Dead Winter

Chapter IX

Altdorf

Vorhexen, 1111

Thick storm clouds rendered the sky above Altdorf almost as black as night. A conspiracy of ravens circled above the Imperial Palace, their croaks echoing through the streets of the city. Many of the superstitious city folk hid in their homes, hiding from the eyes of Morr’s corvid messengers. With the Black Plague abroad, none wanted to tempt the grim god.

Only in one place was the city alive. A great crowd had gathered in the Widows’ Plaza, nobles and peasants alike drawn to the spectacle of the Grand Master’s execution. Never in the long and renowned history of the Reiksknecht had the order suffered a charge of treason. Never had a man of such heroic reputation as Grand Master Dettleb von Schomberg been condemned to the ignoble fate of public beheading.

The crowd gathered about the Widows’ Plaza gabbled excitedly among themselves. After the frightened solitude many of them had endured for so many weeks in an effort to escape the plague, this excuse to forget caution, to ignore peril had been seized upon with a desperate recklessness. A carnival-like atmosphere was the rule, peasants and nobles alike laughing and singing. Vendors circulated among the crowd, hawking withered fruits and scabby vegetables for grotesquely inflated prices. Halflings manoeuvred wheeled pushcarts through the mob, selling roasted rats to anyone willing to place frugality ahead of prudence. Unlike the fruits and vegetables, there was no shortage of rats in Altdorf.

All around the plaza, the black-liveried soldiers of the Kaiserjaeger were out in force, halberds and crossbows at the ready. Commander Kreyssig himself stood with a small retinue of officers and guards beside the wooden platform at the centre of the square. The low born Kreyssig bore a triumphant smile as he surveyed the mass of humanity that had gathered to watch the execution. It was more than the destruction of a traitor — it was the moment of his personal triumph. By proving Baron von Schomberg a traitor, by getting the Reiksknecht disbanded and outlawed, he had created a gap in the power structure of Altdorf, a gap he and his Kaiserjaeger would quickly fill.

Still smiling, he lifted his eyes from the babbling crowd, staring towards the Imperial Palace. Beneath the circling ravens, he could see the balcony which had earned the epithet of the Traitors’ View. From here, a denizen of the palace could stare straight down into the Widows’ Plaza and observe the executions. Emperor Boris was there, resplendent in his sable robes of state, the golden crown of Sigismund the Conqueror resting snugly about his head. Kreyssig chuckled inwardly. He was glad the Emperor had turned out to watch the execution. He’d arranged to provide his Imperial Majesty with quite a show.

The crowd fell silent as the gates of the Imperial Courthouse were raised. A phalanx of soldiers emerged, flanking a small wooden cart. Crouched inside the cart, his thin arms tied behind his back, his body shivering underneath the shabby linen robe he wore, was the man everyone had turned out to see. Grand Master von Schomberg, on his way to keep his appointment with fate.

Behind the cart marched the sinister Scharfrichter, the Imperial Executioner himself, Gottwald Drechsler. Dressed in black, his head hidden beneath a leather mask, he strode through the plaza like some primordial daemon. The Sword of Justice, a monstrous claymore nearly as tall as a man, was balanced across his broad shoulders, its pommel shaped into a leering skull of silver, its blade etched with curses and maledictions to damn the soul of those who felt its bite.

Kreyssig exulted in the hush that had come upon the crowd. He could fairly smell the fear rising from them. And in Boris Goldgather’s Altdorf, fear was power. Von Schomberg would make an object lesson to the others, an example of what they could expect if they dare defy the Emperor… or Adolf Kreyssig.

Drechsler mounted the steps to the scaffold, resembling some inhuman fiend rising from the Pit. As he reached the platform, he threw off the hangman’s cloak he wore, exposing a musculature of such proportions that it would have looked more at home on an ogre. Every inch of the Scharfrichter’s chest was swollen with muscle, his every motion sent a thrill of raw power rippling down his massive arms. Cheerless black eyes stared out from the holes in Drechsler’s hood, seeming to judge every face they happened to glance at, warning them that they too might feel the bite of the executioner’s sword.

Von Schomberg had to be helped from the cart, a task delegated to two prisoners from the dungeons. The Grand Master sagged limply in their grasp, his body wracked by a fit of coughing as they carried him onto the scaffold. No priest waited upon the condemned man. After the attempted rescue, Kreyssig had forbidden anyone contact with von Schomberg.

The doomed man was half-dragged, half-guided to the wooden block at the centre of the platform. He was made to kneel before the block, to rest his head against its notched and stained surface. A leather strap was fitted over his shoulders, securing him to the block and making it impossible for him to pull away.

The Scharfrichter hefted the immense Sword of Justice, holding it overhead and circling around the scaffold so that all in the crowd could see. Then, with a savage gesture, he plunged the blade into the earth at the base of the scaffold, hurling the huge sword as though it were a boar-hunter’s javelin. The spectacle brought gasps of astonishment from the crowd, both for the display of strength exhibited and for the breach of custom. Drechsler turned his cold eyes towards where Kreyssig and his officers waited.

For an instant, a tremor of uncertainty swept through the crowd. Was the Scharfrichter refusing to carry out the execution? Hope flickered into tremulous life in the minds of those who sympathised with the Reiksknecht and what they had tried to do.

Then that hope was smothered, crushed underfoot by the inventive cruelty of a despot. From among Kreyssig’s officers, a sergeant of the Kaiserjaeger emerged. In his hands the soldier carried a huge double-headed axe.

It was not enough to kill von Schomberg. Kreyssig intended to humiliate him, to disgrace him before the eyes of all Altdorf. Tradition was clear, the law was firm. Nobles were executed beneath the blade of a sword. Only peasants suffered the kiss of the axe. It was a distinction understood by highborn and commoner alike, an insult even the lowest serf could understand.

Taking up the axe, Drechsler circled the scaffold once more. When he finished his third circuit of the platform, he turned towards the prisoner and the wooden block. Lifting up the axe in both hands, he brought its gleaming edge flashing down. A collective gasp rose from the crowd.

Screams of horror filled the Widows’ Plaza. The axe had missed, at least in part. Its keen edge had gouged the side of von Schomberg’s neck, but had failed to decapitate him. The stricken captive thrashed about in his bindings, a ghastly gurgle issuing from his mangled throat. Blood spurted from his wound, spraying across the scaffold.

The Scharfrichter leaned back, resting his hands across the butt of the bloodied axe. For the better part of a minute he waited while his victim writhed in pain. Then he took up the axe once more, bringing it sweeping down in a murderous arc.

There would be no need for a third blow.

For a moment, silence gripped the Widows’ Plaza once more. Kreyssig grinned at the effect the deliberately botched execution had had on the crowd. They would remember this, and they would fear suffering a similarly infamous end.

Then a voice cried out, loud and clear. ‘Shame!’ the voice shouted, and the cry was taken up by others, growing into a roar of outrage. Kreyssig had overplayed his hand. The travesty he had made of von Schomberg’s execution had incensed, not cowed, the crowd. The Kaiserjaeger struggled to contain the furious mob. Bricks and stones clattered about the scaffold as the enraged people of Altdorf tried to avenge the hideous death of a martyr.

Under the barrage, Kreyssig withdrew into the protection afforded by the thick walls of the Courthouse, the Scharfrichter and the officers of his Kaiserjaeger following close behind him. Before he withdrew into the gatehouse, however, the commander looked back at the Imperial Palace. Horrified anger flared through his heart. There was no one standing on the Traitors’ View. Emperor Boris had retreated back into the palace, distancing himself from Kreyssig and his misfired attempt to terrorise the people of Altdorf into submission.

Adolf Kreyssig could see all he had worked for slipping through his fingers. He would get it back. Whoever he had to denounce, whoever he had to imprison or execute, he would get it all back.

Bylorhof

Ulriczeit, 1111

The sepulchral silence of the temple of Morr was broken only by the sputter of a peat-moss lamp. Black shadows stretched across the marble-walled mortuary, throwing the fluted columns into sinister relief. The ebon statue of a raven peered down from its perch above the gateway connecting the chamber to the sanctuary itself, its beak open in a soundless cry. Darkened alcoves gaped in the walls, urns of incense smouldering in niches built into their sides, fighting a losing battle against the reek of death rising from the corpses stacked within.

The mortuary was filled beyond capacity. Even with the full complement of priests the temple normally possessed there would have been no way to keep pace with the decimation wrought by the Black Plague. By himself, Frederick van Hal was overwhelmed. In his blacker moods, he could almost be thankful for the slow slide back into heathenism many of the Sylvanians had abandoned themselves to. If not for the bodies dumped into the marsh, the dead would be piled not only in the niches, but everywhere in the mortuary and out in the sanctuary itself. There was simply too much work for one man, however much he pushed himself.

At the moment, however, Frederick wasn’t concerned with the dead townspeople lying in the niches, awaiting the rites that would commend them to the keeping of Morr. He wasn’t concerned with the dozens of newly dead the corpse collectors would bring him in the morning. He was concerned only with the piteous figure stretched out upon the stone table at the centre of the mortuary, its long blonde tresses fanned out around its still-beautiful face.

By custom and stricture, he should never have brought Aysha here. A suicide was a damned soul, a thing cursed by Morr and abandoned to the infernal hells of his murderous brother Khaine. The Sylvanians believed that the flesh of a suicide attracted ghouls from their forest lairs. The proper thing to do was to bury such a wretch in the middle of a crossroads, a great stone stuffed in the corpse’s mouth and the bones of its legs broken with a spade.

Frederick cared neither for custom or stricture. This was Aysha, his sister by marriage, a woman who, if he had remained in Marienburg, might have been even more to him. He was willing to commit sacrilege for her, to spare her anguished spirit the indignity of a nameless grave. For her, he was willing to do even more.

The priest looked over at the black candles laid out around the body. It had taken him most of the day to make those candles, a labour that still made his gut churn with disgust. He glanced over at the darkened niches, picturing the mutilated bodies hidden in the darkness. It was blasphemy for a priest of Morr to do such a thing, but the books of Arisztid Olt had been adamant regarding the corpse-candles and their necessity to the ritual.

Frederick stepped away from the table, slapping his hands together in nervous agitation. He had long studied the tomes of Olt’s secret library, studied them when he should have consigned them to the flames. Until now, he had never been tempted to exploit that occult knowledge. He had considered the esoteric secrets with the detached appreciation of a scholar. He had never intended to put such obscenities into practice.

It was heresy for a priest of Morr to even contemplate what Frederick was doing. If they hadn’t been taken by the plague, the Black Guard would have executed him for even thinking about such a thing. The servants of Morr had a connection to death and the world beyond the mortal plane, but the magic Frederick thought to invoke was something else entirely. It wasn’t part of death, but a blasphemous attack upon it. It wasn’t a connection to the world beyond, but rather a violent assault upon the gateway between planes.

With a moan of despair, Frederick rounded upon the table. His arm was raised to sweep the candles to the floor, to turn away from this heresy before he committed the ultimate sacrilege. But his eyes focused upon the pretty features of Aysha. Conviction faltered and temptation flooded into his heart. Instead of dashing the candles to the floor, he took a rushlight and ignited the hempen wicks. One by one, the corpse-candles sputtered into stagnant life, their eerie blue flame seeming to increase rather than lessen the darkness of the mortuary.

The priest circled to the foot of the table, staring up at Aysha’s shrouded form. He placed the edge of a stone knife against his palm, cutting deep into the flesh, gritting his teeth against the pain. With his own blood, he drew a symbol upon the floor, tracing from memory the ancient Nehekharan hieroglyphs. From a wicker cage, he retrieved a red-breasted wren. Sacred to Taal, killing a wren was an affront against the gods of nature. Frederick paused only a moment, then snapped the bird’s neck, tossing the pathetic body to the rats creeping among the corpses.

Frederick could feel the mortuary growing colder, a chill that was somehow more profound than the mere bite of winter. It was a chill that seeped down into the soul itself, the clammy clutch of dark magic and Old Night. He could almost see fingers of darkness reaching through the shadows, drawn to his rites of blasphemy and horror. He hesitated as he stared down at the last object required by Olt’s spell. The priest gagged at the thought of what he must do. Only the thought that he had come too far to hesitate now steeled him for the perversion. In one swift motion, he scooped up the gelid bit of flesh, trying not to visualise the empty socket from whence it had come, and popped it into his mouth. His body rebelled as he swallowed the abomination; he clamped his bleeding palm across his mouth and forced the sickness back down.

At once, the darkness came rushing in. Frederick could feel it pawing at his robes, slithering against his skin. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled and his face felt as though it had been plunged into the maw of an ice troll.

Frederick shook himself from the sensations crawling across his body, from the frozen talons clawing at his soul. He stared again at Aysha and from his lips streamed the harsh notes of an ancient tongue, the language of vanquished Khemri whose streets were dust a thousand years before the birth of Sigmar.

The peat-lamp sputtered and died, leaving only the blue flames of the corpse-candles and the sickly light of Morrslieb streaming through the mortuary’s single window to illuminate the room. Frederick’s flesh turned to ice as the eldritch emanations summoned by his spell came rushing in. Rustles and squeaks heralded the fright of rats as they scurried away from the fell energies summoned by the priest.

A cold glow suffused Aysha’s corpse. From her pursed lips, a smoke-like wisp began to rise. Seeping into the atmosphere like an uncoiling snake, the glowing mist assumed the rough semblance of shoulders and head, the faint echo of limbs and torso. Only the most fevered, deluded imagination could have said the ghost bore the slightest resemblance to the woman it had been. It was a thing of shadows and reflections, a memory and nothing more.

Frederick smiled as he looked into the face of Aysha. Forgotten was the horror and blasphemy. All that mattered was her presence and the chance to speak to her one last time.

‘Aysha,’ the priest whispered. The wisp shifted slightly as the name was spoken.

A thin, rattling voice, like the scratch of talons against glass, hissed through the room. ‘There are doors that must not be opened,’ the phantom words took shape in Frederick’s mind. ‘Powers that must not be invoked. Beware of calling that which you cannot dismiss.’

Frederick stared into the ghostly visage, doubt flickering through his heart. The enormity of this sacrilege pressed against him, squeezing him like the grip of a python, crushing the breath from his lungs. For any man to draw upon this unholy magic was crime enough, but how much worse was it for him, a priest of Morr, a man dedicated to the sanctity of the grave?

‘There are sympathies of spirit and mentality that must never be made,’ the ghost warned. ‘Do you wield the Power or does it wield you?’

Frederick closed his eyes, refusing to accept the spectre’s warnings. He knew what he was doing. It was evil, abominable, but it would only be this once. He would never draw upon this magic again. He would have no use for it. Just this one time, this once so he might speak to Aysha one last time. Just this once so when his time came, his soul might find peace.

The priest opened his eyes again, gazing into the cold wispy image of Aysha. Grimly, Frederick exerted his will over the ghost, forcing its doleful tidings to subside.

‘Why have you called me?’ the apparition demanded.

Frederick leaned against the table, remembering only at the last moment Olt’s precaution about not stepping out from among the symbols he had drawn upon the floor. ‘I had to see you, had to speak to you. I had to let you know.’

‘There is nothing to be said to the dead,’ the ghost admonished.

‘I had to let you know what I felt,’ Frederick persisted. ‘I had to tell you I have never stopped loving you. I know you had to marry Rutger, I know it was the right thing for you. I have never begrudged that decision and I have always been indebted to him for what he did. Both for you and for me.’ The priest turned his face towards the sanctuary. ‘I have placed Johan in the mausoleum of the templars, the most sacred place in the garden. He will be at peace there. Your body will rest there as well. I won’t let them take you away.’

The wisp shifted once more, at once seeming to swell and diminish. ‘You should not have called me. Johan and Rudi are waiting. They beckon to me. You should let me go to them.’

Frederick shook his head, tears in his eyes. ‘Every time I saw you, every time I saw Johan, I thought of what could have been. I like to think that I could have made you happy. I want to think I would have been a good father to Johan.’

‘He belongs to Rudi,’ the ghost spoke. ‘He is waiting with his father. You must let me go.’

The priest slumped away from the table, the magnitude of the ghost’s statement twisting in his gut like a knife. All these years, he had believed Johan to be his own. He had never dared speak of the matter with Rutger, had never pressed the point with Aysha. He had always believed it was for the best if Johan never knew. It had been a privation of the soul, to look on in silence, but his quiet suffering had given Frederick the strength to go on. Now that his pain was revealed to be a lie, all that was left was a terrible emptiness.

Through the melancholy of his mind, an alarm began to flash. Frederick stared hard at the ghost’s formless face. It was the second time she had spoken of Rutger waiting for her. But his brother was alive. He couldn’t be waiting…

‘Why do you speak of Rutger as one of the dead?’ Frederick demanded, horrified anger contorting his face. ‘My brother is alive! He is alive!’

‘Rudi waits for me with Johan. They beckon to me.’

Terror filled Frederick’s heart. He had left Rutger only the night before, when his brother had helped him bring the bodies to the temple. It was impossible that the plague had struck the merchant down in so short a time. Rutger was all the family he had left now.

‘How is it that my brother waits in the realm of Morr?’ Frederick demanded.

The wisp wavered. For an instant the eyes of Aysha gleamed from the flickering shape, imploring the priest to relent. Frederick squeezed his hand into a fist, sending more of his blood dribbling to the floor, strengthening the black magic he had evoked.

‘Rudi went to seek justice for our son,’ the ghost answered. ‘Havemann was ready for him.’

Frederick’s body sagged as the ghost’s words pressed upon him. The corpse-candles sputtered and died. As they winked out one by one, the ghostly wisp drained back into the body laid out upon the table.

‘The line has been crossed,’ the spectral voice whispered. ‘Sympathies of spirit and mentality have flung open the gate that can never be closed again.’

The priest didn’t even notice the apparition’s retreat. He was thinking of his brother.

And the man who had murdered him.

Middenheim

Ulriczeit, 1111

Night once more cast its sinister pall over the roof of the Ulricsberg, the clean light of Mannslieb warring against the ugly glow of Morrslieb for domination. The watchfires upon the walls of Middenheim stood stark against the black sky, clearly marking the locations of gatehouses and guardtowers. Smaller lights, flickering as they passed behind the battlements, revealed the lanterns of patrolling sentries.

From the Graf’s private hunting preserve, the little garden forest called the Ostwald, Mandred studied the revolving patrols. The prince crouched beneath the boughs of a snow-covered fir tree, waiting for the token Othmar had described, the beckon that would summon the smugglers to the wall.

‘You said we were going to get more men,’ Othmar whispered at the boy’s ear. Unlike Franz, the Reiklander was managing to refrain from invoking Mandred’s title. The fact that the prince had stubbornly refused to inform his father of this venture had grated against the knight’s sense of duty and it was hard for him to keep a touch of resentment out of his voice.

‘We aren’t sure they’re going to be there,’ Mandred whispered back. ‘We can get help later if we need it.’

Franz rubbed his calloused hand across his bald head, sweeping away the snow that had settled on his scalp. Anything touching his head made the knight uncomfortable — snow, rain, hats, even his own hair had been sacrificed to his sensitivity. At moments of stress or when his mind was anxious, that was when his scalp was at its most irritable.

‘I don’t like this, your grace,’ Franz coughed. ‘It might be wiser to tell the Graf what is going on.’

Mandred shot his bodyguard a stern look. It was enough of an irritation to have the Reiklander questioning his plan; he didn’t need one of his own subjects voicing doubts.

The prince was about to call Franz to task when a sudden change in the pattern of the lantern on the wall above the Sudgarten drew his attention. Instead of continuing along the regular route, the light suddenly came to a stop. Up and down it rose as the sentry holding it signalled to someone in the city below. The gesture was repeated thrice, then the light went out. If someone didn’t know what they were looking for, there was little chance of noticing the irregularity.

‘Looks like your friends will be heading for the wall,’ Mandred told Othmar. ‘You said they used ladders to climb up to the battlements?’

The Reiklander nodded. ‘That is how they brought us down from the wall,’ he said. ‘It stands to reason that would be how they got up there.’

Mandred stepped out from the cover of the fir, knocking snow from its branches. ‘Let’s see if the ladders are there. Then I’ll know better how to proceed.’ The look Othmar gave him made it plain to the prince that he still thought the Graf should be informed and more men sent to deal with the smugglers. Mandred felt a twinge of regret that he had to deceive the knight. In the little time he had known Othmar, he had been impressed by the man’s integrity. He rationalised the deceit by reminding himself that there were bigger things at risk than a single knight’s pride. The lives of countless unfortunates down in the shantytown were what was really at stake.

The three men crept through the garden forest, picking their way into the hedgerows and flower beds of the Sudgarten. Vast swathes of the park had already been ripped apart, cleared of trees and shrubs, getting the ground ready for the plough once the spring thaw came. The torn-up earth made Mandred think of a battlefield, the piled dirt evoking images of earthworks, the deep furrows resembling jagged trenches. It was a resemblance that made the prince uneasy. Middenheim was his home. The thought that war might soon be battering at its gates was not a pleasant one.

The bells were tolling in the temple of Shallya, the closest of Middenheim’s temples to the Sudgarten. There were no priestesses left in the temple; they had all taken Graf Gunthar at his word and left the city to tend the sick down in the shantytown. Only a single deacon had remained behind to maintain the temple and ring the bell, to remind the people of Middenheim that even without her priestesses, the goddess was still with them.

Such was the clamour of the bells that Mandred didn’t hear Othmar when the knight called to him. The Reiklander had to grab his arm to get his attention. He followed Othmar’s hand as the knight gestured towards the wall. As he had promised, a pair of tall ladders were leaning against the barrier. They were peculiar looking constructions, made of a soft white pine and with strangely spaced rungs. It took Mandred a few moments to realise what they were — trellises from the ruined park. The smugglers had scavenged them from the debris and lashed them together with ropes to create their ladders. It was an ingenious idea. When they were finished they could simply cut the trellises from one another and dump them back with the other debris from the park. No need to worry about dragging the things to and fro, the trellises would be waiting for them on the junk pile the next time they were needed.

‘Now we tell the Graf, your grace?’ Franz asked, anxiety in his voice, one hand rubbing his head.

‘Now we go up there and see who it is,’ Mandred said, still trying to play for time. He turned a commanding gaze upon each of the knights. ‘If we send for help and they don’t come in time, at least we will know what these smugglers look like.’

‘There were seven of them when I was brought up the cliff,’ Othmar reminded the prince. ‘And you’ll have to take into account the sentries they’ve bribed.’

‘We’re just going to have a look,’ Mandred promised. ‘They don’t even have to know we’re there.’ He felt guilty lying to these men, but he didn’t have time to make them see his point of view. Mandred’s motives were pure, but he knew from past experience that some men were too cynical to believe in simple humanity.

Franz led the way to the ladders, Mandred’s one concession to his bodyguard’s incessant demands for caution. The prince followed close behind, with Othmar climbing up the second ladder. The Reiklander had described in some detail the arduous climb, made all the more difficult by the irregular spacing of the rungs. Even so, Mandred found himself panting by the time they reached the top of the wall.

No light shone upon this section of the battlements. The bribed sentries had doused their lantern, leaving the smugglers to work by the light of the moons. This, it seemed, was more than sufficient. Mandred could see where a crude windlass had been constructed, thick ropes uncoiling from it to drop down over the side of the wall. Somewhere below in the darkness would be the basket Othmar had described, perhaps even now bringing another clutch of refugees over the cliffs.

Three men dressed in a motley assortment of furs attended the windlass, grunting with effort as they gradually brought the ropes winding back around the timber spool. Two soldiers in the livery of Wallwardens watched the operation, worry etched upon their faces. Another pair of men in cloaks paced back and forth, their every move betraying an attitude of wary vigilance.

There were two other men present. Like the sentries, they seemed intent upon watching the smugglers working the windlass. One was a broad-shouldered, stoutly built man, his head covered by a bearskin hood. There was an unmistakable air of authority about him; even without Othmar’s description, Mandred would have marked the man as the chief of these smugglers.

The chief’s companion was a little fellow, wiry and nervous, his scrawny body covered from head to toe in a ragged robe of dyed wool. He capered about the chief, seemingly unable to keep still, his head twitching from side to side beneath the folds of his hood. Mandred took an instant dislike to the little man, finding his every gesture somehow disturbing and repulsive.

‘We should get your father now,’ Othmar whispered.

Mandred glanced aside at the knight. Now was the time to act. He would have only one chance to show his companions how wrong they were. He only hoped they would give him the opportunity to make them understand. ‘Follow my lead,’ the boy told the two knights. Before either of them could react, Mandred strode boldly towards the smugglers, his hands open at his sides.

‘Peace,’ he called out as the two smugglers detailed as lookouts spotted him and came running forwards. Mandred noticed that each of the men had a sword in his hand. ‘I am not here to interfere.’

The prince’s appearance drew the attention of the chief smuggler. The broad-shouldered man turned away from his observation of the windlass. His face lost in the shadows of his hood, the fur-cloaked man marched forwards. The bribed soldiers and the little man in the wool robe followed behind him.

‘That is a good way to get your gizzard slit,’ Neumann’s oily voice intoned. ‘You shouldn’t scare people in the dark.’

‘People who are doing things the Graf doesn’t like, don’t do them in the light of day,’ Mandred countered, fixing his face in a companionable smile. A perplexed look came upon the face of one of the soldiers when he heard the prince speak, the look of a man who has recognised something but can’t quite place it. Mandred knew he had to convince the smugglers of his sincerity before the soldier remembered where he had heard his voice before.

‘I have heard about your operation,’ Mandred continued. ‘I wanted to see if I could help.’

Neumann chuckled as he heard the offer. There was an unpleasant cruelty in that laugh. The smuggler raised a gloved hand, gesturing behind Mandred, pointing a finger straight at Othmar. ‘That man led you here,’ Neumann grumbled. ‘I cannot abide indiscreet people.’

‘I asked him to bring me here,’ Mandred said, hoping to divert Neumann’s attention. ‘If not for him, you might be talking to the Graf’s men instead of me.’

The statement was a mistake. It seemed to jog the memory of the perplexed Wallwarden. ‘Prince Mandred!’ he exclaimed.

The two smugglers who had been closing on Mandred backed away in alarm, but Neumann only laughed. It was a low, evil mockery. ‘The prince,’ he hissed. ‘And he wants to help us.’

The soldier who had identified Mandred rushed to Neumann’s side, clutching at the smuggler’s arm. ‘That is the prince!’ he repeated. ‘You wouldn’t harm his grace!’

Neuman swung around, a dagger springing into his hand. ‘Watch me,’ he snarled, stabbing the blade into the soldier’s body with such force that it tore through the mail links and buried itself in his ribs. The dying soldier’s fingers tightened in the folds of Neumann’s cloak, dragging it from the smuggler’s body as he slumped against the battlements.

Mandred’s eyes went wide with horror as the smuggler’s face stood exposed. Neumann’s head was an oozing mass of sores and scabs, wormy strands of black hair scattered in patches across his scalp. A mouth, fat and puckered like that of a fish, drooled from the man’s right temple, its greasy slobber draining into the atrophied stump of an ear. The face itself was leprous and swollen with rot, jaundiced eyes staring piggishly from folds of dead skin. A pair of rotten teeth, like the fangs of a snake, gleamed from a lipless mouth.

‘With you as hostage,’ Neumann growled, wiping the soldier’s blood from his dagger, ‘the Graf won’t lift a finger against us.’ The mutant’s eyes glowed from his decayed face as evil thoughts swirled inside his skull. ‘If he does, then the Prince of Middenheim will make a fine sacrifice to Grandfather Nurgle!’

Mandred’s gorge rose as he heard the forbidden name of the Plague God uttered, feeling the sound burn inside his nose. The horrible truth dawned upon him. These men weren’t mere smugglers, they were servants of the Ruinous Powers! The realisation was like a physical blow, all of his ideals and noble intentions withering before the baleful eye of the Plague God.

Had his father been right? Could only evil come from helping the refugees? Was compassion the weakness these diseased cultists had been waiting to exploit?

‘Defend yourself, your grace!’

In his shock, Mandred wasn’t even aware that one of the cultists was rushing him. Left on his own, he would have been too late to stop the man’s descending sword. The blade seemed to chop down at him in slow motion, his eyes able to pick out every nick and notch in the corroded steel.

Then Franz was there, his sword crunching into the cultist’s shoulder, dragging away both the enemy’s sword and the arm that held it. The smuggler wheeled away, whimpering as thick gouts of blood spurted from his maimed body. Out of the corner of his eyes, Mandred could see Othmar fighting the other lookout, his training and skill quickly putting the cultist on the defensive. Even the surviving Wallwarden was taking a hand, flinging himself at Neumann and backing the chief cultist towards the edge of the wall.

A twitchy blur scrambled across the flagstones, ripping at Franz as the bald knight made to finish his enemy. He cried out in agony as a pair of crooked knives slashed through his legs. He crashed to the ground, rolling in pain, his sword thrusting uselessly at the wool-robed cultist. A shrill, hideous titter sounded from the villain as he darted in and stabbed one of his knives into Franz’s knee.

‘Get away from him, you scum!’ Mandred roared. Sword in hand, he rushed at the slinking killer. The cultist sprang away at the sound of his voice, displaying an unbelievable agility and speed. Mandred chided himself for shouting. If he’d kept quiet he might have taken the fiend by surprise.

The prince had no time to think about his mistake. With a snarl, the wiry cultist leapt at him, whipping the wool cloak from his shoulders as he did so. Mandred was forced to duck the flying garment, then hurriedly brought his sword whipping up to block a descending knife. The other knife glanced across his side, catching in the heavy furs the prince wore.

Mandred barely noticed the pain of the cut along his ribs. For the second time, the boy was horrified by the shape hidden beneath a cultist’s robes. The thing attacking him was utterly inhuman, more beast than man, and the most debased fusion of the two he had ever seen. Its face was pulled into a long, verminous snout, its hands were claw-tipped paws and its body was covered in mangy brown fur. The creature resembled nothing so much as an enormous rat.

The beastman gnashed its yellow fangs at Mandred, then jabbed its knife at his side once more. The prince twisted away from the stabbing blade, his free hand closing about the furry wrist. He felt his flesh crawl with revulsion at the contact. Utter disgust welled up inside him, overwhelming the careful discipline that had been drilled into him for years by instructors like van Cleeve. Howling, the prince brought his boot kicking up into the beastman’s lean body. Its paw held in the prince’s unyielding grip, the rat-creature could only partially twist away, taking the heavy boot against its leg instead of its belly.

The thing squeaked in pain, its scaly tail lashing out at Mandred as it tried to flee. The prince’s sword came chopping down, severing the tip of the loathsome appendage. The smell of its own blood seemed to drive the beastman berserk. Chittering malignantly, the monster lunged at Mandred, knocking him onto his back with the snarling rodent sprawled across his chest.

Mandred saw the creature’s arm twist, trying to bring its other knife into play. Pressing his boots against the flagstones, the prince pushed himself over, rolling onto his side and bearing the beastman with him. The creature squealed in panic as its hand was caught beneath the weight of both their bodies, the knife dropping from its numbed claws.

The panicked thrashings of the monster propelled both of them towards the crenellations looking out over the cliff. Mandred struggled to free himself from the monster’s tenacious grip, its scrabbling claws trying to tear through his tunic. The prince screamed in pain as the rat-creature’s snapping fangs sheared through the lobe of his ear.

Blood was streaming down the side of his face when the prince and his enemy at last crashed against the stone crenellation. Pressing his body against the solid stone, Mandred used it to gain extra leverage against his enemy. With his body anchored against the battlement, he heaved upwards with all his strength. For all its savage fury and ghastly speed, the rat-creature was sparsely built and weighed much less than a real man. Mandred’s brawn broke the thing’s hold, pitching it outwards between the crenellations. He saw its paws scratch desperately at the masonry as it hurtled head-first out into empty space. A shrill squeak of terror receded into the distance as the monstrosity fell towards the foot of the Ulricsberg.

Mandred’s shaking hand pressed against the crenellation, using it to support himself as he regained his feet. He stared across the fortification, the flagstones splotched in black beneath the moonlight. All of the cultists were either dead or had fled into the night. All except for the burly Neumann. The chief cultist had ended the valiant effort of the guard who had turned against him, but not before the soldier had crippled one of the mutant’s arms. Now he was looking for a way to get past Othmar’s flashing sword, finding the effort easier in concept than execution. Every time the cultist tried to circle past the knight, Othmar would press him back with a sweep of his blade. Gradually, Neumann was being pushed back towards the battlements.

Mandred reached down to the bloodied ground, retrieving the discarded halberd of one of the soldiers. He shifted towards Neumann’s flank, cutting off all possible chance of escape.

The mutant turned his deformed head, a sneer twisting his lipless mouth. Neumann gestured with his bloodied dagger at the windlass and the ropes hanging over the side of the wall. ‘There are people in that basket down there, just waiting to be pulled the rest of the way up. Innocent people, like this indiscreet Reiklander.’

Mandred’s blood went cold as he saw the cunning gleam in the cultist’s eyes. Neumann was much closer to the windlass than anyone. One quick slash of the knife and he could send the basket crashing down the side of the Ulricsberg.

‘We’ll let you go,’ Mandred said. He stared hard at Othmar. ‘You understand? This… man is to go unharmed.’

The evil chuckle again bubbled from Neumann’s lipless mouth. ‘It is charming that you expect me to trust you.’ His eyes narrowed with malicious spite. ‘And utterly moronic that you would trust me.’

Before Mandred could even start to move, Neumann raked the edge of his dagger across the windlass, breaking the pin which restrained it. Faint screams rose from below as the unwinding ropes, free and unfettered, sent the basket crashing to the ground.

‘Bastard!’ Mandred snarled, charging at the gloating mutant. The cultist’s body shuddered as the prince impaled him upon the spiked tip of the halberd. Hissing his defiance, Neumann tried to slash at the boy’s face with the dagger, only the length of the halberd preventing his blow from landing. Before he could rear up for a second try, Othmar’s sword hewed through the mutant’s arm, sending both it and the dagger clattering across the battlements.

‘You are all doomed,’ the dying mutant chortled as he wilted against the flagstones. ‘You can’t even surrender. Because they’ve already won.’

Mandred pressed the halberd deeper into the cultist’s body, sending a gout of blood bubbling from his mouth. The malicious light in Neumann’s eyes slowly faded. The prince looked up as Othmar came beside him.

‘Now can we see the Graf?’ the knight asked.