Tales of the Old World (18 page)

Praise be to Sigmar. Blessings upon the name of Ulric.

When he arrived back at the clearing where he had left the tracker, he found
Sassen sitting silently between the horses. It was still dark and the chill bit
at his face. Sassen was shivering despite being wrapped in a blanket.

“A fine night, Sassen. In the darkness I struck against malevolence, and
Sigmar was on our side.” Heidel spoke fast, breathlessly recounting the night’s
events. “We must ride before dawn. The sun will soon rise and we must catch them
again before they have a chance to move or find us unawares. The darkness will
give us cover.”

The crisp air was motionless as they rode. Before long the eastern sky began
to lighten. Finally, as they came close to the quarry’s camp, the sky had turned
gold and red and pink, but the sun was still hiding behind the tree-line.

Heidel glanced at Sassen and wondered if the tracker would be of any use in
the fight. The little man had a short sword at his side, but until now it had
only been used to hack at bushes and branches. It had not yet tasted blood,
unless the stories of sailing with Norsemen were true. Perhaps this would be the
morning of its baptism.

When Heidel judged that they were close to the camp, he hissed for them to
halt, and they tied their horses to a tree.

“Let’s hope that they have not heard us,” he whispered to Sassen. “Are you
ready for this?”

The tracker looked at the ground, then to the sky, and finally nodded
briefly, pursing his lips. The fear emanated from him like a scent.

Heidel’s mood had changed since his joyous return from his initial foray.
Perhaps he could feel Sassen’s fear, and somehow he had taken it as his own: an
uncomfortable, dissolute, emotion. He felt a terrible sense of foreboding. And
though he prayed to Sigmar and Ulric once more, his heart refused to lighten.
Instead it was weighed down, leaden. For a moment Heidel felt the inevitability
of defeat. How could he face that dark warrior, that faceless, soulless thing—all darkness and metal, terrible and sublime? The warrior had seemed just
another man in the night. But as the sky became light, its image in his head to
grow in stature; it was as if the very light was eaten by evil, which turned the
warrior into something else entirely. Now he was ten feet tall, his armour
hardened, impenetrable.

Heidel shook himself. “Fool,” he muttered under his breath. But despite his
reassurances he still felt the sands of uncertainty shift beneath his feet.

They crept along the side of the track and before long came to the camp.
Heidel was almost surprised that the creatures were still there. Three corrupted
mutants sat in a circle facing outwards, in their hands jagged and vicious
blades. There was a chicken-man. Behind him crouched something with what Heidel
first took to be a shield on his back, before he realised that it was a shell
that has grown from the man’s flesh. And finally there was another, a truly
foul, corrupt thing which made Heidel rage with fury and sick with revulsion
when he a saw it. Where its head should have been there was merely a gaping
mouth dripping ooze and slime, pink and putrescent.

The warrior was nowhere to be seen.

“Sassen,” he said, “the time has come to mete out justice.”

They began.

How beautiful, Heidel thought, as his arrows arched their way across the
clearing in the still, crisp dawn air: rising ever so slightly in their flight,
and then dropping subtlety, before plunging into flesh and blood. For a moment
he forgot the combat, and was content simply to watch the arrows sail, their
beauty as they fulfilled their purpose, to fly and to strike.

Then the serenity of the arrows was broken and everything became violence and
death. The chicken-man suddenly began hopping uncontrollably, thrusting himself
into the air, surprisingly high. The manic leaping was disturbing to watch, the
body pulling tight, thrusting repeatedly against the ground. The corrupt body,
thrusting and twisting, twisting and thrusting, blood spraying under incredible
pressure; the last actions of a doomed creature in agony. So much blood.

Heidel’s next arrow struck the second monstrosity, piercing its shell,
forcing it to thrash and grasp aimlessly at the shaft protruding from its back.

The witch hunter charged, his sword in hand, Sassen scurrying alongside him,
howling at the top of his voice. Heidel quickly lost sight of the tracker as the
third creature came at him. He realised with disgust that its body was covered
with gaping, slavering, teeth-filled orifices. Its arms were tough and wiry, and
the witch hunter knew that if it clutched him those mouths would suck his life.
There would be no escape from its clutches.

“You are doomed, spawn!” he cried as he thrust his sword forward, driving it
into the creature’s belly. It slid along his blade, up to the hilt, yet there
was life in it still. It grasped at him, and held him in its wiry arms, pulling
him closer, ever closer still. The strength of its arms was immense, and he felt
the mouths as they bit into his flesh.

“Sigmar!” he screamed, and tried to push himself away. But it held him fast.

Desperately he twisted his sword and dragged it upwards, and he felt warm
blood and entrails on his hands. There was a terrible bird-screech wail. The
fiend’s grasp weakened. It slid to the ground.

Heidel staggered back, sword hanging loosely in his hand, sweat and blood
dripping over his eyes. He was vaguely aware of Sassen fighting something on the
other side of the clearing. Weakly he spun around—and something huge and black
loomed before him.

The warrior was seven feet tall, a great battle-axe in its mailed fist.
Heidel felt dwarfed by it, as if he stood before something from another age,
something eternal. For a moment he was motionless, paralysed by awe. He realised
that this would be the moment of his death. From behind his opponent the sun had
risen all red and gold. Its rays gleamed off the black armour and blinded him.
The only thing he could see was the silver pendant, set with a brilliant blue
gem, hanging tantalisingly around the warrior’s neck.

Then a mailed fist struck him in the face, throwing him backwards. Heidel
scrambled desperately to the side as the great battle-axe plunged into the
earth. He felt the rush of air as it flew past him. Heidel swung his sword
sideways and felt it clatter off armour. A deep laughter followed, a laughter so
unnatural and mocking that it filled Heidel with rage. The rage became strength
and he leaped to his feet and jumped backwards. The axe whirled close to his
belly, threatening to gut him.

“Laugh now! But you will die screaming!” Heidel screamed.

But only laughter was returned.

Side-stepping to the right, Heidel lashed out, aiming at the elbow where only
the black plates separated revealing only chainmail. He connected, and felt the
sword bite, before stumbling sideways and backwards away from the lethal axe
whirling towards him. As he stumbled his foot clipped something—a stone, a
root—and his balance shifted, his leg remained stationary, yet his body
lurched forward. Desperately he tried to pull his foot forward. Finally he
succeeded, in time for his knee to brace his fall.

The warrior was now behind him, unsighted. The terribly notion seized him
that something huge and sharp would plunge into his back or cleave his skull. He
threw himself to the side and heard a great roar, felt the rush of air on his
cheek as if it was a spring breeze.

With great effort he leaped back onto his feet, twisted his body, arcing his
sword in one great circular motion. There was a clang as the blow struck his
opponent’s chest, denting his breastplate and forcing the monstrosity back a
step. Glancing around, Heidel noticed the slim figure of Sassen duelling lithely
with a beastman, sword flashing time and time again.

Heidel raised his hand to wipe the sweat from his forehead eyes. Soon it
would blind him. He lashed out at the colossus as it advanced once more, and
again found himself dodging the deadly axe. The witch hunter struck and struck
again, and each time the same pattern repeated itself. He thrusting and
slashing, his sword glancing off the black armour. The warrior heaving his great
axe and plunging it into the thin air: air in which only an instant before
Heidel had stood.

Heidel had struck well, denting the armour, drawing blood from between the
plates where only chainmail protected the fiend. Yet he knew he stood no chance.
One blow from the axe would fell him. Then it would be over. His blows were too
small, too weak. Perhaps they drew some strength from the warrior, but Heidel
was tiring faster.

Then the inevitable happened: Heidel fell backwards over a corpse. Sweat
dripped down into his eyes so everything became a blur. Above him the huge
black-armoured warrior stood. Behind the monster, the sun shone with a surreal
beauty and the immense, ancient axe glinted cruelly. Heidel knew he was dead.
There would be no escape.

A sudden explosion, and it was like time slowed to a crawl. A massive dent
appearing in the side of the warrior’s helmet. Another explosion: the dent
pushed further in, and a thousand tiny holes appeared, as if someone had thrust
needles repeatedly through the metal. The warrior backed away, suddenly
staggering, blood and streams of yellow filth dribbling from beneath the vast
helmet. The huge body fell like the edge of a cliff into the sea; foul steam and
dust was thrown into the air with a gigantic crash. The dust seemed to hover in
the air for a second and then was whisked away from the enormous body by a
sudden gust of wind.

Heidel sat and stared, his ears ringing, sweat dribbling into his eyes.
Through the ringing came a startling voice.

“Just in time, hey? You know, Heidel, old man, you really should pick better
odds.”

Heidel turned his head. There stood a fop: dressed in a frilled silk shirt, a
floppy soft hat on top of hair curled into ringlets, a tiny perfectly trimmed
moustache, and wearing soft, pointed leather boots. The man held two smoking
pistols in his hands.

“Mendelsohn,” Heidel said flatly.

Sassen had taken care of the shell-creature and was now busy piling the
bodies together. Heidel was relieved that the tracker had not been killed in the
fight. He had lost track of the little man for most of it, but apparently Sassen
could handle his sword after all, and though a trickle of drying blood ran down
his left arm, he was not badly injured.

“Only a scratch,” the little man had said quietly when Heidel asked about it.
The tracker seemed distracted, as if something was on his mind. Heidel assumed
it was the result of the combat. He had seen many men shaken after a battle;
some were so distraught they were speechless, wept like children, or moaned
worse than the wounded.

They were determined to burn the foul bodies. Mendelsohn and Heidel began
collecting wood and building the fire up into a pyre.

“You must have passed me in the night,” Mendelsohn grinned. “I must say, I’m
a bit upset that you only left the warrior for me.”

“Have no fear, Mendelsohn. The Empire is crawling with corruption. You should
know that, from the circles you move in,” Heidel snapped.

Mendelsohn smiled for a reply and picked up a fallen log, swathed with damp
and rotting bark. “Damn this, it’ll ruin my shirt.” He held the log away from
his body but bits still fell onto the silk cuffs.

“I’ll go and fetch the horses,” Sassen called out from the clearing. He had
finished piling the bodies together as best he could and seemed anxious to be
away from this place of death and corruption. Heidel nodded in agreement and the
tracker disappeared off down the path.

When they had built the fire high enough, Heidel began to throw on the
corpses, cringing as he touched their diseased bodies. He was in turmoil.
Mendelsohn, the aristocratic dandy, had saved his life. Had the flamboyant fop
not arrived, he would now most certainly be dead. But Heidel felt humiliated,
bested, and could not bring himself to show gratitude. He had known Mendelsohn
some years, long enough to realise that the paths they walked were different
ones. He did not entirely approve of that which the noble had taken.
Begrudgingly he turned to the other man.

“You arrived at an important time. Thank you, Mendelsohn.”

Mendelsohn raised his head and gave him a brilliant, handsome smile. “You
make it sound like we had a merchant’s meeting. ‘You arrived at an important
time…’—otherwise I would never have sold the silver spoons!” A moment passed.
“Oh, call me Immanuel. ‘Mendelsohn’ sounds so formal.”

Heidel struggled for a moment with his manners, then said: “And you, you can
call me Frantz… I suppose.” A moment later, “So the baron, he hired you too?”

“The baron?”

“Baron von Kleist? He set me upon this task.”

“I know of no Baron von Kleist.”

Heidel stopped for a moment, thinking. “The baron hired me to recover an
heirloom, a most precious thing, that these foul beasts stole. They attacked the
caravan which he was taking to Bechafen.”

Mendelsohn looked concerned for a moment and pulled on his small moustache
with his fingers. “This band attacked no caravan. I followed them from Bechafen
myself, all the way. Never let them stray far from my sight the whole journey.
Where is this von Kleist from?”

“From Altdorf or somesuch. He was moving here to escape the pressures of the
capital.”

Mendelsohn pulled harder on his moustache. “I know most of the nobles in
Altdorf, but I have never heard of a Baron von Kleist. What was this heirloom of
which he spoke?”

Heidel walked to the massive armoured corpse of the dark warrior. The thick
metal plates which covered the body were impressive. Great strength would be
needed to carry such weight. Even now the enormity of the body and the armour
were frightening, as if the Warrior might suddenly leap once more into life.