Chapter VI


Altdorf


Kaldezeit, 1111

Erich von Kranzbeuhler shifted uneasily in his saddle, watching as the morning fog rolled in from the Reik. He could just see the trees of the Altgarten — those the marchers hadn’t cut down — and the murky glow of campfires shining from the shantytown. The young knight reached down to his sword, his heart sickening as he felt the pommel between his fingers. He could not easily forget the motto engraved upon the blade of his sword. ‘Honour. Courage. Emperor.’

Today he would betray one of those solemn oaths. He would ask the knights under his command to break faith with the vows they had undertaken. It was an enormous responsibility, one the young captain still wasn’t sure he was equal to. He closed his eyes and prayed to Sigmar to lend him that strength.

‘They don’t really expect us to ride down our own soldiers, do they?’ The whispered question came from the knight beside him, a tall, stalwart warrior named Aldinger.

For one of the Reiksknecht’s veterans to ask such a question made Erich decide he had made the right decision. The only way the Reiksknecht could respect the first two oaths was to betray the last.

The captain peered through the grey veil, staring across at the massed ranks of cavalry. The entire strength of the Reiksknecht had been called out to supplement the Kaiserjaeger and the Schuetzenverein in quelling what had been termed ‘rebellion’ in their orders. The plan, as laid out by Adolf Kreyssig, was for the Reiksknecht to spearhead the attack, with the Kaiserjaeger and Schueters following on the flanks. The commander had made his intention clear. The knights were to drive Engel’s rebels into the river. No quarter was to be given.

Grand Master von Schomberg’s face had grown pale when he read the orders, but it had only made him even more determined to defy the Emperor. The plans he had discussed with his officers were much different from those Kreyssig had drawn up. The Reiksknecht would lead the charge, but only for a hundred yards. Once their backs were to the trees, they would turn about and stage a counter charge against the Kaiserjaeger and the Scheuters. It was hoped the surprise attack would throw the other forces into such confusion that they would disperse and retreat into the city.

After that, Engel and his people would have to fend for themselves. The Reiksknecht would have their own problems. The plan was to withdraw into the Reikschloss. There were food and provisions there to endure a lengthy siege. The longer they held out, the more embarrassment it would cause Emperor Boris and bring unwanted attention to the reasons why the Emperor’s most loyal order of knights had turned against him.

Erich turned around, trying to find Grand Master von Schomberg in the fog. He could just make out the figure of Othmar, the Grand Master’s standard bearer, but he couldn’t see his leader. It was just as well. If he saw doubt in the old baron’s eyes, he didn’t know what he would do.

‘Ernst,’ he called, looking over to see if his adjutant was close. He saw the burly knight lift a gauntlet to his visor in reply. ‘Stay close to me,’ Erich told him, pointing at the horn tied to the dienstmann’s belt. ‘I may need to signal changes in formation after we begin the charge.’

Again, the spectre of doubt tugged at Erich’s mind. Could he really go through with this? Was he really going to betray a direct command from his Emperor?

Still fighting his inner daemons, the sound of pounding hooves brought a curse to the captain’s lips. Some fool had started the charge early! Up and down the line, he could hear the other officers shouting in confusion, wondering who had given the order. Grand Master von Schomberg’s fierce tones barked out, ordering the rest to support the knights that had started the attack.

Like a single creature, the twenty knights under Erich’s command urged their warhorses into a gallop. The steel-clad destriers lunged forwards, charging out from the plaza where they had mustered into formation. Erich felt the thrill of the charge course through his veins, saw the fog break apart before his leaping steed.

Then, disaster! The plaza which had only a moment before echoed with the clatter of charging knights now descended into a bedlam of screaming men and horses. Animals crashed to the earth on broken legs, crushing their riders beneath them as they floundered upon the cobblestones. Men hurtled through the air as their mounts threw them, smashing into the earth like plummeting gargoyles. It was like listening to the roar of an avalanche, the maddened shriek of a volcano.

Erich’s horse buckled beneath him, pitching onto its side. The only thing that saved the captain from being pinned beneath his animal was the second floundering horse that reared up and pushed his own animal away. He was able to drop down from the saddle of his stricken destrier, scrambling away before the flailing hooves and hurtling bodies of the other warhorses could smash him down.

Like a great steel rat, the knight scurried away from the grotesque bedlam. As he did so, Erich saw the cause of the havoc. Under cover of the fog, someone had strewn spiked caltrops across the mouth of the plaza, leaving a field of jagged iron to impale the hooves of anyone trying to ride out.

He ripped his sword from its sheath, his first instinct being to place blame upon the obvious enemy. Wilhelm Engel and his Marchers! The scum had done this, used this churlish trick to cripple the Reiksknecht’s horses and maim the Reiksknecht’s men! Well, if Emperor Boris wanted a massacre, then Erich would be happy to oblige him now!

Then the captain saw the furtive figures stealing out from the buildings facing the plaza, peeking down from the rooftops and slinking down alleyways and side-streets. Kaiserjaeger! The horrible truth dawned upon Erich. It had been Kreyssig’s men who had strewn the road with caltrops. Many of them had been hunters and woodsmen, they would have the skills to sneak in and leave such a hideous surprise under cover of the fog!

In the hands of each of the black-clad soldiers the slender curve of a bow was held at the ready. The Reiksknecht inside the plaza were hopelessly surrounded; the only way open to them lay across the field of caltrops and the bodies of their own injured comrades.

Kreyssig had plotted well. Somehow he had learned of Grand Master von Schomberg’s intention to stop the massacre. With murderous planning, the commander had neutralised an entire order of knights. Screams rising from the Altgarten, raging fires blazing from the squalor of Breadburg showed that Kreyssig had even reserved enough of his forces to still carry out his original mission.

‘Knights of the Reiksknecht,’ a grating voice called out. ‘Lay down your weapons and submit to the Emperor’s justice!’

Erich could see the archers draw back their arrows, taking aim at the trapped knights. He looked around him for something, anything he could use to help his comrades. All he found was Aldinger trying to pull himself out from under the writhing body of his horse. A caltrop had stabbed through the flesh of his hand, three others piercing the body of his horse. Erich made his decisions at once, rushing to the knight’s aid. Maybe he couldn’t help the men in the plaza, but he could help Aldinger.

As he helped the pinned knight lift the body of his horse, Erich kept his gaze fixed upon the plaza. Grand Master von Schomberg was both brave and bold. He wouldn’t submit meekly to a tyrant.

‘Sigmar will be my judge!’ von Schomberg’s voice rose in a defiant shout. At his order, the knights in the plaza spurred their horses towards the caltrops, forcing the huge animals out from the trap, urging them to trample the bodies of wounded men and horses.

The command to loose arrows was given. The shrieks of horses and the screams of men rang out from the plaza as the volley struck. Others, however, came thundering out into the road. Many of the knights fell, the hooves of their horses punctured by the spiked caltrops, but others fought their way clear. Archers rushed over the rooftops to shoot them down, but the effort was too late. Erich could count at least twenty knights galloping away into the growing dawn, scattering into the streets of Altdorf.

He dragged his eyes away from the scene, closing his ears to the moans and cries of injured men. His arm supporting Aldinger’s weight, he led the wounded dienstmann into the shadow of an alleyway. He leaned the injured man against the plaster-covered wall.

The Kaiserjaeger would be coming soon, looking for survivors. There was only one way to foil such expert trackers. Erich knelt to the ground, brushing away snow until he uncovered the stone cover of a sewer drain. It took him valuable minutes to pick away at the grime caked around the cover. While he worked, he could hear the Kaiserjaeger moving among the fallen Reiksknecht, evaluating each of the wounded. A ghastly gurgle told when they found a knight they thought too injured to stand trial.

The cover came free just as the Kaiserjaeger began searching the field of caltrops. Hastily, Erich lowered Aldinger down into the reeking warmth of the sewer. The captain followed a moment later, dragging the lid back into place before dropping down into the darkness.

Just as the lid settled into place, Erich heard the voice of the Kaiserjaeger officer again.

‘Leave that one,’ the officer snarled. ‘Commander Kreyssig will want him no matter how beat up he is. It isn’t every day you get to hang a Grand Master.’


Nuln


Kaldezeit, 1111

‘We live in an age of science and reason, not idiotic superstition!’

The statement was given voice by Lord Karl-Joachim Kleinheistkamp, a wrinkled old man, his bald head unconvincingly covered by a horsehair wig, the buttons on his broad coat displaying a veneer of tarnish and smut. He affected the pompous confidence of a man secure in his authority and with no time for anything that did not fit neatly into the world described in his books and papers. All in all, Kleinheistkamp was typical of the Universitat’s professors.

Walther was discovering that frustrating fact. Klein-heistkamp was the third professor he’d managed to lure to the Black Rose and he was the third to openly laugh at the rat-catcher’s story. He cast a despairing glance towards Zena, but all she did was shake her head and vanish into the kitchen. Hugo might have been more sympathetic if he wasn’t too busy trying to teach the three ratters how to sit up and beg.

Bremer wore a big smile though, happily refilling the professor’s stein at every opportunity. Walther winced each time he saw the taverneer grab for Kleinheistkamp’s mug. For an old man, his lordship had a prodigious capacity, especially when Walther was paying. It seemed a noble title wasn’t enough to keep some people from guzzling another man’s beer.

‘What you describe is simply impossible!’ Klein-heistkamp declared, wiping foam from his moustache with the back of his hand. ‘This is an enlightened age! We know now that there are rules to spontaneous generation. A salamander is created by fire, flies generate from unburied corpses, but higher forms, things like cattle and swine, must be created in the proper manner. We know that maternal impression causes malformations in offspring, not the diet or habits of the mother as simple herb wives would have it. We know that a cockatrice is spawned from the egg of a rooster exposed to the rays of Morrslieb and that it is not, as our less educated forebears would have us believe, the result of a serpent having congress with a hen.’

Walther could feel the veins pounding in his forehead. The professor had been prattling on like this for the better part of an hour, straying into subjects beyond either his ability or his desire to follow. ‘That is all well, my lord, but about the rat…’

‘Such a creature is impossible,’ Kleinheistkamp said, tapping the wooden counter by way of emphasis. Bremer decided to take it as an appeal for the stein to be refilled. ‘A rat as large as you describe would be crushed under its own weight! It wouldn’t be able to move, much less launch itself at a grown man and bite out his throat!’

‘I’ve hunted rats all my life,’ Walther growled back. He held his hand out so that the professor could see the scars. ‘I know what a rat bite looks like.’

Kleinheistkamp smiled and shook his head. ‘I know you think you know what you saw,’ he explained, his voice adopting the condescending tolerance of a parent teaching a child. ‘But I’m afraid you just don’t have the understanding to make a judgement of that sort. Isn’t it more likely that the vigilantes were right? Somebody cut the fellow’s throat and your imagination did the rest. You are so accustomed to seeing the violent handiwork of vermin that you unconsciously made a similar creature responsible for the tanner’s murder.’ The old man took a long pull from the stein and rose from his chair. ‘I grant that the mob was impetuous blaming plague victims, but I guarantee that a human malefactor was responsible. Robbery, not monstrosity, was behind the tanner’s death.’

Chuckling under his breath, Lord Kleinheistkamp tottered off. Walther felt his stomach turn as he watched the pompous old man leave. The professor had marked his last chance to get somebody at the Universitat to listen to his story. Entertaining the scholars while they smugly dismissed what he had seen with his own eyes had cost the rat-catcher the better part of twelve schillings. He would be weeks recouping the loss.

Bremer reached out to clear away Kleinheistkamp’s mug. The taverneer squinted at the stein as he lifted it. ‘His lordship left a bit,’ he said, turning towards Walther and offering the mug to him.

‘Drink it yourself,’ Walther hissed, clenching his fist in frustration. Bremer shrugged and downed the rest of the professor’s drink.

‘They’re fools,’ Walther snarled. ‘Blind idiots who won’t believe anything unless it’s written down in one of their precious books! They wouldn’t accept this monster as real unless it crawled up and bit them in-’

‘Then why keep bothering about them?’ Zena demanded. There was colour in her cheeks, a tremble of anger on her lip. She knew as well as Walther how much he had gambled on the scholars. The loss of money was one thing, but the loss of hope was something she knew the rat-catcher couldn’t afford. ‘The Universitat aren’t the only ones who would want to buy such a beast.’

Walther stood, glaring at Zena, all the pain of his dashed dreams rising to his tongue. ‘Who else would buy the thing? Ostmann? At a penny a pound?’

Zena glared back at the rat-catcher, her own anger rising. It wasn’t just Walther who was depending upon a windfall from the monster. Against her best judgement, she cared about him. His defeat was her defeat. And she wasn’t going to allow that to happen.

‘Why not sell it to Emil?’ she asked, pointing a finger at Bremer behind the bar. The bearded taverneer backed away, a frightened look on his face.

‘You two fight all you want, but leave me out of it,’ Bremer said.

Zena wasn’t going to let her employer make such a gracious retreat. ‘You’re always saying you want something novel to drum up more business,’ Zena told him in an accusing tone. ‘What could be more perfect than this? A genuine monster for people to come in and gawp at!’

Bremer rolled his eyes. ‘I was talking about dancing girls, not giant vermin. Who’d feel like eating staring at a huge rat mounted over the hearth?’

‘I thought the idea was to sell drinks,’ Walther countered, warming to Zena’s idea. ‘Just thinking about this giant makes me want a jack or two to steady my nerves.’

The taverneer came forwards, resting his elbows on the counter, one hand scratching his beard. ‘There’s something to be said for that,’ he conceded. ‘A man would want a drink after looking at something like that.’ A hard glint came into his eyes and he stood back, turning his gaze from Walther to Zena and back again. ‘I’m not making any promises, understand. But if Walther can get this monster, I’ll have it stuffed and stood up right here on the bar. If it brings in any business, I’ll split the profit seventy-five twenty-five.’

‘Fifty fifty,’ Walther objected. ‘Remember, I’m the one actually going down there to get the thing.’

Bremer spit into his palm. ‘Done!’ he exclaimed, offering his hand to the rat-catcher. Walther spit into his own hand and clasped the taverneer’s, sealing the deal in the old Wissenland way. Zena withdrew hastily to the kitchen, leaving the two partners to discuss the details of their agreement.

‘Herr Schill,’ Hugo’s quite voice broke into the discussion. The rat-catcher turned to see his apprentice sitting by the fire. He’d managed to get all three of the terriers to stand up on their hind legs and wave their forepaws at him like street beggars. Walther felt annoyed by the interruption, much more so because it seemed Hugo wanted to show off a trick an addle-witted child could have taught the most moronic mongrel.

Hugo, however, had a different reason for interrupting his master. Gesturing at the begging terriers, he said something that sent cold fingers closing around Walther’s heart.

‘If we’re going after this giant,’ Hugo said, ‘won’t we need bigger dogs?’


Middenheim


Kaldezeit, 1111

The mountain wind whipped snow against the walls of Middenheim. A layer of ice and frost caked the jagged cliffs, transforming the entire Ulricsberg into a frozen pillar, the lights of the city shining from the heights like a phantom aurora.

The guards patrolling the benighted battlements huddled in their fur cloaks, cradling the skins of ale that were their best protection against the cold. The gibbous face of Morrslieb smirked down at them from the blackened sky, casting its sickly glow over the city. The moon’s cleaner, more wholesome brother Mannslieb was in retreat, slinking towards the horizon, abandoning the field to the eerie gleam of its ill-favoured companion.

Dozens of sentries patrolled the walls of Middenheim, each tasked with a different section of the battlements. It was dreary, thankless work, especially in the dead of night with a snow flurry sweeping the mountain. Not one of the soldiers didn’t wish himself warm in bed, a bottle of Reikhoch in his hand and a buxom tavern girl at his side.

Such visions, however, did little to cheer the men tasked with guarding the sleeping city. They tried to console themselves by considering everything that could jeopardise their comrades who were enjoying the taverns and bawdy houses of Middenheim’s Westgate district. There were the cutpurses and pickpockets, always waiting for an opportunity to steal from a soldier too deep in his cups. There was the menace of drunken dwarfs, ever ready to take umbrage at the slightest remark and with the brawn to back up their short tempers. And there was the more recent menace, the whispers that a few of the district’s denizens had come down with the plague.

For most of the soldiers patrolling the walls, rumours of the plague were disconcerting, but they placed no especial importance upon them. For the two soldiers whose patrol consisted of the stretch of wall between the west and south gates bordering the Sudgarten, such stories were much more. Other guards quieted their fears by telling themselves Graf Gunthar’s decree made it impossible for the plague to reach the top of the Ulricsberg. These men knew otherwise.

‘Halt and be recognised!’ one of the soldiers challenged as a shape lurched out of the darkness. His halberd trembled in his hand.

‘A friend,’ an oily voice coughed. From the gloom, a heavy-set man emerged into the moonlight, his body bundled in a thick bearskin cloak, his head concealed beneath the folds of a fur-lined hood.

The challenging soldier relaxed when he recognised his clandestine benefactor, Oskar Neumann. He withdrew his menacing halberd, leaning the weapon against the ground. Anxiously he grasped Neumann’s gloved hand. The clink of silver rewarded the brief contact.

The other sentry came forwards, likewise accepting a small leather purse from Neumann. A sour expression crossed the guard’s face as he juggled the purse in his hand. ‘It feels a little light,’ he complained.

‘It is the same as it has always been, Herr Schutze,’ Neumann’s greasy voice bubbled.

A malicious curl came to Schutze’s lip. ‘Yeah, but the risks aren’t exactly what they were before.’ Again he juggled the purse in his hand. ‘About double what they were when we agreed to this.’

Neumann shook his hooded head. ‘You want more money?’

Schutze stared into the dark shadow where the man’s face was hidden. ‘The captain has been asking questions. People say there’s plague down in the slums. People are wondering how it could get there.’

‘I thought you were doing this out of a sense of compassion,’ Neumann sighed. ‘I thought you were doing this to help those poor souls down in Warrenburg. I thought the money was just a secondary concern.’

Schutze laughed. ‘You thought wrong, Oskar. It’s all about the money. Don’t tell me you aren’t making a nice bit of silver off these people you’re smuggling up here. If you don’t want to lose out, just start asking more from your “poor souls” down there.’

Neumann shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘I ask nothing from those I help except their discretion. My motives are purely altruistic. By helping these people, I am doing only what my faith demands.’ A tinge of sorrow crept into his croaky voice. ‘If, however, you are only interested in money, then you shall have it.’

Schutze smiled as another pouch of silver appeared in Neumann’s left hand. As he reached out to take the money, however, he didn’t notice the man’s other hand. Before he could understand what was happening, a slender dagger punched into his side, sinking between the joins of his armour just under his armpit and stabbing deep into his heart. The soldier gasped once, then crumpled to the ground.

‘You aren’t going to give me trouble, Herr Brasche?’ Neumann asked, the bloodied dagger still in his hand. ‘I should hope that our arrangement can continue, despite this unpleasantness. Greedy men are a liability. They are… indiscreet.’

Brasche forced his eyes away from his comrade’s lifeless body. There was no mistaking the threat in Neumann’s oily voice. Even if he wanted to, he knew it would do no good to oppose the smuggler. With Schutze gone, he was alone now, while Neumann had an entire gang lurking somewhere nearby in the darkness.

‘What will we do?’ Brasche asked.

Neumann bent his burly body downwards, lifting Schutze’s body off the ground as though the armoured soldier weighed no more than a child. ‘When we are finished here, we will pitch Herr Schutze over the side. By morning, the snow will have buried him. You will report to your officers that he abandoned his post during the night.’ The smuggler chuckled, taking the pouch of silver he had used to lure the soldier to his death and tucking it into the dead man’s boot. ‘Even if they find him, they will think he slipped and fell.’

Brasche shuddered at the callous way Neumann draped the body against the crenellations. Footsteps and the clatter of equipment drew his attention away from the macabre scene. Neumann’s gang, seven men wrapped in a mismatch of furs and wool, came slinking along the wall. Four of them carried thick loops of rope over their shoulders, the other three struggled under the bulk of an enormous basket.

The soldier watched in fascination as the gang slapped together the pieces of a wooden windlass and fastened the coils of rope to it. The other ends they connected to the basket. In short order, they had the apparatus ready. The basket was lowered over the side of the wall, beginning its descent to the ground far below.

‘It is a noble calling,’ Neumann said, coming up beside Brasche. ‘Too rich for noble blood.’ The hooded head turned, staring up at the sky. ‘There are several hours yet. We should be able to retrieve a dozen before it becomes too light to work any more.’

Brasche shifted uneasily, remembering all too well how the smuggler had murdered Schutze without a moment’s hesitation. Still, he had to ask the question that was plaguing him. Just like Schutze, he had assumed Neumann was doing this because he was being paid to do it.

‘You make me grieve for mankind,’ Neumann answered. ‘Have we sunk so low that we cannot understand a motivation higher than our own base needs? I told your comrade the truth, Herr Brasche. I take nothing from the people I help. The knowledge that I have lifted them up from the squalor and misery and set them free in the warmth and safety of the city is all the reward I need.’

The hooded head turned towards Brasche, fixing him with an unseen stare. ‘We are doing the god’s work, you and I. One day, all Middenheim will understand the importance of our work.’

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