CHAPTER THIRTEEN

SERVANTS OF SLAANESH

Ulrika gripped the bars of the cage as, from all over the vaulted chamber, more hooded figures emerged from the shadows and gathered around the bloody circle. The design of it was just like that of the one she had found in the cellar of the abandoned tenement – the one with the sacrificed girl staked out in it. It seemed Gaznayev’s gang was selling the girls to a murder cult.

The girl fought harder as she saw where the hooded men were leading her. ‘What are you going to do?’ she cried. ‘Stop!’

The man with the bottle laughed. ‘Stop? Just when we are about to give your worthless little life meaning?’

He motioned to the other men, then continued speaking as they stripped the girl of her clothes and a fourth man set candles around the perimeter of the circle and began lighting them.

‘What would you have done with your span of years?’ he asked. ‘Shat out a litter of brats, lived in poverty, died in poverty? Your wretched life would have added nothing to the world. But now you will have greater purpose. Now you will be part of something monumental!’ He flipped the empty bottle in the air and caught it. ‘When Mannslieb is next full, your soil will join the others in the great awakening that will begin the claiming of Praag by its rightful mistress!’

The two men dragged the now-naked girl into the centre of the circle as another man stepped forwards with a hammer and spikes. Ulrika had seen enough. She wrenched back sharply on one of the cage’s iron bars. It squealed and bent, but didn’t break.

The girls around her gasped and edged away from her, wide-eyed, while the cultists at the circle turned at the noise.

‘What was that?’ said the man with the bottle.

Ulrika pulled again, and this time the bar sheared in half, tearing her palm.

‘What is she doing!’ cried the man. ‘Stop her!’

A handful of hooded forms trotted towards the cage, drawing clubs and daggers. Ulrika pulled at the lower half of the broken bar, trying to bend it down so she could slip through the gap. It snapped off at the base and she stumbled back with it in her hand. She grinned. Perfect.

The cultists slowed their steps, staring uneasily.

‘Powers of darkness!’ gasped one. ‘How is she doing that?’

Ulrika eeled through the gap and rose to her full height before them, brandishing the iron bar. ‘Let me show you the powers of darkness,’ she said, and before they could react, she sprang among them, lashing out on all sides with her makeshift weapon.

Three died instantly, their skulls caved in and blood darkening the fabric of their hoods as they toppled to the ground. The other three darted in, stabbing for her stomach and swinging for her face. She kicked one man back, caught the wrist of the second as he slashed at her with a dagger, then whipped him into the third man. These last two went down on top of one another. Ulrika stabbed down and pierced them both through the chests with her iron bar, pinning them to the ground, then turned to face the last man.

He stood stock still, and though she could not see his face through the veil he wore under his hood, she could smell the fear oozing from his pores. She ripped the bloody bar from the bodies of his companions and advanced on him. He shrieked and fled – but not fast enough.

Ulrika caught him in two swift steps and bashed his head in from behind. His hood, as he fell, sagged and bulged like a sack full of wet meat.

The fight had taken all of twenty heartbeats, and as she turned towards the man with the bottle and his comrades at the circle, she could see they were as paralysed as her last victim had been. Ulrika looked back at the girls in the cage. They were frozen too, the whites of their eyes shining in the firelight as they stared at the bodies at her feet.

‘Go!’ she said. ‘Return to your families.’

Most of the girls didn’t move, but a few of the braver ones began to duck through the gap, and as they did, the more timid followed.

Ulrika turned back to the dozen cultists at the circle and started towards them, the iron bar held at her side.

The man with the bottle stepped back, pointing it with a shaking hand. ‘Kill her! Don’t let the sacrifices escape!’

His companions looked less than enthusiastic about the first part of his command, and instead split left and right to address the second, trying to get around her to the girls, who were breaking for the ramp. She let them go, and charged directly at the leader and the men who held the sacrifice. All three fled in different directions. Ulrika pounced on the leader, then dragged him back to the circle, where the girl lay cowering on the ground beside the hammer and spikes that would have pinned her to it.

‘Get away,’ said Ulrika, nudging the girl with her toe, then shoved the man down in her place as she crawled off, weeping.

‘You must not touch me!’ the man cried, squirming as Ulrika picked up the hammer and a spike. ‘Wait! What are you doing?’

‘Saving you for a greater purpose,’ said Ulrika, then knelt on his wrist and pounded the spike through the palm of his hand into the hard earth with a single strike.

He screamed and writhed as she stood and looked around the room. The other cultists had caught the escaped girls and were dragging them back towards the cage. She picked up her iron bar again and stalked towards them, growling low in her throat.

The men shouted as they saw her coming, and some released the girls and fled up the ramp. The rest clumped together and ran at her, weapons raised. Ulrika sprinted straight at these, then leapt over their heads, striking down with the bar.

She landed behind them, not turning to see if her blow had struck home, and charged up the ramp. The fleeing men turned at the sound of her steps, preparing to fight, but she leapt their heads too and got between them and the exit.

‘Jackals,’ she said, as they turned to face her. ‘Preying on the weak. Now you will know what it is like to be prey.’

She sprang into the middle of them before they could move, whirling around with the iron bar and cracking skulls and snapping arms. A handful fell away, howling and clutching themselves, but the rest leapt in, screaming. She smashed a man with a hatchet in the neck, lifting him off his feet and sending him crashing into the wall of the ramp. Two more hacked at her legs with swords. She dodged one, but took a cut from the other, then ran him through.

More darted in, slashing and chopping. She pulled on the iron bar. It was stuck in the swordsman’s ribs. A dagger gashed her back. A club smashed her shoulder. A sword grazed her arm.

Ulrika snarled, enraged, and shot out her fangs and claws as her vision turned crimson and black and a roaring filled her ears. The men around her gasped and cried out. She inhaled their fear and leapt at them, leaving the iron bar where it was. She didn’t want a weapon now. It would only keep her at a distance from her victims.

Blood splashed the walls as she tore a man’s throat out. Another stabbed at her and she ripped his arm off. Her claws found flesh wherever she turned, and she rended and tore in a red whirlwind, blind with fury, finding her victims by the hammering of their terrified hearts.

Then a deafening bang punched her ears, and a blow like a red-hot poker smashed her thigh and staggered her. She looked up, waking from her blood fugue as waves of searing pain radiated from the wound. The men she had vaulted were advancing up the ramp towards her. One had a smoking pistol in his hand, and was aiming a second.

Ulrika shrieked like a wildcat and bounded down at him. The second pistol cracked, but the ball whizzed past her and she tackled the man, smashing him through the others to slam him on his back at the base of the ramp. They skidded to a stop and she tore his throat out with her teeth.

The other men thundered down all around her, shouting at each other to attack. She looked up from her crouch, blood dripping off her chin, then launched herself at the nearest. Again the world became nothing but red and black flashes – frozen moments of glorious slaughter – a man falling, his veil and his face half-torn away, another man screaming and staring at the stumps of his fingers, a hooded head rolling away down the ramp.

Ulrika returned to herself some time later on her hands and knees at the base of the ramp, panting amidst the dead and dying, and deliciously happy. Rivulets of blood coursed down between the filthy cobbles from the men she had killed further up, and more dripped from her chin and nose. It was only as she stood and looked around at the carnage that shame chilled her contentment. There was a girl among the men, one of the abducted, as savaged as the others. There were bite-marks on her face.

Ulrika looked away, wincing and cursing. She felt no remorse for killing the cultists. They deserved worse than she had given them, and she hoped that, in death, they would find eternal torment at the hands of the cruel gods they had been foolish enough to worship in life. It was the way she had killed that repulsed her. She had once again lost control, once again broken her vow to herself, and once again paid for it in pain and self-loathing. Had she not been lost in scarlet abandon, she would not have taken the pistol ball in the leg, she would not have killed the girl, she would not now feel the crushing weight of guilt upon her shoulders.

She examined her gun wound. The ball had torn a ragged trench in her outer thigh, but had not remained. She didn’t have to dig lead out of flesh again – a small comfort. With a groan she rose to her feet. Her once-white shirt was red and wet from neck to waist. Her hands were sticky with blood, and her hair was stiff with it. She sighed and limped into the vaulted chamber as, on the cold wind that blew down the ramp, the faint notes of a violin laughed in the distance.

The freed girls huddled in a terrified clump and backed away as she approached, looking more afraid of her than they had been of their captors. She didn’t blame them.

‘What are you waiting for?’ she snarled as she passed them. ‘Go! Run!’

They ran, stumbling up the ramp as she crossed to the leader of the ceremony, who lay panting and limp in the circle, his hand still spiked to the ground. At least she’d had the forethought to put him aside before her madness had consumed her. She could still question him.

He raised his hooded head as she approached, then struggled, only to shriek as he tugged on his pinned hand. ‘Lord of Pleasure protect me!’ he wailed. ‘You are impossible. You can’t–’

She knelt on his chest, cutting off his babble, then tore off his hood and veil. He was surprisingly ordinary – a balding, middle-aged man with the look of a prosperous shopkeeper. He stared up at her with wide eyes, sweating and grey with fear.

‘Who are you?’ he whimpered. ‘What do you want?’

‘Tell me of your mistress,’ she said. ‘She who means to claim Praag for her own. Who is she? What is this awakening you spoke of?’

The man shook his head. ‘I will not speak. There is nothing you can do that will make me betray the cause.’

Ulrika smiled. ‘Is that a challenge?’ She pinned his free hand with her other knee, then caught up the hammer and another spike.

‘No!’ the man cried. ‘No, no, please!’

‘Then tell me,’ she said.

‘I cannot!’ he wailed. ‘I dare not!’

Ulrika put the spike to his wrist, and raised the hammer. The man shut his eyes, but kept his mouth clamped shut. She hesitated, but though he continued to cringe, he still said nothing. She cursed under her breath. He was willing to take the pain. He might be willing to die from it before he talked. She had no compunction against torture, if it worked, but the man seemed a true fanatic. Even in fear and pain he would not talk.

The twitch of the vein in his neck as he turned his head away drew her eye. Perhaps there was another way.

She put down the hammer and spike and stroked his throat. He blinked at the unexpected contact, and turned white-rimmed eyes to stare at her.

‘What are you doing?’ he bleated.

‘I have been cruel to you,’ she murmured, bending low over him. ‘I have given you great pain, and I am sorry for it. Now I will sooth you.’

He shrieked as she opened her mouth and extended her fangs. ‘No! What are you? Stop!’

She lowered her lips to his neck and bit into his flesh as gently as if she were kissing an infant. He spasmed and thrashed, but then, as she began to suck at the vein he froze like a rabbit, and after a minute, relaxed with a sigh. She had been afraid his blood would be tainted like that of the Norse marauder she had blooded during the attack on the caravan, but the cultist was apparently not so far gone as that. His blood tasted like any other man’s. She closed her eyes as the sweet salt savour of it poured down her throat and filled her with soothing warmth, but she could not lose herself. She could not feed for the enjoyment of it. She took another pull, then drew away, licking her lips.

This time when he looked up at her, his eyes were heavy-lidded with desire. He reached his free hand up to her. It shook.

‘Again,’ he said. ‘Again.’

‘Answer me first,’ she said. ‘Your mistress?’

‘I cannot,’ he whined. ‘I will never betray her.‘

Her lips drifted back to his neck, brushing it lightly. She licked at the blood that welled from the wound. ‘Never?’

He shivered with lust, but then shook his head. ‘Never.’

‘We shall see.’ She drank again, deeper this time, and longer. His pawings got weaker the more she drew from him, and his moans became mere whispers.

She pulled away and looked at him again. His skin was pallid from lack of blood, and his lips blue. She turned his head and fixed him with her gaze.

‘Your mistress?’

‘I… I can’t think.’

‘Tell me,’ she said, hoping she hadn’t taken too much. He was barely conscious now. ‘Tell me and I will give you more.’

His face twisted with confusion and fear. ‘She… she is a champion of our god,’ he murmured at last. ‘A mighty warrior of the north, chosen to lead us to glory.’

This sounded unsettlingly like the warlord of whom Chesnekov had spoken – the thing, neither man nor woman, that hid in the nearby hills. ‘And her plans for Praag?’

‘We will open its gates to her… after – after the awakening,’ he said, reaching towards her with a slack hand. ‘She will be its queen, and we her consorts. Now, please…’

Ulrika frowned. Could a few lunatics in a basement truly conquer Praag from within? With outside help, perhaps. ‘Where is she now?’ she asked. ‘And what is this awakening?’

The cultist shook his head. ‘I don’t know. I swear to you. Only the master knows. We… are not trusted with such things. Now, please, kiss me again. Please…’

‘Who is the master?’

‘I have never seen him,’ moaned the man. ‘He speaks through… intermediaries. Please, you must not deny me.’

She nuzzled his neck. ‘It is a terrible thing, is it not, to be a slave to pleasure? Tell me where I may find one of these intermediaries, and I will give you what you wish.’

He hesitated, then sobbed and looked away from her. ‘I dare not,’ he moaned. ‘They will damn me. I will be condemned to eternal… torment.’

A thought came to her at this. She smiled at him. ‘But I can save you from that. I can give you eternal pleasure. You could serve a different mistress.’

The man’s eyes grew wide. ‘You… you…?’

Ulrika nodded, holding his eyes like a snake mesmerising a mouse. ‘You know what I am. You know what is within my power to grant. I would keep you at my side forever.’

The man swallowed, staring at her. ‘Forever? You swear this?’

‘On my father’s grave,’ she said.

The man hesitated, then closed his eyes. ‘I know not his name, nor his face, but he lives on the Street of Jewellers, in apartments above the shop of Gurdjieff, the silversmith. Six long knocks is the signal. He will let you in. Now please… please,’ he said, turning his head to show the wound in his neck. ‘Give me what you promised.’

Ulrika bent low over him again, then whispered in his ear. ‘My father was never buried. He was burned on a pyre.’

‘What!’ The man tried to turn his head, but she held it still with the heel of her hand, then tore his throat out with her teeth.

She rose to her feet as he clutched at his neck with his free hand, trying to press closed the gouting hole while he drowned in his own blood.

‘May your gods give you the welcome you deserve,’ she said.

She smiled as she walked back to the cage to collect the sack with her things in it. That was the way it should be done – calmly and neatly, without savagery. She had won the information she required, had hurt no one except her intended victim, had begun the healing of her leg with the blood she had taken from him and had maintained control at all times. This was the way she would be from now on.

In the cage, she tore off her soaking shirt, emptied the burlap sack and used it to mop the blood from herself, then threw it away and pulled on her doublet and cloak. She no doubt still looked a mess, but it would have to do. There was no time for primping.

A noise from the chamber as she tugged on her boots brought her head up. She hopped awkwardly to the bars on one foot and looked around. The shadow of a limping man was disappearing up the ramp.

Ulrika cursed. One of the cultists hadn’t been as close to death as she had thought. Had he heard her talking to his leader? Did he know he had betrayed his superior? She stamped her heels down into her boots, then ducked through the gap in the cage and ran for the ramp.

The man heard her and limped faster, lurching through the open arch at the top of the ramp and into the night. Ulrika jogged after him, ripping the iron bar from the ribs of the corpse she had left it in on her way. She had the man’s scent now. She could hear his pulse. He would not escape her.

She ran out into the yard of the demolished distillery and saw her prey stumbling towards a ruined gate. She started after him, then slowed as something incongruous caught her eye. There was a richly furnished black coach standing in the middle of the rubble, its driver watching her, its horses blowing steam in the cold night air.

‘Stand where you are,’ said a voice behind her.

Ulrika turned. A lean blonde woman in a long coat and fur hat was stepping out of the shadows of the distillery. She wore daggers tucked into a piratical red sash wrapped around her waist, and held a Kossar sabre in her hand.

The sound of the coach door opening made Ulrika turn again. Two women in fur cloaks and rich dresses of antique cut were stepping down from it. One was tall – nearly as tall as Ulrika – with a cold, proud face and the carriage of a queen, while the other was a tiny withered redhead, as dead-eyed as a porcelain doll. They glided between her and the gate, through which the fleeing cultist was just vanishing.

A dread foreboding prickled Ulrika’s skin as she saw the women, but whoever they were, they would have to wait. The cultist came first. She made to dart between them, but the tall one caught her arm in an iron grip and held her back.

‘Stop,’ she said.

Ulrika wrenched free. ‘Let me pass!’

The woman in the long coat stepped in and put the tip of her sabre to Ulrika’s throat as the other two hemmed her in.

‘Not yet,’ said the tall one. ‘We would speak to you first, sister.’