Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Warhammer

Winter

The Hounds of Winter

Spring

Green Tide Rising

Dark Heart

Summer

Harvest of Souls

Autumn

The Plague Pit

A Murder of Crows

Winter

Sympathy for the Damned

The Dead of Winter

About The Author

Legal

eBook license

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 isa land of great mountains, mighty rivers, dark forestsand vast cities. And from his throne in Altdorf reignsthe Emperor Karl Franz, sacred descendant of thefounder 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 Worlds Edge Mountains, the orc tribes are gathering for another assault. Bandits and renegades harry the wild southern lands ofthe 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 nearer, the Empire needs heroes like never before.

WINTER

Winters on the northern borders of the Empire are as cold and cruel as the heart of an evil man. From Kaldezeit until Nachexen, all the provinces of our mighty realm are gripped by winter’s freezing claw, but none more so than the principalities of Ostland and Ostermark. Located as these lands are on the border of the Chaos-plagued kingdom of Kislev, their common people share many of the superstitions of their more barbarous neighbours. It is said among the peasant folk who scrape an existence within this wilderness, that in the dark days of the dying of the year darker things still walk the lands of men.

– from A Gazetteer of the Border Country by Albrecht Strauss

THE HOUNDS OF WINTER

The winter wind whipped through the tops of the tall pines, snowflakes dancing in whirling flurries. Moonlight cast an eerie glow over the snow-shrouded landscape, occasionally piercing through the trees and night-black shadows to the ground below.

And there, racing through the forest, zigzagging desperately between the pillar-like trunks, half-running and half-stumbling over the uneven ground, was a figure, a man, dressed in winter-weather peasant garb, the bundle of carefully gathered firewood tumbling from his arms as he fled.

Behind him, coursing through the maze of trees, following his scent unerringly, was something else. Something darker than the night, crueller than the arctic cold, and more menacing than the spectre of starvation in the depths of winter.

The man ran on. His only thoughts were of the hounds baying behind him. Above the choking, tearing rasp of his own breath in his ice-seared throat, he could hear them panting and barking. Muffled by the snow and trees, their howls took on an echoing, almost ethereal quality. He dared not turn to snatch a fleeting glance of his pursuers for fear of what he might see. He did not know what they were or where they came from. And he did not care. He only knew that he could not let them catch him.

Through the dark silhouettes of the tall pines he saw the dim light of his lantern in the window of his hovel. Then his foot snagged in an exposed tree-root hidden under the snow. A searing pain blazed in his ankle and he fell. Panicking, the man tried to scramble to his feet but as he did his torn ankle all but screamed out in protest. He gasped, taking in another great breath of ice-cold air that scorched his raw lungs. He was in agony: he wouldn’t be able to put any weight on the ankle now.

A howl cut through the cold night, full of the promise of hot, slavering death. Pure terror chilled the peasant more deeply that the coldest midwinter. The terror helping him to ignore the pain, he somehow managed to stagger on with faltering, lurching strides. Every limping step brought him closer to shelter from the cruel winter night and the dark horrors it now held for him. Only another sixty yards and he would be safe. But with every desperate step the snarling of the hounds came closer.

He had not realised how close, until he was suddenly tugged backwards with a fierce jerk. The first of them sank its claws into the calf of his leg. Crying out, he landed spread-eagled in the freezing snow, the breath knocked out of him. The rest of the pack was upon him before he could spit the snow from his mouth and draw another desperate, frozen breath.

In a few moments of snarling savagery it was over.

As quickly as they had fallen on the man, the hounds tossed the body aside and bounded off again into the night. The pack was closely followed by the masters of the hunt. Flaming hooves and iron-shod feet trampled the peasant’s corpse into the hard ground, white turning to crimson with a hiss of steam as the man’s hot blood soaked into the sullied snow.

The Hounds of Winter were abroad once more.

Everything about the inn spoke its age. Huge oak beams the size of whole trees formed a bracing structure, which supported the centuries-old, filth-coated rafters; around the beams, walls thick enough to withstand a besieging army had been built. Something about the huge stones gave the impression that they had been here long before mortal men had decided to build an inn here. The bar took up most of one wall and on the opposite side a fire blazed in the vast stone fireplace. Between the bar and the fireplace were tables, benches and stools, most of which were occupied by a combination of local villagers, enjoying a warmer atmosphere than they could find at home, Kislevite soldiers having completed their patrols of these dangerous lands, and hired swordsmen making the most of the money they had earned but on the look-out to make some more. A band of dwarfs was carousing by the fire while a cocky young human captain was losing an arm-wrestling match to a grinning, white-haired longbeard. Seated at a table in the centre of the bar was a party of six hard-bitten adventurers and the two serving girls who had joined them.

‘So you see, M… Ma… What’s your name again?’ Stanislav Hagar asked, absent-mindedly.

‘Magda,’ the serving wench seated on his knee replied, petulantly. Her blonde friend, seated next to the raven-haired Torben Badenov, giggled into her hand.

‘Yes, of course. Magda.’ Stanislav was starting to slur his words. For the shy giant of the band to be slurring his speech he must have already had a lot to drink. ‘So you see, this man here,’ he said clapping a huge hand on Torben Badenov’s shoulder, ‘saved my life and I’ve been part of Badenov’s band ever since!’ Torben sagged comically under the clout.

‘How did you save his life?’ Magda asked, giving the handsome dark mercenary a coquettish look with her deep brown doe eyes, and playing with a tress of her chestnut hair.

‘Gods, don’t get him started on that!’ Torben said, running a hand through his own hair. ‘Suffice to say it’s a long story that Stanislav would make even longer in his condition.’

‘What condition?’ the large man asked drunkenly.

‘What time did you start drinking this morning?’ the rat-like rogue Oran Scarfen asked his giant companion snidely. Normally the big Kislevite could out-drink any of the others.

‘You’ll be like a bear with a sore head tomorrow,’ Yuri Gorsk commented, flicking his untidy fringe of black hair out of his eyes before taking another swig from his own tankard of ale.

‘Then you’d better watch your step, come the morning,’ Stanislav said with a laugh, cuffing the younger man round the back of the head, making him spill most of his drink.

‘I think it’s your round, Stanislav,’ said the black-clad, eye-patched Krakov. He slammed his empty tankard down on the cartwheel-turned-table around which they all sat.

‘Yes, come on, you old fool,’ Torben jibed, ‘get the drinks in. Same again all round and, ladies?’ he asked, addressing the mercenaries’ two female companions.

Before the two barmaids could answer the erstwhile trapper was on his feet, somewhat unsteadily, his arms outstretched as if he were ready to give a bear hug.

‘I’m not old and I’m not a fool, and I’ll wrestle anyone who says otherwise,’ he blustered.

‘Well you’re older than me,’ was Torben’s retort, ‘and you are a fool. Now get the drinks in.’

‘Alexi’s older than me,’ the drunken giant went on, in a hurt voice.

‘Yes, but I’m not as ugly as you,’ the old soldier replied, a wry smile on his lips.

‘I’m not ugly!’

‘Well why else would you grow that beard of yours so thickly if not to hide a face like an orc’s backside?’ Oran put in.

‘At least he can grow one,’ Magda rejoined coming to Stanislav’s defence, ‘rather than just a brush-bristle moustache like yours.’

At that the mercenary party burst into raucous laughter; all except for the red-faced Oran. The gaunt, toothy warrior’s rodent-like features and spiky moustache almost belied any human heritage.

‘I like a man with a beard,’ the buxom blonde Helga added, looking at Torben’s neatly-trimmed facial hair. The mercenary was stroking it absent-mindedly.

‘A man could die of thirst around here!’ Oran snapped angrily, bringing everyone’s attention back to the more vital matter in hand.

‘I’ll go,’ said Alexi, getting up from his stool and straightening his studded leather jerkin. ‘At least I won’t spill half of it on my way back from the bar.’

Stanislav sat down heavily again with a self-satisfied smile and Magda resumed her place on his knee.

‘Shouldn’t you be getting our order for us?’ Oran said to the girl who had shamed him in front of his friends.

‘It’s our night off, isn’t it, Helg?’ she said, throwing the other girl a conspiratorial look.

‘That’s right, Magda,’ her partner confirmed. ‘As of five minutes ago.’

‘It’s nice to spend some time with some real gentlemen,’ the sultry Magda went on, eyeing Torben while she continued playing with Stanislav’s hair.

‘And gentlemen with a crown or two to their names,’ Helga added bluntly.

‘Well, we’ve had a run of good fortune recently,’ Torben explained, flashing Magda a winning smile. ‘There’s been an increasing number of raids by goblins coming out of the foothills. Either the depths of winter have driven their foraging patrols further, to stave off hunger, or they’re testing the waters for another big push.’

‘Word from the south is that greenskin warbands are massing in the heartlands of the Empire,’ Krakov said, backing up his leader’s words.

‘Doesn’t sound much like good fortune for the people whose lands these goblins have been invading, nasty things!’

‘Yes, but we’re sell-swords, aren’t we?’ Oran pointed out.

‘Dogs of war,’ Krakov added.

‘Soldiers of fortune, perhaps,’ Alexi of Nuln suggested.

‘Mercenaries,’ said Torben. ‘Where there’s war, there’s work for us, and where there’s work there’s money for the taking. But that’s enough about us,’ Torben said smoothly, ‘we want to hear about you.’

‘There’s not much to tell,’ said Helga.

‘No, we want to know how the rest of you met,’ Magda pressed.

Torben leant back in his seat, stretching his arms behind his head, and yawned widely.

‘Well, Oran, Alexi, Yuri,’ he said, pointing out each of his companions in turn, ‘and I were all in the army of the old Tzar, Radhii Bokha, back in Kislev. Then, well… let’s put it this way. One day we decided to become mercenaries. You’ve already heard how Stanislav came to join us. Then there was Krakov. We met him in jail.’

‘In jail?’ Helga said aghast.

‘Yeah, and whose fault was that?’ Oran asked, giving Krakov a dagger-filled look.

‘I didn’t start that tavern brawl,’ the black-clad man said, holding his hands up in defence.

‘Sounds like you really are men of the world,’ Magda said, directing her flirtatious gaze at Torben again.

‘Have you travelled far?’ Helga asked, seemingly genuinely interested. ‘I had an uncle who traded furs as far as Middenheim.’

‘Middenheim?’ Oran snorted. ‘So he wasn’t exactly what you would call well-travelled then?’

‘Well, most of us have fought in Tilea,’ Torben explained patiently, flashing another predatory smile at the brunette. ‘That was with Scarfo’s dogs of war.’ Torben suddenly laughed out loud.

‘Do you remember old Scarfo, Oran?’

‘Yes I do,’ replied the other, something like an expression of pain twisting his features for a moment.

‘Scarfo the Bastard, they called him.’

‘Yeah, and there was a reason for that.’ Oran winced again.

‘How horrible!’ said Helga, coyly sensitive for a girl used to serving soldiers and mercenaries in a drinking establishment on the Kislev-Empire border.

‘Alexi’s travelled the farthest but then he has been around the longest.’

‘And doesn’t it show?’ Stanislav said grinning inanely, and then letting out a loud burp.

The older soldier put down his tankard firmly on the table, his usual calm demeanour unsettled for a moment. ‘Here, that’s enough of that sort of thing!’

‘What are you going to do about it, granddad?’ Krakov retorted, joining in the fun.

‘I was slaying beastmen before you had your head out of your suckling nurse’s cleavage and I could still teach you a thing or two,’ he rejoined. ‘You Kislevites! I don’t know. Anybody would think you invented swordplay the way you carry on sometimes.’

‘Do you remember that time we trounced those Bretonnians?’ Torben said quickly, as much to diffuse the situation as for the sake of nostalgia.

The rest of Badenov’s band looked at their leader. Without a word being said all six of them burst into raucous laughter again.

Alexi raised his tankard and shouted, ‘Badenov’s band!’

‘Badenov’s band!’ the others responded to the toast.

‘You’ve met the chivalrous knights of Bretonnia?’ Helga asked, obviously awed.

‘Chivalrous knights?’ Oran queried, taking the girl to task with unrestrained glee. ‘Poncey, pompous, arrogant psychopaths with delusions of grandeur, more like,’ and he hawked a gob of phlegm onto the rushes covering the floor.

‘Well I thought that knights were romantic, rescuing damsels from distress out of love,’ Magda said, leaping to her friend’s defence. ‘Not like you!’

Oran cast the wench a black look but said nothing else.

‘Yuri here even speaks the lingo,’ Torben added.

‘A little,’ Yuri muttered modestly. ‘Enough to get by.’

‘Ooo, now that is romantic. Say something in Bretonnian,’ Magda cooed.

‘Um… I don’t know what to say,’ the young man said shyly, hiding behind his mop of a fringe.

Suddenly the landlord’s gravelly voice called out gruffly across the bar: ‘Magda! Helga! Over here! You’ve still got work to do, you know?’

Reluctantly, with flirtatious waves and lingering pecks on the cheek, the two buxom serving wenches rose and left their new gentlemen friends, swaying their hips provocatively.

‘Bye, girls,’ Torben called. Then under his breath, to the rest of the group, he added, ‘You don’t get many of those to the pound, do you?’

With a crash, the inn door was flung open and a chill gust of wind drove the warmth from the room.

‘Shut the door!’ Oran shouted gruffly. Midwinter’s eve on the fringes of the Northern Wastes was as bitterly cold as any of the weather sages of Erengrad could predict, and outside was where the inn’s clientele wanted it kept that night. With a resounding boom, the portal was sealed again by a second gust of wind and the air inside the snug was still once more.

‘We haven’t a moment to lose! Barricade the doors and windows! Arm yourselves!’ the newcomer shouted above the hubbub.

Casually, with feigned disinterest, Badenov’s band turned to see who had disturbed their quiet drink in the warm.

Standing just inside the door was an old man, his age-lined face testimony to a life of hardship but also of great inner strength. A thick mane of white hair fell back from his forehead and his wide jaw was buried beneath a luxurious beard. Around his broad shoulders rested the hide of some unfortunate bear, its claws now pinned by a clasp about the stranger’s neck. He gripped a staff like a tree-branch in one of his great hands.

‘They’re coming I tell you! We must prepare for battle!’

‘Calm yourself, old man, calm yourself,’ Torben said, rising from the table of adventurers, his huge frame blocking the old man’s view of the fireplace. ‘Why don’t you have a drink and let us get on with ours?’

‘There is no time for that! Do you not know what night it is?’

‘Of course we do,’ Torben retorted. ‘Not all of us are suffering from dementia as yet. It’s midwinter’s eve.’

‘But not just any midwinter’s eve. Tonight is also the conjunction of the two moons!’

Oran’s frown deepened. ‘What’s he ranting about now?’ he fumed, sneering at the newcomer.

‘I have no idea,’ Krakov replied, putting his tankard to his lips.

‘The conjunction of the two moons only happens once every three hundred years – when both moons come together on midwinter’s eve, dead on midnight, their full powers pull together upon this world,’ the old man explained, mistakenly assuming that the mercenaries were interested in what he had to say.

‘So what does that have to do with us?’ Torben asked flippantly.

‘It is upon us tonight! Do you not know the legend?’

‘What legend?’

‘Oh!’ the stranger wailed, despair cracking his voice. ‘Too many have forgotten! Is it really so long?’

Torben strolled over to the bar and leaned back against it casually ‘Do you know this character?’ he whispered through the side of his mouth to the rotund landlord, as the old man paced about the bar.

‘I don’t know his real name,’ the chubby, red-faced barman replied as he tried to buff up a dull pewter tankard with a filthy rag, ‘but everyone around here calls him Old Man Mountain. He’s an odd fellow. He’s been around for as long as anyone here can remember. People sometimes tell of seeing him striding through the snowdrifts up beyond the tree line but they always steer clear of him. He’s never actually come down into the village before, though – I’d be careful not to anger him if I were you.’

‘Don’t worry. He doesn’t frighten me. I’ve dealt with his type before.’

In truth, Torben Badenov had indeed encountered many strange old men in his time as a mercenary, and not only in the wild borderlands of Kislev. Unbidden, a host of faces and names sprung to his mind, many reminding him of a dozen or more healed scars and various dramatic scrapes with death: the sorcerer Gustav Kometschweif and the hunt for the fabled mace Starsfall in the Troll Country; the nameless white-haired Bretonnian wizard of the Bastion Sanglier; the burns-scarred heretic Ubel Griswold; the double-crossing Tilean merchant, and skaven-lover, Eugo Vilandro.

The obscure pronouncements of this addled mountain-dweller troubled him about as much as a goblin did a dragon. Yet despite the stranger’s obvious great age, Torben noticed that there was a certain bearing about him. He held himself tall and proud, looking every bit a man of thought as well as a man of action. Torben was sure that his great bearskin cloak hid powerfully muscled arms.

Moving back to his table, Torben motioned to the enigmatic character with his tankard. ‘Come tell us your story, old man. Make it a good one and we might just buy you a drink for your trouble.’

The stranger stopped pacing and turned his piercing amber eyes on the mercenary and his companions. ‘We have little time, so listen well,’ he said, coldly determined, ‘and I will tell you of the hounds of winter.’

Oran rose from his stool and gestured to it sarcastically, but the old man refused to sit and kept pacing with nervous energy.

‘It was a night much like this, when people gather around their campfires to tell each other stories that make the blood run cold. It was a time when the tide of Chaos was rising in the land. It was midwinter’s eve–’

‘Get on with it. I thought time was short!’ Oran jeered. All but the old man laughed.

‘An Imperial patrol was escorting a wagon train from Talabheim to Kislev. Three days into the journey, a Chaos warband attacked!’ The old man’s earnest voice held the attention of the assembled warriors – perhaps this was to be a fine tale after all.

‘Outnumbered, the patrol was routed. Many brave men were killed by beastmen and Chaos warriors that night. The soldiers thought themselves all doomed.’

The old man paused, coughed to clear his throat and beckoned for a tankard. Badenov passed over Oran’s, stopping the latter’s complaint with a wicked grin. The stranger supped a few mouthfuls before continuing. ‘Then, from out of the wilds came a being who seemed as much beast as man. He wielded deadly, sorcerous powers, and fought against the Chaos vermin. ‘Twas a wizard, come to aid the soldiers in their fight.’

By now, Old Man Mountain had quite an audience, his story gripping even the most hard-bitten adventurers in the bar. ‘But the foul enemy was too strong, and in the end there was nothing for it but to flee and spread word of the coming of Chaos to Kislev and to the Empire beyond.’

‘Hurry it along, old timer,’ Oran interrupted again. ‘Cut to the chase.’

‘Listen!’ the old man reproached his heckler. ‘Every detail is important. You must hear it all!’

‘Very well, mountain man,’ Torben said, ignoring his glare. ‘Tell us everything, but get on with it!’

‘The Winter King, champion of Chaos, led this warband. His infamous acts of cruelty had carved him a reputation as bloody as his crimes.’ He paused a moment. ‘As the survivors of the wagon train fled from his clutches, the Winter King called on his Dark Gods for help, and from the red mist of battle his vile, Chaos-spawned powers shaped the dread forms of daemonic hounds.’ The old man sniffed the air dramatically. ‘Picking up the scent of the fleeing survivors, the abhorrent beasts bounded off into the night in pursuit of their human prey.’

The old man shot his audience a glance to make sure he had their full attention. Satisfied that this was so, he went on.

‘Though it appeared that the wild man’s arrival had been a stroke of good fortune, this wizard had in fact been trailing the warband for some time. The Winter King had stolen a magical crown from an ancient burial mound. This crown was imbued with the power to command the forces of Chaos. The wizard knew that if Khorne’s champion reached the Empire, he might unite the twisted creatures of the Dark Gods dwelling within the Forest of Shadows into an unstoppable army. The warband had to be stopped before it reached the gates of the Empire!’

‘Where did the survivors make their stand then?’ Torben interrupted.

‘I was just getting to that!’ the old man snapped. He took a moment to compose himself again before resuming the story.

‘The wizard led the few survivors to a circle of standing stones carved with powerful, ancient runes and sigils. It was a fitting place for their last stand. The brave soldiers fought beyond their measure, but died one by one, until only the wizard remained.

‘Even in death, however, their energies combined with the magic of the place to imbue him with a terrible power. With the roar of a beast, the wild sorcerer shed his last vestiges of humanity and took on the aspect of a mighty bear. Raging and clawing, he drove off the servants of Chaos, though suffering terrible wounds himself.’

The old man’s words were so vivid, and so heartfelt, that everyone was now held entranced.

‘Trapped and beaten, the Winter King slunk away into the darkness to die, cursing the wizard. He vowed that even though the wizard had won the battle, the war would continue in death and beyond. He would return.’

The old man looked up, his story done. ‘That is the saga of the Winter King.’

A heady silence hung over the bar. At last Torben spoke: ‘Well, you’ve earned your drink – that was quite some tale.’

‘But it’s not just a tale, it’s real, I tell you! Now is the time! The moons are in conjunction and the battle will be fought again!’

A thunderclap shattered the night, shaking the inn and causing every lantern to flicker. Above the winter gale could be heard the savage baying of hounds.

‘Sigmar, save us!’ somebody wailed. Then others joined in petitioning the god of the Empire, praying to the Heldenhammer in their terror.

‘By Boris Ursa’s beard!’ Torben swore under his breath. ‘Seems Old Man Mountain might be right after all!’

All eyes turned to face the stranger in disbelief.

‘They’re here,’ he said.

Torben’s hand moved instinctively to the hilt of his sword. The rest of Badenov’s band eyed each other uncertainly. As they listened they could also make out the sound of harnesses jangling, the snorting of steeds and the clink of armour.

‘It is time, old man!’ came an icy voice from beyond the door. All inside the inn heard it quite clearly. The voice was heavy with damned resignation and full of menace. ‘Are you within?’

‘I am!’ the old man called back, his voice strong and unwavering.

‘And are you ready to die again?’

‘We will see.’

‘Then prepare to defend yourself!’

An order was shouted – and it was as if all hell had been unleashed. A series of clattering crashes rocked the inn as something, or rather several things, hurled themselves at the shuttered windows. Men and dwarfs leapt to the windows, to ensure the shutters remained firmly closed. There were more crashes and Torben watched as the defenders, arms braced against the wooden battens, were pushed back by whatever it was that was breaking into the inn.

Then, around the building several shutters were torn open, the iron hinges ripped free of the walls in tiny eruptions of brick-dust. Aged wood splintered as steel-grey claws, each as large as a man’s hand, tore at the battens.

Startled, the defenders leapt back. Black, scaly muzzles, packed with savage fangs, followed the claws, snapping at the people guarding the windows. The monstrous creatures – the very hounds of hell, or so it seemed – tried to batter their way inside. Magda and Helga screamed, as did a number of other people who were huddled terrified in the bar. The fat barman disappeared behind his counter.

‘Now this is just too much!’ Torben exclaimed, rising to his feet, sword in hand. ‘One old lunatic I can just about stomach, but this is going too far. Are you with me, lads?’

There was a growl of agreement from the mercenary’s companions and they jumped to their feet, weapons at the ready, ale fuelling their enthusiasm and bravado. Stanislav staggered unsteadily.

‘Ah, at last. The brave warriors remember their part in all this,’ the white-maned stranger said enigmatically. ‘Together we will drive the evil from this place!’

Ignoring the old man, the mercenary captain adjusted his armoured jerkin and continued to urge his band of fighters on. ‘Come on, lads! Let’s give these deviants a taste of cold steel. That’ll soon calm their appetite for destruction!’

By now the rest of the inn’s customers were also preparing to fight – it was plain that their only chance of survival depended on it. Kislevite soldiers, other sell-swords and the party of dwarfs gathered behind Badenov’s band.

‘Follow me!’ the stranger shouted above the blood-
curdling howls of the hounds, the war cries of Chaos warriors and the braying of beastmen. Flinging open the great oak door of the inn, the old man stood silhouetted for a moment in the flickering light of the torches carried by the warband. Snow began plastering to his hair and beard. ‘Stay within the light cast by the inn!’ he advised, then leapt out into the night. The defenders followed unhesitatingly; it was as if the old man held greater sway over them than they realised.

Outside the inn, it appeared to Torben that all hell really had broken loose. Surging towards the building was a heaving mass of brutish, horned beastmen and spike-armoured warriors, their faces hidden by huge, grotesquely visaged helmets. There was no unifying armour and the attackers displayed a terrifying range of weaponry: from great, gutting pole-arms and heavy, serrated war-blades to rusted, skull-dangling flails and massive, crushing maces.

Torben knew a Chaos warband when he saw one, and he saw one now. He made a rough head count, and felt the blood drain from his cheeks. Torben estimated the inn’s defenders to total around sixty fighting men. The seething pack before them numbered at least three times that, not including the Chaos army’s vanguard!

Pawing the ground in front of the ranks of Chaos were what Torben took to be hounds. But these blood-red monsters with their slavering jaws and scaly hindquarters were nothing like any creature he had encountered before. Their ruddy, hairless hides gave the impression of raw flesh. The daemonic dogs were snarling and croaking. Their reptilian screeching cries echoed through the night across the snowbound hills.

Then the vile flesh hounds attacked.

Torben was immediately set upon by two of the crimson-skinned abominations. Claws slashed mere inches from his chest and teeth snapped at his throat. Waves of noxious breath roiled over him, awash with the corrupted stench of septic wounds and spoiled meat.

Torben swung the curved blade of his sabre in a figure of eight and felt it connect with the flesh of one of the monstrous creature assaulting him. There was a harsh yelp and the unnatural beast fell back.

Then the mercenary was on the ground, the breath knocked out of him by the second of his savage animals attackers. The flesh hound held him down with iron-strong paws. Torben’s flesh burned with pain where the cruelly sharp claws sliced through his padded leather armour and into his shoulders. The numbing chill of the cold grey slush covering the ground soaked into the back of his jerkin.

As he cried out in pain he drove his sabre in under the monster and rammed it upwards, with all the force he could muster, into the creature’s belly. Hot, steaming innards spilled from the gutting wound, drenching his hands in foul ichor. The hound howled. Its body sagged and Torben kicked himself free of its disgusting carcass.

No sooner was he back on his feet than another attacker was on him. He barely had time to bring his weapon to bear before the beast hit him with the force of a battering ram. He heard the wet slick of the honed edge of his sword slicing through muscle and sinews, then the snick of it cutting into bone, as he was spun aside. The beast snarled in pain and faltered. In that same moment, the mercenary struck again, this time cutting through more than a clawing limb. The partially decapitated hell dog slumped to the ground.

The attack had happened so quickly that Torben had only been able to react instinctively to the suddenly life-threatening situation. Something of the old man’s peculiar influence had helped to sober him up in an instant.

He paused to catch his breath, and looked down at the bodies of the two brutes that had attacked him. Despite being canine in form there was something reptilian about the creatures’ heavy-jawed heads. Each was at least as large as the biggest wolf Torben had ever seen. But the fatal wounds he had dealt them reminded him of how he had felled the hobgoblin’s wolf, at only fourteen years of age. That was the act that had first set him on the path that had brought him to this moment.

As he remembered the fang he wore on a leather thong around his neck – a memento of the raid on his village all those years ago – he also became aware of the throbbing pain of his injuries. He was not left to his thoughts for long, however, before the baying pack turned their bestial attentions towards him and the other defenders again.

These were not some hunter’s wolfhounds, unless that hunter was one of the dark champions of the ruinous powers, these were a manifestation of the wrath of an angry god, pure hatred and bloodlust made corporeal on this plane of existence. They were hunting dog and bestial disembodied rage combined, savage instruments of death.

Then Oran was at his side, shaking. ‘What’s the matter with you?’ Torben puffed. ‘We’ve fought worse than this before.’

‘You know I hate dogs!’ Oran snarled back, his face pale in the gloom.

‘Don’t think of them so much as dogs,’ Torben suggested, ‘think of them as… daemons.’

‘Oh, that makes it so much better!’

The horrifying hell-hounds were possessed of an unbridled fury and hurled themselves at the humans and dwarfs, trying to clamp limbs in their teeth, desperate to rend their victims apart. Beyond the vanguard formed by the daemonic creatures the beastmen and Chaos warriors pressed forward, keen to satisfy their own rising bloodlust.

A hideous amalgam of man and goat forced its way through the surging hounds and came face to face with Alexi and Yuri. The older man laid practiced blows against the towering beastman, making every hack and slash count. The less experienced Yuri set about his foe as though in a frenzy, his youthful vigour compensating for his less well-judged strikes. The beastman fell, blood pouring from a score of sword-cuts that would not be staunched.

As Torben fought on, swinging blow after powerful blow at the mass of attacking Chaos beasts and warriors about him, he could not help noticing that at the heart of the warband there were others whose faces were unmasked and of a deathly pallor. At the back of the serried lines of mutants and madmen, a shadowy, almost spectral figure appeared to be directing them all. The suffused light from the inn gleamed dully from the jagged, spike-like points of a crown.

A spear of glowing orange flame streaked through the swirling snow, cast by the old man. The missile exploded among a mass of beastmen, the foul stench of scorched fur filling Torben’s nostrils. The braying animals were sent running in disarray.

So the old man has some magic at his disposal too, Torben thought to himself. There was a lot more to him than had first appeared.

Something else was happening as well. As he battled on against the Chaos pack, Torben felt as if his body was being invigorated by some renewing power that sent strength surging through his arms and legs, stimulating muscles that should have become tired from the constant exertion. It gave him the stamina to keep fighting, in spite of his wounds. From the curious expression on the faces of his fellows the same thing was plainly happening to them.

Snow was falling thickly now, whipped up into blinding flurries by the wind. Through the blizzard, Morrslieb’s light began to dim as the time of the conjunction approached. Torben sidestepped an attack by a howling, dog-faced mutant and plunged his sabre deep into the beastman’s chest. The howl became a gargling whine as blood bubbled from its muzzle-mouth.

Close by he saw the dwarf band surrounding a rabble of short-horned, semi-human braying creatures. A horn-helmed longbeard, righteous anger contorting his features, was laying into the Chaos creatures with his axe, bringing them down to size – his size – removing their kicking goat-legs at the knees. A dwarf wielded a miner’s pick like a battle-axe, bringing it down on top of a beastman’s skull, puncturing it with a sickening cracking pop.

Torben had lost track of how long the battle had been raging. Although they fought with increased vigour, the ragged collection of defenders was still greatly outnumbered. Torben suddenly found himself clear of the immediate fighting, in the eye of the storm, as it were. A number of Chaos corpses lay on the ground in the ruddy slush in front of him. He darted glances around him, to see where the next attack might come from or if any of his companions needed his aid. But he did not expect to see movement from the bodies before him.

Eyes transfixed, Torben watched in horror as a spike-armoured warrior, whose very life-blood had been turning the snow crimson only moments before, rose up, seemingly whole again. His firm, strong stance was not that of an injured man, let alone a fatally wounded one. Another beast-thing that Torben himself had felled rose on its haunches, clutching its rusted cleaver in a hairy paw.

But there was something strange about these slain that returned to life. They seemed to shimmer as if viewed through a mist or heat-haze. Those that the inn’s defenders had struck down rose up again like shadowy wraiths of their former selves, summoned back by some unknown, ungodly power to rejoin the fray.

But there was no time for horror and disbelief. There was only time for war.

The battle raged on, Torben fending off the blows of his enemies, his thrusts and parries given extra impetus thanks to some inexplicable invigorating energy. As he fought, he almost felt like some esoteric energy was guiding his hand. It was like no other conflict he had ever taken part in before, and there had been many. He had the unshakable feeling that he had been here before – fought this battle before – when, he had no idea, but he knew that he had never been to this place before this night. It was as if it had all happened in some other lifetime.

There was a cry, and looking round he watched, in horror, as Stanislav, his mind dulled by the effects of the alcohol he had consumed, succumbed to the more cunning attack of a growling, goat-legged creature. There was nothing the mercenary captain could do as he watched his companion fall to the axe-spear of a degenerate beastman.

One by one, despite their valiant efforts, the defenders were being struck down by the otherworldly Chaos fiends. Shooting anxious glances about him, Torben saw the bodies of men and dwarfs lying motionless in the trampled snow. But still the defenders held out against the enemy, preventing their advance on the inn. With an abruptly silenced cry of surprise, Oran too fell to a wraith’s seemingly incorporeal sword. Torben felt uncontrollable tears of grief and rage welling up inside him.

‘Do not be concerned for your friends,’ the white-haired wizard’s reassuring tones came through the snow flurries. ‘It is almost time. We must hold them just a little longer.’

The Chaos horde, and their leader in particular, appeared to be becoming more and more agitated at their failure to break through the defenders’ line and assail the inn. The beastmen and warriors were driven by some overwhelming need, although what it was Torben did not know, understand, or care. The warband’s shadowy leader screamed orders to the rabble – incomprehensible to the mercenary’s ears – his desperation adding an intensity to their attack and making the defenders’ struggle to hold them off seem all the more important.

An all-enveloping darkness descended on the battlefield. The heavenly bodies had completed their movements. The time of the conjunction of the two moons was at hand. Now the only illumination came from the horde’s torches and the interior of the inn.

‘Now it is time,’ the old man hissed with satisfaction. ‘Retreat into the inn! And take your fallen with you!’

At his command, the few survivors gladly hurried back towards the welcoming glow of the great stone portal, dragging the chill bodies of their fallen comrades with them. Without hesitation, Torben grabbed Oran’s arm and pulled his body back towards the inn. Krakov and Yuri were tugging at the great weight of Stanislav’s corpse over the threshold, while Alexi was on the lookout for any sudden last-ditch attack by the desperate raiders.

When all were safely back inside – living and dead – the door was barred and the defenders prepared to meet their inevitable end.

‘Where’s the old man?’ Torben exclaimed suddenly, looking around.

‘He must still be outside,’ the landlord realised with horror. ‘He’ll never survive out there alone.’

‘But will we survive in here, together?’ a haggard local lamented.

With a chilling clarity that cut through the howls of the Chaos hounds, the defenders heard the temple bells down in the valley start to chime midnight. As the last chime tolled, the great roar of a raging beast drowned out the barking of the terrible hounds. Curiosity driving them, Torben and the others leapt to the windows and tried to peer through them to see what was going on, but all was black as pitch. They could see nothing, but they could hear the slaughter that was taking place beyond the walls of the inn all too clearly.

The defenders remained transfixed, listening to the wailing of the Chaos horde, and were chilled to the marrow by the bellowing of the monster that had suddenly appeared amidst the carnage.

At last the sounds died, the cries of those apparently still able to flee fading into the distance. Even then the defenders did not dare move from the protection of the inn for fear of what they might find outside.

Dawn came, and with it the confidence to leave the inn. Unbarring the great door, Torben cautiously ventured out into the crisp, cold morning.

The snowy ground was a bloody slush, littered with the foul bodies of vast, bestial hounds, rapidly decaying in the grey light. Here and there lay the corpse of a beastman or ironclad warrior, but there were far too few to account for the sounds of slaughter that they had all heard at midnight. Of the bodies of the Chaos lord and his awful retinue there was no sign. Neither was there any trace of Old Man Mountain, dead or otherwise.

‘Where can they have all gone?’ Torben wondered aloud.

‘I… have no idea,’ was all Krakov, standing at his shoulder, could offer.

‘The old man couldn’t have survived the onslaught of an entire warband and the monster that came at midnight.’

Torben peered in alarm at a set of clawed, bear-like footprints that led away through the snow towards the mountains. There were no matching prints leading towards the scene.

‘Mercenary!’ the landlord’s bewildered, astonished voice called from inside the inn. ‘Your companions! Come and see!’

Torben hurried back inside. On the floor where his body had been laid, Oran was sitting up, rubbing his head and looking around him as though in a daze. Stanislav’s eyes were also open and he was rubbing his midriff gingerly. Magda was kneeling next to him, tears streaming down her face. The other dwarfs and men who had also fallen to the wraith-like fiends were similarly stirring, as if waking from a deep sleep.

‘How can this be?’ Torben asked in amazement, kneeling down beside Oran. ‘What happened to you?’

‘I was struck. I know I was. It was like something chill and evil,’ Oran said with a shudder. ‘And the memories. I remembered – not felt – I remembered the most agonising death throes. I’m sure the wound I suffered didn’t warrant such blazing torment.’

‘You mean, as if you were reliving somebody else’s experiences,’ Torben hazarded, ‘from another time?’

‘Call me a frothing madman for saying so but… yes,’ Oran spluttered, stunned by his own admission. ‘Then I blacked out.’

Torben stood up, rubbing his head with both hands, as if that would somehow help him to make sense of the night’s bizarre events. Then Helga was throwing her arms around him and hugging him as if her life depended on it.

He smiled. What did it matter? His companions were alive, and seemingly well. In fact his own wounds were beginning to heal too. The night was passed and they were still here to tell the tale. What would really help make everything clear again, he decided, was a drink.

‘Landlord,’ he called bluffly. ‘I think opening time has come early today. Crack open that cask of Bugman’s XXXXXX I saw you’ve got stashed behind the bar. I think we’ve all earned it!’

The mercenary looked back through the open doorway at the battlefield beyond. What exactly had taken place during the conjunction of the two moons?

The sun had struggled through the snow-choked clouds, casting its wan light onto the portal. On one of the ancient cornerstones of the inn, the muted beams picked out a number of worn markings etched into the stone. Stepping over to the threshold to take a closer look, Torben ran his fingers over the carved symbols.

The stone was huge, apparently set deep into the ground. Something told Torben that it had lain there far longer than the old inn. The building had no doubt been made from local stone: despite having borne the weathering of the elements for centuries the markings were plainly ancient symbols. The adventurer traced the shape of an arrow under the lichen. His curiosity satisfied, he gave a shrug and returned to the bar, hopeful of a quiet drink and female company.

As the solid oak door closed behind him, the rusted inn-sign creaked in the breeze: the picture of a rampant bear, now faded almost beyond recognition.

SPRING

And now we come to the barbaric, primitive greenskins, the name by which orcs, goblins and others of their foul kind are collectively known. These creatures are crude, base, savage and little better than animals. They rejoice in slaughter and violence, they embody the primitive ideal of ‘Might is Right’, and their numbers are on the increase.

– from The Lesser Races of the Old World by Brother-Scribe Mericus of Trottelhalle

GREEN TIDE RISING

The carriage rumbled along the forest road, jolting over ruts and potholes, as the track wound its way between trees budding with new life. The green verges were smothered with a profusion of vivid vernal blooms. Ten armed men accompanied Abbot Anselm’s wagon on the Reisenbad road through the Great Forest, to ensure the safe transport of the precious, holy treasure. Wearing the same liveried tunics, bearing the image of a golden hammer, these men were positioned in front and behind the plain, monastic carriage. Two of the bodyguards were on horseback, one leading, one bringing up the rear. None of them saw the attack coming until it was too late.

The abbot’s carriage shook as something large and heavy crashed onto its roof. The wooden battens creaked ominously and the canvas awning began to tear. With a dreadful ripping sound, a huge bony talon pushed through the cloth. Abbot Anselm shot a panicked look at the young priest travelling with him and made the sign of Sigmar. Brother Tobias, more adept in the ways of war than a scholar of its holy texts, reached for his warhammer.

The two holy men could hear the shouts of their armed escort and the shrill, panicked whinnying of the horses. They had stopped moving forwards. Then there was another noise: a harsh screeching roar that came from whatever it was that had landed on the roof of the carriage. Three more tusk-like prongs pierced the canvas above their heads and Tobias caught a glimpse of hard green scales.

The carriage lurched again. Tobias grabbed the edge of his seat, dropping his weapon, as the vehicle rocked until, its centre of gravity was exceeded, and the carriage toppled over. The two passengers were thrown onto the sidewall, the contents of the wagon falling around them. Saint Eowen’s precious reliquary hit Tobias squarely on his shoulder, his warhammer narrowly missing his tonsured head.

Opposite him, Abbot Anselm, his eyes shut tight as if to dispel the terrifying reality of the situation, was whimpering into his cowl. A horse screamed and was abruptly silenced. Tobias could hear the crunch of bone and then the sound of rending flesh. It reminded him of the abbot noisily dismembering a roasted chicken, only the sound was much louder, befitting the fact that the creature being devoured was a horse.

Picking up his holy warhammer in one strong hand, Brother Tobias clambered to the door at the rear of the wagon, which was now at ninety degrees to the perpendicular. There he paused, turning back to the blubbering, white-haired old man huddled in the corner of the overturned carriage.

‘Father Abbot,’ he said, calmly. ‘Wait here.’

The young priest took in the carnage and chaos on the road outside. The motionless bodies of several of the cavalcade’s bodyguards lay sprawled on the road where they had fallen, all of them dead. Savage claw marks and crimson gashes attested to the manner of their deaths. Crouched in the doorway, he could see the massive, scaled legs of the thing that was hunkered on top of the carriage above him.

There came another deafening screech and the monster shifted, its tail swinging out over the rear of the wagon. Tobias guessed that their attacker must have been distracted by something and, more importantly, that it was probably looking the other way. It was now or never.

Ducking under its heavy tail Tobias leapt out of the wagon and sprinted over the rutted road to the far verge. There he spun round, hefting his warhammer ready for battle, and took in the scene of devastation before him.

Only six soldiers of the abbot’s escort had survived the initial attack. They were milling around the cavalcade, trying to deal with the unexpected attacker with pikes and polearms. Conflicting commands and despairing cries passed between them. Individuals did their best to deal with the situation, either as they saw fit or as necessity demanded – their captain among those already slaughtered.

Of the two horses that had been pulling the abbot’s carriage one was still alive, struggling to pull itself free of the shafts, even though its back legs were broken. There was no doubt that its fellow was dead. Its head had been torn off by the monstrous winged reptile that now squatted on the overturned carriage. Tobias heard the painted and gold-leafed wood creaking under the beast’s great weight.

Despite having never seen such a beast in the flesh Brother Tobias knew immediately what it was. He had seen the creature on a hundred coats-of-arms adorning the walls of the abbey’s refectory before it was razed to the ground by the ravening warband of Korax the Thrice-Damned. But such images hardly compared with the monster savaging the horse’s corpse in front of him now.

The creature was a wyvern: a cruel, debased monster with a mean streak matched only by ferociousness and sheer brute strength of a heavily-muscled form. Wyverns had none of the nobility of dragonkind but they were also instantly recognisable, for where dragons had six limbs, wyverns only had four – two powerful legs and two broad, leathery wings.

The monster’s body was as big as the wagon upon which it now perched. From that mass of scaly flesh stretched a thick neck that supported a heavy prehistoric head, the horns and huge teeth speaking of a savage primal ancestry. The wings that sprouted from its shoulders had a span twice as wide as the great doors of the abbey that had been Brother Tobias’s home until its destruction.

A tail as long as the rest of the beast’s body lashed and writhed, as if it had a mind of its own. It was tipped with a cruel spike that oozed an oily black venom. As Tobias watched, a glistening drop of the substance formed at the tip and fell onto the dirt of the road where it hissed and fizzed.

On a crude saddle strapped to the muscular shoulders of the winged monster was an equally ugly, bizarre-looking and green-skinned creature. The brute was humanoid in form and although it was as tall as a man it was twice as broad. Its angular head was also strangely proportioned: its forehead narrow and sloping whilst its jaw was wide, and supported great jutting tusk-like teeth. The rider’s fleshy snout was pierced with a gleaming piece of bone, as were its small, pointed ears.

Brother Tobias, a child of the abbey from the age of five, had never seen an orc in the flesh either, but he recognised it as such immediately. The ill-proportioned beasts had been depicted in wall-carvings and the intricately illustrated psalters back in Abbey Kriegeruhe. There was no doubt in his mind that what he was facing was one of the greenskin enemies of mankind.

Talking with the bodyguards on their journey, Brother Tobias had heard of the orc warbands gathering within the lawless, untamed depths of the Great Forest. Now he could see for himself just how great a threat the greenskins were for the principalities of the Empire.

This particular orc was draped in a boar skin, the tusks of the dead animal’s skull framing its jaw. It held itself in the saddle with its muscular thighs, leaving it free to gesticulate wildly with its club-like hands. In one meaty paw it gripped a large leg bone, carved with crude totem patterns. The young priest also noticed a necklace of brightly coloured feathers, birds’ skulls and finger bones around the brute’s neck.

The orc fixed one of the bodyguards with a withering gaze. As Tobias watched the orbs of the orc’s eyes glowed red and two bolts of scintillating energy struck at the startled soldier. The man was sent flying into the scrub at the side of the road, a great, smoking hole in the middle of his tunic. The orc had to be some kind of magic user to have such blasphemous power at its command.

The shaman really was as ugly as the sins of the most black-hearted of men. Tobias had once heard Brother Serlo, who was in charge of the abbey stables, say that owners were supposed to resemble their pets. The old adage seemed to apply to orcs and their mounts just as well.

Having recovered from the initial shock of the wyvern’s attack, the cavalcade’s escort had rallied. With surprising cohesion the polearm-bearers and pikemen engaged the monster, lunging with their weapons. Several blades managed to pierce the wyvern’s barrel chest and fleshy thighs but more were turned aside by its armoured hide.

The wyvern recoiled, wounded as it was. Its mouth opened wide and it roared again. Strings of viscous saliva vibrated in the gust of its rank breath, gobbets of horseflesh dropping from yellowing fangs. As one the pikemen stepped back the wyvern happily returned to tearing at the flesh of the partially dismembered horse. The creature adjusted its perch on the wagon, a clawed foot crunching through the spokes of a wheel, as it considered its next tasty morsel. Its head jerked as it crunched up the horse’s head, its sinuous neck flexing as it gulped down the mouthful.

Then Tobias became aware of another sound, barely audible over the wyvern’s chomping. It was not unlike the mewling of a distressed babe-in-arms. Turning his horrified gaze from the great reptile, the young brother became aware of… Abbot Anselm! The old man was crawling on his hands and knees away from the overturned wagon. He looked like a defenceless infant with his balding head and his long habit trailing behind him, not to mention his disturbing wails. Where was the man’s dignity? He had been head of a house of monks of the Empire’s warrior god and now here he was, consumed by fear! All his honour and nobility had vanished.

The wyvern’s great head swung round: it too had heard the abbot’s pathetic wails. Its snorting nostrils sniffed out the helpless abbot below, well before its obsidian black pearl eyes had focused on the whimpering man. Cold malice burned in its eyes.

With a sudden lurch, the wyvern leapt from the wagon, the wooden panels of the carriage splintering as it kicked off. In the space of one flapping hop the monster was on the poor man.

Abbot Anselm cried out as the weight of one great, clawed foot came down on his back spread-eagling him on the road. The wyvern studied the struggling man trapped beneath its bloodied talons with almost avian curiosity. Then, with one sharp snap of its fearsome jaws the wyvern removed the abbot’s head, silencing his cries forever. The second bite took the rest of his body. In two greedy gulps the abbot was gone.

Brother Tobias’s mind was suddenly blessedly clear of shock, revulsion and disbelief. He knew what course of action he had to pursue. How could such an aberration against the will of Sigmar be allowed to live? In revenge for Abbot Anselm’s ignominious death, the beast had to die. Raising his warhammer he ran at the wyvern.

‘Men-at-arms! My brothers!’ Tobias called as he ran. ‘This monster has devoured the one man it was our duty to protect! Avenge his death and wipe these foul abominations from the face of Sigmar’s blessed Empire!’

Incensed by the abbot’s murder, and roused by the priest’s words, the men charged towards the winged monstrosity. They might have failed in their duty to protect the holy dignitary but they were brave, honourable men and they weren’t going to let this bastard greenskin and its abominable mount get away with the killing.

With a shout of, ‘For Sigmar and the Empire!’ a
man-at-arms stabbed at the wyvern, bravery and desperation overcoming his rational urge to flee.

With a bone-splintering crack Brother Tobias brought his warhammer down on the monster’s huge taloned foot. A piece of claw went spinning away into the air.

The monster let out a terrifying shriek. With slow, powerful wing-beats the wyvern lifted itself into the air, pushing off with its strong legs. It climbed high, silhouetted against the glowering blue-black clouds of a building storm. The orc shaman was screaming in its unintelligible tongue, although whether it was at the humans or its mount Tobias couldn’t determine. The wyvern reached the apex of its climb and seemed to hang for a moment against the sky, with its great, leathery wings out-stretched. Then it dropped, its dive levelling out into a swooping glide. Screeching, the creature swept towards him.

Tobias raised his warhammer in both hands and intoned a hasty prayer to his warrior patron.

As the monster opened its jaws Brother Tobias had a nasty suspicion that he might be meeting his god rather sooner than he had hoped.

‘Reisenbad – seven miles,’ stated the gothic letters carved into the headstone-like granite block.

‘At last!’ Yuri declared, as the six riders passed the weatherworn milestone. ‘I thought we’d never get there. I just hope we’re not too late and that Count Leopold has hired all the mercenaries he’s looking for.’

‘We’ll be fine,’ Torben Badenov said in a relaxed tone, hand-combing his thick hair. ‘There’s war brewing: you’ve seen the signs.’

‘Remember that messenger back in Krahendorf?’ Alexi recalled. ‘He said there’ve been reports of orcs and goblins massing everywhere. All coming out of their stinking holes and stockades, gathering within the Great Forest. Different tribes and warbands are all coming together under one banner. The greenskin threat is as great now as it has ever been.’

‘Must be a mightily powerful warboss to be able to unite so many tribes,’ Krakov stated, with awe in his voice.

‘Like that pumped-up greenskin maniac on other side of the Black Mountains,’ Oran reminded his companions. ‘Now that was one hard bas–’

‘What’s that?’ Yuri suddenly interrupted, directing his companions’ attention to the tree line ahead of them.

Sooty smoke curled up into the sky, black against the steel-grey clouds of the morning’s overcast sky.

‘Looks like trouble,’ Krakov stated, somewhat unnecessarily.

‘No! Really?’ Oran mocked.

‘Maybe it’s orcs,’ Stanislav said with tense anticipation.

‘But this is the main Ostermark-Talabheim road,’ Yuri pointed out, with nervousness in his voice.

‘If the orcs have become bold in how far they will raid, then things are bad indeed for Count Leopold and Reisenbad,’ Alexi surmised.

The mercenaries only had to ride another half a mile before they discovered what was burning. Cresting a rise they found the road dropped down into a shallow valley. They also found themselves looking down on a scene of utter confusion.

At the bottom of the valley the wide road had been constructed on top of an embankment that kept it clear of reed-choked boggy ground. From either side of this causeway steep banks, approximately ten feet in height, dropped down to a muddy ditch. People were milling about around an entourage of wagons and cavalrymen. A number of wagons had slewed to a halt across the road. The horses pulling them stamped at the shafts, obviously unsettled by something. A cart had overturned, throwing its cargo of coal onto the ground.

Splintered planks and twisted steel were all that was left of another wagon that lay at the centre of a scorched crater in the middle of the road. Sooty black smoke still rose from the wreckage. Next to the debris lay the half-cooked bodies of an ox and two men. The bubbled and blistered skin of their faces made them unidentifiable – even to their own mothers. An aroma like roast beef mingled with the rancid stink of burnt hair.

It looked like something large had also slid off the road altogether. Great gouge marks chewed up the lip of the embankment on the far side of the track. Due to his position, and a screen of shrubbery, Torben couldn’t see what it was that had left the highway.

Bodies lay amidst the broken baggage train, as did the boulders that had killed them. One of the huge, rough rocks had crashed through the front of a cart, shattering the axle and crushing the back legs of the mule that had been pulling it. Even at this distance Torben could see the impact made by the boulders in the dark soil of the road’s surface. He surmised that they had been hurled at the cavalcade by some device or perhaps even a monstrous creature.

Many of the dead and their scurrying, still living counterparts wore the same vivid livery; a variant of the maroon and mustard yellow worn by the standing army of Ostermark. It made them stand out amongst the dull browns and greens of the road and its forest backdrop. Some of the survivors, old soldiers experienced in field medicine and blustering women from the entourage’s substantial following, were tending to the injured and the dead.

It must have been an impressive sight when the wagons, carts, men-at-arms, horsemen and retainers were all arrayed in their formal procession, pennants flying in the breeze and polished metalwork gleaming. But now all was in disarray.

The mercenaries were bombarded with sounds: cries of desperate men, taken unawares; the wailing of women; the screams of those horribly aware of their own horrific injuries; the neighing of horses; the lowing of oxen.

As Torben looked closer he realised that there were not as many mounted soldiers as he would have expected to accompany what was obviously an important entourage. He began to piece together what had happened. The entourage had been attacked and ambushed, and chances were it was orcs that were responsible. The evidence left by the boulders pointed to the greenskins’ use of primitive but brutally effective catapults. Doubtless the entourage’s mounted escort had set off in pursuit of their attackers, and driven them off, hence the absence of any lingering orcs or cavalrymen.

Torben led his band at a trot down the hill, ever watchful for potential ambushers lurking among the trees. As they drew closer he was able to see what had been pushed clean off the road. Lying at the bottom of the embankment to his left was a long, low-slung wagon – nothing more than a chassis of wooden planks supported by five pairs of wheels. The unusual vehicle had slid down the steep slope, gouging great ruts out of the spongy turf, until it had come to rest, at the bottom of the drainage ditch, against a growth of hazel.

But it was the bizarre contraption secured to the wagon by chains and ropes that grabbed his attention. To first impressions it looked like nothing more than an inverted metal boat on wheels. Protruding from the prow of the curious machine was a wide-mouthed muzzle, like that of a cannon. The wheeled ironclad was topped by a squat turret on the front of which had been mounted another, smaller gun-barrel.

The artefact was obviously some artisan-gunsmith’s greatest achievement. The vehicle’s ornate, curved armoured skirts were adorned with rampant griffins and curling ribbons of sheet metal. The riveted panels were painted in glorious reds, blues and finished in gold. In places the paintwork had been scratched by branches thanks to the vehicle’s descent.

Torben noticed that there were a number of narrow openings, like portholes, below the turret. Jutting from the front of the chassis-base was a battering ram-like protuberance, its brass mantle also fashioned in the form of a griffin’s head. Behind the main armoured body of the contraption was a large, iron barrel. A fluted brass pipe rose vertically from it and its top was also adorned with the insignia of some noble house. The fat cylinder – which Torben took to be some kind of boiler – was connected to the two back wheels of the machine by a series of narrow pipes and pistons. These wheels were spoked like those of a nobleman’s carriage only these were reinforced with steel rims.

The stately armoured vehicle was now wedged, in an undignified manner, at a forty-five degree angle, by a stand of trees. A number of branches and pieces of bark had been sheered off by the contraption’s collision.

Several men, up to their knees in mud, surrounded the ironclad. Two pairs of oxen, harnessed to the wagon, were straining to pull it free. They were bellowing in annoyance at the men goading them with the flats of their swords. The wagon shifted slightly so the contraption on its back rocked, provoking panicked shouts from the men milling uselessly around it.

Hearing the approach of men on horses a young man looked up, expressions of excitement and anxiety vying for control of his features. The man’s uniform stated quite clearly that he was a captain and, by the look of things, the highest ranking officer present. On his youthful face he wore a growth of beard in the style that Torben believed was all the fashion at the court of the Emperor, Karl-Franz.

‘Oh. Who are you?’ he asked, his expression changing abruptly to one of undisguised disappointment.

‘Mercenaries,’ replied Torben simply, ‘on our way to Reisenbad to offer our services to Count Leopold in his fight against the greenskin menace. I take it you’re going the same way?’

The young captain quickly looked Torben and the others up and down, making an on the spot judgement. He seemed content that the mercenaries’ intentions were as they stated. Besides, despite his losses, there were still more than enough able-bodied fighting men to give the Kislevite and his band a run for their money should they inexplicably turn on them.

‘That’s right,’ the young officer confided. ‘Captain Hessig of his lordship’s household cavalry,’ he added, by way of introduction, ‘and commander of the Imperious.’

‘So what happened here?’

‘In a word? Greenskins,’ Hessig said, confirming the mercenary leader’s initial assumption. ‘We were ambushed. I had no idea the orcs’ raids had reached so far. They had a giant with them, too. A giant, by Sigmar! Before we even knew they were lurking in the trees, the colossus had started hurling boulders at us as if they were windfall apples!’

‘Where are they now?’ Alexi enquired.

‘Sir Weber and his retinue of knights engaged the enemy immediately and routed them, but they are yet to return.’

‘How long ago did all this happen?’ Torben enquired of the patently inexperienced captain.

‘Not more than half an hour,’ he replied.

‘And what’s that?’ asked Oran, his interest piqued by the contraption chained to the subsiding low-loader.

‘That, unless I’m much mistaken, is a steam tank,’ Alexi said smiling broadly.

‘You know of them?’ said Hessig in surprise.

‘Heard of them, yes, but never seen one,’ the old soldier said, with a twinkle of child-like glee on his face. ‘My father was an engineer at the artillery school in Nuln. He used to tell me bedtime stories of the glorious campaigns these venerable machines had been involved in. They’re priceless. There were only ever ten of them made, or so I believe.’

‘Twelve, actually,’ corrected Hessig. ‘This one, the Imperious, has been seconded to Count Leopold’s army, to be used in his noble crusade against the greenskins.’

‘It’s a beauty and no mistake,’ Alexi mused wistfully, ‘but it needs to come out of that ditch if it’s going to be any use to the count. Otherwise all you have here is a useless lump of very expensive metal. Where’s your engineer?’

‘The young captain pointed to the pair of splayed legs sticking out from under the wheels at the end of the wagon.

‘Oh. I see.’

‘Yes. It’s not a pretty sight.’

‘And what happened here?’ Torben asked, indicating the blackened wreckage that the party had just ridden past. He now saw that there were chunks of splintered rock at the blast-site as well.

‘One of the greenskin rocks hit the munitions truck. The sparks from the impact ruptured the armoured shell, igniting the gunpowder it was carrying.’

Torben seriously doubted Captain Hessig’s competence. He had been in this situation for at least half an hour, and he still wasn’t any nearer to organising his men to rescue the priceless artefact from the ditch. The ox team heaved again on the hawsers attaching them to the wagon, to no demonstrable effect.

‘It’s no good carrying on like that,’ Stanislav was saying. He had dismounted and was descending the embankment with great, lolloping strides. ‘It’s not going anywhere with a bent axle. See here?’ The large bear of a man addressed the group of soldiers and retainers gathering around him. ‘Just there? We need to straighten that out before we try moving the low-loader again.’

The men-at-arms were looking at each other hopelessly, the colour drained from their faces. One shrugged his shoulders as much as to say he didn’t have the first inkling how such a task could be accomplished.

‘Fortunately for you my father was a blacksmith and a carter and not all of his skill and artifice was lost on me. You don’t grow up around a forge without picking up some understanding of such things yourself, let me tell you. Now listen to my instructions carefully and we’ll have this steam tank of yours back on the road to Reisenbad in no time.’

‘Oh, thank you,’ Hessig gushed, losing any semblance of aristocratic cool he might have once had. ‘I would be so grateful if you could help us, as would be Count Leopold himself. Of that I am certain.’

Torben grinned and put a friendly arm around the young captain’s shoulders: ‘How grateful exactly?’

On reaching Reisenbad Castle the steam tank’s entourage had been welcomed with cheers and a round of applause. It seemed as if every guard on duty in the castle at the time, along with every other member of the household’s staff had gathered on the battlements and at the main gate as soon as news of the Imperious’s imminent arrival reached them. The only person who wasn’t present was Count Leopold himself; he was represented instead by his hawkish chamberlain.

Whilst the remnants of the tank’s armed escort were led away to the castle barracks, at Captain Hessig’s insistence, Badenov’s band were taken to a small, tapestry-draped audience chamber inside the main keep. They did not have to wait long before Chamberlain Engels swept into the room, accompanied by a clerk clasping a scroll of parchment and quill pen in his ink-stained hands.

Engels was a tall man with the build of a scarecrow. He was draped in his robes of office. He appeared to Torben to be in his late fifties and he was totally bald. His face was as thin and as cold as a steel blade. The chamberlain regarded the mercenary captain with beady eyes that seemed to be almost entirely black, there being little differentiation between iris and pupil.

‘My lord, Count Leopold of Reisenbad, extends his gratitude to you for your invaluable assistance in this unfortunate affair,’ Engels said with perfunctory grace as if he had rattled the phrase off a thousand times. ‘You will of course be guests of Reisenbad Castle tonight. Quarters have been arranged for you in the guards’ barracks. And now, if you will excuse me, I have other duties that demand my attention. Good day to you, gentleman.’

As quickly as he had entered the room, the chamberlain spun on his heel and made to stride out through the door.

‘Um… There was the matter of payment?’ Torben called out, somewhat uncertainly, startled by the older man’s abrupt manner.

The chamberlain stopped in the doorway and turned, a look of irritation creasing his brow. ‘Payment?’ he repeated.

‘Yes, Captain Hessig promised that if we helped him and accompanied the steam tank here, we would be greatly rewarded by Count Leopold. I assumed we’d been brought to this chamber to be paid.’

‘Then you assumed wrongly,’ the chamberlain stated coldly. ‘I am very sorry,’ Engels went on, in a way that suggested he wasn’t sorry at all, ‘but Captain Hessig was not authorised to offer payment, unless he expects it to come out of his own wages, which I doubt very much.’

‘Look here, beaky–’ Oran blurted out.

Torben threw his weasel-faced companion a poisonous glare before he continued. ‘How many times have I told you? I do the talking,’ he hissed.

‘As I was saying,’ Torben explained, turning back to the chamberlain, a warm smile on his face and arms wide, ‘we have a verbal contract with the count’s representative that we would be paid for our services. You have to agree that without our help you would not have your precious tank to lead the forces of Reisenbad into battle against the greenskin foe. And, of course, at such a delicate time, I am certain that his lordship would not want talk of dishonourable behaviour and, dare I say, oath-breaking to become rife within the walls of his own castle.’

The chamberlain remained silent and motionless for several long seconds, giving Torben enough time to wonder if he had pushed it too far. Any moment now he could summon the castle guard.

‘Actually, there is a matter that you could possibly help us with,’ Engels said, with no reference to Torben’s blackmailing challenge, his expression unchanging. ‘We have been expecting the cavalcade of Abbot Anselm of Kriegeruhe for over a week now and it has still not arrived. Neither has there been any word from the abbot to explain the delay. The Abbey of Kriegeruhe was destroyed in a raid by a Chaos warband, I believe, before a rescue force of loyal Imperial soldiers could drive the raiders off. Abbot Anselm was bringing a number of holy treasures, recovered from their hiding place in the abbey’s vault, for translation to our own Chapel of Sigmar, here in Reisenbad Castle.’

The hawk-like chamberlain spoke at speed as he outlined the necessary details of the matter to the mercenaries. He was obviously a busy man for whom time was a precious commodity that he tried his hardest not to waste.

‘If you agree to go in search of the missing cavalcade and report your findings to me I can assure you that you will indeed be handsomely rewarded.’

‘Haven’t you sent any of your own men-at-arms to discover what happened to them?’ Yuri asked, suspiciously.

‘In case you had not noticed we are at war with the greenskins,’ Engels replied, bluntly. ‘All enlisted men are preparing for battle, hence the call for mercenaries that your own band responded to.’

‘What qualifies as being “handsomely” rewarded?’ Torben asked, his eyes slits of deep consideration.

Engels regarded the Kislevite with a passionless gaze: ‘Say… two hundred gold crowns?’

Krakov whistled through his teeth. ‘Handsome indeed,’ he muttered.

‘I should mention that among the abbot’s possessions there was a treasure chest, a reliquary of great value. If you find the chest you should bring it back with you. It doesn’t contain anything of value for sell-swords such as yourselves but our chaplain, Sulien, desperately wants it recovered because of its religious significance.’

‘What does it contain?’ Oran asked. ‘The mouldering bones of some dead holy man?’

‘Let us put it this way,’ Engels said, his voice no more than a sinister whisper. ‘Come back without it and you’ll only get half the gold you’re so desperate to get your filthy hands on.’

‘We’ll do it,’ Torben announced.

‘Very well. Then it is, as you would say, a deal,’ the chamberlain confirmed.

Within the hour Badenov’s band were back on the road again, heading east from Reisenbad Castle on the Talabheim-Kislev road.

Without the steam tank and its straggling entourage in tow, it took them half the time to cover the seven miles back to the site of the ambush. Evidence of the orcs’ attack was still there for all to see. Pieces of wreckage had been left behind where the boulders had fallen although all of the dead had been recovered, or at least accounted for. The great gouge marks showed quite clearly where the wagon carrying the Imperious had been forced off the highway.

Another three miles brought them to the junction with the less well-travelled road to Stirland. The party halted as dusk fell, their horses un-watered, unfed and unrested at their brief stop earlier in the day. They set up camp at a deserted crossroads, and feasted on rations ‘borrowed’ from Castle Reisenbad’s barrack kitchens.

The following morning the mercenaries woke to the same grim, overcast sky, the expectant cloudbanks smothering the firmament above them so that the sun remained hidden from view. But still it didn’t rain.

The mood of the band was sombre and quiet; each of them had had enough of the oppressive, stagnant weather and would have welcomed a thunderstorm just as much as the sun breaking through.

A day after leaving Reisenbad, Badenov’s band came upon what they took to be the cavalcade of Abbot Anselm of Kriegeruhe – at least what was left of it.

The remains of several men and horses littered the area. Here a head was missing, there a ragged, torn limb hung from a tree-branch. The dried brown splashes of spilt blood that covered the road surface made it look like someone had thrown bucket-loads of it around.

Massacre was not too fine a word for what had happened here.

If any other travellers had passed this way they had left the scene well alone, scared of whatever curse or ghostly visitation might be visited upon them if they interfered. The only things that seemed to have shown any interest in the remains of the abbot’s entourage were nocturnal scavengers and vermin, their presence detectable in gnaw-marks on the parts left behind and the occasional tasty morsel, such as an eye, missing from the carcasses.

The corpses, exposed to the elements, had begun to rot and the sickly smell caught at the back of Torben Badenov’s throat. The only sound was the irregular, croaking cry of carrion birds.

‘What could have done this?’ the young Yuri asked incredulously.

Stanislav looked first at the scene of carnage around them, then at the wreckage of the overturned gilded wagon, then at the road itself, and finally at the trees that came right up to the road’s edge.

‘Whatever did this flew in here,’ he stated with certainty. Indeed the erstwhile trapper’s tracking skills hadn’t failed them yet. ‘From the human remains I’d say that something ate most of the abbot’s entourage!’

Yuri looked at the big man, his face ashen.

‘We’d best start looking for the abbot’s precious treasure chest then,’ Torben suggested.

‘What about the abbot?’ asked Yuri anxiously.

‘I don’t think there’ll be much of him to find, lad,’ Alexi said matter-of-factly.

‘In the name of Sigmar, who goes there?’ The voice called crisp and clear from somewhere in the thicket on the southern side of the road.

They moved their hands to their weapons, ready to draw them at a moment’s notice, as soon as they heard the unexpected challenge. Yuri’s bow was in his hand, an arrow knocked to the string.

‘Badenov’s band! Mercenaries!’ Torben declared, with equal confidence. He had nothing to hide. He was proud of who and what he was. ‘Show yourself.’

There was a rustling in the bushes ahead of him. Yuri pulled his bowstring taut and Torben suddenly realised how exposed they were out in the open on the road. He was glad to have an archer of Yuri Gorsk’s skill at his side.

What emerged from the tangled undergrowth between the trees at the edge of the road was the figure of a tall man, although he was stooping, and staggering unsteadily. He was dressed in heavy travelling robes, the image of a double-headed comet emblazoned on his tabard. His boots and the hem of his habit were muddied and bramble-scratched. A heavy warhammer hung from his right hand, the leather loop secured to the haft around his wrist. Torben studied the weapon. It had a solid shaft topped by an anvil-shaped hammer’s head. On the opposite side of the flat surface was a solid spike.

So, a holy man, Torben considered.

Although strongly-muscled and solidly built, the priest’s noble features reminded Torben of the images of Sigmar Heldenhammer he had seen in the temples of the Empire.

The man’s blond hair had been cut in a tonsure, although golden stubble now covered the crown of his head. He also displayed the badges of battle upon his body. Dark patches had soaked his habit in places. Scratches covered the exposed skin of his hands and face. A gash on the side of his head had begun to heal, dried blood matting his hair at the temple. He was clearly at the end of his strength.

‘Who are you?’ Torben asked the priest.

The young man fixed the mercenary captain with striking green eyes.

‘Brother Tobias of Kriegeruhe Abbey, priest of Sigmar,’ he annunciated clearly.

‘Let me guess,’ said Oran. ‘You’re the only survivor of this sorry little expedition.’

Brother Tobias gave the rogue a withering gaze: ‘If by that you mean the holy cavalcade of Abbot Anselm the Most Venerable then it would appear so. And you’re here because...?’

‘We’re the rescue party,’ Torben replied with a grin.

‘It was an orc – a shaman of some kind – and a cruel beast of a war wyvern.’

Brother Tobias was seated on the mossy trunk of a fallen tree. Alexi, who with years in the standing army of Nuln had learnt something of field medicine, was bandaging the priest’s head with a strip of cloth torn from the drapery of the destroyed wagon.

‘I must have been knocked unconscious. I came to lying in the bottom of a ditch. I don’t know how long I was there for. The others were dead – all of them. Sigmar only knows how I survived.’

Tobias had accepted their trust readily enough as soon as the mercenaries had made it plain that they wanted to help him, not kill him. Perhaps it was his tiredness, perhaps it was the all-too-trusting nature of a naïve young priest freed of the cloister, but he was rather too forthright, considering he had not met them under the best of circumstances only minutes before.

‘When I discovered the abbot’s reliquary had been taken, I set off for Reisenbad to alert Count Leopold to the danger. I thought if the orcs had advanced too far into civilised lands there might be other ambushers waiting so I kept off the roads, to avoid more attacks.’

‘You thought right,’ Alexi confirmed. ‘We came upon the aftermath of one such ambush ourselves.’

‘Yes but… well… I don’t have the best sense of direction and what with the accursed, perpetually overcast sky hiding the sun, not to mention the shelter of the forest, I… well… I got lost. That’s why you find me here now. I’ve been trudging the forest paths for days only to find I’ve been travelling in circles. But perhaps there is more to it than that.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘What if some dark power did not want me to make my way to Reisenbad to warn the count?’

‘What are you talking about? You’ll have us believing you’re one of those insane prophets of doom at this rate,’ grunted Oran, sarcastic as ever.

‘I tell you, the greenskin that attacked the abbot’s holy cavalcade wielded some fell power. It was favoured by the foul gods; those blasphemous deities that are the embodiments of the greenskins’ depraved desires – they are as brutal and mindless as the beings that worship them!’

‘So,’ Stanislav said, his great ham-fists on his hips, ‘what do we do now?’

‘Well, we’ve solved the mystery of Abbot Anselm’s missing cavalcade. The precious treasure chest that Engels was so desperate we recover is gone, taken by the orc – I’m convinced of it – and if we want to get paid we had better get it back,’ Torben said, summing up the situation succinctly.

‘So, as the big fella put it, what do we do now?’ Oran reiterated, impatiently.

Torben turned to his oldest companion among the band, a slow smile forming on his lips.

‘It’s only one orc with a bit of primitive magic and a flying lizard after all,’ Torben said dismissively with a grin. ‘What’s the worst that could happen?’

‘It is our holy duty to the God-Emperor Sigmar to recover the relics of his most beloved Saint Eowen,’ the priest stated piously, as if he were reading a verse from some holy primer.

‘Well, we can always do with an extra pair of hands – and a warhammer. So let’s go.’

‘But which way do we go?’ Brother Tobias asked, his zealous certainty suddenly wavering.

‘Stanislav, over to you.’

‘Something as big as a wyvern isn’t exactly subtle, you see?’ Stanislav was saying later to the mercenaries’ new companion as they made their way through the dense undergrowth that spread between the elder and oak trees.

The going was slow as the mercenaries’ steeds carefully picked their way over knotted tree-boles and exposed, ensnaring roots. The wild woodland was damp with the smell of leaf mould. Stanislav was leading his horse by its reins, the tired priest lolling in the saddle on its back.

Tobias could feel the beginnings of a headache building at his temples. It was probably the result of lack of sleep, food and water. Or was it the ever-growing but never-breaking storm? The air itself seemed to hum with pent-up energy.

He paused to point out something lying amongst a tangle of bramble that glinted in the dappled light: ‘See?’

Tobias could see all right. It was a man’s arm, still wearing a polished vambrace. They had already passed a number of other body parts, including a horrified-looking head that Tobias recognized as the captain of the bodyguard accompanying Abbot Anselm’s cavalcade.

It hadn’t been hard for them to follow the route the monster had taken, once the ex-trapper had put them on the right path. The mercenaries had even passed a steaming pile of enormous droppings, so they could smell the stink of the creature’s spoor well before they saw it amidst the bracken. Oran made a roguish comment about it being good for the roses.

‘Over there!’ the sharp-eyed Yuri suddenly called, pointing to a break in the leafy canopy above them.

On the distant horizon a jutting outcrop of rock rose stark against the roiling slate grey clouds. It seemed to Tobias that the crag thrust from the rising wooded hills like the tusk of some ferocious, wild beast.

‘The trail continues in that direction,’ Stanislav pointed out.

‘How far off is it, do you reckon?’ Torben Badenov asked, pensively stroking his beard.

‘Another day at this rate, I should think. As long as nothing untoward happens.’

‘That crag’s the highest point of land for miles around,’ Alexi said.

‘It certainly looks like the kind of place a wyvern would make its roost,’ said Krakov.

The mercenary captain was staring out at the twisted, pitted peak, a thoughtful expression on his face. ‘And an orc shaman its lair.’

In his isolated cave lair at the top the crag of Eyrie Rock, the orc shaman Gorok Boarspit slept, his primitive mind filled with fungi-induced dreams. His dreams had once been of the spiteful brother gods Gork and Mork and of the messages the squabbling deities sent him concerning the future of the Scarfang tribe. But now a different divine messenger spoke to him in his sleep, guiding his interpretations of the portents for his warlord, directing the actions of the gathering warbands, speaking to him of victory over the weakling realms of man.

Gorok was drifting through an endless cloudscape, smoky green billows swirling between midnight blue and oblivion black massing thunderheads. Purple forked lightning split the vista, vaporising wisps of blood-red cirrus in an explosion of light and ozone, leaving a pink after-image burnt onto his orcish eyeballs. Gorok tasted the air, detecting the tinny tang of a thunderstorm.

He drifted on. Gradually the emerald cloud-mass was giving way to the blue-black nebula beyond that swallowed all else around it.

Then he saw it. Peering into the distance he could make out something flying towards him out of the massing storm. It was rapidly getting closer as it rode the esoteric thermals of this otherworldly realm on huge, powerfully beating wings. Ragged feathers, each as long as an orc champion was tall, trailed in the currents of an eldritch wind. The same feathers first appeared almost black but then Gorok realised that they in fact shimmered with an oily green sheen, giving the impression that they were alive with lambent flame.

Armour-scaled legs ended in cruelly hooked talons that gleamed like iron barbs. Gorok could well believe that a fully-grown troll could easily be carried in each claw. A serpentine neck, covered in scrawny plumage was surmounted by a long, avian head. The beak alone was big enough to swallow half a dozen war-boars in one go.

The monstrous bird-like creature opened its beak and squawked, its cry strident and spine-chilling. But all Gorok heard was the voice of the dark phoenix, speaking to him of how it would lead the greenskins to victory over the humans.

Stanislav had been right: roughly an hour past noon the next day Badenov’s band reached the scarp at the base of the crag. Krakov tethered their horses in the leeward shelter of the rock itself.

A torturously twisting path, little more than a goat-track, wound steeply up the side of the crag, its beginning flanked by two skull-topped poles. One of the macabre markers, lupine in appearance but with curling ram’s horns, had not yet been picked entirely clean by the carrion birds that roosted in the thorny-fingered tops of the trees.

On their way through the forest the mercenaries had seen other such primitive territory markers. It had been a very long time since anyone had tried to tame these woods, if in fact they ever had. These were not the husbanded forests of a lord’s demesne; this was a truly wild place, a place that was home to all things that stood in opposition to the civilisation of man.

There were no green-swarth rides here, only the foraging-tracks made by animals. But there were signs that other things dwelt here. Skulls – human, animal and orc – adorned vine-tangled branches and slime-barked tree stumps. Some had been stuck with birds’ feathers or painted with crude symbols.

‘We’ve got to climb that?’ Oran ventured incredulously, staring up at the peak that loomed over them.

‘I reckon so,’ Torben confirmed, stretching his neck back to peer up at the rock formation.

‘There.’ Yuri pointed up at the shadowy space beneath an overhang high on the northern face. ‘Up there, that looks like a cave entrance.’

‘That’s what we’re after.’ Torben looked back to the goat-track, assessing the steeply rising route that scaled the rock.

‘Do you think we can get up there?’

It was the young priest who spoke, doubt etched in lines on his face.

‘If an orc can do it then I don’t see why we shouldn’t be able to,’ Torben answered him confidently. ‘Last one up smells like a goblin’s arse!’

‘How much further is it?’ Oran complained as he joined the others on a broad, rocky ledge.

‘We’re about halfway,’ Torben estimated, gazing up to the cave mouth. The dark opening looked like some ogre’s ugly maw.

The climb had been difficult and at times hazardous. It had already taken them over an hour just to get this far. At times Torben had wished that they had a length of rope to assist their ascent. On more than one occasion one of the party had slipped on the treacherous scree underfoot or lost a handhold on one of the more sharply ascending sections of the route. It was fortunate that there had always been someone else there to arrest each fall. It was a miracle that not one of them was now lying at the foot of the pinnacle of rock with their neck broken.

‘Can you hear that?’ Yuri’s heightened senses picked up something that the others had so far missed.

The uneasy air was carrying sounds to them from the north where a broad valley stretched between the rolling wooded hills. It was the unmistakable clamour of battle: the desperate shouts of soldiers; the clash of weapons; the squealing of foul-tempered orc boar-steeds; the guttural snarls of the greenskins; the rattle of cart wheels; the whoosh of arrow-storms.

Torben’s gaze scanned the horizon. He could clearly see the two armies – one human, one inhuman – deployed across the valley. Serried ranks of liveried soldiers advanced on wheeling mobs of brutal orcs. Here and there the carefully ordered units and surging green-skinned host became a jumbled mass of men and monsters, where the fighting was thickest and fiercest.

His eye caught a sudden blaze of light, like a muzzle-flash, followed by a billow of powder-grey smoke. Moments later the thunder-rumble of a cannon report reached the mercenaries. Count Leopold had gone to war with the precious, legendary steam tank Imperious in the vanguard; one of the greatest technological developed armaments of the last five centuries was up against the unrelenting, unthinking savagery of orc-kind. From their vantage point the mercenaries could see it all, the perspective making the battle seem unreal to men used to being in the thick of the fight.

A shadow, darker than the storm clouds, swept over the band. Above them a serpent-bodied shape soared from the crag-top. Its wings stretched wider than the span of the portcullised gates of Castle Reisenbad. Yuri gasped. Stanislav whistled. Oran cursed.

‘That’s the beast!’ Brother Tobias exclaimed. ‘That’s the wyvern!’

‘You don’t say,’ the ever-cynical rat-faced rogue muttered.

‘Looks like your shaman has gone to join the fray,’ Torben stated.

As the monstrous winged lizard swooped down towards the clashing forces, a new sound reached the watching mercenaries; the whooping, animalistic cheers of the orcs. To them the arrival of the wyvern and their magic-wielding shaman was a good omen. To Badenov’s band, with their overview of the battle, it looked as if the orcs had the advantage, despite the rumbling, gun-bristling steam tank.

The massed clouds roiled and began to circle over the battlefield, as if the shaman’s arrival was influencing the currents of the building storm. Perhaps the magical energy generated by the massed orc minds was affecting the weather. A vortex was forming at the centre of the storm. And within that… a leering face writhed among the roiling clouds, watching the battle below.

‘What’s that?’ Yuri gasped.

‘Without wanting to ask the obvious, what’s what?’ Torben echoed.

Yuri was looking at the expectant cumulonimbus twisting over the surging battlefield. ‘No, it’s gone, but I was sure…’

‘Seeing faces in the clouds, are you?’ Oran asked mockingly.

‘So, what now?’ Krakov asked the band’s leader, looking for guidance now that their quarry had unexpectedly, and unintentionally, escaped them.

‘We go on of course,’ the priest insisted, before Torben could even open his mouth.

Torben looked at the young clergyman, and raised his eyebrows. ‘He’s right, of course,’ he confirmed, albeit unwillingly. ‘If we recover the reliquary we get paid. It’s as simple as that.’

‘Why do you think he’s so keen we get it back?’ Krakov looked around the group. ‘It’s only a box of mouldering old bones, after all.’

‘How dare you speak of the mortal remains of the Lady Eowen in such a way!’ Brother Tobias suddenly boiled whirling on the black-clad Kislevite, his eyes aflame. Krakov was genuinely shocked and took a step back from the enraged warrior priest of Sigmar. ‘To speak so is blasphemy!’

Oran’s sarcastic retort, that implied something about Engels’s inability to find a wench the usual way, was quickly quashed by a glare from Torben.

‘Do not worry, my friend,’ the mercenary leader addressed the earnest young priest. ‘Remember: if we don’t get those precious bones back, we don’t get paid! It’s a simple case of economics.’

The cave was dark and stank. The invasive reek was a melting pot of rancid odours. There was an overpowering and unmistakable ammonia stink of dung, although whether it was the wyvern’s spoor or the orc’s own filth, Torben didn’t know. From the evidence of orc habits he had witnessed elsewhere, it was probably both. There was the pervasive aroma of smoke, strongly perfumed with herbs and the dried narcotic mushrooms the greenskins loved to use in their rituals. The smoke-smell was edged with the charcoal tang of the burnt remains of the orc’s last meal. Then there was noxious odour of orc-sweat and the sickly-sweet taste of festering rubbish in the stagnant air.

The orc shaman’s lair was surprisingly large. From the maw-like entrance the cavern opened out into a natural hall-like chamber. As his eyes became accustomed to the gloom Torben could see that the level of the floor was irregular, dropping to broad ledges and steeper slopes that angled down towards the back of the cave which was in utter darkness.

Close to the entrance a large iron ring had been hammered into a fissure in the rock. From the ring hung a rusted chain, which ended in an open metal collar. The floor there was covered with brown-green straw and gouged with great scratch marks. In a recessed corner was a substantial mound of dung. It had obviously been a long time since the orc had cleaned out its steed’s stall.

The remains of a fire smouldered nearby, the smoke rising from the turfs, bracken and mushrooms, filling the cave with a pungent, semi-obscuring pall. Crude clay pots and a hefty cleaver lay abandoned next to it. On the next step down from the fire-hearth a number of filthy animal skins, no doubt rife with lice, had been arranged on the cold stone floor where the shaman had his narcotic-induced prophecy-dreams.

The lair was gruesomely decorated. Countless skulls, from all manner of creatures, were either skewered on stakes, painted with crude, tattoo-like markings, or simply left littering the floor, their brainpans cleft open. Other inhuman symbols had been daubed on the walls with what looked like a mixture of blood and faeces. Here and there stood small totem-figures constructed from twigs, muck, feathers and bones. Torben could only guess what they were supposed to represent and decided that he didn’t really want to know.

The oppressive atmosphere they had felt in the woods was even worse here. Torben’s headache was swelling. It was now a steady pulsing throb inside his brain.

‘So where’s its treasure then?’ Oran said, bringing them all back to the matter in hand.

The party split up. They searched the cave, turning over the shaman’s scattered possessions with the kick of a boot or using their weapons, all making sure they didn’t actually have to touch anything. But then it didn’t look like the orc had tried to hide anything either.

‘Could the orc have taken it with him?’ Yuri asked, despondently.

‘There’s only one place we haven’t looked,’ Torben said. Striding over to the fire he took hold of a smouldering brand and vigorously agitated the embers into blazing life. Holding the burning brand above his head so that it pierced the gloom, he stepped cautiously towards the back of the cave.

They all heard it: a skittering of talons on the bare rock floor of the cave.

‘Now what have we here?’ Torben wondered aloud and took another pace forward.

In a squawking frenzy, a flapping mass of feathers, leathery wings and scrabbling claws launched itself at him. Torben pulled back in surprise and swung his torch at the attacker. The creature let out a piercing shriek as the torch connected, then retreated, leaving Torben with the acrid smell of burning feathers in his nostrils.

The rest of the party converged on the back of the cave in an instant. The light cast by the burning branch played over the dishevelled creature before them. It appeared to be a curious amalgam of several creatures but the overriding impression was that of a huge cockerel, the size of a horse. There were qualities of a bat and serpent or dragon in its make-up too. Its shaking red wattles added to its terrifying appearance. But it was immediately apparent that the bird-like aggressor was not in the prime of health. A corroded chain secured the captured monster to a massive boulder.

The creature hopped towards Torben again, pain turned to fury, and pecked with its beak. But it was at the limit of its chain and still a foot short of the mercenary that had disturbed and injured it.

‘By Sigmar!’ Brother Tobias swore. ‘A cockatrice!’

‘How do you know?’ Yuri asked, looking uneasily at the hybrid monster.

‘I have seen such creatures portrayed in illuminated manuscripts. But I thought them to be mere fantasy, nothing more than the product of superstitious minds.’

‘When you’ve fought on the borders of the Northern Wastes you’ll believe that any monstrosity can find form,’ Torben said with the voice of experience.

‘If Nature can create it, Chaos can change it into new and interesting unnatural forms,’ Alexi added.

‘Sigmar shield me!’ the young priest suddenly blurted out and dropped into a ball on the floor. It was the first time he had shown anything close to cowardice.

‘What is it?’ Torben snapped, turning on him.

‘Th-The gaze of the beast,’ Tobias replied, a quivering huddle, ‘can turn a man to stone! I–I read it in a bestiary.’

‘I don’t think we have anything to worry about there,’ Alexi stated calmly. ‘Look for yourself. Look into its eyes!’

The flickering brand illuminated the dark, scabbed pits where the creature’s eyes had once been. The cockatrice had been blinded.

‘I don’t think even an orc shaman would be stupid enough to keep a cockatrice in its cave if it could turn him to stone soon as look at him.’

So far their search hadn’t uncovered the treasure they were hunting for, Torben realised. The shaman could have it, as Yuri had suggested, or it could be in the one place that had been left guarded.

‘I think we’ll find that what we’re looking for is behind this,’ Torben explained to the others, indicating the slab of a boulder. ‘And that means first we have to go past that.’ He pointed at the squawking cockatrice. ‘Agreed?’

The unnerved priest watched as the mercenaries rounded on the monster. Sensing their approach, the blind beast lunged forwards, its viciously sharp beak, big enough to take off a man’s head, stabbing at them. The six mercenaries judged their moments carefully. A wound from the monster’s beak could leave them bleeding to death. As Torben thrust in with his sabre, Yuri and Krakov sliced at the creature’s scale-armoured legs. Krakov’s blade was deflected from the tough, natural armour but Yuri managed to snag his sword in a limb.

Screeching, the cockatrice hopped into the air, wings flapping furiously. It kicked out at the mercenaries wildly with its dagger sharp talons. A blow Torben had been aiming at its head missed entirely as a result, glancing off the steel-tipped beak, scoring a line across the horny material.

Stanislav swung his axe up into the creature’s feathered breast, the blade slicing satisfyingly through skin and muscle, only stopping as it hit cartilage and bone. With a strangled cry the beast dropped to the ground. One leathery wing struck out, knocking Oran to the ground – such was the monster’s strength despite its weakened state. But now the creature was grounded, hopping about on one leg to keep its balance. Badenov’s band moved in to make the kill, avoiding the still snapping beak.

The injured cockatrice didn’t have a hope against the veterans of a hundred such encounters. Torben felled the beast with a clinical thrust of his sabre. He gave the impression that the fearsome monster was nothing more than a mild irritation to such a hard-bitten warrior as himself.

Now the fight was over. Torben could see that the boulder practically sealed off the end of the cave. Stepping over the body of the cockatrice, he rounded the side of the great stone. There, on the floor was an oak wood casket, finished with brass banding, inlaid with silver, and a golden lock, lying next to a–

Pain like he had known only a few occasions in his life stabbed through his brain. It was as if a red-hot lance had been rammed through the top of his skull. Involuntarily he screwed his eyes up tight as his legs almost gave way. Silver-grey flashes sparked across the back of his eyelids. The torch fell from his grasp as he reached out his hand to steady himself against the rock.

He was dimly aware of the gasps and curses of his companions behind him that told him they too were being assaulted by headaches that had all the intensity of a storm over the Chaos Wastes.

Torben managed to open his eyes again after the initial burst of agony. Blinking away tears of excruciating pain he looked again at the object beyond the reliquary. It was a monstrous, bird-like skull, as big as a coffin. The guttering flame of the dropped brand gleamed from its massive smooth beak, which had fang-like points around its edge. And in the huge empty orbits of its eye sockets Torben fancied he could see sparkling points of lightning-white flame. The malign influence exuded by the skull seemed to come at him in waves of dark power – a miasma of black energy that he could almost see.

Then he was no longer in the cave as his vision was overwhelmed by what his mind’s eye perceived. It was as if he was being held high above the earth – in a vortex of whirling air. Torben’s field of vision was filled by an endless, storm-lashed sky. Lightning split the air around him, and thunder rolled around him, leaving a burning after-image on the back of his eyeballs, and the crisp, tinny stink of ozone in the atmosphere.

Then he saw it, beating its way out of the maelstrom. A gaunt, serpentine-bodied bird, of monstrous size, flapped towards him out of the angry sky. Its head was the skull – whose malign energy had placed this vision in his head – but it was now covered in gnarled skin. Oily, green-black fire rippled over its ragged plumage, saturated with the stuff of magic.

The dark phoenix fixed him with a hellish stare, opened wide its fang-lined beak and emitted a screaming cry that spoke of the agonising deaths of the mercenaries and the unimaginable eternity of torment that would surely follow.

‘Lads! We’ve got company!’ came Krakov’s cry from the rear of the group.

Like a sleeper struggling to wake, Torben dragged his consciousness back from the otherworldly realm to the crag-top lair and the peril awaiting him there.

Framed in the open mouth of the cave, against the roiling clouds beyond, the wyvern flew back towards its eyrie. The shaman riding on its back was bellowing unintelligible gibberish at Badenov’s band and rattling its totem-skull staff above its head.

From his connection to the dark phoenix Torben somehow knew that the same dark entity had summoned the shaman, astride his war-wyvern, back to the cave to defend its only link to the physical world – the skull.

Their heads still aching, and with queasy steps, the mercenaries converged on the entrance as a mob of heavily muscled greenskins threw themselves into the cave, having scaled the side of the crag with bounding jumps. Torben knew that they too had been summoned by something that spoke to the entire primitive horde.

His skull ached, the pain pounding through his every laboured thought. Yet his weakening connection to the skull and the entity it contained told him what needed to be done. He turned back towards the skull’s resting place. Another bolt of frozen fire scorched a nerve-shredding path through his brain and his stomach heaved as he fought against the crippling brainstorm.

Slowly, as if his sword weighed as much as a standing stone, he raised his weapon above his head. He held it there for a moment. Another spasm of lancing pain struck him and he brought the blade crashing down on the skull.

The sword shattered against the granite-hard bone, sending fragments of tempered steel spinning through the air, some rebounding from his armoured jerkin. The skull seemed to emit a cruel skeletal smile.

‘Waaagh!’ The guttural, deep-throated bellow of the orcs heralded the beginning of battle in the cave. The mercenaries immediately set about doing what they were trained to do. The prospect of imminent death at the meaty paws of a mob of ravaging orcs helped them to overcome the throbbing ache inside their heads, giving their pain the form of physical violence.

‘Brother!’ Torben shouted across the cavern to the priest, who was striding purposefully towards the enemy, warhammer raised to strike. ‘I have need of your holy hammer!’

A strident, reptilian roar announced the arrival of the wyvern. The moment the flying lizard touched down on the narrow ledge in front of the cave, the shaman leapt down from his steed, red fury burning in his eyes. The manic greenskin bounded across the cavern, ignoring the orcs and mercenaries, and headed straight for the skull’s resting place.

Torben thought he could see arcs of malodorous green energy sparking around the shaman’s head as if barely-restrained power was building inside its squat head. The mercenary could feel the air crackling around him and he knew that the static charge was making his hair stand on end. Whatever spell the orc was about to unleash upon them would be terrible indeed!

‘Brother, quickly!’ he yelled to the warrior priest running towards him. ‘The skull!’

Tobias didn’t break his stride as he reached Torben. The mercenary moved out of his way as the heavy head of the hammer descended towards the avian cranium. The blessed weapon connected with the top of the skull with a crack like a thunderclap and the bone fractured into a hundred flying shards.

With a loud bang, the shaman’s head exploded, its ugly snout of a face ripping apart in a blinding ball of incandescent energy. Burning eyeballs, teeth and charred lumps of skull were sent flying across the cave over the mercenaries like shrapnel. There was a rapid succession of pops and bangs as the heads of all the other orcs in the cave burst, splattering their opponents with a messy soup of green flesh, brain matter and bone fragments. The shaman’s headless body slumped to the rocky floor mere yards from Torben and the exhilarated Brother Tobias. Smoke rose from the smouldering ruin of his neck.

In his mind’s eye Torben saw the dark phoenix being sucked back into the vortex of the magical maelstrom, its ragged wings beating futilely against the esoteric winds. He heard it screeching in fury and frustration.

A loud roar brought the mercenary’s attention back to the real world; there was still a foul-tempered wyvern in the cave with them, but it looked like his companions had the matter in hand.

Stanislav swung his battleaxe and removed the deadly sting from the end of the monster’s lashing tail, blood and poison spurting from the wound. The wyvern’s blunt head swung round to face the bearded giant but at the same time, Alexi dodged past the creature’s swinging neck and sank his sword into the softer underside of its breast. The creature screeched in pain and anger as its life-blood pumped from the hole, giving Stanislav time to move out of harm’s way. Alexi sidestepped again and was now hunched under a flapping wing.

The old soldier thrust his sword upwards, stabbing it through the leathery membrane.

The creature tried to free its wing from the range of Alexi’s attacks but it only helped the sharpened blade to slice through the delicate skin.

Then the monster found itself under attack from both sides. Stanislav hacked at its other wing with his great battleaxe. Startled, the creature took a step back to avoid them. At once the two men redoubled their attacks, forcing the wyvern to hop backwards still further, as it snapped at them vainly.

Taloned claws scrabbled at the lip of the ledge before the cave’s maw but the wyvern’s balance was gone. Realising its peril, the monster jumped backwards from the precipice, intending to take to the air in order to escape and achieve a position of dominance, but the precious membrane of its wings had been shredded.

Unable to fly, the wyvern dropped like a boulder. Its massive screeching bulk plummeted down the side of the crag and was sent into a spiralling dive. Finally it struck a jagged outcrop that silenced its reptilian cries.

Yuri looked up at the raging storm clouds. And there it was again; he hadn’t been mistaken. A face, its features daemonically elongated, writhing in torment, the echoing thunder like its own frustrated roars. As he watched the face began to dissolve, the cloud formations shifted until there was nothing there to be seen.

Then it began to rain.

Not light rain, no passing shower, but a torrential downpour as pent-up power was released in a shockwave of unnatural, eldritch energy.

It was a stunned Badenov’s band that gathered at the cave mouth, looking out towards the battlefield beyond and below. The howls of the greenskins reached their ears as they saw the orc attack falter. With the death of the shaman and the banishing of the orcs’ otherworldly baleful patron, the tide of conflict had turned in favour of Count Leopold’s crusading army.

‘All right, lads,’ Torben said, his tone still slightly subdued by the supernatural experience of the battle inside the cave. ‘Looks like we might just be in time to join the Battle of Reisenbad, and earn ourselves an increased wage into the bargain. What do you say?’

There were murmurs of consent from his fellows and without further discussion Badenov’s band began to descend the crag, the weary priest insisting on carrying the burden of the saint’s reliquary.

‘Er, lads,’ the mercenary captain suddenly added, remembering, ‘can somebody lend me a sword?’

The calm of the chapel of Sigmar was a blessed relief to Brother Tobias as he made his presentation to the chaplain of Castle Reisenbad. Abbot Anselm’s reliquary was placed reverently on the altar, beneath the banner of the church of Sigmar. It felt like he had come home after all that he had gone through in the past week and the dark forces he had overcome in order to bring the mortal remains of Saint Eowen to Reisenbad.

The plainsong chanting of the choir filled the chapel with haunting hymns of praise to the god of mankind, in thanksgiving for the victory over the greenskins. Perfumed incense rose into the hazy gloom of the vaulted nave, carrying with it the prayers of the grateful to their heavenly patron.

‘Have no fear, brother,’ the bald-headed chaplain said, resting a strong hand on Tobias’s shoulder. ‘Our lady is safe now, thanks to you.’ The older man paused and then went on: ‘And there is a place here for you too, Tobias, should you wish to stay.’

‘Thank you, father,’ the young warrior priest said, ‘I would like that very much.’

Yes, after all his adventures, he had come home at last.

DARK HEART

‘Know you this, worm: this is far from over! I shall return and you shall fear my name again!’

– last discernable words of Vaclar Morderischen, Count of Ostenwald, as spoken to Aballach Ystain, Warrior-priest of Sigmar

The wolves were running again. He could hear them panting in the darkness. He raced through the forest and the night, trying to outpace them. The trees seemed to throw themselves in front of him to slow his progress. Leafless branches reached for him as he crashed on.

Behind the wolves he could sense another presence, something evil. It felt as if menacing eyes were following his flight. A cold chill took hold of his heart. With every heartbeat the wolves were getting closer. There was nothing he could do to escape.

And then, in time with his pounding pulse, he heard the beating of wings. Strong, slow gusts of frigid air caressed his body. With every beat he could feel their power increasing. Great black wings closed around him, their leathery warmth shrouding him from the numbing darkness. The sickly sweet smell of blood filled his nostrils. He could not help but breathe in great lungfuls of the rank air. The wings enclosed him totally, almost suffocating him. Even through the darkness he could see red veins pulsing.

Blood flowed in the endless night. It surrounded him, rising ever higher. Or was it he who was sinking deeper?

Then he was drowning. He gasped for air but instead the hot life-fluid poured into his parched throat, its viscous sweetness cloying in his mouth. He could not help but swallow. As he did so his senses were flooded with feelings of darkest ecstasy.

He was in the place of blood again.

‘And I say we stick to the plan, for once, and head on to Ostermark!’ The slim man’s sharp eyes glared at the rest of the band from under a fringe of unkempt black hair.

Torben Badenov scratched his neat black beard. He could see that the disgruntled Yuri was in one of his stubborn moods.

Oran Scarfen looked up from polishing a dagger. ‘Oh you do, do you?’ he retorted.

The band was gathered before a signpost at a T-junction in the road over the moors. Despite it being spring, supposedly a time of hope and vernal promise, out here on the barren, blasted moorland, it might as well have been the dying days of the year, so cold and bitter was the wind.

Shivering, they pulled their furs tighter around them against the chill of approaching night. They were all dressed in tough leather boots and they still wore their thick winter cloaks. With their assortment of swords and axes they were the very picture of hard-bitten fighting men.

‘It’s almost dusk,’ Alexi pointed out as he finished rearranging his backpack. ‘We ought to start looking for somewhere to stay the night.’

Yuri pointed an accusing finger at the smartly dressed, black-robed Kislevite. The man’s left eye was covered by a patch that made him look both distinguished and mysterious. ‘Well if Krakov here hadn’t got falling-down drunk–’

‘As usual!’ snorted Oran.

‘–and let the damn horses wander off, we wouldn’t be in this mess.’

‘That’s right. We would’ve been in Ostermark by now,’ agreed Stanislav, his great hands resting firmly on his hips.

Torben stopped cleaning his blade and turned his gaze to the cringing Kislevite. Krakov’s face was scarlet, and he was staring at the ground with embarrassment as he shifted guiltily from one foot to the other.

‘We could’ve been enjoying the hospitality of the Slaughtered Troll by now,’ Stanislav, the great bear of a man continued, a dreamy look in his eyes. ‘I would’ve drunk old Alexi under the table–’

‘As usual,’ Oran muttered.

‘–and Serena would be sitting on my lap right now, saying how much she loves me.’

‘Like she does any fool who’s more generous than he is sober,’ Torben laughed.

Stanislav scowled at the band’s leader, but not for long. His broad face broke into a grin. ‘That’s my Serena, and it does a man’s heart good to hear it.’

‘But we’re not in Ostermark!’ Yuri sulked.

‘We should head for this place, Ostenwald,’ Alexi suggested. ‘It’s only five miles away.’

‘I agree,’ Oran stated firmly.

Torben looked up at the signpost again. It was the only man-made object in sight. The main body of the sign was a sturdy stake hammered firmly into the ground with an arrowed board pointing towards the east, carved with the name ‘Ostermark’. The letters had been picked out in red to make them stand out further. Pointing in the opposite direction was a much smaller, age-weathered sign, no doubt a remnant of a previous signpost. The faded lettering, once painted with an unsteady hand, read, ‘Ostenwald, 5 miles’.

‘I thought we were looking for work, especially since Krakov lost our horses,’ Yuri complained. ‘We should head for Ostermark!’

‘Yuri’s right,’ Torben declared, sheathing his sword. ‘The village may be closer but look at the sign: it’s tiny. I’ve seen bigger signs on privy doors. I bet this Ostenwald isn’t much more than a few hovels and a hen house. There probably isn’t even a tavern!’ He was in full flow now, gesticulating expansively. ‘No, there won’t be any work for us there. So Ostermark it is. We’ll press on for a couple of hours, camp by the roadside for the night, and be there in the morning.’

Dusk was drawing on, and the last lingering rays of the sun gave way to twilight, as the party set off along the eastern road.

They had barely been on the road for ten minutes when they heard the thunder of hooves on the road behind them. The band turned, and at once saw a carriage speeding through the grey twilight towards them. The mercenaries threw themselves out of the way as one, landing in the dirt at the side of the road.

Torben looked over his shoulder as the vehicle bumped past them. Plush red velvet drapes flapped from the windows of the black carriage. A family crest picked out in gold on its side also attested to the fact that its owner was of noble background and with, no doubt, the riches to match.

The silhouettes of two figures could be seen at the front of the careering vehicle. The coachman lay slumped at the reins; Torben assumed he was dead. Next to the body, a young woman was struggling to control the racing horses but without success. The carriage was out of control.

In seconds Torben was up and running after the carriage. As he drew level with the vehicle, he grabbed hold, leaped up and swung himself into the driver’s seat next to the young woman. Gasping with her exertions, she shot him a wild-eyed look.

‘If you’ll allow me, my lady,’ the mercenary said, flashing the terrified woman a smile, and gently took the reins from her. Coaxing words to the horses were accompanied by his firm hand on the reins.

By now Stanislav and Yuri were running alongside the horses, the creatures’ bridles in their hands. In a few moments the frightened animals had slowed to a trot, and finally came to a halt. The carriage came to rest behind them.

Torben turned again towards the young woman. His eyes widened as his gaze progressed upwards from her delicate ankles and the gold-braided hem of her blue velvet dress. Her features were delicately set within the slender frame of her face. A stray tress of auburn hair caressed a pale cheek. Anxious emerald green eyes peered back at him from beneath the hood of her travelling cloak.

Her dress was of the latest cut and made from the finest materials. A silver brooch, inlaid with gemstones, held her cloak in place. All these things, along with the opulence of the carriage and the quality of the horses – no farmyard nags – spoke to Torben with money’s voice.

‘They killed my driver!’ she blurted out, when she had recovered her breath.

‘Who did?’ asked Torben, startled by her outburst.

‘The villagers. Oh, please help me!’ she gasped.

‘You are safe now,’ Stanislav said, trying to reassure the girl.

‘I–I wish it were that simple,’ she said with unashamed despair.

‘What is it? What’s the matter?’ Torben pressed.

‘I must get to Ostermark! I must petition Lord Gunther for his help!’ Her voice carried a vehemence Torben would not have expected from this waif-like girl. ‘A terrible evil has arisen in my village.’

‘Ostenwald, you mean?’ Krakov asked.

‘The same,’ she nodded. ‘I know you will probably find this hard to believe… but the dead have risen from their graves!’

‘Oh, I don’t know. We’ve seen a few strange things ourselves,’ Torben said encouragingly.

‘Those who have not already fled are now under a foul curse! I flee for my life, for they chase me even now!’ The young woman peered anxiously back over her shoulder. ‘I must get help! I just hope that the fortune my late father left will be enough to persuade Lord Gunther to put an end to this evil. As commander of the militia he will be able to send armed men to stop them. He will surely help after all the years he served with my father in the elector count’s cavalry!’

The girl looked exhausted through fear and anxiety. Torben took her cold, trembling hands in his. ‘Do not worry,’ he said, reassuringly. ‘We will help you on your way.’ He jumped down from the carriage, pushing the coachman’s body before him, and placed a firm hand on the black-robed Kislevite’s shoulder. ‘Krakov, make up for losing our mounts by driving… I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name,’ he said, looking up at the woman with a smile.

She looked down shyly. ‘I am the Lady Isolde.’

‘By driving the Lady Isolde to the city.’

Krakov needed no more encouragement and clambered up into the driver’s seat. Torben supposed that he was pleased to be getting a lift to Ostermark ahead of the rest of them; no doubt the thought of a rest from the endless ribbing had also entered his mind.

‘Let’s see if you can keep hold of these horses: after all, at least they’re tied to the carriage. We’ll meet you in the Slaughtered Troll tomorrow, at noon.’

Torben was suddenly aware of shouts in the distance. Peering through the dusky gloom, he made out a crowd of peasants charging towards them from the direction of Ostenwald. Their hair was lank and matted, while their clothes were caked with mud. The crazed mob was howling rabidly and the mercenary could just make out gruff shouts of, ‘Stop her! She has to die!’ They were waving an assortment of axes, clubs and farm implements above their heads; others carried blazing torches.

‘It’s them!’ the Lady Isolde screamed, looking back in horror at the approaching crowd. ‘You must kill them!’

Having caught sight of the mercenaries, the villagers appeared to become even more enraged, the front-runners putting on a burst of speed.

‘Don’t worry, we’ll deal with them,’ Torben said coolly. ‘Go – now!’

With a loud cry, Krakov whipped the horses into a gallop and without another word the carriage sped towards Ostermark.

‘Are you sure these are the risen dead?’ Alexi questioned, as the others began to unsling their bows from their shoulders.

‘The Lady Isolde said they were, didn’t she?’ Torben said, a peculiar glazed, almost hypnotised, look in his eyes.

‘It’s just that they seem rather lively to me. We can’t just kill them out of hand!’

‘Why not? It’s what we do, in case you’d forgotten, old friend,’ Torben growled.

Alexi was taken aback. He hadn’t seen their band’s leader as hard-hearted as this before.

‘Kill them! Kill them!’ came frenzied shouts from the rapidly approaching mob. Then the crowd began hurling missiles at the mercenaries. Several sharp rocks picked up from the road landed with a thud in the soft ground in front of them.

‘Now, are you with us or not?’ Torben challenged Alexi. The old soldier said nothing, but unslung his bow resignedly.

‘I don’t think they’re going to be open to the idea of civilised discussion,’ Oran said, as he eyed the dishevelled villagers.

‘Well there’s five of us,’ Yuri said, notching an arrow to his own bow, ‘and–’

‘–lots of them,’ Stanislav finished.

‘So let’s even up the odds,’ Torben smiled, taking aim along a flighted shaft. ‘When you’re ready, lads!’

Five black shafts shot across the dimming sky. Four of the mob’s leaders stumbled and fell, and remained still.

‘Never mind, Oran,’ Torben chuckled as the fifth arrow embedded itself in the road. ‘Better luck next time, eh?’

The rat-faced man cursed under his breath. ‘Never did like long-range weapons,’ he muttered. ‘A dagger, up close. That’s more my style.’

The deaths of their fellows did nothing to halt the rampaging crowd; it merely seemed to spur the men on, if men they were. From their bedraggled appearance Torben could almost believe that they were nothing more than the dead risen from their graves!

‘And again!’ Torben called over the furious shouts of the mob. A second volley of arrows soared through the air and found its mark in the seething crowd.

Then the villagers were upon them. The band just had time to drop their bows and unsheath their weapons. The battle lasted only a few minutes. In a series of well-practiced strokes, the trained soldiers despatched the crazed thugs. Torben pulled his sword free of his last opponent’s body by placing a foot against the man’s chest. The man fell spread-eagled onto the road, the sharpened fence-post he was using as a club rolling from his hand. Torben looked around for another opponent but there was none.

‘Well, that was fairly easy,’ Stanislav stated.

‘Nothing to it for fighting men like us,’ Torben boasted.

‘So maybe there was something to her ladyship’s story after all,’ Yuri pondered.

‘Maybe there was,’ Torben agreed. And yet at the back of his mind he couldn’t help thinking that the villagers hadn’t really behaved as if driven by dark sorcery. They had still cried out in pain like the living.

‘She said she needed help,’ Yuri reminded his companions.

‘And she mentioned a family fortune!’ Stanislav added.

Torben stroked his beard again with a large, rough hand. ‘Tell you what,’ he said, finally, ‘why don’t we go and sort out whatever’s going on in Ostenwald. Then Lady Isolde will reward us, instead of this lord that she’s gone to petition.’

All but one of the others smiled and nodded in agreement. Torben looked at them, grinning broadly at his own cunning suggestion.

‘I told you we should’ve headed for the village,’ Oran muttered under his breath.

He was running again. Branches whipped across his face. Sharp twigs, like a crone’s fingernails, tore his skin. But he could no longer hear the wolves behind him.

He suddenly burst free of the tangled wood and stopped. A menacing shadow loomed up tall out of the darkness. He was standing at the foot of a grey, stone tower. Against the pall of night, small black shapes flitted around its ruined turrets.

And then he was flying with the bats. His wings beat against the night as he circled the tower in a jerky spiral. Beneath him the crumbling walls tapered as they stretched towards the ground. The moon hung waning in the sky, seemingly only wing-beats away. Its chill light illuminated an arched window near the top of the tower, and, from within the opening, a figure was watching him. Cruel eyes stared out of a face as cold and white as the moon. Their gaze seemed to pierce his soul. And he recognised the face. It was a face that had haunted his dreams for an eternity. It was his own.

The whetstone scraped along the edge of the blade, and off the end with a deep ringing sound. The flickering firelight picked out the noble yet haggard, features that gave the young man an appearance beyond his years. He paused in his preparations and looked up at the moon. ‘It is almost time, Walter,’ he stated with finality.

‘Aye,’ his ageing manservant replied. ‘Tonight the beast will finally die.’

Pieter’s eyes glazed over as he remembered for the hundredth time the events of the last seven days.

A week ago he had been a different man, carefree and full of youthful optimism, firm in the knowledge that he loved another with a passion and was loved in return in equal measure. Now he was a shell of his former self, dedicated to one purpose only, his actions fuelled by his desire for vengeance. How he longed for those carefree days of youth that now seemed years ago!

But it had been only seven nights since Pieter Valburg, the only son of the Mayor of Schwertdorf, had returned from the wars to find his beloved Rosamund on her death-bed. They had known each other since childhood, Rosamund’s father being the Lord of Grunwald, who resided only ten miles from Pieter’s own home. It was no secret that their families had always planned that they should marry but over the years a youthful friendship had grown into deeply-felt love. The union of the houses of Valburg and Reichter would go ahead to the delight of all, founded on true love and with no sham of affection.

But then the Elector of Ostermark had called on the services of brave young men throughout the province to defend against the incursions of orcs and goblins from within the great forest. Pieter himself was called up and he rode away to war with equal measures of anticipation, for what was to come, and sorrow, at having to leave his dear Rosamund. But he knew that he would eventually return bringing glory and honour to his family.

Indeed, in time, the Battle of Reisenbad was won. Pieter returned home at a gallop and made straight for Grunwald. The first signs of spring were visible in the land and the sun was shining. However, upon his triumphant arrival at Lord Reichter’s house Pieter was greeted with tragic news. While he had been away fighting, his betrothed had been taken seriously ill by what the family physician described as a ‘disease of the blood’. Rushing to her chamber he had found Rosamund a pale, wasted shell of the woman he had left only a few months before. That night he kept vigil by her bedside, but overcome by tiredness after his long journey he finally, if unwillingly, gave in to sleep.

He had been woken with a start as the clocks chimed midnight, a cold shiver passed through him as, for a moment, the bedchamber seemed to fall under a chill shadow. A gust of wind blew in through the open window and he looked at once to his betrothed, only to find her already dead.

The black veil of mourning was drawn over the household and at the physician’s urging Rosamund was buried the next day. But the very next night her grave had been disturbed, by wolves the gravedigger said, and her body taken. For most that was the end of it, but Pieter knew better.

On his return to his family home, Walter, his family’s oldest and most loyal retainer, had taken him aside. The old man had always been a paranoid superstitious sort, and over the years had acquired an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of myths, legends and irrational folklore. As a result he always seemed to suspect the worst of any situation. If the harvest failed or a child died, Walter always saw the hand of a darker power at work: witchcraft, a curse or some other such devilry. But with mind, body and soul driven to distraction at the death of his one true love, Pieter was now ready to hear what Walter had to say, and to believe him. So Walter had told him the legend of Count Morderischen.

It was said that during his lifetime there were no depths of depravity to which the lord of Ostenwald Tower would not sink. He was even accused of stealing and eating babies from the local villages. A hundred years ago the bloodthirsty count had been put to death by the enraged peasants and imprisoned inside the Morderischen family tomb. The village of Ostenwald lay only a league away and to Walter it was clear what had happened. Somehow the monster had returned from the dead and taken Rosamund.

Other people told Pieter not to listen, dismissing Walter as a superstitious old fool. But in his grief Pieter was prepared to accept any story, no matter how outlandish. He had always thought himself a rational man but his anguish needed an outlet. If there was any chance that what Walter told him was true he had to follow it up – he had to go to Ostenwald.

‘All is ready,’ Walter said, carefully placing another sharpened whitethorn stake on the ground next to the fire.

‘Tonight my love will be avenged,’ Pieter said. It was not a point to be debated. Placing the whetstone against the gleaming edge of his grandfather’s sword he resumed sharpening.

Torben stopped at the crossroads around which Ostenwald huddled and looked around. Before him was a patch of dying grass that he assumed was the village green. The eaves of the low buildings were picked out by the silvery light of the rising moon. A number of miserable-looking women and children returned his gaze before doors and shutters daubed with sacred symbols were slammed shut and locked.

‘Friendly lot round here, aren’t they?’ Oran said sullenly.

‘We should pity these people, not mock them,’ Alexi said. Stanislav grunted his own disapproval.

Torben had seen places like this on many occasions. They were in a run-down village inhabited by a fearful populace, who dared not venture out after dark.

‘There’s something wrong here,’ Yuri said quietly.

‘Oh, you noticed,’ Oran sneered.

Ignoring the bickering of the others, Torben continued his survey of the village. Overlooking it, atop a wooded hill, the pinnacle of a ruined and overgrown tower pointed into the night sky like a twisted finger. In its shadow, to the right of a stand of trees, the mercenary captain saw a low, stone building that looked like every other shrine he had seen or visited in his travels across the Empire. Beyond the grey silhouette of the shrine he could make out the shapes of tombstones in the lunar luminescence.

Torben looked from one mercenary to the next. ‘Come on, let’s not waste any time where we’re not welcome,’ he said gruffly. ‘Her ladyship said the dead have risen. To the cemetery!’

The moon’s cold, unwelcoming light cast eerie shadows among the tombs and gravestones as the mercenary band advanced through the cemetery. ‘I don’t mind telling you, I do not like this,’ Oran carped to anyone who might be listening.

Yuri froze. ‘What was that?’ he hissed.

‘What was what?’ asked Stanislav.

‘I heard something. A skittering sound, like the shifting of loose soil.’ His words slowed as he realised what he was saying.

Torben turned. ‘Hush, you fools!’ he hissed. ‘There’s nothing th–’

The mercenary captain heard the snap of a twig behind him and spun round, half expecting to come face to face with the living dead. But looking back at him were the steely eyes of a stern-faced, smartly-dressed young man, almost a head shorter than Torben and still very much alive. He had a finely-honed sword gripped in one hand that was pointing at Torben’s chest. Behind him stood a hunched and balding old man, stiff in his formal servant’s attire.

‘Who are you and what are you doing here?’ the young man hissed.

Torben smiled broadly, keeping a close eye on the gleaming blade. ‘My name is Torben Badenov and these are my companions. Our business is our affair. I could ask the same of you.’

‘I am Pieter Valburg. My reason for being here is an honourable one.’ Torben raised an eyebrow. ‘I have come to avenge the death of my beloved.’

‘In a graveyard?’ Oran burst out incredulously. ‘Who killed your sweetheart?’

‘The vampire who is buried here,’ the old man stated coldly.

‘A vampire? What makes you so sure?’ Torben said.

Pieter began to explain: ‘Walter, my retainer, says–’

‘This old man? What does he know?’ Torben declaimed, gently lowering Pieter’s blade with his hand. ‘We too have come to sort out what’s going on here but I’m sure it has nothing to do with the living dead! We should talk.’

‘This is it; the Morderischen family tomb,’ Walter said sombrely, nodding at the grim edifice before which they now stood. Grotesque gargoyles leered down from the edge of the circle of light cast by the old manservant’s lantern. Beyond the rusted railings and chained iron gates, stone steps led downwards into darkness.

‘So this is where your vampire is supposed to reside.’ Torben took in the carved skulls that reminded the observer of the ever-present certainty of death.

‘Homely, isn’t it?’ A hint of uncertainty tinged Oran’s usual sarcastic tone.

‘The legend goes that one hundred years ago a priest of Sigmar, assisted by a band of noble adventurers, defeated the evil creature who dwelt in that tower over there on the hill,’ Walter explained.

Torben looked towards the grim structure again, now overgrown with thorns. Its silhouette black against the deep blue of night.

‘The victorious priest imprisoned the count in the tomb of his forefathers here,’ the old man continued. ‘The villagers wrecked the tower in revenge for the murders the monster had perpetrated.’

‘So why all the trouble now?’ Alexi asked.

‘It would appear that, after a century, the power of the wardings used to seal the tomb have faded and the horror inside has reawakened.’

‘Look at this place!’ Yuri exclaimed. ‘The gates are locked and rusted up. No one’s been in or out of here for years. You’re wrong, old man.’

‘No, it is here,’ the retainer insisted. ‘Its kind are not stopped by locks!’

The moon was high in the night sky and Torben was aware of a disconcerting howling coming from the direction of the wood.

‘We cannot delay,’ Pieter pressed, anxiously. ‘We must enter the tomb.’

Torben tested the chain securing the gates. ‘Come on, lads,’ he managed to say with forced levity. ‘We might as well take a look now we’re here. Stanislav, if you would be so kind…’

The bear-like soldier stepped up to the gates, lifting the double-headed axe from his belt. With one effortless swipe the chain was shattered, the broken links rattled onto cracked flagstones echoing around the silent cemetery. Taking hold of the rusted iron bars Torben tugged on the gates. Metal grated on stone as the corroded hinges screeched in protest at being forced to open once more.

The party paused, listening to the echo fade between the gravestones.

‘Remember, it shall be I who lands the killing blow,’ Pieter insisted. ‘I owe it to my Rosamund.’

Torben nodded. Taking a step forward, he peered into the darkness of the crypt.

An angry hiss from behind them made the whole party turn sharply. By the moon’s cold light they could see a figure crouched, cat-like, on the bough of a tree. The wind was whistling mournfully through the branches. The man’s lank hair waved behind him in the breeze and he appeared to be wearing the clothes of a nobleman. More figures moved among the shadows of the cemetery, emerging from behind gravestones and tombs. Their various forms of dress revealed them to be men and women from all parts of society.

‘What do you want?’ Pieter challenged the advancing figures, unable to hide his nervousness.

‘We want you,’ the nobleman in the tree hissed.

‘Our lord must feed,’ a young peasant woman hissed. ‘He will feast on your life.’ The girl smiled and Torben saw the first glistening points of fangs breaking through bleeding gums.

‘By Sigmar!’ Alexi gasped.

At that moment the vampires attacked. They sprang at the mortals, fingernails raking the air as they tried to tear at the adventurers’ throats. Swords were yanked from scabbards and battle was joined.

‘Take them while they are still weak!’ Walter commanded.

‘Weak?’ Oran gasped, deflecting a taloned fist with his sword. ‘I’d hate to see them when they’re strong!’

Torben counted half a dozen or so among the brood. All had obviously still been young when they died, just as they were young in undeath. They fought with agility and strength increased by a supernatural vitality.

Torben swung his sword at the inhuman noble. The stroke opened a great gash across the vampire’s chest through his shirt. The man stumbled backwards at the blow and collapsed over a gravestone.

‘One down,’ the mercenary said to himself with a grin, and span to face the other creatures.

Torben suddenly found himself hurled to the ground with the hissing nobleman furiously tearing at his mail armour with its talons. Twisting to one side, the warrior used his bulk to throw the clawing vampire from him. Quickly getting to his feet, he watched open mouthed as the wound he had dealt the man closed bloodlessly before his very eyes.

‘By Queen Katarin’s sword!’ he exclaimed. ‘What does it take to stop these things?’

It was all the mercenaries could do to fend off the vampires’ slashing claws. Torben was horrified at how the creatures caught their blades with bare hands, showing no discomfort whatsoever. And all the while their assailants cursed them.

‘The coming of our master is at hand!’ a vampire proclaimed. ‘Can you not feel it?’

Torben could almost believe that the wind rose as the words were spoken.

‘You will all fall before him,’ the peasant girl snarled, ‘and he will drain your very lives from you!’

Out of the corner of his eye Torben saw Oran duck as another undead youth launched himself like an insect off a gravestone. Oran sent the vampire sprawling onto the ground with an up thrust punch from a bony fist. But as soon as the rat-faced mercenary was crouched, with his dagger drawn, the vampire was also on its feet again, ready to attack.

Stanislav was up against the tomb, struggling to fend off a vehement attack from a fanged maiden. Yuri looked up panting, his fringe flopping in front of his eyes. He had blood on his face, although it was not clear whether it was his own or his attacker’s.

The peasant girl leapt at Torben. Without hesitation, he parried her outstretched claws with his sword but this did not stop her. The girl continued to advance, even as her left hand flopped uselessly at her side.

‘They won’t die!’ Yuri yelled as a farm-hand, his body a mass of open wounds, picked himself up once more and continued his assault.

‘The beast must be killed!’ Walter shouted over the clamour of battle. ‘It is the unholy energies which he draws to this place that keeps them alive! If he dies, so will they! Hurry!’

The old manservant darted off, his lantern a bobbing sphere of light vanishing down the steps into the tomb.

‘Where does the old fool think he’s going?’ Torben exclaimed in disbelief.

‘We can’t let him go alone!’ Pieter shouted back, and evading a blow from his attacker, he followed.

‘You go. We’ll deal with these,’ Oran said, sinking his blade deep into a vampire’s side.

Torben looked towards the tomb. If this was the sort of opposition they could expect to find out here, the last place he wanted to go was down those stone steps.

Leaping down the steps two at a time, Pieter stumbled to a halt at the bottom, just ahead of the puffing Walter. Pieter took in every detail in the crypt as he realised abruptly that he had at last reached his goal.

They were standing at the edge of a long rectangular chamber, which continued beyond stone archways to both left and right. Burnt-out torches rested in sconces around the walls. The reassuring orange glow cast by the lantern illuminated the vaulted ceiling of the crypt, but it picked out glowering gargoyles like those that adorned its exterior. A number of stone coffins lay within the tomb. Several had been smashed open, their lids now nothing more than broken masonry scattering the cracked flag-stoned floor. In the centre of the chamber stood two tombs, grander than the rest. Only one remained intact. Standing before it was a young woman, as beautiful in death as she had been in life. She was wearing the white shift in which she had been buried.

‘Hello, Pieter.’ Her voice was richly seductive.

Pieter stared back at her, open-mouthed. ‘Rosamund!’

‘Don’t listen to her, young master,’ Walter gasped.

Rosamund’s long black hair cascaded down over her shoulders, as luxurious as ever. Her ivory skin glowed with an inner vitality and her captivating blue eyes looked back at him longingly. To see his Rosamund alive again, when he had held her cold, frail body against his after her heart had stopped beating, was beyond rational comprehension.

‘I’ve missed you, Pieter. Have you missed me?’ Her voice was soft as velvet.

‘But… you’re dead,’ was all he could manage.

‘I was dead, Pieter, but now I am truly alive,’ she said.

‘This can’t be real,’ he spluttered, raising his sword.

‘But it is, Pieter. Join me and nothing will ever separate us again.’

‘She’s no longer your sweetheart, master!’ Walter insisted but Pieter only half-heard him. He was gripped by terrified indecision. He could still hardly believe what he was witnessing. The only rational explanation for Rosamund being here now was that she had become like those creatures he had just encountered and yet that in itself was irrational!

‘It only takes a kiss,’ Rosamund said. ‘One kiss and we can be together, forever.’

He began to lower his sword. To be together, that was all he had ever wanted. Pieter stepped slowly forward, gazing into Rosamund’s sparkling blue eyes as tears ran from his own. At the edge of his consciousness, he could hear Walter’s desperate voice. But with every step the voice faded until he did not notice it at all. All he heard was the soothing voice of his beloved and all he saw was her radiant smile, welcoming him back into her embrace.

And then his mind was awash with confusing images. Walter was between them, a sharpened stake in his hand. And Rosamund no longer had her arms outstretched to embrace him. Instead taloned hands were raised, ready to tear out his throat, and ugly fangs protruded over her sweet cherry lips.

There was a flash of light and Walter’s arm bent down at the elbow at an awkward angle. The old man cried out in pain but his screams became a horrible gurgling as Rosamund’s head darted snake-like towards his neck. Walter’s body went limp and was flung aside like a rag-doll, landing heavily on top of the unopened coffin. Hissing and spitting the vampire that had once been his sweet Rosamund moved towards Pieter. Horrified, he looked on, stunned into inaction.

‘Wh–What have you done?’ he spluttered, aghast. ‘Rosamund would never have harmed another creature!’

‘That was the old Rosamund,’ the creature hissed.

‘And you are not her!’ Pieter roared, raising his sword.

Rosamund’s eyes were suddenly wide open in shock. The vampire let out a blood-chilling scream as a rusted spear tip burst through her chest, sullying the white shift with black, half-congealed blood. The broken shaft of the railing had pierced her dead heart. When she stopped twitching, her talons dropped to her side and her eyes closed for the last time. The girl’s body slumped to the floor and lay motionless. Torben let go of the spear and span about, panting for breath. Pieter was standing completely still, staring fixedly at the corpse of his beloved.

‘She was no longer human,’ Torben said, his voice full of regret, ‘she was a thing. She is at rest now.’

The young man said nothing.

Looking back to the girl’s body, Torben saw that she had indeed found the true peace of death at last.

The body of the old retainer lay slumped face-down over the lid of the unopened sarcophagus. A trickle of blood from the dead man’s torn throat glinted darkly in the flickering lantern-light. Torben watched as the precious, life-giving fluid collected in a small fissure in the coffin lid, then trickled through a crack into the sarcophagus.

Something stirred him, like a voice calling him back to somewhere he once knew. In the all-encompassing darkness he felt himself floating upwards. It was as if he was rising from the dark scarlet depths of an ocean. Above him lapping crimson light beckoned.

He could see things beyond the surface. It was as cold as the grave but he could feel the warmth of living bodies close by.

He could hear the beating of their warm hearts. He could smell the sweet blood in their veins, hear it pumping through their arteries, taste it in his mouth.

And he knew what it was to hunger again.

Pieter was suddenly aware of a cold wind blowing through the crypt. Leaves from outside were lifted in spiralling eddies that danced among the tombs. ‘We have to finish it,’ the young man stated with grim resolution, taking a whitethorn stake from his pack. Torben Badenov nodded.

Bracing themselves against the lid of the coffin, they pushed with all their strength. With a hollow grating noise, the stone lid slid slowly across the top of the granite sarcophagus. Pieter winced and turned away gasping as stale air, heavy with the stench of decay, escaped from the coffin along with a wisp of red mist. Opening his eyes, he peered cautiously into the sarcophagus.

Inside the stone coffin lay a skeleton, the skull thrown back as if the occupant had died in tortured agony. To all intents and purposes the skeleton appeared to be human, apart from the extended fangs that forced the jaws open in a rictus grin. Finger bones ended in long talons while a portion of the ribcage was shattered.

The wind was rising rapidly and Pieter could feel the hairs on the back of his neck rising. A miasma of dark energy crackled around the edge of the coffin. Pieter could feel it tingle in his fingertips. His pulse quickened.

Walter’s blood had collected in a small pool beneath the remains. It began to bubble and hiss strangely, evaporating to become a cloud of red steam. Pieter was unable to tear his gaze from the skeleton, and through the mist he witnessed a terrible transformation. Flesh was coalescing out of the red cloud and attaching itself to the bones. Cords of sinew stretched over the skeleton, pulling the joints into position and binding them together. At the same time tendrils of muscle lashed around the calcified remains, swelling and twitching with new life. Despite his panic, Pieter found himself thinking that it was like watching a wax candle melting in a fire, only rapidly in reverse.

As the musculature crawled over the vampire’s chest, the broken ribs were pulled back into place and knitted together. Pieter could see a leathery black organ swelling inside the ribcage with every convulsion like bellows. Ears peeled away from the skull and stretched into bat-like points. Balls of yellow fat condensed in the eye sockets as the corpse continued to re-flesh under Pieter’s own horrified gaze. New, red-raw eyelids flicked open and the men looked into the pitch-black pupils of an evil creature that had been born of darkness centuries before.

With a roar, the dead torches around the walls burst into flame. The wind had risen to a gale. Glancing at Torben, Pieter could see that the mercenary’s hair was standing on end – as, he could feel, was his own.

‘Quickly! Do it now!’ Torben yelled over the howling gale.

Pieter raised the stake over the vampire’s regenerating body. With a shout born of fury, frustration and despair he plunged the whitethorn towards the creature’s black, pumping heart.

His hand was suddenly halted as, with lightning speed, the vampire’s hand seized his wrist in a grip of iron. Pieter watched helplessly as the skinless horror sat up in the coffin, meat still solidifying on its bones. An unnerving hiss escaped from between the vampire’s fattening lips and a pointed tongue darted out from between its bestial fangs.

Then the mercenary was between them, the rusted railing in his hands once more. With one vicious thrust, the tip passed easily through the creature’s ribs and punctured the black bag of muscle that was the vampire’s heart. The half-formed, undead creature opened its mouth to scream, jaw ligaments tearing, but its useless lungs had already begun to collapse. All that issued from the dying vampire’s throat was a rasping breath that stank of death and decay.

The crypt was suddenly a hive of activity. Somehow free of the vampire brood, the rest of the party burst into the tomb. Stanislav ran forward, a sexton’s spade gripped in his hands. With one swing, the blunt edge of the spade separated the vampire’s head from its shoulders and sent it sailing across the crypt. Its corpse began to decompose at once. New-formed flesh shrivelled and turned to dust, swirling around the coffin in tiny eddies. In seconds all that remained of the vampire were a few crumbling bones. Stanislav strode over to the corner of the crypt where the creature’s head had landed. With one stamp of his boot, the deformed skull was shattered against the flag-stoned floor.

The mercenary leader looked down at the contents of the coffin and ran a hand through his hair. ‘I told you we should have gone to Ostermark,’ he said.

The great bonfire hissed and crackled as the bodies of the vampires were burnt to ash. The funeral pyre bathed the graveyard and the Morderischen family tomb in flickering orange light. Despite the eerily-moving shadows the carved gargoyles did not seem menacing anymore. Pieter sat staring disconsolately into the flames, looking at something in another time and place. His eyes were dry. He would shed no more tears.

He had been wracked all night with conflicting feelings of grief and anger. Rosamund was gone. Walter was dead. In one night he had seen what cruelties the world had to offer. Pieter looked down at the slab of stone covering Walter’s grave. The wolves would not have him.

It was less than an hour until dawn and the moon was beginning to set. Although none of them had slept, Torben and his companions were preparing to leave.

‘How’s your arm?’ Torben asked Yuri.

‘Better now it’s bandaged,’ Yuri said.

‘Thank Sigmar the creatures out here dropped dead when you killed that monster in the crypt,’ Stanislav said.

‘We’d all have been dead men otherwise,’ Alexi agreed, hitching up his sling.

‘We’d better be off.’ The mercenary captain was in good humour after the night’s events. ‘We’ve got to meet up with Krakov and the lovely Lady Isolde,’ he said with a grin. ‘Come on, lads. We’ll be in Ostermark by noon.’ He turned to Pieter. ‘What will you do now?’

The young man shrugged.

‘You could come with us,’ Torben suggested almost casually. ‘Besides, we need you as a witness to what happened here.’

‘That’s right. The Lady Isolde will believe a man of your breeding,’ Yuri said.

‘Why not?’ Pieter said with a shrug.

‘Oh fine,’ Oran muttered quietly. ‘Another pocket to split the gold with. Just what we need!’

‘That’s settled then,’ Torben said with a smile. Adjusting his pack, he turned towards the lightening sky to the east. ‘I hope Krakov’s got the first round in.’

From the base of the tower on the hill overlooking Ostenwald, Lady Isolde watched the funeral pyre burn through piercing green eyes. She inhaled deeply, savouring the smell of the roasting corpses carried on the breeze. The mercenary band had been a good choice and the girl’s distraught sweetheart an unexpected bonus.

She turned her gaze from the cemetery and patted the head of her newest servant almost affectionately. The shrivelled one-eyed thing at her side was dressed in black, ill-fitting clothes. It grunted in response as a cat might purr at being stroked. ‘Good boy, Krakov,’ she breathed. She had never had a Kislevite in her thrall before.

Those fool priests a century ago had underestimated her. They had thought that her brother was the stronger of the siblings and so had spent longer binding him inside his coffin. That had been the advantage she needed as over time the charms sealing her own tomb had lost their potency.

Now her cruel brother would never control her again. She would become the Mistress of Ostenwald Tower and the surrounding countryside. The peasantry would be as cattle to her – merely as a source of sustenance or assistance as she saw fit.

‘Sleep well, brother,’ Lady Isolde purred and a smile parted her full red lips. As she smiled, the last rays of moonlight caught the glistening point of an elongated incisor.

SUMMER

The Blessing is a common practice among the peasant folk of the Empire. Farming communities will dedicate a portion of their harvest to their gods in thanksgiving for the crop they have gathered, and in hope of a fruitful year to come. And so, for another year, are the good, honest, hardworking souls provided for.

– from An Averland Almanac

HARVEST OF SOULS

The afternoon summer sun bathed Torben Badenov in its warming radiance so that he felt as if the rays of sunshine were soaking into his body, reinvigorating him. Reinvigoration was precisely what they all needed following their latest job. The goblins were all dead but the mercenaries had not got away totally unscathed.

Without horses – or the means to replace them – what should have been a straightforward, run-of-the-mill mission for the mercenaries had been made something more of a challenge. They had spent days tracking the wolf riders, fighting skirmish battles with them and laying snares for the goblins, until at last they trapped the greenskins at the end of a narrow, high-sided gorge. The battle had been desperate and furious.

Cornered, the wolves and the goblins had fought with a fury born out of the drive of self-preservation. The scrawny greenskins had lunged with swords and spears while their snarling wolf-steeds snapped at the mercenaries’ arms and legs. The men had had to perform a dance of sorts: leaping forward to lay blows with their own thirsty blades, then hopping back out of reach of the inevitable ripostes. And of course they hadn’t always been quick enough. Torben himself had suffered numerous blows to his arms and upper body and had almost passed out after the fight. It was only thanks to Alexi’s field medicine skills that he had been able to make it as far as Honigheim.

Sitting in the sun, with the gentle sounds of summer playing in his ears, Torben closed his eyes and recalled how his band had come to be here. Following the supernatural events they had become embroiled in in Ostenwald, they had made it at last to Ostermark and the Slaughtered Troll, the favourite haunt of between-job mercenaries, only to find that Krakov wasn’t there. Torben had his own theories as to what had happened to the suave Kislevite. There had been a fair few noblewomen in his life who were now only remembered as notches on his proverbial bedpost. It was a trait that Krakov and Torben shared but the fashionable, eye-patched Kislevite seemed to work his charms almost exclusively on ladies of breeding and substance. With the mercenary band’s leader it was more often than not the innkeeper’s daughter or the temporarily war-widowed, lonely, naïve young bride who succumbed to his rugged good looks and incorrigible, not to say bawdy, line in wooing wiles. Just like Jeanette, in fact.

It had been whilst he was exchanging adventuring stories with a Reiklander caravan guard that a farmer had braved the smoky interior of the drinking den. The balding, red-faced, adipose man had waddled up to the bar and was soon sent over to Torben’s table by the barkeep. Torben didn’t remember the man’s name – it wasn’t important now – but he remembered what he had wanted. The farmer’s village had suffered a number of attacks from goblin wolf riders, lazy greenskins who knew an easy source of food and entertainment when they came upon one. In a lull between the raids, the farmer had brought what little goods he had left to sell in Ostermark’s markets, and at the same time recruit some sell-swords to free his village from its tormentors.

The chubby man had patted the sweat from his forehead with a damp piece of cloth, his jowls wobbling as he told his terrible tale – a tale the like of which Torben had heard a hundred times before and which impressed him about as much as Bretonnian love poetry. He had listened patiently to the farmer’s pleas and then, when the man had finished begging Torben for help, he had got down to the nitty-gritty of pay. After a little haggling a fee was agreed – a fee that Torben only now realised hadn’t been collected – and Badenov’s band set off to rid the village of its goblin raiders.

Who would have thought that it would have ultimately brought him to this moment of peaceful bliss? Now he came to think about it, Torben couldn’t remember the last time he had felt such contented happiness. And it was in no small part thanks to Jeanette.

Following their battle with the goblins, injured as they all were and with Pieter needing to be carried on a makeshift stretcher, the mercenaries had tried to make it back to the farmer’s village to receive the ministrations of the local wise-woman, or at least to send word to the doctor-apothecary in the nearest town. But they had travelled deep into the briared forest in pursuit of the goblin wolf riders. They were not lost – with Stanislav among the party how could they ever be lost? – but they were a long way from the safety and the aid they required. There had to be somewhere closer by.

Yuri, the fastest on his feet, had scouted ahead and it had not been long before he returned with good news. Miracle of miracles – Yuri had seen the pleasant wooded valley with a homely village nestled at its bottom, surrounded by fields swollen with rippling golden wheat. It was called Honigheim, and the mercenaries had been welcomed literally with open arms. No explanations were needed before the kindly village-folk had tended to their wounds. Vicious wolf-bites had been treated with rustic unguents of almost magical potency, wounds from goblin swords had been cleaned and dressed, poultices applied to bruises and pain-killing remedies of forest-gathered herbs were given to them to drink.

Torben and his fellows had never known medical care like it. They were more used to the brutal attention of battlefield sawbone-butchers. Torben had seen men die from blood loss or from so-called cures at the hands of some doctor, rather than from the wounds they had received in battle. Yet here, in Honigheim, in only a matter of days, they had all begun to feel better than they had in a long time.

The life of a mercenary was unpredictable. Often they were forced to sleep out in the open, in all weathers, or missed their sleep altogether. Lack of proper nourishment, not to mention the endless scrapes a hired sword got into, such things all took their toll on the body. And yet only that morning Alexi had commented on how the dull, burning ache in his knuckles was gone for the first time in years. Torben himself felt more relaxed than he had done in a long while and he was sure that he was at the peak of physical fitness again. And Torben liked it here. In fact, it was a stronger emotion than that, he felt at home here.

Half opening his eyes, he took in his surroundings, scanning from left to right. Sat, as he was, with his back to the outside wall of the tavern, the wood warm in the sunlight, he could see almost all of the small settlement.

Directly opposite him, across the gently rippling waters of a millpond was the mill itself – Jeanette’s home. The large wheel turned at a languid pace, the wooden joists creaking gently with every revolution. The millstream sang its own gurgling song as it trickled over the top of the wheel and filled each bucket in turn, which then emptied out into the pond with a hypnotic splash.

Once the harvest had been gathered in, the mill would be working at full capacity. So too would the tavern’s brew-house, as the whole magical process of roasting, malting and boiling hops would restock Honigheim’s oak ale-casks. The village beer was unique and delicious in Torben’s opinion, but it was not comparable to the mead that Master Wendell, the tavern keeper, produced as well. This place was rightly named ‘honey home’. Torben became aware of droning bees flying low around him as they went about their business of producing the wonderful, liquid nectar that he was supping even now.

He savoured the golden taste on his palette and drew in a deep breath of air, full of the scents of summer.

A shimmering sound reached his ears as a soft breeze ran its fingers through the rushes at the pond’s shore. Opening his eyes after the moment of ecstasy he saw the newest member of his band approaching him from the direction of the village forge.

‘Pieter, you’re looking well,’ Torben said, beaming.

‘I’m better than I was,’ was all the sour-faced young nobleman would admit.

‘Don’t be like that. Cheer up. Come and join me in a cup of mead. I never thought I’d find something that I enjoyed more than beer but this might just be it.’

‘No thank you,’ came Pieter’s response to the offer, ‘it’s too sweet for my taste.’

‘Where are the others?’ Torben asked, deftly changing the subject.

‘I’ve just left Stanislav at the leather-worker’s, mooning over the man’s sister. He was making out he needed a new grip for his battleaxe, but it looked all right to me. Oran’s doing a job for the Widow Eichebaum–’

‘Another one?’ Torben interrupted. ‘The late Herr Eichebaum obviously wasn’t much good at keeping his house in good order.’

‘Or his wife, it would seem,’ Pieter added.

Torben was sure that his dour companion had just made a joke but the expression on his face didn’t change. Maybe he simply didn’t see the humour in what he had said. ‘And the old man and the boy?’

‘Alexi and Yuri?’ Even though Yuri was actually older than Pieter, he was still referred to as a boy by the others, as he had been when they were in the army of the old tzar Bokha. ‘I think they’ve gone fishing in the woods.’

‘And why not?’ Torben thought aloud. Why not, indeed?

A subtle change in the quality of the light told Torben that afternoon would soon turn to evening. The sky had gone from crystal blue to sandstone yellow, tinged mauve on the eastern horizon. At the head of the valley, still several miles distant, steel blue clouds gathered. A summer storm was on its way but Torben was sure it wouldn’t reach Honigheim before the harvest had been gathered in. By then his band would be well enough to move on. Truth be told, they were well enough now – even Pieter, who had come off worst in the battle with the goblins: his wolf-savaged leg had healed, and was free of infection, and the cut he had received across his ribs had knitted well.

But the mercenary band would stay until the harvest and would help the villagers accomplish the task before the summer rains came. It was the least they could do, because the people of Honigheim had made them feel welcome and had tended them so well, without asking for anything in return. And besides, he wasn’t ready to leave Jeanette just yet.

Dappled light, green-gold, fell on the figures embracing in the lee of a birch spinney. Shielding his eyes against the sinking sun’s glare Torben grinned to himself. The two figures were the mop-haired Yuri and Odile Schmied, auburn-haired daughter of the village blacksmith, Meinrad Schmied. It wasn’t only Torben who seemed to be having luck with the ladies. In fact Honigheim seemed to be casting its spell over all of them.

All of them except the moody Pieter and the grizzled Alexi. Pieter Valburg he could understand. It was still only a few months since his sweetheart had been killed by the vampire Morderischen, only to rise from the dead in the monster’s thrall. Then Pieter had witnessed her second death before his very eyes, eyes that had then been opened to the true horrors that lurked beneath the surface of the everyday world.

But Alexi was another matter. Torben had never seen the old soldier so miserable or withdrawn; not even during the rain-sodden three-month Loupdomaine campaign when they had all developed foot-rot and had to sleep with their boots on to stop the rats from eating their toes. After all the mercenaries had gone through together, good or bad, there had never been better reason to relax and enjoy one perfect moment for a change.

He really didn’t know what the matter was, nor did he care. Torben felt as if he had come home and he wasn’t going to let some miserable old soldier spoil that feeling of contentment. That was what it was: Honigheim felt like the closest thing he had to a home, after leaving the Wheatlands, fourteen years ago. It made a change to be somewhere where they were appreciated for who they were, not what they were. Oran was the most relaxed Torben had known him, and that included those times when he’d been drunk.

The cool touch of a shadow fell across Torben. It was Master Aldwin the miller, headman of the village.

‘I’m sorry to trouble you,’ the miller apologised, ‘but you’ve been here for six days, enjoying our care and hospitality,’ – and quite a bit else besides, Torben thought, spying Jeanette, his daughter, walking gracefully across the bridge to the other side of the pond – ‘and we have never asked for anything in return.’

‘Oh, I see. I’m sorry,’ Torben said, realising that some kind of recompense was necessary, ‘of course, we’ll pay our way.’ He was reminded for the second time that afternoon that they had yet to return to – where was it, again? – the village that had been attacked by the goblins, anyway. The farmer – what was his name? – needed to settle his bill now the job was done.

‘No, no, no. That is not necessary. I am the one who should be sorry,’ Master Aldwin said, practically performing a bobbing bow in front of the Kislevite. ‘It would be against the laws of hospitality to ask you for anything when we have freely given.’

‘What is it then, Master Aldwin? What can I do for you?’

The miller rubbed his hands together anxiously, looking first at the ground then back at the mercenary. ‘We would never normally ask anything of any guest to our humble village. You are welcome to stay as long as you want.’ The miller looked over at his daughter who was approaching them now around the edge of the mill-pool. He then looked back to Torben. ‘As long as you want,’ he reiterated. ‘It is just that you and your men have obvious, particular talents and… well…’

‘Yes?’ Torben was sitting up, fully alert. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Stanislav approaching the crowd, an arm around the waist of Giselle, sister of Vollny the leather-worker. ‘What is it?’

‘Well… we’ve had some trouble recently.’

‘What sort of trouble?’

‘Honigheim is under threat.’

Who would dare threaten this rural idyll? Torben wondered, angry that anyone would want to destroy the unique world that the people of Honigheim had worked so hard to create.

‘From whom? Who’s threatening you?’ Torben almost demanded of Master Aldwin.

‘Riders. Black riders. We don’t know who they are, or where they come from, only that they are all marked out by the black hooded cloaks they wear.’

‘Have they attacked yet?’ Torben asked. A crowd of Honigheimers was gathering at Aldwin’s back, a press of anxious faces waiting to hear the outcome of the conversation between the headman of the village and the captain of the mercenary band.

‘No, not yet,’ Aldwin replied, hesitantly. ‘So far the worst they’ve done is ride around the outskirts of our village and set fire to our crops, chanting strange incantations.’

‘They’ve set fire to your crops?’ Torben repeated, horrified.

‘Oh yes, but the gods have been with us. The wind always blows the fire out before it does too much damage.’

‘What have you done to defend yourselves so far?’

‘Nothing,’ answered the old miller, bluntly. ‘Nothing but pray, that is. We’re not fighting folk. The troubles of the world rarely bother us. Until now. Sooner or later the riders will attack, I’m sure of it.’

‘But you’ll help us, won’t you?’ Torben was suddenly aware of Jeanette, standing at her father’s side, fixing him with pleading eyes.

Torben took in the girl’s beauty with his own gaze as if it gave him sustenance: the soft set of her features; the high cheekbones; her almond eyes, like warm hazel pools; the framing plaits of rich russet hair. Confronted by such a request from one so innocently beautiful, how could he refuse? She couldn’t be more that twenty years of age, ten years his junior, and yet in six days she had charmed him more than any woman, and there had been many.

‘You will help us,’ Jeanette said again, brushing flour from the bodice of her dress. It wasn’t a request; it was a statement.

Torben took a breath as he readied his reply, the expectant crowd edging forward a little closer still.

‘How could we do anything else?’ he stated simply.

Jeanette skipped over to sit down on the bench next to him. She put her arm through his and patted his hand gently. ‘I knew you would,’ she whispered coyly in his ear.

‘So, what do you make of these black riders?’ Alexi asked Oran as they carried another sharpened stockade post towards the gate, where it would be positioned to repel a mounted charge.

‘They could be any number of things,’ the rat-faced man said thoughtfully, his moustache twitching. ‘Bandits, cultists, who knows?’

‘But we haven’t actually seen any sign of them,’ the old soldier pointed out, ‘and we didn’t see any sign of them before we arrived here.’

‘Why would they make up something like that?’ Oran asked.

‘It’s not like you to be so trusting,’ Alexi chided, churlishly.

‘Well maybe it’s time I stopped being so cynical,’ Oran railed suddenly. ‘I’ve been bitter and twisted all my life. For the first time I can remember, since my brothers and I were scrabbling around in the gutters of Talabheim with the other homeless urchins, I’ve found something good in the world, something precious to be kept from harm.’

The one-time thief and outlaw dropped his end of the post and, with an expansive gesture, took in the thatched cottages, the meandering stream, and the leafy bowers overhanging the mill-pond, where trout rose to the surface in the shallows.

‘I’ve got something good going here and I’m not about to let it be taken away from me. I’ve always made my way in life by killing but now, for the first time, I swear, I feel that there’s a purpose to it all, something more than the jingle of coins in my pocket and the next tankard of horse-piss that passes for ale in half the places we end up in.’

Alexi of Nuln put down his end of the tree trunk and regarded the ex-rogue with undisguised disbelief. ‘What’s got into you, Oran?’ he asked. ‘I’ve never seen you like this before.’

Oran frowned, his eyes narrowing. This was more like the cynical grimace Alexi was used to, and comfortable with.

‘You’re just jealous because the rest of us have found happiness here, and you haven’t,’ he snarled.

Alexi didn’t know what to say: it was the truth after all.

‘If you hate it here so much why don’t you bugger off and leave us to get on with our job?’

‘I see you and Odile are getting along well,’ Torben said to Yuri one night as the party sat outside the tavern.

‘Yes,’ he replied dreamily. ‘It’s like… Oh, I don’t know. There’s something about this place, something magical. I don’t mean literally, just the beauty of it, the friendliness of the people. All of it put together casts its own spell over you. Do you know what I mean?’

‘Like it’s perfect,’ Stanislav said watching Giselle, her blonde hair rippling in the slight evening breeze, as she carried a fresh jug of mead to the mercenaries’ table.

‘But you know, there is one unusual thing that I’ve noticed,’ the mop-haired youth went on.

‘What’s that?’ Pieter asked, his suspicious mind immediately leaping to all the wrong conclusions.

‘There aren’t any children here.’

‘What do you mean? Of course there are children,’ Stanislav bellowed heartily. ‘And we’ve got to know a few of them rather well, I’d say. There’s Jeanette, Master Aldwin’s daughter, my Giselle, and your own Odile, you fool.’

‘Yes, I know that,’ Yuri countered, ‘and Master Wendell’s son, and Farmer Latham’s twin boys, but there’s no one here under the age of eighteen. No babes in arms or youngsters.’

‘Well there were once, and not so long ago,’ Alexi pointed out. ‘And there will be again. It’s just that Honigheim isn’t that big a place. There aren’t that many families here. All small, out-of-the-way settlements like this go through such cycles,’ the ex-soldier explained, although his tone suggested that he didn’t quite believe his own argument. ‘In a few years there’ll be another generation of swaddled and mewling Honigheimers, puking, crying and crawling their way through infancy.’

‘And we’re the men to make sure that happens,’ Torben added with a lewd grin, elbowing Stanislav in the ribs. ‘What d’you say, lads? Eh?’

Then the discussion was over, as most of the party fell about laughing.

‘So, you think they’re daemon-lovers?’ Oran asked his old friend.

‘I reckon so,’ Torben confirmed, hauling on the rope, to which Yuri had attached another bundle of rough-hewn planks. The lookout platform they had been building in the tree branches above Honigheim’s main gate was almost finished.

‘Oh, great,’ Yuri’s voice drifted up to them from the base of the broad-branched sycamore.

‘But nothing we can’t handle,’ Torben went on, more loudly than before.

At times Torben came across as one of those people who thought that the louder you said something, the more true or reassuring it must be.

‘But if they are well-armed followers of the ruinous powers, why haven’t they already attacked such an obviously poorly-defended village?’ Oran pondered. ‘Honigheim’s hardly one of those walled bastions you’re always coming across in the wild borders of the Empire.’

‘True enough,’ Torben admitted, scratching his bearded chin.

‘It must have something to do with what the black riders want,’ Pieter Valburg said later that day, as they were gathered together at their usual table outside the brew-house. It was a close, sultry evening.

‘So, I say again, why haven’t they just come in and taken it?’ Oran challenged.

‘It could be something in the village: some priceless, holy artefact perhaps. Although I’ve not seen any sign of a chapel here myself. Or it could be due to some magical ward.’

Pipes began to play as the people of Honigheim came together for another evening’s jollity. The sound of a tabor soon joined the piping, beating out the rhythm of the merry tune.

A large, rosy-cheeked, mature woman, who reminded Torben of a corn-fattened heifer, sauntered over to the table, her eyes locked on the weasel-thin Oran Scarfen, and smiled saucily. Torben actually saw his companion blush as he caught sight of the Widow Eichebaum, the front of her smock unlaced just enough to have the desired effect.

‘You’ve been working all day,’ the widow said, softly chiding, and stroking Oran’s chin with a podgy hand. ‘Now we both know that all work and no play makes Herr Scarfen a very dull boy!’

‘Herr Scarfen?’ Torben laughed and then felt a soft, delicate hand in his, pulling him to his feet. He did not resist as the miller’s daughter drew him into the dance.

‘Soon the harvest will be gathered in and we’ll hold the Blessing,’ Jeanette said, as they whirled through the press of dancing villagers.

‘The Blessing?’ Torben asked, barely aware of what he was saying as he gazed helplessly into her spellbinding gaze.

‘When we thank our master for all the good things he has provided us with by making an offering of our harvest to him. It’s also in hope of more good things for the year to come.’ She laughed. It was a sound like the joyful gurgling of a babbling brook or the tinkling of wind chimes around a woodland shrine.

Hand-in-hand they spun each other through the crowd of whirling dancers. I could really learn to love it here, Torben considered as he lost himself in Jeanette’s smiling, hypnotic hazel eyes. In fact, he already did love it here.

‘What do you make of the others?’ Alexi asked Pieter as they strode through the long grass of the meadow. Wild flowers grew in abundance in the rich soil, filling the air with their fragrance as the men brushed against them. They were patrolling Honigheim’s perimeter.

Pieter looked at Alexi from under hooded eyes. ‘How they’re all behaving like love-struck youths, you mean?’ he said, sourly.

‘Precisely,’ the ex-soldier replied, his tone agitated. ‘The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that this place has worked some kind of enchantment on them. It’s only you and I who seem able to think straight.’

There was a moment’s silence between them, only the twittering of birdsong and the rustle of the breeze in the long grass disturbed the tranquillity.

‘So, what do you think we should do about it?’ the dour nobleman asked at last.

‘Nothing, for the time being,’ Alexi replied. ‘Just keep an eye on them, that’s all I’m saying.’

As the mercenaries prepared the village’s defences, the folk of Honigheim went about their daily business. There was a harvest to be gathered and the villagers’ survival for the following year depended on it.

Within ten days, however, the mercenaries’ work was complete and swords were exchanged for scythes and sickles, as the burly, hard-bitten warriors joined the peasant farmers in bringing in the harvest. As they worked, the storm clouds massed against the rugged sides of the valley grew and broiled, as if held at bay by some invisible barrier.

Then at last, one hot summer’s day, with the harvest almost in, the storm broke.

And the riders attacked.

From where Torben stood, atop the platform at the gate in the village stockade, he could see right around Honigheim. The village itself lay at the bottom of the valley, the millpond at its centre. Beyond the stone meeting hall lay the tavern brew-house and the dwellings that made up the small settlement was the wicker fence. To the south the wooded hills encroached right up to the edge of the village, and it was beneath the trees that the stream ran down over mossy boulders, from a spring further up the side of the valley, to feed the millrace. To the north, east and west of Honigheim were the fields. In only a few days the harvest would have been brought in, in its entirety. Now, with the breaking storm and the riders’ attack, if they got through this, the villagers might lose a quarter of their crop.

Scanning the perimeter of the village the mercenary captain could see his men, each supported by a knot of pitchfork-wielding villagers, manning the defences they had so hastily constructed.

It had been a long time since Badenov’s band had been involved in anything approximating a siege. His mind involuntarily cast up images of the town of Castolino, on the slopes of the Trantine hills in Tilea, the forces of the renegade Prince Salvatore hurling themselves against the ancient walls. He remembered too the rat-kin attack on the town of Nagenhof – only a matter of leagues away from his current location but the memories a decade old – the malformed creatures created by the skaven’s warp-crazed packmasters. They had dragged the great bell into place before the town gates as a hooded rodent-thing prepared to strike a sonorous, peal of doom from the sickly-glowing artefact.

The black riders had positioned themselves on the higher ground that surrounded Honigheim’s arable land. This earthwork formed a natural boundary to the village and the tillable land around it. Beyond, the ground rose more steeply to the hills above, the soil there only a shallow layer covering limestone rock.

Twenty-four riders were spaced virtually equidistantly from each other and the village – apart from where the dense woodland ran to the village fence, so their attack would come from all sides. Torben could well believe that their positioning, in conjunction with the stormy weather that seemed to presage their assault, conformed to some blasphemous rite that would draw their evil patrons to them, strengthening their attack further.

The riders’ mounts whinnied and reared, jerking their heads from side to side as if something appalled or repelled them. Torben had seen the followers of Chaos behave in such a way when confronted with warding spells or Sigmar-consecrated ground. The purity of Honigheim and its people, the goodness that seemed to spill from the place, must be affecting these malefactors in much the same way. But the black-cloaked men were the true masters of their steeds. They kept their places in the saddle and pulled on the beasts’ reins, bringing them under control again.

There was a distant, barely audible shout from one of the riders and Torben saw his sword raised high, as if he meant to pierce the roiling firmament above him. Then, as the storm clouds unrolled down the sides of the valley, the black riders charged.

The rider beat his way down the earth track between the wheat fields, golden beneath the ominous grey-black of the thundery sky. As his large black stallion pounded towards the village, foam flew from its lips and its mane of jet hair twisted in the wind created by its galloping run.

The rider’s cloak streamed out behind him, flapping in the disturbed air. The hood was pulled tight over his head so that all Yuri could see was the bone-white skin of his cheeks and chin, and the grim set of his down-turned mouth.

Yuri let fly with an arrow and before the rider had even fallen from his horse with a gurgling cry, Yuri had a second missile ready.

Pieter cast his bow aside as his arrow struck the scarred surface of the rider’s shield and was deflected, leaving nothing but a scratch on the black buckler. Uncertain of his aim and the strength of his arm, following the injuries he had suffered, he had left it late before he fired – when he thought he could see the whites of the rider’s eyes beneath his cowl. And now there was no time to draw again.

The rider pulled his horse up short of the sharpened stakes in the ground in front of the entrance to the village. Had the mercenaries had more time to prepare their defence of Honigheim there would have been many more stakes embedded in the bank beneath the wicker fence, as well as in the road at every gateway. It would have been a veritable forest. Nevertheless, at least the hastily erected defences had robbed the rider of the advantage of the charge.

The steed whinnied and shied, but its master was obviously a horseman of skill. He guided his mount between the protruding posts, past the first line of defence. It was now up to Pieter and the angry Honigheimers pressed around him to stop the rider. The man was mounted, and so had the advantage of height as well as the crushing hooves of his horse to help him in his attack, but the villagers outnumbered him.

His grandfather’s sword drawn, Pieter pushed himself forward, the angry, shouting peasant folk surging around him. This was how the dispossessed young nobleman liked to fight his battles, with cold steel. As mayor of Schwertdorf his father had been able to hire the best fencing tutors to teach his precious, only son the art of swordplay.

Since dedicating his life to the eradication of evil in all its forms, wherever it might be lurking, Pieter fought with the zeal of the newly converted. He threw himself into the front line of every fight. It was as if he actually wanted to die, but he never gave his enemies that satisfaction. Instead he would snatch victory from the jaws of defeat and savour the death of his malign foes.

Needing every advantage he could wrangle against a mounted foe, Pieter laid in with his grandfather’s sword. The rider’s own weapon sung as it sliced through the air towards Pieter’s head. The blades rang as they connected and Pieter had to brace himself against the force of the rider’s descending attack, or he would be knocked down.

Blow followed blow and Pieter realised he was facing an enemy who fought with a passion equal to his. But, he decided, his was the frenzy of the possessed, rather than the fury of the devout. Whatever the source of his demented strikes, Pieter soon realised that the man was also a master swordsman. Then he saw his opportunity. Aiming an uppercut at his enemy’s poorly protected ribs, Pieter thrust forwards and upwards, putting all his weight behind the attack. He was certain of his success and such a strike would puncture first the man’s lungs and then his heart before felling him.

The rider’s blade sliced downwards. The young nobleman was the faster of the two, but the mounted swordsman somehow managed to backhand his thrust so that it became a parrying move. Briefly stunned by the man’s skill, combined with the fact that he had been sure he had the rider beaten, Pieter felt a sharp kick to his midriff. He took two stumbling steps backwards before losing his balance altogether.

As he got to his feet again, adjusting his grip on his weapon, it quickly became apparent that the villagers, with their makeshift weapons, were about as much of a hindrance to their attacker as horse flies. The fact that they were defending their precious homes and loved ones gave the Honigheimers’ attacks something, but it wasn’t enough.

Pieter paused as he saw one man cut down by the rider’s blade, swiftly followed by another who fell beneath the horse’s stamping, iron-shod hooves. It was quite clear that none of these men had ever taken up arms before; Honigheim must have escaped the predations of the Empire’s enemies for several generations, so there had never been any need to learn the ways of war. Never had anyone been so in need of Badenov’s band.

Torben watched the two riders racing hell-for-leather through the corn stubble as they converged on the main village gate. Despite what Master Aldwin had told the mercenaries about the riders’ scare-tactics of setting fire to their crops, they weren’t interested in burning the fields now. There was no doubt that the village was their target.

Which to take, Torben wondered? To his left he could see Pieter Valburg engaged with the enemy at another breach in the wicker-fence and to his right Master Meinrad the blacksmith commanded the defence of a section atop a raised bank. But there were no mercenaries there. In that case, it was up to him to take on both riders. But there was only time for one shot.

He followed the rider heading straight for the gate, pounding along the earth track between the fields. His companion was riding an oblique course towards Torben and so was already disadvantaged in any assault he might be planning.

The mercenary leader let his arrow fly.

At the same moment his target’s horse stumbled. The man lurched in the saddle and Torben’s arrow found his shoulder, rather than his heart.

Torben couldn’t believe it. The stumbling horse had fouled his shot!

‘Boris Ursa’s beard!’ the Kislevite cursed. Such was the way of war at times. It wasn’t only mercenaries who played dice: evidently the riders’ dark patrons enjoyed the occasional game of chance, with the souls of men as the stakes.

Torben watched as the rider’s steed careered onwards, only a few yards from the sharpened stakes guarding the gate below him. Unable to control its charge, lame as it was, the horse’s front legs gave way and it collapsed in a cloud of dry earth. Its rider was flung forwards, out of his saddle, momentum carrying him on. There was a sickening thud as the man’s body was impaled on the tips of four cut-down trunks. He died without ever making a sound.

As the rider’s corpse sagged, suspended on the stake points, a black blur of movement drew Torben’s attention back to the second cloaked figure making for the gate. He saw the rider approach the corner of the gate, swing his steed round and then, unbelievably, man and horse left the ground. The animal – its front legs drawn up before it, back legs stretched out from kicking off – soared over the top of the mercenaries’ defences. The jumping horse, trapped in slow motion for Torben, described a perfect arc before its hooves thumped solidly against the ground and the rider was through the gate.

Torben had only seconds to react. Who knew what chaos and destruction the black rider might cause once inside Honigheim? With a whoop of abandon, Torben launched himself off the platform, twenty feet above the rider. For a second he was sailing through the air, wind whipping through his beard and hair. Then he hit the audacious attacker with the force of a cannonball.

The mercenary and the black-cloaked stranger hit the ground in a cloud of dust. Panicked, the horse ran into the village. The two men rolled together before coming to a halt. The hooded rider was fast, immediately going for a dagger sheathed at his belt, but Torben was faster. In no time he had the struggling man pinned to the ground with his hands and knees. In moments Stanislav was with him. But still the unhorsed rider fought to free himself. His cowl fell free of his head as he struggled: he was young, in his mid-twenties, with close-cropped black hair and a fierce fire blazing in his eyes.

‘Doesn’t look like he knows when he’s on to a loser, does it?’ the burly, bearded mercenary said with a chuckle.

‘Just like half the other Chaos-worshipping scum I’ve ever met,’ Torben added, flashing Stanislav a pearly-toothed grin.

As the rider lunged half out of his saddle, Pieter saw the face of his attacker for the first time: the one blind eye, the drawn cheeks, the age-lined features, the grim set of his mouth, and the pointed white beard.

Pieter could hear shouts coming from his right and the main village gate. It was Torben declaring that a black rider had been captured. Pieter’s opponent heard the shouts too. Dealing Pieter one last desperate, powerful swipe – which was easily parried but the force of which also sent him reeling – the rider pulled his horse round sharply with a tug of the reins and with a sharp kick to its sides had it galloping off, across the fields, and away from the village.

Pieter considered following but quickly realised the futility of such an action. There was no time to recover his bow from amid the fallen peasants either before the rider would be out of range. As Pieter watched, he saw the man pull a horn from beneath his cloak, put it to his lips and blow a long, loud note. At once the surviving riders broke off from the fight, turned tail and fled.

The peasant villagers could still hardly be called a skilled fighting force. It was apparent, however, that the mere presence of Badenov’s band, and the defences they had positioned around Honigheim, had startled the black riders. The servants of Chaos had obviously been expecting little resistance from the simple farming folk, once they had breached whatever wards or charms there had been protecting the valley from their incursions. When faced with warriors who knew one end of a sword from the other, and worse, when several of their number were cut down before they could get inside the village, their attack had quickly faltered.

‘They’ve gone!’ Yuri was exclaiming excitedly. ‘Did you see that? We succeeded! We drove them off!’

‘Yes, they’re gone, but probably only until they’ve had time to work out a new strategy,’ Pieter said, looking out over the harvested fields after the riders.

Yuri scowled at the pessimistic younger man.

‘Your friend’s right, I suspect,’ Master Aldwin said, emerging from the crowd of jubilant villagers that had flocked around the mercenaries.

‘Why do you say that?’ Torben asked.

‘Because they didn’t get what they came for?’ Alexi ventured.

‘What were they looking for? What do they want with Honigheim? Do you know?’ Torben challenged the older man.

‘I wish I did,’ Master Aldwin replied, ‘but I don’t. Who can fathom folk like that?’

‘Who indeed?’ agreed Oran, a look of concern on his usually surly features.

‘But thanks to you they didn’t get what they wanted, whatever that might be,’ Jeanette said, beaming, as she joined the mercenary leader.

‘And they won’t with you here to defend us,’ Aldwin stated calmly, fixing Torben with suddenly piercing eyes, ‘will they?’

‘Not as long I draw breath, they won’t,’ the tall Kislevite agreed, pulling Jeanette close.

‘What do we do about this one?’ Stanislav said, pulling the captured rider to his feet.

‘He’s going to provide us with some answers,’ Torben stated coldly.

‘I say we torture him,’ Oran Scarfen suggested with a look of evil glee.

The mercenaries had dragged their prisoner kicking and screaming to the village meeting hall. One moment he was calling down all manner of vile curses upon them, the next he was almost hysterical. Half of what spluttered from his mouth was unintelligible, such was the man’s patent terror although why a follower of Chaos should be so terrified Torben couldn’t comprehend. The rider sat on an upended barrel, his hands secured behind his back with rope. The mercenaries surrounding him with their weapons levelled seemed to be an effective deterrent to keep him from attempting flight.

Torben’s band had been accompanied by a contingent of anxious-looking Honigheimers, led by Master Aldwin. He approached the Kislevite leader. ‘Do you really intend to torture this man?’ he asked.

‘We intend to get some answers out of him, and if he won’t tell us willingly we’ll be forced to use whatever means we can to get him to… open up,’ Torben said giving Oran a knowing glance. Oran continued to toy with his dagger distractedly.

‘No, please,’ the prisoner moaned.

Almost weeping one moment, cursing them all to hell the next, now pleading for their mercy, he was truly behaving like a man possessed.

‘So you do have a tongue in your head.’ Oran’s voice was dripping with malice. ‘Well if you want to keep it there I think you should tell us what we want to know, don’t you?’

‘Never! A thousand poxes on this place! I curse you all! Lord, deliver me!’ he ranted.

‘He’s calling on his dark god to save him,’ Aldwin gasped, horrified. ‘He’s a frothing madman!’

‘You can say that again,’ Yuri agreed.

‘Fanatical? Totally unreasonable? Yes,’ Alexi suggested. ‘And if he is a worshipper of darker powers certainly insane, but that has yet to be proved.’

The prisoner froze, surprise written across his face as he eyed Alexi with a mixture of suspicion and disbelief.

‘We’ll see,’ Torben muttered. ‘Why were you attacking this village?’ he demanded of the prisoner. The man squirmed at the question and began to whimper again. ‘What is it that you want with the people here?’ More moans and whimpering. ‘What do you want with Honigheim?’

With a sudden cry the man leapt up from the barrel and charged at Oran, throwing himself at the mercenary. Oran staggered back, the prisoner falling to the floor at his feet, the rogue’s dagger protruding from his chest.

‘H–He ran onto my dagger!’ the rat-faced sell-sword was spluttering. ‘He did it to himself!’

The prisoner’s lips moved once more, as his eyes closed. Alexi crouched down quickly next to him. Then the man let out a final gasp and slumped to the floor, the life gone from him.

‘What did he say?’ Torben asked, sternly.

Alexi looked up at his fellows, bewildered: ‘It sounded like, “Sigmar, forgive me.”’

‘I don’t like this,’ Alexi said later, as he and Torben were patrolling the village in the muted half-light of dusk.

‘Don’t like what, old friend?’

‘This whole situation. This place.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You’ve known me how long?’ the old soldier suddenly challenged, turning to the taller Kislevite.

‘Ten? Eleven years?’ Torben ventured, trying to recollect just how long it was since he had found himself in the same regiment as the jobbing soldier from Nuln.

‘And in all the time that we’ve fought together, side by side, have you ever known a follower of Chaos behave in such a way?’

‘No, no I haven’t,’ Torben admitted as he considered his older companion’s question.

‘Well I was fighting in the armies of the Empire, keeping humanity safe from the servants of the Dark before you were out of swaddling clothes and in all that time, in all the campaigns I fought in, I never saw a Chaos-worshipper behave like that lunatic did today.’

In the gloom of evening Torben could see that Alexi was uneasy; it was in the way he carried himself as much as his half-shadowed expression. ‘What are you trying to say?’

‘I… I don’t know,’ Alexi gave up, his shoulders slumping. ‘It’s just that there’s something not right about this place.’

As the survivor of a hundred campaigns, the veteran soldier couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but there was definitely something not right about Honigheim. Slowly but surely, since the day of the black riders’ attack, he had become more and more troubled by the village and its oh-so-friendly folk. Something at the back of his mind was screaming a warning to him but he didn’t know why. What was wrong with the village? There was nothing that he could think of, nothing at all. It was one of the most beautiful, idyllic places he had ever seen, it seemed to enjoy the most fabulous weather, its populace were friendly and welcoming, and they were healthy too – even the oldest among them. The place was perfect.

Almost too perfect, if such a thing were possible: unnaturally so. Every village had its problems, its secrets: the sickly child; a failed crop; an intolerant scold; suspicious neighbours. But Honigheim, like its name, was sweet as honey in its every aspect. And just like honey, you could have too much of a good thing. Everyone was always so cheerful. No one ever seemed to be having a bad day. In fact the only bad thing that had happened to the village was the black riders’ attack. They troubled Alexi too.

The mercenaries had inspected the dead prisoner’s body but had found nothing on him beyond his clothes and weapons: no cult markings burnt into his flesh; no votive talismans of the powers he followed; no hidden blemishes that spoke of bodily corruption and mutation.

The others didn’t seem to share Alexi’s concerns. During their evenings drinking outside the tavern Alexi had even heard them talking of settling down in Honigheim. Badenov’s band had never shown any signs of settling anywhere for long in all the years they had been together. That one fact troubled Alexi more than any other. It really was as if the rest of them had been spellbound: all except the troubled youth Pieter.

Maybe there was nothing wrong with Honigheim. Maybe the problem was with him.

He had known true happiness, once, as loving husband to the fair Ingrid and doting father of Tomas and Leisel. But that happiness had been short-lived and he considered that it could never be recaptured.

Son of one of Nuln’s famous artillery school engineers, Alexi had joined the city-state’s standing army at sixteen. Eight years on he had fought in the Battle of Averhafen, defending the wool-town from a beastman horde. There it was that he first set eyes on Ingrid, a weaver’s daughter two years his junior. He fell in love and they were married. Alexi gave up the soldiering life to become a weaponsmith. He and Ingrid were blessed with children: a boy and girl. Life had been perfect.

Then, once Alexi had stopped seeking out the enemies of the Empire, it seemed those enemies came looking for him. Only four years had passed but Chaos once again threatened the town of Averhafen. Every man of fighting age was needed to defend the town from the ravening warband. Unknown to Alexi and the other men who broke the murderous rampage from the north, a second raiding force breached the town’s defences to the south. Eventually the Chaos followers were driven off but Alexi returned home to find a terrible discovery awaiting him there. Ingrid, Tomas and Leisel had all been slain by the raiders.

The peace and happiness he had once enjoyed had been lost to him for fifteen years now. And in Alexi’s estimation it could never be reclaimed, no matter how long he might live.

Alexi’s foot knocked against an apple lying on the ground. He was walking through an untamed orchard, where fruit trees had been left to grow freely. The words of his grandmother suddenly spoke to him from the mist-shrouded past: never eat a windfall apple.

His grandmother had been a great one for giving advice. He remembered being bounced on her knee as a child, usually after having been scolded for some misdemeanour by his haggard mother.

Ignoring the red-skinned apples lying in the grass, that were doubtless wasp-riddled, he reached up into the low branches around his head, selected a fine looking specimen and plucked it from the tree. Polishing its waxy surface against his jerkin, Alexi took a good bite of the apple, feeling its succulent juice dribble down his chin.

Almost immediately he spat it out again, grimacing. The apple was overripe. Its cloying sweetness filled his mouth and set his teeth on edge. He spat again in an attempt to rid himself of the taste.

Then he realised what it was that was troubling him about Honigheim. The whole atmosphere that pervaded the village was not just sweet, it was sickly sweet. Sweet like the overripe fruit. Sweet like an over-perfumed, over-the-hill harlot. Sweet like the flesh of a rotting corpse.

A cider-smell filled Alexi’s nostrils. The natural sugars inside the fallen apples had begun to ferment as the fruit rotted. Something small and white and glistening was squirming out of one of the windfalls. In a moment of anger and frustration Alexi crushed the apple and its maggot under the heel of his boot. Then a thought struck him.

Like the windfall apple, that looked so sweet and tempting from the outside, did Honigheim also have its worm?

The very next night Alexi was patrolling the outskirts of the village again, having volunteered himself and Pieter for the job. The two of them were strolling through the spur of woodland to the south of the village when Alexi suddenly stopped. The sounds of merry-making from the tavern at the centre of the village drifted to them on the breeze. They could hear men and women laughing and whooping as they danced to a tune conjured from pipes and tabor. The grizzled veteran turned to face his young companion, and for once was glad that Pieter was ready to believe the worst in everyone and every situation.

‘There’s only one night until the Blessing,’ Alexi reminded the young man, his voice barely more than a hushed whisper, ‘and I have a nasty feeling that something bad is going to happen.’

‘I thought there was something wrong with this place,’ Pieter said, his paranoid mind readily accepting the older soldier’s anxieties.

‘First it all just seemed a little too convenient, finding the village just when we needed help the most.’

‘I know,’ Pieter agreed, ‘it was like something even led us here.’

‘Then Torben and the others acting like lovesick teenagers,’ Alexi went on. ‘In all the years since we first left the employ of the old tzar to become mercenaries there’s never been any talk of settling down.’

‘It’s like a spell has been cast over them,’ Pieter mused.

‘Yes, it is.’

‘And why are there no children here? Like I said, something’s just not right with this place.’

‘But do you know what’s troubled me the most since the riders’ attack?’

Pieter fixed Alexi with a puzzled look. ‘No, what?’

‘That man: the prisoner. He was prepared to kill himself rather than tell us what he knew, and yet there was nothing on him, nothing at all, that spoke of his allegiance to a darker power. It’s like nothing I’ve ever known before.’ Alexi put a hand to his head and rubbed at his temple, as if that would clear his mind of the stress and confusion he was feeling. ‘You know, I think we made a terrible mistake. I think an innocent man died because of us – all of us – and our desire to protect this place.’

There was silence between them for a moment.

‘So what do you suggest we do?’ Pieter asked at last.

‘I’m going to get help,’ Alexi explained. ‘In the meantime I want you to look for anything unusual.’

The two men parted company, without another word, going their separate ways. While Pieter headed back into the village, Alexi made for the closest wicket in the stockade-fence. As he neared the opening a figure stepped out of the shadows in front of him.

‘Yuri? What are you doing here?’ the old soldier asked, feigning innocence.

‘I can’t let you leave,’ the youth stated plainly.

‘What’s the matter, my boy? This isn’t like you.’

‘Don’t call me that,’ Yuri hissed.

‘What’s come over you?’

‘It is almost time for the Blessing. We must all be there,’ his companion explained.

‘Very well,’ Alexi sighed and turned back towards the village. He heard Yuri drop into step behind him, sensed him nearing his side.

‘So what happens at this Blessing then, do you think?’ he asked.

Before Yuri could answer, in one fluid motion Alexi drew his sword and swung his arm backwards. The pommel smashed the younger man in the face. Yuri reeled, his hands going to his nose. Alexi grabbed him by his jerkin and heaved him over onto the ground. As Yuri struggled on his hands and knees, Alexi brought the pommel of his home-forged sword down again, this time on top of the young man’s skull.

‘I can’t let you stop me, my friend,’ Alexi said to the unconscious Yuri, and then he was gone into the night.

The twilight shadows of dusk darkened to the amorphous black contours of night, as Alexi tried to leave the unsettlingly perfect village. It shouldn’t have been hard. In helping to prepare the settlement’s defences Alexi had mapped out in his mind every way into and out of Honigheim and its environs of woodland, meadows and fields. He clearly remembered the path by which Badenov’s band had made their way into the secluded valley. But now that he tried to leave, to pass beyond the boundary created by the fields as they rose towards the hills, it was a different matter altogether. It wasn’t that the soldier couldn’t remember his way out of the village, it was just that none of the paths seemed to lead where they once did.

The full marble-white orb of Mannslieb cast its eerie light over the valley, transforming it into an unreal monochrome landscape. Trying to keep out of sight of any potential prying eyes Alexi turned back south until he reached the untamed expanse of woodland. Once under the additional cover of the trees he began to zigzag up the incline that would eventually lead him out of the valley. In the darkness he stumbled over roots where they broke through the loamy soil, his feet occasionally slipping in the leaf mould that covered the uneven ground.

Then he began to feel as if he were descending the hill again, and yet he was certain that, despite his zigzagging path he had always been heading in a southerly direction.

Perhaps it was just a dip between the contours of the hill. He kept going.

Pushing aside the ground-hugging branches of a yew Alexi stopped. Only a few yards away were the wicker panels of the fence surrounding the village. The joyful sounds of music and laughter reached him on a soft midsummer night breeze.

He did not hesitate for long and was soon scampering back up through the woods. This time it seemed to be only a matter of minutes before he broke through a thicket into the orchard where he had been that afternoon. Insects chirruped in the still of the night, an owl’s hooting echoed through the trees. But there was still no sign of another living soul.

Alexi decided he had to try another route. This time he scuttled over the bridge that forded the stream from the millpond and darted through a small wicker gate in the village fence.

Keeping low, he trotted between the harvested wheatfields. Looking up, through the night he could make out the track rising up towards the outskirts of the village. On the horizon, right around the rim of the valley, he could see a night-black covering of cloud, as if the thunderheads were jostling to break into the valley but were held at bay. Ducking behind a mass of bramble he rounded the bush cautiously and–

–found himself at the edge of the stream that flowed from the millpond. Alexi gasped involuntarily. If he had had any doubts about it before he was now certain that there was something wrong about the village. There was magic at work here, he was sure of it. Subtle and insidious, it was warping his perception of the world around him, always bringing him back.

But there had to be some way out. The riders had managed to get away. Who were they and what power did they possess? What trick did they know that allowed them to break free of Honigheim’s confines?

Then something else his grandmother had once told him sprung to mind: an illusion only works if you look straight at it. His grandmother had been a font of forbidden knowledge. So to fool an illusion – to break its power over you – you didn’t look at it.

Turning to face the village he cautiously began to walk backwards, feeling his way with his feet, arms outstretched on either side of him to warn him of potential obstacles. Alexi was suddenly aware of the fact that his heart was beating rapidly as the adrenalin coursed through his body. Some primal instinct was telling him to run but he was beginning to suspect that if he gave into the desire he might never get another chance to escape Honigheim and get help. It was a desperate enough strategy as it was, but if he didn’t at least try then there would be no hope for him or his friends.

As Alexi walked a curious prickling sensation came over him, the hairs on the back of his neck were standing on end. He thought he could hear a crackling in the air around him too. Then he blinked suddenly. Something was also affecting his vision. He could see the world rippling around him, as if he were viewing it through a heat-haze. He glanced up at the sky – still walking backwards, never looking round – and saw the stars shift slightly. For a moment it seemed that there were two images of the diamond-sparkling constellations against the dark blue canvas of night. The sky was also beginning to darken above him, the broad anvil-shapes of rain-heavy clouds blacking out the starscape. He was practically at the boundary of the village and its lands.

‘Hello, Alexi.’

The old soldier spun round, his heart in his mouth, ice water in his veins. Standing demurely on the track only a matter of yards from him was someone he had never thought or even hoped to ever see again. His wife, Ingrid: his dead wife.

‘Well, aren’t you pleased to see me?’

She looked just as she had the last time he had seen her alive, standing on the doorstep of their home in Averhafen, watching Alexi and the other men set off to defend the town from the predations of a ravening Chaos warband. She hadn’t aged either: still twenty-six whereas he was now in his early forties. She was achingly beautiful, her shoulder-length dark blonde hair framing the sculptural features of her face. Her skin glowed luminescently in the moonlight.

‘I’ve missed you, my darling,’ Ingrid said, taking a step towards him.

‘I’ve missed you too, so much, and Tomas and Leisel,’ the old soldier suddenly blurted out, ‘every day!’

‘We need never be apart again, my fine soldier.’

He wanted it to be true, with all his heart, but the feeling that had absorbed him whilst he was trapped in Honigheim had not entirely left him. Deep down, at his core, he knew that those days were past.

Returning to the razed ruin of their home after the rout of the warband, Alexi had seen her butchered carcass with his own eyes, and those of their infant children alongside. It was an image that he could never forget and one which sometimes woke him, in the middle of the night, in a cold sweat. Alexi knew he could never recreate the perfect life he had briefly enjoyed, all those years ago.

‘How can we be together?’ he asked his wife.

Ingrid took another step forward and slipped her ice-cold hands into his. Alexi flinched but did not break contact.

‘Anything can be possible here,’ she said, and he fancied he could feel her chill breath on his cheek.

‘Stay with me, Alexi,’ she pleaded. ‘Stay with me here, please?’

Alexi’s eyes stung, hot tears welling within them.

‘Y–you’re dead, my darling,’ he told her as the tears began to flow, coursing down his cheeks.

‘No, Alexi, it isn’t true!’

‘It is, my dove, I found you. I saw your gutted corpse. I dug your grave with my own hands. I laid you and our babies in the ground myself.’

‘Alexi!’ It was an agonised cry, as if he were tearing her heart, killing her again.

And as he watched he saw how the truth of his words, which it had taken all his strength to confess, was affecting the illusion of his wife. Her hair now appeared lank, her face smeared with dirt.

‘You died at the hands of the Chaos raiders. I wasn’t there! I was too late to save you!’

‘No, Alexi! What are you saying?’ Ingrid protested, the skin sloughing from her face like dry parchment, exposing the bone beneath.

‘Y–you’re dead,’ Alexi repeated, feeling his wife’s hands wither to bony talons. ‘You’re dead, my beloved. And I wish it were not true, with every fibre of my being. But it is.’

Through distorting tears Alexi watched his wife die again as she was transformed by his words into a ruined corpse before him. Then even the fleshless bones of her body began to unravel, becoming mist that spiralled away, dissolving on the gentle night breeze, her hands turning to vapour as they slipped from his. The weeping Alexi fancied he heard his wife’s voice once more, before it too was blown away on the night time air.

‘Farewell, my darling, my fine soldier. I will always love you. Always.’

Keeping clear of the centre of the village and the people gathered there, Pieter skirted the wicker fence that described its circumference until he came to Meinrad Schmied’s cooling forge. The wise Alexi, who had seen a lifetime of battle and who was one of the most pragmatic of Badenov’s band, had told him to look for anything unusual. He didn’t know what that might be, but it wasn’t going to stop him looking.

If there was something strange about this place then either everyone was involved or almost no one knew about it. To begin searching individual homes and buildings to either prove or disprove this theory could take hours and, without the support of the others, it was a sure-fire way of getting himself caught before he could find anything.

Alexi had also mentioned the Blessing, which seemed to have been the only thing on the villagers’ lips for the past week. And yet, in all his time in Honigheim he had not once seen any sign of a shrine to either Sigmar the patron deity of the Empire or even to one of the half-forgotten nature gods of the old faith. So which divine being was it that would grant Honigheim its blessing and what tribute was required to seal the pact?

It was an important part of a young nobleman’s education to understand the practices of those people over who might one day be his loyal subjects. He knew that it was a common practice for simple peasant folk to make an offering of a portion of their harvest to their gods, after the crops had been safely gathered in. He understood it was a way of thanking them for the good food they had provided and securing a plentiful crop the following year. So at the end of the harvest in some areas a procession of farmers would bring a tenth of their portion to the tithe barns of the local Sigmarite temple. In more out-of-the-way places like Honigheim, the people made their own lowly offering at the village meeting hall.

Pieter could see its pitch-roofed silhouette between the cottage-hovels, stark against the untroubled velvet blue dome of the sky. There was no one else around. All of Honigheim’s inhabitants must be with his companions, enjoying the warm summer’s evening with a flagon of mead outside the village tavern. The music still drifted to him between the deserted buildings.

The stars twinkled in the cloudless night sky like a million eyes watching his every move as, dashing from one moon-cast shadow to the next, Pieter made his way swiftly to the hall. Pressing his back against the dry-stone wall he edged his way around it to the unguarded double doors on its northern side.

Inside the building he could see only what the moonlight, shafting through the doors and holes in the roof, showed him. He crept forward, his boots scuffing dust from the dry, packed earth floor. He almost yelped in surprise and pain as his foot stubbed against something under the loosely scattered straw on the floor. Crouching down, he cleared away the straw to uncover a trapdoor with an iron ring set in the centre of it. A bolt was also attached to the wooden trap, holding it securely shut from the outside.

Pieter carefully drew back the bolt, the scraping of metal-on-metal heightening the tension he was already feeling. Taking a firm grip on the ring with both hands, he cautiously tested the weight of the trapdoor and then heaved it open an inch.

A sound, like oiled leather slipping over rough bark, rose from the hidden chamber beneath. He heard the unmistakeable sound of something large slithering around inside a pit below the meeting hall. Pieter almost dropped the heavy trapdoor in surprise. But when he caught sight of the slitted yellow eye through the crack, illuminated by moonbeams, and heard a sharp hissing directly beneath him, he did. The trapdoor thumped down into its jamb and, no longer concerned about how much noise he might be making, Pieter slammed the bolt home again, locking it shut.

For a split second he was also aware that the music had stopped. There was the sound of booted footsteps behind him and then Pieter felt a strong hand clamp down on his shoulder. Slowly he twisted his head and looked up into the darkly smiling face of Torben Badenov. Preoccupied as he had been by whatever was lurking in the pit, Pieter hadn’t heard his companions enter the hall.

He said nothing as Oran and Stanislav seized him, the same slack smiles on their faces, and pinned his arms behind his back. What could he say, when, as he already suspected, their wills were no longer theirs to command? But Torben spoke first.

‘All in good time,’ he said, ominously. ‘All in good time.’

It was almost dawn when the witch hunters found the man, a sobbing ball huddled on the ground outside their camp. At their approach, he looked up at the black-cloaked figures with a mixture of relief and fear, before bursting into tears again. Two of them seized him and led him into the tent of their captain.

Luther Harlock looked down imperiously at the figure now seated on a stool in front of him. Brothers Brant and Wolfram stood either side of the prisoner but it didn’t look like he’d be making a break for it. The man was sturdily built and of average height. He had greying hair and the lines on his face told the tale of a thousand battles. He was wearing studded leather armour and sheathed at his belt was a finely wrought sword.

The witch hunter marshal put his black-gloved hands firmly on his hips and fixed the prisoner with one steely grey eye and one sightless milky orb.

‘So,’ he said, sternly, ‘who do we have here?’

The man mumbled something between sobs.

‘Speak up! What’s your name?’

‘A–Alexi,’ was all the prisoner could manage before his body was wracked again by convulsing sobs.

Alexi looked up at the figure standing over him through puffy, red eyes. He hadn’t cried like this since the day he laid his wife and children in the cold earth.

When Alexi had calmed down and once the witch hunter was satisfied with his explanation of who he was, how he came to be in the riders’ camp, and what had happened to the rider they had captured, one Brother Rurik, Luther Harlock – as the older man had called himself – had told Alexi the truth about Honigheim and all their parts in it.

Alexi guessed the man to be well into his fifties but his work as a witch hunter had kept him lean and fit where age would have fattened him. Something about this Harlock reminded Alexi of Old Man Mountain, the sorcerer the mercenaries had encountered at the turning of the year in the snow-smothered foothills of the World’s Edge Mountains. However, the witch hunter was better dressed, less hefty of frame and his white beard, streaked with grey, was neatly trimmed, rather than wild and unkempt. Alexi could also see the chains of various charms and amulets, just visible, around his neck. Were they there for protection or as a result of a superstitious nature, or both?

‘Sick Chaos magic protects the village and prevents us from attacking. The populace are all devotees of the Lord of Pleasure,’ Luther Harlock was saying without emotion.

Slaanesh! Alexi thought and felt his stomach turn over in horror and fear. The witch hunter must be especially strong-willed or even perhaps protected by holy wards to be able to talk of the ruinous powers without even flinching – unless his companions had been right all along about the nature of the black riders. Alexi quickly put that thought from his mind. This Luther Harlock comfortably wore a golden hammer pendant about his neck and a signet ring marked with the seal of the Church of Sigmar as well.

‘Did you notice anything strange about the village, while you were trapped in it?’ Harlock asked.

‘Yes, plenty,’ the stupefied soldier said bluntly. ‘Where do you want me to start?’

‘I mean about the children.’

‘There aren’t any, at least no one under the age of eighteen.’

‘Precisely.’ The witch hunter had resumed his pacing of the tent. ‘Because the people of Honigheim sacrificed their own innocent children to the Prince of Chaos years ago, in return for eternal youth and plentiful harvests.’

‘They killed their own children?’ In his mind’s eye Alexi saw the faces of his own dear children again. The thought that anyone could intentionally cause their own offspring harm was repugnant to him.

‘Oh yes. We found a mass grave at the edge of the valley. We can show you if it would help to convince you. They do say “seeing is believing”.’

‘Not where I’ve just been,’ Alexi pointed out.

‘And as a result of the vile murders the people of Honigheim committed, their world is one of milk and honey. But it is also one sick with the corruption of Chaos and it must be purged.’

‘Wait a minute,’ Alexi spoke up, his mind beginning to process this newly revealed information. ‘If Honigheim’s magic stops you attacking, how do explain what happened last time we met you all in battle?’

‘The power of the evil controlling Honigheim waxes and wanes,’ Harlock explained, ‘especially this close to the Blessing. When the weather breaks, and their perfect summer falters, it is a sign that the evil is at its most vulnerable and needs to feed again to regain its strength.’

‘The Blessing. Yes, I kept hearing about that.’

‘It’s the time when the people rededicate themselves to their dark master by sacrificing another innocent soul to the evil at the heart of the village.’

The worm in the apple, Alexi considered.

‘Tomorrow the harvest will have all been collected and the villagers will make their offering to their unholy patron.’

Alexi’s stomach turned over again, even at the thought of the Prince of Chaos, and he felt his gorge rise.

‘By then it will be too late to help your friends or break the power of the beguiler in this place until another year is passed. We must strike now.’

A horrid thought was forming in Alexi’s mind as he considered who the innocent sacrifice could be.

The moment of eerie silence was eventually broken by a rumble of distant thunder. The portents were all there. It was now or never.

Alexi looked up at the grim-faced witch hunter. ‘I can get you in,’ he said, ‘without giving them any warning. I can get you in through the woods, past our defences, right into the heart of Honigheim. They won’t be expecting anyone to attempt to infiltrate the village from there. You can lead your horses by the reins under the trees. Besides, something tells me that they’re all going to be too busy with the Blessing to worry about attackers that they’ve already repelled once.’

Thunder rumbled again over the valley, like a drum-roll played on the skulls of giants.

‘Very well then, mercenary,’ Harlock said bleakly. ‘Lead the way.’

Pieter was shoved forward onto his knees. He tensed his body to keep himself from falling face-first onto the packed earth floor. His moved his arms reflexively to help keep his balance but they were useless, shackled behind his back and connected to shackles around his ankles by another chain.

Pieter took in his surroundings, now that they were illuminated by the early morning sun, pouring in through the window-slits and holes in the roof. Tiny motes of dust sparkled and danced in the golden beams. But there was a sickly sweet smell pervading the hall, a cloying odour like the aroma of rotting meat, mixed with a wheat-chaff mustiness.

At the end of the hall was a crude wooden altar. It was overflowing with sheaves of corn, a mound of turnips, fleshy green cabbages and a number of rosy red apples. Someone had even thought to decorate the display with stems of wild flowers. But still Pieter could see no religious symbol or other devotional object amidst the produce. Neither was there any priest that he could see among the throng. In front of him, however, was the trapdoor.

They were all there: the villagers, arrayed around the sides of the hall, their smiles sickly sweet; the mercenaries, standing guard behind him, their expressions vacant, like sleepwalkers. However, it appeared that Alexi had made his escape.

What had happened to the rest of Badenov’s band? What evil spell had Honigheim cast over them? And what was to be his fate?

Master Aldwin, the miller, stood before the altar. He faced the gathered congregation and opened his hands wide. ‘Our lord and protector,’ he intoned, ‘we bring you this offering in thanksgiving. Grant us the boon of your Blessing, that your people might thrive for another year.’

Thunder rumbled in the distance beyond the valley.

Two peasants stepped forward. One pulled back the bolt holding the trapdoor shut. Then both of them heaved on the solid iron ring and threw the trap back.

‘Accept this our offering we make, oh lord, fruit of the field, fruit of the soil, fruit of the tree,’ Aldwin went on, drawing everyone’s attention to the produce arrayed on the altar, ‘and fruit of the womb,’ he concluded, smiling at Pieter.

Pieter felt his blood run cold. He had known he had been in trouble but now his worst fears had been confirmed. The pleasant folk of Honigheim practised human sacrifice!

A slithering sound rose from the black hole in front of him. Then, in one fluid motion, fast as a striking snake, the evil at the heart of Honigheim revealed itself.

Gasps of awe and adulation rose from the assembled villagers but all Pieter wanted to do was scream. He swallowed hard to keep down his rising gorge, as much as to suppress any cry, for the monstrosity before him filled him with revulsion.

A thick, tubular body, something like a snake or a worm, only horribly surmounted by a hairless human head, swayed in front of his eyes. The movement was almost hypnotic in its rhythm. The albino white body was slick and smooth, like eel-skin: there wasn’t a scale on it. Under-body and back were of the same rippling, rubbery texture.

The thick worm-body arched over Pieter, and the incongruously, impossibly beautiful, androgynous human face stared at him, unblinkingly, its eyes yellow-orange reptilian slits.

Pieter opened his mouth in silent horror. The marble-skinned face tilted to one side, observing Pieter curiously. Then it smiled hungrily and Pieter knew he was going to die. The creature’s mouth opened, in a mirror image of his own expression, revealing large snake-like fangs, only it didn’t stop. With a wet click the monster’s jaw dislocated, its lips stretching as the cavernous mouth opened wide enough to swallow him whole.

With a crash Luther Harlock’s rearing steed kicked open the barn doors and burst into the meeting hall. The old warhorse didn’t falter as the witch hunter steered it towards the sinuous body of the monstrous serpent-worm that was emerging from the pit beneath the building. Reaching the edge of the pit the horse leapt. As it did so, Harlock swung his keen-edged blade. He felt it cut into the thick hide of the abomination, heard the slick of the sword-blow, before the iron-shod hooves of his steed thumped down on the floor of the hall. The serpent-worm shrieked, a horribly distorted, womanly sound and from nowhere, a heavy lashing tail whipped into the old man’s upper body, sending him flying.

The old man hit the ground, winded. Splinters of pain in his chest told him that several ribs had been broken. Nevertheless the wound the witch hunter had dealt the monster had been enough to break the spell that Honigheim had over the mercenaries who were shaking their heads, as if they were coming out of a trance. Through wincing eyes Harlock could see that his Sigmarite warband now had some new allies.

Torben Badenov put a hand to his head as he swayed, trying to keep his balance. He felt sick and dizzy. Stanislav, Oran and Yuri were also shaking their heads, in an attempt to clear their befuddled minds. Then he caught sight of the haggard, old soldier entering the hall behind the mounted, black-cloaked strangers. ‘A–Alexi?’ he stammered through a fugue of bewilderment.

Alexi of Nuln gave the dazed mercenary captain a brief, grim smile and advanced into the hall, joining the riders in taking on the maddened villagers.

It seemed to Torben that he had awoken from a cosy dream into a nightmare reality. The black riders were in the hall, the gaggle of villagers screaming and wailing as the warhorses jostled round them. Then, through the press of panicking peasants, he saw Pieter, manacled hand and foot, struggling to get to his feet. Looming over him, fangs dripping, was a writhing, milky-fleshed, human-faced, serpent-bodied abomination. Torben couldn’t be certain, but there appeared to be teat-like protrusions along the length of the daemon-worm’s body.

‘Sigmar’s teeth!’ he swore under his breath.

And then, despite the confusion, or perhaps because of it, there was suddenly only one path clear to Torben and his bewildered fellows. The sensually writhing abomination was an unnatural thing, the spawn of tainted evil, a perversion against nature. It had to be destroyed.

‘Badenov’s band!’ he shouted over the clamour filling the hall, drawing his sabre form its scabbard and pointing its tip at the squirming monstrosity. ‘Kill the serpent!’

The serpent-worm darted towards Torben and then recoiled as Stanislav’s battleaxe opened another gaping red wound in its side. The abomination hissed loudly, anger contorting its human visage. The thing was huge – Torben guessed it was at least as long as the meeting hall was wide, if not longer. If it hadn’t been so large it would have already died from the injuries the mercenaries had dealt it.

Torben suddenly felt claws rake his back. He turned, and looked into the wild, burning eyes of his own beloved Jeanette! But this was not the beautiful, gentle girl who had lured him into siding with the Chaos-worshipping villagers. She had become a savage, clawing harridan, still intent on stealing his heart, only now she intended to tear the pumping organ from his living body.

Where scant seconds before Alexi had been struggling against the pack of howling village-folk, he suddenly found himself in a clear space in the midst of the battle. Some of the villagers had armed themselves with farm implements that had been left in the hall, but against the mercenaries and their unexpected allies their attempts to defend themselves were futile.

Opposite him, his restored fellows were paying the penance for their unwariness as they fought the evil of Honigheim, manifest in the form of a giant worm. The creature writhed and thrashed, its coils winding and unwinding in an almost hypnotic dance. Alexi ran forward as Yuri fended off the serpent’s lashing tail and Stanislav ducked to avoid its snapping jaws. Distracted, the daemon didn’t sense him until his sword sank into its monstrous body. Alexi stood his ground, forcing his blade deeper into the rubbery flesh, fully to the hilt. The monster twisted round, screaming its pitiful cry, its own movement helping to gut open its underbelly.

The serpent-worm’s tail thrashed as its body was almost completely bisected. But it didn’t stop screaming like a slaughtered pig. Purple ichor pumped from the convulsing body, covering the floor of the hall in a spreading slick that soaked into the packed earth.

Alexi lunged forward once more, severing the daemon-worm’s throat and silencing its death-screams.

Even in its death-throes the abomination’s writhing was almost perversely sensual. But the mercenaries were no longer interested in the daemon-worm, for at Alexi’s killing blow another spell had been broken. A terrible transformation had overcome the murderous folk of Honigheim. The blood-soaked pact they had made with Slaanesh had kept the villagers alive and youthful beyond their years. With the death of the daemon, time caught up with them at last.

The villagers aged ten years, twenty, thirty… a century, in seconds. Skin shrivelled, flesh withered, teeth fell from gumless jaws, hair fell out in handfuls from liver-spotted pates, eyes sank into their sockets and filmed over with cataracts. But the transformation didn’t stop there. Eventually the people were no more than lifeless husks, their bones crumbling to dust, like wheat-chaff. Those who hadn’t died by the blades of Luther Harlock’s witch hunters or Badenov’s band simply died of old age.

Alexi could also see the effects of time taking their toll on the fabric of the hall. Stone cracked and crumbled, wood became rotten, flaking splinters, weeds sprouted from the packed earth floor and lichen blossomed across the walls and roof of the building.

‘It’s time we got out of here,’ Alexi declared, grabbing Torben’s arm.

As Badenov’s band and the remnants of Luther Harlock’s warriors fled Honigheim in numb silence, the decay continued, infecting every part of the village and its surrounding lands. Thatched roofs sagged, turning black. The millwheel clanked and ground to a halt as its workings rusted in seconds and then seized. The water of the millpond bloomed with algae, stinking of rancid stagnation. As the men passed between the fields, once abundant with golden wheat, plants withered and died, turning to grey mulch amidst the tilled furrows.

And all the while the sky darkened with the summer storm that would wash the valley clean of the stain of evil.

There were no barriers to escape this time, Alexi noticed, now that the power of the Prince of Chaos had been broken in this place. The cloud-shadowed valley rim rising up to meet them, Alexi considered what had almost befallen Badenov’s band in Honigheim. Despite how it had appeared to them, all those weeks before, when they had first arrived in the valley, the village had been like the windfall apple, rotten to the core. His companions had almost succumbed to the Chaos power lurking there, Pieter had almost been sacrificed to it, and Alexi himself had been forced to face the trauma of his wife’s death over again.

But he had survived the experience. He had been able to say goodbye properly: an opportunity that he had not had all those years before. And as a result something had returned to his soul where, for longer than he cared to remember, there had been a longing.

Alexi now knew peace again.

‘Goodbye, my dove, my beloved,’ he whispered as he passed beyond the boundary of the village of the damned. ‘I will always love you, my darling Ingrid. Always.’

AUTUMN

Weeping sores, suppurating ulcers, rotting offal, cancerous tumours, stinking pus, buboes, boils and the foetid reek of decay: all these things are pleasing to our Lord of the Flies.

– from the Liber Pestilentia

THE PLAGUE PIT

A chill gust of wind whipped across the autumnal twilight landscape. It tore over the desolate moorland and rode the contours of two long-overgrown burial mounds, full of the promise of a harsh winter to come. It swirled around the age-weathered standing stone and buffeted the huddle of men crouched around the dancing flames of a small campfire. Leaving the mercenary band pulling their thick, Kislev cloaks tighter about them, it continued up the slow-rising slope until, at last, it reached the dilapidated windmill standing at the summit, tugging at the sails that groaned in protest at its attentions.

Torben Badenov looked up at the building’s black silhouette half a mile to the south on the crest of the hill. The windmill stood out stark against the darkening sky. To Torben it looked like some mysterious sentinel watching over the scholar’s work at the monolith with dark interest.

The builders of the windmill had chosen the spot well. The wind scoured these desolate moors relentlessly. And yet despite the ideal location, the wild unforgiving land had proved almost impossible to tame. Man and nature lived with an uneasy truce that could be overturned at any moment. Time and the weather had taken their toll on the mill too. Here and there a sail baton was splintered or missing, the brickwork was crumbling and there were holes in the roof.

Here as much as anywhere, Torben was reminded of the fact that civilisation was only to be found in small pockets across the Old World. Karl Franz might claim this wild country as his Empire, but in reality it belonged to indomitable nature and the rough elements. It was in places such as this that it became apparent that the greatest battle the peoples of the Empire fought was with their environment. The early winter chill cut him to the marrow, even through his bearskin cloak, and with the rising wind the air pressure was rising also.

A lean figure, crouching close to the fire, his cloak clenched tightly about him, broke the silence with a bitter request: ‘Just remind me why we’re here again.’

Torben straightened, rubbing the small of his back with one hand and running the other through his black hair. He swallowed hard, trying to relieve the pressure in his ears that was making them ache. ‘The same as always,’ he said bluntly, ‘because of the money.’

‘You really think he’s going to pay up?’ a slim, mop-haired young man asked, looking towards the rough-hewn monolith, fifty yards or so from the campfire. Hunched at the foot of the granite obelisk was Johannes Verfallen, scholar of Ostermark and currently the employer of Badenov’s band.

‘I do, Yuri,’ Torben replied. ‘He came up with the first half of our fee, didn’t he?’

‘That he did,’ said Stanislav.

‘But only half,’ Oran Scarfen pointed out. ‘Half on hiring, the rest on finding the mound, just to ensure our loyalty. I mean, how desperate for money do we look?’

‘Pretty desperate, by the looks of you,’ Alexi said with a grin, adjusting the jerkin of his leather armour.

Rubbing his beard characteristically Torben cast his mind back to the smoke-filled bar of the Slaughtered Troll in Ostermark and remembered with a shiver the warmth of the alehouse compared to the bitter cold of the moorlands. Krakov, the last member of his band, had failed to show up after driving the Lady Isolde of Ostenwald to petition the Lord Gunther, commander of the city’s militia, for his aid in ridding her demesne of a deathless threat. No doubt Krakov, the debonair Kislevite, had found the attentions of one of Gunther’s chambermaids more appealing than the prospect of meeting up with his companions. Either that or he was still too embarrassed at having lost the party’s horses to show his face again for a while. He would be propping up the bar again by the time Torben and the others returned, with drink-fuelled tales of the escapades he had been involved in during their absence, the hearts he’d broken and the money he’d lost at the gaming-house. He wouldn’t see any of the gold from this latest venture, however; if he couldn’t be bothered to turn up for a job he certainly wasn’t going to get paid for it!

But it was while waiting for the errant Krakov that Torben had been approached by the gaunt Verfallen. In Torben’s considered opinion, Johannes Verfallen was a typical man of learning: nervous, pale-skinned, and with a sparrow’s physique hidden under an oversized black cowled robe. Before explaining the reasons he had for wanting to hire Badenov’s band, the young scholar went to great pains to expound his credentials to Torben. The mercenary had to hear every last detail of how Verfallen had studied first at the University of Altdorf. How he had gained a degree in ancient history with particular focus on the beliefs and practices of the tribes of the Old World, before making the move to Ostermark. There he continued his research under the supposedly renowned sage Heinrich the Grey. But then you’d want to mention every last qualification you had earned, Torben thought, if you had no scars or battle stories to testify to the achievements of your life.

And yet despite Verfallen’s apparent youth there was something prematurely old about him. His face was gaunt. Fleshless skin stretched taught over the sharp contours of his skull, and a sharply receding hairline revealed blemishes not unlike liver spots on his balding pate. Beady eyes, sunken into shadow-ringed sockets, twinkled from behind severe pince-nez glasses and Torben noticed that when he lifted his cup of watered-down wine to his thin, colourless lips, Verfallen’s hand shook tremulously – and his breath stank.

Torben would be the first to admit that at times, particularly the morning after a heavy drinking session, his mouth smelt like something akin to a latrine, but Verfallen was something else. His breath reeked of dental decay, gum disease and the promise of an agonising visit to the nearest barber-surgeon for some serious tooth pulling. In fact, extreme as it might sound, Torben could only liken it to an odour he had smelt when his career had demanded that he break into charnel houses or exhume corpses from their graves – the stench of death.

Torben wasn’t surprised that the scholar came to him with his somewhat peculiar request. He wanted his band of mercenaries to accompany Verfallen as bodyguards into the moors east of Ostermark, while he searched for the burial mound of some ancient king. He wasn’t ashamed of what he did and saw no point in keeping it a secret. Badenov was proud of his career as a mercenary. Like so many others who sold their sword-arms to others for a living, he had cut his teeth in the art of killing as a soldier. In Torben’s case, it had been in the army of old tzar Bokha himself. That was where he had met Alexi and Yuri, having joined up with the weaselly Oran Scarfen as the result of a foolish, beer-fuelled bet. Then circumstances had changed and they had decided to try their hand as mercenaries and the risk had been worth it.

In those days – how many years past was it: seven, eight? – Arnwolf, Lars, Manfred and Berrin the dwarf had been part of the company. But they were gone now; the life of a sell-sword was not without its pitfalls. Manfred had been the first to leave the band, an orc’s arrow protruding from his stomach as he fell from the battlements at the Siege of Galein’s Gate. Arnwolf had fallen victim to a troll’s vile appetite – if only he hadn’t gone to answer the call of nature alone! A skaven assassin’s weeping blade had done for Lars the Norseman. Berrin left the band alive, of his own choice, muttering something about being the last of his line and the ancestral hall calling him home. Stanislav and Krakov had joined them later – Alexi still felt a twinge on cold nights as a result of wrestling the gentle giant Stanislav on their first meeting.

Then there was Pieter Valburg. Torben looked at the well-dressed nobleman’s son sitting with his back turned to the fire, staring out into the encroaching night. ‘Everything all right with you, Pieter?’ he asked.

‘The wind’s picking up. There’s a storm brewing,’ the glum young man replied, directing Torben’s gaze towards the massing black billows to the south.

He could be right, Torben thought. Autumn was the season for storms, after all, and since dusk had fallen there had been a distinct rise in pressure. It could be the reason for Torben’s earache. Slightly unnerved by Pieter’s manner, Torben felt some sort of reply was needed to break the tension in the atmosphere. ‘Hmm… looks like rain.’

Torben still hadn’t worked Pieter out. The only son of the mayor of Schwertdorf, he had given up his former life to pursue a personal vendetta against the creature responsible for the death of his childhood sweetheart. But once vengeance had been claimed, his morbid air had remained. He was almost permanently quiet and sombre. At times his dark, sullen moods worried the others; that one man could carry such a sense of doom about him! It made their lives, and all the lives they had taken, seem so insignificant and futile in the scheme of things. In Torben’s often-voiced opinion, the nobleman’s son thought about things too much.

Yet Torben couldn’t fault Pieter’s courage, loyalty, ardour and skill as a swordsman. Pieter Valburg had a purpose to his actions like none of the rest of them. He wasn’t in this business for the money. He was a man with a mission and at times, it seemed that his mission was to wipe out every evil thing and servant of the dark powers in the Empire and beyond.

A low chanting drew Torben’s attention back to their client. Verfallen was muttering continually under his breath in a monotonous drone. Torben would never understand scholars and sages. They were weak specimens, more like women than men, and that was demeaning to a good number of the fairer sex he had encountered in his life. So what if Badenov’s band were effectively no more than playing nursemaids to a scholar at present? They had seen the colour of Verfallen’s money and he paid very well for simple work. It was worth putting up with the cold, the wind and the rain for a night or two in return for another five hundred crowns. That would see them clear to replacing the steeds that preening fool Krakov had managed to lose for them.

Verfallen was hunched in front of the dark monolith, as he had been long before dusk fell. The stone itself was ancient. The scholar had said it had been set in its place on the hillside by a tribe of primitives in times long past before the founding of the Empire. The carvings that covered the surface of the ancient stone were weatherworn and pitted with age. It was almost impossible to make out the strange runic script that wound over the granite in a serpent-like trail. Torben should know, he had tried for a full two minutes before giving up. Verfallen had been at it for hours. Rather than stop as the light began to fade, he insisted on continuing with his transcription. A lantern provided flickering illumination, while he peered through his spectacles at the impressions left by the chiselling tool of some prehistoric hand, the tip of his nose almost touching the lichen-covered stone.

Learned men! Torben had to admit that at times, knowledge could prove a valuable weapon against the dark but when it came to the crunch, it was the sword, the axe, the dagger and the bow that won the day. He would trust his survival to strength of muscle and cold steel.

‘What’s he doing again?’ Alexi enquired, pausing midway through sharpening his sword.

‘He said he’d got to translate the carvings on that old stone to find the site of some old burial mound,’ Torben explained once again. ‘Apparently, this whole area was once the territory of some ancient human tribe. The barrows around here are the resting-places of the tribe’s chieftains.’ Torben was quite getting into his role as historian and his opinion of scholars, for now, was forgotten. ‘As I’m sure you know already, it was the practice in those days to bury the chieftain with all his worldly possessions. Most were looted long ago but Verfallen reckons the barrow of one ancient king – Morroot, or something like that – is still intact and you know what that means?’

‘Ah, they’re all the same, these so-called learned men,’ Oran interrupted. ‘They make out they’re concerned with things on a higher plane, only interested in increasing the depth of their knowledge, but they’re just like the rest of us. They’re only in it for the money or the power! In this case, the money.’

Now it was Pieter’s turn to speak up: ‘You don’t know that he isn’t searching for forgotten wisdom!’ Of all of the mercenary band, it was Pieter who held the greatest sway by the research of academics.

‘Trust me,’ Oran spat, scowling at the young nobleman, looking even more like a rat than usual in the flickering light of the fire. ‘Money or power, simple as that! Bloody hypocrites!’

‘What was that?’ A hush fell over the party at Torben’s interjection. Then they all heard it: the sound of someone being violently sick.

‘Sounds like our scholar’s not feeling so well,’ Oran said with obvious delight.

The retching came again accompanied by the splatter of a half-digested meal regurgitated over the ancient monolith. It sounded as if Verfallen were throwing up his intestines.

‘That doesn’t sound good,’ Torben said, surprised at the concern apparent in his voice. ‘That doesn’t sound good at all!’

With one hand on the hilt of his sword, Torben moved at a jog towards the monolith and the hunched figure of Verfallen. As he neared the stone Torben could see the scholar picked out in the circle of light cast by the lantern. He was doubled up, leaning against the obelisk with one hand supporting his weight while his other hand clutched at his midriff. A convulsion passed through Verfallen’s body and he vomited again. By the lantern’s light, Torben could see that the scholar was throwing up great gouts of blood and black bile.

The mercenary was joined by the rest of the party, they were muttering and troubled. But Torben had noticed that something else had started to happen. At first he thought it was merely an effect caused by the bunched folds of the scholar’s robe but now it was unmistakable – Verfallen’s stomach was starting to swell. As the retching man struggled to stay on his feet, convulsions wracking his body, his belly was rapidly blowing up like an inflated pig’s bladder.

‘Shouldn’t someone help him?’ Yuri suggested feebly.

‘What? Are you offering?’ Oran threw back as a retort.

The scholar’s stomach continued its seemingly inexorable swelling.

‘I’m not touching him,’ Alexi said.

There was a ripping sound as the strained fibres of cloth covering Verfallen’s expanding gut began to tear apart.

‘Nor me,’ Stanislav added. ‘I’m not going anywhere near him.’

As one, the party turned their eyes away from the vomiting scholar and onto their raven-haired leader.

‘Well don’t look at me!’ Torben exclaimed.

There was a wet ripping sound. Turning back to the sickening scene before them Torben added in a horrified gasp, ‘By all the gods!’

The others were too shocked to comment.

Verfallen collapsed in front of the monolith, blood pooling beside him and mingling with the puddle of vomit. It was too revolting a sight to behold but Torben found himself unable to tear his eyes from it. The man’s distended stomach was split right across its middle. A mass of bloated, yellow maggots spilled from the rent and worms writhed in the great open wound. Torben found himself mentally comparing the injury to a twisted red smile.

‘Maybe it was something he ate,’ Oran said darkly.

Nobody laughed.

‘It’s like he was rotten to the core,’ a stunned Yuri managed to utter.

‘Is he dead?’ asked Stanislav.

As the mercenaries watched, the body spasmed again. Torben noticed that the fingertips of Verfallen’s hand were still just touching the snaking line of runes. A glittering shimmer passed through crystalline formations in the rock. It was as if they followed the line of runic script, culminating at the point where Verfallen’s hand made contact with the granite obelisk. The impression only lasted for a second. Then, as they watched, the fingers twitched.

‘What’s going on?’ Yuri asked, trying to suppress the quiver in his voice.

‘I don’t like this at all,’ Stanislav stated firmly.

‘We must destroy the body.’ It was the first thing Pieter had said since leaving his place at the fire.

The party turned to look at the serious young man who had given them the order. He stared back at them from darkly hooded eyes.

‘Why do you say that?’ Alexi asked, disconcerted.

There was a terrible sucking, stretching sound as skin tore, muscles elongated and bones twisted themselves into new, unfamiliar shapes. Verfallen was transforming before their very eyes, its body growing and reforming itself at a grossly accelerated rate.

Impossibly rising from the hips, the thing that had been Verfallen rose to its hoofed feet, adjusting the stance of its triple-jointed legs to get its balance. The scholar’s distorted body was now over nine feet tall. Verfallen’s face was unrecognisable, the pallid skin and flesh having split and stretched to accommodate the equine qualities the skull had taken on. The thing looked down at them from black-pitted eyes.

‘That’s why!’ Torben declared, his sword already out of its scabbard.

Illuminated as it was by the tumbled lantern and distant campfire, Torben took in every detail of the foul creature’s physique. Its elongated skull; the extended arms ending in three-clawed talons, Verfallen’s finger bones having fused together; the beginnings of a bony tail; the multi-jointed hindquarters. The creature’s body was covered in the stretched skin of the scholar and where it had torn under the pressure of the mutating body knots of wet, red muscle had been exposed.

Torben suddenly realised that they had all unwittingly taken several steps back.

Opening its malformed mouth, blunt teeth splitting the gums, the creature that only moments before had been Johannes Verfallen let out a neighing cry like that of a horse being slaughtered. No human throat could have uttered such a noise. A guttural roar that issued from the creature’s stomach echoed the howl. Where Verfallen’s gut had torn open sharp teeth now lined the ragged, bleeding edges of a monstrous second mouth.

With a roar that was as much to boost his own resolve as to terrify the enemy, Torben charged at the aberrant beast. A great three-fingered talon lashed out, striking him across his chest and sending him flying. The mercenary captain had fallen into the trap of expecting the horror to move more slowly because of its increased size but it had struck like lightning, lashing out with the speed of a striking serpent.

Torben’s fellows helped him to his feet but they were in no rush to imitate their leader. He grunted, a look of angry disdain on his face.

‘Come on! Attack! What are you afraid of?’

‘What do you think?’ Oran yelled back.

‘What is it?’ Yuri demanded, holding back.

‘Chaos spawn,’ Pieter hissed, half to himself under his breath. ‘A creature formed from mortal flesh by the twisted powers of darkness and disorder that threaten to overwhelm us!’

Yuri hesitated as if Pieter’s explanation was almost more shocking than the gangling horror before them.

‘It doesn’t matter what it is!’ Torben shouted incredulously. ‘We’re going to kill it anyway! We’ve fought worse than this. What about that beastman horde outside Tierdorf? By Queen Katarin’s sword, we’ve even routed a whole nest of vampires! What are you waiting for? Are we dew-eyed milkmaids or Badenov’s band?’

Their leader’s rousing speech had the desired effect. ‘Badenov’s band!’ the mercenaries cried as one, apart from the reticent Pieter. As one they rushed the horror.

The foul monstrosity kicked and struck, jerking its disproportionately long neck forward in an attempt to bite the mercenaries. Sword, axe and dagger made contact with pliable, newly rendered flesh. The second terrible mouth snarled and hissed uselessly as the men did their best to give the monster a wide berth between lunges. And yet for every wound laid against it, the monstrosity still managed to advance on the mercenaries, driving them back towards the campfire, thanks to the incline of the hill.

As they fought the Chaos-spawned beast the wind whipped more fiercely about them. Howling in fury, the enraged fiend lurched forward. Stanislav’s double-headed battle-axe bit deep into a shinbone, splintering it and bringing the monster down on one knee with a baleful braying. As Alexi lunged at the beast, intending to plunge his sword deep into its chest where he supposed its dark heart to be, the mutant snaked its neck down sharply. Its hot, moist breath caught him full in the face, the noxious stench making him gag and lose the initiative. Only a swift up-thrust from Pieter’s sword into what had once been Verfallen’s sternum saved Alexi from losing his head to the champing jaws.

Pushing down on the ground with its great knuckled hands the spawn hefted itself back into an almost upright position. In its determination to stand, it seemed to shrug off the continued attacks of the mercenaries. It soon became apparent, however, that each well-placed hit had taken its toll. The monster hobbled forward, Oran sidestepped out of the way to avoid having his foot crushed by a large, bony hoof. As it tried to support itself on both legs again, its broken limb gave way and the horrific mutation crumpled into a heap on top of the campfire.

Not pausing for a second, Torben snatched up a burning brand and thrust it into a dark-pitted eye-socket. The creature screamed but this only made him push all the harder, driving the blazing branch into the monster’s skull. His work finished, Torben stepped back from the blaze as the corrupted form of Johannes Verfallen began to burn.

For a few, long, panting seconds the only sound they were aware of was the hissing and sizzling of the creature’s Chaos-mutated flesh cooking on the fire, orange-white coals melting its already warped bones. Then the roar of the gale broke into Torben’s consciousness.

Throughout the battle with the monstrosity, the wind had continued to rise. What had started as an evening breeze had become a howling gale that showed no sign of abating. Black clouds scudded across the midnight blue of the sky, drawn into the swirling turmoil centred over the hilltop. The roiling storm clouds had blotted out the moon long ago. Beneath the centre of the tempest stood the dilapidated windmill, its ragged sails spinning freely in the racing air currents.

Torben looked around at the circle of faces lit by the flickering flames of Verfallen’s funeral pyre. Beyond them the hillside was black, the stone was black, everything apart from the campfire, the deep blue of the distant horizon and their anxious faces was an amorphous mass of darkness. Over the keening of the wind around the monolith and the crackling of the fire there was a wet popping sound and the darkness moved.

Shadows, blacker even than the blasted, night landscape, stirred and scampered at the foot of the standing stone. Above the roar of the gale the popping sound continued and was joined by a high-pitched, unintelligible gibbering, which was getting louder. More shadows moved to either side of the mercenaries. Whatever was emerging from the night was increasing in number and very rapidly.

A distant rumble rolled across the moors towards the hill and then something came within range of the flickering firelight. Torben caught the gleam of a claw, the wicked grin of discoloured teeth and the glistening of mucus on green skin.

‘What was that?’ Yuri exclaimed, pushing the black tangle of his fringe from his eyes.

Then with one concerted movement the darkness advanced towards them. The forms at the vanguard of the scurrying mass broke from the shadows and Badenov’s band took another step back.

The creatures were the colour of bruises. Haemorrhage purples, greens and yellows, dribbling strings of silver spittle and oozing night-soil brown fluid from pores and unnatural orifices on their small swollen bodies. They were all studying the soldiers with darting yellow eyes.

‘Ugly little bastards, aren’t they?’ Alexi stated unnecessarily.

Pointed ears pricked up at the words and several of the creatures snarled through curling lips.

‘Oh, well done,’ Oran muttered, ‘now you’ve upset them.’

‘I don’t think they’re that bothered about making friends,’ Torben assured his companion as the mass of tiny green monsters waddled forward, clawed hands raised menacingly. There wasn’t a single one of the creatures that was more than two feet tall and yet each one looked as if it was quite capable of taking a man down, if it went for the throat.

‘So what do we do now?’

Torben hesitated, scouring the area around them. The discoloured, bloated bodies surged towards them like a rippling tide of corruption.

‘We run,’ Pieter stated simply. ‘We can’t fight them, there are too many of them. We would appear to be surrounded on every side but the south. The windmill will provide us with a better position. So we run.’

They didn’t need telling twice; Oran was already a good fifty yards ahead of the rest of them. Torben didn’t like it. He was a fighter but he knew when he was up against the odds and liked the idea of being eaten alive by these disgusting things even less. With a firm grip on his drawn sword, he sprinted after the fleeing mercenaries.

Torben was the first to burst through the unlocked door into the windmill. ‘Anybody here?’ he called out, half-expecting the startled face of the miller to greet him. There was no reply. There wasn’t a sound. The mill was dark and empty. It stank of mildew. ‘No? Good.’

Puffing and panting, the other mercenaries staggered into the mill. The run through the night, fuelled by fear and adrenalin, had taken its toll. A lantern was found, lit, and hung from a beam in the centre of the room.

Alexi sat down heavily on a bulging sack of corn. ‘I’m exhausted,’ he managed to say between gasps.

‘You can’t sit down yet,’ Torben said, closing the door and barring it. ‘Now that we’re here, we’ve got to make sure that nothing else can follow us in. Something tells me those things out there aren’t going to give up too easily.’

‘Did any of you see where they came from?’ Yuri asked, a shocked expression on his face after witnessing one horror after another that night.

‘It was dark,’ Oran pointed out, ‘and I was busy at the time, fighting a monster from children’s nightmares!’

‘It was like they came out of the night itself, I mean out of thin air, right in front of us,’ Yuri continued, as if he hadn’t heard a word Oran had uttered.

The chamber they were in was effectively one storey of the mill. A thick wooden shaft emerged from a hole in the floor above and was connected to large cogs and other pieces of mill machinery, culminating in the grindstone at the centre of the room. On the other side of the building, a heavy-looking trapdoor covered the entrance to a cellar. Various pieces of furniture stood around the chamber, including a rough wooden pallet draped with a blanket. More curiously, a great mass of books and scrolls was strewn about amongst the mill workings. Someone had been living here recently and it didn’t look like it had been the miller.

Torben grabbed the end of a table covered in books and papers. As he dragged it in front of the doorway, with Stanislav’s assistance, several scrolls and tomes fell open onto the floor. The rest of the party began making the windmill siege-proof, but Pieter was more interested in the clutter covering the table.

‘Look at all this,’ he said gesturing at the piles of papers.

‘What about it?’ Oran said, gruffly.

‘Well it’s hardly the sort of thing you’d expect to find in a mill is it?’ He picked up a slim black volume and studied the gilt-embossed words on the spine. ‘How many millers do you know who read Braustein’s Ancient Tribes of the Ostermark Region, or, Lempter’s Necrotic Diseases of the Body? Most of them can’t even write their own name, let alone read La Lune d’Enfer in the original Bretonnian.’

He exchanged the book in his hands for a battered bundle of pages held together with knotted string. The others listened to his almost unhealthily excited ranting, as they barricaded themselves into the tower.

‘The Albergoeren Almanac has been declared a heretical text. I remember old Walter telling me about it. It contains a list of all the feast days observed in the Empire, including those of the Fell Powers. He had a copy until the Edict of Verbrenner decreed that copies of the book should be destroyed, after the razing of Krachzen.’

As well as the books, rolls of parchment had been spread out on the table, the corners held down with anything that had come to hand: a curious looking device of brass and mahogany, a pestle, a stoppered flask. There were maps here, of the heavens as well as the lands of the Ostermark Marches, and charts for calculating the movements of the moons.

‘I shouldn’t read that, if I were you,’ Pieter said anxiously, eyeing Stanislav, who was holding a large grimoire that seemed to be bound in some kind of dark, scaly hide.

‘Why, what is it?’ the great bear asked suspiciously.

‘I believe it’s called the Liber Pestilentia. It’s said, if you’re not an acolyte of the dark gods and you’re not protected by various talismans and charms, that reading it will drive you insane and make you go blind.’

The heavy book fell with a thump onto the table.

‘Ah, now what’s this?’ Pieter said, the excitement in his voice unmistakable and unnerving.

Despite themselves the more poorly read members of the band gathered around the erudite youth.

‘Yes, I do believe it’s Johannes Verfallen’s journal!’ he exclaimed. Pieter began intently scouring the slanting spider scrawl that covered page after page of the book open in his hands with closely packed notes. Not a square inch of paper had been wasted. There were diagrams and lines of runes, as well as a thickly inked, unreadable script that Torben didn’t recognise and yet spoke to him of dark yearnings, bodily corruption and spiritual depravity. What was it about scholarly types that made them want to write down every little thing they did? Why couldn’t they just be satisfied with living their lives rather than writing about them?

Beyond the walls of the windmill the wind whistled and the sails creaked and groaned. Inside all was silence as Pieter scanned page after page of the insane scholar’s journal, gradually piecing together the parts of the puzzle. At last he looked up at the huddle of expectant faces around him.

‘So what’s it say?’ Torben voiced the question they were all thinking.

‘In a nutshell?’ Pieter looked grim. ‘If you thought things were bad so far, they’re about to get a whole lot worse. What happened at the standing stone was only the beginning. Apparently, from what I can make out from this,’ he said, tapping the journal with a finger, ‘the monolith was some sort of “keystone”. It was set up centuries, probably even thousands of years ago, by a primitive marauder tribe, like those who dwell beyond the known world at the edge of the Chaos Wastes.

‘This particular tribe worshipped the plague god in the aspect of a monstrous, skeletal carrion crow. Their greatest leader was a shaman who went by the name of Moruut. It was his desire to attain daemonhood and it seems he would have succeeded, had he not been traitorously murdered by his own son.’

‘What is this,’ an incredulous Oran challenged, ‘a bedtime story?’

Taking a deep breath, Pieter ignored the ignorant heckle and continued. ‘The monolith was erected to collect and store magical energy. The runes covering it were a spell to release Nurgle’s power in this area. Casting the spell would have given Moruut the power he needed to become a daemon prince!’

Gasps passed around the group.

‘Surely such things are just legends?’ Torben pointed out.

‘Well, let’s hope so,’ Pieter replied, ‘because Verfallen wasn’t translating those runes, he was casting the spell.’

‘And Grandfather Nurgle got a foothold in this world,’ an anxious Yuri added. ‘I didn’t think that storm was natural.’

‘Exactly, hence the appearance of the nurglings – those monsters outside. It seems Verfallen expected to be turned into some kind of Chaos champion himself but the dark gods are fickle, as we witnessed.’

Torben pushed a callused hand through his mane of hair. ‘So what’s next? Plagues of flies? Crops failing for miles around? The pox?’

‘Worse than that. As was the custom of the tribe, Moruut was buried in a barrow, like those we saw on our way to this forsaken place.’

‘Oh, let me guess. I think I know this one,’ Oran mocked. ‘The barrow’s under this hill.’

‘Yes,’ Pieter said coldly. ‘Right under this windmill, according to Verfallen’s notes.’

‘So if Nurgle’s power has been released in this area, could Moruut’s dream still be fulfilled?’ Yuri asked, desperately hoping to be wrong.

‘Verfallen thought so. But the effects of the spell would have only awakened the daemon from what’s left of Moruut’s physical remains. To restore it fully so it can exist beyond its tomb, the daemon needs potent human sacrifices.’

‘Don’t they always?’ Stanislav said uncomfortably.

‘By Sigmar, we’re exactly where that bastard wanted us!’ Torben suddenly exclaimed angrily. ‘He didn’t hire us for protection. He hired us to be the sacrifices!’ The mercenary captain slammed his fist down on the table. A stunned silence reigned inside the windmill.

With an ear-splitting crash and perfect dramatic timing, the storm broke directly overhead. The thunderclap resounded around the mill and shook the building to its foundations. Gale-force winds howled around the windmill with cyclonic force, driving horizontal rain against the solitary building.

‘I haven’t witnessed a storm like this since the night the old tzar died,’ Alexi said.

‘I told you, it’s not natural,’ Yuri repeated. ‘It’s not the weather that’s causing this, it’s the power of Chaos!’

Then they heard them. Over the crackling booms of the storm raging beyond their erstwhile sanctuary they heard gibbering cries and howls; the scraping of tiny, yet insistent, taloned hands on the stonework, shutters and door of the windmill. Despite their best efforts, the mercenaries were suddenly very aware of how poorly protected they were inside the crumbling structure. Although there was only the one door in or out, there were also shuttered windows on this level and the next. Against a larger attacker their barricade would have been adequate, although they would have still been prisoners inside the windmill. Against a small, determined foe, that could scale the pitted exterior of the building with ease and in large numbers, their defences seemed pitifully inadequate.

There were narrow spaces between the boards that made up the shutters and a draughty gap under the door. The neglected state of the building didn’t help. All around them there were countless tiny access ways into the mill: knotholes in the wooden planks; gaps between the stones where the mortar holding them together had disintegrated. Such holes didn’t need to be big, not when it was tiny claws and bodies that were trying to break in. Yet with the press of hundreds of bodies, the nurglings’ size proved to be no disadvantage in terms of the force they could exert on rotten boards that should have been replaced years ago.

‘Every man to an opening!’ Torben commanded. ‘We can’t let them get in!’

Instantly each of the mercenaries took up a position at a window or in front of the mill door. The shutters shook on their hinges as clawing green hands reached through the gaps between the planks, trying to pull them apart, while the door-bolts rattled in their fastenings.

Torben had fought ratmen, black-armoured warriors of Chaos and even the undead, in his time, but never had he encountered such an indomitable foe. It wasn’t their strength or even their dogged determination: it was their number.

‘Give me a mad axe-wielding minotaur any day!’ he found himself blurting out aloud. ‘Any thing but these little buggers!’

Torben and his companions did their best to fend off the nurglings’ onslaught but where one grasping limb was removed, or one hole jammed with a sword blade, three more taloned hands tore through elsewhere. Besides, the mercenaries’ weapons were proving unwieldy in such confined conditions. Their swords and Stanislav’s axe were for use in open combat where a soldier could swing his weapon freely, thrust and parry. At the windows inside the mill, their weapons had to be used more like spears or polearms, with a stabbing motion, and it was proving to be hard work. Not only that, it brought them in reach of the clutching claws of the besieging nurglings.

The only one who seemed to be having any luck was Oran, whose slim dagger slipped neatly between the boards of the window he was defending. Every well-aimed jab resulted in a high-pitched squeal from the other side of the shutter.

Alexi gave a pained shout, distracting the others for a moment. Glancing round Torben saw the old soldier hopping around on one leg. Hanging on to his other ankle by its teeth was one of the fat little daemons, while three more squeezed under the now undefended door, under the table and into the mill.

Then Stanislav was striding across the floor. In one fluid motion, which appeared incredible from a hulking bear of a man like him, he dropped his axe and picked up a long-handled scythe from its place against the wall. With his newly-appropriated weapon gripped firmly in his huge hands, Stanislav was able to keep his distance as he swept the long, curved blade under the door. The rusted and notched blade cut through daemonic flesh and bone. Four swift strokes left a brace of dismembered bodies oozing dark green ichor in its wake.

Crushing the nurgling attached to his ankle against the mill’s grindstone, Alexi finally managed to kick the creature free of his leg, although its sharp teeth tore a chunk of flesh away with it. The nurgling tumbled through the air, landing in a gibbering heap in front of the barricaded door. Extending his stride, Stanislav brought his foot down on top of the foul creature. There was a squelching pop as the daemon was squashed under the great man’s booted heel.

Following Stanislav’s example, Torben, Pieter and Yuri exchanged their more familiar weapons for the pitchforks, sickles and rakes left behind in the mill. They all defended their positions more effectively as a result. Suddenly light-headed, Alexi sat down heavily on the broad grindstone, tying a hastily prepared bandage around his bleeding ankle.

For half an hour, the six mercenaries battled against the onslaught of innumerable nurglings as wave after wave of the plague god’s children assailed the mill. The strain was beginning to show. They had been fighting for their lives since sunset. First Verfallen’s Chaos spawn, then the flight up the hill and now the incessant attacks of the nurglings.

Where the nurglings were inevitably beginning to break through the rotten wood of one window, Yuri had begun piling sacks of mouldy grain into the frame to block the daemons’ advance.

Putrid green ichor running from the sills and the rapidly decomposing remains of the nurglings that had infiltrated the tower had mixed with the flour and chaff-dust on the floor of the mill, creating a thick, foul-smelling sludge that was treacherously slippery underfoot. Both Pieter and the limping Alexi lost their footing on the ooze-slicked planks.

There was a sudden, loud thud from the floor above them. In a second Stanislav had abandoned his position by the door and was up the ladder. Almost as quickly, he was leaping down it again.

‘They’re in!’ he yelled, looking desperately to his captain. ‘They’ve got in upstairs!’

Torben opened his mouth as if to issue an order, but no order came. When it mattered most, he was at a loss about what to do.

‘Then we go into the cellar,’ Pieter said, grimly.

Turning from the window he guarded, the young man crossed the room to the heavy trapdoor set into the floor. Taking the great iron ring in both hands he heaved on the trap, lifting it up and sending a shower of wheat-dust and chaff into the air. Taking the lantern from its hook Pieter took his first step into the cellar. The lantern cast a weak halo of light into the depths as if it was unwilling to enter the subterranean chamber itself. Pieter peered into the gloom beyond the lantern’s circle of illumination.

‘Are you mad?’ Yuri yelled.

Scores of scrabbling green creatures were pouring down the ladder into the main chamber. Clawing, biting, howling nurglings surged towards the mercenaries. They were a mass of bloated, suppurating bodies with snapping needle-like fangs and ripping talons. One of the creatures flung itself from the surging tide, and latched onto Stanislav’s unprotected face with its jaws. Ripping the nurgling from his cheek he cast it back into the mass of scrabbling bodies.

Stanislav turned to Yuri, blood streaming down his face. ‘They’re going to overwhelm us!’ he said with brutal finality.

‘We have no choice!’ Pieter shouted back over the gibbering cacophony of the daemonlings and then added to himself: ‘Into the jaws of hell we go.’

Holding the lantern at arm’s length ahead of him, Pieter looked into the darkened cellar. After the clutter of the mill, the cellar was spartan by comparison. As he crept down the stone steps, Pieter’s lantern cast flickering shadows on the curved walls. The cellar was cold and damp. Slime and patches of pallid, strangely shaped fungi covered the walls. The underside of the mill floor was thick with mould. Pieter shivered, although whether it was from the cold or some deep-seated fear, he wasn’t sure.

Reaching the bottom of the steps, he steadied himself against the wall with one hand. It was clammy with condensation and cold to the touch. They were on bedrock here. The rough stone of the floor of the cellar was dangerously uneven. Pieter hung the lantern from a splintered beam above his head, trying not to disturb any of the fungi growing there.

The rest of the party followed Pieter. Yuri and Stanislav were the last, fighting back the nurglings as they descended. With a final swipe of his reclaimed axe, Stanislav slammed the heavy trapdoor shut, crushing the skull of one of the tiny daemons and the grasping forelimbs of several others in the process. With a satisfying shunk he slammed the bolts home. It wasn’t until much later that Stanislav wondered why the trapdoor should have bolts on its underside – unless someone else had wanted to be able to keep others out.

The lantern-light reflected off some gleaming yellow-white bone and Pieter found himself looking into the empty eye-sockets of what he took to be the former owner of the mill. The almost fleshless corpse lay slumped against the wall, a cluster of thin-stemmed toadstools growing through the exposed bones of his ribcage. Doubtless the miller had been the first sacrifice made by Verfallen to re-consecrate this place to Nurgle and to begin the process of awakening the dormant Moruut.

And yet, other than the algae and necrotic-loving fungi, there were none of the accompanying carrion-feeders that Pieter would have expected. Where were the beetles, the centipedes, even a lone rat? Where was the buzz of bluebottles, that would lay their eggs in the host corpse to provide a feast for their larval young? Perhaps they had departed long ago, or perhaps they were still down there.

Pieter stepped forward to get a better look at the round metal grille set into the centre of the cellar’s stone floor. Three or four feet in diameter, and with widely spaced bars practically rusted through, the grille was sunk into a dressed stone rim. Beneath it was utter blackness, as if the hole swallowed up any light cast into it. The stink of the grave and the sewer assailed his nostrils, making him gag.

Then a sound rose up from the bottom of the pit: the splashing of water, the splatter of filth and a faint mewling moan, as if of something newborn. Something was sloshing around in the slime at the bottom of the pit. Something large, by the sounds of it.

Stepping back again he noticed for the first time the filth-encrusted grooves in the floor, partially hidden by rotting straw and other muck. He followed the narrow channels filled with congealed blood and other unspeakable fluids, tracing the pattern they formed. Yes, there were the three connected circles and the three arrowheads emerging from between them: the symbol of the plague god as recorded in Verfallen’s journal. Nurgle’s rune had been chiselled into the bedrock before being filled with putrescent material pleasing to the lord of decay. The blasphemous symbol covered most of the cellar floor, the grilled pit at its very centre.

‘This isn’t a cellar,’ Stanislav said with a sense of unease.

‘No, this is a shrine,’ Pieter said, ‘dedicated to Nurgle.’

‘How does that saying go again?’ Oran started with a tone of contempt in his voice. ‘Out of the frying pan–’

‘–and into the plague pit,’ Torben finished.

‘At least up there,’ Oran complained, indicating the floor above, ‘we could have got out of this ruddy place!’

‘Oh yes, and into what?’ Torben snarled turning on him. ‘An agonising death at the hands of the hordes of Nurgle? At least down here we’re still alive, for the time being, and right now that’s all that matters!’

‘And this could be our way out,’ Pieter said with something approaching excitement, an intense look in his glazed eyes. He hadn’t taken his gaze from the rusted iron grille.

‘You are insane!’ Yuri exclaimed, his voice raised in fear and anger.

Torben hushed him with a gesture. ‘What do you mean?’ he asked, his commanding tone demanding an explanation from the nobleman and silence from the others.

‘Inside this hill, Moruut is growing, awakened by the spell inscribed on the monolith. His body is reforming from the sludge and slime of his mortal remains that have lain in his burial chamber for countless centuries.’

‘If you say so,’ Oran muttered.

‘As Verfallen recorded in his journal!’ Pieter fumed.

‘Go on,’ Torben said.

‘Anyway,’ Pieter said, composing himself, ‘before he can return to full strength on this earthly plane Moruut has to consume the lot of us, body and soul.’

‘Doesn’t seem too unlikely from where I’m standing,’ Yuri moaned, despairing.

‘Ignore him,’ Alexi encouraged the young noble.

‘Well, if we could destroy Moruut before he’s fully re-formed, while he’s still comparatively weak, Nurgle’s power will be broken and the nurglings will be banished back to the realm of Chaos. They won’t be able to maintain their physical form with the source of the corruption gone.’ It seemed there was no stopping Pieter now on this train of thought. ‘Moruut’s still a daemon, so he’ll still be pretty strong, but we should be able to do it.’

‘It sounds like it could work, in principle,’ Alexi said, pondering the plan.

‘Sounds like a good plan to me,’ Stanislav agreed.

Oran grunted: ‘It’s the only plan we’ve got!’

‘I hate to spoil things,’ Torben said, interrupting their musings, ‘but as you said yourself, this thing’s a daemon – a daemon prince, no less! Something tells me that our weapons aren’t going to be enough. What are we going to fight it with?’

‘This.’ Pieter reached inside his jerkin and pulled out a small, leather-bound book. The cover was dark with age and the grease-stained pages well thumbed. A number of scraps of paper and strips of ribbon marked places in the book.

‘What’s that?’ Yuri asked.

‘You godless heathen!’ the older Alexi suddenly bellowed. ‘Don’t you recognise a prayer book of Sigmar when you see one?’

‘It was given to me by my old manservant, Walter,’ Pieter explained, opening the book and turning the pages as if searching for a particular passage.

‘Right, so how’s that going to help?’ Torben asked, his brow furrowed in concentration as he tried to piece it all together.

‘It is known that the holy might of Sigmar can smite the creatures of Chaos, such as daemons. Walter told me tales of such horrors when I was a boy. They cannot stand the purity and righteousness of the Heldenhammer. They are repelled by his cleansing zeal.’

Pieter stopped on a page, scanning the verses printed there before continuing. ‘In this book, there is a ritual of purification. With the charms I have in my possession and a little time I think I can carry out the rite and purge this place of evil. All we need is to hold to our faith in blessed Sigmar.’

‘Faith?’ Oran scoffed. ‘It’s all very well talking about faith in the safety of your churches and surrounded by a city wall but I think you’ll find there’s precious little faith out here!’

‘Really?’ Pieter challenged. ‘Verfallen had faith. His belief in his dark god is what got us into this mess! I am strong in my faith. Will you be found wanting when your time comes?’ The resolute noble fixed the rat-faced mercenary with his steely-blue eyes.

‘If the scholar’s journal was correct, this evil that you speak of has probably been here longer than the Empire. To have lasted that long it’s got to be strong too,’ Torben warned, ‘and we’re just a bunch of desperate swordsmen who know little of the ways of the priest.’

‘Nurgle’s power waxes and wanes like the moon, just like outbreaks of plague and other epidemics rise and fall,’ Pieter explained patiently. ‘I am sure we can prevail here.’

‘What, all of us?’ The party turned to look at the old soldier. Normally he was the last to speak of failure. The hard-bitten veteran of a hundred campaigns, defeat wasn’t a concept Alexi seemed familiar with. But then they saw the reason for his change of heart.

Alexi was sitting on the steps, one leg of his britches rolled up to the knee to expose his bitten ankle. The teeth marks were clearly visible as angry red puncture wounds, apart from where the nurgling had torn off a mouthful. The flesh around the bite was discoloured purple and green. As Alexi pressed the flesh with his fingertips yellow pus dribbled from the wound. It was already infected. Alexi’s face was a pallid grey and he was starting to sweat despite the cold.

‘We end this now!’ Torben determined. ‘Pieter, do what you have to and tell us how we can best help.’

Hastily the devout young man instructed the rest of the party to take up positions around the pit. He knew the daemon would not go back into the void without a fight. As the mercenaries spaced out equidistantly around the chamber, Pieter placed a holy charm or trinket at each of the points where the carved lines of Nurgle’s rune intersected.

Stanislav and Yuri stood at the bottom of the steps, half expecting the attack to come from the nurglings that had overrun the windmill. Torben and Oran flanked Pieter, who knelt down in the filth at the edge of the pit, while the weakened, hobbling Alexi marked the fifth point of the pentagram. He leant heavily on his sword for support. The others took up a fighting stance, weapons at the ready.

Kneeling on the cold, wet floor, Pieter began the ritual of purification. All eyes, other than his own, focused on the grille. The rabid gibbering from the nurglings above had died down, as if they knew that their lord was on his way.

Like a bloated purple-green slug at first, and then more like a sinuous snake, a tentacle emerged from between the bars of the grille. Slick with slime the lantern light caused oily rainbow spirals to swirl across its mucus-wet skin. Slowly it began to uncoil towards the kneeling Pieter.

‘Careful,’ the mercenaries’ leader said in a forced whisper.

Raising his sword, ready to fight, the lame Alexi took a staggering step forward to balance himself. The tentacle suddenly froze and then just as quickly whipped backwards wrapping itself around the rotund old soldier’s waist. A look of horror flashed across Alexi’s face and then he was being pulled through the air. With a sickening crunch he hit the grille, arms and legs outstretched. The tentacle pulled tighter, forcing out what little air he had left in his lungs.

Gasping, Alexi somehow found his voice: ‘By the gods! Help me! Help me!’

To Torben it seemed that his own movements suddenly slowed to a snail’s pace. Tensed muscles released, he was running towards Alexi as Pieter slowly intoned the words of a prayer to Sigmar. But before he was even halfway across the cellar, the disgusting, boneless limb tightened still further, tugging at the rotund man. Alexi’s screams were joined by a mournful moaning from the bottom of the pit, and another sound – the sound of twisting metal. Within two seconds the protesting bars, half-eaten through by rust, snapped.

Torben reached out his hand to the flailing, screaming Alexi only to see the old soldier fold impossibly in the middle as his spine snapped.

And suddenly Alexi was gone.

His screams of agony descended into the blackness of the pit only to be cut off abruptly a second later. As the mercenaries stood in stunned silence around the cellar a new sound came to their ears. At first it was almost inaudible, a bass growl that vibrated through the bedrock and then rose in pitch and volume until it became a daemonic roar of triumph that shook the ground and rang in their ears long after it had ceased.

Torben stood where he was, stunned. There was nothing he had been able to do! He remembered Manfred, clutching at the arrow protruding from his stomach as he toppled from the battlements into the greenskin throng below. There had been nothing he could do then either. But this was different. Manfred’s death had been in the midst of battle. Alexi had been lost in a cellar, under an isolated windmill on a bleak hilltop in the middle of the Ostermark moors. This was no battle to be sung of later in mead halls!

Following the daemonic roar, Pieter’s words became more urgent, the litanies and prayers of supplication tumbling from his lips as he desperately tried to complete the ritual. More tentacles emerged from the pit, lashing out at the mercenaries. The men dodged to avoid the muscular, flesh; they tried to lay their own blows with their keen-edged blades.

And then, rising from the pit amidst the mass of tentacles, Verfallen’s face appeared. Torben caught sight of the grinning scholar and, momentarily distracted by him, managed only to deflect a swipe from a squid-like limb with the flat of his sword blade. Only it wasn’t Verfallen: it was a sickly-green facsimile of the Chaos acolyte’s head, bony growths standing in for spectacles, bobbing on top of a scaly, serpentine neck.

The head spoke: ‘I am Moruut the Festering, Daemon Prince of Nurgle, the Infecter, the Corruptor, the Plague Lord’s Chosen One.’ Verfallen’s image surveyed the warriors struggling against the constricting tentacles with a malevolent smile on its thin purple lips.

‘And you are all going to die!’

Only half-aware of what was going on around him, Pieter began reading the prayer of exorcism: ‘Lord Sigmar, Defender of the Empire.’ He spoke the words as boldly and confidently as he could but it suddenly seemed to him that his voice was like that of a feeble, pleading child. And then Moruut spoke to him, directly.

‘Pieter Valburg,’ it said, ‘what do you hope to achieve?’

Pieter stumbled over the next line. He tried to focus on the book held open in his shaking, sweating palms and then repeated the invocation.

‘You couldn’t save your dead sweetheart from the dark kiss and you won’t be able to save your pathetic friends now.’

Pieter struggled on but no matter how hard he tried to ignore the taunts spoken by Moruut’s slimy, slug-like tongue, the incessant, blasphemous chatter of the daemon drowned out his own feeble pleas to Sigmar, distracting him from his vital task.

‘It’s no good, boy,’ Verfallen’s grotesquely grinning head seemed to be saying to him.

‘...and let the glorious light of righteousness shine into the dark places...’

‘Your god is dead. He cannot hear you.’

‘...and let the corrupters turn from your beauteous face...’

‘Stop this futile charade. Give in to the darkness.’

‘...for as your arm is strong smite the daemons and creatures of Chaos with your hammer of truth...’

‘You’re exhausted, boy. We all go to the darkness in time. Go now and let your body rest.’

Verfallen’s head glided down its great neck until they were practically nose-to-nose. Pieter could feel the daemon’s warm foetid breath on his sweat-cold skin and it pimpled at the contact.

‘Let your body rest. You have fought enough.’

Pieter paused. The daemon’s words sounded so reasonable, even human. There was no gurgling voice as though spoken by decayed vocal chords choked with sewer-slime. Just a clear, persuasive human voice, dripping with honey, sickly-sweet like the smell of decay that lingered in the cellar.

Pieter looked up from the open page just in time to see Torben’s sword connect with the sinuous neck. The force of the mercenary captain’s cutting stroke was powerful enough to slice through the unnatural flesh, severing the neck from Verfallen’s grotesquely grinning head. Foul fluid spurted from the stump and the neck lolled. The simulacrum of the scholar’s head landed at Torben’s feet with a wet thud and an unearthly howl echoed around the cellar. With one strong kick he sent the monstrosity flying into the pit.

‘Come on, lad,’ he said turning to Pieter. ‘We need you now, more than ever, you’re the only one who can get us out of this!’ Taking a deep breath, Pieter resumed the ceremony.

Writhing tentacles emerged from the hole in the floor, snaking across the chamber towards the kneeling nobleman. Before any of the others could react, the squid-like limbs were coiling around his arms and legs, and trying to tear the prayer book from his grasp. But this only had the effect of making Pieter even more determined to complete the ritual. He had almost given in once. The daemon was becoming desperate, scared. If it feared him, he must be winning. He wouldn’t give in again.

Over Pieter’s frenzied invocations yet another sound rose to the party’s ears from within the pit. The buzzing rapidly increased in volume until the swarm burst into the cellar. Flies filled the air. There were so many of them that Pieter could hardly see the words of the page in front of him. The tightening tentacles tried to pull him and the holy book apart. And still they came, bloated, hairy black bodies incessantly bombarding the warriors. Their weapons were useless against such a foe. Cutting through the swarm had about as much effect as cutting through the air itself. All the while the buzzing bluebottles found their irritating way into the mercenaries’ clothes, hair, ears, noses and mouths, distracting them as they desperately fought against the daemon!

‘Bloody hell!’ Oran spat through a mash of black bodies.

Pieter kept reading. Only a few more verses, a final prayer of benediction and the ritual would be complete. With each line, each word, Pieter fancied he could sense the daemon flinch and recoil as if his words themselves were like the touch of acid on its festering flesh.

‘Don’t give up now!’ Torben was yelling over the infernal buzzing.

Pieter wasn’t going to. They were winning, he knew it, and he was going to see this thing through to the finish.

‘Hold fast!’ Torben barked as the battering tentacles assailed his beleaguered band once again. It was all the harder now. With Alexi gone there were only three of them left to hold the daemon off long enough for Pieter to complete the ritual of purification. Yuri had fallen back to the trapdoor where the nurglings had renewed their attack and were beginning to break in to the cellar.

Despite their best efforts Pieter was now ensnared in the tentacles but still he read on. His companions fought to break the daemon’s hold on him.

Oran darted in between the slimy pseudopods, stabbing his dagger into their thickest parts and twisting before withdrawing his blade, ready for another strike.

Ducking a swipe from a tentacle, Stanislav swung his axe in a figure-of-eight, chopping more of the limbs into pieces. Seizing the initiative Torben flung himself into the gap created by Stanislav’s attack. Skewering another tentacle with his sword, he managed to get a hand on Pieter’s shoulder.

‘That was always your problem, Torben Badenov,’ a familiar voice said behind the captain, ‘you never did know when you’d lost.’

Torben looked round into Alexi’s anxious face. He froze, shocked by what he was seeing. He knew it wasn’t Alexi: they had seen their friend pulled into the pit; they had all heard his death-cry. Yet here he was again, ever the wise old soldier, Torben’s mentor from years before, offering him words of gentle advice like a father. How could this be?

Alexi’s face winced and a tremor shook the hill.

‘You always were too stubborn and stupid to realise you hadn’t a hope!’ Alexi reiterated, the snake-like neck it was attached to recoiling suddenly. The ritual was nearing its end. Pieter had faltered once but now he would not be stopped: he had been duped himself in such a way before by his vampire lover, Rosamund. But Torben’s moment of doubt was enough.

A tentacle twisted around the mercenary’s arm, yanking his hand from Pieter’s shoulder as the coils around the nobleman constricted and pulled. The last lines of the ritual became a scream as the daemon dragged the vainly struggling Pieter, along with his prayer book, into the hole. Then he too was gone.

In an instant Stanislav was next to Torben, his face red with anger. The first blow from the big man’s axe opened the side of Alexi’s head. The second removed it from the daemon’s body and sent it flying across the cellar. The foul parody of their dead companion landed next to the skeletal remains of the miller with a splat. It started to scream.

The near-deafening blood-curdling howl tore through all of them, pounding at their eardrums, ripping through their minds and churning their stomachs. A bellowing roar from deep inside the hill joined the scream. In response to the death-howl the cellar began to shake. Dust rained down from between the boards above their heads. The shaking worsened as a deep rumbling rose through the rock beneath their feet. Torben and the others found themselves stumbling to keep their balance as the stone floor buckled and split. But the screaming didn’t stop.

‘He did it!’ Yuri shouted. ‘The daemon’s dying!’

The lad was right, Torben thought as the tentacles thrashed uncontrollably and began to retract into the pit. Pieter had succeeded! His death had not been in vain. The buzzing cloud of flies dissipated, as they escaped from the collapsing cellar through holes in the floor above. With a sickening sound, the joists holding up the floor of the windmill splintered and began to give way.

‘Go! Get out of here!’ Torben yelled above the noise.

The four remaining members of the band staggered across the chamber, trying to stay on their feet and avoid the rifts appearing in the floor. Part of the cellar wall subsided as the party reached the steps, climbing up them on their hands and knees as earth and stones showered down around them. Stanislav hurled the trapdoor open and burst into the windmill. All around him, mewling nurglings writhed in torment, their bodies dissolving into slime before his eyes. With the plague lord’s power broken in this place, the daemonlings were unable to maintain their physical form.

As Torben reached the top of the steps, the last to escape the cellar, he glanced back at the pit, set at the heart of the rune of Nurgle. The tentacles had gone: Moruut had returned to his burial chamber to die. Moruut, Daemon Prince of Nurgle, the Corrupter, killed by Badenov’s band, but not before it had claimed two of their number.

The fingers of a filth-covered hand grabbed the dressed stone lip of the pit. Then a second hand reached over the rim. Knuckles whitening, the fingers pulled and a filth-splattered face emerged from the hole. Torben leapt down the steps and, half-falling, half-running, reached the pit in a matter of strides. Grasping Pieter’s wrist, Torben pulled the struggling man from the pit. A fractured beam crashed down next to them as Pieter’s feet found purchase on the edge.

Then the two of them were fleeing from the cellar, following the others out of the building into the night beyond. Either the earthquake or the nurglings had destroyed their makeshift barricade in front of the door that now hung open. Torben skidded across the room and, hearing a dreadful groaning, looked up in time to see the mill machinery shake free of its settings. The great cogwheels and drive shafts smashed through the floor into the cellar and into the walls. Masonry crashed down around them, the air thick with dust. Torben and Pieter made it in time through the doorway and out of the crumbling mill.

Adrenalin driving their exhausted bodies on, the two men found the strength to make their weary legs run. Torben was suddenly aware of pale moonlight bathing the view before him. The moon was visible once again and the storm had abated. Ahead of them he could see Oran, Stanislav and Yuri pelting down the shaking hillside but Torben couldn’t help glancing back over his shoulder. Behind them great rents emanating from the base of the windmill split the ground open. He hurtled on, a fissure zigzagging its way down the slope to his right. He could hear the windmill collapsing behind them. With a whirling crash the mill’s sails cartwheeled past him, bouncing off down the hillside.

Past the fallen stone, past the smoking remains of their campfire, right at the foot of the hill, Badenov’s band gathered, hands on knees, protesting lungs heaving, and watched the windmill’s demise. Its sails gone, its drive shaft broken, the whole structure toppled in on itself and was swallowed up by the earth, as the summit of the hill caved in.

Morning came and with it clear skies. The unnatural storm Verfallen had raised with his blasphemous spell had dissipated. The hill had a distinctly different outline against the horizon, with the summit and the windmill both gone. Amongst Badenov’s band there followed the usual ritual of dressing wounds. Whereas after a victory there would normally be the cheerful banter of the mercenaries celebrating a job well done, this morning they silently mourned the loss of Alexi of Nuln and honoured his memory in their own private way – all except Pieter Valburg.

Pieter’s thoughts were elsewhere. He stood away from the group. With his back turned to the others he removed something from inside his jerkin. The cover of the grimoire was as black as the heart of the scholar who had owned it. Daemon faces leered at Pieter from the sculpted leather, if leather it was, and a spiked ring rune, picked out in crimson, left no doubt as to the nature of the book.

As Pieter traced the pattern with his fingertips an old adage of his late manservant came to mind: know thine enemy.

A MURDER OF CROWS

Like the raven, the crow is associated in popular folk-mythology with battle and death, and legends abound about the bird’s alleged powers and connections with the forces of darkness. One old tradition has it that if a crow is present at a murder the evil bird will steal away the victim’s soul.

– from Folk Legends of Sylvania, by Gustav Holz

Burgomeister Audric of Nagenhof knelt in the middle of the road quaking before the Beast of Bruckenbach. His gaudy clothes were torn and bloodstained and his jowls wobbled as he pleaded for his life. ‘I–I’ll g–give you anything! Anything you want! Just don’t kill me.’

‘You really don’t remember me, do you?’ growled the beast.

The outlaw was an imposing figure. Over seven feet tall and almost as broad, his legs were thick trunks of muscle. From the waist up his body swelled to a barrel chest and he had huge shoulders from which bulged massive, club-like arms. His neck was as thick as an ox’s and his shaven head seemed to bulge as a result of a distorted skull beneath. A white knot of scar tissue described an arc on his left cheek. With his knuckles barely clear of the ground like an ape, he looked more like an ogre than a man.

The beast was dressed much like the rest of his outlaw band: dark, leather boots; brown, patched trousers, belted at the waist. But where his men wore coats of chainmail or jerkins of studded leather armour, their leader wore only a sleeveless shirt, stained ochre with blood, sweat and grime. It was stretched taut over his swollen muscles and open down the front. Audric could quite clearly see the amulet that he wore on an iron chain around his neck: a polished cerulean stone that gleamed dully in its black metal setting.

Behind him was the splintered wreckage of the burgomeister’s carriage. The horses had fled as soon as they were free of their traces. The men of Audric’s entourage lay all around him, dead. The bandits looted their bodies for money, weapons or anything else of use that they might find. These criminals really were the lowest of the low. There was now no one left to protect him, not that the presence of an armed escort had made any difference when the blackguards had attacked.

Overhead circled a ragged flock of crows. Every so often one of the birds swooped down towards the road, as if to see better what transpired there.

‘R–Remember you?’ Audric stammered, perplexed.

‘Yes. Remember me.’ The beast’s voice was deep and gravelly, as if it was only one cadence away from an animalistic roar.

‘L-Look, you can have anything,’ the desperate man implored. ‘I promise you. I am a man of substance. Wh–Whatever you want, I can get it for you.’

‘The only thing I ever wanted from you,’ the beast snarled, leaning closer, ‘I could never have. You would never have allowed it. So I’ll have to settle for something else instead.’

The bandit looked up at the circling birds, no more than black smudges against the pale, late autumn sky.

‘Yes,’ he said smiling, carnivorously. ‘Instead I’ll have your money and your life.’

Hearing a strident, malevolent cawing, heavy with the prophecy of death, Audric tore his gaze from the brute standing in front of him and saw the crows above him. They peeled off from the spiralling flock one by one, descending on him in a vortex of rending beaks and claws. The burgomeister began to scream, but his cries were soon drowned out by the noise of tearing flesh and the screeching of frenzied birds.

The beast watched in delight, gaining savage pleasure from the birds’ murderous attack. Finally the flapping wings parted to reveal what remained of the burgomeister: a bloodied skeleton, the crows having literally stripped the flesh from the man’s bones.

The bandit leader suddenly caught his breath, an eldritch wind rippling across his body.

‘Lord Tzeentch, accept this sacrifice,’ the beast growled, luxuriating in the power released by the burgomeister’s death. His amulet pulsed with a cold, blue light…

Once he had simply been a man and not the beast. Then he had gone by the name of Gregor, and he had been an ostler, working in the stables of the Burgomeister of Nagenhof. One of his daily duties had been to tend to the horse of Audric’s innocently beautiful daughter, Camellia. Seeing her almost daily, but never being able to approach her, he had loved her from afar. But the day came when unrequited passion had made him forgetful of his place and he had declared his undying love for her. Horrified at being approached by the underling who worked in the stables mucking out her father’s beasts, she had spurned him and the burgomeister himself had come to hear of Gregor’s reproachful behaviour. Without a second thought, his master had Gregor beaten within an inch of his life. Then, bruised, bloodied and broken, he had been banished from the town, into the wilds of the forests beyond.

For a man in his condition, and with nothing about him except the clothes he stood in, exile from the town was as good as a death-sentence. The woods were full of hidden dangers, ravenous wild beasts, lawless rogues, Chaos-warped beastmen, and other darker things. And they all preyed on merchants and other travellers.

Stumbling through the woods as night fell, mad with unrequited love, Gregor thought nothing of any of these potential hazards. Only one thought occupied his mind; a burning desire for revenge. Gregor cursed Audric, praying to any entity that might be listening in the dark, witching hours of the night, or in the even darker, knotted depths of the primeval forest. He prayed that he might hear the rash, impassioned promise of a man with nothing left to lose. He pledged them his service if, in return, they allowed him his revenge.

And something had indeed heard him. As he staggered over the rocky, broken ground, the injuries received at his beating wracking his body, supporting himself against sickly, misshapen trees it answered his blasphemous prayer in its own inimitable way.

The clouds parted and a single shaft of moonlight illuminated a gaping hole, half-obscured by the roots of a tree, twisted as though in tormented agony. Gregor was drawn to the hole, it was just wide enough for a man to squeeze through. He slipped down the oesophageal tunnel beyond, slick with rotting leaves, into the dank, musty darkness. Without any means of creating light Gregor blundered about in the darkness until, from nowhere, a pulsing blue glow had swelled to illuminate the burial chamber he found himself in.

It was not large, but high enough to stand up in, its roof laced with the roots of the contorted tree above. He was surprised to find the walls faced with stone, but what intrigued him most was the effigy-like body.

It was laid out on a stone bier inscribed with strange runes and glyphs that made Gregor’s eyes water. The body was clothed from head to foot in a dark robe, the hem embroidered with more esoteric symbols, and over that a breastplate fashioned from some strange metal was beaten to look like dragon scales. A bizarre horned helmet covered the head entirely, replacing the corpse’s true face with that of a leering, iron daemon. Gauntlets of brass, like eagle’s talons, hid the hands.

Most striking of all, however, was the dark stone amulet around its neck, resting on the front of the scaled breastplate. Its unnatural lustre drew Gregor closer, and made him take the talisman and place it around his own neck. The instant he did so, the body, and all its trappings, crumbled to fine, grey dust, leaving nothing.

Then it was that the amulet spoke to him. It told him of the sorcerer who had created it and his evil life. It told him that some of the sorcerer’s power lived on inside it, granting whoever possessed the talisman dominion over the flock of crows he had bound to him, as his agents. They had been his ears and eyes, wherever he wished to send them, and they had been his murdering talons too. Those killed by the birds were sacrifices to the one whom he served, the Great Sorcerer himself, the Changer of the Ways. The souls of those sacrifices were absorbed by the amulet, and the talisman’s owner gained strength in return for each soul claimed.

So it was that Lord Tzeentch saved Gregor that he might continue the sorcerer’s work. He was to collect souls for the Changer of the Ways to increase his power in the world and bring about the end times.

Gregor was changed irrevocably. Gradually the amulet had wrought its changes on him. The more souls he sacrificed to Tzeentch the stronger he became. But no mere mortal body could contain the Chaos-strength that now imbued Gregor, so his body was adapted by the malignant energy it contained.

Hence, over the last three years, he had been transformed by the amulet’s baleful influence into something less than, and yet also more than, human. Gregor and the bandit gang he commanded had devotedly preyed on the travellers who journeyed through the Bruckenbach Woods.

It had not been long before the tales told by survivors – those he intentionally allowed to get away – spread around Nagenhof and beyond. They told of a heartless band of cutthroats, who gave no quarter and showed no mercy, led by a creature to which frightened men had given the name the Beast…

At a signal from the mercenary band’s leader, the noblewoman’s entourage came to a halt. Torben Badenov scanned the trees and undergrowth on either side of the road. He had an uneasy feeling that their progress through the Bruckenbach Woods was being observed. He looked and listened, straining eyes and ears to catch the briefest glimpse or quietest sound that might give their observers away. He saw nothing but the occasional dark shape of a bird huddled at the top of a leafless tree. He heard nothing but the whine of the wind in the skeletal branches or the distant croak of a carrion crow.

The day was cold and mist still clung to the root-boles of trees, tendrils of fog snaking out over the road. With the coming of day, the night’s chill had remained, making the travellers stamp their feet and flap their arms in an attempt to rid themselves of the marrow-numbing autumn cold in their bones. It was a typical turn-of-the-seasons day. The best thing that could be said about it was that it wasn’t raining – or snowing.

Torben walked at the head of the cavalcade with Yuri and Pieter only a few paces behind him, one on either side of the road. Their feet crunched and rustled through the orange-brown carpet of leaves that covered the pitted and rutted earth.

Behind them came the first of the horse-drawn wagons, carrying their employer, the Lady Isadora, and her niece, the now-orphaned Camellia, with two maidservants in attendance. Between the two carriages rode Lady Isadora’s two personal bodyguards, mounted, well-armed men by the names of Weber and Kruger. After them came the wagon that bore the rest of the noblewomen’s attendants – four in all. Stanislav and Oran trudged along at the back bringing up the rear.

As the party trudged on along the road, Torben recalled how they had come to be hired to accompany the young noblewoman and her dowager aunt. One of the maidservants, a sweet girl with a freckled nose and curly black locks by the name of Lisbet, had informed Torben that the Burgomeister of Nagenhof had abused his position of power and frittered away his wealth on costly gambling and even more costly women.

‘During that incident with the Nagenhof Bell, Burgomeister Audric wasn’t even in town,’ Lisbet had said, as the maidservants and mercenaries made their final preparations before leaving the disgraced family’s home. ‘Rumour has it he’d had a thing going with Abbess Rilka, and he’d been up to the Priory of Saint Ephrael to ask for absolution, if you know what I mean.’

With her father dead, the family fortune practically all gone, and still unmarried, the nineteen year-old Camellia had been left destitute. That was until her maternal aunt and self-appointed guardian, the Lady Isadora, had stepped in to arrange a good match for her. She was to marry one Count Reinhardt of Wollustig, a minor noble, as far as Torben could work out, whose estates lay four days’ ride away to the west, at the edge of the Bruckenbach Woods.

Isadora, a woman entering her middle years of life but who had retained the finely defined features of comely youth, had assured Torben on handing him the mercenaries’ first instalment of their fee that it was the count who would pay the bulk of the cost of hiring Badenov’s band. Torben just hoped Count Reinhardt knew about the arrangement, but he had no reason not to trust the dowager. Besides, the Wollustig estate lay equidistant from Ostermark and Nagenhof and the escort job would provide an interesting, not to say profitable, diversion on the mercenaries’ way back to the Slaughtered Troll, where they would wait out the winter. Torben had agreed to take on the job, determined they wouldn’t get stuck out in the frozen wilds again this year.

Torben still forgot at times that Alexi wasn’t amongst the party. Sometimes he asked the old soldier’s advice, before he remembered he wasn’t there, although it didn’t stop him hearing how his old friend might have replied, from time to time, either.

Following their companion’s death at the tentacles of the awakening daemon on the moors east of Ostermark, the mercenaries had mourned Alexi by getting uproariously drunk, recalling the soldier’s heroic deeds and embarrassing incidents, until they were so intoxicated that they couldn’t even remember why they were drinking. Torben had insisted they make their way to Nagenhof, where a friend from their soldiering days, one Dietrich Hassner, was now an innkeeper. Torben had hoped to persuade his old friend to join them.

There were only five of them now and Torben had begun to develop a niggling feeling that perhaps the end was nigh for Badenov’s band. Not that that was what he wanted but, as Torben knew to his cost, you didn’t always get what you wanted in this world.

It so happened that while they toasting Alexi in Dietrich’s inn, the Hand of Glory, the vile skaven had returned to the market town at the same time. A decade after besieging it for the first time, they were back to have their revenge on the townsfolk of Nagenhof. It had been up to Badenov’s band to stop the ratmen, and they had. But in the process Dietrich had been killed and the Church of Morr had been burnt down, on Torben’s orders. He had been eager for the band to be on its way as soon as possible after that.

However, it transpired that Badenov’s band had acquired something of a folk-hero status in Nagenhof, having driven off the skaven. So when the Lady Isadora came to look for hired swords to bolster the family’s ailing retinue of bodyguards she had sent word to the Hand of Glory. Considering how her brother-in-law had met his end, Isadora had been keen to ensure that her entourage had the best protection she could afford.

Torben had been surprised to discover that Isadora was Camellia’s aunt when he first met her and it wasn’t long before he found himself thinking that ten years ago she would have made quite a catch. She had to be at least forty but she still had the looks and figure of a woman ten years younger and, if the cut of her clothes and the way she swung her hips were anything to go by.

Despite the risks presented by travelling in such a lawless territory, Camellia’s dowager aunt had been most insistent that they not postpone their journey for any reason. The Lady Isadora had explained that Count Reinhardt had himself put it in no uncertain terms that his marriage to her niece had to occur at the appointed time or Camellia’s family would lose his patronage and support. Such was the way of political alliances, Torben mused, and he was happy not to have anything to do with such arrangements himself.

The gibbet creaked rustily as the corroded iron cage swung in the chill late autumnal breeze. Held upright by the confining, body-shaped bars was a decomposing corpse, black with rot. Patches of hair still clung to its scalp, as did irregular furred growths of mould. Its limbs hung at unnatural angles as the tendons and joints holding them in place had withered away. One bloodshot ball of jelly still lolled in its socket in the mottled brown skull. A weather-faded piece of yellowing parchment had been nailed to the post of the gibbet.

Not yet a day out of Nagenhof they had already reached the limit of the market town’s jurisdiction. The gibbet told outlaws and rogues coming from the woods to the west that beyond this point they were not welcome and would be dealt with harshly. It also told travellers entering the woods that they were leaving the protection of Nagenhof behind, and that they were entering lawless lands, the preserve of bandits, wolves and worse.

‘Why was he executed?’ Yuri asked, approaching Torben where he stood looking up at the grisly warning. The wagons were creaking to a halt at the junction behind them.

‘There’s a whole list of crimes here,’ Torben said, unrolling the curled parchment.

‘Well the worst one was getting caught,’ Oran joked morbidly, joining his fellows beneath the gibbet.

‘Robbery, horse stealing, banditry, murder. The list goes on. Any one of them could carry a hanging sentence.’

‘Not the sort of person you’d want to take home to meet your grey-haired old mother then,’ Yuri concluded.

‘The blaggard doubtless got everything he deserved,’ Pieter added darkly.

‘Let’s keep moving,’ Torben said, turning away from the morbid marker and its gruesome occupant with a sickened expression on his face, ‘we don’t want the ladies seeing this any longer than they have to.’

The cavalcade moved on, past the creaking scaffold. As he looked back to see that everyone had returned to their place in the line, Torben spotted a ragged-winged carrion crow fly down from the surrounding trees and alight on the cage. Clawing its way around the rusted bars it began pecking at the corpse, plucking the remaining eyeball from the ruined head. Before it passed from sight, Torben was convinced that the bird was watching them leave, the eyeball hanging from its beak by a thread of rubbery tissue.

The rest of the day passed as uneventfully as it had begun, with no sign of bandits or any other predators. That night they made camp by the side of the road. The mercenaries and bodyguards, under Torben Badenov’s command, shared watch duties.

It was when Pieter was on first watch, along with the reticent Weber, that Camellia came to him. The setting sun stained the sky scarlet and lilac.

‘My–My lady,’ he stammered, startled from his reverie by her sudden appearance.

‘Hello,’ she said, looking at him with piercing azure eyes from beneath a fringe of blonde hair like spun gold. ‘It’s Pieter, isn’t it?’ she asked.

‘Yes, my lady. Pieter Valburg.’

He could feel his cheeks reddening to glowing hot coals. To Pieter’s eyes the young noblewoman was simply yet stunningly beautiful. She was almost like a blonde twin of his dead sweetheart, Rosamund.

‘You should return to your carriage, madam,’ Pieter said, hardly daring look Camellia in the eyes. ‘The nights are getting colder. I’m sure you’d be comfortable inside.’

‘But then I wouldn’t be able to talk to you,’ she said, blushing herself.

And the two of them talked past sunset, into the night and to the end of Pieter’s watch.

Within an hour of sun-up, as dank autumn night-mist curled off the trees and a pale sun rose ponderously through a dove-grey sky, the party was on the move again. The only sound to break the stillness of the morning, beyond the quiet crackling of the wet undergrowth drying in the wan sunlight, was the grating cry of a crow. It was like the death-knell of a cracked bell.

Above the road rose the rocky scarp of a granite crag, stubborn shrubs clinging to fissures in the rock. From his vantage point at its summit the Beast of Bruckenbach watched the entourage set off, following the road west as it twisted and turned through the wooded gorge. He resembled a hungry bear watching a lamb stray from the protection of the flock.

The bandit chief smiled, anticipating the kill, and offered up a dark prayer of thanks to his lord and master. The Changer of the Ways had seen fit to bring about a chain of events that had delivered the one thing he had wanted from the blubbering burgomeister; the thing he wanted more than any other was now within his reach. Unconsciously he clenched his fists, crushing the rocks beneath his hands.

As the party of noblewomen, maidservants, mercenaries, bodyguards and attendants resumed their journey through the Bruckenbach Woods, the beast had caught a glimpse of the object of his warped, lascivious desires, and had been almost overwhelmed by lustful feelings. He struggled to believe his good fortune. Truly Lord Tzeentch favoured him, rewarding him for all the souls he had collected for the Architect of Fate.

‘Ranulf,’ he growled, turning to the outlaw crouched next to him, who was dwarfed by his boss, despite being a good six feet tall himself. ‘Return to the camp. Summon the men. This is what we’re going to do…’

‘My lady wishes to know what you are going to do about this problem,’ Weber, the bodyguard said in a clipped tone.

The man had made it no secret that he was not unhappy having a sell-sword like Torben in command over him but, as that was the case he was not going to suggest any course of action himself. If the Kislevite got them all into a difficult situation then he would have to be the one to get them out. Then, when the Lady Isadora saw the error of her ways in hiring Badenov’s band, he would resume control, save the day and re-establish his position.

Torben looked from the fallen trees, to the disgruntled bodyguard, and back again. Since the party had passed the last junction the road had steadily narrowed as it climbed upwards through the craggy, wooded hills. Then, as the sun had begun its descent and afternoon had drawn in, they had rounded a bend only to find the track blocked by two large, fallen trees.

There was no way round them with the wagons in tow, so the obstruction either had to be moved or the party would have to turn back and take the other road at the previous junction. They had intentionally avoided that road because it was narrow, riven with potholes, and apparently less well-maintained.

‘I don’t like it,’ Oran scowled. ‘Someone did this on purpose.’

‘Why do you say that?’ Yuri asked uncertainly.

‘You forget what I did before I found myself in the army of the old tzar,’ Oran reminded him. ‘When I was running with outlaws we’d use all sorts of tricks to get the unwary to go just where we wanted.’

‘He’s right,’ called Stanislav, emerging from the undergrowth. ‘There are axe marks at the base of the trunks. Those trees didn’t come down in some Kaldezeit storm. They were felled deliberately.’

‘Bandits,’ muttered Yuri.

‘The beast,’ proclaimed Pieter.

‘So,’ Weber’s flinty tones cut in, ‘what do I tell the Lady Isadora?’

‘We go back,’ Torben declared decisively. ‘It’s not far. We shouldn’t lose too much time.’

‘I tell you, I don’t like it,’ Oran repeated.

‘Well, if we wait around here trying to move the trees, we’ll make easy pickings for anyone with a bow and half a mind to relieve us of our possessions. If we untethered the horses we could do it but it would take a while and leave us stranded while we did so. If we’re about to be ambushed by bandits, I think I’d rather keep moving. We’re going back.’

Within an hour the wagons were rumbling and bumping along the rutted, pot-holed track of the other road. Skeletal branches reached out over them, swaying in the steady breeze, like the clutching talons of carrion birds.

‘I don’t like this at all,’ Oran continued complaining.

‘Look, will you shut up?’ Torben jogged back down the line to where the whinging mercenary was trudging along disconsolately.

‘I just can’t help feeling that we’re heading into a trap, that’s all.’

‘All your talk of bandits and ambushes is going to have our employers on a nervous knife edge. If they hear you, they’ll become hysterical. Then, if we are attacked, they’re going to be no use whatsoever.’

Hearing a distant croaking call, the erstwhile thief looked up, through the leafless canopy of the trees, at the black specks circling far overhead. He grimaced, the expression making him appear even more ugly than he already was.

‘Can you hear that?’ Yuri called to the others abruptly. ‘We’re approaching water, a river I expect.’

It was then a quarter of an hour before the entourage rounded another bend, entered a limestone gully, and saw the raging torrent ahead of them. By that point they had all been able to hear the roar of the water from a good half-mile back.

The fast-flowing river was spanned by a rather rickety-looking bridge, only wide enough for the wagons to cross in single file. The railings were green with moss and slick with the river’s spray. The water rushed past several feet below, foaming white as it surged between the rocky banks and over water-polished boulders in its path. To the left the river continued its sharp descent over more rapids while, further up the river’s course, to their right, Torben could see the white screen of a waterfall through the trees.

Before Oran could say any more, Torben directed the entourage across the semi-derelict bridge. The two carriages rattled onto the bridge, the horses’ hooves clopping on the uneven planks, the joists supporting the bridge creaking ominously.

It wasn’t until both wagons were on the bridge, the entire entourage in tow, that the attack came. Later Torben couldn’t clearly recall what had happened – whether he heard Weber cry out behind him first and then saw the hooded figure drop into the road in front of him, or vice versa.

Even to an experienced soldier like Torben, who was used to setting ambushes as well as facing them, their attackers seemed to come out of nowhere. The bandits wore face-covering hoods, armoured leather jerkins or chainmail shirts and were armed with a variety of weapons, including cudgels, short swords and crossbows. They burst from the undergrowth, dropped from branches and slipped from behind boulders in the pass so that in moments the entire entourage was surrounded. Outlaws blocked either end of the bridge and the raging river blocked left and right.

Torben darted a glance behind him. Weber slumped forward, falling from his horse, the tip of the crossbow bolt that had entered his heart visible through the front of his surcoat. His body hit the floor of the bridge with a crash and lay there motionless.

Torben saw that Yuri had unshouldered his bow and was preparing to use it. A gesture from Torben made the impetuous young man lower the tip of his arrow from its target and hold fire. It was only then that Torben noticed that another quarrel had struck the bridge only a foot to the left of the other bodyguard’s horse.

Then the mercenary captain saw the massive figure striding towards the bridge, between the masked brigands. Torben turned in horrified disbelief at what he saw. The brigand’s leader’s proportions were more like that of an ogre than a man. His upper body seemed swollen out of all proportion compared to his body below the waist. One white healed wound mark on his cheek stood out in particular. The grimacing face reminded Torben of the leering gargoyles he had seen adorning temples and tombs, their features exaggerated to convey the greatest horror for dramatic impact. Straps of leather and chains were wrapped around his wrists. In one hand, twice the size of a normal man’s, was gripped what looked like a butcher’s cleaver, only several times larger. Even so, in the outlaw leader’s grasp it looked small.

Torben was in no doubt whatsoever that he was now facing the brigand known as the Beast of Bruckenbach Woods: the bandit chief who had wrested control of this territory from rival outlaws and highwaymen, not to mention the road wardens. Neither were there any questions as to how he had acquired his position and come to lead this gang of robbers and cutthroats.

Whichever way Torben looked at it, they were trapped.

‘I hate to say, “I told you so”,’ Oran said with a sour smile.

‘Then don’t,’ snarled Torben. ‘Just don’t.’

The bandit lord advanced to the end of the bridge. ‘I am the Beast of Bruckenbach!’ he bellowed. ‘Everything you have is now mine to do with as I please, including your immortal souls. But I give all trespassers into my realm the same choice. Either you die easy or you die hard; it makes no difference to me.’

Before anyone else could respond Stanislav was there, giving the mercenaries’ response to the beast’s challenge, his axe already mid way through its swing. Despite his size, the beast moved frighteningly fast, the heavy cleaver that he held casually in one meaty paw coming across his huge body in a parrying move that stopped Stanislav’s hefty axe dead!

The mercenary was obviously startled by this unexpected deflection and took a moment to consider his next strike. But now the beast was ready for him. Sparks flew from the clashing blades as their scything weapons rang on collision.

With a shout of, ‘For the Emperor! For Sigmar! For Badenov’s band!’ from Torben, battle was joined, the mercenaries yelling their response of, ‘Badenov’s band!’ with equal gusto.

Yuri’s arrows dropped two of the outlaws before he had to discard his bow in favour of his sword. Torben laid into a bandit who ran at him yelling wildly, a quarterstaff in his hands. What good is a stick against a sword, Torben asked himself? But the man’s skill with the weapon more than made up for the lack of a sharp blade. He jabbed, swung and parried dextrously with the long pole.

‘I’ve had enough of this,’ Torben snapped as he received a second solid clout round the head. The skin on his knuckles was already grazed and bleeding from a number of blows from the staff, which he thought he had deflected with his blade.

He stumbled, purposely, and, as his opponent made to finish him with a skull-cracking blow from his quarterstaff, Torben recovered his footing and lunged forward. The man’s eyes bulged as cold Kislevite steel sank into his gut. He fell to the ground, trying to hold his intestines in with blood-slicked hands and Torben was on to his next opponent.

Engaging another hooded bandit in a bout of swordplay, Torben was almost subconsciously aware of other sounds permeating the battle on the bridge: the screams of women; servants crying out in alarm; the second bodyguard, Kruger, swearing earthily. Dropping his latest opponent with a cut to the kidney and then one across the back, Torben swiftly scanned the bridge.

All of Badenov’s band was engaged with the enemy as was the surviving bodyguard Kruger, a strong, solidly-built man, obviously used to handling himself in a swordfight. The Lady Isadora, Camellia, the maidservants and other attendants were staying put, huddled inside the two wagons, the only sign of them an occasional cry of alarm as a fighter knocked against one of the carriages or a horse, whinnying, stamped in the shafts, panicked by the battle raging about them.

It was apparent that although Stanislav was holding his own against the beast, and had even managed to injure the deformed ogre, he couldn’t gain the advantage over his adversary. Blood was also running from a number of wounds the Kislevite had suffered. Torben made a hurried reappraisal and came to the conclusion that the bandit champion was winning.

Despite overcoming their attackers one by one, the superior numbers of the brigands were steadily pushing the mercenaries towards the middle of the bridge. The bandits obviously weren’t used to their prey putting up quite such a fight and were going to make Badenov’s band pay as a result. And the longer Stanislav had to face the beast’s wrath, the more trouble they were likely to be in.

‘We need to get away, into a better fighting position,’ Torben called to Oran and Yuri, those closest to him.

‘And how are we supposed to do that?’ Oran protested gruffly.

‘Start by getting everyone out of that second carriage,’ Torben commanded, ‘and untether the horses from it! It’ll be easier to break through if we’ve only got one carriage to worry about.’

Oran, Yuri and Pieter ran to do Torben’s bidding. Torben and Stanislav tried to stop the beast and his men advancing any further onto the creaking, protesting bridge. As the last of the flustered, near-hysterical maidservants was herded into the first carriage, Torben swung himself onto the back of one of the two untethered horses. Yanking on the reins, he turned his steed in the direction they had just come, spurring it into a gallop. Torben thundered over the bridge towards his struggling friend and the warped beast, rickety planks rattling under the galloping horse’s hooves.

Lady Isadora’s entourage having been hustled into the lead carriage, Pieter mounted the other freed horse, snatching hold of the reins of Weber’s beast. Unfortunately there was no time to recover the loyal guard’s body.

Meanwhile, Yuri vaulted into the driver’s seat of the carriage, snatching up the reins and seizing the whip. Then suddenly he was jumping down again.

‘What are you doing?’ Oran shouted in disbelief.

‘I have an idea,’ Yuri called back as he ran from the wagon to the edge of the bridge, carrying a coil of rope he had found. He hastily tied a noose as he ran, and this he looped over one of the bridge’s supports. Dashing back to the carriage he tied the other end off to the shafts and, leaping back into his seat, lashed the snorting horses into action with the whip, shouting, ‘Hyahh!’

At the eastern end of the bridge Stanislav, a huge man and yet still a head shorter than the monstrously-proportioned bandit chief, obviously heard, and maybe even felt, the pounding approach of Torben’s horse. Putting all his strength into a mighty, sweeping blow he clipped aside the beast’s descending cleaver and sank his own axe-blade into the mutated brute’s thigh. The monster, taken aback, staggered backwards.

Then Torben was there, his horse sliding to a halt on the wet wood of the bridge next to Stanislav. Free of the beast, at least momentarily, Stanislav climbed onto the back of the horse behind the mercenary captain. The enraged beast made a lunging grasp for them but was left with nothing more than a handful of tail hairs from the squealing horse. The beast’s assault on the animal only served to increase the speed of its flight as the horse carried Torben and Stanislav careering past the abandoned carriage and after the lead wagon which was now moving again. As Yuri urged his own horses on, the animals straining to pull the extra weight, Torben and Stanislav galloped past. Yuri’s noose pulled taut against the wooden post that was the bridge support. As Torben’s horse passed the groaning joist, Stanislav swung his axe.

With a protesting groan – and the sound of gravel grating against rock – the bridge support was pulled free, clattering over the rickety planks behind the now speeding carriage. Torben’s horse crossed onto solid ground again first, the brigands waiting there threw themselves out of the way to avoid the charging, wild-eyed steed. Two more outlaws fell to Stanislav’s sweeping, double-headed axe, nonetheless. The wagon rattled to safety only moments later.

The entourage didn’t dare stop as from behind them came a cacophony of terrible creaking, cracking, splintering sounds that rose to a crescendoing crash, echoed from the walls of the gorge, and was followed by a series of booming splashes. Under the weight of the abandoned second wagon, the bandits, and no doubt the beast himself, the rickety bridge had collapsed before the brigands could escape.

The road rose ahead of them, curving away to the left Torben dared a glance back at the scene of the ambush. He was in time to see much of the bridge’s structure being washed downstream, tumbling over the jutting rocks of the river’s rapids. The wagon was starting to break up on the rocks, spilling out chests of valuables and other possessions of the Lady Isadora. Amongst the wreckage thrashing bodies bobbed in the churning white water. Torben could hear the desperate, gargling cries of the bandits as they fought against the powerful torrent in the deep, boulder-strewn channel. He could see that a number of the brigands weren’t moving at all as they were carried away by the river face down.

The last thing he saw, before the raging, whirling torrent passed out of sight was the ugly head of the beast, barely above water. The bandit chief was swept away in the current of the rushing river. The last thing he heard were the croaking cries of the dispersing carrion crows.

‘He must be dead!’ the Lady Isadora declared.

The entourage had travelled several miles along the road at speed, the horses panting, before Torben had agreed to a short stop.

‘I hate to tell you this, madam,’ he said, ‘but just to look at him, and seeing the way he fought, I think the beast probably survived his dip in the river.’

‘And he looks like the type who’d hold a grudge,’ grumbled Oran. ‘Just our luck.’

‘Exactly, so we have to get moving again.’

‘I killed a troll once,’ Stanislav boasted as the maidservant Lisbet cleaned and dressed his wounds, ‘single-handed. I could have taken that brute. I had him. One more minute and I would have tossed his ugly head into the river after his fat body!’

‘Or he would have done it to you!’ Torben countered.

‘I recognised him,’ the young woman said suddenly, her voice barely more than a horrified whisper. The rest of the party all turned and stared at Camellia incredulously. ‘I recognised the beast. I’m sure of it.’

‘What are you saying, my dear?’ uttered her aunt, appalled. ‘Where have you seen that brute before?’

‘He used to work for my father.’

‘What?’ Isadora shrieked. ‘That monster?’

‘He wasn’t like he is now, he was just a man then,’ Camellia explained. ‘His name was… Gregor, I think. It was a few years ago. He was an ostler in my father’s stables. But, like I say, he’s changed since those days.’

‘How did you know it was him?’ Pieter asked, concern knitting his brow.

‘It was something about the set of his features and the scar on his cheek,’ she replied, a faraway look in her crystal blue eyes. ‘Gregor had one in the same place from where my horse once kicked him.’

‘Oh, my poor lamb,’ Isadora cooed, fussing round her niece like a mother hen. ‘I’m sorry you even had to look at that monstrous face again.’

‘Come on,’ said Torben, asserting his authority once more, ‘let’s get moving. We need to travel as fast as we can, so the beast doesn’t catch up with us.’

The captain quickly and efficiently organised his men and Isadora’s entourage so that the noblewomen and their servants continued in the wagon, with Yuri at the reins, and the injured Stanislav next to him. Torben and Pieter, with a mount each, were to ride at the front of the group, followed by the carriage. Bringing up the rear were Oran, on Weber’s horse, and the steely-faced Kruger.

‘Urrgh! Look at them!’ Torben heard Oran grumbling to nobody in particular.

‘What?’ he called back to his companion.

‘The crows,’ came the reply.

Torben looked up at the filigree treetops, where the scraggy black birds were gathering on either side of the road. Perhaps it was just a paranoid reaction following the ambush but it really did seem as if the beady-eyed creatures were watching them depart.

‘They’re birds of ill-omen, you know?’

‘Maybe we’ve been cursed,’ Yuri said, from his seat at the front of the wagon.

‘Cursed?’ Pieter sounded almost excited at the doom-laden prospect.

‘By whom?’ contested Torben, trying to laugh the matter off.

‘By Morr, of course,’ Yuri explained, ‘for burning down his church in Nagenhof.’

‘But the place had been desecrated by the skaven,’ Stanislav protested. ‘We had no choice.’

‘Isn’t it the raven that’s sacred to Morr, not the crow?’ Pieter asked, but no one seemed to be listening.

‘By Boris Ursa’s beard, will you lot just shut up?’ hissed their leader.

The discussion ceased abruptly and Badenov’s band went on in silence. But as they made their way along the road, between the dark, looming silhouettes of the almost-skeletal trees, Torben couldn’t help feeling a great sense of unease. The hackles were rising on the back of his neck.

This wasn’t over. Maybe Yuri was right; maybe they were cursed. Something bad was going to happen, he was sure of it. We haven’t seen the last of the beast, he thought to himself, not by a long shot.

Half a mile downstream the beast dragged his dripping bulk out of the shallows of the river onto the smooth, flat boulders of the bank. Blood ran from numerous lacerations covering his body. Behind their leader came the bedraggled survivors of his bandit gang. They had lost fully half their number in their failed ambush attempt.

The Beast of Bruckenbach was fuming. Black anger rose to the surface of his psyche like bubbles of poisonous gas from a swamp. As well as losing men in the battle at the bridge, Camellia, the object of his deranged obsession, had escaped his clutches. Someone was going to have to pay. The other bandits, fearing their master’s wrath, hung back. The beast spun round to face them, and it seemed to the cowering brigands that their leader’s amulet was glowing with a baleful dull luminescence.

‘Ranulf!’ he snarled, fixing on a man wringing river water from his mask-hood. ‘Round up the others and meet us at castle rock.’

No one knew these wooded crags better than the Beast of Bruckenbach. He knew that the road Camellia and her protectors were travelling on looped round on itself beneath a cliff, on which stood the ruins of a keep, abandoned long ago by those who sought to tame these lands. Unencumbered by a wagon or horses the bandits would actually be able to overtake the mercenaries by travelling over the rocky higher ground.

He would not allow them to get away a second time. Their souls and his sweet Camellia would be his.

That night, as dusk fell, Torben eventually let the entourage stop and rest. The ruins of some ancient tower was visible against the darkening sky on the crag above them, like some long-dead sentinel, watching over these lands. But even then he wasn’t taking any chances; the beast and his bandits could attack at any time.

‘I want half of us on watch at all times,’ he said to his assembled band and the rugged bodyguard. ‘Oran, Kruger and I will take the first watch. Stanislav, Yuri and Pieter, you will relieve us in two hours. In the meantime get some rest, especially you, Stanislav.’

‘I want the girl taken alive,’ the beast told the masked brigands around him as they peered down at the fire and lamplight that illuminated the camped entourage through the gloom of night.

From the top of the crag a sheer cliff dropped away to the road, so that the entourage was virtually right under the gathered bandit gang. From the ruins of the castle, the promontory dropped away through steep-sided, wooded slopes to the looping road below.

‘The rest of them,’ the beast said, a grotesque gargoyle leer twisting his lips, ‘I want to see the rest of them have their bones picked clean by the crows.’

Pieter looked up at the cold fires of the distant stars burning high in the heavens and pulled his red, woollen cloak tighter about him. He was the only member of the band not to possess a bearskin cloak; his Reikland wool cape belying his noble origins. His hands touched the gilded clasp, a family heirloom, that held the cloak in place at his neck. He did not often think of the family he had abandoned to pursue his quest for revenge. They had not had word of him since Pieter, and his deceased manservant Walter, had left home to hunt down the vampire Morderischen, seven months ago. They did not know if he was alive or dead, and equally he knew nothing of their well-being.

He had thought often of his dead betrothed Rosamund – until recently. Now he found his thoughts full of the fair Camellia. He had loved Rosamund once, and that love had been transformed into an obsessive desire for revenge. Revenge had become his sole purpose since the events of Ostenwald that had triggered his transformation from nobleman soldier to mercenary avenger. But in only the last few days, in the company of the beautiful, golden-haired Camellia, a girl blossoming into delectable womanhood, he had felt his cold, hard heart begin to soften for the first time in what seemed like an age. Was it possible he was ready to put the past behind him? Was he ready to love again?

And yet it was useless. Once more, the world threw obstacles into his way. Camellia was betrothed. But, a bold, daring voice at the back of his mind said, that that could change. If only he could find the courage to breach the barricades of his own integral sense of honour, inadequacy and morality and tell her how he felt. The rest then would be up to her.

‘Pieter?’ Her voice as sweet as honeysuckle in his ear.

‘Oh… uh, hello,’ he faltered, turning to see Camellia walking towards him from the carriage. She was wearing a hooded jade green travelling cloak, which covered her fine, saffron gown, and she was carrying a small, clay lamp. ‘What are you doing up at this time? You should get some rest.’

‘I couldn’t sleep,’ she explained, giving him a weak smile, ‘too much on my mind.’

‘You needn’t worry unduly,’ he found himself saying. ‘I’ll look after you. I mean, we’re all here to protect you.’ He didn’t mean to lie, in fact he would lay down his life to keep her from harm, but in his experience you couldn’t guarantee anything.

‘I know you will.’ She gazed up into his eyes, taking a step closer to him.

There was a moment’s awkward silence between them, neither knowing what to say; yet neither wanting to break contact, not yet. Then they both spoke at once.

‘There’s something I’ve been wanting–’

‘Pieter, I know that–’

‘Sorry, you go first.’

‘No, you. What was it you wanted to say?’ Her brilliant blue eyes fixed him with an imploring gaze.

‘It’s just that… Well… I know I’ve only known you for a few days,’ he gabbled, feeling himself blushing deeply, ‘and I know I’m only the hired armed escort, in the position of any other servant, brought low by circumstance, but I was once of noble birth, and I know you are to be married, but it’s just that–’

‘Shhhh,’ Camellia hushed him, putting a gentle finger to his lips, silencing him in an instant. He breathed in her warm intoxicating smell and felt his heart race. ‘Let’s see what your future holds, shall we?’

Pieter checked to see that Yuri and Stanislav, on second watch duty with him, were still on guard. They were almost out of sight in the darkness, as they patrolled the perimeter determined by their position under the ruin-topped peak. Giving in to temptation, Pieter allowed himself to be guided by the hand like a docile faun to a mossy boulder at the side of the road. The two of them sat down on the rock, Camellia placing her lamp beside them, and then she took a pack of large, decorated cards from inside a pocket in her cloak.

Pieter hesitated as she began to deal out the cards onto a flat dip in the stone between them. What was he getting himself involved in? Was this just a harmless diversion to pass the time or some form of witchcraft? And yet he did want to know his future, now the thought was put to him. What was to become of him? Where would his obsession lead? Was he already damned? Had he gone too far in taking and using Verfallen’s grimoire? What of he and Camellia? There were so many questions he would dearly love the answers to.

There were now four cards laid face down on the boulder in front of him. His curiosity had been piqued. He would see what the cards had in store for him. They couldn’t be any worse than him using the book anyway, and nothing bad had come of that, he told himself. Then he felt a sliver of ice trickle down his spine.

‘My mother used to do this for me on cold winter evenings. She had what she used to call a “gift” and sometimes I think I have it too,’ Camellia said trustingly. ‘Of course whenever my mother read me my future it was always the same. I would marry a handsome baron, live in a beautiful palace and live happily ever after. Do you believe in happy ever after?’ she asked coyly, turning over the first card.

‘I used to,’ Pieter said and looked down at the card revealed in the flickering light of the oil lamp’s slow-burning wick.

The empty eye-sockets of a skull looked back at him. The card plainly showed the hand-coloured woodcut of a shroud-cloaked skeleton wielding a long-handled scythe, a graveyard and a corpse-strewn battlefield behind it.

‘Do not worry,’ Camellia said, unable to hide the unease in her voice. ‘The death card can mean all sorts of things in fortune telling. It could be a change in circumstance, or a new beginning as much as the end of life.’

She turned over the second card. It showed a tower being struck by a jagged bolt of lightning, a terrified man plummeting from the stricken, crumbling battlements.

‘And what does this card mean?’ Pieter asked.

‘Destruction,’ she said simply.

As if hypnotised, unable to stop herself, Camellia revealed the third card. Its face was completely black. Pieter shivered. The fourth card showed a grinning fool following a beautiful maiden by the hand, only from beneath the woman’s dress sprouted a forked tail and her feet were cloven hooves.

‘Death follows your passing and death awaits you. Death is in your past, present and future for you shall fall under the influence of darkness,’ Camellia intoned, her voice an emotionless monotone, as if she were entranced.

Pieter leapt up from the rock. ‘No!’ he shouted. ‘It shall not be so!’

Camellia let out a faint cry, the connection broken. ‘Pieter!’ she called, but the intense young man was already gone, away into the night. With a single glistening tear rolling down her cheek the girl sadly picked up her cards and returned to the wagon.

As Pieter stood at the edge of the road black pessimism seized him again. With all pleasant thoughts gone, he was suddenly aware of the cawing of crows nearby. It took him a moment to realise why this troubled him so: it was practically the middle of the night and the birds should have been roosting. Crows were not normally nocturnal creatures.

Looking up he could see their black silhouettes, outlined by the starlight, against the midnight blue of the sky.

It was then that the second attack came.

There was a sudden, resounding thud and Pieter turned to see the wagon rock sideways onto two groaning wheels and then topple over onto its side with an even louder crash.

All pandemonium broke loose.

Yuri was yelling, raising the alarm. The women inside the carriage were screaming, the men, all now awake, were shouting. The beast stood bellowing behind the wagon, where he had smashed into it and turned the vehicle over, his hideous features highlighted in the moon’s white glow.

As one, the mercenaries converged on the howling bandit chief, weapons in hand. Black shapes detached themselves from the tree-line and in moments the beast’s outlaw band emerged from the night, surrounding them, and battle was engaged.

Adrenalin flooding his system, Torben was awake and alert in an instant, running towards the source of the commotion. Despite the heavy losses taken by the outlaws at the attack at the bridge, Badenov’s band was still outnumbered two to one, even with the veteran bodyguard Kruger fighting alongside them.

How many followers did the beast have, Torben wondered? It was as if every outlaw in the Bruckenbach Woods was part of his gang. Torben could well imagine that any men living wild in the forest that the beast came across were given a simple choice: join him or die.

Dropping a bludgeon-wielding brigand, lithe as a polecat with the build of a scarecrow, Torben surveyed the skirmish taking place around the overturned wagon. The horses, released from the shafts for the night and tethered nearby, had woken in panic, their terrified whinnies and neighs adding to the clamour of the battle.

Stanislav was there again, injured and lumbering towards the beast, determined to finish his duel with the psychopathic bandit chief. But the beast was enraged and invigorated by a terrifying, frenzied madness that burned blackly in the pits of his eyes, whereas Stanislav was weakened and sore from the injuries he had sustained. The beast didn’t appear to be in any similar way encumbered by the wounds the largest of the mercenaries had dealt him. Then the unimaginable happened.

Torben saw Stanislav fall to a backhanded swipe delivered by the blunt end of the brute’s cleaver. Then Pieter was there, his fury and passion evident from the way he moved. The beast grabbed Pieter by his jerkin in his empty left hand and, in one motion, lifted him off the ground and hurled him ten yards into the undergrowth at the roadside. There was an audible clonk and Pieter lay still.

Torben charged towards the beast as he began to tear the wagon apart with his bare hands. Splintered timber panels were hurled aside as he desperately tried to get at something inside. The bodies of two maidservants were pulled from the wreckage, one screaming, one horribly quiet. They were cast aside like rag-dolls. Torben stumbled as he half-caught the conscious girl. It was Lisbet. He gently laid her on the road and then was after the beast again.

With the relentless brigands still occupying the other mercenaries and before Torben could reach him, the beast pulled Camellia from the wreckage, her body limp and silent. Then the beast was away, bounding off up the steep, densely wooded slope of the crag, Camellia slung over one shoulder, just as a hunter might carry a deer carcass.

Without a second’s thought, his heart pounding in a rush of adrenalin, exertion and fear, Torben Badenov set off in pursuit.

Torben crashed to the ground with bone-jarring force, a good five yards from his opponent and far too close to the crag-top cliff for his liking. Pebbles skittered away over the edge into the darkness below.

Panting after his strenuous pursuit, Torben had caught up with the beast at the top of the crag. The bandit had cast Camellia aside and there, amidst the crenellated ruins of some long-abandoned castle keep, the mercenary captain and the bandit chief had engaged in battle for the last time. For this climactic conflict would not end until one of them was dead.

Torben staggered to his feet and stood propping himself up with his sword. He was not in as much trouble as he made out but he did need a moment to recover his breath. The beast charged, head down like a bull, steam practically gouting from his snorting nostrils. Torben neatly sidestepped and brought his sabre up two-handed as the grossly deformed man hurtled past. He felt the blade connect and heard it slide slickly across the monster’s stomach.

Momentum carrying him on, the beast crunched into the remains of a low wall, knocking several stones loose in a shower of mortar chips. Torben advanced on his adversary, not wanting to give him a moment’s respite, else he lose the advantage. The beast shuffled onto his back, his chest heaving. Cuts and bruises covered his shaven head, blood ran from the wounds opened by the mercenary’s blade but it appeared that Torben had dealt the bandit chief a mortal blow with his last manoeuvre. Just for a moment Torben dared believe that he might be winning.

Then, as he covered the ground between the two of them he caught sight of the amulet around the beast’s ox-like neck. It pulsed with a dull, azure light, and Torben fancied he saw a gash on the bandit’s exposed chest seal itself and heal fully in an instant.

Ignoring Torben, the beast looked up at the clear, ultramarine sky and the even darker shapes circling above. ‘Come, my children! Come!’ he called, his guttural tones almost a bark. At his summons the crows dropped from the air, like stones, towards their target.

Torben sprinted the last few yards and, as the first steel-hard beaks and talons tore at his head and arms, lunged with his sabre. The beast twisted his huge bulk in time to avoid the thrust of the blade but not quick enough to stop Torben snagging the curious talisman on the end of his weapon. With a jerk of his wrist he turned the tip of his sabre inside a link, twisting it open. A deft flick sent the amulet flying from around the bandit’s neck into the darkness. It was a move worthy of a Tilean duellist.

The beast roared, making a sound like nothing any man could ever utter, and dropped into a crouch, tensed ready to fight. Torben saw slabs of muscle swell visibly under the taut material of the brigand’s tightly stretched shirt. He was suddenly aware that the crows had broken off their attack, returning to the skies, a squawking mob. Then the mercenary and the bandit were at each other again.

The beast might be fast, especially for someone his size, but Torben was faster. Natural ability, five years in the tzar’s army, experience he had garnered in the years following – fighting from Norsca to the Border Princes – and the need to survive had all helped shape Torben into the highly-skilled swordsman he was now.

Then the crows returned, squawking and scrabbling in a fury of feathers, bloodied beaks and shredding talons. Only now they weren’t attacking Torben, they had turned on the beast.

Torben broke off from the fight as the bandit chief disappeared from view beneath a black shroud of pecking and clawing crows. For a moment the beast looked like he himself was covered in black feathers, so intense was the attack, so numerous the birds. Flailing at the flapping crows, hacking some apart with his cleaver, crushing others in a huge fist, snarling like a cornered wolfhound, the beast was staggering steadily backwards under the birds’ relentless assault, closer and closer towards the cliff edge.

What had caused such a sudden reversal? Torben wondered. There could only be one answer, he decided. Robbed of the strange amulet, the beast no longer controlled the frenzied flock. Somehow the two were connected. Whatever the reason it was purely academic now.

Torben charged in, beneath the beast’s non-existent guard, and sank a good five feet of cold, Kislevite steel into the bandit’s gut. The beast was suddenly silent and, his body sagging, he stumbled the last two or three steps towards the edge of the crag. Then his body folded and he was gone.

The exhausted mercenary, panting and drenched with sweat from his exertions despite the chill night, peered over the edge of the cliff partly out of the need to make sure his enemy was truly dead and partly out of morbid curiosity. As the beast plummeted towards the ground far below, Torben saw that the mass of crows continued to surround the bandit, with more and more of the bloodthirsty birds swooping in every second to join in the killing. The cloud of birds grew so large that it seemed to toss the body about in the air. Each time Torben caught a glimpse of it through the feathers, all he could see reflected in the cold moonlight was the glistening dark sheen of blood.

When the beast’s massive body finally crashed down on the road next to the mercenaries, the last of the bandits breathing his last in an expanding pool of his own blood – all that remained of his body was a monstrous, twisted skeleton steaming in the chill night air. Every bone had been picked clean by the foul birds.

Hearing a faint moan, Torben turned to see Camellia sitting up amongst the rubble where she had been abandoned. She seemed to have escaped serious injury; the worst he could see was a bruise on her forehead. Having made her as comfortable as he could, Torben made a hurried search of the ruins but couldn’t find the beast’s amulet anywhere. He assumed it must have gone over the cliff as well.

All that was left to do was for Torben and the rescued noblewoman to descend the crag and rejoin the rest of the entourage. The next morning they would have to be on their way again. It was still another two days’ ride to Wollustig after all.

Four days after leaving Nagenhof, the bruised and battered entourage finally came within sight of the turrets of Castle Wollustig.

Camellia sat rocking on the back of Kruger’s horse, behind the bandaged bodyguard, her mind thick with thoughts of her impending marriage to Count Reinhardt, her own feelings for the troubled Pieter Valburg, and all that had happened to the party on the road to Wollustig. Had it not been for her own intervention, perhaps even now she would still be in the forest, a slave to the dark desires of the monster she had once known as Gregor the ostler.

Absent-mindedly she put her hand into a pocket in her gown and felt the almost reassuring touch of the smooth stone of the beast’s amulet that she had hidden there. If only the others had known, it was she who had saved them all from the homicidal crows. It was she who had turned the murder of crows against the beast, using the power of the amulet against him, the strangely alluring artefact having practically landed in her lap as she had returned to consciousness.

As what was left of the straggling entourage rode on towards the dark towers of Castle Wollustig, half a dozen ruffle-feathered crows, perched among the winter-bare treetops, followed its progress.

WINTER

Gratification or abstinence. Extravagance or prudence. Luxury or frugality. Lust or chastity. The choice is every man’s and every woman’s. The Path of Damnation is ours to take should we so choose and if we are damned for all eternity it is no one’s fault but our own.

– from the sermons of Saint Hildegard the Chaste

SYMPATHY FOR THE DAMNED

On the first day of winter, the entourage of the Lady Isadora and her niece Camellia, late of Nagenhof, arrived at Castle Wollustig and the court of Count Reinhardt. The party that had numbered fifteen on its departure from Nagenhof now numbered only twelve following the losses they had suffered at the hands of the Beast of Bruckenbach and his bandit gang.

As soon as they had dismounted, safe within the ward of Castle Wollustig, at Camellia’s own insistence, the entire party was ushered into the warmth of the count’s audience chamber and, for the first time, Camellia saw her husband-to-be. Count Reinhardt sat in comfort amid cushions on a gilded, throne-like chair. He was strikingly handsome, his face narrow and sharp as a dagger, his features finely chiselled, his eyes as dark as his black, lustrous hair.

Camellia suppressed a gasp. She had really had no idea what to expect. The count was certainly a handsome man, and it was hard to guess his age – he might have been anywhere from in his late-twenties to perhaps even ten years older than that. But when she looked at Reinhardt she felt no warmth inside, like when she happened to catch the young Pieter Valburg’s eye. Maybe that would change in time, she tried to persuade herself, even though, deep down, she didn’t really believe it.

Standing beside the count was a young woman, taller than Camellia, nobly-dressed in a low-cut gown of black velvet and purple satin that put her own, more modest apparel to shame. The woman was so similar to him in appearance that Camellia knew at once that they were related.

Standing motionless, waiting patiently for the count’s instructions was a thin, stately-looking man wearing the purple robes of a lord chamberlain. This was Wallach, who had first admitted them to the audience chamber.

Camellia roused herself from her musings when she realised that her Aunt Isadora had formally presented her to the count, and she curtsied obligingly.

‘Welcome, my lady,’ Reinhardt said, addressing his betrothed. The count made no move to rise and take the hand of his bride-to-be and neither was any invitation given for her to approach.

‘Thank you, my lord,’ Camellia responded demurely, keeping her position. Was this some kind of test she was being given by her future husband, to teach her the boundaries of their alliance? The alliance may benefit them both, one way or another, but the matter of love never entered the equation.

Like many a young girl, brought up in a noble household, kept at an arm’s length from the opposite sex, and potential suitors in particular, Camellia had grown up with an innocent, romanticised ideal of what marriage would be like for her. Yet in the short time since her father’s death her preconceptions about many things had been challenged. Still, it was with some disappointment that she came to terms with the fact that she was merely a pawn in the political schemes of others and that her future happiness was irrelevant.

‘Camellia, may I introduce my sister, the Lady Ethelind?’ the count said, his voice crisp and clipped.

‘Welcome, sister,’ Ethelind said coldly, her tone as hard as flint.

‘Greetings, madam,’ Camellia said, curtseying again and lowering her eyes before the woman’s cutting stare that dissected her in minute examination.

Reinhardt’s sister, so like her brother in the eyes, was certainly as beautiful as he was handsome, but it was a cold, hard beauty, like carved stone: flawless yet cold and unemotional. Perhaps it was purely jealousy, Camellia scolded herself, but she had taken an immediate disliking to the Lady Ethelind.

And there was something else. Camellia couldn’t help noticing that while Ethelind stood at the count’s side Reinhardt’s sister was stroking the back of his neck. She found the whole thing rather disconcerting. Camellia looked to Wallach the chamberlain to see how he was reacting to the attention Ethelind was giving him. From his blank expression, either he was used to ignoring such behaviour or it didn’t trouble him at all.

‘Now tell me, who are these, er… gentlemen, you have brought with you?’ Reinhardt asked Camellia, frowning at the band of dishevelled, unshaven mercenaries, who stood behind her.

‘They are heroes, my lord!’ Camellia announced proudly, doing her best to ignore Ethelind’s unsettling display of affection towards her brother. ‘It was they who saved Aunt Isadora and myself, and all our entourage, from that most wicked of outlaws, the Beast of Bruckenbach; the same monster who murdered my father.’

Camellia looked round at Badenov’s band who stood arrayed behind her and smiled sweetly at them, first at her rescuer, the ruggedly handsome, raven-haired Torben Badenov, but her gaze lingered longer on the true object of her affections, the darkly brooding Pieter Valburg.

‘Then these men are to be given our whole-hearted thanks, for without them I would not have you here now, my precious Camellia.’ The count smiled, like someone who knew how to smile but didn’t attach any emotion to the action. ‘Gentlemen,’ he addressed the mercenaries, ‘you will of course be rewarded in due course,’ and then added, half under his breath, ‘as will we all, when it is our time.’

‘I’m glad to hear it, my lord,’ Torben Badenov said deferentially.

Camellia couldn’t judge how sincere Torben’s respectful tone was but whatever he really thought of Count Reinhardt he wasn’t going to jeopardise the rest of his party’s payment.

‘But for the time being rest, after all your trials and tribulations, and enjoy our hospitality. We will find you lodgings in the guard barracks.’

‘And we’ll be paid,’ Torben re-emphasised.

‘And you will be paid, of course.’

At a signal from Chamberlain Wallach, a servant led Badenov’s band unprotestingly out of the audience chamber, along with Kruger, the bodyguard. As the fighting men departed Reinhardt and the Lady Ethelind said nothing but kept their eyes fixed on the increasingly uncomfortable Camellia.

‘My dear,’ he went on, once Badenov’s band had gone, ‘I cannot tell you how much I am looking forward to the marriage ceremony.’

Camellia swallowed hard. ‘As am I.’ It wasn’t a lie. Since the age of six she had been looking forward to the day of her wedding.

‘For surely it is blessed in the eyes of our divine lord and master.’

‘In what way, my lord?’

‘My dear, innocent Camellia,’ Reinhardt simpered, his smile unwavering. There was the fire of passion in his eyes now that Camellia had not yet witnessed, ‘because it is to take place tomorrow night under an auspicious alignment of the stars.’

‘Of course, tomorrow night.’ Camellia felt cold anxiety grip her stomach. She was more nervous about her impending marriage than she had realised.

‘Then will the blessed union take place.’

For a moment the count seemed lost in rapturous thoughts although he had not once made any move from his throne-like chair. With a sickening twist in her gut, Camellia couldn’t help noticing that Ethelind appeared to be in the same state of rapture, her head held back, her eyes closed, and shaking almost imperceptibly.

‘My lord,’ Camellia said, louder than was necessary, in order to break the unbearable atmosphere and rouse the count from his moment of personal ecstasy, ‘if you will excuse me it has been a long and difficult journey and I wish to rest before tomorrow so that I might be at my best for our special day.’

‘What? Oh, of course, my dear,’ Reinhardt said, coming out of his reverie. ‘Yes, there is much to prepare for the ceremony if we are to be ready for this uniquely special occasion.’

‘Thank you, my lord – my lady,’ and with a final curtsey Camellia swept out of the audience chamber, Chamberlain Wallach himself leading the way to her apartments, her aunt following behind.

Who was this petty nobleman Isadora had arranged for her to marry, and what did such a marriage hold for the future?

‘Well, I don’t trust him,’ Pieter told the others, once they were alone in their spartan quarters in the castle’s barrack house.

‘So?’ Oran sneered. ‘I don’t trust anyone with a title. In my experience they’re all either inbred idiots who love their horses more than is natural, psychopathic, scheming warmongers, or insane Chaos cultists.’

‘Or vampires,’ added Yuri.

‘You’ve only just met him,’ said Stanislav. ‘How can you make so quick a judgement?’

‘There’s just something about him,’ Pieter muttered, ‘something that I can’t quite put my finger on.’

‘Oh, let me try for you,’ Oran suggested nastily. ‘He’s better looking than you are. He’s richer than you. He’s got his own castle. He’s marrying your girlfriend. Tell me when I’ve got it.’

‘That’s got nothing to do with it,’ Pieter railed.

‘Oh, come on,’ Torben laughed, ‘you’re sweet on the girl. We can all see that. And I don’t blame you either. She’s lovely as a summer’s morning with the innocence of a nun,’ he said with a wicked grin. ‘She’s a fragrant rose ready for the picking.’

Pieter scowled. ‘It’s not like that.’

‘You only met her a few days ago and she’s marrying someone else. Accept it, my lad. Get over it and you’ll be much happier in the long run,’ Stanislav advised.

‘What does it matter anyway?’ Torben pressed. ‘We’ll be out of here tomorrow before the ceremony even takes place and you won’t ever see Count Reinhardt or his sister again.’

‘There’s something about her too.’

‘The Lady Ethelind? Don’t tell me you’ve fallen for her too!’

‘No, of course I haven’t.’ Pieter was getting more and more frustrated, his fellows ribbing him mercilessly. ‘But didn’t anybody else find what she was doing unsettling?’

‘It’s none of our business,’ Torben stated flatly.

‘You’re always looking for trouble where there isn’t any,’ Yuri complained.

‘But it’s not right for a sister to–’

‘I said, it’s none of our business!’ Torben suddenly flared. ‘And that’s an end to the matter. Tomorrow I’ll make sure we all get paid and then we’ll leave. The affairs of Castle Wollustig, Camellia, Count Reinhardt and his inappropriate sister won’t be our problem anymore.’

Isadora paced the length of the short, arras-draped corridor for the hundredth time. With a door at either end, leading to other, more important parts of the castle, and nothing of note within, except for the fading and frayed wall-hung tapestry – depicting a rather ribald pastoral scene involving merry shepherds and rosy-cheeked shepherdesses – the sole purpose of the tiny chamber seemed to be as a meeting place for secret assignations. But the Lady Isadora was beginning to get impatient, waiting for her own furtive liaison.

One of the doors opened and the count swiftly entered, alone, closing it quickly and quietly behind him.

‘My lady,’ he said, taking her hands in his. ‘It is good to have you back in the bosom of Castle Wollustig.’

‘It is wonderful to be here, my lord,’ said the older woman, her heart pounding in her chest in a combination of nervous anticipation and thrilled exhilaration.

‘I can barely contain my excitement,’ Reinhardt said, his voice like syrup in Isadora’s ear. His eyes drifted down to her heaving bosom. ‘Is everything proceeding according to plan?’

‘Yes, my lord,’ Isadora gasped as the count drew her body closer to his. ‘Tonight the girl shall be wed to the lord of pleasure and you and the Lady Ethelind shall be as one. It will be as you have always wanted.’

‘You have done well in arranging this union, my darling Isadora,’ he said, holding her tight in the strong, warm embrace of his vigorous, youthful body.

‘My lord,’ she managed to utter between panting breaths.

‘What, my angel?’ Reinhardt asked, burying his face in her hair.

‘I only ask that when you transcend your mortal existence and come to glorious daemonhood, you not forget my part in all this.’

‘Forget you? How could I forget you, my lady?’ he sighed, smothering her neck with hot kisses.

Then Isadora surrendered herself to her own lord of pleasure.

The setting sun was a blood-red ruby in a sky of molten gold when Pieter closed the door to the secluded tower room, bolting it behind him and locking himself inside. It had taken him some time wandering the castle’s many corridors and winding stairs to find the abandoned chamber. It was small and cold, a single leaded, diamond paned window letting in the bronzing glow of sunset. The only furniture was a single chair, a desk and the bare wooden pallet of a bed. The room might once have belonged to a priest or scribe but it looked like it had been a long time since anyone had made use of it. The only occupants it had now were a few desultory flies buzzing against the window.

There was something awry at Castle Wollustig, he was sure of it, and as his so-called friends were so ready to laugh off and dismiss his fears, he would have to look for help and guidance elsewhere, as he had in the past. Sitting down at the desk he withdrew the black leather-bound volume from inside his jerkin and placed it on the table.

The incident in Nagenhof had not been the first time he had consulted Verfallen’s grimoire since saving it from the destruction of the derelict windmill and the plague pit beneath, and it certainly hadn’t been the last. As Walter had taught him, to defeat his enemies, first he had to know all he could about them: know their strengths so he could ascertain their weaknesses; know their desires so that he could trap them, turning their own passions against them; know of their meeting places, foul practices, and evil powers, so that he might counter them wherever he might find them.

And if Pieter was to be fully prepared, if anything that his encounters with the vampire Morderischen and the daemon Moruut had taught him, it was that wherever you were in the world the powers of darkness were never far away. Evil could come upon you at any moment, anywhere, and if you were found wanting you were either dead or damned – unless you were prepared.

And what better way was there to learn about the forces of darkness than from what the most narrow-minded holy fools in the Church of Sigmar, ignorantly called a ‘forbidden text’? Once, he might have been of the same opinion but now he knew better. He had faced evil and survived, but rather than becoming complacent, his experiences had granted him the dreadful knowledge that the more you learnt about the ways of Chaos and the dark, the more you understood about evil in all its insidious forms.

Taking the book in both hands he opened it. Since acquiring the grimoire Pieter had discovered that whenever there was something he had wanted to find out about the dark powers, there was always some appropriate chapter hidden somewhere in Verfallen’s book. And now, almost miraculously, the volume fell open at a page which bore the wood-cut print of two human figures, one male, one female, entwined in each other’s arms, their legs wrapped around their partner’s, engaged in some unspeakable act. They were surrounded by a throng of leering, lecherous on-lookers.

Pieter’s eyes fixed on the image in morbid fascination. It appalled him to the very core of his being, but he could hardly tear his eyes from the grim portrayal. The closer he looked, the more he saw. The setting for the orgiastic scene was a lavishly decorated chamber as might be found in any noble house or castle, the people depicted there the idle rich. The figures watching them were all robed in a similar manner and Pieter could see that many, if not all, had their right breast exposed. But the illustrator had given each of the onlookers some item or other to distinguish their professions in everyday life: a scribe’s quill pen here, a minstrel’s lute there, even a bishop’s mitre. And lurking, half-hidden amongst the observers were the distorted, grimacing, horned visages of daemonic creatures, all enjoying the debauched scene.

Pieter looked again at the two copulating figures. It could only be bizarre, grotesque coincidence but the young man and woman enjoying each other so fully looked suspiciously similar to the count and his sister.

The rest of the page was dense with gothic print explaining the obscene rite taking place in the woodcut picture above. As he read, a small voice at the back of his mind reviled against him for consulting such a foul book. But then he recalled his personal justifications all the more strongly. Could words and books be evil in themselves? Could knowledge really be described as wicked and forbidden? Surely it depended on the person who had the book in their hands, what that person did with that knowledge, with those books, those words – only then would it be seen whether it was evil, or not.

By reading Verfallen’s grimoire he was simply using a lesser evil – if, as he disputed, a book could even be considered evil – to help him battle what he suspected was a greater evil at work in Wollustig. The end justified the means.

Not once, as he scanned the profane text, did Pieter allow himself to admit that, in truth, it was the obsessive love he felt for Camellia, and his desire to save her from whatever impending fate awaited her, that drove him to this dangerous course of action. That was the only way he might prevent the inevitable marriage to the count, and so be with her himself. Pieter could not allow himself to believe that his motivation behind desperately consulting Verfallen’s grimoire a further time was triggered by his own uncontrollable emotions. He had to believe he was doing it for the greater good, or else he would go mad.

So, in the last light of day he continued to read.

And against the grimy, cracked glass of the window, the flies, now somehow swollen to a swarm, buzzing excitedly, formed themselves into the shape of a leering face, watching Pieter read with malevolent delight.

Despite the throbbing ache in his brain, that told him either a White Wolf templar had been using his head for warhammer practice or he should have stopped drinking after the fourth flagon of ale, Torben Badenov dared to open his eyes. Cruel, bright morning light sheared in through the windows of the barracks building. He had slept late. Groaning, he closed his eyes again and put a hand to his head, as drunken men do, in the vain hope that it might provide some magical alleviation from the pain.

‘Good morning,’ came a sweet voice in his ear, which sounded strangely familiar. He felt a hand stroking the hair at his forehead.

He turned to look at his sleeping partner, only then realising that under the thin blanket he was naked. The serving-wench from Count Reinhardt’s staff, the one with the cute button nose, was already half-dressed and tying her hair back out of her face. He pulled the blanket tighter to his chest.

‘Er, hello.’ He didn’t address the girl by name, because he couldn’t remember what it was.

‘I’ve got to get back to the kitchens or cook will have me cleaning out the ovens for a week,’ she explained, hastily lacing up the front of her bodice and pulling a woollen shawl around her shoulders. ‘There’s much to do in preparation for tonight’s celebrations. Guests are coming from all over!’

‘Um, all right,’ was all Torben could think to say in reply.

Then, having given him one last full kiss on the mouth, the nameless wench was gone. Torben heard her footsteps as she descended the stairs that led out of the barrack house and then the ringing of her clogs on the frosted cobbles of the castle ward as she made her way to the kitchens.

Sitting up in bed, with his fellows waking to vengeful hangovers around him he slowly began to recollect the events of the previous night – how the mercenaries had helped the castle servants ‘prepare’ for the marriage feast – all of them except for Pieter Valburg. The kitchens had been warm, the ale had flowed freely and the impressionable serving girls had been suitably impressed by their tales of daring and death-defying escapes.

The girl’s screams rang out across the courtyard, cutting through the chill, Kaldezeit morning and, instantly rousing the drowsy mercenaries from their alcoholic stupor.

By the time Pieter reached the group gathered at the outhouse the rest of Badenov’s band were already there, looking very much like it was the morning after. The girl’s screams had woken him with a start. He had found himself slumped over the desk, the grimoire under his cheek, its sculpted leather cover having left its impression on his face. He was startled to realise that he had fallen asleep over the book and had spent the entire night in the cell room. Hearing the screams, he had run to the window and seen a serving girl standing at the door to a thatched lean-to, her hands to her mouth in horror. Snatching up the darkly bound book and unbolting the door he made his way back through the waking castle to the courtyard as quickly as he could.

Bursting out into the ward, he had taken a moment to compose himself and realised he still held Verfallen’s grimoire in his hand. He quickly secreted it inside his jerkin and then hurried over to his companions. The serving girl was sobbing into her shawl, being comforted by two other women from the household staff. A pair of pale-looking guardsmen, wearing the livery of Castle Wollustig, stood at the periphery of the group, shaking their heads and muttering between themselves.

‘I heard screams,’ Pieter said, out of breath. ‘What’s happened?’

‘Where have you been?’ Torben asked, his voice sounding almost accusatory.

‘Err… I slept somewhere else last night,’ he mumbled furtively.

‘Oh yeah?’ chuckled Oran. ‘Visiting the bride-to-be on her last night as a virgin, were you? Couldn’t wait to pluck that flower, could you?’

‘So, I ask again,’ Pieter said, glaring at Oran, ‘what happened here?’

‘It looks like someone was murdered here last night,’ Torben explained.

‘Murdered?’

‘Well, let’s put it this way,’ said one of the guardsmen. ‘They’re dead now, they were seen alive last night and I’d be very surprised if this was an accident or natural causes. If it was an accident, it’s the weirdest accident I’ve ever come across.’

Pieter stepped past a huddle of hovering kitchen staff into the outhouse. A number of large barrels had been stored in the lean-to. Lying on the ground in front of them was a human body, at least what was left of it. The fat legs and lower body were still intact, and clothed, but the rest was barely more than a half-eaten carcass. There was no skin left and much of the flesh beneath had been eaten away. Pieter saw tiny, wriggling bodies of maggots all over the corpse.

‘W–Who was it?’ he asked, shocked and bewildered.

‘His name was Ellard,’ said a grey-haired, half-stooped servant in his middle years.

‘And what’s in these barrels?’

‘It’s supposed to be salt beef but… Well, take a look for yourself.’ Torben gestured to the huge wooden butts.

Swallowing hard, Pieter approached the nearest barrel, the lid of which lay propped against its side. The first thing he saw was the continuous, rippling movement, before his mind registered that the barrel was heaving with maggots.

He looked back at the carcass. ‘Maggots did this?’

‘It would appear so.’ Torben’s face was a grim mask.

‘Ellard must have come out here last night for a midnight snack,’ the older servant was reasoning aloud, ‘but he couldn’t have done this to himself.’

‘No,’ agreed Torben. ‘Someone else must have killed him, or knocked him out at least, and then dumped his body in the barrel.’

‘But how did all those maggots get in there?’ Yuri was asking.

‘Thank you, my staff will deal with this now.’

Pieter turned to see the stately figure of the count’s chamberlain striding towards them, across the courtyard, flanked by two more of the castle guard. The officious Wallach took charge immediately and Torben seemed quite happy for him to do so. Pieter caught the look the mercenary captain gave him and the others and dropped into line behind them as they quietly withdrew and retreated to their temporary quarters in the barrack house.

‘It looks like I might owe you an apology,’ Torben said to Pieter, as he and the others began to pack up what meagre belongings they had. For a moment Pieter was slightly taken aback. ‘There is definitely something unsettling about this place.’

‘You’re telling me!’ scoffed Oran.

‘And maybe you’re right about our host the count as well,’ Torben went on.

‘Wait until you hear what I found out last night,’ Pieter started, animatedly.

‘But it’s still none of our concern.’

‘What?’

‘We will leave as soon as we have been paid, and be on our way back to Ostermark as planned.’

‘How can you say it’s none of our concern?’ Pieter fumed, barely able to contain his anger. ‘We were hired to protect Camellia!’

‘And bring her here, which we’ve done,’ Torben pointed out calmly. ‘And please don’t shout.’

‘But how can we leave her somewhere where she isn’t safe?’

‘You don’t know that for sure,’ said Stanislav, his voice husky from all the singing he had been enjoying the night before.

‘But I do, that’s what I was trying to tell you,’ Pieter insisted. ‘There is a dark power at work within the castle and it’s up to us to stop it!’

‘Will you stop shouting?’ Torben bawled. ‘I have a headache!’

‘What dark power?’ asked Yuri, concern written on his face.

‘To say its name here might invoke its power,’ Pieter disclosed.

‘How can you know all this anyway?’ challenged Oran. ‘Where did you get to last night exactly?’

‘I… I can’t tell you that,’ Pieter weakened, the fire gone from his voice.

‘I’d put it down to the workings of your own paranoid mind. I’ve never met anyone as paranoid as you. That and the fact that you’re smitten with the girl!’

In a brief flash of angry frustration, Pieter considered pulling the grimoire from his jerkin then and there, proving it to them. But he quickly composed himself and thought better of it. They wouldn’t understand.

‘Whatever’s going on here, it’s not up to us to interfere in the marriage plans of nobility, Pieter,’ Torben determined, ‘and you shouldn’t make it your problem either. Now this discussion is over. Give it up!’

‘Are you ordering me to leave this?’ Pieter scowled, his face black as thunder.

‘I’m the leader of this band – the name should have given that much away – and those are my orders. If you don’t like them, you know what you can do.’

Pieter fixed the floor with a furious stare that could burn through rock, but said nothing more.

‘Right,’ Torben said, heading for the door, ‘I’m off to make sure we get our money.’

When Torben reached the doors to Count Reinhardt’s audience chamber he was in time to meet Chamberlain Wallach hurrying from the other direction, his purple cloak flapping behind him. ‘You can’t go in there,’ he spluttered as Torben’s hand came to rest on a door handle.

‘Is that right?’ was the mercenary captain’s retort, as he turned it.

‘The count is busy preparing for the ceremony and must not be disturbed!’ Wallach placed himself between Torben and the doors.

‘I won’t take up much of his precious time then we’ll all be out of his hair.’ Before Wallach could stop him, Torben pushed open the door, barging past the flustered chamberlain, and strode boldly into the chamber beyond.

There was a flurry of skirts, the smoothing of crumpled fabric and the Lady Ethelind rose hurriedly from next to the throne. As she glanced back over her shoulder at the mercenary he saw her wipe the back of a delicate hand across her mouth.

It had seemed to Torben that the count’s sister had been standing directly over her brother or perhaps even sitting on his lap.

What had the two inbred freaks been up to?

On second thoughts, Torben considered, I’m not sure I really want to know.

‘My lord,’ he said slightly uncertainly, suddenly wrong-footed by what he thought he had seen.

‘What is the meaning of this intrusion?’ demanded the count, his mask of serene indifference forgotten, only frustrated rage showing on his features.

‘My mercenaries and I are still waiting to be paid,’ Torben continued, his confidence returning again.

‘What?’ The count was on his feet now, pulling his ermine-lined robe about him. His sister, saying nothing, hovered behind him at his shoulder, a look of glacial cold focused on the intruder.

‘The Lady Isadora promised that once we had safely delivered her and her niece into your care you would pay us the outstanding part of our fee.’

‘Why were we interrupted?’ Reinhardt shouted, turning on his chamberlain who cowered behind Torben.

‘My lord, there has been an incident. I tried to–’ Wallach spluttered but Reinhardt wasn’t interested in his excuses.

‘You know how important this ceremony is! Nothing can be allowed to go wrong now we are so close! And we cannot permit such interruptions, or you will pay most dearly!’

Torben was seeing a completely different side to the previously placid count. Where before he had been calm, detached, unemotional, now he was fiery and passionate, his anger almost uncontrollable.

‘I–I am s–sorry, my lord. Forgive me, I beg you!’ Wallach wailed.

‘Pay this sell-sword, will you?’ snapped the count. ‘Then go!’ Reinhardt directed his last comment at Torben.

‘A–At once, my lord,’ Wallach stammered, backing out of the room all but on his hands and knees.

‘Thank you, my lord,’ Torben sneered, giving the noble siblings an exaggerated bow. ‘And may I be the first to congratulate you on this very special day.’ Then, he turned on his heel and strode out of the audience chamber after the obsequious Wallach.

It was mid-afternoon when, watching through the window of her lavishly-furnished tower room, Camellia saw Badenov’s band leave. She observed them all pass through the portcullised gate: the tall, ruggedly-handsome, raven-haired Torben Badenov; the still recovering Stanislav Hagar; the rat-faced rogue Oran Scarfen; the mop-haired youth Yuri Gorsk.

The last to leave was the darkly handsome, troubled young nobleman, Pieter Valburg. As he passed between the two guard towers he paused. He looked back up at the castle keep in the direction of her window and Camellia saw that there was sadness in his eyes. She wanted to rap on her window to attract his attention, call him back, beg him to carry her away from a loveless political alliance of a marriage and take her wherever they might go. But she knew how futile such an act would be. The count would never allow it. And Pieter would be the one to pay for her ingratitude, and that was something that she could never allow to happen. How would she be able to live with herself knowing that she had caused so much pain for one she cared for with all her heart? Better to let him walk away.

Then Pieter turned and left, following his companions, and she felt a deep hole open up inside her and swallow her heart. She stared at the spot where she had last seen or imagined him. Her last view of his face lingered in her mind’s eye. As the silent tears broke from her lashes and rolled down her cheeks she found herself distractedly fiddling with the dark stone amulet, which she now wore. It had been an easy thing for her to rejoin the links of the chain and repair the talisman. Its weight around her neck and its touch on her skin was comforting. She could almost believe it gave her the extra strength she needed at this difficult time.

There was a brisk tap on her bedchamber door and, without waiting for a reply, Aunt Isadora bustled into the room, maidservants in tow.

‘Now, my dear, let me look at you. My, but you’re so beautiful. Your mother would be so proud to see you now. But what’s this? Tears? On your wedding day? But of course, it is such an emotional time for a young girl, the day of her marriage. You must be even more excited and nervous than I am. The count is such a handsome man. Now there’s no need to worry. I’ll help you prepare yourself. We want you to look your very best, don’t we? Now, dry your eyes, my dear.’

‘What was going on down in the yard this morning?’ asked Camellia, interrupting her fussing aunt’s monologue.

‘What? Oh that’s nothing for you to worry yourself about,’ Isadora blanched.

‘But I heard screams.’

‘It was just one of those silly serving girls. She saw a rat. Now, I don’t believe I’ve seen this piece before!’ Isadora suddenly exclaimed, catching sight of the cerulean stone in its black metal setting. ‘I didn’t realise you possessed such an heirloom. It’s beautiful isn’t it?’ Her aunt took it in her hands to study it closer, letting the silver links of the chain slip through her fingers. ‘It must be from your father’s side. If your mother had possessed such a thing I would have remembered. And it’s the perfect thing to wear to your wedding. The colour of the stone really brings out your eyes and the black will complement your dress perfectly. Oh yes, just the thing.’

‘Oh, it’s nothing,’ Camellia said dismissively, ‘just something I picked up somewhere.’

As the long shadows of afternoon stretched into the grey half-light of dusk Badenov’s band made camp for the night, within the borders of the great forest once again. It felt like it would be a cold night so the mercenaries quickly set about making a fire, to keep them warm and hungry predators at bay. It was at times like this when they were especially glad of their thick bearskin cloaks.

Torben thrust a smouldering branch into the fire gazing into its glowing heart, agitating it so that red-orange flames leapt up high, painting the branches of the surrounding fir trees with their crimson ardour. Approaching the campfire Oran and Yuri let their bundles of gathered logs and branches drop to the leaf-littered turf, next to Stanislav’s chopping block.

‘Where’s he got to, then?’ Oran asked, looking around the group.

‘Who?’ asked Torben.

‘By Sigmar! Who do you think? Pieter of course. Where’s he gone?’

‘I don’t know.’ Torben stood up and looked at each of the others in turn.

‘The last time I saw him,’ Stanislav mused, ‘was when we crested that rise where the road passed back under the trees and we had that last view of Castle Wollustig.’

Yuri and Oran nodded.

‘That was the last night any of us saw him,’ said Torben. ‘When we made camp I just assumed he’d gone to collect wood or gone off by himself for a bit, like he does.’

‘Well he’s certainly done that,’ Oran commented.

‘But that was before sunset!’ Yuri stated in alarm.

‘And we all know where’s he’s gone, don’t we?’ A frown creased Torben’s features. ‘Look, leave him to it,’ Oran said, sitting down next to the fire, pulling his cloak tighter about him. ‘He’s made his bed. Whatever abomination he ends up sharing it with isn’t our problem!’

Cold night had fallen by the time Pieter found himself outside the gates of Castle Wollustig once again. The first thing that struck him was that the gates were open and unguarded. Inhabitants of castles usually close their gates at dusk, to guard against whatever the cover of darkness might bring. But here was Castle Wollustig open to all-comers; and on such an important night as well. What was going on that the basic security of the count’s stronghold had been neglected?

Pieter ducked through the gate and into the high walled ward. The place seemed to be deserted.

The courtyard was bathed in silvery moonlight. Looking up into the cloudless winter sky Pieter thought he could see a row of brighter lights that he couldn’t recall seeing before. It was as if, in their orbits of the heavens, certain astral bodies had moved into alignment for this night alone.

An eerie atmosphere pervaded the castle. As he crept through the darkened chambers and empty corridors his sense of unease increased. It really did seem that there was no one about at all. Where were all the wedding guests? Where were the revellers, the entertainers? Where were the servants?

On reaching the feast hall he could see that people had been here, and not so long ago. The plates of roast meats, fresh fruit, exotic delicacies, sugared sweetmeats, as well as the fine wines, had all been abandoned, as had the rest of Castle Wollustig, or so it seemed at least.

It wasn’t until he reached a passageway that led to the dungeons that he found any sign of human habitation. A distant chanting echoed down the darkened tunnel towards him, as of many voices raised in exultation, the words unintelligible. The echoes doubled and re-doubled; the discordant chanting giving the resonances an even more eerie quality.

He didn’t need Verfallen’s book now to tell him something evil was afoot in Castle Wollustig, the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach told him that. And he knew, somehow, that Camellia was right at the heart of it. The sound of so many voices raised in adoration in some nameless inhuman tongue also told him that he was going to need help rescuing her, and he had a feeling he was going to need it in a hurry. His mercenary companions were too far away, so he would need to look for help elsewhere.

It didn’t take Pieter long to retrace his steps back to the castle ward and the barrack house. He stealthily climbed the stair to the quarters the mercenaries had enjoyed only the night before and with relief saw what he had hoped he would see. The last bed was still occupied. But no matter how stealthy he might have been, he had not been quiet enough. Isadora’s bodyguard was sitting up in bed, peering in Pieter’s direction through the moon-illumined semi-darkness.

‘Who is it? Who’s there?’ Kruger’s gruff voice demanded and Pieter saw the gleam of steel in the bodyguard’s hand.

Pieter and Kruger advanced cautiously along the passageway, the chanting getting louder with every step. It hadn’t taken Pieter long to convince the burly bodyguard why he needed his help. It turned out that Kruger had his own suspicions that all was not right in Castle Wollustig and had kept well clear of the pre-nuptial celebrations when the visiting guests had arrived: all sorts of people, from senior clergymen in the temples of Sigmar and Ulric to flamboyant merchants and other noble families.

The constant chanting was now very loud and Pieter shot a glance around the next corner, to see an open archway ahead of them. Beyond that he had caught a glimpse of a scene that confirmed his worst fears. Gathered in the brightly-lit crypt-like chamber was a throng of men and women, young and old, who if seen together in everyday life would appear to have no obvious connection. But here, they were all dressed in diaphanous, multi-hued robes that exposed the right breast. They were all chanting words which twisted Pieter’s gut and toyed with his mind – their common purpose became all too clear. They were cultists, secret worshippers of the prince of pleasure, just like the villagers of Honigheim, devotees of the dark power known as Slaanesh.

Pieter had to find out more. He had to know what was going on and what had happened to Camellia. He and Kruger crept into the chamber. The cult, many of them with their backs to the archway, were too preoccupied with the unspeakable rite they were performing. Pieter moved around behind the worshippers, aware of a faint musky smell, not unpleasant but which left a cloying, bitter aftertaste. Drifts of mist, pink like hot human skin, fogged the floor in an incorporeal carpet, hiding the flagstoned floor Pieter could feel beneath his feet, and he realised that this was the source of the musky smell. Pillars stood at regular points around the edge of the vault. Safely ensconced behind one of these, Pieter and the wide-eyed Kruger took in the scene, aghast.

Looking over their heads, he could see what the cultists were facing. In the light of the torches around the walls and dozens of candles, on the opposite side of the pillared vault, Pieter saw a stone altar at the top of a raised dais. He almost gasped out loud in horror when he saw who was tied to the altar, even though it didn’t actually come as any surprise.

Camellia, wearing an ornate gown of white satin and black lace, her hair arranged with flowers and a blue-stone amulet around her neck, was bound hand and foot to the stone table. Although she was definitely conscious – there was terror burning in her eyes – she made no sound as she had been gagged. Standing over Camellia was an emaciated figure, wearing the same diaphanous colourful robes as the other cultists but with a hood drawn up over his head. This did nothing to disguise his identity, however. The chief priest of the Wollustig Cult of Pleasure was Wallach, Count Reinhardt’s neurotic chamberlain. The man was chanting along with the rest of the worshippers, holding a gleaming, curvy-bladed dagger high above his head, in both hands.

Behind the chief priest stood a tall statute of what Pieter at first took to be a long-limbed young man. But looking closer Pieter saw that the features of the beautiful, smooth-skinned face, with its air of almost aloof, affected disinterest, were androgynous, framed by flowing locks of shoulder-length hair. The slender body was neither male nor female, but had qualities of both. The statue’s mouth was open and it was from that orifice that the musky-smelling pink smoke was oozing. In that moment it seemed to Pieter that the statue, with its perverse, unsettling beauty, was one of the most horrific and disturbing things he had ever seen since he had joined Badenov’s band.

But if Wallach were the chief priest of the cult, Pieter pondered, where were the count and his twisted sister in all this? Pieter had been certain that they were involved, probably more so than anyone else.

Pieter found himself looking back to the bound Camellia, anxiety gripping him as he witnessed the dire situation she was in. It was then that he noticed the grooves carved into the altar. Runnels all over its surface joined together and ran down to a stone spout that poured the life-blood of any sacrificial victim somewhere below the level of the altar. Straining to see over the heads of the blasphemous throng, he saw where the ritually-shed fluid would collect.

It was a huge stone font and kneeling in it, holding their naked bodies pressed against each other, were the incestuous siblings, Reinhardt and Ethelind. Despite this confirming his suspicions, the reality of the siblings’ relationship reviled Pieter, filling him with anger at their blatant affront to nature and the depraved perversity of it all.

So this was the wedding ceremony. Camellia had never been intended for Count Reinhardt, she was going to be wedded to the dark prince of Chaos himself, through the act of human sacrifice, to fulfil some vile, inhuman pact the count and his sister had forged with the seductively beguiling master of pain and pleasure.

Horror after horror had greeted Pieter’s eyes since he had stumbled upon the cult’s blasphemous activities and there was no sign of them abating when, amidst the euphorically-smiling cultists he saw the face of the Lady Isadora – Camellia’s own flesh and blood, consenting to the slaughter of her sister’s child! Then he began to recognise other faces among the throng: a kitchen maid here; a herald there; a member of the castle guard. Was there no one in all Castle Wollustig who was not a member of this revolting sect?

Whatever Reinhardt and Ethelind were hoping to achieve by Camellia’s death, Pieter had learnt from Verfallen’s grimoire that such sacrifices needed a pure virgin and he sincerely doubted that any follower of Slaanesh was still chaste. That must be why Isadora had arranged an apparently politically and financially beneficial marriage for her destitute niece!

‘What perversion is this?’ hissed Kruger.

‘An evil that we must put an end to,’ Pieter replied. ‘Are you ready to die, to save an innocent girl?’

‘I can think of no nobler cause,’ Kruger declared.

With cries of, ‘For Sigmar!’ and, ‘Begone, evil!’ Pieter and Kruger rushed the cultists from their hiding place. Both men managed to land blows before the assembled Chaos worshippers could react. The chanting faltered as shrieks and cries of alarm went up from the cultists closest to them.

Then Pieter and Kruger suddenly found themselves surrounded by screeching, grinning faces as the cultists turned on them. The giggles of delight when either one of them drew blood unsettled them still further and Pieter found himself beating back the laughing men and women in a frenzy of slashing blows that left himself open to attack. The cultists seemed far too eager to taste cold steel as they piled upon the two armed men. The cultists willingly put themselves in the way of the flashing blades so they could strike the fools who had disrupted their ritual with perfectly manicured nails.

Crushed amidst the mass of hysterical cultists Pieter quickly realised that he and the valiant Kruger were seriously outnumbered. He felt himself going down as the insane revellers pressed in closer and closer against him, so that he was no longer even able to move his sword-arm. He felt them punching his pinioned body, clawing at his limbs, dragging him down. If only the rest of the mercenary band had been there…

‘For the Emperor! For Sigmar! For Badenov’s band!’ Torben bellowed as the mercenaries burst into the crypt.

‘Badenov’s band!’ four voices hollered in response, as they began laying about them with their hungry weapons.

At a glance Torben took in the situation, the crush of cultists surrounding the desperate Pieter and burly bodyguard; the freakish couple huddled together howling in the great stone bowl; the smoke-belching perversely seductive statue; the wide-eyed, panic-stricken Camellia tied down to the stone altar, the robed Wallach standing over her.

Pieter had been right: the girl was in danger, and would remain so at least as long as the cult’s high priest lived. Stanislav, Oran and Yuri set about the cultists with carefully-judged blows, like the professional soldiers they were, cutting a path through the poorly-defended men and women to reach their beleaguered fellows who had redoubled their efforts against the foe. Torben, however, was making for the dais and the altar.

He covered the distance in no time at all. The cultists, suddenly finding themselves attacked from all angles, were thrown into disarray. He bounded up the steps and met Wallach’s inexpert thrust of his sacrificial knife, with a much more effective blocking move of his own. With a twist of his sabre he spun the dagger out of the chamberlain’s weak grip and stabbed forward with his sword, following up the thrust by yanking the blade upwards with both hands. The chief priest pole-axed backwards, his dying breath escaping from his gutted body in a death-rattle moan.

Torben looked down at the terrified girl. She was gazing up at him her face streaked with tears, the gag tight in her mouth.

‘Don’t worry, my lady,’ he said, flashing her a white-toothed grin, ‘we’ll have you out of here in a second.’

As he bent down to set about freeing Camellia of her bonds, the last thing he expected to see was the Beast of Bruckenbach’s Chaos talisman around the girl’s neck. Stunned, he was caught unawares by the uppercut that sent him reeling.

He turned to face his attacker and froze: horror, confusion and surprise vying for dominance of his emotions. First the beast’s amulet and now this!

‘My lady?’ he exclaimed as he found himself looking into the face of his erstwhile employer, the dowager Lady Isadora, dressed in a half-open robe of multi-coloured silk. Then she was leaping on top of him, the ageing noblewoman transformed into a howling harridan. Stumbling backwards, overwhelmed as much by Isadora’s suffocatingly-strong perfume as unbalanced by her extra weight, Torben misjudged his footing and the two of them crashed down the stone steps of the dais.

An ageing, wasted male cultist crumpled in front of Pieter as Stanislav’s axe sank into the man’s spine. Suddenly, blessedly, he was free of the ravening pack. Pieter had seen Torben fall, the screaming Isadora clinging to him like a bear-trap. He sprinted across the vault, sidestepping flailing lunatics, swiping at them with his already bloodied sword as he did so, and leapt up the steps of the dais.

As he untied Camellia’s bonds the terrified, confused girl twisted her head to look at him. Instantly recognition followed and, for a moment at least, the panic passed from her eyes. Her hands free he helped remove the linen gag. As Pieter saw to the knots binding her ankles, the pink mist billowed around them. Camellia sat up, a peculiar glazed expression in her eyes.

‘Pieter, you came back for me,’ she said huskily.

Loosening the last knot he looked up at her from where he crouched at the foot of the altar and despite their desperate predicament he smiled. ‘I couldn’t abandon you,’ he said simply.

Torben’s ribs ached from his fall down the steps but that was the least of his worries. Isadora had a handful of his hair in her grasp and was trying to tear it out of his scalp by the roots. His sabre lay tantalisingly out of reach half-swathed in coils of the lavender-sweet mist.

Tensing his arm he thrust his elbow back into the woman’s body. He heard her cry turn from one of fury to one of pain. He felt her recoil and her grip on his hair loosen. Rolling onto his back sharply he felt Isadora let go completely. Rolling clear again and getting to his feet he recovered his sword.

‘I don’t normally hit women,’ he snarled, spitting blood from his mouth, ‘but in your case, I’ll make an exception.’

Then the shrieking harridan was leaping at him again, the ritual no doubt having put her in a heightened state of frenzied hysteria. One swift thrust was all it took and Isadora froze, a look of sheer horror on the suddenly petrified features of her face. A last, long shriek began to rise from within her, rising in volume to an ear-splitting crescendo, and before Torben could pull his sword free of her body she started to haul herself up it with shredded, blood-slicked hands. The insane woman was determined that, whatever else happened, she would do her very best to take the mercenary captain with her.

Torben pulled back but, with one final lunge, Isadora clutched herself to him, and her fingernails pierced the sleeves of his shirt, digging into his flesh. Then her madly staring eyes closed and the scream died on her lips. In the grasp of the dead woman, Torben could see his blood-blackened blade of his sabre protruding a good three feet from her back.

As if from nowhere, two screeching, naked creatures fell on Pieter and the swooning girl he carried in his arms as they tried to make their escape from the crypt. Animal fury burned in their eyes and tangled, wild black hair whirled around their heads. They looked nothing like the noble brother and sister Pieter had first encountered in the count’s audience chamber the day before. Then, even though he had taken an immediate and intense dislike to the two of them, they had at least carried an air of nobility, cold and aloof, yes, but elegant and refined nonetheless. Now all that had been pared away and all that was left was the savage, insane, inhuman beast that willingly preyed on those weaker than itself.

As Pieter tried to pull his weapon clear to defend himself and the traumatised Camellia, Reinhardt and Ethelind clawed at their faces, forcing them to take great, staggering steps backwards to avoid the slashing talons. Pieter was finding it hard to focus as the pink fog pouring from the statue’s mouth enveloped them. Camellia was barely conscious, the whites of her eyes showing where they had rolled up into her head, her skin flushed.

A lashing talon broke the skin at Camellia’s throat and caught the chain of the amulet around her neck. Under strain, the repaired links of the chain sprung apart once more and then Ethelind had the blue stone talisman in her grasp.

The very next moment, a huge shape bowled up the dais steps towards the crazily capering siblings. Blind-sided, the incestuous brother and sister fell backwards over the stone block of the altar, as Stanislav put a protective arm around both Pieter and Camellia. Reinhardt and Ethelind fell awkwardly into the great stone bowl, the amulet flying from the naked noblewoman’s hand. The cerulean stone struck the sharp edge of the font’s rim. There was an audible crack and the stone shattered.

There was a flash of white light, blinding as a lightning strike, followed a split second later by a crack like a clap of thunder that rocked the vault, sending a shudder through the castle’s foundations. Pieter felt himself hurtling across the crypt, thrown bodily by the shockwave of the blast. There was a knife of red-black pain in the back of his skull, then total darkness descended.

Torben picked himself up. The explosion had hurled everyone to the floor, flattening them as a meteor strike might fell the trees of a forest. Torben had seen a little of the Chaos amulet’s power in his battle with the beast. He supposed that when the stone smashed, the Chaos energy contained within it must have been released in one uncontrollable burst, like a match being set to an arsenal full of blackpowder. The blast had also blown the smothering fog to the sides of the chamber.

Blinking to clear his vision, Torben looked back towards the dais to see what had become of the evil siblings. Something was happening inside the huge, stone font. A miasma of energy, rippling with every colour of the spectrum, played above the bowl, and every so often a hand, leg joint or a distended bulge of flesh appeared above the rim. Behind the altar, the eyes of the statue glowed malevolently. Very cautiously, desperate to know what was happening, Torben moved towards the font. Around him his companions and the cultists were also picking themselves up after the shock of the explosion.

Before he could get any closer a roughly humanoid shape, twice as tall as a man, rose from the bowl and, unfolding one long, slender limb, stepped onto the floor of the crypt. Flesh-toned fog and the miasma of mutating energy continued to play over the still-changing creature, limbs stretching and elongating, joints popping into place, flesh merging and re-shaping, bones melting and solidifying again. A second leg straightened from the font, and then a third. The thing swayed as if disorientated or finding its balance. Then it lurched forward.

Four arms that now sprouted talons like sickle blades reached for Torben. As the monstrous abomination strode towards him on its three spindly legs the smoke wreathing its head dissipated and Torben found himself looking into a monstrous visage that was quite clearly an amalgam of Reinhardt and Ethelind. The left side was hers, the right his, but where the two faces met and melted together there was a third eye in the middle of its head. Its mouth stretched into a distended maw, wide like a toad’s but with teeth like a shark’s. The whole, malformed skull was covered in clumps of slick wet tresses of black hair and a nub of bone, like a budding horn protruded from Reinhardt’s forehead.

The abomination’s back had hardened into an arched hump, nodules of vertebrae protruding from the altered flesh around its spine. Its body, like its face, was half male, half female. The whole freakish mass was covered in a film of slime, as if it had just been birthed from some hideously gestating spawn of Chaos.

The destruction of the amulet, and the release of raw Chaos energy, had produced the same result that Camellia’s sacrifice would have done, providing the count and his sister with what they had wanted all along – to be transformed into one altered being, two warped minds joined in incestuous union inside one warped body. Then the monster found its voice and a terrible scream, which reminded Torben of all the agonies and ecstasies he had ever endured and enjoyed in his life, rent the perfumed air of the crypt.

Seeing the monstrous abomination emerging from the font the surviving cultists began to whoop and cheer, and renewed their attacks against the mercenaries. Torben found himself fighting for his life against the insane, driven Chaos-worshippers, who used their hands to meet the savage blows of the mercenaries’ weapons. The musky mist was making him feel woozy. Then the killing really began as the altered abomination that had once been Count Reinhardt and the Lady Ethelind joined the fray.

The brave bodyguard, who had taken his duty to the limit, was the first to die. Cutting through the cultists he threw himself at the mutant, only to be hauled high into the air by a distended, taloned limb. His intestines uncoiling from the ragged rent in his gut, his skull was cracked open like an egg as the monster rammed Kruger’s head against the vaulted ceiling of the chamber, breaking the bodyguard’s neck with the force of the blow.

Torben was aware of Pieter staggering unsteadily towards the mutant, holding one hand to a lump on the back of his head. Then the young nobleman too fell to the horror’s brutal claws. Blood running from slashes across his face and chest, Pieter’s body was cast aside.

The monster stalked towards Torben as the mercenary’s head began to spin sickeningly.

There was a crash as Stanislav toppled the malevolent statue of Slaanesh. The horrible graven image smashed into pieces on the stone floor, and the emission of mist ceased abruptly. Shaking their minds free of the muddle-headedness caused by the soporific narcotic smoke, the mercenaries at last began to prevail against the increasingly depleted numbers of the cultists. Yuri’s sword described a bloody arc through the air and the last of the Slaanesh-lovers fell dead.

Then, at last, Torben, Stanislav, Oran and Yuri were united in battle against the advancing Reinhardt-Ethelind hybrid. Battleaxe and sword fended off lashing sickle-claws and kicking tripod legs; dagger and sabre thrust past sweeping limbs, stabbing and cutting into the soft still-resolving flesh of the newly-born mutant. Against four trained soldiers, tired and bewildered though they were, the still disorientated brother-sister creature, born into a new body with Sigmar-knew what warped perception of the world, could not triumph. Men who had battled against the restless dead, Chaos spawn and daemons, and won would not be easily beaten. The mercenaries were fighting for their lives, if not their very souls, together against one foe.

First the creature lost a clawing hand to the sweeping, hacking blades, then a leg. A second stilt-like limb was broken and the mutant toppled thrashing to the floor. A scream like pain and pleasure expressed in the same giggling howl rang in their ears, as if the monster actually took pleasure from the agonies afflicted upon it. All four warriors brought their weapons down upon the creature, and the more it gurgled and sniggered the more vicious, violent and numerous became their blows. But it was Torben’s sabre that eventually silenced the Slaaneshi abomination, the razor-edged blade slicing through its soft flesh and twisted skeleton alike. With a wet sucking sound the creature split fully down its length, malformed internal organs spilling out of the dismembered corpse, the two halves that had been Reinhardt and Ethelind separated forever.

The abomination dead and the horror over at last, shattering silence fell on the crypt, like air filling a vacuum, with a soundless roar. Stanislav and Yuri dashed up the steps of the dais to see to the semi-conscious Camellia, where she had been thrown by the blast of the exploding amulet. Torben and Oran found Pieter’s cruelly wounded body among the corpses of the cultists that now filled the crypt. Torben raised the young man’s head and shoulders, trying to make him more comfortable. For once the garrulous mercenary captain didn’t know what to say. What was happening to Badenov’s band? First Alexi, now Pieter…

The young nobleman’s eyes flickered open, his gaze swimming in and out of focus. Pieter looked up into the gore-splattered face of the raven-haired Kislevite.

‘You came back,’ he gasped, his life-blood pumping away with every heartbeat between the cracks in the flagstoned floor.

Then his eyes closed again.

THE DEAD OF WINTER

Dark Magic is the eldritch energy that feeds the Black Art of Necromancy. The winds of dark magic are formed from the very stuff of Chaos itself and seethe with Malice and Corruption. They blow most strongly where Death lies most heavily and Doom follows in the wake of their passing. So Dark Magic is drawn to places of Death and Evil. It howls over battlefields and gusts through mortuaries. It collects in Accursed Cemeteries and lingers within Charnel Pits. And it is ever present at the gibbet.

Just as it is drawn to places of Death, so Dark Magic also favours the seasons when Nature dies and Life retreats from the World. It is at its strongest in the Dead of Winter.

– from A Treatise of the Lores of Magic by Theodoric Wurstein

Sister Superior Gudrun of the Hospice of the Sisters of Shallya, Goddess of Mercy and Healing, was dying. The priestesses of the hospice, situated only half a mile from the town of Ostermark, had been expecting this moment. Gudrun had been sister superior there for thirty-three years. Now in her fifty-sixth year of age a consumptive disorder had claimed her. She was dying prematurely of old age.

For as long as anyone could remember she had seemed older than her years. She had never been a well woman. In the last four years her body had succumbed to a wasting disease that had withered her muscles and eaten up her flesh so that she was now a frail shell of the young beauty she once had been.

So it was that on the twentieth day of Kaldezeit, when Sister Martha came to see to the bed-ridden sister superior’s needs, Gudrun drew the priestess closer to her with an almost skeletal hand.

‘I am dying, Martha,’ the prematurely old priestess coughed, her voice virtually a death-rattle wheeze already.

‘Oh no, sister superior,’ Martha chided affectionately, gently patting Gudrun’s wasted hand. ‘You’ll outlive all of us, I’m sure.’

‘Nonsense, girl!’ Gudrun snapped, her voice suddenly strong with impatient anger. ‘I do not have time for hollow sympathy!’

Martha’s face fell and she felt a chill spread outwards from her stomach. The sister superior was being serious – deadly serious.

‘My time is nigh.’ Gudrun broke off, her frail form wracked by another bout of coughing. Sister Martha helped raise her up on her pillows and did her best to make the old woman comfortable. The coughing died away, leaving Gudrun’s breathing a rasping whisper. ‘And before I pass through the gates of death into Morr’s kingdom, there is much I must confess.’

‘Confess?’ gasped Martha, amazed.

‘If I do not, I may never enter that blessed realm. I may be damned already but I must try to cleanse my soul of my past wrongdoings. Martha, I want you to hear my confession.’

‘Sister superior, you should rest,’ Martha suggested.

‘There will be time enough for that when I am done,’ Gudrun persisted cantankerously. ‘Now sit down, girl.’

Giving in, Sister Martha obeyed, pulling up a wooden stool from the corner of the sister superior’s austere stone cell. The only furniture was the bed, now plumped up with extra pillows and blankets to ease the old woman’s discomfort, a stool and a reading desk. On the reading desk was an open copy of the prayer book of the Sisters of Mercy and hanging above it, on the wall, Shallya’s holy symbol of the dove in flight. On the stone ledge of the chamber’s only window was an earthenware jug and bowl for washing.

Crisp early morning light streamed in through the stained glass window, bathing Gudrun in a rectangle of fuzzy, rainbow light and suddenly colour was restored to her cheeks, the pallor of approaching death dispelled for as long as the winter sun’s warming rays pierced the painted glass. Martha settled herself on the stool at the old woman’s side, still holding her hand, and intoned the blessing of Shallya over the sister superior. Then Gudrun began her tale.

‘I was only fifteen when I fell pregnant.’

Martha said nothing. It was not the place of a confessor to judge; they merely had to be there to allow the dying to unburden their troubled souls so that they might pass through Morr’s dark portal shriven. And the priestess had heard much worse from soldiers, knights and swindlers.

What did come as something of a surprise was that a member of the rarefied sisterhood of Shallya should have admitted such a thing. It was their role in the world to care for those who had suffered all manner of trials and ordeals in life, not to partake in such experiences themselves. She knew that women came to the sisterhood following personal tragedy but she, like many of the other sisters at the hospice had always held their sister superior in high regard, seeing her as the very imageof what a priestess of Shallya should be.

‘My father was a successful wool merchant. The father of my child was a shepherd who tended his flocks,’ Gudrun went on, a glazed look in her eyes. ‘My mother had died when I was seven years old and to have an unmarried daughter expecting a bastard child living under his roof was not considered seemly for a man in my father’s position.’

The sister superior pulled the blankets closer about her. Her eyes had closed as she talked, but she continued with her story, her voice having acquired a faraway quality, as if she were speaking to her confessor from the past.

‘So my father sent me away to this very hospice, under the care of my aunt who was sister superior here at the time. After the birth of my son I stayed and brought the child up here, within the walls of this sanctuary.’

The hospice door flew open, scattering priestesses like agitated doves, and a tall man strode into the hospice, carrying a figure swathed in a red woollen cape in his strong arms. ‘Can we get some help here?’ the tall man shouted. He was dressed in leather armour, a thick bearskin thrown over his shoulders. A mane of thick, black hair and a neatly trimmed beard framed the ruggedly handsome face of a warrior.

Other people were following the mercenary through the door – a mop-haired youth, a rat-faced, spiky-moustached rogue, a large, bushy-bearded bear of a man, and a hollow-eyed, scared-looking girl wearing what looked like the tattered remains of a wedding dress. Behind them a number of horses could be seen through the doorway, heads lowered in exhaustion, flanks heaving from the exertion of a desperate journey through the night.

‘You’d better come this way,’ Sister Elora said, having made her hasty assessment of the ragged band, and set off through along the dimly lit passageway.

The mercenaries hurried through the building, following the flapping sandals of the motherly, white-robed priestess, past an infirmary hall to an isolated room with a single bed, on which Torben Badenov laid the horribly injured Pieter.

At once the priestess lent over the unconscious nobleman. As she pulled back the woollen cloak Torben heard a sharp intake of breath. If Pieter’s cloak hadn’t been red already it would have been dyed red by now from the amount of blood he had lost. Deep lacerations covered his torso and his face. The sister who had shown them to the chamber pressed two fingers to the unconscious young man’s neck, searching for a pulse.

‘He is still alive,’ she said, looking severely at the Kislevite, ‘but barely.’

‘Can you help him?’ Torben asked, as if pleading with the priestess.

‘We can try, Shallya willing.’

Then the sickroom was full of bustling nuns carrying bowls of steaming water, clean linen cloths, aromatic herbal concoctions, sterile dressings and bandages.

Torben suddenly found himself at a total loss. On the battlefield he knew what he was doing. In the healing environment of the hospice he felt like a fish out of water.

The mercenaries, looking like frightened children, slowly backed out of the chamber as the healers went about their business. Only Camellia lingered at the door as the priestesses undressed the wounded Pieter and began cleaning his wounds.

Torben looked at the pale, anxious faces of his companions. The Slaaneshi mutant destroyed, Badenov’s band had immediately fled Castle Wollustig carrying their terribly wounded companion, taking what mounts they needed from the stables, with the distraught Camellia in tow. They had galloped through the night, the following day and the next night, to reach Ostermark and get help for their companion, who appeared to be at the threshold of Morr’s dark realm already.

Yuri was the first to speak: ‘What do we do now?’

‘We wait,’ said Torben, resignedly.

‘And pray,’ added Camellia, her anxious gaze never leaving the priestesses and the vital work they were doing.

The kindly priestess who had brought them there stepped out of the room and put a comforting hand on Camellia’s arm. ‘You can stay here if you wish, my dear,’ she said softly, smiling. ‘You look like you could do with a rest yourself.’

‘Yes, I’d like that,’ Camellia said, unresistingly letting the serene woman lead her away from the room.

With one last look back over their shoulders, Torben, Oran, Stanislav and Yuri left the hospice, all of them quiet and subdued.

Pieter Valburg opened his eyes. He was standing in Count Reinhardt’s audience chamber. The count was sitting on his gilded chair smiling slackly. To one side of him stood the austere figure of the Lady Ethelind, her lip curled in a disdainful sneer. To the other was a gagged and bound Camellia, dressed in her lily-white wedding gown, tears spilling from wide, terrified eyes. The sneering Ethelind beckoned him forward and Pieter found himself unable to resist.

It was Camellia he wanted to save but he could not refuse the seductress’s summons. Slow, trance-like steps brought him nearer and nearer to her. The count began to laugh, a hateful, stomach-churning sound, and Ethelind reached for him with hands transformed into sickle-bladed talons.

Revulsion filling every fibre of his being, Pieter tried to pull away, every muscle in his body straining, sweat beading his brow. His body refused to cooperate. The alluring Lady Ethelind drew him close, razor-sharp claws caressing the back of his neck. Her lips parted and a lavender-sweet perfume wafted over him. The tip of her tongue, pink and wet, flicked between pearl-white teeth that narrowed to fang-like points. Then the tongue was forked like that of a snake and Pieter found himself staring into bulging, orange ophidian eyes.

He screamed and suddenly his body was his to control again. He struggled to free himself from the altering Ethelind’s deadly embrace. A hand clutched a handful of her luxurious black hair and the whole mass of tumbling locks came free, slipping from the now bald pate of her head.

Ethelind hissed, the sibilant susurrations rising to a nerve-freezing screech. The spell she had cast over him broken, Pieter pulled away from the taloned fiend, snagging the hem of her robe with the scabbard of his sword as he did so. As he leapt back out of reach of the grasping sickle-claws, Ethelind’s dress tore apart at the seams and Pieter perceived for the first time the full extent of the Slaaneshi devotee’s corruption. From the waist down Ethelind’s scaled hindquarters became backward-jointed legs, ending in monstrous three-clawed feet.

Grabbing Camellia by the wrist Pieter ran from the chamber. Behind them, bizarre horned creatures with women’s bodies, emerged from behind the count’s throne, their bodies lithe muscle, their skin translucent white, their arms ending in elongated, scorpion pincers, their feet bird-like claws.

Then they were running through the dark twisting corridors of Castle Wollustig, up and down winding spiral stairs, and through secluded tower rooms where figures in colourful, diaphanous robes carried out unspeakable acts of licentiousness in the name of pleasure, their faces resembled carved, leering woodcut masks. And all the time the shrieks of the daemonettes pursued them through that palace of the damned.

Still dragging the distraught Camellia behind him, Pieter burst through an age-stained oak door and slammed it shut. Turning, he saw another door at the other end of the long passageway, and they began to run towards it. The shrill ululating screams of the daemon-women died away only to be replaced by another sound; a powerful beating of ragged wings. No matter how fast they ran the door didn’t get any closer – if anything, it seemed to move further away.

Camellia stumbled and her hand slipped from Pieter’s grasp. But he couldn’t stop running and Camellia was enveloped by the darkness. The beating of wings drew nearer and nearer, buffeting him with swirling gusts of chill air. He did not need to look round to know what it was that pursued him. With plumage as black as the eternal oblivion of death itself, Morr’s raven was coming for him.

The door ahead of him faded from view altogether as the walls, floor and ceiling of the corridor dissolved into incorporeal darkness. He wasn’t even sure if he was running any more, his sense of orientation confused by the black abyss in which there was no way of determining direction.

Then, in the distance, green-white light burnt into blazing life, becoming the faces of his departed friends and loved ones as they swept past him, whispering words he couldn’t quite catch. He saw the lined, withered features of his loyal manservant Walter, the pale, ghostly beauty of his beloved Rosamund, and Alexi’s reassuring smile of soldierly experience.

Then other visions assailed him, images that made his heart jump in fearful recollection as he recalled each of his own scrapes with death. The vampire Morderischen’s skinless face was before his, tendrils of veins crawling over the red raw flesh of its bat-like features. The distended jaws of the daemon-worm of Honigheim stretching wider and wider, ready to swallow him whole. The constricting tentacles of the awakening plague daemon squeezing the breath from his lungs, dragging him down into its foetid pit of despair. The hulking Chaos-altered Beast of Bruckenbach, its visage a snarling parody of a man’s, hurling him aside into unconscious oblivion. The incestuous sibling-hybrid, a mass of writhing arms, slicing scythe-blade claws and malformed flesh, stalking towards him – that hideous half-melted face robbed of whatever humanity the depraved count and his sister might once have had.

Was this how it was when you passed at last into Morr’s realm, Pieter wondered: one long hellish, tortured nightmare?

There was a buzzing in the darkness all around him. The murk brightened and then Pieter was looking into a barrel heaving with glistening, yellow-white maggots. As he watched a hideous, grimacing face appeared, formed by the squirming larvae. Then the buzzing too took on form and became a voice.

‘Pieter Valburg,’ it hummed. ‘So, we meet at last, so to speak.’

‘Who, or rather, what are you?’ Pieter found himself replying hazily.

‘In your tongue my name is Vermiculus and I could be your salvation.’ The writhing grubs formed the outline of a leering smile within their mass.

‘But what are you doing here?’

‘I am with you always.’

‘How can this be? Where did you come from?’

‘Why do you ask such questions when you already know the answers?’

And somehow Pieter did know. It was the grimoire. The daemon had been bound in the accursed book by the misguided scholar Johannes Verfallen, both of them servants of the Lord of Decay. The more he had consulted the Chaos tome, the stronger the link had become between man and daemon.

Who had really been using whom? By making sure that the grimoire always had just the information that was required, and the act of Pieter reading it, Vermiculus had used the nobleman to gain a foothold in the material world – through the book.

Before Pieter’s eyes the bloated bodies of the maggots ruptured, hairy green and black bodies pushing free of the larval skins, unfurling stained glass wings. The flies rose into the air but always maintaining the shape of Vermiculus’s face.

Pieter should have recognised the signs before. Whenever he had consulted the grimoire the daemon’s brief connection to the world had drawn vermin and carrion creatures to it. In Nagenhof there had been rats. On the road to Wollustig, there were the carrion crows. In the tower room, the flies. Now he understood how and why the man had died in the vat of maggots. Whatever other powers may have been at work, the influence of the Nurgle-daemon had always been there in the background, its influence bubbling away beneath the surface of reality like a simmering, putrid cesspit.

‘Begone, daemon!’ Pieter commanded, his cry disappearing into the void.

The fly-face crumpled into buzzing laughter. ‘Oh how little you understand the workings of the realm of Chaos,’ Vermiculus droned. ‘We are bound together now, you and I. Our destinies are intertwined and we are far from done.’

The face dissolved, the swarm of flies flying at Pieter’s face. Bloated furry bodies hurtled into his eyes, crawling over his eyelids, clinging to lashes, proboscis tongues licking the moisture from his eyes. The angry buzzing of the swarm grew to deafening proportions as flies filled his ears. He could feel them crawling into his nostrils. His mouth was thick with wriggling insects. He tried to take a choking breath and inhaled even more of the disgusting creatures, felt them crowding into his throat…

Pieter woke with a start to the velvet darkness of the sleeping infirmary, his own cry of alarm echoing back at him. Wan moonlight soaked through the glass of the high windows. There was the flicker of orange flame bobbing through the darkness and a white-robed woman glided towards him. Lamplight reflected from the gold thread of the embroidered heart on the front of her gown, a single teardrop of blood picked out in red thread.

Pieter tried to sit up but as he did so stabbing white agony lanced through his body and he slumped back among the disarrayed pillows and sheets.

‘Wh–Where am I?’ he stammered.

‘Hush, child,’ came the woman’s reply, a loud whisper. ‘You are in the Hospice of the Sisters of Shallya in Ostermark.’

And that was all Pieter heard before he slipped back into blessed unconsciousness.

Raising the tankard to his lips, Torben took a swig of ale, savouring the alcohol on his tongue, before letting it trickle down his throat to warm his stomach. He glanced around at the scene before him – the familiar setting of the Slaughtered Troll in Ostermark.

The Slaughtered Troll, Ostermark’s premier drinking establishment and night-spot, unofficial home of the town’s equally unofficial adventurers’ and mercenaries’ guild; avoided by all honest, Sigmar-fearing citizens and the city watch to boot. Through the fog of pipe-smoke emerged a host of vaguely familiar-looking individuals, hard-bitten adventurers and soldiers for hire like himself and his band. Humans, dwarfs and even the occasional pot-bellied halfling crowded the tables filling the drinking den. The large, soot-blackened fireplace and the free flowing beer were both warming the drinkers. There were not many women present in the bar and the only ones worth any note, as far as Torben was concerned, were the serving wenches.

His companions were around somewhere too, enjoying the return to the daily hustle and bustle of town life, following the traumatic events that had befallen them. Oran was on the other side of the bar chancing his arm at a game of dice. Stanislav had taken the opportunity to ask about their erstwhile companion Krakov but in the three days since they had arrived in Ostermark there had been no more leads as to his whereabouts. The last time Torben had seen Yuri, the younger man was combining a target practice session with a gentlemen’s wager in the inn’s back yard. He and his Wissenland crossbow-bearing challengers were using a broken round table as a butt. Torben stretched back into the corner of the stall and, through half-closed eyes, continued his casual scrutiny of the bar and the inn’s clientele.

On one plaster wall to the side of the bar were pinned pieces of paper detailing all the jobs going: everything from requests for bodyguards to escort baggage trains through the Border Princes to distant Tilea and musters for dogs of war, to licensed wizards seeking help in recovering lost artefacts from the tombs of ancient chieftains to town officials calling for aid in ridding outlying villages of all manner of inhuman menaces. As Torben had often remarked, it was a tough world out there.

He recalled the last year, but it seemed more like three considering all that had happened since the encounter with the raving Old Man Mountain. Of course there had been six of them then and at that point they hadn’t even met the young nobleman who now lay in the hospice, on the other side of the river, beyond the town.

Until Pieter Valburg recovered they were down to four. There had never been so few in Badenov’s band and once again, for someone who didn’t usually like to consider things too deeply, Torben found himself contemplating their future without much relish.

What would he do if the mercenaries disbanded? Since the age of sixteen, fighting was the only life he had known. He could head south again and join one of the dogs of war armies or free companies that proliferated in the Border Princes or Tilea. Or perhaps he should return to Mother Kislev who he had left all those years ago after the Yasharov Massacre.

Whatever else happened, things would never be the same again.

Pieter opened his eyes blearily, blinking the sleep from them. As his vision took in the soft yellow light entering the infirmary hall, blurred shapes resolved into identifiable forms, and he saw the delighted, smiling face of his precious Camellia.

‘Oh Pieter, you’re awake! Sister Elora, Pieter’s awake!’ she called.

She looked so very different to the last time he had seen her. There was a healthy colour in her cheeks, a bright, flinty spark in her eyes. He also noticed she was wearing the plain white habit of one of the novices of the order. How long had he been her, for such changes to have taken place, Pieter wondered? He gave Camellia a confused look.

‘You’ve been here for three days,’ Camellia said, in answer to his unspoken question. ‘Don’t worry, the others are waiting for you at an inn in the town.’

‘They made quite a generous donation to temple funds as well,’ an older, maternal-seeming priestess said, walking up to the bed. ‘She’s been tending you, this one,’ the woman said, beaming at Camellia, ‘ever since we brought you into the infirmary.’

‘We thought you might not make it,’ Camellia said softly, her face suddenly downcast and serious, and Pieter became aware that she was holding his hand delicately in hers.

‘It was touch and go there for a time,’ the older priestess, Sister Elora, confirmed, resting a comforting hand on Camellia’s shoulder. ‘But he’s all right now, isn’t he, my girl?’

Camellia straightened and her mouth curled back into a delighted smile. ‘Yes, and I’m going to be with you all the way through until you’re up and out of that bed.’

Sister Elora left the two of them alone again and Camellia began to fill Pieter in on what had happened since he had saved her from Count Reinhardt and the Lady Ethelind.

‘So when you were through the worst of it you were brought here, to continue your recovery,’ Camellia eventually concluded.

Pieter turned his head to see who his fellow patients were. To his right a man with close-cropped greying hair lay sleeping. A darned tabard bearing the device of a griffon was draped over the back of a chair on which rested a gleaming knight’s helm. Pieter turned his head and looked to his left. A screen had been positioned around the bed on that side.

‘What’s going on there?’ he asked.

‘Oh.’ Camellia’s manner became abruptly subdued. ‘That poor man.’

‘What? What happened?’ Pieter pressed, his curiosity piqued.

‘He was a travelling man. I don’t know his name. He’d been making some repairs to the roof of the hospice. He was brought in here only a day after you. He had slipped on the icy tiles and fell from the roof. He was in a bad way: lacerations, broken bones and internal injuries the sisters said. Anyway he didn’t regain consciousness and this morning, on her rounds, Sister Elora found that he had died in his sleep last night. The poor man.’

For a moment Pieter was reminded once again of his own mortality. Not everyone died fighting the forces of evil and darkness.

‘The peculiar thing was that apparently his injuries had become infected,’ Camellia went on. ‘They never healed properly and somehow maggots had got under his skin. It was quite horrible.’

Pieter recalled his dream and his dark discovery. Had it been real, or was it all part of some feverish nightmare conjured by a guilt-ridden soul? He shifted uncomfortably. Pain stabbed through his chest and arms. He let out a cry that had Camellia jumping to his aid.

When he was comfortable again Camellia poured a little of something that looked like wine from an earthenware flask into a shallow wooden bowl and put it to Pieter’s lips.

‘Here, drink some of this,’ she said.

‘What is it?’ he asked, his recent near-death experience having done nothing to rid him of his suspicious tendencies.

‘It’s a healing draught,’ she explained, a wry smile on her lips. ‘It will help you sleep and it’s sleep that your body needs to recover fully.’

Pieter took a sip of the liquid. It tasted like watered-down wine, infused with herbs, with a strong aniseed aftertaste. In fact it tasted quite nice. He swallowed and almost instantly felt a warming sensation spread throughout his body. Closing his eyes again, Pieter sank back into his bed, enjoying the warming glow of the infusion. Sleep was not long in coming.

He was drifting through the corridors and cloisters of the hospice. No door was locked to him, no way barred. He drifted past the room where he had been brought that first night, unconscious, his life slipping away from him with every drop of blood he lost. He glided on, not knowing where he was going and yet at the same time seemingly being drawn onwards through the labyrinthine passageways of the temple-hospital. Then he was descending, down half-forgotten stairs, deeper and deeper below the complex. An ancient, wooden door opened at his touch and he floated into the darkness beyond.

There was something there, in the darkness. He could hear its rasping breath between slavering chewing sounds and the crunch of bone. Gradually his eyes adjusted to the all-pervading gloom, enough for him to distinguish shades of grey in the shadowy darkness.

The chamber he was in was a crypt, with aged, stone sarcophagi lining the walls. The sounds were coming from the far corner of the burial chamber. Peering through the gloom he could see the unmistakable shape of a human corpse hanging over the side of an open sarcophagus. Hunched over it was something that might once have been human but which could only now be described as half-human at best, greedily tearing at the flesh of a pallid arm with bloodstained teeth.

The ghoulish creature suddenly stopped feasting on the cadaver and turned its head to peer over its shoulder at the intruder. Pieter saw animal hatred burning in the pits of its eyes.

‘You want us to help you stop a necromancer?’ asked an incredulous Oran.

‘Shhh! Keep your voice down,’ hissed the witch hunter. ‘There are many here who would not understand or appreciate what I intend to do. It is best that they do not know at all. That which they do not know cannot trouble them.’

‘So where do we find this Werner Mengler?’ Torben asked.

‘So you will help me then?’ said Luther Harlock triumphantly.

They had all been surprised to see the witch hunter they had met six months previously enter such a den of iniquity, earlier that evening. Torben was sure that there were plenty of things that went on in the Slaughtered Troll that a Sigmarite templar could take offence at. The witch hunter had strode in, having lost none of his confidence and bravado. He had scanned the bar imperiously, the regular clientele either turning away or returning his searching stare aggressively, as if they regarded him as little better than something a dog might leave in the gutter. Then the witch hunter’s gaze had fallen on the mercenary party.

Harlock had changed since they had last met. He still looked strong, particularly when you considered he was at least twenty years older than the oldest of the mercenaries, but there was no denying he looked tired. And it was not just the tiredness born of a strenuous day’s ride, it was an all-consuming weariness that comes after a life of constant trials and perilous conflict.

Harlock had also developed a nasty, hacking cough. Torben suspected that it was as a result of some injury he had suffered or some loathsome curse he had fallen foul of. Men like Luther Harlock didn’t just get common colds like everyone else, they suffered vile poxes visited upon them by the servants of Chaos. Torben couldn’t help wondering how long the witch hunter had left to live.

And of course he was now alone. The rest of his Sigmarite band had all died following various deadly exploits since the siege of Honigheim until only the wily old witch hunter remained. Hence, on arriving at Ostermark he had followed up some leads, resulting from his own brand of detective work, and made his way to the Slaughtered Troll. He wanted to recruit some warriors who were likely to prevail against the forces set against them. For the time being all pessimistic thoughts of the future were forgotten as Torben was caught up in the thrill of the chase that Harlock presented to them.

‘Mengler has been lying low in Ostermark ever since he came here thirty-three years ago. He assumed a new identity that has allowed him to continue his work, secretively, without suspicions being aroused, increasing his knowledge and power all the while. But he will not remain quiet and out of sight forever. Sooner or later he will reveal whatever nefarious scheme it is he’s been plotting and then all Ostermark will tremble at the fruition of his ungodly plans.’

‘How long have you been pursuing Mengler?’ Torben asked the witch hunter.

‘I first encountered him thirty-four years ago, in the now extinct village of Talsdorf. He was already old to the ways of the dark arts then. Reports of travellers being attacked on the Talabheim road led me to the village where I discovered that Mengler had raised the dead from the village graveyard. Rallying the villagers we trapped them within the graveyard and put all to the torch. All the undead perished but Mengler escaped, curse his soul.

‘I pursued him across Talabecland to the borders of Stirland and faced him at last in the pine-forested highlands above the Geistwald Falls. There he summoned monstrous, fell bats and unliving dire wolves to defend him. Fighting off his minions I shot Mengler with a bullet of blessed silver, made from a melted crucifix. I barely survived the encounter myself but somehow he too cheated death once more. I was sure that my silver bullet had killed him but, with his body lost in the Nachtstrom River the doubt always remained that maybe, just maybe, he had survived.

‘The trail went cold for years and, as I pursued Sigmar’s work elsewhere, I began to dare to hope that Mengler really had perished. Then, only a month ago, I came upon the clue that at last led me here. Decades after my last encounter with the foul necromancer I knew there would be one final reckoning between us.

‘I am willing to pay you handsomely for your help. I understand that men of your character do little for the greater good without recompense, but you will be doing Sigmar’s work whether you are paid for it or not.’

‘Very well,’ Torben said, a look of growing excitement on his face, ‘we’ll do it.’

‘Then we act tonight.’

‘Why not get on with it right away?’ Yuri suggested.

‘As I said before, there are those in this town, who would not understand what we were planning to do or would possibly actively want to thwart us. Common folk should not be exposed to such horrors. It is our duty to protect them from the harsh realities that the world throws at us at every turn. If they knew what was about to befall them there would be a riot and Mengler would either succeed in his schemes or be alerted to our own plans and escape once again. It is best that we wait until after dark in order to go about our business undisturbed.’

‘But isn’t it during the hours of darkness that the powers you plan to take on are at their strongest?’ Stanislav warned the witch hunter.

‘You are right and during the dead time of the year, when the land sleeps, that is when the dark powers enjoy a particular resurgence. And that is why I am sure that if Mengler is planning to act, this is the time he will do so. That is why we must face him now!’

‘Sister superior,’ Martha addressed the old woman now that she was conscious and lucid again. ‘When you were sleeping you called out and said things that had us confused.’ The old woman’s sleep had not been peaceful these last three days. At times her frail body had tossed and turned deliriously and, as Sister Martha or one of the other priestesses applied cooling flannels to her feverish brow, she had said things, not knowing what she was doing. ‘What did you mean when you said, “He’ll be getting hungry”?’

‘What do you mean?’ Gudrun croaked.

‘You said, “He’ll be getting hungry” and “Make sure Father Munst feeds him”. Who were you talking about?’

‘Did you ask Father Munst?’

‘I did.’

‘And what did he say?’ There was a sharp intelligence burning in the old woman’s sunken eyes now.

‘He said he didn’t know what I was talking about. He told me that you must be delirious. But there were tears in his eyes when he asked if he should prepare a coffin for you. He said something about it not being your time, that you were too young to be taken from us.’

‘He used to be a good priest and an even better man before I made him do the things he’s done for me,’ the old woman intoned. ‘Remember that after I’ve told you what I must.’

Martha settled herself on the stool at her mistress’s side. ‘You wish to continue your confession?’ she asked gently.

Gudrun nodded weakly.

‘Are you sure you are well enough?’

‘I’m not delirious now, am I? Besides I don’t have any choice if I want to pass beyond the gate of death with any hope of escaping eternal damnation.’

Gudrun coughed. Once Martha had given her a sip of water from the cup by her bed, the old sister superior went on with her confession.

‘I had been living with my son, Sigmund, here, at the hospice, for six years when plague swept through these reaches of Ostermark. It did not take long for it to reach epidemic proportions, with victims numbering in their hundreds. Even here, on the other side of the river and away from the overcrowded conditions of the town, the hospice was not spared. Fully two-thirds of our sisterhood succumbed to the vile disease, including my own dear aunt, the sister superior, and almost all of our patients. Under the circumstances, with our numbers so depleted, I took on the mantle of sister superior and those of us who still lived did what we could for our suffering sisters and the dying.

‘Then, when we thought we were rid of the disease at last, my darling Sigmund fell sick. One morning when I came to wake him I found him lying in his bed shaking and running a fever, the sheets soaking with his sweat, and the foul, telltale sore, red swellings covering his body that told me he too had contracted that Chaos-damned plague.

‘There was absolutely nothing that we could do for my poor angel. I was heart-broken, the pain soul-destroying. Although I had escaped the plague I felt that I would die of grief. While I hid my feelings from my sisters, behind closed doors I was a near-insane, hysterical wreck. It is no exaggeration to say that I would have done anything to save him.

‘It was then that Werner Mengler arrived at the hospice, dying from a gunshot wound…’

The nocturnal winter streets were quiet as the mercenaries followed the witch hunter along narrow, twisting alleyways and lonely back streets. A light dusting of snow had fallen earlier in the evening and had hardened to ice making it hazardous underfoot. The party of four armed men and the black-swathed witch hunter stopped outside an unassuming residence. Moonlight illuminated a brass plaque next to the iron-studded front door with its grim, gargoyle-faced knocker, which stated in etched gothic lettering that this was the residence of one Doktor Leichemann.

‘Are you sure this is the right place?’ Oran asked gruffly.

‘Oh yes, this is the place,’ replied the witch hunter sternly, ‘I am certain of it.’

‘So, how do we get in?’ asked Torben. ‘I take it we don’t just knock on the door and politely ask for the necromancer of the house.’

Harlock threw him an unimpressed glare. ‘We want to give Mengler as little warning as possible so he can’t prepare his defences or escape. We break our way in. Your friend with the axe should do the trick.’

‘Happy to be of assistance.’ Stanislav stepped forward obligingly.

Oran stopped him with a hand and stepped in front of the witch hunter.

‘And give him all the warning he needs? No, we need to do this by stealth.’ The others looked at Oran, surprise on all their faces. ‘Leave this up to me.’

Sheathing his dagger, Oran pulled a small bundle of oilcloth from a pocket in his jerkin. Unwrapping it revealed a metal ring, to which were attached an assortment of thin steel tools. He selected a lock-pick. Easing it into the keyhole, he started waggling it around inside the mortise mechanism.

‘I wondered when I’d be using these again,’ he said.

His tongue licking his lip repeatedly and his bristly moustache twitching, Oran began to pick the lock.

Having successfully broken into the doktor’s residence, Badenov’s band and the ageing witch hunter explored the townhouse. In keeping with a doktor’s profession, the house was luxuriously decorated, with mahogany panelling throughout, heavy velvet drapes that were drawn shut over every window, and marble flagstone flooring with expensive Arabian carpets covering it.

However, there was also a thick layer of dust obscuring everything and spider-webs formed their own drapes around doorways and between ceiling beams.

The place seemed deserted and disused. That was until they descended to the doktor’s laboratory beneath the house.

At first glance the room looked like a cross between a mortuary chapel and an alchemist’s workroom. The chamber was the largest they had come across in the building, having the dimensions of the whole ground floor. Around the sides of the lab were wooden workbenches. On these were laid out all sorts of pieces of surgical equipment – which on closer inspection were, rather disturbingly, covered in a patina of red-brown rust – various glass vials and flasks, of varying shapes and sizes, all connected via coils of glass piping; open volumes and unrolled scrolls. Shelves covering the walls were packed full of other pieces of scientific equipment, books, stoppered flasks, mounted stuffed animals and even the occasional human skull.

Where there weren’t shelves, charts and diagrams of the human body covered the walls. One bore the stylised image of a man that had the qualities of the races of mystical Cathay, who Torben had once encountered in Tilea. Over the figure had been delineated in red and blue pigment a tracery of lines that reminded Torben of a network of tree branches. Some ink-drawn sketches of men and women in different poses, some skinless showing the way the muscles attached to the bones, were reminiscent of the work of a Tilean artist-cum-inventor he had seen during the same tour of duty. A large piece of parchment, that most definitely wasn’t paper, bore a curious image of a corpse, surrounded by picture-like glyphs that spoke to him of great age and filled Torben with inexplicable feelings of dread.

But most disturbing of all were the human remains that had been left in the laboratory. Skeletons hung by wire hooks from wooden frames or lay amidst opened soil-stained wrappings at one end of the room. Here and there on the work units a hand or limb had been nailed down, pins held the skin back where scalpel incisions had been made and muscles, bones, sinews and tendons were revealed beneath. And on a table in the middle of the laboratory lay a human cadaver. It did not take a physician to see that the corpse had been disembowelled.

‘Looks like the good doktor’s been busy,’ Torben said darkly.

‘This is no joking matter,’ hissed Harlock, cautiously stepping further into the room and putting his lantern down on a table. ‘We are too late.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Yuri uneasily.

Harlock suppressed a cough before continuing. ‘Mengler isn’t here.’

‘Obviously,’ agreed Oran.

‘It is just as I feared. Whatever he has planned happens tonight!’ Harlock declared ominously.

‘So what can we do now?’ asked Stanislav, apprehensively.

‘We have to find out where he’s gone, and what he intends to do. And we have to do so quickly,’ Harlock instructed the mercenaries.

The party began to spread out around the laboratory, rummaging through the paperwork left scattered across the tables and units, searching for anything that might give them a clue as to Werner Mengler’s whereabouts or details of his despicable scheme.

There was a sudden startled outburst from Yuri that attracted the others’ attention.

‘Baba Yaga’s teeth!’ he yelped, and leapt back from the unit he had been searching.

‘What’s happened? What is it?’ voices asked, tumbling over each other to discover the truth.

‘Th–This arm, here!’ he said, pointing at a partially dissected limb attached to a dissection board. ‘It moved!’

‘Are you sure?’ Harlock fixed him with a dark stare and drew his sword.

Before Yuri could answer, the fingers of the hand twitched.

Torben saw a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye. Looking to the corpse laid out on the table in the centre of the laboratory he watched as the cadaver slowly raised itself into a sitting position. Swinging its legs over the side of the table it stood up. The cold flesh of the body, grey in the light from Harlock’s lantern. The cadaver reached out for them with blunt, clenched fingers.

A skeleton, hanging from a hook in one corner of the room, also sprang to life, seizing Stanislav with a movement of its arms as fast as a cobra strike. Muscles bulging like ship’s cables the big Kislevite broke free, dislocated joints and snapping bones rattling onto the floor of the chamber. He whirled, his double-headed axe gripped tightly in both hands, and with a decisive swipe smashed through the vertebrae of the skeleton’s spine. What was left of the truncated skeleton – little more than its skull, shoulder blades and ribcage, hung from its hook jerking uncontrollably.

Yuri felt the dissected arm grab at him again and heard the skin tear as the muscles tore free of the pins holding the arm onto the board. Several slicing blows from his own blade and what was left of the grasping limb was motionless again. Yuri had done a little of his own dissection work.

Oran swore as a sharp pain told him that he had been bitten. A skull had latched onto his left hand, trapping the meat of his thumb between vice-like jaws. Blood ran freely from the wound. Without hesitation, Oran flung the hand down on a bench and brought the handle of his dagger down on top of the bleached skull with as much force as he could muster. The skull shattered. Bashing the locked mandible against the side of the bench broke teeth loose of the bone and freed Oran’s hand.

The body parts laid out around the laboratory continued to jerk and twist trying to reach the defilers of the necromancer’s lair. Skulls chattered in their niches on the shelves – a couple rattling themselves free and falling onto the bench below. Another skeleton snapped free of its display frame and the disinterred remains rose from the tattered remains of their burial shrouds and advanced, with unnatural, insect-like movements towards the mercenaries.

Camellia sleepily made her way along the passageway towards the sister superior’s room as Sister Martha had requested. The heat of the water radiating from the earthenware bowl she was holding warmed her hands. Approaching the door to Sister Gudrun’s chamber, which had been left slightly ajar, Camellia could hear two voices, Gudrun’s and Sister Martha’s, deep in conversation. The sister superior would speak longest, as if relating some tale, with the other nun interjecting from time to time, before the old woman resumed her story. The only other noise was the occasional hacking cough from the dying senior priestess.

Camellia was about to knock on the door and enter the room when she heard Gudrun say, ‘You have to understand, I did not realise what he was as he lay dying in this very room.’

Camellia paused. The soft soles of her shoes had made almost no sound on the flagstones of the passageway so the room’s occupants would not have heard her. Holding the bowl of cooling water steady in her hands, she waited by the door and listened.

‘I did what I could to make him comfortable but he was dying none the less,’ Gudrun was saying. ‘And he knew it. Realising he was on his deathbed he begged me to help him.’

‘But there was nothing more you could do for him, sister. You said so yourself,’ Martha commented. Camellia could hear both of them quite clearly now.

‘I was distraught. I poured out my heart to him – a total stranger! I told him that I couldn’t even help my own darling son. Even though he was desperately weak himself, Mengler said that he could save my child – he claimed he was an alchemist – if I agreed to help him. So I made a deal – a pact, I suppose – that I would help him if, in return, he would save my precious Sigmund.

‘Mengler told me that he needed the assistance of a trained physician. Doktor Leichemann had a long connection with the hospice. He brought medicines to the hospice, from his workshop in the town, to help our sisterhood tend the sick. As soon as I mentioned his name Mengler became agitated and said that I had to bring the good doktor to him. I was in such a state that I didn’t even begin to wonder why all of this had to be done in secret.

‘Doktor Leichemann had been run off his feet during the crisis, but I summoned him, all the same, to help Mengler. I called him in good faith. By that stage I hadn’t begun to consider how Mengler might be able to help my son when a physician couldn’t. Shallya forgive me, if I had stopped to think for one second I might not have let it go any further.

‘But as it was, when Doktor Leichemann arrived I let him in secretly myself. I led him here and waited at the door as he entered the chamber to examine a man he took to be half-dead at best. Mengler’s eyes had closed and the sickly pallor of his skin had become more obvious. For a moment I thought he was already dead and that all my hopes had been cruelly dashed in that one awful moment.

‘I watched, tears welling in my eyes as my heart began to break, as the doktor leant over the body that lay in the bed. I think I cried out when Mengler suddenly lunged up from the bed, horribly alive again. His bony hands grabbed Doktor Leichemann’s head in a vice-like grip. He gasped in shocked surprise as Mengler started making a tortured wheezing noise. I was afraid that at any moment one of the sisters might hear and come running, but none did.

‘I just stood there, in petrified horror, unable to tear my gaze away. The temperature in the room dropped suddenly and dramatically as an aura of evil swept through the chamber. It made me feel sick. The air thickened and I instinctively knew that Mengler was employing foul magic to achieve his own wicked ends.

‘Somehow I knew what he was doing but I wasn’t capable of stopping him. From the way the doktor’s eyes rolled up into his head, from the spasming paroxysms that seized his body and the terrible groan that issued from between his gritted teeth, I knew that Werner Mengler had driven the doktor’s spirit from his body so he could possess it with his own tainted soul.

‘I remember little of what happened after that. I believe that in my hysterical, grief-stricken state, witnessing Mengler’s possession of the Doktor Leichemann sent me to the very edge of my sanity, as I realised just what kind of a deal I had made. It is only now, as I confess my soul to you, that I am able to come to terms with it.

‘So, wearing Doktor Leichemann’s body like a new robe, Mengler returned to the doktor’s surgery and assumed his identity wholly. And he in turn kept his part of the bargain – although now how I wish he hadn’t. Little did I realise how he planned to allow his evil to fester and grow. In the doktor’s laboratory he set about brewing a potion that he said would save my precious Sigmund. He returned to the hospice, as my son lay gasping out his last, and administered his cure.

‘The potion began to take effect almost immediately. Within two days Sigmund was looking much more like his healthy boyish self. After another two days the buboes and boils had dried up completely. The elixir seemed to be a miracle cure. It brought Sigmund renewed vigour. I found myself almost able to forget what Mengler had done to prolong his unnatural life.

‘But it was not long before I began to notice the changes in my beloved son: the snarling, the feral look in his eyes. Then, one day, I caught him gnawing a raw leg of lamb he had stolen from the kitchens like a stray dog. I had to keep him hidden still, only now he was shut up behind lock and key for his own protection as much as anyone else’s. At least, that’s what I managed to convince myself.

‘What I didn’t discover, until too late, was that the elixir was evil, and had started to work terrible changes on my darling boy. One of the ingredients in the potion Mengler had created to save my son was flesh from Werner Mengler’s own corpse. Unwittingly, on that fateful, storm-lashed night, I had helped save the life of a sorcerer who had mastered the art of necromancy. Once Mengler’s remedy had cured my son of the plague it soon became apparent that Sigmund needed to keep taking the potion to stay alive. It was like an addiction, a dependency such as we see with weirdroot users, only a hundred times worse. Without that one thing he would die.

‘There was nothing I could do. Without the potion my child would die. And he was, after all, still my son. As his mother, I would do all in my power to protect him. But it wasn’t only human flesh in that potion that had a corrupting effect on my son’s body, mind and soul. You have heard of warpstone, I take it?’

‘Warpstone!’ Camellia heard Martha exclaim. ‘The very essence of Chaos given physical form?’

‘There was warpstone dust in the potion. That and the other ingredients in the elixir, over the years, turned… well… they had unfortunate side effects. Sigmund needed to feast on human flesh to survive. Nothing else would sustain him. He wasn’t my little boy any more but I still loved him.’

‘How long ago did this happen?’ asked Sister Martha, her tone now one of undisguised horror and disgust.

‘I have been sister superior here for thirty-three years,’ the old woman replied calmly. There was no point pretending any more. It all had to come out, if only for the good of her immortal soul.

‘Where is Sigmund now?’

Camellia heard Gudrun inhale deeply before replying, in a voice that was little more than a sigh: ‘He’s still here, in the hospice.’

Unable to stop herself Camellia dropped the bowl in horror. The bowl clattered to the floor of the passageway, lukewarm water splashing over the flagstones. The pieces of pot rocking to a standstill on the wet floor, Camellia was already fleeing back down the passageway.

Dead muscles tensing, the cadaver backhanded the witch hunter, sending him reeling. Torben moved in again. The pallid flesh gaped in several places where Torben and Harlock had both injured the dead thing, but no blood flowed.

Torben thrust forwards. Its movements preternaturally swift, the corpse grasped the blade of Torben’s sabre in one powerful hand, feeling no pain, as its palm closed tighter around the finely honed edge. As it loomed in front of him, Torben could see where the top of the corpse’s head was missing; the doktor must have made a hole in its skull to examine the spongy pink-grey tissue of its brain.

Punching out with his other hand bunched into a fist, Torben struck the lumbering cadaver in the middle of its sternum. The corpse staggered back with clumping steps. Torben forced his sword free of its grip and four fingers tumbled twitching to the floor. Bringing the blade to bear he plunged it through the open cruciform wound of the autopsy cuts, into the hollow cavity beyond. He felt the sabre pierce the flesh of the cadaver’s back and with a twist he severed its spine. The upper half of the corpse’s body levered forward as Torben extracted the blade. The undead thing couldn’t have presented him with an easier blow if it had put its neck on an executioner’s block. One deft swipe of the blade was all it took to remove its head. The cadaver toppled to the laboratory floor.

Leaning against the tables and benches, the laboratory around them strewn with bits of bodies and littered with broken apparatus, the mercenaries recovered their breath. Harlock pored over the papers spread about the laboratory.

‘We have to hurry!’ Harlock declared at last.

‘Why? What’s Mengler up to?’ Torben’s face was grim.

‘These papers outline Mengler’s scheme. He intends to raise the dead of Ostermark from the graveyards and plague burial pits surrounding the town, and he plans to do it tonight when the dark magic saturating the land will be at its strongest!’

‘Having taken on Doktor’s Leichemann’s identity, Mengler became a recluse. And as I had entered into a pact of evil with the necromancer, wittingly or otherwise, I had to continue to deal with him whether I wanted to or not.’

Tears were running down the old woman’s cheeks at the recollection. Martha wiped them away. Ignoring the crash outside the room she had insisted Gudrun go on. The old woman’s eyes were permanently closed now. She didn’t have much time left and Sister Martha had to see this through to the end.’

‘He continued to supply me with the warpstone elixir I needed to keep Sigmund alive and in return I arranged for him to take the bodies of those who died here at the hospice, to use in his necromantic studies. In my position as sister superior I was able to keep my secret safe. But over the years Sigmund has continued to grow, as boys will, and so has his appetite. It has been quite a challenge keeping him happily fed.

‘Of course I couldn’t achieve such a thing without help. I knew that wretched Father Munst was madly in love with me and had been since taking up the post of priest of Morr here two years after my own arrival – I was quite something in those days, you know – and, Shallya forgive me, I played on that until there was nothing he wouldn’t do for me, no matter how dark and unnatural. As a priest of Morr, he could make sure he buried empty coffins, either passing the corpses on to Mengler or feeding them to Sigmund.’

Gudrun gasped, the last scrap of colour draining from her cheeks, and another bout of throaty coughing wracked her body. Martha found herself taking the old woman’s hand in hers once again, stroking it gently.

As the coughing subsided, in a wheezing, failing voice Gudrun asked, ‘Martha, I have confessed all to you now. Do you forgive me? Am I absolved of all sin?’

There was little mercy or compassion in Martha’s flinty eyes now. ‘It is not I you should be asking. Only the goddess can do that for you now,’ the priestess replied with fatal finality letting the dying woman’s hand drop from her own.

‘Pieter, wake up!’ Camellia was insisting in a harsh whisper and Pieter could feel her hand shaking him vigorously.

He opened his eyes, blearily. It was dark in the infirmary hall, the only other noises being the other patients sleeping soundly. Camellia was sitting on his bed, anxiety contorting her beautiful face. A priestess doing her rounds of the ward was busy with another patient at the other end of the hall.

‘What’s the matter?’ he slurred drowsily.

‘You’ve got to help me. There is evil festering here, just as there was in Castle Wollustig,’ Camellia gabbled.

‘What do you mean?’ Pieter was now fully awake and, despite the ache in his ribs, sitting bolt upright. ‘What evil?’

‘A monster, a cannibal that defiles the bodies of the dead by eating their flesh!’

‘The creature in my dream,’ Pieter muttered, half to himself.

‘Such a thing cannot be allowed to live – and in a temple of the goddess of healing, of all places, it is a desecration of the worst kind. We must destroy it! Will you help me?’

Pieter swung his legs out of the bed and winced. His wounds were healing well but he had spent the best part of a week laid up in bed and still felt weak. But he wanted to help Camellia and besides, he wanted to discover the meaning of his haunting nightmare. Trying to hide the pain that came with every movement, he replied, ‘Yes. Of course I will.’

With Camellia’s aid Pieter dressed. His grandfather’s sword, inside its old, oiled leather scabbard, had been placed under his bed. He buckled on the belt as they made their way through the temple-hospital as quickly as Pieter could manage.

‘I take it you know where we’re going?’ he said breathlessly as they trotted along the silent passageways.

‘I heard that Father Munst, the old priest of Morr, feeds it the bodies of those who die here,’ Camellia divulged.

‘That confirms it then. The monster must be kept near to the source of its food.’

‘The chapel of Morr!’ stated Camellia. ‘One stands in the graveyard behind the hospice.’

It did not take them long to find the rear exit of the complex, and they met none of the sisters in ther flight. Exiting the hospice-temple the night was cold and sharp, the freezing air catching in their lungs, making them cough. Ahead they could see the chapel. Moonlight outlined the angles of the squat, stone building, sending impenetrable shadows slanting across the frosted graveyard. Their footsteps crunching on the icy path, Pieter and Camellia approached the chapel with foreboding. The young nobleman eased his sword out of its sheath and pushed open the door.

Inside, everything appeared to be in order. A short flight of steps led down into the main body of the shrine. From there further steps led down into the crypts and burial chambers beyond. Opposite them stood the representation of the portal into Morr’s kingdom, a stone archway with one pillar of basalt and one of marble. On either side of the sanctuary were a plethora of black candles, some burnt down to molten pools of wax.

In front of the portal a coffin rested on trestle legs. Warily Pieter lifted the lid.

‘What is it? Who’s in there?’ Camellia asked anxiously.

‘No one. It’s just full of stones.’ Pieter looked around the chapel, as if searching for signs as to where they should head next.

‘Where now?’ Pieter wondered aloud.

Both of them heard the dreadful snarling moan that rose from the tunnel to the right, as if in response to Peiter’s question. Camellia following only a few steps behind, Pieter led the way down the steps into the crypt beyond. Memories of his midnight exploration of Castle Wollustig’s dungeons sprang unwelcomely to mind.

It did not take them long to find the monster’s lair. Following the grisly sound brought them to a sturdy oak door banded with iron that had been left open. But by now they could have found their way by smell alone; the stink emanating from the chamber beyond was appalling. The moaning had given way to a noisy slavering. Cautiously Pieter peered around the doorjamb.

More stone steps led down into a vaulted dungeon chamber, the room illuminated by a lantern standing on a stone ledge. Dividing the cell in two was a set of rusted iron bars that stretched from floor to ceiling. Opposite where the steps descended, down the side of one wall, was an iron gate in the bars. This too was open, a set of keys on a ring still jangling from the lock. The cell beyond was strewn with muck-encrusted straw and littered with human bones. The stink of rotten flesh and the ammonia-methane reek of human waste were almost overpowering. But what Pieter saw beyond the bars, crouched over a black-robed body, filled him with horror, nauseating dread gripping his stomach.

‘Camellia,’ he said, turning to the girl, his face ashen, ‘I don’t think you should come any closer–’ but he was too late.

Before she could stop herself Camellia let out a scream of terror. Alerted to their presence the ghoul turned its head to look at them.

Pieter took in every detail in a frozen horrified instant. The creature had the form and physique of a man but one grown much larger. It was totally naked, apart from a wrap of purloined grave-shroud around its loins. Despite being hunched over the grey-tonsured corpse that he took to be the old priest, Father Munst, Pieter judged that if it were standing upright the ghoul would measure over six feet tall. Its broad back and massive shoulders meant it was possibly almost half as wide across. However, its spine was arched out of shape so the creature was actually hunchbacked. Nodules of bone pressed again the pallid pockmarked flesh of its back and Pieter fancied he could see the tip of a vestigial tail twitching at the end of its spine. Its colouring was almost albino and there didn’t appear to be a single hair on its body. The ghoul had probably never felt the warmth of the sun on its goose-fleshed skin.

It wasn’t actually dead, although it might as well have been, given the way it smelled. It was most definitely more animal than man, in appearance as well as in character. The horror’s eyes were sunken black pits of hatred, rimmed red with discoloured, wrinkled bags of skin. Its cold, grey-blotched flesh was the colour and consistency of clay. Its ears were pointed, its nose a blunt snout. Fingernails had grown to become horny hooks of talons, the quick around them exuding a sticky black slime. The same had happened with its toes.

A rusted iron collar was locked around the monster’s neck. However, the chain attaching it to the wall of its cell had been pulled free of the mortar. It became instantly apparent that, having been imprisoned here for so long, the ghoul had finally broken free and killed Father Munst, its gaoler, and was now in the process of devouring the old priest, enjoying fresh meat for a change. The creature growled, black lips curling back, and it bared sharpened fangs, strings of bloody spittle running down its chin.

Pieter knew that he had no choice now but to finish what he came here to do. He began to descend the stone steps into the dungeon. Such an abomination couldn’t be allowed to go on living any longer.

Its territory invaded and its meal disturbed, the ghoul obviously had the same intentions regarding the nobleman. Casting Father Munst’s corpse aside, the monster rose up on its haunches bellowing and beating its chest with club-like fists. The roar was deafening in the confined space of the cell. Pieter swallowed hard and, doing his best to ignore the pain in his chest, stood his ground before the monster.

Picking up a gnawed leg bone in one meaty paw, the horror bounded towards Pieter on all fours. Roaring, the huge ghoul attacked.

Torben, Harlock and the others came to a panting halt at the foot of the aptly named Gallows Hill. Standing half a mile outside the town, the jagged escarpment rose up to a crest surmounted by three gallows trees, where two corpses still hung, twisting in the cold night breeze. The mercenaries had run through the deathly chill of night, following the aged witch hunter’s lead, their breath turning to icy fog in the sub-zero air.

Harlock had faltered three times on the way from Doktor Leichemann’s house. Torben didn’t need to be a physician to know that the old man didn’t have long to go, but he knew that the resolute witch hunter would never admit it, not as long as his prey eluded him. He would not give in until the necromancer was dead.

Looking up at the three hangman’s scaffolds, silhouetted black against the orb of the moon, Torben could see an outlandishly dressed figure and he knew at once that this must be the necromancer Harlock had been hunting for so many years.

‘There he is!’ announced Harlock triumphantly, pointing to the lone figure at the top of the hill. ‘Werner Mengler!’

Torben had been expecting to see a man wearing plain monk-like robes, or something similar, but he had forgotten that Mengler was about to perform a dark ritual. Necromantic magic, with its ancient origins in the desert lands south of Araby, was as much a religion to its foul practitioners as the Cult of Sigmar was to the people of the Empire. No doubt his ceremonial robe would assist in invoking the powers of undeath.

The necromancer’s silhouette clearly showed a flapping, ornately decorated cloak, with a high collar surmounted by curving talons or bony spikes. A ceremonial top-knot and pony-tail of hair streamed in the wind. In his left hand he held a wand, a lustrous crystal glowing at its tip. In his right he clutched a macabre staff: more curving talons projected along its length while it was surmounted by what looked like the petrified body of a bat and a small, horned skull.

A cold mist was condensing out of the air all around them but through it Torben could still see the glowing wand. It suddenly seemed to him that a wave of dark energy rippled through the night around them, and guessed that the necromancer was at the epicentre of the miasmic shockwave. Then he felt a shudder pass through the ground beneath their feet.

‘Bloody hell!’ Stanislav cursed.

‘Sigmar preserve us!’ the witch hunter gasped, a look of horror growing on his face.

‘What was that? What’s the bastard done?’ Oran demanded.

‘I think we’re too late,’ Torben stated bluntly.

A fleshless fist punched through of the icy turf next to the mercenaries, but it was only the first. Suddenly the earth all around them was erupting with bony limbs as, in answer to the necromancer’s summons, the dead clawed their way out of the frozen earth.

Torben didn’t need reminding of what Harlock had told them earlier that evening – the ground below Gallows Hill held a huge burial pit from when plague swept through the town years ago and that the bodies were buried only a few feet below the surface.

The ground was thick with waving, grasping skeletal hands and arms now, like the Reaper’s own harvest.

‘Run!’ commanded Torben, leading the charge through the macabre field and its gruesome crop.

‘We have to bring down the necromancer!’ Harlock shouted, pulling an antique flintlock pistol from a bandolier around his chest and checking that it was primed.

Hacking at the grasping limbs the mercenaries raced towards the hill. To try to fight every last one of the corpses and skeletons now rising from the burial pits would be futile. If they could only end the unnatural life of the sorcerer, and thereby the source of the foul magic that awoke the dead, then the whole undead army would be stopped.

‘How many died in the plague?’ Torben asked the witch hunter as they made their last, desperate assault on the necromancer’s position.

‘Several hundred in the last plague alone,’ Harlock puffed in response.

‘So how many bodies lie buried around the town altogether?’

‘Thousands.’

Pieter rolled onto his side, dazed and disarmed, as the ghoul brought its thighbone club down hard on the floor of the cell, where a moment before his head had been. The bone shattered against the granite flags and the ghoul roared in angry frustration. Seeing double, Pieter staggered dizzily to his feet towards where his sword had fallen. His head was ringing from the blow it had received when the monster had first tried to brain him and his foot snagged in the folds of the dead priest’s robe. He tripped and fell. His sword still lay just out of reach amidst the stinking straw. For something that wasn’t used to having to hunt down and kill its prey itself, the ghoul had disarmed him frighteningly easily. But then again, he paid the price for every exertion he made in agonising pain.

In his restricted range of vision, through the open gate of the barred prison cell, he saw the creature crouch, ready to pounce, its muscles bunching under its horribly pallid, lumpy skin. Then the ghoul sprang, landing heavily on top of him. Pieter gasped as the air was knocked out of him. The ghoul dropped the useless nub of femur and closed its great, clammy hands around Pieter’s throat.

Straining against the ghoul’s hold, he in turn tried to get his hands around the ghoul’s neck. He wrestled with the foul creature. Its skin felt damp and horribly malleable under his hands.

His face rapidly went first red then purple as the monster throttled the life out of him.

He could hear Camellia’s distant screams as the sound of his racing pulse pounded in his ears. Through fading, greying vision he saw Camellia run at the ghoul and strike it with something. Snarling, the ghoul released one hand from Pieter’s neck and batted her aside before regaining its stranglehold on him.

His own grip weakening, Pieter released his hold on the ghoul. Scrabbling fingers stretched to their limit, and clutched at anything within reach. His fingertips brushed against something smooth, cold and hard and then he had the end of the broken leg bone in his hand.

Now armed, he swung his improvised weapon up and, with the last of his failing strength, thrust the splintered shaft into the ghoul’s red-rimmed eye-socket. There was a wet pop and the grisly creature screamed. It released Pieter immediately, rearing back from its victim as excruciating pain seared through its brain.

Propelled into a frenzy by the pain, the ghoul lashed around uncontrollably. A taloned hand smashed into the lantern standing on the ledge, sending it flying. It landed with the tinkle of breaking glass on the other side of the cell. As burning oil splashed over the creature’s bedding, the straw caught light immediately.

Pieter lay on his back amidst the putrid effluence and reeking debris of the ghoul’s cell, the world giving way to darkness around him. It still felt like he was being garrotted. He was faintly aware of the crackling of flames, the acrid smell of smoke and the agonised howls of the ghoul. But all he wanted to do was lie there and let blessed oblivion take him.

And somewhere, far away in the distance, he could hear Camellia screaming.

‘Doktor Leichemann, I presume. Or should that be Herr Mengler?’

The necromancer fixed the glittering pits of his eyes on his nemesis, the witch hunter, who faced him across the blasted, icily windswept hilltop. ‘Luther Harlock,’ the sorcerer sneered with contempt.

‘We meet again at last!’ Harlock declared, triumphantly.

‘You’ve aged since last we met,’ the necromancer mocked. Close to, Harlock could see the necromancer’s grey flesh was drawn taut over his skull, pronounced blue veins pulsing just under the skin.

‘And you wear a new face,’ Harlock replied coolly. ‘I thwarted your schemes then and I shall stop you again now!’

‘We’ll see about that, old man!’ the necromancer said, his voice almost a derisory laughter.

He waved his wand over the ground between them, beneath the gallows. Another rippling surge of dark magic rolled out over the hilltop, making Harlock catch his breath at its burning cold touch passed through him.

The bodies of the gallows’ victims, thieves and murderers, all buried in unconsecrated ground, answered the necromancer’s irresistible call and broke free of the frozen soil. The two corpses dangling from the scaffold also spasmed jerkily and came to life. One tugged itself free of the wooden structure. The other used its rotting teeth to gnaw through the frayed hemp around its neck.

‘Queen Katarin’s sword!’ Harlock heard the mercenary captain swear.

In no time at all Badenov’s band was surrounded.

Below them, a quarter of a mile from the walls of the town, row upon row of skeletons and other partially decomposed things shambled off towards the unsuspecting town.

As the mouldering skeletons of long-dead warriors and criminals advanced on the witch hunter and his mercenary allies, Mengler began to laugh. The bones stitched to the necromancer’s cloak rattling in the wind, knocking together like sinister wind chimes. The end was at hand.

Mustering the last of his strength, Luther Harlock prepared to sell his life dearly. The blade of his sword was already notched and dirtied from where he had used it to cut a path through the resurrecting dead to reach the necromancer. Tightening his grip on the weapon he began to take long, measured strides through the enclosing pack of dead things, his sweeping blade cutting figure of eight patterns through bones, sloughing flesh and exposed internal organs.

He made every stroke count, severing wasted limbs and gangrenous meat with every arcing sweep. Green-grey zombies flung themselves at him, maggot-eaten sockets staring hollowly into his steely eyes, mouths open, slack-jawed, as ruined vocal chords wailed and moaned. It was an inhuman parody of the fearful cries the townsfolk would make in the face of the undead attack. Harlock smashed aside bony remnants, breaking ribs and fracturing skulls with his gauntleted fist.

For a moment Harlock caught a glimpse of his mercenary allies. They too were totally surrounded, Mengler’s unliving minions mindlessly following his one simple command. The jealous dead had no other desire than to kill the living. The undead attacked with teeth, talons and rusted antique weapons; Badenov’s band fought back with axe, sword and sabre. But the sheer press of numbers was rapidly taking its toll. Like the undead horde the mercenaries were relentless in their pursuit of their one simple goal: to stop Werner Mengler. Unlike the corpse soldiers they were tiring quickly after that winter night’s seemingly endless, exhausting exertions.

And all the while, the necromancer, his robes giving him the appearance of some monstrous bat, surveyed all with glittering eyes as his host of reanimated corpses marched on Ostermark.

The end was at hand for all of them now.

His body aching all over, Pieter came to, his vision returning as a grey blur. Outside the cell the straw was on fire, blazing furiously. Camellia lay slumped against the steps and advancing towards her was the misshapen monster. Crying out with pain, Pieter staggered to his feet, and vainly tried to attack the ghoul once again. With a vicious snarl the creature shrugged off his attack. He landed crumpled on the cold, hard stone floor once more, in his own world of hurt. For a brief moment the ghoul turned to glare at Pieter, and he saw the blinking bloody pit where his attack with the broken bone had gouged out its eye.

But, having shrugged off his attack, it returned its attentions to the girl. It seemed more intent on her now. What foul appetite was the monster in the grip of now? Was it a gluttonous desire to taste young, tender flesh, or animal lust?

Pieter started to cough: the cell was filling with smoke. Was there nothing he could do to save his precious Camellia? He had done so once. In fact the mercenaries, between them, had saved her twice. Was it not meant to be a third time? If only he had Verfallen’s grimoire with him now: there was bound to be some suitable charm recorded within its pages that he could use against the ghoul or at least some weakness that the book might reveal to him.

Then the daemon spoke to him. And this time he wasn’t dreaming.

‘Pieter, Pieter,’ came the buzzing, putrescently sweet voice. ‘How little you understand of the dark and its power.’

Lying there, white-hot needles of pain stabbing through every part of his punished body, Pieter could not find voice to reply, other than the incessant weeping groan of agony. But there was no need. The daemon already knew what he was thinking, his desires, his every wish.

‘The book and all its power and knowledge is within you already, if only you knew it, for there is a bond between you and I, just as there is between I and the book,’ the insect murmur, like the susurration of a thousand flies’ wings, continued in his head. ‘And, just as I know what you want, you, in return, know what I desire.’

Horrified realisation spread through Pieter’s mind. In that darkest of moments he did indeed know what the daemonic spirit desired so fervently. Its dark passion left scorch marks on the inside of his skull. That was the choice he had to make: to let Camellia die or give Vermiculus what it wanted. And despite the horror of what he was about to do, realising that it was the only way he could save the girl he loved, Pieter Valburg reluctantly gave in to the daemon.

It only took a matter of seconds for Vermiculus to fully possess the tortured nobleman. The shirt tore across his back to accommodate the swelling form, bristly fur bursting from the skin all over his body. His legs warped, becoming lupine in form. Savage claws tore from bloody fingertips as his arms lengthened and a blood-curdling howl rose from a face twisted into a bestial snout.

The half-human, Chaos-altered bestial thing stretched, luxuriating in its new form as the daemon’s malign energy renewed and healed its broken body. With a savage growl of feral pleasure, the unnatural creature pounced on the ghoul, knocking it away from the young woman. In one powerful move the creature grabbed the ghoul’s head in two clawed hands and with a savage twist broke its neck. With the undead horror’s one good eye still looking on with black, burning hatred, the beast ripped out its throat.

Fang-teeth stained red with the ghoul’s blood, the creature that had been Pieter Valburg leapt at the screaming girl.

Camellia screamed as she had never screamed before. The ghoul had gone only to be replaced by this Chaos-altered thing. The monster froze, almost upon her, sniffing her scent, its fanged snout mere inches from her face, its rank breath befouled with the gore of the corpse-eater. She looked into its eyes and saw something that could have been painful recognition there.

Then it was gone, bounding out of the burning crypt, its terrible bestial howl echoing down the passageways of the mortuary chapel.

There was uproar in the hospice as fire engulfed the chapel of Morr. Priestesses and patients, roused by the ringing of the temple bell, ran through the building in a panic, crying out to the Shallya for mercy.

But Sister Superior Gudrun was unaware of the pandemonium gripping the hospice. Having finished her confession, her frail body had finally given up. She breathed her last and died.

So this is it, thought Torben, this is how it ends. All the gold and glory will have been for nothing.

The mercenaries were totally surrounded by Mengler’s undead minions. No matter how many they granted a second death to, still more came. The risen dead were relentless. They never tired. They never fled the battlefield, no matter how many of their number were slain. They just didn’t know when to stop. And now Badenov’s band was overwhelmed and in only a matter of minutes they too would surely join the ranks of the necromancer’s ever growing undead horde.

A crack echoed across the hilltop. The undead attacking the tightly huddled mercenary band faltered. The skeleton of a soldier, buried wearing his armour, came to a dead stop in front of Torben and, before his very eyes, the skull rolled from its neck and it collapsed into a pile of mouldering bones. Then all around them the shambling zombies and skeletons fell apart where they stood. It could mean only one thing: the necromancer must be dead.

Torben looked to where the sorcerer was standing beneath the gallows, only a few yards away. Mengler was clutching a hand to his chest, blood dribbling between his fingers. Standing almost right in front of the necromancer, smoking flintlock pistol in one hand, his sword hanging at his side, zombie gore dripping from the blade, was the wheezing Luther Harlock. The dying witch hunter had chosen his moment well and had shot Mengler with a holy silver bullet at point-blank range.

The staff fell from the necromancer’s grasp and he stumbled forwards. Talon-like hands grabbed hold of Harlock and for a moment his back arched as if he was in excruciating pain. Then he relaxed again and the dead sorcerer slumped to the ground motionless.

A bony hand clawed at Torben’s leg and a half-rotted corpse jerked back into life. The undead were on the move again: but Mengler was dead, shot through the heart.

Torben’s eyes met those of Luther Harlock and the mercenary saw dark light flickering in them. The undying spirit that was Werner Mengler had found a new host body.

Two strides and Torben was next to Harlock. With one vicious sweep of his Kislevite sabre he decapitated the erstwhile witch hunter.

With the death of the necromancer who had cast it, the spell animating the undead faded. Skeletal warriors and shambling corpses fell apart in mid-stride; what was left of their mortal remains decaying rapidly, bones crumbling to dust, undead flesh dissolving into a slimy mess.

And it was not only happening on Gallows Hill. As far as Torben could see, the undead marching on the town of Ostermark from their tombs, graveyards, burial chambers and mass graves, dropped to the cold, unwelcoming earth in their thousands. The town, ignorant of how close it had come to destruction at the hands of the undead, was saved.

‘What’s that?’ Yuri asked, suddenly at Torben’s shoulder. ‘On the other side of the town. I can see flames. Something’s on fire.’

Torben looked. Beyond the bridge, on the other side of the river, something was indeed ablaze.

‘It’s the hospice!’ he announced in bewildered horror.

Crossing the bridge at a run in the pre-dawn light the mercenaries could see quite clearly that the hospice chapel was on fire. They reached it as a chain of townsfolk doused the flames with buckets of water passed along the line from the river.

The anxious mercenaries rushed through the hospice, searching every chamber, calling Pieter’s name in vain. What they found instead was a soot-smeared, sobbing Camellia, her once white robes stained with soot and blood.

‘Where’s Pieter?’ Torben asked her, his tone demanding.

But all that came from Camellia was a wailing howl. The girl seemed inconsolable.

‘Where is he?’ Torben demanded, grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking.

‘H–He’s gone!’ she sobbed.

‘Gone? Where to? What do you mean?’

‘Gone! Fled! He’s gone and he’s changed!’ Camellia wailed. ‘He’s not the man I fell in love with. He’s changed, I tell you! He’s a monster! Chaos has him now!’

The mercenaries looked at one another, dumbstruck. For once nobody knew what to say. Torben released his grip on the girl and Camellia crumpled into a sobbing heap.

Exhausted despair suddenly overwhelmed Torben and he too fell to his knees, the spark gone from him, drained of all energy. In the end, everything was futile. His companions looked at him in concern but still no one spoke.

‘Dead or damned,’ Torben muttered. ‘I was right. That’s all we are now: one or the other. The dead and the damned.’

And in the first light of dawn on a winter’s day the chapel of Morr burned.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jonathan Green is a freelance writer well known for his contributions to the Fighting Fantasy range of adventure gamebooks, as well as his novels set within Games Workshop’s worlds of Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000, which include Iron Hands and The Armageddon Omnibus. He has written for such diverse properties as Sonic the Hedgehog, Doctor Who, Star Wars The Clone Wars and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He is also the creator of the popular Pax Britannia series of steampunk novels, published by Abaddon Books, and has an ever-increasing number of non-fiction books to his name.

To keep up with what he is doing, go to www.jonathangreenauthor.com.

A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

Published in 2002 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK

Cover illustration by Clint Langley.

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