
"To our lord," the count prompted him.
"To our lord," Grendel repeated. Then he lifted the jar to his lips, and drank.
The sensation was beyond pleasure. It was nearer to pain. The first taste of water on his leathery tongue pierced the numbness of his condition, and even as he drank, the thirst grew into a daemon that he felt barely able to contain.
Tears ran down his cheeks, blood instead of precious water, and he gulped down pint after pint.
The thirst didn't start to leave him until he had fallen to his knees and vomited up what he had drunk too fast.
When he had finished doing that, the coachman handed him a leather water skin. Grendel took it and drank again. This time, the water was warm and tasted of tannin, but at least he managed to keep it down. When he had finished, he looked up at his rescuer, ashamed at his greed.
The count was smiling.
"Come, brother," he said, helping the sorcerer to his feet. "Ride with me to Praag. It is a long way, but I am sure that you have much to tell me."
"Yes," Grendel said. "I will tell you whatever you want."
As the carriage turned around and headed back to the north, that is exactly what he did.
The witch hunters rode with the wild joy of the unleashed. Their nerves had been stretched as taut as bowstrings during the wasted days at the inn, and they galloped for the sense of release as much as anything.
Vaught led the column. His hood billowed out behind him, and the autumnal breeze chilled his shaved head even as it made his scars burn. Together with the sting of tears in his eyes and the strain of staying astride his galloping horse, it was a fine sensation. It was good to be alive, good to be doing what his god had made him to do.
Usually, he would have avoided using his horses and men so hard. Only a fool arrived at a battle exhausted, but he knew that the wizard must be days ahead of them. There would be enough time for rest at night, he'd decided. Until then, all they needed was speed.
The branches of the trees whipped past above him, and the foliage on either side of the road blurred. He didn't stand a chance of spotting the rope that had been stretched across the road.
The first the column knew of the primitive trap was when Vaught's horse tripped and fell, hurtling forwards onto the rutted earth.
The witch hunter snatched his feet from the stirrups as the horse collapsed beneath him, and vaulted from the saddle before it could catch him beneath its weight. He hit the ground hard, the smack of the impact driving the air out of him in a sickening rush, and rolled away from the thrashing hoofs.
Blinking tears from his eyes, the witch hunter struggled to his feet, staggered to one side, and then fell again. He looked down in time to see the rope that had tripped him.
It stretched across the track, as thick as his wrist and as strong as any hawser. Before he could shout a warning, the rest of the troop was upon it. The screaming of horses and the cries from his men ended in the thud of more bodies hitting the ground. There was a snap as loud as a firecracker, and a horse started screaming with the pain of a broken leg.
Vaught drew his sword and looked at the confusion into which his galloping column had fallen. At least five horses were down. Three were struggling back to their feet, whilst the fourth lay writhing on the ground. Some of the riders dodged amongst them, grabbing at bridles before they could bolt. Others remained where they had fallen.
The rest of the column had shuddered to a halt. They milled around in confusion. Vaught opened his mouth to shout for a remount when he noticed the stink that pervaded this part of the forest.
It was as sharp as an Altdorfian sewer, and as sweet as rotten fish. It greased the air so thickly that Vaught, already winded, felt a fist of nausea clench inside his stomach.
He was still fighting the urge to vomit when Peik shouted the first warning.
"To the left!" he yelled, his voice breaking. "To the left!"
Vaught followed the sword that the young man was waving towards the darkness of the forest. At first, he could see nothing, but that didn't matter. He didn't have to see anything. He could hear the unseen enemy as, with the sudden speed of an avalanche, they stampeded from out of the depths of the forest.
Vaught, his discomfort forgotten, vaulted into the empty saddle of somebody else's horse and called his men to order.
"Face left," he bellowed at them. They turned as neatly as if this rutted track had been a parade ground. Vaught turned to the nearest of them.
"Cut that rope," he said, pointing to the hawser that had been stretched across the road.
"Yes, captain," the man said, and drew a knife.
The noise of the approaching enemy had grown to a storm of thundering hooves and crashing branches. Birds rose screeching above the forest canopy, their panicked flight marking the extent of the enemies' line.
"Rope's cut, captain," a voice shouted.
"Good," Vaught said, eyes narrowing as he peered into the darkness that lay between the trees.
"Shall we withdraw?"
Back in the saddle, steel drawn and his face to the enemy, Vaught hadn't even considered the option. Now he did. Their mission was more important than dealing with forest bandits. What price a few brigands' scalps compared to a wizard's head?
Before he could make a decision, the first of the attackers appeared from between the trees. At the sight of them, all thoughts of retreat vanished from Vaught's mind. There could be no running, no compromise or withdrawal.
There could be no conclusion at all, except complete annihilation.
The horrors that were erupting from the tangled forest were no mere bandits. They were something infinitely worse. Their forms were a grim parody of the human, but there was no humanity about them.
Nor was there the honest appearance of true animals. Although their faces were as thickly snouted as those of bulls, no bulls Vaught had ever seen sported such fangs. Neither did true animals run on two legs, or have eyes that glimmered with such an insane intelligence.
And no animals, Vaught decided, had ever stunk of such abomination.
For a moment, he was blinded with rage at the blasphemy of their very existence. Shaking the emotion off, he turned to his men, listening to their muttered curses and whispered prayers. Here and there, a horse whinnied with fear, and the riders shifted uneasily.
"Wait for my signal," Vaught snarled, and turned his attention back to the nearest of the things. Despite the undergrowth, it was charging forwards at an incredible speed, the massive axe it bore slashing through any obstructions it couldn't vault.
Vaught had no doubt that this monstrosity was their leader. The spread of its horns was wider than his own chest, and when it threw back its head to roar its challenge even the trees shook.
Then, with a sound that was as chilling as the snap of a hangman's noose, the cry was answered from behind the witch hunters.
Vaught turned in time to see the second wave closing in from their rear, and from the corner of his eye he could see more dark shapes pouring onto the road ahead to block their escape.
So many, he thought with something approaching awe, such an enemy.
"Company ready," he cried, pointing towards the forest with his sword.
In the gloom, there were roots that threatened to break their horses' legs, branches that jutted out as thickly as pikes, potholes and shale.
So be it, Vaught decided, if the enemy had left a weak point in their encirclement, then it would be here.
If they hadn't, it made no difference anyway.
"For Sigmar." The cry tore itself from his chest and, with a snarl that was almost a grin, he drove his heels into his horse's flank and thundered into the slaughter.
Kerr had been sorry to see the witch hunters gallop away. Of course, after a lifetime spent in Altdorf's gutters, he hated them on general principles. Too many of his acquaintances had sizzled on bonfires for him to trust Sigmar's fanatics: too many of his acquaintances, and few enough of the fat burghers who paid the witch hunters' wages.
Even so, he missed the grim faced men. In this vast wilderness, their brutal pragmatism didn't seem so unreasonable, and after what Titus had done to the bandits, neither did their loathing of magic.
As the carriage creaked along the forest path, Kerr considered the practice of such magic. He considered it carefully. It was something that he had been doing ever since the wizard had made his offer. And what an offer it had been.
Kerr was deep in thought when the first sounds of battle cut through his reverie.
He brought the carriage to a halt and stood, listening to the confused rumours of galloping hoofs and pain-filled cries that came from the road ahead.
"What is it?"
Titus' voice was loud enough to make Kerr jump.
"Don't know, boss," he replied, sitting back down and gesturing ahead, "something down the road. I can hear something."
Titus pulled his head back in the window and a moment later stepped out onto the track. He stood there in silence, his head to one side as he listened.
A particularly shrill scream drifted through the forest, and the fat man scowled.
"This is most inconvenient," he decided.
"You don't think that the witch hunters have found the necromancer, do you?" Kerr asked.
"I doubt it," Titus shook his head with such confidence that his jowls wobbled. "Not them. When all's said and done, the fool Grendel is still a wizard, trained in our art. Even weakened, he'd be more than a match for that bunch of thugs."
Kerr listened to the pride in his master's voice. He suddenly found himself wondering what would happen if the witch hunters had found Grendel. Whose side would he find himself on?
"Perhaps we should wait here," he suggested. "Wait until they're finished fighting, whoever they are."
A rumble that sounded more like the stampeding of cattle than the charge of horses vibrated through the soles of Titus' feet. He frowned, curiosity furrowing his brows.
"Whoever or whatever," he mused, "but no, we can't waste any more time. If we grind to a halt at every little disturbance, we'll never make it to Praag. We'll go on."
Kerr looked unhappy.
"You don't think we should wait?"
The wizard shook his head as he climbed back into the carriage.
"Don't worry," he said, worryingly. "If we run into any trouble I will protect you. It is a great thing indeed to be a wizard of the Grey College."
He gave Kerr a meaningful glance before clambering back up into the carriage. The horses, taking this as their signal, walked on.
Kerr's thoughts turned back to Titus' offer. Then he thought about dropping from the carriage and heading back to town.
Then he laughed bitterly.
What town was there to head back to? He wouldn't survive the night, alone and on foot, and even if he did survive, what life would await his return? Penniless, friendless, landless: only a fool would regard returning to that as escape, and Kerr was no fool.
"So, it's ever onwards," Kerr told the horses. "Ever onwards, and may Sigmar smile upon us."
His heart lifted with the decision, and he almost forgot himself enough to drive the carriage team into an unaccustomed trot.
He had decided to take Titus up on his offer after all.
Vaught's thighs burned with the effort of keeping his horse gripped between his knees. The beast leapt through the crowding trees with the elegance of a dancer, his iron shod hooves glistening red in the darkness.
"To me!" the witch hunter bellowed, turning back to examine the carnage he had left behind him. His shoulder was still numb from the blow with which he had decapitated the first of the abominations, and blood dripped from the wounds on his arms.
Compared to the fate that had befallen so many of his comrades, though, such injuries were nothing.
"To me!" he cried again, lifting his notched and bloodied sword above his head. It gleamed as red as Morrslieb in the forest gloom.
The remains of the enemy line, scattered between here and the road, looked at him uncertainly, but there was no uncertainty amongst the surviving witch hunters. They raced to gather around their captain. Some of them, their horses slaughtered by the foe or crippled by the tangled roots, had to run.
Behind them, they left four dead men, killed before the charge had broken the encirclement. Their tender flesh was already proving too great a temptation for the cursed folk of this place. The slithering, ripping sound of raw flesh being devoured already whispered through the undergrowth. The fact that it was still warm obviously added to its savour.
"Look at what they're doing!" Peik wailed. Despite the blood that dripped from his well-used sword, he sounded impossibly young, a child in a man's body.
"They will pay in time," Vaught told him. In truth, he was almost glad to see the unholy feast. The second wave of attackers had already reached the hungry ranks of their fellows, but instead of continuing the attack they had paused, eager to join the feasting.
Even as Vaught watched, a fight broke out between two of the creatures. In the resultant snarl of combat something was torn between their two sets of teeth; something that looked like an arm.
"Captain."
Vaught tore his eyes away from the spectacle and found Fargo beside him.
"What is it?"
"We should go. We have a mission to complete."
"What do you mean?" Peik interrupted, his voice high pitched with outrage. "Look at what they're doing to... to Karl. We have to avenge him."
There was a murmur of agreement.
"Well, whatever we're going to do, we have to do it soon," Fargo decided. "They'll have finished with the dead soon enough, and then it will be our turn."
"Only if Sigmar wills it," Peik exclaimed.
Vaught cut short their discussion. He had reached his decision.
"We will ride in a loop back to the road," he said. "The two dismounted men will ride with Bort and Gaspar, and Bort and Gaspar will lead the column. Fargo and I will form a rearguard, and be sure," he said as the dismounted men rolled up behind their comrades, "that after we have completed our mission we will return to avenge our comrades."
"Captain..." Peik began to complain, but the men were already trotting deeper into the forest, eager to be away from the stinking horde, which was already swarming behind them.
Praag sprawled out below him. Its streets were as tangled and knotted as intestines, and the buildings that glowered over them seemed grown rather than built. The only straight line was that of the wall, which was where the city ended with a geometric precision.
Things were different in Altdorf. There, the walls had merely hinted at the city limits. They certainly hadn't marked them. Shanty towns of hovels spread around those walls like rust around the edge of an abandoned shield, and farmsteads had cluttered the land beyond, mixed amongst the canal gates and the river houses.
Not so in Praag. Not a single dwelling stood outside the grim fastness of its dark stone walls. There wasn't even an inn for those who found themselves on the wrong side of the gates when curfew was called. This far north there was only that which lay within, and that which lay without.
For the first time in his life, Grendel was familiar with this concept. In the past, his world had been a confusion of ideas and practices, his art a kaleidoscope of disciplines that had nothing to do with right or wrong.
It was only on the road to Praag that he had learnt the truth that these walls symbolised. There was no confusion, no grey area. There were sides, and a man had to choose which one he was on.
The wizard shifted on the padded silk of his divan and glanced towards the flat horizon of the north. From his quarters in this tower, he could see for miles. Sometimes, on a clear day, he even fancied that he could see the curve of the world.
It was at night that the view was most spectacular. When the tangle of streets below had been devoured by darkness, the northern skies would glow, throbbing with every colour of a high summer's day. There was no shape to these silent skies full of colour, nor any predictability. Sometimes they would flare up every night for a week. At other times even the memory of them would fade.
The Kislevites called the northern lights the Inferno Borealis, but Grendel knew better. He had sailed on the winds of magic for long enough to know them when he saw them, and the fact that everyone could see them here tore him between terror and wonder. When magic blew so strong that even the herd could see it, then what might be possible?
He shuddered at the thought, and squirmed sensuously. There was no sense of caution at the thought of what might be, no reflexive cringe at the thought of what the arch magister might say; the iridescent light of his new master had already burnt such weakness away. A knock on the chamber door startled him from his reverie.
"Come in," he called, turning from the window to look across the luxuriously carpeted expanse of his eyrie. The door opened and a girl stepped through.
For a split second, Grendel's thoughts flashed back to the last time he had seen her. It had been during one of his experiments.
The wizard smiled and licked his lips.
"Greetings master," the girl said. Her head was lowered and her hands clasped in front of her, just as neatly as any other serving wench. She was well proportioned, too, a little well fed for a servant, perhaps, but apart from that indistinguishable from any other girl in the city. To look at her, nobody would have suspected her of anything more reprehensible than stealing from the kitchen.
"I am sorry to disturb you," she continued, eyes still downcast, "but the count requests your presence. He has asked me to bring you to another... another tryst."
"Already?" Grendel asked. He didn't know why he was so surprised. The harder Zhukovsky tried to satiate his desires, the stronger they grew. Even so, Grendel was impressed that the man had the energy.
Well, no matter. His new master would no doubt be grateful for the worship.
Or, if not grateful, then at least amused.
"Come, then," he told the girl, walking past her to close the door, "let us go and see the count."
So saying, he wrapped his new robes around him and led her over to one of the tapestries that dressed the stone walls. He pulled it back to reveal a low doorway and the descending steps of a spiralling staircase.
"Come on," he said, gesturing for the girl to follow. She lifted her eyes to study the entrance and, for the first time, Grendel could see the expression in them. For a moment, he wondered if it was joy or madness. Then he dismissed the question. After all, what did it matter?
There was neither candle nor window to light their way, so they moved slowly, descending blindly into the world that lay beneath the palace. As the muffled voices from the rooms beyond faded, and as the stone grew warm beneath their fingers, they began to rush.
By the time they had stumbled down the worn stone steps to the chamber that lay at the bottom, they were both breathing hard.
"There you are," Zhukovsky said. He was sprawled on a great expanse of white fur that covered the living stone of the cavern, the silk of his robes liquid in the torchlight. He rolled up onto his elbow the better to study the wizard and the girl. "How flushed you are. You weren't thinking of starting without me, were you?"
"No, lord," the girl assured him.
The harsh caw of the count's laughter echoed between the rough-hewn walls.
"No, I suppose not. Bony old stick isn't he?"
The girl giggled nervously.
With a flip that would have shamed an athlete, Zhukovsky leapt up from his position, landing on the balls of his feet. His robe slipped almost accidentally from his shoulders and he prowled towards the girl, as naked as a wolf.
"No, he is too dry for meat as tender as yours," the count smiled, although there was no humour in his eyes: no humour at all, only hunger.
"Disrobe," he told her, although as she started to fumble with her costume he looked past her at the wizard.
"Well then," exasperation edged his voice. "Start the preparations."
Grendel tore his eyes away from the perfection of the girl's flesh and swallowed. "If you are sure," he shrugged, "although it may perhaps be better to wait. Magic needs time to dissipate or it can become dangerous. Its effects can become permanent, and ruinous."
Zhukovsky sneered. He stretched his arms above his head, arced his back, and turned three perfect backwards somersaults. Then he vaulted back to where the now naked girl was standing, and spun her around.
"Nothing ruined so far," he jeered, and slapped the pear of her right buttock. She giggled again, the sound almost painfully shrill, and Grendel realised that yes, it had been madness that he had seen in her eyes before.
From somewhere in the back of his mind, a voice asked how it could have been anything else.
Pushing that dangerous thought away, he reached into the pouch he wore around his belt. He drew out a shapeless piece of candle, the tallow as yellow as butter in the lamp light, and a small pocket knife.
"Well, if you're sure," he told the count, opening the blade.
Instead of answering, the count merely seized the girl's hand in his own and stretched it out towards the wizard. Grendel, studiously ignoring the strange fascination of her breasts, stepped forwards and began his work.
First, he sliced the tip of the blade across the count's skin, and then hers. Blood, cherry red, welled up into two little jewels. Ignoring a whimper that could have come from either of them, Grendel rubbed the candle first in her blood and then in his.
Then he went back to the chair that had been placed by the door, sat down, and began to chant.
Count Zhukovsky, taking this as his cue, pushed the girl down into the fur of the rug. Their arms slipped around each other in a boa constrictor's embrace, and their legs intertwined and locked together. So did their lips, their faces moving with such a hunger that they seemed to be devouring each other.
Grendel, his concentration already soaring above such distractions, quickened the pace of his chanting and twisted his hands into the all too familiar shape.
In the past, he had had to twist his fingers into the language of the Grey Order, moving them as quickly as a conman moves his tongue. Not anymore. Now, all he had to do was to lock them into the circle and three horns, which were Slaanesh's symbol, and wait for the power to flow. He could feel it now, this power. It pulsed through his blood, his bones, and his thoughts. The taste of it lifted him up towards a euphoria that the two writhing forms before him would never even guess at.
A smile twisted Grendel's mouth as he looked at them through glazed eyes.
Seeing the expression, Zhukovsky snarled.
"Get on with it," he snapped, pressing himself against the girl with the force of his frustration. She cried out in pain, but he seemed not to notice.
Grendel didn't reply. He didn't need to. He could already sense the power of their terrible god flowing into the room like methane into a mineshaft. As the air around the two entwined figures began to thicken, the wizard licked his lips, his senses delighting in the exercise of power just as much as his fellow celebrants would delight in their own act of obscenity.
There was no name for the spell, which was even now beginning to unfold. The old Grendel would have spent hours devising a title for such a creation, but now it hardly mattered. There were no longer any colleagues to impress, which was a shame, because the sight that was unfolding before him was impressive.
At first, the effects were barely noticeable. Through the shimmering of the tortured air, Zhukovsky and the girl seemed no more than lovers, their embrace like that of any other couple, but gradually the transformation became unmistakable.
The skin on their faces was the first to start flowing. It melted like candle wax and, in this liquid form, it ran to seal the gaps between the two bodies.
Lips fused. Noses smudged where they met, and then pressed together into a single knot of flesh. Eyebrows met and merged, the skin flowing around them to join their temples together.
Soon, the faces of both count and courtesan were lost. Their individual features had gone, swallowed up by the single lump of their joined heads. The rest of their bodies soon followed: the skin flowed away from where their bodies met, rippling like melting butter, and then fusing back together. Soon, both their hides had reformed, becoming a single skin for a single beast.
From inside this bag of living leather, the flayed forms of the two celebrants writhed and squirmed together in blind ecstasy.
Their ecstatic cries were muffled and inchoate, hardly animal, let alone human. Within the pink flush of their single skin, they were lost to the world, no more aware of what was going on around them than newborn rats.
Here and there, an orifice would form: a nostril or a puckered mouth that panted with foul smelling breath. For the most part, though, the skin remained intact, stretching like a glove as the forms within writhed against each other.
Grendel, his fingers locked in position, strolled over to gaze down at them.
What power he had found here, what wisdom.
Then, with a sudden thunderbolt of inspiration, he knew what he should name this conjuration.
"Grendel's Bag of Delights," he said out loud.
It was perfect, he thought.
If only he had somebody to share it with.
Menshka sat on an empty ale barrel, a long-stemmed pipe in his hand. The great gate of Kislev yawned open beside him, hungrily swallowing the stream of traffic that flowed in from the plains beyond, and at his back, the cliff of the city wall reached up towards the slate grey sky.
Menshka's men stood around him, idly watching the crowd. They rested on their staves or leant against the wall. Some of them chatted about nothing. Others toyed with dice, or looked blankly out towards the plains beyond. Menshka himself seemed scarcely awake. His armoured form was swaddled in a fur cloak that would have served as a blanket, and the movements of his eyes were hidden behind the smoke that plumed upwards.
To the uninitiated, he and his men seemed as lazy and disinterested as any other gang of idling thugs. In the midst of such sloth, it was easy to miss the surgical sharpness to which their weapons had been honed, the care with which there armour had been oiled, the hard edges of their eyes, and the thick sinews of their muscles.
Menshka and his detail had long since learned to wear other people's prejudices as their disguise. Leave all the strutting to the guards stationed within the gatehouse itself, that was the way. Let them draw the furtive glances of those who had something to hide.
His job was to wait, to watch, and to decide which of the travellers might be more, or less than they seemed.
It was a job he had grown good at over the years, and he spotted the eight warriors as soon as they emerged from the rest of the throng.
They were warriors, he was sure of that. Despite the ragged cloaks in which they were swathed, and despite the bony carthorses that most of them rode, their profession showed in everything about them. From the scars that marked them to the set of their shoulders, Menshka knew fellow killers when he saw them.
Puffing out a fresh cloud of smoke, he slumped his shoulders even more, and pretended to look away. He waited until he could see the pale blue of the lead horseman's eyes before taking the pipe from his mouth and tapping it hard upon the side of the barrel.
Behind him, stationed within the long arch of the gate, the plumed and silvered gate keeper carried on staring into space. Menshka sighed inwardly. The carelessness of this inbred idiot was anything but an act.
He tapped his pipe again, banging it until the fool finally saw the signal. Then he busied himself with cleaning the smouldering bowl, concentrating on the task as if it was the most important thing in the world.
His own men, he was glad to see, hadn't needed the signal. They'd spotted the riders as soon as he had. As the last of the ragged horsemen entered the tunnel that cut through the walls, Menshka's men closed in behind them.
It was a slow manoeuvre, ragged and seemingly coincidental. The men even continued their conversations until, with a well practiced gesture, the captain of the gate stepped in front of the riders and thrust out his palm.
"Halt, stranger," he said, the acoustics of the gateway lending his voice a boom of authority. Liking the sound of it, he repeated himself. "Halt!"
The horsemen stopped. Their leader, his face as impassive as the granite of the walls, looked at the officer who stood before him.
The gate keeper waited for him to speak. When he didn't, he frowned uncertainly, and his eyes flicked towards Menshka. The strangers' leader followed the look, twisting in his saddle to level those dead eyes on Menshka instead of the official.
"Who is in charge here?" the stranger asked, his voice as level as slate. "You or him?"
Menshka grunted with amusement. If ever he'd spotted wolves in sheep's clothing it had been today.
"I don't know what you mean, Tovaritch," he replied. "The general there is the gate keeper."
The stranger, who had lapsed back into silence, continued to stare at him. Then he nodded.
"As you like," he told Menshka, and turned back to the captain of the gate. "How can we help you?"
"You can tell me why you think we should allow you access into our fair city," the officer said. From behind the strangers a merchant barked with sarcastic laughter.
"We have business here," the leader said.
"What sort of business?"
"Important business."
The officer's eyes hardened, and he pushed out his chest. He hadn't liked the laughter, and he certainly didn't like these evasions. Menshka had obviously been right about these fellows, although he had no idea how the old rogue managed to pick them out. It took a one to know one, he supposed.
"Important business is it?" the officer asked. "And where would this important business have originated? In the north, by the look of you."
A sudden stillness fell upon both the guards and Menshka's men.
"No, our business has come from the south," the stranger said, his voice as calm as ever.
The men began to relax. If he was prepared to take such an insult then there should be no bloodshed, but the gatekeeper, his ego inflated by his unchallenged insolence, decided to make things worse.
"I have heard that there are many cultists in the south, many weak and corrupt followers of the Dark Gods. You have the look of a southerner yourself."
The stranger nodded.
"Yes, there are many in the south who await the judgement of Sigmar. Although we are here for one who has come north."
"So you say," the gatekeeper said, his voice turning into a petulant whine, despite the boom of the acoustics.
Menshka had had enough.
"For Ulric's sake, will you two stop bandying words? You sound like two old women haggling over a hen. You, stranger, who are your people, and why have you come to this city? Don't tell me that you're merchants. I know warriors when I see them."
The stranger nodded, the scars that patterned his shaved head pale in the gloom of the gateway.
"Very well. My name is Vaught, and my comrades are witch hunters. We are here to find a man, a sorcerer. The prince regent of Altdorf has charged us with bringing him to the cleansing flame of Sigmar's judgement. Now, if you will stand aside," he continued, turning back to the gatekeeper, "we will be about our business."
The plumed idiot looked so surprised at Vaught's arrogance that Menshka actually laughed. "Your business," he said, "is to go and present yourself at the palace. You can tell our ruler all about your prince regent and your cleansing flames. I will be interested to see his reaction."
Vaught frowned. "I don't have time for such aristocratic nonsense," he said, waving a dismissive hand towards the gatekeeper.
"Yes," Menshka replied, "you do."
He tugged his earlobe and, at the signal, the ragged cloaks of his men fell back. There was a serpent's sigh of menace, and the shadows of the gate came alive with the glitter of steel.
Vaught raised his own hand, fingers open, and his own men took their hands off their sword hilts.
"Very well," he said. "We will go and pay our respects to your leader, but we are impatient to be about Sigmar's work."
"I'll be sure to tell the chamberlain that," Menshka said. "Now, if you gentlemen will be kind enough to dismount, I will show you the way."
"Menshka, I think you have overstepped your authority," the gatekeeper complained. "As keeper of the gate, it is my---"
"Be quiet," Menshka snapped, "and don't just stand there with a face liked a smacked arse. Get out of the way."
"As keeper of the gate---" he whined.
"Not anymore," Menshka said. There was no point trying to hide his authority. "I want you replaced. Tomorrow I want an officer here who isn't an idiot. Do you understand?"
The captain flushed bright red, and his hand dropped to his sword hilt. Then he swallowed, turned, and stamped off.
"Idiot sons of rich fathers," Menshka told Vaught, who had dismounted to stand beside him. "It's a devil to work with them, isn't it?"
Vaught shook his head.
"In our order, a man rises or falls according to his ability."
Menshka looked at him.
"Well, good for you," he told the miserable man, and then led off towards the palace.
"All petitioners kneel before the Tsaritsa of Praag, Boyaressa Illyova Puskinazi."
The great hall fell silent as a hundred voices were hushed and a hundred knees bent. The rustle of cloth was magnified by the vaulted heights of the audience chamber, and the click of empty scabbards and spurs echoed around the forest of granite columns.
In spite of himself, Vaught had been impressed by this vast chamber. As he knelt amongst the other supplicants, he reminded himself that there was nothing impressive about these northern folk. For all their strength, they were not followers of Sigmar, and if they weren't followers of Sigmar, then they were nothing.
Emboldened by such thoughts, he looked up just as a fanfare of trumpets heralded the arrival of a young woman.
"Who's this wench?" Fargo whispered. "I thought Praag was ruled by a Gospodar governor appointed by the Tzarina. This girl can't be more than eighteen!"
"They're foreigners. Who knows," replied Vaught. "Maybe she's just a figurehead. Look at her. What could she know about ruling a city? No doubt the governor runs the show."
A dozen heads turned to glare disapprovingly at the two witch hunters, and Fargo fell silent. Vaught could see why he had been so surprised. The Tsaritsa seemed little more than a waif, her slender form dwarfed by the oak block of her throne, and by the bodyguards who stood behind her. As Vaught watched, she said something to her herald, and he stepped forwards to speak.
"Be standing for the Tsaritsa," he boomed, and everybody clambered back to their feet. Some of the older merchants wheezed with the unaccustomed effort, and here and there joints popped like cracking ice.
The Tsaritsa may be young, Vaught thought as he watched her, but she was fair. Her hair was so blonde that it was almost as white as the fur cloak she wore, and her kohl-darkened eyes were as soft as a doe's.
She spoke again to her herald.
"Kneel for the Tsaritsa," he boomed, the rich baritone of his voice rolling across the room.
Vaught and Fargo looked at each other, and then joined the other petitioners as they sank once more to their knees. The old man beside him grimaced through his beard as he knelt.
Again the little princess spoke to the herald, and again the herald spoke.
"Stand in the presence of the Tsaritsa," he said.
"Here, grandfather," Fargo said to the old man besides him. "I'll help you."
Gripping the old man's elbow, he helped him back to his feet, and was rewarded with an embarrassed smile.
The Tsaritsa waited until everybody was standing before whispering to her herald.
"The Tsaritsa commands you," he said, and then paused as several of the petitioners dropped to their knees.
When they looked up in confusion, the Tsaritsa broke into a peal of laughter. The courtiers around her, taking this as their cue, joined in with the merriment, and the petitioners followed them. Their laughter echoed back from the stone heights, as harsh as the cawing of a flock of crows.
Vaught and Fargo exchanged a glance. The witch hunter was hardly aware of the disapproving scowl on his face until the Tsaritsa herself noticed it. Her eyes fixed on him, and the sycophants' laughter died as swiftly as her own. She whispered something to the herald, who pointed an accusing finger at Vaught.
"You," he called, disapproval evident in every perfectly formed syllable. "The Tsaritsa will speak to you."
There was a murmur of protest from those who waited at the front of the room. Vaught didn't blame them. Menshka had told him that they had been waiting here all night, but however long they had been waiting, all it took was a flutter from their ruler's eyes to silence them.
Vaught ignored them as he strode forwards, Fargo following behind. The herald bustled forwards to meet him. Although a pallid, weak-looking man, he pushed through the assembled petitioners with the assurance of a barbarian chieftain.
"Oh dear," he said when he saw who Vaught was. "You're the fellows from Altdorf, aren't you? You haven't made a very good impression, I'm afraid."
Everybody around stood stock still, ears almost twitching.
The herald coughed and raised his voice.
"Bow to the Tsaritsa as you approach the dais," he instructed, his voice haughty as before. "Address the Tsaritsa as Tsaritsa, but don't speak to her at all unless she speaks to you first."
He walked the witch hunters forwards until he was standing at the edge of the platform. It was waist high, and Vaught had to look up to see the Tsaritsa as she perched on her throne. Despite the trappings of courtly life, she retained the sinuous grace of a wild animal.
"Who are you?" she asked, watching the witch hunter through lazily lowered lashes.
"I am Vaught, Tsaritsa," Vaught said, "and this is my comrade Fargo. We are here to execute a traitor."
"Are you now?" The Tsaritsa asked. "That sounds like fun."
The courtiers who waited behind the throne shifted uneasily.
"It is my duty," Vaught shrugged.
"It's my duty, Tsaritsa," the herald prompted, but his mistress waved him into silence.
"Your duty," she asked, leaning forwards in sudden interest. "Is that how you got those scars?"
"Yes, Tsaritsa."
She looked at him, her eyes as blue as his own, and licked her lips. "I hear that cousin Karl's witch hunters are very enthusiastic about their duty. You burn people, don't you? Tie them up and set fire to them."
"Yes, Tsaritsa."
"Even children. You burn them too?"
Vaught remained as impassive as ever.
"Sometimes, Tsaritsa."
They held each other's gaze.
"You burn children, yet you make no justification," she said. It was more statement than question.
"I need no justification. I follow my duty to whatever conclusion."
The Tsaritsa sat back, her eyes alight with some strange excitement.
"Yes, I suppose you do. The prince regent certainly speaks highly of you in his letter." She waved a disinterested hand to the pile of papers that lay on a table beside her. "Do you know, I am looking forward to hearing about your hunt. I have only one condition."
"What is that, Tsaritsa?"
"When you catch this man, the one you are after, don't bum him until you have informed me. I want to watch. By the way, what is the name of the unfortunate creature?"
"Grendel, Tsaritsa."
One of the courtiers who waited behind the throne choked, and raised a hand to his mouth. Vaught looked at him. Although young, and as beautiful as the Tsaritsa herself, he looked sickly, debauched. There was something wrong with his skin, too. It had a strange, doughy texture that Vaught had never seen before.
Dismissing this as the result of aristocratic decadence, Vaught forgot about the foppish young man and turned back to the Tsaritsa.
"Grendel," the Tsaritsa rolled the word around her tongue. "Strange name. I bet he'll squeal like a pig when the flames start licking around him."
"They sometimes do," Vaught allowed.
"Very well, you have my permission. Go and catch your Grendel, but remember, don't start the fun without me!"
Vaught and Fargo bowed low and, following the herald's whispered instructions, backed away. As they did so, the sickly looking noble sidled forwards to speak into the Tsaritsa's ear.
Her face remained impassive as she listened, her eyes locked onto the two witch hunters. The last thing they saw before they left the room was the look of pure hatred the courtier shot them as he whispered to the Tsaritsa.
"Wait here," the herald told them before the great doors swung shut behind them. "I will get the clerks to draw you up a letter of marque."
Vaught nodded and turned to the men who had been waiting in the antechamber.
"How did it go, captain?" asked Peik, unable to contain his enthusiasm.
"We have permission to perform our duty," Vaught told him.
"Not only that," Fargo said with a wink, "but the captain here made quite an impression on the Tsaritsa."
"What do you mean?" Peik asked, his brows furrowing in puzzlement.
"Let's just say it's a bit too soon to be talking about wedding bells," Fargo said archly.
"Really?" Peik's mouth fell open. "You're courting the Tsaritsa, captain?" His comrades guffawed with laughter. Even Vaught's perpetual frown lifted.
"Ignore this old mercenary," he said. "He once told me that the prince regent was a woman dressed as a man."
"And so she is," Fargo said.
"Then how do you explain the beard?"
He shrugged.
"Something to hold onto."
The men were still laughing when a courtier emerged from the audience chamber and came up to them. He swept off his felt hat and started twisting it nervously.
"Are you the Imperial barbarians?" he asked.
Vaught looked at him. The courtier swallowed.
"Yes," the witch hunter said, "I suppose we are."
"Oh good, would you come with me, please? You need to see the chief clerk."
"Very well. Wait here, my brothers. Fargo and I can handle it."
"Better if they come with you," the courtier cut in quickly, "this corridor is reserved for those waiting for an audience with the Tsaritsa."
"As you like."
"Good. Well, follow me." So saying, the courtier crammed his hat back onto his head and led off at a brisk pace. The witch hunters followed him from the marbled magnificence of the antechamber into a smaller, granite blocked corridor, and then into a maze of passages with flaking plaster on the walls.
From time to time, the courtier would glance back over his shoulder, as if anxious that his charges would make a break for it. When they finally reached their destination, he almost sagged with relief.
"Here we are," he said, pointing to an oak barred door at the end of the passageway. "Go and wait in the courtyard outside. The clerk will be along in a moment."
"Not waiting with us, then?" Fargo asked as the official sidled back up the corridor.
"Can't," he called back over his shoulder. "Too busy."
Vaught and Fargo looked at each other.
"I have a funny feeling about this," the older man said.
Vaught shrugged and pushed the oak door open.
"So do I, but what can we do? We are guests."
Squaring his shoulders, Vaught led his men out into the courtyard beyond. It was a cobbled square, no more than twenty feet to a side, and the walls were steep enough to cast the whole yard in deep shade.
Peik was the last of the witch hunters to step into the cold shadows, and no sooner had he done so than there was a shriek of falling metal followed by the clang of iron on stone.
The eight men drew their swords in a single fluid movement and leapt together so that they were standing back to back. Vaught saw that an iron portcullis had fallen behind them, barring the door and cutting off their escape.
"Stay in formation," he told the circle of men, and then went cautiously over to check the portcullis. The metal slats of its construction were as thick as a man's arm, and although they were brown with rust, bright scratches revealed the strength of the steel beneath.
"I told you I had a funny feeling," Fargo muttered as Vaught gazed up at the little rectangle of sky that lay above them. The walls were sheer, the granite blocks fitting together so tightly that the edges might have been carved from a single piece of stone. Although, maybe if they could work a dagger's point into the cracks, they could...
"Captain Vaught."
The voice rang out against the narrow stone walls. Vaught looked up to see a head and shoulders silhouetted against the sky.
"Is that Captain Vaught?" the shape asked again.
"Yes, who is that?"
"Menshka, we met at the gates and now, unfortunately, we meet again. I am to arrest you and your men and escort you to a safe location."
"Safe?" Vaught repeated, squinting up at Menshka. The dark silhouette could have belonged to anybody. It was so black against the silver sky that it could have been cut out of cloth.
"That's right," Menshka agreed, "safe. Don't worry, we wouldn't harm an envoy of Altdorf's king."
"Prince regent."
"Whatever."
Vaught exchanged a glance with the nearest of his men. Then he looked back up.
"In that case, come and arrest us," he said, sheathing his sword. Reluctantly, his men did the same.
"First of all, you need to throw your weapons through the gate," Menshka told him. "Not that I don't trust you, captain, but I have my orders."
Vaught shook his head. "We are forbidden to give our weapons to anybody outside of our order."
There was movement from above, and the twang of a bowstring. The arrow whistled down to strike a spark from the stone a couple of feet above Vaught's head.
"You don't have a choice," Menshka shouted down.
"I thought you said you wouldn't harm us."
"Not unless I have to."
Vaught scowled, and turned to Fargo. He shrugged.
"We don't have much choice, do we?"
Nor did they. With a curse, Vaught removed his weapons from their sheaths and pushed them through the bars in the gate. His men followed suit, their blades clinking into a lethal pile of razored steel. When they had finished, figures emerged from the corridor beyond, a linen basket between them. With a chink of metal, they emptied its contents onto the floor, and then turned to the abandoned weapons.
"You," Fargo told one of them as they started to bundle up the swords, "be careful with that blade. It is worth more than your family combined."
The man looked up with a sneer, and would have spoken, had Menshka not cut him off.
"Do as the gentlemen say," he barked down from his perch. "Treat their weapons with respect."
The men obeyed, laying the weapons into the basket gently.
When they had finished, they turned back, gathered the manacles from the floor, and passed them through the portcullis.
Vaught looked at the manacles with disgust.
"Sorry," Menshka called down from above. "Tsaritsa's orders."
"I've heard so much about Praagian hospitality over the years," Fargo said, shaking his head as he closed the manacle around his wrist, "but I had no idea that it was all true."
Vaught weighed the chains in his hand, and cast a last look around the pit in which they had been trapped. There was no way out, no way at all. Inwardly cursing the treachery of the northerners, he clipped the manacles closed on his own wrists. Then, straightening his back, he turned to address his men.
"Don't worry," he told them. "Our captivity will not last long. The righteousness of our duty is stronger than any steel, and all things are possible through Sigmar's grace."
The screech of the raised portcullis punctuated his sentiments, and a moment later the eight of them were led away.
Neither the bite of the wind nor the jarring of the carriage beneath him intruded on Kerr's concentration. His gaze remained fixed on the pebble that he held in one cold hand, and although his eyes dripped with tears, they remained unmoving.
The horses clopped on, following the road to the north. They had left the last few shivering trees far behind them. Now, there was nothing to see but grasslands, scattered villages and the occasional flock of sheep.
At least, nothing to physically see.
As Kerr was beginning to understand, the world was composed of a lot more than the physical.
Even as the thought occurred, he let it drift away. Neither accepting nor rejecting the idea, he kept his focus on the stone in his hand: its shape, its weight, and the texture of its surface against the skin of his palm.
Another man might have given up long since. Another man might, but not Kerr. The starving years he had spent on the streets of Altdorf had hardened him, forging his patience from hunger and danger, just as a smith uses fire to forge steel.
As a boy, he had spent entire days waiting, still as stone, for the one moment when a baker might take his eyes from his wares. He had clambered amongst the terrifying decay of Altdorf's steepled roofs, his attention immersed in the slip and the slide of the ancient slates. And in the winter, when other vagabonds had stayed huddled in their bolt holes, he had danced barefoot through the iced streets, forcing himself to steal and beg his way through the lethal season.
It had been a hard training, a good training, a training better than any for sale in Altdorf's academies. It might even have been coincidental.
"Kerr," Titus bellowed from the inside of the carriage.
Kerr let the sound roll over him and through him. When it had gone, it left barely a ripple behind.
"Answer me, boy."
This time there was a furious knocking on the underside of the carriage's roof. The horses whinnied uncertainly and glanced back to their driver. Reassured by his perfect stillness, they turned back to the journey ahead.
"Do you hear me?" Titus roared.
When there was still no response, the carriage heaved to one side, and the wizard's head and shoulders bulged out through the window. He glared up at Kerr, who remained indifferent. The wizard drew in a deep breath and roared with laughter.
"Well done!" he said. "I thought I might have tricked you. The exercise is over."
Kerr stretched, blinked the tears from his eyes and returned the stone to his pouch.
"I'm getting better at it," he said, looking down to the fat face that beamed up at him from below.
"How do you mean?" Titus asked, and then cursed as a pothole in the road jolted him. "Damn this for a way to talk. I'm a wizard, not a contortionist. Stop the carriage and you can tell me what you mean while we eat something."
Kerr pulled up the horses, and lashed the reins to the running board. As the carriage rolled beneath Titus' shifting weight, he stood up and scanned the horizon. The world seemed empty of everything apart from grass and the shadows of the racing clouds above. Praag, their destination, was still hidden beyond the curve of the world, the road they followed the only sign that it existed.
"Come along," Titus called, rubbing his hands. "Set out lunch and we can talk about your progression."
With a last look to the north, Kerr jumped down and retrieved the hamper that contained their food. Titus strolled around as he clambered back onto the carriage to retrieve the small table and sturdy chair that had been strapped to the roof.
He set out the furniture and food, and then called Titus over to eat.
"Ah good," the fat man said, sitting down at his dining table. "Ham."
Kerr sat on the running board of the carriage and waited for him to speak.
"So," Titus said, when he had eaten the leg down to the bone. "Why do you think you are getting better at the exercise?"
"Because I can keep my attention on the pebble for longer periods, and I can keep my eyes focused for longer too. Except..."
"Except what?" Titus tossed the bone to Kerr and unwrapped an apple pie.
"Sometimes my eyes go a bit funny."
"Funny?" the sorcerer asked, and took a huge mouthful of pastry.
"The stone seems to glow, and I can see wisps of colour tracing through the air."
Titus, chewing away, looked at him thoughtfully.
"I suppose it's just that my eyes aren't used to the work," Kerr said, "but don't worry, boss. I'm sure they'll get stronger."
The sorcerer continued to stare at Kerr. The expression on his chubby face was not one to inspire confidence. It made him look like a farmer wondering whether his prize lamb was fat enough to slaughter, but when he swallowed, and spoke, his voice was as friendly as ever.
"Those colours you see," he said, "can only be seen with those who have the strongest eyes. It is good that you are one of them. If not, there would have been no point in continuing with your apprenticeship."
"So they're real?" Kerr asked. "How can you be sure that they aren't just tricks of the light? You know, like the stars you see when you hit your head."
Titus grinned.
"Tricks of the light!" he scoffed, wolfing down the rest of the pie. "If you'd told me that you could see sparks of the Hysh, then I would have known you had the ability right from the start. Mind you, I knew anyway. I could always recognise talent."
"What's Hysh?" Kerr asked.
Busying himself with a loaf of bread and a roll of cheese, Titus considered his answer.
"Let's not worry about that for now," he said. "First, I want you to repeat this word."
"What word?"
Titus said a word.
Kerr repeated it, letting the syllables roll off his tongue.
"Not quite," Titus told him. "The 'Z' should be softer and the 'U' longer. Try again. Yes, that's it, and again?"
Kerr pronounced the word as if he'd known it all of his life.
"Excellent." The sorcerer celebrated with a mouthful of cheese. "Now, click your fingers. That's it, perfect."
"Now what?" Kerr asked, wondering if his master had gone mad, or possibly madder.
"Now I'm going to rest my eyes, and you are going to practise staring at the stone again. Only this time, if you see any red wisps of colour, think about them instead of the stone. Then click your fingers and say..."
Titus waited expectantly.
"That word?" Kerr suggested.
"Perfect." The sorcerer nodded. "Wake me if there's any trouble." With that, he leant back in his chair, ruffled his cloak around his neck, and fell asleep.
His apprentice watched the slumbering figure of his master for a moment. He considered how the sight of a well-dressed man sitting on an easy chair and sleeping off his lunch was such a normal sight in the city, but out here, in the endless wilderness of grass and sky, he thought that it was one of the most bizarre things he had ever seen.
Then, conscientious as ever, he took the stone from its pouch and started to exercise.
\*
This time the colours came more quickly. After barely half an hour, hints of them started to drift through his field of vision, each wisp a different hue. He waited until he saw a drift of perfect red. It described a lazy spiral in the air above the remains of Braha's lunch, and could almost have been smoke if the wind hadn't been blowing right through it.
Ignoring a twitch of apprehension, Kerr transferred his attention from the hard shape of the stone to the hazy impression of colour. He thought about the way it moved, the perfect weightlessness of it, and the brightness of its colour.
Then, with perfect timing, he clicked his fingers and spoke the word.
It was a moment he would never forget.
As soon as he had spoken, the coil of red started to change. It glowed with a new energy, and as the shape grew heavier, so the colour altered. The perfect red flickered into orange, and then into yellow. It bubbled with a liquid intensity, forming and reforming in a constantly moving stew of colour.
Kerr watched the strange beauty of his creation as it unfolded. It had grown bright enough to warm the slumbering form of Titus with its light, and to cast a faint shadow behind him. Although Kerr knew that he should wake his master, he remained transfixed, struggling with the feeling that he had seen something like this before.
The realisation of what it was hit him a second before the ball of fire touched the polished wood of the table.
There was a whoosh of flame as the wood ignited. The plates were sent spinning through the air, and the sizzle of burnt pork joined the acrid stink of burnt wood. There was also a terrible scream as Titus, who had been woken by the sheet of flame, tumbled away across the grass.
Kerr rushed over to help him, but the sorcerer shooed him away. Despite the smouldering of his beard and the scorch marks that singed his robes, he seemed quite happy to have awoken in a furnace.
"Was that you?" he asked, slapping at the smouldering cloth of his cloak.
"I think so," Kerr admitted, looking back towards the table. There wasn't much of it left. The fire had devoured it in a single moment, leaving nothing behind but for a charred skeleton of timber.
"Who would have thought it?" Titus asked nobody in particular. He looked from the table to Kerr and back again. "It took me years to learn how... Well, never mind. It must be because we are so far to the north."
"What's due to us being so far to the north?" Kerr asked, but Titus just shook his head.
"One step at a time," he decided. "Anyway, I think that it is time to continue. You quite spoiled my nap."
Kerr looked thoughtfully at the ruins of the furniture, and then shrugged and went to soothe the straining horses. At least he wouldn't have to keep lugging that damned table around.
"Oh, and Kerr," Titus paused before climbing back on board the carriage. "I think we'll leave that part of the training from now on. Do this instead."
With a wheeze of effort, the sorcerer leant into the carriage, rummaged about amongst his carpetbags, and retrieved a ball of wool with two needles stuck through it. He tossed it to Kerr, who snatched it out of the air.
"What's this for, boss?" he asked, weighing the wool in his hands.
"Knitting," the sorcerer said as he lumbered back into his seat.
"But I can't knit."
"Then it's time you learned." Titus shifted into a more comfortable position and slammed the carriage door behind him.
"Wake me when it's dinner time," he mumbled and, pulling his hat down over his eyes began to drift off to sleep.
"That I will," Kerr replied and, running a calming hand over the nearest horses muzzle, he climbed back onto the driver's seat and steered the carriage cautiously around the scorched remains of his first spell.
A hundred miles due north, and caution was the last thing on Grendel's mind. He had been dreaming again. At least, he assumed that the visions had been dreams.
As he leapt screaming from his bed, such semantics were the least of his concerns. Fighting a rolling wave of nausea, he had staggered across to the curtains and tore them open to reveal the city below. The brightness of the setting sun stung his eyes, and he blinked away the tears that had already been there.
Clinging to the heavy drapes, his beard tangled with sweat, Grendel stared unseeingly out towards the northern horizon. Then he giggled.
Today, for the fifth day in a row, he had been struck with a lightning bolt of inspiration, a thunderclap of pure genius: a gift from the gods.
Well, he thought, a gift from one god in particular.
Pushing the sodden mop of his hair back from his pallid forehead, he turned away from the light of the window and lurched towards his desk. It was a massive slab of oak, perhaps twenty feet long, and its surface was covered with the paraphernalia of his art.
Phials of powders stood in a dozen mismatched racks. Bottles and flasks jostled together, their contents every colour of the rainbow. Herbs were everywhere, whether in bundles or in stone jars. Amongst this innocent detritus there lay other, less savoury ingredients. Teeth and rolls of strangely repellent leather were scattered about, as were the decapitated heads of at least three different races. The halfling looked particularly put out, the cured leather of his face puckered into a perpetual scowl.
Maybe they killed him before his last supper, Grendel thought, and giggled again. It was a shrill, broken sound, neither laughter nor sobbing, but something in between.
As he rummaged through his grisly materials, there was an imperious knock at the door.
"Go away," Grendel snapped without looking up. "I'm busy."
The latch lifted and the door was flung open.
"Grendel, you old stoat," Zhukovsky said as he swaggered into the room. "I need something special from you today. I'm feeling a bit jaded."
The wizard spared him a single contemptuous glance, and snorted. A month ago, he wouldn't have even considered displaying such disdain. A couple of weeks ago and he wouldn't have dared, but now things had changed. As Zhukovsky's appetites had grown, so had his dependence on the wizard, and dependency never inspires much respect.
"You are sick," Grendel said, turning back to his work. "Go and rest."
For a moment, Zhukovsky seemed about to argue. Then he shrugged. What argument was there? His skin had become so loose and flabby that he looked like a glutton after a month of dysentery, and burst blood vessels had left his eyes as pink as a rat's.
Even Zhukovsky's swagger was a stiff legged thing. Wasting muscles and numbed bones had put paid to his youthful exuberance, and he had taken to carrying a silver-topped cane, but his viciousness, at least, remained unabated.
"It's funny," the count said, squinting at the afternoon light that poured in from the window, "but I could have sworn you just snorted at me."
Grendel, busily weighing powders into a brass scale, ignored the comment.
For a second, Zhukovsky's expression twisted into a silent snarl, but only for a second. By the time he had reached the window, he was smiling again, or at least, trying to smile. The nerveless flesh of his bottom lip hung loose, revealing the remains of his teeth.
"Grendel," he said, turning so that his silhouette was framed by the window.
"What do you want?" The sorcerer frowned and turned to stare at him. "Can't you see that I am busy?"
"I can see that you are ignoring your count," Zhukovsky said, whacking the silvered head of his stick into his hand. "That's what I can see. Another man did that once, but only once. I had him taken down to the kitchen, tied to a spit, and roasted like a pig. You should have heard him scream."
Grendel, who a month before had been begging at this man's feet, looked at him with something approaching pity.
"Count Zhukovsky, I do not mean to ignore you, but I find it difficult to work with interruptions." The count opened his mouth to reply, but Grendel cut him off. "Imagine what would happen if something went wrong with my spellcasting."
The count imagined. His Adam's apple bobbed up and down and he plucked nervously at the loose skin that clung to his wrist.
"It won't go wrong," he decided, although he didn't sound convinced. "Slaanesh wouldn't allow it."
Grendel winced at the mention of the name and looked around.
"Not here," he said.
Zhukovsky shrugged.
"Well, I can't stand here bandying words with you all day. You have work to do. Morrslieb is due to rise in a fortnight's time and we are to have a... a celebration."
Grendel nodded thoughtfully. For the first time, Zhukovsky had arranged for an assembly of his entire coven, and the sorcerer was looking forward to it. He felt like an artist who has been offered a pallete full of brand new colours.
"How many celebrants will attend?" he asked.
"Maybe a dozen," Zhukovsky shrugged, "but they don't matter. What does matter is that we will have a guest, a very special guest. So it has to be..." He paused, seeking the right word. Eventually he gave up. "It has to be good."
Grendel giggled again. If he noticed the look of surprise on the count's face, or the way he took a cautious step back, he didn't show it.
"Oh, it will be more than good." The sorcerer rubbed his bony hands together. "It will be more than good."
With a new gleam in his eye, Grendel turned back to his work. As an afterthought, he threw a vial of powder to the count, tossing it like a morsel for some favoured pet.
The vial fumbled through the nobleman's shaking fingers and cracked on the floor. He fell to his knees and scooped it up.
"Mix the powder with water and drink it," Grendel said, already rummaging amongst his equipment for some new ingredient.
"What does it do?" Zhukovsky asked, his haughty demeanour replaced by pathetic eagerness.
"It will make those who look at you see the man you used to be."
"Is that it?"
"Look in the mirror," Grendel snapped, "and answer that question yourself."
For a moment, it seemed that Zhukovsky was about to berate the sorcerer. Before he could, a sudden fit of twitching seized one side of his face and so, without saying another word, he turned to go.
Grendel didn't notice him leave. He was too deep in thought. If only those fools in the college could see what I have achieved, he thought. If only they could see what I am about to achieve. Curse them all, he would show them. One of these days, he would bring such a cataclysm down on them that they would think him a god.
He was still muttering to himself when Zhukovsky slipped back out of the room and closed the door silently behind him.
"Good evening, gentlemen. Good evening. Please, step right this way. I hope that Menshka has been treating you as befits your station?"
Vaught looked at the gaoler with all the warmth of an ice pick.
"Are you mocking us?" he asked, his tone indifferent.
The gaoler seemed almost shocked.
"No, of course not," he said, and placed one meaty hand over his chest. "You are the gentlemen from Altdorf, yes? Yes, of course you are, and I'll warrant that your prince regent will honour your bills."
Vaught looked at Menshka and frowned.
"What the gaoler means," Menshka explained, "is that, because you are the agents of a prince, he will give you the best quarters."
The witch hunters looked around the dank cube of the vault they had been brought to. Apart from the rotting straw on the floor, it was little more than a stone box.
There was neither window nor fireplace, just an iron cage door and a foul smelling bucket.
"These are the best quarters?" Fargo asked.
The gaoler shrugged.
"If you had been anybody else, you would have been put in the yard, and believe me, sir, you don't want to stay there, with such awful people, and with the weather getting worse everyday. No, here it is much better, and first thing tomorrow we'll get you some furniture."
Vaught opened his mouth to say something, but the gaoler waved him into silence.
"Don't you worry, I have played host to your prince regent's men before. I'll put everything on the slate, and you can write to him. Tell him that you are in comfort and safety, and that the cost is modest."
Menshka barked with laughter, and the gaoler turned on him.
"If you would like to remove your property," he said, pointing to the manacles with which the witch hunters were bound, "you can be on your way."
"What, and miss your welcome speech?"
"I don't want to keep you from your work. There must be keyholes all over the city without anybody to peep through them."
Menshka laughed humourlessly.
"Keyholes. Yes, very funny, but do you know what's even funnier? Some of the stories we hear about you."
The gaoler shrugged.
"Prisoners make up stories all the time. It's something for them to do."
Menshka nodded.
"Yes, but tell me, what is in your pit?"
The gaoler's bonhomie deserted him, and his face creased with sudden anxiety.
"Not my pit," he whined, "I just keep it locked. Whatever goes on down there is nothing to do with me."
Menshka shrugged.
"I'll be sure to put your explanation in my report."
The gaoler licked his lips, and looked shiftily around the room.
"Look," he said, "tell you what, I'll see to having these manacles removed and sent back to you, and you know what? Somebody sent me some cases of vodka, a grateful client. Why don't I send you one of those around too?"
"As you like," Menshka said. "Then I'll bid you all goodnight."
The gaoler waved as the man left the room. Vaught didn't deign to reply.
"What is that man, gaoler?" he asked as Menshka's footsteps faded. "He dresses like a peasant, yet he acts like an official. A high official."
The gaoler looked at the witch hunter as if trying to decide whether he was having his leg pulled.
"There are lots of people like that in Praag," he said. "They are the Cheka. Never heard of them? Well, I suppose you might not have, being from so far away. They're a sort of secret army, and a good job they do too."
The gaoler looked nervously back over his shoulder before he continued.
"Don't worry about them. Now, I have to go. Here is the key to your manacles, if you would care to pass them through the gate when you have unlocked them, I will send you some blankets down, and some soup. In the meantime, I will leave you these candles and wish you goodnight."
"Goodnight," Vaught said. He turned to unlock the first of his men as the gaoler scuttled out of the cell.
"Do you think that the prince regent will pay for our upkeep?" Fargo asked, rubbing some life back into his wrists.
"I have no idea," Vaught answered, "and I don't expect to stay here long enough to find out. You saw the gatehouse on the way in? Good. Here is what we will do."
Menshka was pleased to be back at his post. He lolled on his barrel, watching the traffic that dawn had brought to Praag's great gate, and enjoyed the freshness of the air.
There wasn't much movement yet, just a string of couriers, their saddlebags bulging with correspondence, and the lumbering shape of an approaching haywain.
Menshka watched it approach, and then turned to light his pipe. It had been a shame about those witch hunters. They had a reputation for efficiency, and it would have been nice to have seen them at work, the leader especially. He had looked like a man who knew how to deal with magic-using vermin.
He spat and studied the wagon as it drew nearer. It occurred to him that it was a little late in the year for farmers to be bringing hay into the city. A second later, he realised that the vehicle wasn't a haywain after all, it was a grain cart.
Lowering his eyes, he concentrated on blowing a smoke ring. The perfect "O" floated up into the sky, and Menshka's thoughts turned lazily over. Damned trusting merchant to send his goods along this road with no armed guard.
When he looked back at the grain cart, he noticed the driver for the first time. Now that it was so close, he could see that the man was massive, his armour barely able to cover his barrel chest. No wonder the merchant had decided against the added cost of outriders.
As the wagon lumbered into the shadow of the walls, the gate captain, alert in his new post, looked at Menshka. He shook his head slightly and looked away. The guards waved the wagon through the gates, and stopped an outrider who looked a little too fresh for somebody who had been riding all night, instead.
One of Menshka's lieutenants, a wiry ferret of a man called Plenk, sidled over to take a light.
"Did you see the state of that dung cart?" he asked, borrowing Menshka's pipe and using it to light his own. "No wonder the guards looked so relieved not to have to stop it!"
"Dung cart? You mean the grain wagon."
Plenk frowned.
"No, the dung cart. It just went past now with that skinny little lad driving it."
Menshka took his pipe back and stared at it thoughtfully.
"The last thing I saw go through those gates," he said, speaking carefully, "was a grain wagon driven by a man who looked as big as an ogre."
"I saw a dung cart driven by a boy."
"Damn," Menshka swore once, and sprang to his feet. Without waiting to be told, his men followed him as he raced towards the gate, pushing past the guards and looking frantically into the street beyond.
Of dung cart, grain wagon or haywain, there was no sign.
The smell of bacon filled the chambers they had hired. Titus and Kerr sat at the same table, the food that the innkeeper's wife had just brought piled up in front of them. Although hardly silent, neither of them was speaking. Ever since the two had started eating together, mealtimes had become a race, with Kerr trying to eat his share before Titus cleared the table.
The joys of apprenticeship, he thought, cramming a roll of pork fat into his mouth and following it with a hard-boiled egg.
"Don't eat so fast," Titus told him, as he smeared marmalade onto a piece of ham, "you'll give yourself indigestion."
Kerr watched with awe as his master chewed through the entire slab of meat in three easy bites.
"I can see that there is much to learn before I become a wizard," he said, watching his master swallow. It was like watching a boa constrictor wearing a napkin.
Titus belched before he replied.
"You have much to learn," he agreed, "but never mind. You are adept enough. How's the knitting coming along?"
Kerr reached into his satchel and held up a pair of socks. One was smaller than the other, despite the fact that it had two feet.
Titus laughed.
"Better not let the witch hunters see that," he said.
Kerr grinned.
"Not even they would see bad knitting as proof of mutation. Then again, maybe they would. I remember when old man Schmidt's son was born. He'd only had daughters before, so he went to the strigany and asked for a potion. You know, so that he'd finally be able to have a male heir. Anyway, it all went well until the babe was born."
Titus grunted as he started work on a plate of scones.
"When it was born, it looked alright at first, had the right number of arms and legs, and fingers and toes. It cried like a champion too, but then the midwife noticed something terrible. Schmidt's son," Kerr paused for effect, "had been born without... You know, with a bit missing. There was talk of curses, and then there was talk of starting a pogrom against the strigany. In fact, there was so much talk that the witch hunters turned up, like they always do."
"And they told your friend Schmidt," Titus interrupted, "that he should be congratulated for having such a healthy daughter?"
"Oh, you've heard it before."
Titus glared at his apprentice before getting back to the task in hand. Kerr shifted uncomfortably.
"Anyway, you should let me see one of your socks if I'm to start knitting them," he said. "It won't be long until I get the hang of it."
Titus waited until he had finished the last of the scones before replying.
"You aren't learning knitting so that you can mend my socks," he said. "At least, you are, but that's not the main reason."
"What is the main reason, then?"
Titus pushed himself back from the table.
"What do you think?"
Kerr looked down at the wool and needles. Then he flexed his fingers.
"I see," he said, holding up his hands and miming the action of knitting. "You have to learn other movements to cast spells. As well as snapping your fingers, I mean. Is it something different for each one?"
"Just so," Titus nodded, "but for the moment, your education will have to wait. The sooner we find the traitor, Grendel, the sooner we can get back to Altdorf. You might help by asking around. I don't think that he has much sense, and he must be feeling pretty desperate by now. Listen out for any stories of false gold."
"Will do," Kerr said, "but how do you know he's desperate? If he's a cultist then he'll have friends everywhere. Maybe they have taken him in."
Titus shook his head.
"Grendel is a fool, not a cultist. Sometimes things go wrong and people panic. Whatever the witch hunters say, the whole world isn't one big bundle of plots. Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'll take a nap. I need to get my strength back up."
Kerr didn't ask what for. Instead, he checked that he'd slipped enough bacon off the table for the day, accused himself, and went out to explore Praag.
"Hot as toast and soft as butter. Smooth enough to melt a moneylender's heart. Get it while it's hot!"
Kerr strolled past the baker's stall, a contented smile playing across his face.
"Sausage, hams and fresh meat puddings," another merchant bellowed, "only three days old!"
Kerr glanced towards the tray of meat just as the butcher turned away to serve a customer. His fingers twitched, and he instinctively glanced around to see if there were any watchmen nearby.
Then he scolded himself and walked on.
It felt good to be back in a city: the feeling of cobbles beneath his feet, the warm jostle of hurrying strangers, the smell of cookhouses and sewers---it reminded Kerr of how much he had missed civilization.
He wandered along through the market, passing everything from bolts of silk to baskets full of piglets. Although he had no intention of reverting to his old profession, still he studied the place with a practiced eye. Everything faded into the background apart from escape routes, distractions, and merchants tired or the worse for drink.
It reminded him of the good old days.
He was almost past the last of the stalls when he felt the hand on his purse.
"Dried oranges!" a man bellowed in his ear. "Sweet as the Sultan's daughters and all the way from Araby!"
Kerr pretended to study the man's wares as he felt the thief's inexpert fumbling. He turned suddenly, as if interested in something that lay down the alleyway ahead. He didn't need to glance back to know that the pickpocket was following him. He had played this game often enough in the past to know that he would be.
The cries of the merchants faded as he stepped into the alleyway. Stone walls rose on either side of him, and the passageway twisted around a blind corner just a little way ahead.
Kerr slowed his pace, and wondered if the pickpocket would be fool enough to practise his art in such an unpromising place.
He was.
Kerr had hardly reached the corner when he heard the almost inaudible patter of stealthy feet, and felt the weight of his purse being lifted. He waited until he felt the first tug of the knife against the leather straps, and then spun around, his own dagger pressing against the thief's throat in a single, fluid motion.
The thief looked up at him, his face a mask of horror. He looked about ten years old, although Kerr knew that he could have been any age. Rattenkinder grew up fast, if at all.
"Good afternoon," he told the boy, angling the blade of his dagger so that it rested neatly across his windpipe. "Drop that blade or I'll cut you."
Without a second's hesitation, the boy dropped the blade. The first tear rolled down his cheek.
"No need for that," Kerr said, grabbing a handful of the lad's shirt before sheathing his dagger. "I just want a chat."
"A chat?" The boy rolled the word around his mouth as if he had never heard it before. "What about?"
"About how you've managed to survive with such elephant feet and cow's fingers. I felt you trying to take my purse back in the market. What were you trying to do, pull it free with your hands?"
The boy shrugged, suddenly as embarrassed as he was afraid.
"My knife isn't very sharp," he muttered, looking down to where it lay.
"That's no excuse," Kerr scolded him. "Look, if I let you go will you let me show you how to sharpen it?"
The boy goggled.
"Well?"
"Yes, all right."
Kerr released him and stooped to pick up the penknife. As he did so, the child tensed as if for flight, but curiosity held him.
"Watch," Kerr told him, finding a cobble and drawing the small blade across it. "Like this, see? Lots of little strokes, and always in the same direction. Now you try."
Glancing nervously from his captor to the blade, the boy took the proffered knife and stooped to copy Kerr's example.
"That's it," he encouraged. "It takes ages, but eventually you'll be able to shave with it, let alone do a professional job."
"Don't shave yet," said the boy, dragging the knife across the cobble. Now and again, a spark flashed into life, and after a while, he tested the blade against the hem of his ragged coat.
"See?" Kerr asked. "It cuts like butter."
"Thanks," said the boy, cautiously folding the knife closed and returning it to his pocket. "I'm sorry I..."
Kerr waved him into silence.
"Never mind that. As it happens, I'm glad to have met you. I bet you know other children, don't you? Other people who live on the streets?"
The boy nodded uncertainly.
"A few," he admitted, "although I don't know their names, or where they live, or anything like that."
Kerr laughed, the sound echoing down the narrow walls of the alleyway.
"Don't worry," he said, slapping the lad on the shoulder. "I'm not interested in that. I'm interested in what they might have seen. What do you notice about the way I talk? My accent?"
The boy frowned.
"It sounds funny."
"Exactly. Well I'm looking for somebody else who talks funny like me, somebody old. He's skinny, and he probably has a big beard. He's tall, too. I want to find him, and if you help me find him..." Kerr paused and held up his hand. The copper coin he was holding shuffled back and forth between his fingers.
The boy watched, mesmerised, until Kerr tossed it to him.
"If you or your friends find him, I'll give you six more like that."
"Twelve."
Kerr frowned.
"You're a hard man. All right, I'll pay twelve, but only after I've checked that it's the man I want."
The boy tried to keep the excitement off his face.
"All right then," he said. "Twelve each."
"No."
The boy was unabashed.
"Just twelve then," he said, and tried to frown.
"Good." Kerr paused as somebody else entered the alleyway. The man paused, unbuttoned his breeches, and urinated against the wall. Kerr ignored him. "Do you know the Slayer's Axe? All right, you can find me there. Ask for Kerr, Menheer Kerr."
"Right you are, your lordship." The boy lifted his ragged cap and watched Kerr slip away. Then he turned and followed the drunk, who had staggered back out into the marketplace.
The newly sharpened knife felt warm in his pocket.
The sun was already dipping below the city walls when Kerr entered the Grahizhna. Although he'd never set foot in the place before, it was as familiar as the face of an old friend. There was a quarter like it in every city. In Altdorf it sprawled around the docks, a wilderness of lawless enterprises where vice was celebrated and excess was king.
Or at least, Kerr thought as he drifted past a gang of thugs, the purveyors of excess were the kings.
He slipped past a dozen courtesans, their cheap fur coats opened to reveal the warmth beneath, and slowed his pace to listen to the fluting of some musical instrument. The air was already alive with screams and laughter, and the occasional smash of breaking ceramics.
Kerr followed his nose through a dozen desperate joys. He was looking for a cook shop, although not any one would do. He passed one that was full of men so richly dressed that they might have been aristocrats. Another he dismissed on the grounds that it had seemed devoid of flies.
Finally, he found what he was looking for. The scrubbed wooden tables were unadorned, the floor was nothing but matted reeds, and the ragged customers were eating from thick clay bowls.
"Pork or beef?" a woman asked as he sat down. She had arms thicker than Kerr's own, and her face had the hard edged look of a born mercenary.
"What's best?" Kerr smiled, but his attempt to be charming fell on stony ground.
"Neither," she said, and crossed her meaty arms.
"I'll have bread and soup."
The woman scowled belligerently.
"You can either have pork," she explained, "or beef. Now which is it to be? I'm too busy to bandy words with the likes of you."
Kerr resisted the temptation to look around at the three other customers. Instead, he ordered pork.
The woman stomped away and returned a moment later with a bowl of grey sludge and a hunk of bread.
"Ah, you found some soup after all." Kerr smiled and looked at the mess.
The woman glared at him with an expression of sheer disgust.
"It's pork," she said, and banged the bread down on the table.
"So it is," Kerr soothed. "I hope you'll excuse my stupidity. I'm from the south, the Empire."
Was the woman's glare becoming slightly less murderous? Kerr couldn't tell.
"We don't have such a beautiful language as you do in Praag. It makes us easily confused."
"Obviously." The woman sneered and turned to go.
Kerr watched her return to the safety of the serving counter, and ate the stewed mess. Whether it was pork or not he had no idea, but he mopped the last of it up with his bread and patted his stomach.
When the serving wench returned, he chanced another smile.
"How much do I owe you?"
"A copper," she said, taking his bowl and holding out a meaty hand. For a moment, Kerr considered offering to read the future in the grimy creases of her palm. With somebody else he might have tried it on, but not with this old battle axe. Whatever else she might be, she wasn't a sucker.
"Here's a copper." Kerr pressed a coin into her palm, "And here's another one."
Her jaw fell open and her eyes widened. For the first time since he had seen her, there was something on her face other than irritation. The copper might have been a diamond, or some fabulous beast.
Her hand snapped shut at the same time as her mouth.
"What's that for?"
"It's a tip, and there'll be plenty more if you can help me. I'm looking for another man from the south, a big bony one, probably with a beard."
The woman's face worked unhappily.
"If any of your customers see him, or hear about him, come and tell me at the Slayer's Axe. I'll pay you well."
"How well?" she demanded.
"Well enough for you to start selling pork from a pig," he winked, and slipped away before she could confess what she had just served him.
Illusions, he decided as he merged back into the crowd, were sometimes as valuable as coin.
As Kerr continued to spin a network of informants from the ragged underclass of Praag, so Titus was exercising his own art. He sat alone in his bolted room, straight backed and still. Despite the bustling of the inn's other customers, and despite the cries from the street below, he had slipped into a trance with the practiced ease of an otter slipping into a river.
Even as his pulse slowed to an impossible stillness, Titus' form left the comfort of his flesh and lifted up towards the ceiling. There was a brush of grey as his ethereal form drifted past the slates of the roof, and then he was free, hovering over one of the most ancient cities on the planet.
It was an incredible sight. Even to the unschooled eye, Praag was impressive. The grey stone of its construction rose high above the streets, and the intricacies of the buildings meant that the masonry had often evolved into grotesque shapes.
However, this was nothing compared to the seething tides of magical energy that flowed around the structures. Every shade of the spectrum was here, from verdant green to sickly blackness, and above this seething mass floated a galaxy of distinct sparks, the tiny shapes flickering like fireflies on a summer's night.
Titus allowed himself to float towards the nearest of them. It was a little more than a pinprick of red light. As he drew nearer to it, he could hear the words that pulsed from it.
"That swine, Radovitch, is always stealing my customers. I wish he would just..."
Titus smiled in spite of himself. Listening to the thoughts of a city's teeming masses always filled him with pleasure, no matter how petty they were.
Another bauble drifted past, another thought born from the world below.
"...beautiful, so beautiful. I wonder if I should try to hold her hand. Or maybe I should write a poem..."
Titus let the words drift past, and gazed at the other thoughts that floated up from the city. They lit the sky like embers from a roaring bonfire, and for a while Titus could only gaze upon them, enraptured.
Eventually, he managed to tear himself away and turned his attention to another marvel. He hadn't noticed it at first. Compared to the rainbow hues of the city below, the dark energy that sheered up from the city walls seemed little more than background.
Yet, as Titus drifted over to study the slabs of energy, he realised that they were more than background. It was difficult to see where the dead stone ended and the living magic of the walls began, but it was also impossible to see where it ended. The blinding sheets of grey rose up towards the heavens, and for a moment Titus felt an absurd twinge of claustrophobia.
Scolding himself, he drifted close enough to the magical walls to touch the energy. He pressed one ghostly fingertip into the darkness.
The pain was intense and immediate. He snatched his hand away, and saw that the ether of his fingertip was glowing as orange as molten iron. Titus took a moment to compose himself, but when the pain failed to recede, he turned and followed the pull of his fleshly body.
A moment later, he was blinking in the pale sunlight of his chamber, sweat slicking his brows. He leant forward, waiting for the pain in his fingertip to stop. When it didn't, he held it up and looked at it.
To his horror, it looked like a well cooked sausage. The skin had blistered at the tip, and the flesh up to the first knuckle was white with burn damage.
"Well, well, well," Titus said to himself, fascination warring with pain. He had never seen anything like this before, and his mind was already turning on ways to copy the spell.
A sudden shadow fell across the room, and Titus looked up with an unaccustomed nervousness. When he saw that it was only the sun setting behind the walls, he smeared his burnt finger with some lotion, sat back down, and tried again.
"Something wrong with it?" the proprietor asked, his fists resting on his meaty hips. Kerr had been studying the cook-shop, the seventh he had been in today. Tables and chairs filled the cramped room, and a constant stream of ragged customers came in and out of the door.
Kerr looked from the owner to his bowl of gruel. He shook his head. "No, nothing wrong with it," he said, "just making it last."
"Well don't make it last too long. There are others waiting for the bowl."
Kerr forced himself to spoon the last of the slop down his throat, and handed the bowl back to the cook. He turned it over, spat into it, and wiped it with a rag, ready for the next customer.
Kerr paid, recited his offer of coin for information about Grendel, and then made his way out. His fellow diners, vagabonds to a man, carried their bundled possessions with them. A couple had even stretched out to sleep on the dirty floor.
Kerr thought about that as he strolled through the gathering dusk. It was good of the cook to let them doss down there. He had never seen such generosity in his own city.
Yes, Praag was certainly an unusual place. Even as the shadows lengthened, the city seemed to be slowing down. In Altdorf's docklands, the coming of darkness was like fuel thrown onto the fire. Here, everybody was heading off home.
Kerr watched as all around him people scurried along the emptying streets. It suddenly occurred to him that he was the only one not in a hurry. Perhaps it was because nobody was lighting any torches or lanterns along the road. Instead, the merchants were busy closing their doors and boarding their windows. Funny customs foreigners have, he thought. Well, no matter. He had always felt at home in the dark.
A tingle of unease shivered down his spine, and he licked his lips. A couple of figures brushed past him, and he dropped a hand to check that his satchel was intact. Then he squinted after them as they hurried down the broad, unlit thoroughfare. When they had gone, he found himself completely alone.
He looked up at the sky, and saw that the blue was already fading to black. As he watched, the first star appeared and, as if in response, the city's bells started ringing. They clanged from every direction, a terrible cacophony of tuneless metal that bounced and echoed off the granite walls.
When the final peal had died away the world seemed deafeningly quiet. Kerr shivered and turned back towards his inn. Darkness wrapped itself around him. That was alright, though. He was used to darkness.
What he wasn't used to was to find such stillness in the midst of a city, or to see such emptiness on the streets. He was reminded of the tales he had heard of cities in the southern deserts, sun bleached ruins that were as silent as gravestones.
"Foreigners are crazy," Kerr told himself, but neither the thought nor the lonely sound of his voice was particularly comforting, so he shut up and hurried on home.
He was just leaving the Grazhino when he heard the first voice. It whispered from out of the darkness ahead of him, a sibilant hiss that sounded barely human. Kerr jumped, and then cursed himself for a fool. So, somebody was in the streets after all, so what?
He loosened his dagger and pressed on.
The voice grew louder as he approached, and when he drew level with the speaker, he squinted out of the corner of his eye. There was nothing there except for the blank face of a granite wall.
The muttering continued nonetheless, and Kerr hurried past the whispering voice. When it was behind him, he felt a rush of relief. It was almost as if the speaker had been invisible.
He forced himself to smile at the ridiculous idea. He was still grimacing when he heard the scream.
It came from directly above him, an accelerating howl of terror that sent him rolling to one side. He sprang back to his feet, the steel of his dagger a spark in the darkness, and glanced fearfully around. There was nobody there.
"Hello?" he whispered, his voice sounding horribly loud.
No answer.
After a moment, Kerr dragged a sleeve across the dampness of his brow and continued on his way. He could hear other voices. They echoed all around him, but although they were everywhere, Kerr couldn't hear a single word amongst them. They seemed to be no more than animal whimperings of misery, or terrible screams of pain. Sometimes there was laughter, although it had a broken, hysterical edge to it.
Wide eyed in the darkness, Kerr felt the first twist of panic within his chest. Realising that he was grinding his teeth together, he stopped, took a deep breath, and wiped his palms on his breeches.
"Just voices," he told himself, and was surprised at how confident he sounded. He forced himself to stand still for a count of three before carrying on along the street.
From the cobbles beneath his feet, there came groans of agony, as if the stones could feel themselves being trodden upon. Kerr ignored them. The walls moaned with a miserable insistence, but he paid them no heed, and when he heard the weeping, he hardened his heart and marched straight on.
So what if he could hear ghosts? He had never bothered them. Why should they bother him?
Then again, whispered a treacherous thought, why shouldn't they bother you?
Panic curdled his stomach, and his breath started to come in short, sharp gasps. Ahead of him, the empty street first shrieked with laughter, and then began to sob, and all the while, he couldn't see so much as a single shadow.
It wasn't a scream, however, that finally broke his self control, it was a whisper, a single word. It was his name.
"Kerr," a voice said, and his nerve snapped as neatly as a frozen bowstring.
He screamed, his own cry tame amongst all the others, and bolted down the street. Something tripped him in the darkness and he bounced off bloodied knees, and blundered onwards. All around him the voices grew mocking, made cruel, perhaps, by their own suffering.
He reached the end of the street, and bumped into a wall.
"Come with us." The voice was as soft as asphyxiation, and as insistent as a strangler's fingers.
Kerr spun around, eyes rolling, and slashed the air with his dagger. The only response was a tickle of laughter. With a ragged sob, he turned and fumbled along the wall. He had taken care to note the quirks of architecture on the path he had taken, but now there wasn't a single visible landmark. He had never expected to find himself in such an unlit night.
Something turned beneath his feet and he fell again. This time, he landed on his satchel, and something sharp dug into his thigh. He closed his trembling fingers around it, and his thoughts were so panic-stricken that it took him a moment to realise that it was the stone that Titus had given him.
"Stay with us," the voice whispered again, the rattle of it growing even closer. "Stay with us in the cold and in the dark, dance in the nightmares of men and the dreams of..."
Kerr, his hand still closed around the stone, lashed out in panic.
This time, his blow connected with more than cold air. It thunked home with a knuckle jarring impact. There was a shriek of pain, a rush of air, and the night exploded into a flash of blue light.
A thousand after-images swirled in Kerr's eyes, and his fist throbbed with the impact. He rubbed his knuckles as he tried to work out what had just happened. Holding a stone while giving somebody a beating was an old trick, but as far as he knew not even the most brutal of Altdorf's thugs had ever managed to slug a ghost.
Before he could follow this line of thought, he noticed that the voices were getting louder: nearer, more angry.
Kerr struggled back to his feet. He pressed his back to the wall and tried to decide which way to go. The shrieks of rage approached from every side, and he could almost imagine that his name was being called.
He was edging along the wall, his eyes rolling in the darkness, when the claws dug into his shoulders. Suddenly, it didn't seem to matter where he ran to, just as long as it was away from here.
Kerr bolted down the street, his blood fizzing with adrenaline as he sprinted as blindly as a rat in a maze.
Vaught paced around the cell, scowling at the furniture that had been brought in. It was quite good quality, the carpentry solid and smoothly polished. It had been brought along at the same time as their possessions, which had been searched and returned.
There was even a candleholder to light the cell, and a washbasin that sat on a churn of clean water, but no matter how comfortable, only Fargo had enough courage to sit down. Nobody else quite had the nerve to risk the glare that such self-indulgence would bring from their captain.
"I suppose we'll have to think of something else," Vaught said to Fargo.
The older man frowned.
"I didn't think that the gaoler would be such a fool as to come into the cell. It's not as if your plan is very original. Perhaps he's suffered from a similar attempt in the past."
Vaught sighed.
"You're probably right," he allowed, and stopped in front of the cage that barred their cell. It lay at the end of a passageway. At the other end, perhaps twenty feet away, two guards sat. They were staring into empty space with the profound boredom of men who had long since counted every stone in the wall opposite.
"Anyway, taking him hostage was never going to work." Fargo leant back in his chair with a luxurious stretch that had the other men watching Vaught nervously. "When all's said and done, who's going to care for the life of a gaoler, however high ranking?"
Vaught shrugged and ran a hand across the stubble on his scalp.
"There is that. This gaoler, though, he seems like a wealthy man."
"Ah, but that's it, isn't it? Wealth isn't the same as power. Those burghers in Teinval had gold coming out of their noses, but we lit them up as easily as candles. Not like that baron. What was he called?"
"Morstein," Vaught said. "Baron Morstein. He even had the effrontery to speak of his foul practices in public."
"That's because he had real power, not just that halberdier detachment, but the letter from the elector's palace too."
As Vaught considered the campaign against Baron Morstein, his mood lifted. He smiled, as brightly as the fire upon which the cultist had ended his days.
"We eventually burned that letter with him, as I remember."
"Eventually we did, yes, eventually."
Vaught turned back to face his men, and spoke in a voice loud enough for it to echo up the passageway.
"Well, it seems that Fargo is right. We should wait for the prince regent to free us. In the meantime, we should start shaping up. Peik, why haven't you polished your boots today? Bort, I don't remember giving you permission to grow a beard. You look like a hedge wizard. In fact..."
Vaught paused and turned back to shout up the passageway.
"Guards. Guards! We need soap and razors. Go ask the gaoler."
The two guards looked at each other and shrugged. Then one of them, keen on the change of scenery, went off to ask.
"You'll never get razors," Fargo muttered as somebody passed him a jar of boot polish. "They've even taken my pocket knife."
"With Sigmar all things are possible," Vaught said.
Half an hour later, the gaoler himself returned with a rosewood box. He passed it through the iron railings and then stood back as Vaught opened it.
"Here you go, your honour, best steel in Praag, that is, sharp enough to cut mist. My brother-in-law makes them. See the box? It's rosewood, carved by a master from down south."
"Put them on the bill," Vaught said, "and when we finish, I would like to go for a walk in the yard."
"I don't think you would, your lordship." The gaoler shook his head. "The inmates down there really aren't your sort of people."
"Yes," Vaught told him. "I would. I miss the fresh air."
The gaoler licked his lips.
"I don't mean to be uncooperative, but you must see my position. I am responsible for your safety. I have only just sent off a bill for the first months rent to your prince, and if anything happened in the meantime..."
"We'll be fine," Vaught told him.
"I'm sorry, your lordship." The gaoler shook his head regretfully. "I can't take the risk, but if there's anything else I can get for you? Some... some company perhaps?"
"Sounds interesting," Fargo said. Vaught scowled at him.
"Or at least let me bring you some fresh fruit," the gaoler said, "on the house, and as soon as your first month's bill is paid, we can talk again."
"Now what?" Fargo asked as the gaoler scurried away.
Vaught flipped open his razor and went to shave.
"First we clean ourselves," he said. "Then we pray."
\*
"They're still alive! How can they still be alive? Do you know what those lunatics are capable of?"
Grendel tugged at his beard as he paced around his chamber, his robe flapping around his bony legs.
"Relax," Zhukovsky told him. "They're not going anywhere. I told you, the Tsaritsa has ordered them to be held indefinitely."
"You can't hold them indefinitely, they're witch hunters. What if the prince regent asks for their release?"
"He can ask for what he wants," Zhukovsky said, and leaned back on his divan. He was enjoying the sorcerer's discomfort. "I'm the secretary for that department. If he writes, I will answer."
Grendel dragged his shaking fingers through the tangle of his hair, and then went back to tugging at his beard.
"No. No, no, no. You'll have to kill them. What if they escape?"
"They won't escape. Nobody escapes from the Lubyanka, especially when the Tsaritsa has ordered it thus."
The sorcerer paced over to the window and peered out at the darkness of the world below. It was pitch black in the streets of the city, the curfew complete.
"Better close the curtain or the phantoms will come. They always come when the Inferno Borealis lies dormant. They don't like the light."
Grendel waved such mundane fears aside.
"They are pitiful things, your phantoms. No, I'm worried about the witch hunters. You don't seem to understand what the creatures can do. In the Empire..."
"This isn't the Empire," Zhukovsky interrupted. He sprang off the divan and stalked over to pull the curtains across the windows. Pitiful things the haunters of the dark may be, but they still made him feel queasy.
Grendel went and sat down, and started chewing his fingernails.
"Look," Zhukovsky tried to reason with him. "They are only men. We caught them as easily as trout in a net, and locked them up without shedding a drop of blood, and with your powers, why should you worry? You are a great disciple of the greatest of all gods."
Grendel started at the mention of his master. Then he pulled himself together. Zhukovsky was right. He was a great follower of Slaanesh. He had accomplished more in the past weeks than the fools of the colleges would achieve in their entire worthless lifetimes. Even so, witch hunters...
He shivered and spat a piece of nail out onto the carpet.
"If I kill them, then it's more difficult," Zhukovsky explained. "If I kill them, I will have to explain why. I will have to spend gold, and then find assassins to kill the assassins, and if you do it by magic, people will start to wonder if they had a point. No, better to let them rot; we usually get an outbreak of yellow pox in the Lubyanka at this time of year, anyway. Maybe that will finish them off for you."
Grendel stared moodily into space. Zhukovsky watched him with contempt. How could such a powerful man be such a silly old fool? Slaanesh certainly had a sense of humour.
"Anyway," the nobleman said, sitting back down, "have you anything in mind for our gathering?"
"What? Oh, the gathering. Yes, I thought of some particularly appropriate acts of worship, but it's all off now, of course."
"What!"
Zhukovsky, as outraged as a dog whose bone had been snatched away, leapt to his feet.
"What do you mean it's off?"
"I mean that it's far too dangerous to risk such excesses with witch hunters around. Who knows what they'll do? We need to lay low for a while and rest up. Anyway," Grendel looked at his confederate, "you could do with a period of recovery. Keeping you looking normal wastes too much of my time. It's old magic as well. Now, if you wanted to be reshaped... wings, maybe..."
Grendel trailed off as he looked speculatively at the count.
Zhukovsky's ravaged features dropped into a look of astonishment.
"You're insane," he said.
Grendel just giggled. It was a shrill, broken sound and it made the count's flaccid skin crawl.
"Insane or not," the sorcerer told him, "I won't do anything else until you have slaughtered the witch hunters like the animals they are. Think of it as a favour."
Zhukovsky dropped his head into his hands.
"A favour to Slaanesh?"
"If you like," Grendel shrugged, and rubbed his bony hands together. "Now, if you will excuse me, my lord, I have preparations to make. Morrslieb draws ever closer, and there is little time to waste."
Zhukovsky took his leave and, leaning heavily on his stick, made his way back to his own quarters. The servants fled at his approach. Although Grendel had been able to hide the desolation of the count's body, he had been powerless to hide the desolation of his soul. The violence of Zhukovsky's mood swings had become legend in the servants' hall, so had the disappearances of some of their number.
When he returned to his empty chambers, he poured himself a glass of the painkiller that Grendel had provided and went over to the dwarf-built iron safe that stood in one corner of the room. He dialled the combination with trembling fingers, and rummaged around inside for the materials he needed.
So, Grendel needed the witch hunters killed, did he? Well, fine. He would have them killed; but there was more than one way to stuff a pigeon.
From the court of the Prince Regent of Altdorf, Guardian of the Keys and Protector of the Emperor's High Places, to the man styling himself Gaoler of our Noble Cousin the Tsaritsa of Praag.
The prince regent has graciously received your battels for services that you have provided for diverse bandits. Be it known to you that these creatures are of no interest to us, neither as goods, nor as chattels, nor as livestock.
I am sure that you will treat them accordingly. Also be assured that the prince, in the splendour of his munificence, understands that you meant no insult by accosting his servants on these villains' behalf.
Your most obedient servant,
Reikhart Van Debouyt, secretary to the Prince Regent of Altdorf.
Postscriptum---At my master's instruction, I have enclosed a gold coin so that you may spare the men needed to make an example of those who trade on my prince's good name.
Klitter Hofstadter, under secretary to Reikhart Van Debouyt, secretary to the Prince Regent of Altdorf.
Satisfied with his work, Zhukovsky poured sand over the wet ink, and scrolled the parchment up. Sealing it with a blob of red wax and a forged Altdorfian stamp, he sat back at his desk.
Tomorrow, he would have a messenger deliver the letter to the Lubyanka. From what he knew of the gaoler, the response would be vengeful and murderous.
Zhukovsky was smiling even before he'd swallowed his sedative.
It might have been morning. In the darkness of the cell, it was impossible to tell. Half of the witch hunters lay sleeping on the rugs that had been provided. Vaught and three others sat around the table, their hands clasped in prayer.
The harmony of their voices mingled into a single drone as they prayed, their words flowing as smoothly as honey. They had been chanting since the stub of their candle had been whole, and before that, the others had been at these same stations. If any of them doubted that their god would hear their appeal, they made no sign of it. Instead, they focused all of their energy into their prayers, content to let Sigmar decide their fate.
When the gaoler unlocked the doors at the end of the passageway, they had no doubt that their appeal had been answered.
Vaught finished the verse, before raising his hands for silence and turning to their captor. The gaoler wore his usual obsequious grin as he approached, although for once it was looking a little strained.
"Good morning, gentlemen," he said, rubbing his hands together and peering through the bars of the cell door.
"If you say so," Vaught replied.
"Oh, I see what you mean." The gaoler laughed with an obvious effort. "Well, I'm pleased to say that I have thought about your request to go outside, and I will take the risk of granting it. On your own cognisance, obviously."
"Obviously," Vaught nodded. He never ceased to be amazed by the power of righteous prayer.
"I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to wear those beastly chains again, just while we transport you through the gaol proper. It's embarrassing for me to have to ask gentlemen such as yourself, but there it is."
Vaught turned to Fargo, who had just woken up. The older man shrugged.
"Of course we'll take them off when you get to the courtyard," the gaoler reassured them.
"Very well," Vaught nodded. "Although I hope we won't find the rent for them on our battels."
For a moment, a hardness came into the gaoler's eyes, but then he was laughing again.
"Oh no. No indeed. They're one of the things you've had on the house."
Again a flash of hardness, but Vaught didn't notice. He had turned to see if the rest of his men were ready.
"Well then," the gaoler said, backing away. "I'll send some guards down to sort you out directly. Enjoy the fresh air!"
"Thank you," Vaught said as the man scuttled away.
"He's wasted in here," Fargo decided as the gaoler disappeared between the doors at the end of the passage. "He should have been an inn keeper."
"He seems to think that he is, and here come the porters."
Fargo looked at the approaching guards, and then at Vaught.
"If I didn't know you better, captain, I'd say you were developing a sense of humour."
Vaught remained stony faced as the men passed the chains through the bars.
"If you wouldn't mind clicking the manacles shut, gentlemen," one of them said, "then we can be on our way. We should go before it starts raining."
Vaught set the example, clicking the cold grip of a cuff onto his wrists. When all the witch hunters were securely bound, the guards unlocked the cage front of their cell. The rusted metal shrieked open and they beckoned the prisoners out.
"Follow me, sir," one of them told Vaught, and led the way along the lamplit dankness of the passageway. The guards opened the doors ahead of them, and they clanked onwards, taking first one turning, then another. Eventually they came to a flight of steps that led upwards to another level.
The witch hunters, each man busily memorising the layout of the dungeon, remained silent. They had been walking for almost half an hour before they felt the first breath of fresh air on their faces and saw the first grey sliver of daylight.
There was a noise, too: a constant roar, almost like the sound of the ocean.
"Just along here, sir." The guards led them up another flight of steps. There was a wide hall at the top, and maybe two dozen armed men lounging around it. They looked at the prisoners curiously, and a couple of them sauntered over.
"Are these the ones who wanted a breath of fresh air?" one asked, and there was a ripple of laughter.
"Just open the doors," the escort replied. "Let's get this over with."
The guard muttered something obscene, handed his halberd to his mate and turned to unlock the door. When the last of the tumblers had clicked open, he turned to his men.
"Come on you lot. Form up!" he shouted. The men reluctantly picked up their weapons and gathered around him. Only then did he push the door open and, squaring his shoulders, led them into the world outside.
After the quiet of the dungeon, Vaught found the roar of the crowd outside almost deafening. He squinted in the sunlight, his eyes tearing up as he followed the guards into the prison yard.
It stank. The smell of faeces and unwashed bodies hung in the air, trapped by the walls that towered up on every side. Vaught glanced up and saw archers silhouetted against the sky, their crossbows resting on their shoulders.
A mass of humanity surged around them. There must have been over a thousand people here, a seething tide of ragged prisoners, and as the little column emerged they stared with the hungry curiosity of caged wolves.
"Keep your shoulders back and your eyes straight ahead," the guards told the witch hunters as they moved them forwards.
"Eyes straight ahead!"
The crowd parted reluctantly in their wake. They eyed the new prisoners with a dangerous interest, their hands disappearing into their rags to finger hidden weapons.
Then, the sound of a winch started to echo and squeak between the walls, and the crowd shifted uneasily. Vaught could see some emotion ripple through them, an anxiety that creased even the hardest faces as they turned towards the sound.
Then the chant started, apparently from all sides at once.
"In the 'ole!"
The guards looked back at the witch hunters, and then hurriedly looked away. As one man, they had stood straighter, squared their shoulders, and hardened their faces.
"In the 'ole! In the 'ole!"
Feet started stamping a rhythm, and Vaught felt the hairs on the back of his neck raise. There was an exhilaration in the air, a near terror that reminded him of the final few seconds before the start of a battle.
Above, the guards shifted on the walls, their crossbows sorting through the mob for likely targets.
"In the 'ole!"
Thousands of feet stamped.
"In the 'ole!"
Thousands of hands clapped.
"In the 'ole."
"What's that they're saying?" Peik shouted to Fargo, his eyes wide as he looked around him.
"Sigmar knows." Fargo shouted back. "Some northern nonsense or other."
"In the 'ole!"
"It sounds like they're saying 'in the hole'," Peik offered, waiting for a pause in the chanting and shouting over the stomping of feet.
"What's that?" Fargo shouted back, but then the crowd parted and he could see.
Ahead of them, a granite blockhouse squatted in the centre of the yard. The rough hewn stones of its construction were massive, easily as big as a man, and the solid iron of its portcullis door had been winched up. There were more armed men inside, and torches, and the guards quickened their step as they approached.
"What's this?" Vaught asked one of them, and paused.
The column halted behind him, and the chanting of the inmates degenerated into a storm of jeers and catcalls.
"It's the way to your courtyard," the leading guard shouted over the din. He looked around nervously. "Come on, let's keep moving. Don't want to start a riot, do you?"
"Why should we start a riot?"
"Look around you. They want out too."
Vaught looked. Then he led his men into the gateway. When the last of them were inside, the portcullis dropped.
The guards sagged with relief, and their chief turned towards Vaught.
"They always get a bit lively when we have gentlemen like you in," he explained. "Now then, we will take the cuffs off you one at a time, but I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to wait in the... in the tunnel for now. The gaoler himself wants to escort you on your way."
The witch hunters watched as the guards opened the trapdoor that lay in the centre of the blockhouse. Apart from the portcullis, it seemed to be the only way out of the place. Vaught and Fargo exchanged a glance.
"We are supposed to be going outside," Vaught frowned. The guard nodded eagerly as he sorted through his bunch of keys.
"Yes, you are. That's the way. You'll go through a tunnel. Now then, who's first?"
Vaught offered his wrists, and the guard unlocked the manacles.
"There you go sir," he grinned wide enough to show all three of his teeth. "Now, if you'd just step down into the tunnel. Here, Ivan, give the gentleman the lantern."
One of the guards handed it over, and Vaught, the hairs on the back of his neck starting to prickle with unease, took it from him as he climbed down into the tunnel. The stairs were ancient, the living stone of them worn smooth by Sigmar alone knew how many years, and the walls sweated moisture.
Ahead, there was a scurry of movement. Something pale appeared in the darkness and then was gone, so fleetingly that it might never have been there.
"If you'd just wait at the bottom, sir," the chief of the guards called down. "This shouldn't take long."
Vaught took another couple of steps down as, one by one, his men were released, and sent down into the darkness with him.
"Notice how there aren't any candles in the walls?" Fargo muttered as he stood beside his captain.
"There weren't any in the other place," Vaught reminded him.
"At least there were spaces for them."
The clang of the trapdoor ended the conversation. The boom of it echoed down past the witch hunters and into the darkness beyond. The flickering light of their single lamp suddenly seemed horribly inadequate.
Vaught scowled as he marched back up the steps.
"Guards," he called, his voice curt. "Guards!"
He rapped his fist against the underside of the trapdoor. For the first time, he realised that it was metal plated.
There was a clink, and a slit appeared in the centre of it.
"What can I do for you, gentlemen?"
There was no mistaking the contempt in the voice, nor in the laughter which followed it.
"The gaoler has ordered us released into the fresh air," Vaught said, although he knew that he should have trusted his instincts.
More laughter and catcalls.
"Well you've been released, sir. What goes on in the hole is nothing to do with us. You should have got someone to pay your bills. Even the scum in the yard can afford a copper every now and again."
Vaught and Fargo exchanged a glance, their eyes glittering in the darkness.
"The prince regent will pay for our battels, as was agreed."
"Don't waste your breath. The gaoler got a reply from him a couple of hours ago. Seems your prince doesn't know you from an orc's uncle. Most upset he was, and most insistent that you be given more suitable accommodation."
"When the prince regent hears of this," Vaught said with a confidence he didn't feel, "there will be trouble for your master. Best to tell him that."
There was a harsh chuckle.
"I'm not telling him anything, the mood he's in. I will tell you this much, though, the ones who last longest down there are the ones who stop screaming and start moving. It's amazing how long some of them last."
"What?"
"Don't you realise where you are, you fool? You're in the hole. Don't you realise that? Once you're in there you never come back up. You'll never see sunlight, or women, or ale." He lowered his voice into a malicious whisper. "If I was you, maybe I would keep making noise. Best to get taken quick, perhaps, before you have a chance to suffer too much."
Before Vaught could reply, the viewing slit was closed, and with a farewell curse, the voices of the guards faded.
"See," Peik said, sounding pleased with himself, "I told you they were saying 'in the hole'."
"Where have you been?" Titus snapped as Kerr staggered into the room. "The sun rose an hour ago!"
"Sorry, boss," Kerr muttered, and dragged his fingers through the tangle of his hair. "I'll go and get some breakfast."
"Wait a minute," the wizard said reluctantly. "Where have you been all night?"
"I was caught in the curfew."
"Caught in the..." Titus sputtered to a halt. "What about the phantoms?"
Kerr looked at him, his eyes bright above the grey hollows.
"You knew about them?"
"Of course, everybody knows about them. The streets of Praag are built from hungry stones. They try to hold on to the spirits of the dead when it's their time to leave. Why do you think everybody is cremated outside the city?"
Kerr sat down.
"I didn't know. I do now, though. They were horrible."
Titus' concern evaporated beneath the heat of his curiosity.
"Horrible? Could you see them? Opinions vary. Some say that seeing the phantoms is the mark of a wizard, although others say not. Last year, one of our order even travelled here to find out once and for all. We never did find out what happened to him."
If Kerr felt offended by his master's callous indifference, he gave no sign of it. He was too tired.
"Well?" Titus prompted as his eyelids began to droop. "Did you see them?"
"They were mostly just voices. They shrieked and cried, and one of them even talked to me."
"Aha! A Stahlwerden. They're very dangerous. You're lucky to have made it back."
Kerr nodded.
"I have this to thank." He unclenched his fist to reveal the stone. It was greasy with sweat, and his palm was pink from grasping it. "I was holding it when I hit the... What did you call it?"
"The Stahlwerden," Titus said.
"Yes, that's it, but when I hit it with this in my hand there was an explosion of light and it went. I think I killed it."
"Can't have done," Titus told him, waddling over to take the stone from his apprentice's hand. "It was already dead, and anyway, this rock has no power. It's just a thing to practise on, like the knitting."
The wizard weighed the stone in his own podgy hand before returning it to Kerr.
"It worked, though," Kerr said. "I hit the... the ghost and it exploded."
Titus looked at him, eyes as expressionless as glass.
"As you say," he decided at length, "and then what happened?"
"I got lost. I couldn't find my way back until daybreak."
"Fascinating," Titus said, and wandered over to the diamond paned window, "but we have more important things to worry about."
"Yes," said Kerr pulling himself to his feet. "I could smell breakfast cooking as I came in."
"I meant finding our target," Titus sniffed. "Although, as you mention it, some sustenance might be a good idea; but as soon as we've eaten it's straight back to work. That idiot Grendel's a lot more slippery than I thought he'd be. He must be eschewing the use of our craft in order to remain hidden. I wouldn't have thought that he would have the wits."
Tongues of purple fire flickered around Grendel's body as he worked. He didn't seem to notice the flames, even those that developed lascivious faces before fading.
Sweat poured off him, dripping from his sharp nose onto the ingredients before him. He didn't think that it mattered. The concoction that he had dreamt of the night before was a robust enough combination. A few impurities wouldn't make any difference to it, and even if they did, what of it? His master wouldn't mind.
Grendel giggled at the thought, and started to grind some fragments of bone in a pestle and mortar.
He really wasn't sure what the potion was going to do. In the nightmare... no, in the dream... he had seen the beginnings of something wonderful: something that would make Zhukovsky's coven worthy of the attention of Slaanesh himself.
Grendel swatted at a flash of violet light that shimmered in front of his eyes. It had assumed an obscene form, but the sorcerer had no time for such distractions. Now, he was creating.
He blinked sweat out of his eyes and pressed a fingertip into the powdered bone. Deciding that it was fine enough, he poured it into a vase of finest Cathayan porcelain. Then he turned back to rummage around through his supplies. Although he had no idea what he was looking for, his bony fingers rustled through the merchandise as confidently as rats through a barn.
"Aha!" he said, lifting a bundle of feathers clear. They were long and luxuriant, and shot through with iridescent colours.
Grendel lit a candle, and then held the feathers over the pot and burned them. The acrid smell of burning filled the room, and Grendel giggled again.
Had magic ever been so much fun? He didn't think so. It had been all reading and study, and endless rules and restrictions; not at all like this freedom.
Not at all like this power.
He paused for a moment and gazed rapturously into space. In a couple of days, the coven would assemble, and then what a work of art he would make of them. What a masterpiece! And all to the greater glory of Slaanesh, greatest of all the gods.
Tears of joy slid unnoticed into his beard, and he started work again.
"Toadstools," he muttered as he searched amongst the detritus that filled the room. "Toadstools, toadstools, toadstools."
Behind him, a snap of green lightning arced from one wall to another. A rind of fungus sprouted from the area where it struck. Grendel took no notice of it as he rummaged around.
"Aha, here it is," he said and, his scrawny form glowing with energy, he continued with his preparations.
Kerr had barely finished clearing Titus' breakfast things away when the first of his informants appeared at the inn. It was the boy who had tried to pick his pocket, and this time he was not alone. Half a dozen other lads stood behind him, huddled in one corner of the inn's small yard.
They stared at Kerr with a frank interest as their leader spoke.
"I reckon we've found your man, your lordship," he said. Aware of his audience, he stood tall. With thumbs hooked around the strings that served him as braces, and with his chin held high, he looked like a miniature version of the innkeeper himself.
"Found our man, have you?" Kerr asked, returning the level gaze.
"Southlander you said, sir with a funny accent like your own. Sort of whiny like."
Kerr bit back the retort that sprang to mind, and nodded.
"I've seen him with my own eyes."
"You might have seen him," Kerr allowed, "but what exactly was this fellow like?"
"Big, just like you said. Wide across the chest and with arms like hams. He had a beard just like you said, too, and a wild look about him. Is he a murderer or something?"
Kerr frowned.
"No, not really. That doesn't sound like him either."
The informant's face fell, and his shoulders slumped.
"You ain't just saying that? I mean, I can tell you where this fellow is. You won't find him without us."
"Sorry," Kerr said, and he meant it. He hadn't been long enough out of the gutter to forget what it was like. "Our boy isn't big anywhere, apart from straight up."
One of the other urchins tugged at his leader's arm and whispered something into his ear.
"We know of some other southlanders," the representative said, turning back to Kerr. "They're smaller, but they aren't much. They barely have enough coin for their inn."
Kerr frowned.
"How many of them are there?"
Another muffled conversation ensued.
"About six."
Again, Kerr shook his head.
"No, not them then, the fellow we're after is alone."
There was another huddle, but their optimism was waning. Even their leader had lost his confidence.
"The only other one we know of is some sort of aristo," he frowned. "Lanky he is, and crazy."
"Oh?" Kerr licked his lips and tried not to look too enthusiastic.
"That's right. Ert here saw him going into... Well, going into a certain building."
"Which one is Ert?" Kerr asked, looking at the huddle of children before him. There seemed to be even more of them now than there had been a moment before, and not a one above ten years old.
"This is Ert," their leader said, and pushed one of their number reluctantly forwards. Although he couldn't have been more than eight or nine, he had the biggest and the grimiest ears that Kerr had ever seen.
"Well then Ert," he said, kneeling down so that they were on eye level, "tell us about this man you've seen."
Ert swallowed and looked at his friends for reassurance. They encouraged him with a flurry of pinches and prods.
"Tall," he blurted out, "very tall. He had a beard too, and fine clothes, but dirty."
Kerr nodded encouragement.
"Anything else?"
"Not really. Only he was with Count Zhukovsky."
The name was drowned out by a chorus of disapproving voices, and his friends pulled him back into their midst.
"Of course," their leader hurriedly took over the talking again. "Ert don't know where he saw your man, or when. Or even which aristo he was with exactly."
"Oh, it was definitely Zhukovsky," Ert volunteered before hands wrapped around his mouth.
Kerr grinned.
"Don't worry," he told them, "if the information is good I'll pay you, but I need Ert here to tell me everything about this man, and I want to know about this Zhukovsky too."
The urchins' leader beamed.
"Fair enough, your honour," he said, "and it won't cost you much extra, but how about something up front? Ert thinks better when he's got a full belly."
"That's all right," Ert said, "I remember well enough. It was---"
Howls of protest drowned out the rest of the sentence. They only stopped when Kerr produced a coin from his pocket.
"Look, I know how it is. We'll call this a down payment, and if it does turn out to be our man, then there's a dozen more behind it."
He spun the coin in the air, and then threw it to Ert. The boy caught it, took one, disbelieving glance at it, and then closed his fist around the metal.
"Well go on then," one of his mates urged, "tell the gentleman. Where did you see his friend?"
"Going into the palace. The White Palace. I don't go near it usually. You know what happens around there, but some of Borscht's lot were after me and I had to shake them off. Anyway, I was hiding in a water barrel when a carriage draws up and this man gets out. Horrible, he was, looked like a corpse."
"How do you mean?" Kerr prompted.
"All bony, like, and sunken eyed. Looked like he was dead already, but walking in spite of it."
Any doubts Kerr might have had vanished. If ever he had heard a necromancer described, then this was it.
"Who did you say he was with?"
Ert looked around nervously, and then leaned forward. He cupped his hands around his mouth and spoke in a conspiratorial whisper.
"Zhukovsky," he said, and looked over his shoulder. "Count Zhukovsky."
"You don't need to say it twice," one of his friends scolded, and a murmur of agreement ran through the little huddle. Their joy in the prospect of full bellies had been replaced by a sense of dread.
Kerr lowered his voice in sympathy.
"So what's up with this Count Zhukovsky?"
Ert looked at his friends, who looked at their feet and shuffled. Even their leader seemed to have lost his voice.
"Come on Ert," Kerr soothed. "He can't be that bad."
Ert, perhaps realising that nobody else was likely to answer, grimaced and spoke up.
"That's Zhukovsky," he whispered, leaning forwards, "he eats people."
Kerr would have laughed if not for the nods of agreement and furtive glances around.
"That's what I heard, too," somebody else offered. "A friend of mine's brother told me about it. Says if you go into... into Zhukovsky's kitchens for scraps, you never come out."
"That's why his cook always invites us in," another added, "because he knows we won't accept."
"Somebody did go in for some soup a couple of weeks ago," Ert lied.
"What happened to him?"
"Disappeared."
The gathering aaaaahed as if they'd seen a particularly good conjuror's trick.
"So what you're telling me," Kerr frowned, "is that the man I'm after has gone into a palace with a cannibal."
"Not a cannibal," Ert corrected him, "a count. Anyway, I don't think he eats grownups."
"Either way, you'd better show me where this place is," Kerr decided, "but not all of you. I wouldn't want to get anybody eaten by attracting too much attention."
The little crowd shifted, torn between fear and the possibility of a tip. Kerr sighed and reached into his purse.
"Here," he said. "I only want Ert and your leader to come with me. The rest of you, go and get something to eat."
He tossed the coin to the nearest lad. He leapt to catch it, and then turned and raced away, his companions chasing after him.
"Reminds me of when I was his age," Kerr smiled. "Right then, Ert, lead on. Let's see where this Zhukovsky lives."
Titus was exhausted. His normally florid face was pale, and his brow glistened with sweat. He stank, too. When he had come out of the trance, his robes had been sodden with sweat, and he hadn't had the energy to change them. Instead, he had just collapsed onto his bed and fallen into an exhausted daze.
The problem, he thought, wasn't that there wasn't enough energy for his scrying to be successful. No, the problem was exactly the opposite. There was too much energy. It surged into his wizardry, giving it the raw power of a gale lifting a paper kite.
In the south, he had been content to see anything in the other world, but here, he was overwhelmed with so many images, so many gleaming forms and tar black gaps that he had no idea where to look. The very stones of the city gleamed with magic, and any paths that Grendel may have cut through it had long since been filled.
Trying to find a sorcerer in this environment was like trying to follow the track a fish left as it swam through an ocean.
"Are you clever?" Titus asked, looking up at the ceiling, "or are you lucky? Or are you..." he paused, the thought occurring to him for the first time, "...or are you being protected?"
Now that he thought about this last possibility, he was amazed that he hadn't considered it before. From the little he knew of Grendel, he hadn't seemed like a conspiratorial sort of man. He could hardly hold a conversation together, and he almost never dined at table. That was why Titus had always assumed that his misfortune had been no more than an accident, an overambitious experiment that had gone slightly wrong.
After all, that had brought him on this damn fool errand, but suppose, just suppose, he was a cultist.
Titus sat up and pulled himself to his feet. He waddled over to the window and peered out at the city beyond. It was a bright afternoon, and the ragged geometry of Praag's architecture was sharpened with light and shadow.
There must be plenty of the damned and the demented lurking amongst such a sea of humanity: some of them twisted by the touch of magic, condemned to spend their lives hiding mutations or skills, others wishing that they had been.
Titus frowned as he considered these last. He had seen some over the years. When he had been younger, he had even hunted a few of them down. They were invariably insane, and almost invariably drawn from the ranks of the bored and the rich.
The bored and the rich.
Titus lifted his gaze from the streets below and looked out across the rooftops. Here and there were palaces, their towers rising above the tangle of lesser dwellings.
If Grendel had been sheltered, Titus decided, then he would be in one of them.
A smile spread across his face, and his beard bristled. He wiped a sleeve across his brow as he went back down to sit on the bed. He would rest, and then he would eat, and finally, he would start looking again; and this time he knew where to start.
He was still congratulating himself on his deductions when there was a rap on the door and Kerr bundled in. He was flushed, although it was excitement rather than fear that shone on his face.
The two men looked at each other and, in a moment of perfect harmony, said:
"I know where he is."
Tonight, Zhukovsky's palace was oiled with the sweat of his servants. In the balconies of the ballroom, runnels of it ran through the white face powder of the musicians. Tonight of all nights, they were legion and, knowing the importance of the event, they bent over their instruments with the intensity of surgeons over patients.
Far below them, toiling beneath the ground as hard as any miners, the kitchen staff raced between simmering cauldrons and well-tended stoves. The cost of the spices alone would have kept a regiment in the field for a month, and there was enough food for a hundred times as many guests as the count had invited.
He generally sneered at gluttony as being the least of the vices, but tonight Zhukovsky was happy to honour it. He strolled amongst his guests as they gorged themselves, feasting on everything from oysters to potted rhinox.
He cut a fine figure tonight, he knew that much, and when he was asked to dance, which he often was by the daughters of the ambitious aristocracy, he managed a fluidity of movement that would have shamed an instructor.
Or at least, he seemed to. The enchantments that Grendel had provided hid the truth of what he had become from the eyes of others, but from his own eyes, he could expect no mercy.
In the walls of mirrors that encompassed the dance floor, he occasionally caught a glimpse of the hunched, ruined thing he had become: the doughy skin, as loose and wrinkled as an octogenarian's, the painful, scuttling gate, the patchy hair and shaking fingers.
More than one partner had felt those fingers spasm into a clench around her waist. More than one had taken it as a compliment, and wondered if they would be the one to land such a dazzling prize as the great Count Zhukovsky.
Zhukovsky grew impatient as the night wore on, and anxiously watched the changing colours of the dwarf-made chandeliers as they shifted hues. As the heat of the candles warmed the crystal it changed, prisming the light into great rainbows of colour.
Those who had been here before pretended to be bored with the splendour. The others pretended to be unimpressed, but as far as the count was concerned, the changing colours were no more than an hourglass, a marker of how much longer he had to maintain his civilised veneer.
Wine flowed. Tongues wagged. The dances became closer and longer. A challenge to a duel was issued and accepted.
It wasn't until the ball was in full swing that the musicians stopped, paused, and then played the fanfare that marked the arrival of the Tsaritsa.
She swept into the room, and the hundreds of guests fell to their knees, heads bowed towards her. Although their heads were bowed, their eyes didn't leave her.
She was magnificent. The white gold of her hair gleamed with the iridescence of a serpent's scales beneath the light of the chandeliers. The tiara she wore almost paled into insignificance, especially compared to the flawless beauty of her skin, and, when she slipped off the white fur cloak, how much skin there was.
The neckline of her bodice plunged steeply and beyond it, she wore nothing but transparent lace hose on her arms and legs, and a spun gold belt.
The women looked at her, their hearts beating with everything from disapproval to a jealousy verging on hatred. The men just looked.
Zhukovsky, as the host, was the first to hurry over and make his obeisance.
"My lady Tsaritsa," he said, dropping to one knee, "I am honoured that you have deigned to grace us with your presence. I swear that the chandeliers glow with at least three new colours every time you gift us with your presence."
The Tsaritsa smiled.
"You might be right," she said. "My father always did say that there was a little divinity in our blood."
"Only a little?" Zhukovsky asked.
"That was Tata's problem, not enough ambition. Still, his problems are all over now aren't they?"
"I suppose so, your excellence, and who would have thought he would have died so young?"
The two of them exchanged a single, blank look before turning to less dangerous matters.
"So," the Tsaritsa said, "would you like to ask me to dance? Or is there another you would prefer?"
Zhukovsky thought about saying yes. That blundering cow, Baron Tsepe's daughter, had stepped on his feet at least twice, and he would have liked to see her exiled. On the other hand, he didn't want anybody to make a scene, not tonight of all nights.
"Besides your radiance," he told the Tsaritsa, "all other women are as lumps of coal beside a diamond."
The Tsaritsa frowned.
"But coal is useful."
"Not as useful as diamonds, your excellence." Zhukovsky thought quickly. "With diamonds you can cut anything, or buy anything."
The Tsaritsa's stare grew harder.
"So you're saying that I'm for sale: a whore?"
The word was shocking on her lips, and the room fell silent as everybody pretended not to be listening.
"Of course not, Tsaritsa," Zhukovsky choked. He had used to be so much better at handling the spoilt bitch's mood swings. His wits seemed to be going the way of his body. "I just meant that they are the most precious thing in creation. Some say that they are dragon's eyes, others that sorcerers use them to make powerful spells."
"What kind of spells?" the Tsaritsa asked.
Zhukovsky, realising how finely his fate hung in the balance, swallowed.
"Spells of great beauty," he said at length, "and spells to give men the bravery that such beauty inspires."
"Would you die for me?" the Tsaritsa wondered with a terrifying irrelevance.
This time Zhukovsky knew the right answer.
"Of course," he said, and smiled, "but I'd rather dance."
The Tsaritsa giggled and, to his immense relief, allowed the count to escort her to the dance floor. The rest of the guests watched. Those who had seen the ice cracking beneath their benefactor's immaculately booted feet tried to hide their disappointment.
In the whole room only a single man had been unconcerned with the little drama. His eyes had been moving all the while, looking past the assembled nobility, as a hunter looks through flakes of falling snow.
When the music started and the waiters hurried to refill everybody's glasses, he drifted through the throng as unnoticed as the smoke that hung above their heads.
The ball didn't finish until long, long after midnight. Most of the guests were escorted up to the chambers that Zhukovsky had provided for them. Others, proud of the talismans that vanquished the restless spirits of the night outside, staggered out to the sumptuous carriages and yawning coachmen that awaited them.
When there seemed to be nobody left except the servants, Zhukovsky slumped down onto a divan. He watched his underlings scurry about with contempt. They reminded him of rats in a barn, and he idly started to think of how he would punish the first one that caught his eye.
However, he was too distracted for such creativity. For the last hour, his excitement had been growing. Even his aches and pains were forgotten beneath the anticipation of what was to come. His coven would already be gathering, following the passageways that led from their carefully selected sleeping chambers.
What delights would Grendel have for them tonight?
Zhukovsky shivered and got to his feet. The servants who were nearest looked at him. All, apart from one of them looked at him apprehensively.
Tonight, however, Zhukovsky wasn't about to waste any time on their miserable lives. Instead, he got to his feet and with something approaching a spring in his step, went to his chambers.
There was an almost audible sigh of relief as he left the room. The servants who were cleaning the detritus of the ball even started to laugh, their hearts lifting with the joy of men who have escaped the noose. Only one of them showed no sign of relief. He seemed intent on slipping after his master.
"Hey, you," one of the chamberlains shouted. "Where do you think you're going? No one leaves until we get this clear and we can all go to sleep."
The servant turned to look at him, and the chamberlain felt a sudden confusion. He had thought he recognised the man, but now he wasn't so sure. He looked familiar but also just so... so ordinary. His hair might have been blond or brown. His eyes could have been dark blue or light hazel, and his clothes, were they a servant's finery or an aristocrat's rags?
The chamberlain felt the spike of a headache pinch him between the eyes. He rubbed the spot and, when he looked up again, all thoughts of the bland man were gone.
"Don't carry so many at once!" he scolded a waiter who had balanced a dozen platters on top of one another. "What did I say just two seconds ago?"
The waiter, mutinous with fatigue, just shrugged.
"Don't take that attitude with me," the chamberlain snapped.
Titus could hear their raised voices fade as he slipped away after Zhukovsky. His own footsteps fell lightly, the sound of his weight as neatly hidden as its shape. If there had been anybody to see him, they would have seen a nobody, and luckily for Titus, tonight Zhukovsky's palace was full of nobodies.
Porters, waiters, maids, guests scuttling towards forbidden liaisons, or courtesans slipping towards lucrative ones---the hallways were alive with such innocuous traffic, and none of the other nobodies had time to worry about anybody as forgettable as Titus.
The only problem might have come from the mirrors that lined the hall. The sight of a fat wizard waddling through the space where a servant should have been would have turned even a Praagian head. Fortunately, people had their own affairs to mind, and Zhukovsky, Titus saw, had his own aversion to mirrors. He winced every time he caught his eye in one.
The count reached a gilded doorway and, completely ignoring the two guards who snapped to attention as he past, stepped through and onto the flight of stairs beyond it.
Titus hesitated. Then he lowered the lids of his eyes and started to mouth words. His fingers moved as he did so and, stepping slowly, he began to walk forwards again.
The guards stance grew even straighter, and their eyes never wavered as he stepped up and past them. The soft pad of his footsteps had faded up the stairs before they relaxed.
"Who would have thought it?" one of them whispered, his voice almost awed. "That she would go up like that, as bold as brass. Wait until I tell the missus."
His mate looked at him, eyes hard.
"You'll tell nobody," he said, "unless you want to end the week in a pile of offal."
The first guard looked suddenly nervous.
"Come on, now, how would she know?"
"She's the Tsaritsa, you idiot. Gossip about her visiting the count gets out, and we'll all be for the chop."
His mate shrugged.
"I suppose you're right. Even so... imagine it."
The two men imagined it as Titus closed in on his prey.
Grendel had never been one for social occasions, far from it. The dangers and difficulties of his art were nothing compared to the agonising embarrassments he suffered upon having to talk to people, especially to women. Somehow, he always felt that they were secretly laughing at him.
That had been in the past, however. Now, as one of the chosen of his new master, he no more feared the society of his fellow men than he did that of mice.
It was dark. He had only lit a single lantern while he had waited, and none of the celebrants had descended with anything brighter than a flickering candle.
There were half a dozen of them down already. Both men and women wore the same hooded cowls, the black silk throwing their faces into shadow and hiding their forms. Only one seemed careless of his identity, and he was trying to engage Grendel in conversation.
"I hear old Zhukovsky found you half dead on the road?" the fool asked. He had settled his nerves by drinking his way though the ball, and he swayed as he spoke.
"You heard correctly," Grendel muttered.
"He's found me staggering about myself more than once," the man confided, and burst out into loud laughter.
Grendel scowled. This cavern was a place of mysteries, and of magic; to see the idiot treating it like an alehouse was almost insulting.
"Cheer up, bony," the man told him, irritation flickering in his own bloodshot eyes. "It might never happen."
"Oh, it will happen alright," Grendel told him. Then he smiled. After all, why shouldn't he? It didn't make sense to expect any more of this drunken oaf than any other guinea pig.
"Quite right too." the buffoon said. His belligerence had vanished as swiftly as his good humour. Something about Grendel's grin was sharp enough to cut through his drunkenness.
"Now, if you will leave me to complete my preparations," the sorcerer said, "perhaps you can entertain the ladies while we wait for the count."
The man guffawed uneasily and returned to the little knot of figures that had gathered on the other side of the cavern.
Grendel pretended to busy himself with his paraphernalia, as more of Zhukovsky's coven edged into the room. Another one of them sidled over, his pale hands fluttering nervously.
"Good evening, master," he said and bowed.
Grendel was taken aback. Master: he had never been called that before, not by somebody who meant it, anyway.
"Good evening, yourself," he replied and looked at the man. Even in the lamplight, he could see how pallid he was, and how nervous. His eyes twitched in their sockets as if trying to escape.
"I used to lead the incantations before you arrived," he said, "just minor conjurations. Sometimes I managed to acquire potions."
"Really," Grendel replied.
"Zhukovsky says you have more exalted arts."
Grendel looked at him, and for a moment felt something like pity.
Then there was a sudden hush, and the count swept into the chamber. The assembled worshippers turned towards him, drawn to him like heliotropes towards some dark sun, and whimpers of excitement filled the air.
"Greetings to you," Zhukovsky said.
"Greetings to you, oh lord," they replied with one voice.
"Everything ready, oh wise and exalted sorcerer?" Zhukosky asked.
It took Grendel a moment to realise that he was speaking to him.
"Oh. Yes. If you would like to form a circle."
"Would you like us to disrobe first?" one of the cultists suggested, her voice tight with excitement.
"Of course we should disrobe," another voice, male this time, said. They turned to Zhukovsky for a decision and, with a single sweeping gesture, he gave it to them.
As the count's robes fell to the floor, Grendel took a moment to study the corruption that had ravaged his body. The skin hung in pouches, grey and grimy, even in the forgiving light of a single lantern. Bones and joints shone white beneath his misshapen hide, the muscle that had once sheathed them wasted away, and his hair was patchy.
It was his face that Grendel found particularly interesting. The sagging skin had left his gums revealed, so that his remaining teeth jutted in a permanent, orc-like snarl, and the underside of his eyeballs could also be seen, pink as a rat's in the droop of his skin.
Not that his fellow cultists could see any of this. They were mesmerised by his form, men and women both, but it wasn't the horror of Zhukovsky's degeneration that held them transfixed, it was the glamour of the beauty that Grendel had wrapped around him.
A moment later, and Zhukovsky's fellow cultists were stripping too. Grendel didn't pay them much heed, and even if he had, he wouldn't have recognised any of them, not even the girl, her hair white blonde and her skin as smooth as Zhukovsky's was pockmarked.
As they ogled or preened, Grendel busied himself with the final preparations.
"What shall we do now?" somebody asked, apparently oblivious to the hands that had started to glide over her.
"Whatever you like," Grendel said, "it won't make any difference."
"Shall we... shall we intertwine?"
Grendel, irritated by these constant interruptions, just grunted. Taking this as a sign of consent, the party drew closed together, the mass of bodies slipping into each other's embrace.
"Right," Grendel said and looked up. For a moment, he was thrown by the writhing of bodies. Then he realised that whatever the cultists were doing, it wasn't magic. "Ahem. Excuse me?"
Zhukovsky shook himself free of his companions and rose to his feet.
"Command us, oh chosen one," he intoned, his voice booming in the confines of the cavern.
"I need two people: two volunteers."
"To honour our lord requires true faith," Zhukovsky added. "Who will offer themselves?"
A chorus of voices answered, pathetic in their eagerness. Zhukovsky let them plead for a while before accepting the white-haired girl and one of the men. He led them to the centre of the mob, and there they stood, as proud as a bride and groom at the altar.
"Good," Grendel said. He walked over to them and pulled a cork from a half empty wine bottle.
"Drink this," he said and handed it to the man.
"I've had enough already," he slurred, and Grendel realised that it was the buffoon from before. Good.
"Drink it!" he commanded. This time the man obeyed, taking a long, gurgling swig before passing it to the girl. When she raised it to her lips, an ecstatic murmur ran through the assembled cultists.
Grendel ignored them and retrieved the bottle.
"Now," he said, as dispassionately as if he'd been describing how to thread a needle, "embrace."
They needed no prompting, wrapping their limbs around each other with an eager familiarity. Grendel nodded approvingly, and then scurried back to collect another bottle. He muttered an incantation and, elbowing his way through the mass of sweating bodies, he poured out a line of viscous fluid around the two figures. When it was complete, he stood back and admired his handiwork.
"Very good," he decided. "Very good indeed."
Then he stepped back and, fingers twisting into shape, he began to chant.
Titus had reached the top of the stairs just as Zhukovsky had been entering his private chambers. He had hesitated as the nobleman had disappeared through the doors, and then he had come to a decision.
For a moment, the illusion that Titus wore pouted, the lips pursed in thought. Then, with a sudden scowl of decision, the entire form faded. In its place there was the tiniest ripple of air, and the slightest flicker of shadow.
A bystander would have seen that the handle to Zhukovsky's chambers seemed to turn of its own accord. He would have seen the door open and close as if caught in some gentle breeze. Then he would have seen nothing.
Despite the migraine it always gave him, Titus clung to his invisibility as he looked for Zhukovsky. Squinting through the flickering colours of the aethyr, he scanned the room for the nobleman. He was no longer there, but where he had gone to was no mystery.
Titus merely followed the pulse of sickly green light that throbbed from behind one of Zhukovsky's more tasteless tapestries. Behind it, a spiral staircase twisted down into the unlit depths of the palace.
Titus' blood quickened with the excitement of a ferret who has found a rat hole. He strained his ears to catch the fading footfalls of his prey, and then he followed. Zhukovsky moved with a swift assurance, and by the time he reached the bottom, Titus was sweating with the effort of keeping up.
The glow of candlelight lit the last twist of steps, and the wizard struggled to slow the wheeze of his breathing. Ahead of him, he heard the murmur of voices and, when his breath was no longer audible, he slipped down to study the gathering.
They stood in the centre of a cave, their forms uniform beneath black cloaks. Only Zhukovsky had forgone this disguise, although Titus was beginning to realise that the count was wearing a cloak of his own.
It shifted as he moved, this cloak. When it did, the illusion of his vitality faded to reveal the sickly reality of his true form. Whether Zhukovsky was mutant or diseased, Titus didn't know, but he felt a professional admiration for the wizard who had hidden the truth of his condition.
There! There he was. Titus felt an unfamiliar thrill of nerves as he saw the man he had been tracking for the last months. It was Grendel, all right, although he had changed almost beyond recognition.
Titus had always thought him a vague, gentle, bumbling man, but the Grendel who stalked around this cavern moved with the ruthless efficiency of a butcher examining the herd. Violet energy flickered around his scrawny form, and Titus felt another twitch of unease.
If he had entertained any doubts about the extent of Grendel's corruption, they were gone now. The man who stood before him stank of Chaos. Titus watched as he began to practise his foul art.
Potions were administered. Libations were spread upon the floor. Then, with barely a flourish, Grendel began to warp the winds of magic around him.
Titus watched from the darkness, impressed in spite of himself. This was like nothing he had ever seen before. The winds of magic that flowed towards the two figures that embraced in the centre of the cave ran together, creating a dazzling rainbow, rather than a true colour.
Titus stared as the energy fountained up through the couples shivering bodies, and then fell back to pool around their feet. Here, the magic swirled, trapped by the libation that Grendel had poured around his two accomplices.
A moment later, and the liquid exploded into a sheet of flame.
There was a frightened scream, followed by several whispered hushes as the fire engulfed the two figures. Titus could see the face of the man, and he watched as his fear turned to wonder. Although he was burning like a torch, he obviously felt no pain. Neither did his partner. Her only reaction to the fire that licked over her body was a high pitched giggle.
The cultists' sobs of alarm turned to sighs of wonder as they watched the cool burning flames. Even Titus, his mind turning to assassination, found the sight of them mesmerising: the way they flowed, the way they flickered, the colours.
Oh, the colours. They were so beautiful. So, so beautiful. So...
He blinked hard, and looked away. When he had shrugged off the hypnotic effect, he peered past the column of sorcerous fire to Grendel. The sorcerer was lost in his own rapture, his eyes white marbles and his beard wet with the saliva that drooled unnoticed from his chanting lips.
Titus smiled grimly. Now was his chance to finish this cursed job, once and for all.
He had considered merely reaching out to stop his enemy's heart, but even as he began his preparations, the flames of Grendel's conjuration gave him a better idea. The shadows they cast scoured the cave, and what more fitting end could there be, than for these shadows to become the harbingers of his doom?
Titus began to prepare his own contribution to the cultists' meeting.
Zhukovsky tried to hide his disappointment. The mesmerising flames that danced around the two embracing figures might be enough to impress his fellow celebrants, but they weren't enough to satisfy him.
These days, not much was. A man as blessed by Slaanesh as he was, the count reasoned, deserved more than a mere light show. After all, hadn't he worn out three other human beings in the service of his god? True, they had only been underlings, but even so.
He had sunk so deep in his resentment that it took him a moment to realise what was happening. He looked more closely at what was happening to the figures caught within the column of fire, and his mood lifted.
He had always wondered what it looked like from outside, this melting process. As the two forms fused together, his interest quickened. There was a delicacy to the way their flesh rippled and flowed, and a piquancy to the muffled squeals of alarm as the change took hold of them.
Truly, Zhukovsky thought as he watched two become one, this was poetry in motion.
But wait. This was something different. The writhing lump of the two bodies was growing into something else. The count felt a stab of jealousy as the shrieks of the two celebrants grew ever more unhinged.
What heights of sensation must they be experiencing, he thought, what debaucheries!
Around him, the other cultists shifted, drawn towards the burning horror in front of them like moths to a flame. With a final, high-pitched shriek, the cries that came from within the monstrosity fell silent.
For a moment, Zhukovsky wondered if they had died, their organs ruptured by the honour of their god's favour. Then he saw the fresh movement within the sack of skin. It squirmed with an enthusiasm that had a pleasing air of desperation to it.
The count drew closer, peering through the flames at the transformation that was taking place. Even as he did so, there was a wet, tearing sound and the bag of skin split open.
The thing that emerged bore no relation to the humans whose flesh had created it. As far as Zhukovsky could see, it bore no relation to anything. Only its claws, as black as onyx in the burning remains of its creation, were familiar.
Zhukovsky watched them snap, open and closed. He thought of the lobster he had eaten only a week before, and began to laugh.
His fellow cultists were less amused. Some of them fell to screaming, lost in their own hysterics. Others had the presence of mind to flee.
"Stop!" Grendel shrieked, his eyes fluttering open. "Stand still you fools. Don't break the circle."
The panicking coven paid no heed. Already, the first of them had reached the stairs, only for the man behind him to drag him back by his cape and vault over him.
The daemon, perhaps impressed by his energy, lashed out with a whip that looked horribly like a tongue, and jerked him back into the cave.
Grendel snarled with frustration as the perfection of his creation began to spiral out of control. He cursed savagely, cast a final, vindictive glance at the coven, and disappeared.
In that same instant, Titus struck.
"What do you think he meant by it being best to be taken quickly?" Fargo asked.
"Perhaps something," Vaught told him, "or perhaps nothing."
"Or perhaps," Peik suggested, "it had something to do with the noises we heard earlier."
A ripple of unease passed through the men, and they peered nervously into the darkness. Vaught had turned the flame of their single lamp all the way down, and the blue rind of a flame barely lit his own lean features.
"Whatever he meant," Vaught decided, "it is clear to me that we have been deceived. It is also clear that, whatever the diplomatic niceties of the situation, we now have no choice but to escape."
"Escape to where?" Peik asked.
All eight men looked down into the tunnel that led away from them. The noises had come from down there, so echoing and distorted that they might have been anything. For all their courage, the witch hunters had stayed huddled beneath the iron of the trapdoor ever since.
Vaught had had enough. Never one to cling to illusions of safety, he was already rising to his feet, one eye always on the weak flame of their single lamp.
"Sigmar will show us the way," he said and, without giving anybody the chance to object, he marched down into the darkness.
For the first hour or so, things were easy. Although the tunnel twisted and turned, it remained big enough for them to walk upright along it. It was only when they reached the first of the crossroads that they paused.
"Any ideas?" Fargo asked.
As if in reply, a whine that could have been the wind gusted out of the tunnel to the right. All eight men pretended not to have heard it.
"Let's do this," one of them said and, stooping, he picked up a piece of stone.
"An inspired idea, brother," Vaught nodded approvingly. "Let us arm ourselves with rocks like the Lord Sigmar did after his escape from Kallheim."
The man hesitated, and smiled.
"Actually captain, I meant to do this," he said, and scratched an arrow on the floor. "Let's go this way. If we have to turn back, we won't get lost."
"I see." Vaught nodded, hefted the rock he had picked up, and led off again. His men followed close behind, bunched up against the darkness. The roof of the tunnel gradually sloped up as they progressed, and soon rose too high for the light of their lamp to illuminate it.
The echoes of boot steps chattered like castanets as the tunnel widened into a cavern. A chill breeze began to tickle the backs of their necks, and they found themselves threading their way through a forest of stalagmites.
Vaught stopped the column as the chasm they found themselves in split into two halves.
"Make another mark pointing that way," he said, and gestured with the lamp. For one heart stopping moment, the flame flickered, and he quickly levered the wick higher. It started to burn with a healthy yellow light and the assembled men sighed with relief.
This time, two of the witch hunters drew the arrow, scoring deep grooves with their stones. Only when they were sure the sign would be impossible to miss, did they carry on again.
After they had gone, the things that were following them paused and studied the sign. They pawed at the scratches, and sniffed at the scent their prey had left. Then they pattered eagerly forwards, hiding their own steps beneath the echo of the witch hunters' own.
They had been walking for hours when the lamp finally started to die. Vaught paused as the last of the blue edge of the flame breathed up the last of the oil and then winked out of existence.
The darkness rushed in, blinding and heavy. For a moment, nobody spoke.
"The light of Sigmar is greater than any darkness," Vaught decided, his voice echoing through the void.
"Quite right," said Fargo. "Now, everybody take hold of the belt of the man in front."
"How will you know that we are going in the right direction?" Peik asked, his voice querulous.
"Sigmar will show us the way," Vaught replied, "or he will not. Either way, we are in his hands."
"Well, that's me reassured," Fargo said, his rolling eyes invisible in the darkness.
"Good," Vaught replied, and started to cautiously edge his way forwards.
Behind them, the gathering predators began to draw closer, their boldness owing as much to their swelling numbers as it did to the vanishing light. Even so, they still hung back. They had hunted trespassers into these endless vaults for long enough to know that time was on their side.
At first, Peik thought that it might have been the thirst, or the sore feet, or some combination of the two. During the ordeals of his initiation, he had suffered from similar hallucinations.
Now, as he staggered along through the sunless depths, he imagined that he could see the shapes of the rocks around them, not in colour or in much detail, just the outlines of the stalactites, and the dips and outcroppings of the floor in front of him. It gave him the uneasy idea that he was living in a charcoal sketch.
For a moment, he considered mentioning his symptoms to the others, but only for a moment. Even during the initiation, he had kept his mouth shut, and then he had seen all sorts of colours.
The problem was not just that such weakness was beneath one of Sigmar's chosen. It was also that such talk of colours was so often on the lips of heretics as they writhed on their pyres.
A sudden twist of anxiety cut through Peik's physical discomfort. Of course these... these illusions he had couldn't be the same thing that the heretics raved about. If they were, then surely Sigmar would have smote him down rather than allow him to become one of his witch hunters. Unless...
Peik pushed the thought away and concentrated on the rhythm of his feet. A boulder seemed to appear in front of him. He ignored it.
"Hey," the man in front of him rumbled as he tripped forwards. "Watch where you're going."
"How can I?" Peik tried to sound offended.
"Open your eyes. Haven't you noticed the glimmering? It's from fungus."
"Oh," Peik said weakly. "Oh yes, you're right."
"Silence in the ranks," Vaught growled back at them.
Peik swallowed with a strange sense of relief, and squinted at the world they were marching through. This was no manmade tunnel, of that he was sure. The chaos of fallen rock and interconnected caverns was too haphazard, and the stalagmites too artlessly formed.
If only there was something to drink, he thought. His tongue felt like leather, and Sigmar alone knew how much further they had to go.
It was another hour before he heard the first musical notes of falling water, and when he did, he thought it the most beautiful sound he had ever heard.
Another man might have cursed his fate for leading them, as the blind lead the blind. It might have occurred to another man to feel guilt over the decisions that had brought them here.
Another man might even have begun to fear what his followers might do when their patience snapped.
Although all those thoughts might have occurred to another man, they didn't occur to Vaught, not even for a second. He was too busy listening for the voice of his god to worry about such nonsense, and the harder he listened, the surer he became that Sigmar was indeed speaking to him.
It wasn't that he could hear a voice, and there were no visions either, but even so, the directions were clear enough. Every time he reached a turning in the way, or found himself echoing through a forest of stalactites, he felt Sigmar's presence beckoning from the direction he was to take. He would turn his face to it, and as he followed it he would be rewarded with the sense of his god's approval.
Vaught's lips had already begun to move in a silent prayer of thanks for this favour when the darkness had begun to lift. As blinding darkness turned to grey half-light, he could barely contain his gratitude. He even sounded pleased when he chided two of his brothers for talking.
Truly, he thought, we are the chosen of Sigmar.
When he heard the call of the flowing water ahead, he almost laughed out loud with the joy of it. He turned his face towards the enticing sound, and basked in the sensation of divine approval as he led his men to the fountain.
Their eyes had adjusted enough to see the waterfall that rained down into the pool before them. It fell from a gap lost in the distant heights of the cavern, the water as heavy and grey as lead in the dim light.
"Thank Sigmar," one of the witch hunters gasped as the column stumbled to a halt.
"Thank him indeed," Vaught said, and strode across to the edge of the pool. The mist cooled his face, and the roar of the falling water soothed his soul. How could he doubt that Sigmar would lead them out of this place?
Vaught got to his knees and scooped up a double handful of water.
"To Sigmar," he toasted and, with a rare grin, drank deeply.
It tasted unlike any water he had ever drunk before. There was an iron tang to it that reminded him of something he couldn't quite put his finger on. It was warm, too, almost warm enough to steam.
"Mineral water," Fargo said. He had knelt down beside his captain and was drinking straight from the pool, like a horse from a trough.
"I hear it's good for the blood," somebody else said, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
Blood. Yes, that was it. That iron taste reminded him of blood.
Vaught scooped up another double handful of the water and drank deeply. As he did so, he felt a surge of euphoria rise up within him, as if this was the finest Bretonnian brandy.
He grinned, and his teeth looked as sharp as a wolf's in the gloom. Glancing around the pool, he saw that his brothers wore the same delighted expression, their lips pulled back in vulpine snarls of joy.
Vaught chuckled, although somehow what came from his mouth was more of a howl. He chuckled again, and then stretched to feel the new vitality that was flowing through his veins. Life was good!
He was about to share the good news with his brothers when, over the constant roar of the waterfall, he heard a hundred shrill voices, and countless stooped forms rushed shrieking out of the shadows.
"Thank Sigmar!" Vaught roared with a terrible joy. "Thank you for even more gifts!"
With that, he lifted a stone in each fist and rushed forwards to spill blood for his god.
It was like no battle Peik had ever been in. Most of the combat he had experienced had been during Vaught's raids, and they were planned as meticulously as clockwork traps.
Down here, everything was different. There were no orders, no plans, and no manoeuvres. There was only rage and fear, and the need to win.
Peik followed his brothers as they rushed through the darkness to meet the anaemic hordes that had cornered them. There was a flash of movement in front of him, and one of the things leapt forwards, its hands raised in what Peik assumed was an attempt to strangle him.
The witch hunter twisted to one side and, as the momentum of the thing's attack carried it past him, he brought the stone down on the back of its head. There was an eggshell crunch, and his assailant slapped onto the floor, shaking with convulsions.
Two of his fellows were upon Peik before he could administer the coup de grace. He tore out the eye of one of them with a crooked thumb, and as his shrieks pierced the echoing roar of the battle, Peik grabbed the throat of the second opponent and brought the bloodied stone down onto the crown of his head.
This time there was no need for a second blow. The lifeless corpse fell from Peik's grip and landed as neatly as beef onto a butcher's slab.
Peik screamed, his blood fizzing with his terrible victories. He blinked away the tears and turned to face the next knot of the enemy.
Even as he smashed the kneecap off one, and crushed the larynx of a second, he couldn't be sure exactly what they were. They could almost have been human. They had the right form, and the blurred features could have belonged to men.
Yet, no humans Peik had ever seen had such insect thin arms or collapsed so easily. Even as the thought skittered across his mind, he grabbed one by the face and flung him across the cavern.
When no more stepped up to take his place, Peik squinted around the cavern. In the half-light, a dozen blurred knots of movement struggled back and forth, and around each one, as pale as harvested wheat in the light of the moon, the corpses of the attackers lay tumbled.
Yet the room still echoed with an insane drum roll of howling laughter. It took Peik a moment to realise that the noise was not coming from their twisted assailants: it was coming from his brothers.
A blur of movement snatched his attention back to a fresh pair of assailants. They lunged forwards, hands outstretched. Peik smashed one to the ground and turned on the other. It fell to its knees, stick thin arms upraised in surrender.
"Please don't kill me," it wailed, the voice as pitiably thin as its arms. "We don't want to hurt you, but that water, you mustn't drink the water."
Peik hardened his face and prepared to crush the creature beneath his bloodied stone.
"Don't kill me," it sobbed. "We only wanted to warn you."
The last of Peik's doubts vanished. This grovelling thing was a human all right. It was pale and starving, but there could be no doubt of its race. It even wore the remains of clothes, a ruined tunic and rags that had once been breeches.
"How did you come to be down here?" he asked, fist still raised.
"We're prisoners, just like you. Don't hurt me, but you mustn't drink the water."
Around him, the battle was finishing, the malnourished horde melting away beneath the ferocity of the witch hunters' assault. As they began to flee, Vaught's men howled with a savage joy that echoed around them.
Peik watched as one of his brothers, a quiet Reiklander called Jop, began to stamp on the corpses that were piled around him. Bones snapped like kindling, and he roared with delight, waltzing back and forth across the ruined bodies like a peasant in a vat of grapes.
Behind him, another witch hunter had cornered a pair of the ragged foe. Even in the darkness, Peik could see the terror in their eyes. They tried to dodge past their tormentor, but he wasn't about to let his prey escape that easily.
He grabbed one by the ankle and, content that he was secure, fastened his teeth into the throat of the other. His laughter turned to gurgling as his mouth filled with blood. Silence followed, as he tore out the throat with his teeth.
Peik tried not to feel shocked. This was a battle without weapons, that was all. If they had been using swords, things would have been more normal.
"Spill their blood!" Vaught bellowed, raising both bloodied fists towards the cavern ceiling. "Blood for Sigmar!"
A chorus of howls rose up in response. It was only when he realised how sore his throat felt that Peik realised he was howling with the best of them. Taken aback, he looked down at his prisoner.
The frail body sprawled at his feet, its head smashed open to reveal the pink mess within. Peik shifted his grip on the stone he held, and realised that the blood on it was still warm.
"Blood for Sigmar!" Vaught howled again, his lips pulled back in a feral snarl. "Blood for our lord!"
This time, Peik joined the chorus willingly, he and his brethren howling like wolves at Morrslieb. Their voices joined and mingled in the vastness of the cavern and, echoing and multiplying beyond all recognition, they rang out through the tunnels that ran through the rotten heart of Praag.
Miles away, a hint of them even reached the guards who sat above the trapdoor. They checked the bolts and looked each other, relieved that their shift was almost over.
It was always the smell that was the worst: that burnt pork stink. Titus always associated it with the depression that came after the exhilaration of battle.
There always was the depression. It followed the slaughter just as surely as a hangover followed too much wine, and in a way Titus welcomed it. It proved that, whatever his indiscretions, he was still in no danger of turning to Chaos.
The wizard staggered to one side as he looked around the chamber. The slumped bodies of the cultists lay smouldering all around, their charred corpses indistinguishable from each other.
They were lucky, Titus thought as he prowled amongst them. The daemon hadn't had a chance to take a single one of them before he had set the shadows alight. They had burned shrieking with pain, but at least their souls had remained their own.
"Lucky swine," he muttered, and kicked one of the bodies as if it was responsible for his own misfortune. Somehow, Grendel had escaped. He must have slipped away whilst Titus was otherwise engaged.
Titus sighed again. He picked up a fallen chair, put it the right way up, and then sat down with his head in his hands. He began to tremble, aftershocks of his incantation rippling through his body. Then he vomited.
Grendel could be headed anywhere by now, anywhere at all. Now that he knew that the game was up, he was probably already fleeing, slipping through the night to the gods alone knew where.
Titus, sickened by the sight of the holocaust he had unleashed on the coven, got back to his feet. He decided not to waste any more energy on concealment as he climbed the winding stairs back up to Zhukovsky's chambers, and the world beyond.
By the time he had waddled to the top of the two hundred and thirty-six steps, he was ready for another rest. He went and slumped into a divan that beckoned from the corner of the room. Belly heaving, he gasped and choked and wheezed, gradually getting his breath back after his excursions.
It wasn't until he had stopped sweating that he noticed the light that pulsed from the gap between the curtains. It shone with the ethereal beauty of colours that had no right to be in this world.
For a moment, the wizard sat and basked in the splendour of the magical fire. Then, with a rush of understanding that was as steep as vertigo, he leapt to his feet and strode over to the curtains. Pulling them back, he gazed out at the night sky.
It was lit with the winds of magic, vast rainbows that writhed amongst the stars. Titus had seen the rainbows before, but never like this. What made the sight so amazing was that he could see it with neither preparation, nor concentration.
Why, he thought giddily, even the herd might be able to see it!
He had heard rumours of such northern skies, of course, but he had always dismissed them as nonsense. Now, as he stood marvelling at the borealis, he knew that he had been a fool to do so. What knowledge must lay in those forbidden realms, he thought.
What power.
Suddenly, Titus knew exactly which way Grendel would be going: where any sorcerer would be going once he was free of the fetters of the colleges. He would be going north.
Titus, thankful for the excuse his mission gave him, would be following right behind.
The icy winds slipped beneath his furs as skilfully as a pickpocket's fingers. He had passed the last of Kislev's outposts two days ago, and since then the weather had grown colder. Even his ponies were beginning to shiver, their fur scant protection against the winds that blasted this barren steppe.
Grendel knew that it was only a matter of time before they froze beneath him, but that was of no concern to him. He had nothing to fear from this wilderness, of that he was sure.
In fact, he had nothing to fear from anything anymore. Ever since he had abandoned the fool Zhukovsky, his god had begun to talk to him as if to a prodigal son. What could a man who belonged to Slaanesh have to fear from the rest of the world?
Grendel was listening to the voice of his god, even now. It whispered inside his head as insistently as the gnawing of a rat, and tears fell unchecked down his gaunt cheeks. They froze as they fell, leaving his skin glittering with ice.
Blinded by tears and deafened by whispered promises, the sorcerer was oblivious to the horsemen who were charging towards him.
They came from the north, from the very heart of the wastelands into which Grendel was heading. Like all of their kind, the horsemen were ragged and hungry, and the sight of the lone wanderer had set them to salivating as they raced forwards. Although eager, they maintained their discipline. Flankers rode wide on either side, whilst a trio of the fastest riders had already galloped south to cut off Grendel's retreat.
The first that the sorcerer knew of his predicament was when his pony stopped and whinnied a greeting to the approaching horses. Blinking the ice from his eyes, he looked up. The voice in his head fell mute as he squinted at the men who surrounded him.
"Greetings," their leader sneered. He was bundled in a quilt of mismatched furs, but beneath the cloak, the wiry muscles of his scrawny chest remained bare, as did his scalp. The hair had been shaved, apart from where it jutted upwards in a greasy top knot, but Grendel was too interested in the ruin of the man's left arm to worry about such minor details.
At least, he supposed that the thing which sprouted from the rider's shoulder might have once been an arm. Now, it was a boneless as a filleted hare, although no fillet Grendel had ever seen had pulsed with such sickly luminescence, nor had any writhed with quite such energy. From shoulder to fine pointed tip, the tentacle moved with a restless energy, the tip twitching as if to sniff the air around it.
Grendel realised that his mouth was open in surprise. He closed it with a snap, and then replied.
"Greetings," he said, and looked past the lead horsemen to those that waited behind him. They were dressed in the same ragged fashion, and for the first time Grendel noticed the lances. They were lowered towards him, and even in the frozen grey light of the afternoon, the steel tips glinted.
"What brings you to our lands?" their leader asked, his voice rotten with a false good humour. "It is not often that we have the company of such a fine gentleman."
"I'm heading north," Grendel replied, his eyes still focused on the mutated limb. "Does it hurt?"
"What?" The horseman's mocking expression faded.
"Your arm, does it hurt?"
"Oh yes," the horseman hissed. "It hurts alright. Let me show you."
He nudged his horse forwards, bared a mouthful of sharpened teeth into a smile, and, with a sudden lunge, lashed towards Grendel's throat. The fleshy rope of his limb elongated as he did so, and the tip pulsed red in anticipation of the blow, but as soon as it touched the sorcerer's flesh the tentacle whipped away, the speed of its retreat even greater than that of its attack.
A look of shock crossed the mutant's face as he looked at his traitor limb, and then a look of horror. His comrades cursed in surprise as their leader's arm wrapped around his own throat and began to tighten.
"Fascinating," Grendel said as the mutated limb twined itself around its owner's neck. It grew thinner as it tightened, coiling around the bearded throat like a living noose.
The mutant clawed at the tentacle with his free hand, but it was no good. His nails slid off the smooth surface, and his scrabbling was already becoming weaker.
He looked at Grendel, pleading in his eyes, and tried to say something. Grendel remained impassive, and the hiss of breath merely served as the man's death rattle. No sooner had it left his blackening lips than the veins in his eyes popped like fireworks, and his tears turned to blood.
With a last convulsion, the strangled man slid from his horse's back, his body thumping onto the frozen earth as his mount skittered nervously away.
Grendel giggled.
"Look at that," he said to the horrified ring of horsemen, "it's still alive!"
And so it was. Even as the mutant's body grew cold, its traitor limb writhed and twitched, the tentacle slithering across the frosted earth as it tried to escape the corpse.
"Maybe I can..." Grendel began, and then broke off as he noticed the expressions on the horsemen's faces. The horror had gone. Now there was only hatred.
"Oh come now," Grendel told them. "Surely you don't think that the lord who gave him that would have let him use it against one of his champions?"
"You follow our lord?" one of the raiders asked, doubt showing within his protuberant eyes.
"As do all who understand his ways," Grendel nodded, "and his ways, although ever changing, are always correct. Why else would he have led you here if not to guide me to his realm?"
He turned to gesture across the frosted immensity of the steppe. It was endless, a barren desert of rock and ice. The only colour came from the occasional glimmer of the borealis from behind the slate grey clouds.
The whole group fell silent. They studied the sorcerer as avidly as dogs who have found a wolf in their kennel.
"If you truly follow our lord," one said, "you will be able to show us some... some proof."
Grendel gestured towards the strangled corpse that lay on the ground before them.
"That could have just been an accident," the rider said, "or a trick. Show us something more."
"If you wish," Grendel shrugged, fixing the man in his gaze.
"No, not on me." The rider backed away, a flash of sudden alarm in his eyes. "I meant on something else."
The sorcerer smirked at the fool as he tried to hide behind one of his fellows. Did he honestly think that flight would save him if their lord judged that the time had come?
He dismissed the thought. He dismissed all thoughts, letting them fall from his mind as easily as the first flecks of snow started to fall from the angry black sky above. Then he focused on the corpse before him and began to chant. Power flowed around him, and then through him. He reached out with the energy and wrapped it gently around the cooling body. The tentacle, still warm, writhed in ecstasy at his magical touch.
Grendel paused as an icy blast of cold wind rippled through his concentration. Then he started to work. At first, he was tentative, like a painter sketching out the preliminary sketch. Then, he was seized with a sudden inspiration. He would finish the work that his lord had started on this miserable human.
Grendel's lips twitched up into a playful smile, and he started to work faster. The blessings of Slaanesh started to flow through the corpse, and a horrible new life started to pulse through the still arteries. Its form rippled like a wax figure in a potter's kiln and, like the tender buds of some terrible spring, fresh tentacles began to emerge from the body.
As they sprouted, so the corpse that had birthed them began to disintegrate. It shrank as the pseudopods that grew from it twisted the dead flesh into their own forms, and soon there was nothing left of the corpse but for a shapeless mass, an unseen base for the forest of waving tentacles.
The horsemen soothed their trembling mounts as they watched the miracle that was unfolding, for it was a miracle, of that they had no doubt. Even as they watched, new life began to pulse through the tracery of arteries and veins that lay beneath the thing's transparent flesh.
One of the men, his face alight with wonder, dismounted and walked cautiously over to study Grendel's handiwork. When he was close enough, he reached out one trembling hand towards the tentacles that drew towards him.
Grendel, who had been lost in the joy of creation, drifted back into awareness just in time to see what was happening. "Get back!" he shouted.
It was too late. Even as the horseman brushed his fingertips across one the tendrils, they struck, licking around his wrist with a blur of movement.
"It hurts!" the man screamed and, realising his mistake, tried to pull back, but already more pseudopods were twining around his limbs. One caught his ankle, tripping him up, and he was dragged flailing into their midst.
He screamed again, wordlessly this time. The hiss of melting flesh filled the air as the pseudopods began to dissolve their victim, eating through his windpipe so that his screams became a gurgle.
Some of his comrades rushed forwards to help, their swords drawn, but Grendel waved them back.
"Stay away from it, you fools. Would you blaspheme against our lord by denying sustenance to one of his creations?"
The horsemen hesitated. A gossamer thin tendril touched one of their boots and he jumped back with a yelp. As one, the men retreated to a safe distance.
"See how the thing swells with the new life it has ingested," Grendel mused, speaking more to himself than to the barbarians who stood around him. "Truly, our lord is a god of many splendours."
When he looked back towards the horsemen, they had all dismounted, the reins loose in their hands as they bowed down in obeisance towards Grendel's creation.
The sorcerer smiled, gratified. Slaanesh, it seemed, had provided him with his guides after all.
What a place to die in: there would be no burial, and no mourners, just an endless tomb of suffocating tunnels, and the gnawing indignities of the things that lived down here. Peik sighed at the thought. He had always wanted to die gloriously, torn to pieces by a horde of mutants, perhaps, or blasted into oblivion by some rogue sorcerer, but he was slowly starting to accept that such rewards were not to be his.
It felt as if months had passed since the battle with the tunnel dwellers, but that couldn't be right. After all, despite the hunger that gnawed at their stomachs, they still hadn't starved to death.
Peik didn't think that they were far off it, though. More than one of the witch hunters staggered as they marched, and their rest stops became more and more frequent.
Despite their suffering, the men remained dour and close-mouthed. Peik wondered if any of them were trying to remember the battle. Somehow, the memory of the slaughter had blurred, fading and dying like a plant without light. The memory of what had come after it...
Peik's thoughts skittered away to the mess the witch hunters had ended up in. There was not a single one of them whose gear hadn't hardened with the dried blood of their victims.
They could still smell the iron stink of it. So could other things. They scurried and slithered in the darkness, unseen and mysterious. Sometimes, when they stopped to rest, the men would hunt these things, but so far all they had caught was an anaemic centipede with mandibles as big as pincers.
Starving or not, none of them had tried to eat it.
Peik looked at the back of the man in front of him. His whole body drooped as he trudged blindly onwards. Peik considered asking him why he was still following Vaught, why any of them were. Did anybody really share their captain's faith that Sigmar would lead them out of this terrible place?
To the hells with it, Peik thought, it wasn't as if they had anywhere else to go. He picked up his step and walked forwards, as meekly as a sheep into a slaughterhouse. After all, with the blood of the slain still stinking on his clothes, what else did he deserve?
"There you see? I told you. I told you that our god would guide us."
The witch hunters gathered around their captain, their eyes dazzled with tears. The shaft of sunlight was blinding, a column of molten silver in the eternal night of the underworld.
"You told us indeed," Fargo nodded his head, and smeared the moisture from his eyes. He swallowed painfully. Although the tears might be from the glare of sunlight, they didn't explain the lump in his throat. "Well done. Well done, my captain."
He slapped Vaught on his shoulder, and was rewarded with a low, deep-throated growl. Fargo snatched his hand away and ignored the thought that this wasn't how Vaught had used to react.
"Don't worry," Vaught exclaimed with a vulpine grin. "I won't bite you."
For some reason, the jibe sent a shiver of memory through Fargo's spine. Although a memory of exactly what he couldn't say.
"He spoke to me, you know," Vaught said, mood swinging back to the philosophical. "He promised me that, on the day of our rebirth, he would remake us into even greater hunters of sorcerers."
His men nodded as they gazed into the blinding light of the world above. None of them was in any mood to disbelieve: none of them, apart from Peik.
"What do you mean he will remake us?" he asked, blinking away fresh tears. "Isn't remaking things what sorcerers do?"
There was a blur of movement, a crunch of gristle, and Peik collapsed onto the floor. He clutched at his bruised windpipe, his cry of surprise no more than a hiss of pain. Vaught stood over him, his silhouette as black as a storm cloud against the world above.
"You are a good apprentice," he said, as calmly as if he had never moved, "but I will not tolerate blasphemy."
Peik scrambled to his feet, and for the first time, noticed the flat red glow of Vaught's irises. The glimmer reminded him of a wolf's gaze in the firelight, and he swallowed a surge of superstitious dread. He blinked and the colour was gone, his captain's eyes invisible in the darkness.
"Next time you take the name of our god in vain, I will not be so merciful," Vaught told him, his voice scarcely louder than a whisper. Then he turned on his heel and strode over to stand basking in the sunlight. His men, taking their leader's lizard pose as their signal, started testing the tumbled rocks for the best way out of the catacombs.
After the stagnant air of the underworld, the icy winds of the blasted steppe bit like steel. The witch hunters, scarecrow thin within their ragged clothes, hunched against the wind as they marched northwards.
As they marched, they searched the barren land around with hollow eyed desperation. There was no sign of the city they had escaped from, or of any human habitation at all. Vaught, though, seemed supremely indifferent to the fact that they had emerged in what was essentially a frozen desert.
Occasionally, one would stoop to scrabble a piece of bone-dry lichen from the frozen earth, or to snatch a drink from a melt water puddle, but as soon as they finished, they hurried to catch up with their comrades. Vaught, convinced that he could smell the sorcerer they were hunting, was setting a terrible pace.
None of his men talked anymore. Even when they huddled down to rest, they remained silent, conserving what little strength they had left. By the length of his beard, Peik reckoned that it had been over a month since they had turned their backs on the trapdoor of their gaol.
From time to time, he found himself wondering who would be the first to drop, Fargo, probably, he was twice as old as most of the men. Then again, Kurt seemed to be feeling the ravages of hunger and cold more than most. He had almost collapsed before, and only a snarl from Vaught had kept him on his feet.
Even as Peik dwelt on these morbid thoughts, Vaught's god sent them salvation.
"Down!"
Oblivious to the urgency in their leader's voice, the column of witch hunters collapsed gratefully. In the gathering chill of dusk, even the scant cover the rocks provided gave them a momentary illusion of warmth.
"What is it?" Fargo hissed as he crawled towards his leader. The wind whipped a flurry of snow past him, and his eyes watered as he squinted into the dusk.
"Over there," Vaught whispered, nodding towards a blur in the distance. Fargo looked blindly towards the indistinct shapes.
"See them?"
Fargo shook his head, but then, suddenly, he could see them. It wasn't that the darkness of approaching night had lifted, so much that it became irrelevant, as invisible as the surface of a stream when you watch a fish below.
After so long without food, these were fat fish indeed. They were huddled in fur cloaks and hats, and they virtually glowed with health, and so did their string of packhorses. The sturdy little beasts were padded with fat: succulent, juicy fat.
Fargo's mouth watered at the thought of so much meat. He could almost taste the fat, and the flesh that rippled beneath the fur. "Shall we kill them?" he asked, his voice hoarse with desire.
Vaught nodded.
"But wait. See how they come towards us? Our god is generous indeed."
"Yes," Fargo nodded vaguely, "our god."
It suddenly occurred to him that he couldn't remember the name of his god, and a brief frown creased his face. Then it lifted. Compared to the succulence of their approaching prey, such details hardly seemed important.
Fargo watched the merchants draw nearer. There were perhaps a dozen in the mule train, and although their shoulders drooped after a hard day's ride, their heads turned constantly as they scanned the horizon for danger.
"They're coming right towards us." Fargo licked his lips, and then scowled as they came to a halt.
Had they heard him? It didn't seem likely, but even as anxiety tightened in his stomach, the old man saw that the merchants were dismounting, ready to set up camp for the night.
Curiosity had brought the rest of the witch hunters snaking forwards. They pressed their bodies into the bitter embrace of the frozen earth and waited, and watched.
The merchants stretched and rubbed the tender muscles of their calves, before hobbling their horses and hoisting their tents. The drooling witch hunters watched them set up their camp, and when the merchants sparked up a tiny cooking fire, their eyes glittered as brightly as the stars that had appeared above.
It wasn't until the travellers started to cook that Vaught's men began to slowly disperse. They moved silently and without orders. Each man moved according to his instinct, loping back into the night to find his place in an encirclement.
The freezing air grew rich with the smell of wood smoke and stew, and laughter rose up towards the stars. As the witch hunters closed in, the men ladled out the stew and began to eat. Fargo slavered at the sight. He and Vaught were creeping forwards side by side, and by the time the merchants were wiping their bowls clean with hunks of bread, the last of the witch hunters were in position.
They waited for a moment before rushing forwards, moving as silently as death itself. Brandishing rocks or open handed, they emerged into the firelight with a ferocious speed, and suddenly they were howling with a terrible joy.
Fargo felled the first of them. The man dropped his bowl as he rose to his feet, only to be sent spinning back with a crushed forehead. His comrade managed to draw a cutlass, but he was too late. Before the blade had cleared the scabbard, Fargo's skeletal fingers had closed around his wrist and his teeth were tearing through his throat.
The old man swallowed the blood eagerly. It was delicious and hot, and he was seized with a terrible hunger as he gulped it down. Even before his prey's heart had stopped beating, he regained control of himself and let the body drop. There would be plenty of time for feeding later. Now, there was killing to be done.
His blood-clotted beard lifted in a smile and he stooped to seize the merchant's cutlass. He weighed it in his hands. It was a clumsy weapon, poorly forged and barely sharpened. It would do.
With a joyful snarl, Fargo leapt forwards to slash the legs from beneath a fleeing merchant. He fell onto the fire with a screech, writhing in the embers as he groped at the stumps of his legs.
Fargo howled with delight and, resisting the lure of scorched flesh, turned to find more victims.
By now, they were running in short supply. Despite their starvation and their empty hands, the witch hunters had fought with a bloodthirsty savagery that had driven all before them. Here and there, knots of figures still struggled, and in the strange, shifting darkness of this new world, Fargo could see one of his brethren running down figures that had fled into the night.
Most of the witch hunters were already feasting. The cauldron of stew lay spilled and forgotten as, all around, they tore the warm flesh from the bodies of their prey.
Fargo felt his own hunger seize a hold of him, and turned back to finish off the man whose throat he had torn out. As his teeth tore off the first sliver of delicious meat, he could hear Vaught howling with the joy of victory.
"Blood for our god!" he bellowed to the uncaring stars that glittered above, "Blood for the Blood God!"
As Fargo swallowed, he suddenly found that he could remember his god's name after all. He wiped a smear of blood from his lips, turned instinctively north, and mouthed the word in silent prayer.
"Khorne," he whispered, and from somewhere deep inside him, a voice answered back. Comforted, he returned to his feast.
Kerr was woken by the stabbing light of a brilliant dawn. He opened his eyes reluctantly and squinted across the glittering steppe. After the borealis that had raged the night before, it seemed almost dull.
He yawned and stretched within the cocoon of his furs. Then, steeling himself against the chill, he rolled out from beneath the carriage. His teeth started to chatter, even as he pulled a rabbitskin jerkin over his head, and by the time he had started to make the breakfast fire, he was shivering.
He had barely started to cook when the carriage door squeaked open and Titus bundled out onto the track they had been following.
"Morning boss," Kerr said, barely looking up from his tinderbox. Titus made no reply, just wandered off to stare silently towards the north. It wasn't until Kerr had got the fire going, the flames twinkling gamely in the light of the morning sun, that he noticed what was wrong with his master.
"Sigmar's bones, boss, you should wear something against the chill. Aren't you cold?"
Titus turned reluctantly from his study of the northern skies, and looked bemusedly at his apprentice. Despite the fact that ice crystals were already forming on his beard, all he wore was a nightshirt. It clung to his body, tight enough to made him look like a sack of lard.
"Cold?" he asked. "What do you mean?"
A sudden gust of wind sent the flames higher, burning one side of Kerr's hand even as it froze the other.
"I mean it's freezing," he said. "Look."
He opened his mouth and yawned out a cloud of white vapour. Titus watched it without much interest.
"Yes, I dare say you're right, but anyway, it's time to go. We don't have time to waste. I want to go north, after Grendel, I mean," he added, vaguely.
"Right you are. I'll have the bacon ready in just a minute." Kerr brandished the frying pan at the sorcerer much as a villager might brandish garlic at a vampire.
"No." Titus waved away the suggestion. "No time for that. Just feed the horses and we'll get going."
Kerr's jaw dropped. He looked from Titus, who was already hoisting himself back into the carriage, to the frying pan he still held in his hand.
"Come on," Titus snapped. Kerr frowned as he kicked out the fire. He snatched a quick glance at the empty immensity of the steppe, and then stooped to gather the remains of the kindling. They would be glad of it before they left this barren place.
"Come on!" Titus yelled, a touch of genuine rage in his voice. Kerr winced, and threw the wood into a pannier. As he went to check the horses' harnesses, he frowned uneasily. First the wizard's lack of appetite, and now his lack of temper.
Maybe he was sick.
"Never mind the silly old sod," he muttered to the horses, who twitched their ears in agreement. Satisfied, he vaulted up into the drivers seat and, snapping his whip in the air, he sent the horses trotting reluctantly forwards, towards the haze of the north.
When Kerr suggested they stop for lunch, Titus grunted a negative. That was unsettling, but when he refused to stop for dinner, Kerr started to become alarmed.
"Don't take this the wrong way, boss," he said, leaning down from the roof of the swaying carriage so that he could speak through the window, "but I think you might be ill. You've got to eat, haven't you? Keep your strength up."
The sorcerer shifted beneath the weight of his robes, shadows obscuring his face.
"No," he muttered, as if speaking to himself. "No, I don't want to delay."
The carriage hit a pothole and Kerr bit his tongue.
"We'll have to stop soon anyway," he argued, swallowing blood, "it's almost night time."
To his surprise, the wizard reacted with a strange, high-pitched giggle.
"No time like night time," he said. "We won't stop at night anymore. There's no more need, is there? This far north, even the animals can see."
Kerr frowned. It was quite true that the burning skies grew brighter every night. It was also true that the light they cast was stronger than that thrown by either moon.
"Then when will we stop?" he asked.
"Later," Titus replied. "In the meantime, why don't you practise your exercises? See what you can achieve. Just don't focus on anything too near the carriage."
Kerr sighed and, knowing that he was beaten, clambered back into his seat and wrapped a sheepskin around his shoulders. Then, taking the stone out of his pocket, he held it in the palm of his hand, and tried to empty his mind of thoughts and distractions. It wasn't easy. As well as the nagging worry about Titus, he also had the jolts and bangs of the carriage to deal with.
Despite the turmoil of his thoughts, flashes of aethyr began to appear around him. He watched them, soothed by the purity of the colours as they flickered about.
There were some glorious reds amongst them, and Kerr focused on one in particular. It was writhing around a granite boulder like an anaconda around its prey, and it throbbed with energy.
Kerr licked his lips and flexed his hand, ready to lighten the world with a flash of flame, but before he could, he felt something move within him and arc out towards the stone. There was a steam kettle hiss, a pulse of light, and the boulder was gone.
The horses screamed with sudden fear and bolted, the carriage rattling and bouncing along behind them. Despite the leg shattering mess of the frozen earth, they charged blindly forwards, and Kerr's world disintegrated into a confusion of pulling reins and spine jarring impacts.
"Whoa boys! Whoa!" His cries proved as ineffectual as his reins, and soon he was fighting just to stay on the carriage seat. From the box below, he could hear Titus' cries of complaint, and despite the blur of his predicament, he felt a mischievous grin lift the corners of his mouth. After all, his master had wanted to make good speed.
He snatched a quick glance back towards where the stone had been, and his smile exploded into a scream.
He was never sure exactly what he had seen, although he was certain that there was no name for it. Later on, he took comfort from the fact; it proved that the writhing obscenity he had created was a freak, a one off, a lone monstrosity.
At the time, he had no head for such philosophy. Conscious of the effect his screaming was having on the hysterical horses, he fought to bring himself under control, but he didn't try to stop their wild flight. Now that he had seen what they were running from, he had to restrain himself from lashing them on to even greater speeds.
As they careened away, Kerr told himself that the horror couldn't move. He told himself that it definitely couldn't run and probably wouldn't live into the second hour of its horrible life.
As he told himself these things, he wondered how long it would take his misbegotten creation to find him.
After half an hour, exhaustion began to get the better of the horses' panic. They slowed to a trot, and then to a walk. Eventually, they stopped altogether to stand, foam flecked and gasping, beneath the terrible fireworks of the night sky.
Kerr, still shaking, went to the horses and started wiping the sweat from them before it froze. He talked to them as he worked, soothing his own fears as he tried to sooth theirs.
"I take it," Titus said from behind him, "that we were running from something?"
Kerr turned to face the wizard, and cast a nervous glance over the fat man's shoulder. Despite the luminescence of the northern sky, he couldn't see anything but rolling plains.
"Yes, we were. The thing is... well, I think that I might have..."
Kerr trailed off, suddenly realising how ridiculous the whole thing sounded, but Titus was nodding his head with encouragement.
"You cast a spell that got out of hand," he suggested.
"I think so," Kerr nodded miserably, "but I had no idea that I was doing it. It was more like the spell used me to cast itself. Before I could even move my fingers, it just sort of happened, and it was more than a fire."
"Ah yes," Titus looked almost wistful. "It's always like that when you really connect to the aethyr. Don't be too pleased with yourself, though. This far north, even those idiots in the College of Light could manage something impressive."
"It wasn't impressive," Kerr swallowed, and tried not to think about those desperately reaching tentacles. "It was horrible."
Titus nodded, this time with sympathy.
"Don't worry. It was my fault for encouraging you. I think that we should forget about your training until we return. Up here, things have a habit of getting out of hand."
Kerr nodded, and stroked the trembling flank of the nearest horse.
"Enough of this," Titus decided. "Your driving has given me quite an appetite. How about that bacon?"
"Yes, of course," Kerr said distractedly. He unharnessed the horses, made sure that they were hobbled, and then built a cooking fire. Soon, the bacon was sizzling on the iron skillet. The comforting smell of it rose up with the smoke towards the rivers of colour that twisted through the sky above. Even as his mouth watered, Kerr wondered if such an ordinary smell had ever graced this forsaken place before.
Vaught woke a full day after his feast. He lay on his back for a moment longer, luxuriating in the fire that burned in his heart. It warmed the frozen earth beneath him even as it sent the blood boiling through his veins.
In the past, he would have begun his day with a prayer. Now there was no need. He knew that the rage that glowed within his chest was prayer enough, and that the blood that crusted his face and hands remained a worthy offering.
He smiled, baring blood clotted fangs, and growled in contentment.
Around him, his brothers began to stir. Some sniffed the air, their snouts wrinkled with excitement as the northern winds brought them the maddening stink of sorcery. Others awoke to find that the last shreds of their clothing were unbearably itchy. They tore them off with fingernails that had become claws, and shrugged off armour that was no longer worth the weight.
Vaught rose to his feet and gazed around him. His senses had flowered while he had slept. He gazed enraptured at the colour of smell, the taste of light, the soft whispers of heat and cold.
It wasn't long until he caught the scent of Grendel's spoor. Even amidst the turmoil of his fresh senses, the smell of his prey remained as clear as a single star in a pitch black sky.
He turned to his brothers and tried to tell them that it was time to go, but as the words passed through the slabs of muscle that protected his throat, and between the fangs that lined his mouth, they changed into a ululating growl.
That was no problem. His brothers understood him well enough, and their yellow eyes glimmered with a gleeful excitement. After so many months spent stumbling about with pathetic human bodies, it seemed that the hunt was about to begin properly. Eager to be off, they gathered around their leader, all of them apart from one. He remained slumped on the ground, a half devoured corpse beside him.
Vaught growled impatiently and loped over to wake the pup up, but as he bent over the youngster, he realised that the thing that Peik had become would never wake up again. In the centre of the ribbed muscle that armoured its chest, there was the hilt of a knife. Both of Peik's clawed hands were wrapped around it, locked from the effort of plunging the blade into his heart.
Vaught sniffed at the body, and then stood back. For a moment, something like confusion flickered across the bulging contours of his features, and the rest of the pack gathered around uncertainly. One leaned down, sniffed, and then lapped at some of Peik's spilled blood.
Vaught's confusion vanished beneath a snarl of rage, and he sent his brother spinning back with a blow from the flat of his hand. Then he stooped, found a stone, and placed it on top of the corpse. The others followed suit, and by the time the sun had risen a cairn had been raised over Peik's twisted body.
Only then, their rage sharpened by the effort, did the pack turn to the north and, duty done, rejoin the chase.
"You must have travelled a long path to become so blessed by our lord," the horsemen's new leader said.
Despite the fact that the two men were riding side by side, it took Grendel a moment to realise that he was being spoken to. He had been too busy listening to the delicious voices that had been whispering inside his head, filling it with sweetness as busily as bees in a hive.
"What's that you say?" he asked, turning to his companion and blinking with confusion.
"I just said that I am impressed by your power. You are truly blessed by our lord."
"Yes," Grendel nodded distractedly. "Ever since I can remember, I have had some power. Of course, in the south the world is full of cowards and fools who try to twist and corrupt the gifts of the gods."
"Oh yes." The horseman nodded, and his eyes became hard. "The south, some of us came from there, and who knows? One day we might return. There are many scores to be settled; many animals to hunt."
"I suppose so," Grendel replied. The two men lapsed into silence, but for once the sorcerer desired the novelty of conversation.
"So," he said, trying desperately to think of something to say, "when did you first hear the whispered voice of our lord?"
The horseman looked at him.
"As soon as my mother saw me and started screaming, I suppose," he said. There was no mistaking the bitterness, it was hard and as sharp as iron.
"Oh. Oh yes. I see what you mean."
Another man might have been taken aback by the sudden ferocity in his companion's voice, but not Grendel.
"I wonder why she didn't drown you. A lot of women do, I understand. They're afraid of what will happen if the witch hunters find their offspring."
The horseman laughed, the sound as humourless as a raven's caw.
"Maybe she was afraid I would float," he suggested.
Grendel considered this for a moment. Then he frowned and shook his head.
"No, I don't think so. Anyway, she could have held you under the surface to make sure. Apparently babies are just as weak as they look."
The horseman turned to favour Grendel with a long, cool stare.
"I don't know. She kept me until I could walk and eat. Then she left me in the forest."
"Maybe," Grendel suggested, excited to have solved another riddle of human nature, "she was too sentimental to finish you off at first sight, so she left you in the forest in the hope that wild animals would do the job for her."
"I never thought of that," the rider said. Grendel, oblivious to sarcasm, beamed.
"Human nature is really quite easy to understand," the sorcerer explained, "when you put your mind to it."
They continued their journey in silence.
Later, around the campfire, Grendel started to talk again. The next morning, Jubska, the tribe's new leader, suggested that their honoured shaman should be given the privacy he so deserved, and the next time they camped he was shepherded into a leather tent.
Grendel was touched by the gesture. In the week that followed, it never once occurred to him that his isolation was anything other than a mark of respect. Although by now, not much was occurring to him at all. Alone in the darkness, his thoughts were filled with the voice of his god, and the things that it told him were so terrible and beautiful that he couldn't stop the screams from ringing out around the camp.
His new companions heard them, and were pleased. They had known enough shamans in the past to know that such torments were a good sign, and they thanked their god for sending them such a prime example.
Even so, on the night when Jubska approached the sorcerer, he did so with trepidation. His imagination had filled Grendel's sealed tent with every daemon imaginable, and some that weren't. He scratched reluctantly at the leather flap of the door before speaking.
"Oh great and terrible sorcerer," he said, "do I have your permission to enter?"
Grendel, who had just woken from a terrible vision of what he hoped wasn't the future, wiped the sweat from his brow and grunted his agreement.
"It stinks of a herd in here," Jubska said politely as he stooped to enter the tent. In fact, it did stink. The air was thick with the smell of sweat and stale clothes, and the smoke from the single tallow candle was so acrid that it made Jubska's eyes water.
"What is it?" Grendel asked. "I am quite tired."
Jubska could see that he wasn't lying. Dark bruises spread from beneath the sorcerer's eyes, and even in the candlelight he could see how damp and pale his skin was, but what drew the horseman's attention was neither Grendel's fatigue nor his grime. What drew his attention were the sorcerer's eyes.
They burned in the shadows, the details lost in pale blue phosphorescence. Jubska wondered if Grendel was even aware of the mutation. It was certainly a great gift from their lord, for wasn't azure the favoured colour of the Changer of the Ways?
"The thing is," he began, warily squatting down in front of the sorcerer, "that we have found the spoor of some prey animals."
"Oh yes," Grendel nodded distractedly. His gaze kept flitting around the room as if following some invisible fly, and as they did so, faint blue edged shadows danced around the inside of the tent.
"Anyway," Jubska tried to ignore the sight, "where there are animals there are also herders. We think that we should be upon them in about two days."
Grendel looked at him, and his mouth opened stupidly.
"I've just realised," he whispered, "how to make a man dance as if he was a marionette: how to make him dance until his feet wear down to stumps and his heart explodes right out of his chest."
Jubska licked his lips and swallowed.
"That might come in handy," he said. "This far north, it is not like Kislev. There is no trade, and no mercy, just kill or be killed."
"Or," Grendel had become suddenly wistful, "be transformed."
He looked speculatively at Jubska. The horseman tried to meet the blue glow of his eyes, but found that he couldn't; his own eyes teared up and twitched shut of their own accord.
Grendel giggled.
"So when we fight for these animals," the horseman said, steeling himself to look back in the sorcerer's direction, "will you ask our lord to help us?"
"Of course," Grendel nodded, "as long as he so desires, and as long as the sacrifices are made afterwards."
"Oh, I think that there are at least twenty of the beasts, including the kids."
"No," Grendel looked scandalised, "not animals. Where would be the fun in that? I want people, human beings. I want to see the power of transformation coursing through them."
"As you say, lord," Jubska said, his mouth suddenly drying up at the realisation of quite how eager this sorcerer was. "Just as you say."
With that, his nerve failed him and he hastened from the tent.
Anywhere else, and the herd that picked its way through this twisted land would have been slaughtered. The carcasses would have been burned and, beneath the incantations of priests, the bones would have been ground to dust. Then, perhaps, they would have been burned again.
Had the things once been goats? Jubska wondered about that as he watched them graze. Somehow, he doubted it.
Most of them were more or less the right size, it was true. Some had fur that was coarse and black, just like the animals he remembered from his childhood. The herd had even retained horns, although they had grown into grotesque shapes, razored and lumpy.
Even as he watched the things graze, he realised that their mutation went deeper than their appearance. It wasn't the sparse vegetation that they nipped at, but the scurrying things that lived amongst it. Needle teeth snapped after insects and rodents, and even at this distance, Jubska could hear the occasional squeal of pain.
Not that he cared. It had been so long since he had a full belly that he would happily have devoured the rats himself.
The rest of the column had come to a stop behind him, and he waved them back. No point having the whole group outlined on the ridge. He dismounted as they fell back, and studied the animals more closely. They were feeding in a circle that got gradually smaller so that the creatures that fled were trapped between them, victims of a thousand toothed noose.
Clever.
"Are those the animals you're after?" Grendel called out, and Jubska turned to hush him.
"Yes, they are indeed," he whispered. "Best not to talk too loudly, though. Don't want to spook them."
Grendel nodded and studied the animals. After a moment, his brow furrowed and he frowned.
"I don't see their owners anywhere," he complained. Despite the fact that he spoke in a hoarse whisper, the volume still made Jubska wince. Even as he watched, one of the herd lifted its misshapen head and turned its three beady eyes towards them.
"No," Jubska met the animal's gaze, "there don't seem to be any herders. Strange, or maybe not, they must be wild; a gift from our lord, perhaps?"
He forced himself to look into the glowing pits of Grendel's eyes, but there was no answer there, far from it.
Grendel frowned.
"This is not good. It would be well to pay our lord his due sacrifice. If he gets impatient..." the sorcerer trailed off, suddenly a little nervous himself. Last night's dreams had been full of the need for sacrifice. Quite insistent about it, in fact.
He glanced back over his shoulder to the men who were waiting patiently behind, and his look of anxiety became one of speculation. Jubska hastened to stop whatever idea was forming in Grendel's head.
"We will find plenty of captives soon enough," he promised. "With your powers, we can go south and take a caravan, perhaps even a village."
"No, I want to go north," Grendel said, his voice brooking no argument.
"We all value your judgement, oh chosen one," Jubska said, shifting uneasily, "but let's kill some of these things first. We can eat, and talk."
Grendel shrugged.
"As you like," he said.
"Would you like to help in the slaughter?" Jubska asked, nodding towards the herd. Animals or not, he wasn't fool enough to think that this hunt was going to be easy.
"No, no. I won't interfere in your sport," Grendel said.
Jubska thought about telling him that sport was the last thing slaughtering these things was going to be, but to the hells with it, he decided. He would rather face those razored horns than look again into the burning pits of the sorcerer's eyes.
He returned to his men and gave his orders. Just as the herd was circling its prey, so the horsemen would encircle it in turn. Jubska returned to watch the herd as two flanking parties trotted back the way they had come, getting ready to slip away and gallop the miles needed in order to achieve surprise.
Surprise, he knew, was the key to any victory. It was a lesson he understood as well as any general. The brutality of his hunted life had taught him the truth, over and over again: surprise and aggression.
He was still contemplating these harsh lessons when his comrades drew back in towards the herd. Jubska waited until they had paused, perfectly positioned for the charge, and then vaulted onto his mount. He signalled the charge, and with a last look towards Grendel's sulking figure, he hurled himself towards the herd.
A moment later and he realised, with a feeling like a knife in the guts, that he wasn't the only one in this cursed land to understand the value of surprise.
By then it was too late, and all he could do was watch in horror as the trap was sprung.
It wasn't that Vaught or his pack had thought of a plan, they hadn't. They didn't think of anything much anymore.
This, Vaught knew, was good. It showed that, as their bodies had grown stronger, so had their minds. The pointless chatter of human consciousness had withered and died. In its place there remained only instinct, a killer instinct that was driven by a rage that throbbed as constantly as the pain of a broken limb.
When they had found the herders in their path, they had known what to do. The slaughter had been sudden and complete, the weapons of Vaught's victims no match for his followers feral strength.
After the feeding frenzy, the victors had instinctively burrowed into the frozen steppe, acting with all the idiot wisdom of ticks on a hound. The fire in their blood kept them warm, even when the hard frost bit, and when the night grew blisteringly cold they remained as comfortable as the herd that grazed amongst them.
Then, as they had known he would, the man they were hunting had come to them.
It was a joyful moment. Vaught and his followers burst from their hiding places, as eager as some terrible spring. Their fangs were bared in glee and their claws were outstretched. After so long spent buried, their eyes watered in the sunlight, but that was all right.
They could see the bulky shapes of the galloping horsemen easily enough.
Vaught gurgled with joy as he loped forwards to meet the first of Grendel's new allies. The man started with surprise. Then instinct took over and he levelled his spear at his attackers chest.
He was too slow. Vaught was already past the tip of the spear, and as it jabbed past him he grabbed the haft. He leapt up, using it to swing himself up behind the rider. The man yelped as his head was pulled back. The yelp was silenced by the talon that sliced through his jugular.
Vaught gurgled with unholy joy as the rider's life splashed out in a fountain of red. When the body went limp, he let it fall and snatched at the reins. The horse was bucking hysterically, desperate to be free of the thing that had killed its rider.
Vaught instinctively tried to hold on, his claws burrowing into horseflesh. The animal screamed and bolted, its hoofs blurring as it thundered through the scattering herd of goats. Snarling with rage, Vaught leaned forwards to claw at the animal's throat and, slavering with a sudden hunger, bit down into its spine.
Even as the horse died it ran, adrenaline fuelling its dying stampede. By the time it finally collapsed, it had carried its savage rider perhaps half a mile from the atrocities that his followers were committing.
Vaught, bruised from the fall he had taken, dragged himself from beneath the carcass of the animal and sprinted back towards the carnage.
To the yellow slits of his new eyes, it was a beautiful sight.
A horse lay crippled on the ground, blood spurting in time with its heart.
A rider, his skull cracked open as neatly as the top of a boiled egg, thrashed around on the ground, dancing as he died.
A rally and a charge disintegrated amongst the leaping bodies of Vaught's brethren. The ambushers leapt nimbly, fangs and claws tearing riders from saddles.
By the time Vaught, his bare skin slicked with blood and sweat, reached the battle, it was virtually over. The torn remains of the horsemen and their mounts lay scattered about, and only three survivors remained. They were on foot, and they huddled together so tightly that even their bloodied weapons couldn't stop them from looking like a flock of sheep.
Vaught counted his brethren as he joined them. They were all there. One was sporting an arrow, the feathered shaft growing from his shoulder like an extra limb. Others had been hacked open. Their wounds smiled as their muscles flexed.
Nothing serious.
"So you are the herders," one of the surviving riders sneered at him. Although he was speaking to Vaught, his eyes kept turning towards a nearby ridge, as if he was looking for some new dawn.
The man managed to drag his eyes back to Vaught.
"You would do better, herder, to follow your animals. You have no idea of who our lord is, or of the proficiency of our shaman. He is a great man, a chosen..."
Vaught had tired of such pleasantries, and his only reply was a guttural snarl and a blur of movement. His brothers closed in around him, their fangs tearing the three men to pieces even before their hearts had stopped beating.
It was in the midst of this joyful frenzy that Grendel, the noise of battle finally penetrating the fog of his own thoughts, found them. He peered over the top of the ridge that he had been waiting behind, blinking blue fire as he started to work out what he was seeing on the ground below.
When he did understand what had happened, he smiled. Although twisted, the creatures that were feeding on his erstwhile comrades would make excellent sacrifices.
His fingers twitching, he began to chant.
In spite of himself, Kerr couldn't take his eyes off the stream. Although the edges were rimed with ice it still flowed, gurgling merrily along through the tundra.
That was all right. For a while, he had even taken comfort from the sight. In a world of burning skies and living stones it was reassuringly normal. Then he had noticed how the water flowed, how it always raced exactly north, even when that meant running uphill.
As the carriage rattled and bounced its way over the carpet of frozen heather, he found himself wondering if it always headed north. Perhaps it changed direction from time to time, the serpent of water turning hunter, and writhing across the landscape in search of prey.
Kerr tried not to dwell on such thoughts. There was no point in worrying about things like that. Even so, he had found his imagination growing increasingly morbid over the last week. The sickness that blighted these lands had also, it seemed, blighted his imagination.
As for what was happening to Titus... Well, he didn't want to think about it. He would rather watch the stream as it wriggled its way up and over a tumble of boulders than contemplate what that might mean.
"Know what?" he asked the horses as they plodded along. "For the first time, I'm actually looking forward to meeting Grendel, just to get it over with, you understand, and get back home."
The horses whinnied with what Kerr was sure was agreement.
"Why shouldn't you understand?" he asked bitterly. "Boulders that spring to life, clouds that burn, water that won't behave itself---why not talking horses too?"
But if the horses had an opinion they kept it to themselves, and Kerr was left to face this horrible new world all by himself.
Any doubts Kerr might have had about his master were dispelled that evening. The wizard had staggered out of the carriage and, his mouth open, but his eyes closed, he had walked straight past his apprentice and towards the flaming skies of the north.
Kerr had watched him go, and for a moment, a single heartbeat of a moment, he had considered leaving him to whatever insanity had gripped him. It would be easy enough. He could kick out the fire, climb back up onto the carriage, and just go.
Of course, Titus might try to pursue him, but somehow he doubted it. In fact, he more than doubted it. He knew that the wizard would no more turn away from his goal than a moth would from a flame. Until they had left Praag, this had been a pursuit, but now things were different. Now it seemed that Titus wasn't a hunter so much as a fish on a hook.
"Not that that's a reason to stay with the old fool," Kerr told himself, but it was no good. Ignoring the horses' look of disgust, he trotted after Titus.
"Hey boss, boss!"
He caught up with the wizard and placed a hand upon one hamhock of an elbow.
"Boss, it's me. Wake up. You're sleepwalking."
Titus' eyes flickered open, and Kerr recoiled. They were as dead as the coins he had stolen from the dancing corpses that had begun this terrible journey.
Then the flash of conscience was gone and Titus was blinking, scowling with confusion as he looked around.
"What do you want?" he asked.
"You were sleepwalking. Look, there's our camp, see?" Kerr spoke softly, as if to a child or a fool. Titus recovered enough to resent it.
"Yes, I can see that. Well get back to it then. I was just stretching my legs."
Liar, Kerr thought.
"My mistake," he said.
"Put that fire out." Titus grumbled, and wiped a sleeve across his brow. For the first time, Kerr noticed that, despite the chill, he was sweating. "We've wasted enough time already," said Titus. "He is close, now. I can feel it."
"The horses need to rest," Kerr argued. "If we push them any harder..."
"Silence!" Titus roared, and raised his hand. Kerr dodged to one side and the two men looked at each other in surprise. Titus looked at his fist as if amazed to find it on the end of his arm. Then he dropped both his hand and his eyes.
"Just get the horses ready to go," he muttered, and sighed, "I can't stand to waste any more time."
"No," Kerr said. "I don't suppose you can."
This far north, the aethyric winds were strong enough to outshine even the blue sky above. For a while, Kerr had taken to wearing a hood, the thick cloth shielding him from the sight of the sickly colours. They made his head throb and his heart ache. He also kept almost seeing things from the corner of his eyes, scurrying things that hadn't been there before he'd looked.
Eventually, he'd thrown the hood back again. However nauseating, it was better to see this sickly world than it was to wander blindly through it. Safer, at least.
That was why he saw the first signs of the battle ahead, even while it was still a mile distant. There were flashes, dazzling arcs of energy and distant rumbles of energies. In the south, he would have dismissed the commotion as lightning, perhaps even fireworks. Here, he had no such illusions.
A minute after he had seen the first flash, Titus thumped on the carriage. Kerr reined in the horses, and the wizard leapt out. He lost his footing in his eagerness, and tumbled into the frozen sand of the place. Bouncing back to his feet, he staggered to a halt and looked at the lights.
"Look at that," he exulted, gesturing towards a column of purple flame that suddenly shot up. It left after-images dancing in Kerr's eyes, and he blinked away tears. Titus, wide eyed with excitement, let tears run down his chubby cheeks.
"Such power!" he cried as happily as a child. "Isn't it splendid? Isn't it magnificent? With power like that a man could remake the world. What do the colleges have to offer by comparison?"
Kerr had more practical concerns than Titus' rhetoric.
"Is it Grendel?" he asked, "or something else?"
Titus seemed not to hear. Then he shook himself and started to hoist himself back into the carriage.
"Come, let's go. Straight ahead."
"Straight ahead!" Kerr yelped. "Isn't that a bit dangerous?"
"Nonsense. You seem to forget that nobody can see us. Now stop talking and go."
Kerr cursed himself for not having deserted when he had the chance. Then he snapped the whip above the horses' heads and sent them trotting towards the lights.
Grendel hadn't enjoyed himself so much since Praag. The creatures that had slaughtered his companions weren't men, it was true, but he thought that they might once have been, and, as he remade them, he became sure of it.
Apart from anything else, only a human will could have resisted the paralysing magic he had enveloped them with. Even as their blood had fermented into rivers of crippling ecstasy, and even as their consciousness had disintegrated beneath pulses of pure bliss, the creatures had tried to retaliate.
One of them, its snarl melting into a grin of idiot joy, had even made it to within six feet of where the sorcerer stood.
Grendel watched the muscled bulk of the creature as it rolled on the ground, grimacing with pleasure. Its companions were scattered behind it, as helpless in their bliss as the bodies of their victims.
It was a shame about them, Grendel thought, his eyes flickering across the ruin of Jubska's tribe. Then he shrugged. After all, what were a dozen lives, more or less? What were a million? An artist doesn't mourn over used paint, and neither would he.
The creature that lay at his feet tried to say something. Grendel watched it curiously. What strength it must have to be able to do even that much. He would save it until last.
In the meantime, he had a celebration to attend. Lips moving with whispered syllables, the sorcerer stalked amongst his victims, fingers dancing in strange patterns. Slowly, painfully, Vaught's followers began to change into the things that inhabited Grendel's imagination.
By the time he had finished his masterpiece, night had drawn in. Grendel remained as oblivious to the pulsating stars as he had been to the boiling skies of the afternoon.
Although sweat was freezing to his body, although his fingers trembled and although his throat hurt, he was a happy man. The things he had created were truly worthy offerings.
"Beautiful and functional," he whispered, his voice hoarse after the day's efforts.
He ran his trembling fingers over the head of one of them. It responded with a sob, which its remoulded physiognomy caught, amplified and honed.
"Perfect," Grendel gloated as the creature's misery rang out in a perfect key. The note was so clear that it would have made any human piper cringe with jealousy.
The sorcerer strolled to the next of the creatures. Its belly was hugely distended and its snout tapering out into a wide mouthed tube. Grendel tapped the thing on its shoulder, and a melancholic bagpipe sigh breathed out of it.
The sorcerer chuckled with delight. He could feel his god's approval washing over him, a crippling pleasure. For a moment, he teetered on the brink of an abyss, and although it beckoned with sweet seduction, he dragged himself away. There would be time for that later.
For now, he had a ceremony to arrange. It wasn't just the instruments he'd created, it was the dancers as well. Compared to their fellows, these three had escaped lightly. Although their skin glowed with a dragonfly's iridescence, they retained their forms.
Grendel resisted the temptation to improve upon them. They would need all their strength for the ritual ahead. So would he. It would be madness to start it now, when he was still exhausted from the day's creation, absolute madness.
He smiled at the thought, and rubbed his shaking hands together. Then he swallowed, and began to chant.
As he prowled amongst them, his creations began to howl and to sob, and the dancers began to dance to the terrible harmony.
At first, they were clumsy, still sluggish after the hours of paralysis, but as the tune quickened so did their feet. Soon they were dancing a lively jig, knees high and heads lolling about. Grendel waved his hands as they did so, feeling more like a conductor than a sorcerer.
His victims leaped and pranced, and spun through the air, as lively as fish on a line. Grendel watched the rippling muscles and the flash of their skins with approval. Then he saw the faces and frowned. They were slack with misery, the tears spinning from their yellowed eyes as they gyrated around.
That wouldn't do. With a twitch of his fingers, Grendel spoke half a dozen words and three identical rictus grins starched the dancers' faces.
The sorcerer laughed with delight, and turned his attention to the dancers' feet. They were already starting to bloody the jagged rocks. Grendel sucked his teeth as he tried to calculate how long it would be before his victims were dancing on ankle bones. Not too soon, he hoped.
He was still lost in the thought when a voice shattered his world.
"It's Grendel isn't it?"
The sorcerer sprang backwards, as lithe as one of the dancers. He peered through the confusion of their thrashing limbs, but even though the world was alight with aetheric fire, he couldn't see where the voice had come from.
Then there was a twist of air, a shimmer of heat, and a man waddled from the shadows.
"Stand back!" the sorcerer shrieked. It was the sight of the stranger's robes that filled him with such panic. Their cut and hue were horribly familiar, and they filled him with the memories of his former colleagues. More to the point, they filled him with memories of what his former colleagues did to defectors.
Grendel stumbled backwards, fingers twitching as he tried to think of the most devastating spell he knew.
The dancers and musicians played on, buffeting Titus as he walked through their midst.
"It is Grendel, isn't it?" he asked again, and held up his two palms.
"I won't go back," Grendel whined, as petulant as a child who doesn't want to leave the carnival. "I didn't try to get those damned corpses to walk. They just did. Anyway," he was suddenly defiant, "the power here. It's too... too..."
"Wonderful?" Titus suggested.
"Yes."
The wizard and the sorcerer looked at each other, calculating. The only sound was the horribly tuneful playing of Grendel's creations, and the soggy stamp of his victims' disintegrating feet. Titus turned to watch them. He saw the misery that was pummelling their frozen smiles, and the agony that sounded beneath the notes of the living instruments.
He lifted one podgy hand and, as Grendel raised his hands in defence, snapped his fingers.
Dancers and musicians both exploded into fountains of silver light. They shrieked, although only for a second. After that the only sound was the sizzle and hiss of burning bodies, and the stamp of feet as the burning dancers danced on.
"They're very beautiful," Grendel muttered as he watched them spin past. As they moved, the flames shifted colour, darkening as they ate deeper into the melting flesh. Titus accepted the compliment with a nod.
"They are beautiful, aren't they? But I don't even know how I did it." He shrugged with unusual modesty. "Ever since I left Praag things just..."
"Just happen," Grendel finished for him. The wizard and the sorcerer looked at each other, and in the pulsing light of the dancing victims, they smiled.
"I can see why the fools from the colleges don't want us up here," Titus said. "Imagine what would happen to their pathetic rules and hierarchies when men such as us found such mastery."
"Yes, exactly!" Grendel beamed, delighted to have heard his own thoughts echoed. "Imagine what knowledge we will find up here."
Titus nodded, and tugged thoughtfully at his beard.
"We were the greatest of our generation already," he said, generously sharing the accolade. "In centuries to come, we will be gods."
"You think there is a cure for death up here?" Grendel asked, but even as the words left his lips he knew that yes, there was a cure for death. There was a cure for everything, just so long as he kept following his god's voice to the north.
"There must be." Titus was equally sure. "There are certainly enough cures for life."
The two men were still laughing when Kerr stepped into the light of the burning bodies. Grendel raised a finger, but Titus waved it away.
"That's all right," he said. "He's my servant."
For a moment, Kerr's eyes showed his surprise as he looked from the wizard to the sorcerer. Despite the contrast between Titus' rounded face and Grendel's gaunt cheekbones, and between Titus' flowing robes and Grendel's rags, and between Titus' booming voice and Grendel's hoarse squeak, he saw that they were both the same; both exactly the same.
Amongst these men, there might be hunter and hunted, victor and victim, but compared to that which separated them from the rest of the world, they were all brothers.
Kerr smoothed the expression from his face as he watched the dancers. The burnt pork stink of roasting flesh filled the air, sharpened with the sulphur smell of the flames. Kerr noticed how the fire blossomed from the pits of the dancers' eyes, and how it had fixed the insanity of their smiles into clown's grins of melted skin.
He also felt the pins and needles that itched for release in his own fingers. All it would take would be a look, a word, and perhaps he too could add to the spectacle.
He felt a fist of nausea turning within his stomach.
"Stood too close to the fire did they?" he asked. Grendel was, as ever immune to sarcasm.
"Not at all. Your master used them to light our new friendship."
Titus was touched.
"The real art was in the making of them," he said, "after all, who to thank, the candle maker or the match?"
Kerr watched one of the bodies lurch as a foot broke away from the crisped ankle. It danced on anyway, doddering on stumps.
"You truly are the greatest wizard in the world, boss," he said, awestruck.
Titus preened.
"It must be an honour for one of the college's lesser wizards to work for you."
The look of contentment left Grendel's face. Titus didn't notice. Instead he made an effort to sound gracious.
"He was lesser only whilst we belonged to the same order," he explained. "His art was never as great as mine, but up here we both have things to learn."
"What do you mean my art wasn't as great as yours?" Grendel asked, his voice cold.
"Only that you didn't have as many discoveries," Titus soothed. "I'm sure that, in time, you would have done better. Look at the way the fat bubbles into flame. That violet colour is very difficult to achieve, you know."
Grendel, his bonhomie replaced by a look of suspicion, licked his lips.
"Imagine how fast he will learn now, boss," Kerr said, and then flinched beneath Grendel's glare. "No offence, sire, but we are both here to learn from the master."
He looked at Titus who puffed himself up.
"It is a real pleasure to serve such a master," he carried on encouragingly. "I am sure you will find it as... as congenial as I have, and as rewarding."
Titus nodded approval. Grendel thought about serving the fat man. About degenerating back into being under somebody's discipline, and in the silence of his thoughts the voice of his god spoke.
If he hadn't tried to be surreptitious, he might have been successful. As it was, he moved with such a look of hangdog guilt that even Titus, lost in the pleasant haze of a glorious future, noticed that something was wrong.
The remaining seconds of Grendel's life ended in a blur. Even as he locked his fingers into the horned sign of his god, Titus was speaking, the catechism bursting from him as easily as a sneeze.
Years on the battlefield had taught him the virtue of simplicity, and even as Grendel dithered over his words, Titus' shadow was racing forwards to engulf him. It rushed unnoticed up Grendel's legs, as dark and as deadly as a rip tide, and when he began to speak, the darkness slipped hungrily into his mouth.
Kerr watched as it pooled between his teeth, choking his words and filling his eyes with terror. The sorcerer gagged, his throat shuttling back and forth desperately, and clawed at the nothingness that filled his mouth.
He didn't stand a chance. Even as Grendel dropped to the floor, his flesh was blackening. Kerr, safe behind Titus' back, watched him writhe in agony.
"What's happening to him?" he asked.
"Wait and see," Titus said.
Grendel was already beginning to collapse. The corruption spread beneath his skin and, piece by piece, he began to disintegrate. His fingers were the first to go, turning to ash before grumbling away.
Kerr watched the terror in the dying sorcerer's eyes. It almost made him feel pity. Almost, but not quite.
"See how fast the flesh corrupts?" Titus instructed. "That is because I have not added to his form, but taken away from it. It is always easier... Oh."
From amidst the writhing mass of Grendel's body something gleamed: something as fresh and vigorous as the first shoots of spring.
Its arms were the first things that tore free. They were as long as an orc's, although skinny, the bones impossibly long and thin. The talons buried themselves into the burnt ground, and the shoulders flexed as the thing dragged itself free of the human remains.
Titus' fingers twitched, and a fresh wash of sweat glistened on his pale features as the horror wriggled its way out of Grendel's ruined body. It had no neck, nor any distinct body. Its head was elongated, a snout with two bulging blue eyes growing on either side, and its body was serpentine. It rose from the skin that it had shed, like a cobra from a snake charmer's basket, although it was Titus and Kerr who were mesmerised.
"Grendel?" Titus asked as the thing turned its elongated head towards them. Its tongue whipped out as if to taste the air, and as it moved towards Titus and his apprentice, a sweet scent filled the air.
Titus swayed on his feet, eyes half closed as he inhaled the perfume. It reminded him of bougainvillea, of honeyed pancakes, of fresh sheets after a hard day.
With an effort, he opened his eyes in time to see that the thing was sliding towards them.
"Grendel? Is that you?"
The thing that had been Grendel had neither the will nor the ability to reply. Instead, it rose up on its sinuous body and prepared to strike, and for the first time, Kerr spoke.
"Kill it!" he shouted, "or it will kill us."
"Yes," Titus said vaguely, although he seemed in no hurry to move. "It smells wonderful."
Kerr looked at his master's dazed expression and at the thing that towered above them. He reached up to Titus' ear, grabbed it, and twisted, hard.
The wizard pulled away, startled.
"Kill it," Kerr repeated, and Titus looked up in time to see the horror's tongue lash out towards him. It gleamed a poisonous green, and even as it blurred forwards, Kerr could see the teeth that serrated its edge.
Titus spoke a syllable before it connected, but that syllable was enough.
Before the tip of that lash of a tongue connected, it had grown transparent, and when it did brush against one of Titus' jowls, it was scarcely more than a shadow. Even so, the touch was almost lethal, burning a furrow through the wizard's fat that would have reached the arteries of a slimmer man.
Titus rolled backwards, fingers already twitching as he readied a fresh incantation, but his work was already done. The thing that had become Grendel was fading, flickering in and out of existence as its substance dissolved.
Soon, there was nothing left of Grendel at all, but for the dying light of the human torches. Even with their creator gone, they still writhed and twitched, enslaved by the remains of their own lives.
"Stupid fool," Titus said, picking himself up and touching his wounded throat. It had been cauterised as neatly as if by burning pitch, the wound closed behind the thing's touch to seal it into his flesh.
He cast a quick, disinterested glance back towards Grendel's victims as the first of them fell over. Then he turned to Kerr.
"Bring the carriage up," he said, that flat, mesmerised look already back in his eyes.
"Yes," Kerr said, relief soothing his horror. "Time to go home, hey boss?"
"Home? No. No, we are going north. Look at these wonders, boy. Imagine what else lies in store for us."
Titus turned to gesture to the field of ruined bodies, the living and the dead equally damned.
"All this," Titus promised him, "is only a taste of what lies ahead."
Kerr stood behind his master and looked at the promised land. Then his dagger was in his hand, and even as Titus spoke again, he struck.
The dagger bit deep, slicing through fat and between the ribs that lay beneath. When it had driven home, Kerr twisted.
Arch Magister Grunwalder had spent the day deep in contemplation. Wrapped in his grey robes, he had sat, silent and unseen, amongst the crowds of Altdorf. From beneath hooded eyes, he had watched the herd as they had passed him, sidestepping the shadows where he lurked, even though they had no idea why.
Occasionally, he would concentrate his gaze on one or another of them, sifting through their thoughts as they passed. Dull stuff, mostly, but here and there were flashes of interest, a scrap of knowledge, or a new idea.
When the sun of late afternoon sent the shadows prowling through the streets, Grunwalder followed them back to the college. He slipped past the guards on the gates, and drifted through the echoing hallways and chambers of the place.
His own rooms lay behind what appeared to be a blank wall at the end of a dusty cellar. Grunwalder felt a twitch of pride as he walked through it and into the business of the vestibule outside his chambers. A dozen scribes worked, hunched over books or crafting charms, each of them bent on the creation of Grunwalder's next great scheme.
"Excuse me, your honour. I have some bad news."
Grunwalder spun around, shocked to find a man staring straight at him. He was skinny and barely out of his adolescence. Despite his youth and his rags there was a hard edge about him that was rare even in the college.
At the lad's voice, the clerks turned to look too, blinking with surprise as they realised that their master was in their midst.
"Oh there you are, arch magister," one of them said. "I didn't realise that you were here. This is Kerr. He says that he has some news about Brother Titus."
"And... the other one," Kerr added. A hush fell on the scriveners, and Grunwalder cast a disapproving eye over them.
"In that case," he said, "you had better come into my sanctum and tell me. No, not you, Puch," he waved the chief scribe away. "I don't want to keep you from your work."
"Thank you, arch magister," the man said and, hiding his disappointment beneath lowered eyes, he got back to work.
Kerr followed Grunwalder through into his rooms. If he had expected another cellar then he was disappointed; somehow the step through the door had brought them to a high chamber, the wide windows revealing the sweep of Altdorf below.
"Well then," Grunwalder said as he closed the door behind his guest, "what news of Brother Titus? And how... how do you know of him?"
For the first time in decades the arch magister felt a flicker of uncertainty. Somehow he couldn't catch even a glimpse of this youth's thoughts. Trying to see inside his mind was like trying to look through a cannonball.
"I was Titus' servant," Kerr said, "and I went with him all the way to the north. That's where we found Grendel."
"Ah yes, Grendel. Bad business, that," Grunwalder said. He walked around a vast teak desk and sank into a high backed chair. Kerr continued to stand. "Did Titus find him?"
"Yes," Kerr said.
The arch magister fought back a flash of frustration. He had forgotten how irritating it was to have to wait for people to tell you what they were thinking.
"What happened next?" he asked. His exasperation gave way to a sense of relief. Of course, he thought, this man must be soft in the head. It would explain why he couldn't read his thoughts.
"They fought," Kerr said, "and both ended up dead."
"Both of them?" Grunwalder asked, although the question was purely rhetorical. He'd already turned his back to the idiot in order to gaze down at Altdorf. All seen, but unseeing, its citizens toiled away beneath him. Clouds were following the evening in, and the city had become a patchwork of light and shadow.
He sighed. It had been this time last year that Titus had left on his chase. He hadn't thought about him for months.
"Brother Titus has ever been on our minds," he said, the platitudes rolling easily from his tongue. "In our sadness there is joy that he died as one of our order should, in the pursuit of evil. He will be remembered as the great wizard that he was."
"Yes," Kerr said. Grunwalder turned back to dismiss him, a coin already in his fingers, when the cloud cleared and sunlight flooded the room. It bathed both arch magister and servant with the same golden light, and cast their shadows back onto the wall.
Grunwalder tossed the coin to the man, and as it spun through the air, he noticed two things. The first was that Kerr showed no interest in the gold. The second was that his shadow belonged to a much larger, a much fatter, man.
Suddenly he couldn't breathe, and nor could he speak. His throat had been sealed as neatly as a sausage skin and his fingers flexed uselessly as he fell forwards.
He looked up as bursting blood vessels turned the world pink, and through the veil of his own blood he could see that Kerr had gone. In his place, Titus stood. A cheerful smile creased his podgy face as he chanted the incantation, and his fingers moved with effortless skill.
Grunwalder tried to beg for his life, but it was too late. One by one, he felt his veins beginning to pop. His eyes and tongue bulged, swelling like a deep sea fish that has been dragged up from uncharted depths, and his dying body spasmed in its final agonies.
When it lay still, Titus strolled over to examine it. Then he let his own robes drop and stripped the swollen corpse of its clothing. The tunic was too tight, and where the cloak should have hung it bulged, but no matter. He would have that seen to later.
In the meantime, he had only to breathe a single word for his fat to melt away and his features to smooth and harden into those of the man who lay dead before him.
The college had a new master, and, after all that he had learnt in the north, things would be different.
Oh yes, Titus thought, they would be different all right.
He was still grinning as night fell on the city outside.
"So as you can see," Titus explained to the Emperor, "it is sheer folly to have the colleges divided amongst themselves like this. Far better to unify the eight. We could become so much more powerful. In the service of the Empire, of course."
The Emperor nodded and cast his eyes down the table where the heads of the eight colleges had been gathered. Although they had already feasted, the boards were still bent beneath the weight of the food that remained. Everything from roast boar to potted rhinox, to honeyed wasps had been laid on for this, the crowning moment of Titus' career.
"I see what you mean," the Emperor nodded, obviously convinced by Titus, "and who better than yourself, my friend, to lead such a mighty college? But one thing concerns me, what would these other master's say to being under your command?" The assembled arch magisters all spoke at once. Although their words were different, their intentions were all the same. As one man they clamoured to be led by Titus, the greatest amongst them.
The Emperor smiled indulgently.
"Very well, then," he said, raising a hand for silence. "That is how it will be. All of the colleges will become as one, and our friend here will become master of all."
The applause started at the far end of the table and rolled its way up, washing over Titus' beaming face. It was just as his new lord had said it would be, and it was wonderful.
"So you see, gentlemen," Grunwalder said, "the subject is perfectly happy."
He stood back so that his fellows could peer through the window of the cell. It was small, barely big enough to lie down in, and the only light came from a lantern that was kept behind another tiny window.
One of the assembled wizards peered through the viewing slit. Titus sat on the straw in one corner. He had lost weight in the last month or so: a lot of weight. It seemed that food held no more interest for him than the rest of the world. It occurred to the wizard that, had he started his confinement as a thinner man, he would already have starved to death.
"He does seem happy," the wizard said, stepping back so that another could watch the traitor, "but what is that he keeps saying?"
"Today?" Grunwalder asked. "I'm not sure. It's usually something to do with being 'supreme arch magister', sometimes Emperor. Either way, he enjoys the idea."
"I bet he does," the wizard said, "and so he has no idea that he has been pacified?"
"None at all," Grunwalder said, "which is why the spell is unbreakable. Who can fight an illusion that they don't even know exists?"
"Who indeed?" the wizard agreed.
Deciding that they had seen enough, the council turned and followed Grunwalder out of the dungeons. Behind them, the lantern that lit Titus' cell flickered and died.
It made no difference. Safe within the sealed depths of his mind, Titus joyfully continued to starve to death.
Scanning, formatting andproofing by Flandrel,
additional formatting and
proofing by Undead.

