CHAPTER NINE

 

 

Praag sprawled out below him. Its streets were as tangled and knotted as intestines, and the buildings that glowered over them seemed grown rather than built. The only straight line was that of the wall, which was where the city ended with a geometric precision.

Things were different in Altdorf. There, the walls had merely hinted at the city limits. They certainly hadn’t marked them. Shanty towns of hovels spread around those walls like rust around the edge of an abandoned shield, and farmsteads had cluttered the land beyond, mixed amongst the canal gates and the river houses.

Not so in Praag. Not a single dwelling stood outside the grim fastness of its dark stone walls. There wasn’t even an inn for those who found themselves on the wrong side of the gates when curfew was called. This far north there was only that which lay within, and that which lay without.

For the first time in his life, Grendel was familiar with this concept. In the past, his world had been a confusion of ideas and practices, his art a kaleidoscope of disciplines that had nothing to do with right or wrong.

It was only on the road to Praag that he had learnt the truth that these walls symbolised. There was no confusion, no grey area. There were sides, and a man had to choose which one he was on.

The wizard shifted on the padded silk of his divan and glanced towards the flat horizon of the north. From his quarters in this tower, he could see for miles. Sometimes, on a clear day, he even fancied that he could see the curve of the world.

It was at night that the view was most spectacular. When the tangle of streets below had been devoured by darkness, the northern skies would glow, throbbing with every colour of a high summer’s day. There was no shape to these silent skies full of colour, nor any predictability. Sometimes they would flare up every night for a week. At other times even the memory of them would fade.

The Kislevites called the northern lights the Inferno Borealis, but Grendel knew better. He had sailed on the winds of magic for long enough to know them when he saw them, and the fact that everyone could see them here tore him between terror and wonder. When magic blew so strong that even the herd could see it, then what might be possible?

He shuddered at the thought, and squirmed sensuously. There was no sense of caution at the thought of what might be, no reflexive cringe at the thought of what the arch magister might say; the iridescent light of his new master had already burnt such weakness away. A knock on the chamber door startled him from his reverie.

“Come in,” he called, turning from the window to look across the luxuriously carpeted expanse of his eyrie. The door opened and a girl stepped through.

For a split second, Grendel’s thoughts flashed back to the last time he had seen her. It had been during one of his experiments.

The wizard smiled and licked his lips.

“Greetings master,” the girl said. Her head was lowered and her hands clasped in front of her, just as neatly as any other serving wench. She was well proportioned, too, a little well fed for a servant, perhaps, but apart from that indistinguishable from any other girl in the city. To look at her, nobody would have suspected her of anything more reprehensible than stealing from the kitchen.

“I am sorry to disturb you,” she continued, eyes still downcast, “but the count requests your presence. He has asked me to bring you to another… another tryst.”

“Already?” Grendel asked. He didn’t know why he was so surprised. The harder Zhukovsky tried to satiate his desires, the stronger they grew. Even so, Grendel was impressed that the man had the energy.

Well, no matter. His new master would no doubt be grateful for the worship.

Or, if not grateful, then at least amused.

“Come, then,” he told the girl, walking past her to close the door, “let us go and see the count.”

So saying, he wrapped his new robes around him and led her over to one of the tapestries that dressed the stone walls. He pulled it back to reveal a low doorway and the descending steps of a spiralling staircase.

“Come on,” he said, gesturing for the girl to follow. She lifted her eyes to study the entrance and, for the first time, Grendel could see the expression in them. For a moment, he wondered if it was joy or madness. Then he dismissed the question. After all, what did it matter?

There was neither candle nor window to light their way, so they moved slowly, descending blindly into the world that lay beneath the palace. As the muffled voices from the rooms beyond faded, and as the stone grew warm beneath their fingers, they began to rush.

By the time they had stumbled down the worn stone steps to the chamber that lay at the bottom, they were both breathing hard.

“There you are,” Zhukovsky said. He was sprawled on a great expanse of white fur that covered the living stone of the cavern, the silk of his robes liquid in the torchlight. He rolled up onto his elbow the better to study the wizard and the girl. “How flushed you are. You weren’t thinking of starting without me, were you?”

“No, lord,” the girl assured him.

The harsh caw of the count’s laughter echoed between the rough-hewn walls.

“No, I suppose not. Bony old stick isn’t he?”

The girl giggled nervously.

With a flip that would have shamed an athlete, Zhukovsky leapt up from his position, landing on the balls of his feet. His robe slipped almost accidentally from his shoulders and he prowled towards the girl, as naked as a wolf.

“No, he is too dry for meat as tender as yours,” the count smiled, although there was no humour in his eyes: no humour at all, only hunger.

“Disrobe,” he told her, although as she started to fumble with her costume he looked past her at the wizard.

“Well then,” exasperation edged his voice. “Start the preparations.”

Grendel tore his eyes away from the perfection of the girl’s flesh and swallowed. “If you are sure,” he shrugged, “although it may perhaps be better to wait. Magic needs time to dissipate or it can become dangerous. Its effects can become permanent, and ruinous.”

Zhukovsky sneered. He stretched his arms above his head, arced his back, and turned three perfect backwards somersaults. Then he vaulted back to where the now naked girl was standing, and spun her around.

“Nothing ruined so far,” he jeered, and slapped the pear of her right buttock. She giggled again, the sound almost painfully shrill, and Grendel realised that yes, it had been madness that he had seen in her eyes before.

From somewhere in the back of his mind, a voice asked how it could have been anything else.

Pushing that dangerous thought away, he reached into the pouch he wore around his belt. He drew out a shapeless piece of candle, the tallow as yellow as butter in the lamp light, and a small pocket knife.

“Well, if you’re sure,” he told the count, opening the blade.

Instead of answering, the count merely seized the girl’s hand in his own and stretched it out towards the wizard. Grendel, studiously ignoring the strange fascination of her breasts, stepped forwards and began his work.

First, he sliced the tip of the blade across the count’s skin, and then hers. Blood, cherry red, welled up into two little jewels. Ignoring a whimper that could have come from either of them, Grendel rubbed the candle first in her blood and then in his.

Then he went back to the chair that had been placed by the door, sat down, and began to chant.

Count Zhukovsky, taking this as his cue, pushed the girl down into the fur of the rug. Their arms slipped around each other in a boa constrictor’s embrace, and their legs intertwined and locked together. So did their lips, their faces moving with such a hunger that they seemed to be devouring each other.

Grendel, his concentration already soaring above such distractions, quickened the pace of his chanting and twisted his hands into the all too familiar shape.

In the past, he had had to twist his fingers into the language of the Grey Order, moving them as quickly as a conman moves his tongue. Not anymore. Now, all he had to do was to lock them into the circle and three horns, which were Slaanesh’s symbol, and wait for the power to flow. He could feel it now, this power. It pulsed through his blood, his bones, and his thoughts. The taste of it lifted him up towards a euphoria that the two writhing forms before him would never even guess at.

A smile twisted Grendel’s mouth as he looked at them through glazed eyes.

Seeing the expression, Zhukovsky snarled.

“Get on with it,” he snapped, pressing himself against the girl with the force of his frustration. She cried out in pain, but he seemed not to notice.

Grendel didn’t reply. He didn’t need to. He could already sense the power of their terrible god flowing into the room like methane into a mineshaft. As the air around the two entwined figures began to thicken, the wizard licked his lips, his senses delighting in the exercise of power just as much as his fellow celebrants would delight in their own act of obscenity.

There was no name for the spell, which was even now beginning to unfold. The old Grendel would have spent hours devising a title for such a creation, but now it hardly mattered. There were no longer any colleagues to impress, which was a shame, because the sight that was unfolding before him was impressive.

At first, the effects were barely noticeable. Through the shimmering of the tortured air, Zhukovsky and the girl seemed no more than lovers, their embrace like that of any other couple, but gradually the transformation became unmistakable.

The skin on their faces was the first to start flowing. It melted like candle wax and, in this liquid form, it ran to seal the gaps between the two bodies.

Lips fused. Noses smudged where they met, and then pressed together into a single knot of flesh. Eyebrows met and merged, the skin flowing around them to join their temples together.

Soon, the faces of both count and courtesan were lost. Their individual features had gone, swallowed up by the single lump of their joined heads. The rest of their bodies soon followed: the skin flowed away from where their bodies met, rippling like melting butter, and then fusing back together. Soon, both their hides had re-formed, becoming a single skin for a single beast.

From inside this bag of living leather, the flayed forms of the two celebrants writhed and squirmed together in blind ecstasy.

Their ecstatic cries were muffled and inchoate, hardly animal, let alone human. Within the pink flush of their single skin, they were lost to the world, no more aware of what was going on around them than newborn rats.

Here and there, an orifice would form: a nostril or a puckered mouth that panted with foul smelling breath. For the most part, though, the skin remained intact, stretching like a glove as the forms within writhed against each other.

Grendel, his fingers locked in position, strolled over to gaze down at them.

What power he had found here, what wisdom.

Then, with a sudden thunderbolt of inspiration, he knew what he should name this conjuration.

“Grendel’s Bag of Delights,” he said out loud.

It was perfect, he thought.

If only he had somebody to share it with.

 

Menshka sat on an empty ale barrel, a long-stemmed pipe in his hand. The great gate of Kislev yawned open beside him, hungrily swallowing the stream of traffic that flowed in from the plains beyond, and at his back, the cliff of the city wall reached up towards the slate grey sky.

Menshka’s men stood around him, idly watching the crowd. They rested on their staves or leant against the wall. Some of them chatted about nothing. Others toyed with dice, or looked blankly out towards the plains beyond. Menshka himself seemed scarcely awake. His armoured form was swaddled in a fur cloak that would have served as a blanket, and the movements of his eyes were hidden behind the smoke that plumed upwards.

To the uninitiated, he and his men seemed as lazy and disinterested as any other gang of idling thugs. In the midst of such sloth, it was easy to miss the surgical sharpness to which their weapons had been honed, the care with which there armour had been oiled, the hard edges of their eyes, and the thick sinews of their muscles.

Menshka and his detail had long since learned to wear other people’s prejudices as their disguise. Leave all the strutting to the guards stationed within the gatehouse itself, that was the way. Let them draw the furtive glances of those who had something to hide.

His job was to wait, to watch, and to decide which of the travellers might be more, or less than they seemed.

It was a job he had grown good at over the years, and he spotted the eight warriors as soon as they emerged from the rest of the throng.

They were warriors, he was sure of that. Despite the ragged cloaks in which they were swathed, and despite the bony carthorses that most of them rode, their profession showed in everything about them. From the scars that marked them to the set of their shoulders, Menshka knew fellow killers when he saw them.

Puffing out a fresh cloud of smoke, he slumped his shoulders even more, and pretended to look away. He waited until he could see the pale blue of the lead horseman’s eyes before taking the pipe from his mouth and tapping it hard upon the side of the barrel.

Behind him, stationed within the long arch of the gate, the plumed and silvered gate keeper carried on staring into space. Menshka sighed inwardly. The carelessness of this inbred idiot was anything but an act.

He tapped his pipe again, banging it until the fool finally saw the signal. Then he busied himself with cleaning the smouldering bowl, concentrating on the task as if it was the most important thing in the world.

His own men, he was glad to see, hadn’t needed the signal. They’d spotted the riders as soon as he had. As the last of the ragged horsemen entered the tunnel that cut through the walls, Menshka’s men closed in behind them.

It was a slow manoeuvre, ragged and seemingly coincidental. The men even continued their conversations until, with a well practiced gesture, the captain of the gate stepped in front of the riders and thrust out his palm.

“Halt, stranger,” he said, the acoustics of the gateway lending his voice a boom of authority. Liking the sound of it, he repeated himself. “Halt!”

The horsemen stopped. Their leader, his face as impassive as the granite of the walls, looked at the officer who stood before him.

The gate keeper waited for him to speak. When he didn’t, he frowned uncertainly, and his eyes flicked towards Menshka. The strangers’ leader followed the look, twisting in his saddle to level those dead eyes on Menshka instead of the official.

“Who is in charge here?” the stranger asked, his voice as level as slate. “You or him?”

Menshka grunted with amusement. If ever he’d spotted wolves in sheep’s clothing it had been today.

“I don’t know what you mean, Tovaritch,” he replied. “The general there is the gate keeper.”

The stranger, who had lapsed back into silence, continued to stare at him. Then he nodded.

“As you like,” he told Menshka, and turned back to the captain of the gate. “How can we help you?”

“You can tell me why you think we should allow you access into our fair city,” the officer said. From behind the strangers a merchant barked with sarcastic laughter.

“We have business here,” the leader said.

“What sort of business?”

“Important business.”

The officer’s eyes hardened, and he pushed out his chest. He hadn’t liked the laughter, and he certainly didn’t like these evasions. Menshka had obviously been right about these fellows, although he had no idea how the old rogue managed to pick them out. It took a one to know one, he supposed.

“Important business is it?” the officer asked. “And where would this important business have originated? In the north, by the look of you.”

A sudden stillness fell upon both the guards and Menshka’s men.

“No, our business has come from the south,” the stranger said, his voice as calm as ever.

The men began to relax. If he was prepared to take such an insult then there should be no bloodshed, but the gatekeeper, his ego inflated by his unchallenged insolence, decided to make things worse.

“I have heard that there are many cultists in the south, many weak and corrupt followers of the Dark Gods. You have the look of a southerner yourself.”

The stranger nodded.

“Yes, there are many in the south who await the judgement of Sigmar. Although we are here for one who has come north.”

“So you say,” the gatekeeper said, his voice turning into a petulant whine, despite the boom of the acoustics.

Menshka had had enough.

“For Ulric’s sake, will you two stop bandying words? You sound like two old women haggling over a hen. You, stranger, who are your people, and why have you come to this city? Don’t tell me that you’re merchants. I know warriors when I see them.”

The stranger nodded, the scars that patterned his shaved head pale in the gloom of the gateway.

“Very well. My name is Vaught, and my comrades are witch hunters. We are here to find a man, a sorcerer. The prince regent of Altdorf has charged us with bringing him to the cleansing flame of Sigmar’s judgement. Now, if you will stand aside,” he continued, turning back to the gatekeeper, “we will be about our business.”

The plumed idiot looked so surprised at Vaught’s arrogance that Menshka actually laughed. “Your business,” he said, “is to go and present yourself at the palace. You can tell our ruler all about your prince regent and your cleansing flames. I will be interested to see his reaction.”

Vaught frowned. “I don’t have time for such aristocratic nonsense,” he said, waving a dismissive hand towards the gatekeeper.

“Yes,” Menshka replied, “you do.”

He tugged his earlobe and, at the signal, the ragged cloaks of his men fell back. There was a serpent’s sigh of menace, and the shadows of the gate came alive with the glitter of steel.

Vaught raised his own hand, fingers open, and his own men took their hands off their sword hilts.

“Very well,” he said. “We will go and pay our respects to your leader, but we are impatient to be about Sigmar’s work.”

“I’ll be sure to tell the chamberlain that,” Menshka said. “Now, if you gentlemen will be kind enough to dismount, I will show you the way.”

“Menshka, I think you have overstepped your authority,” the gatekeeper complained. “As keeper of the gate, it is my—”

“Be quiet,” Menshka snapped, “and don’t just stand there with a face liked a smacked arse. Get out of the way.”

“As keeper of the gate—” he whined.

“Not anymore,” Menshka said. There was no point trying to hide his authority. “I want you replaced. Tomorrow I want an officer here who isn’t an idiot. Do you understand?”

The captain flushed bright red, and his hand dropped to his sword hilt. Then he swallowed, turned, and stamped off.

“Idiot sons of rich fathers,” Menshka told Vaught, who had dismounted to stand beside him. “It’s a devil to work with them, isn’t it?”

Vaught shook his head.

“In our order, a man rises or falls according to his ability.”

Menshka looked at him.

“Well, good for you,” he told the miserable man, and then led off towards the palace.

 

“All petitioners kneel before the Tsaritsa of Praag, Boyaressa Illyova Puskinazi.”

The great hall fell silent as a hundred voices were hushed and a hundred knees bent. The rustle of cloth was magnified by the vaulted heights of the audience chamber, and the click of empty scabbards and spurs echoed around the forest of granite columns.

In spite of himself, Vaught had been impressed by this vast chamber. As he knelt amongst the other supplicants, he reminded himself that there was nothing impressive about these northern folk. For all their strength, they were not followers of Sigmar, and if they weren’t followers of Sigmar, then they were nothing.

Emboldened by such thoughts, he looked up just as a fanfare of trumpets heralded the arrival of a young woman.

“Who’s this wench?” Fargo whispered. “I thought Praag was ruled by a Gospodar governor appointed by the Tzarina. This girl can’t be more than eighteen!”

“They’re foreigners. Who knows,” replied Vaught. “Maybe she’s just a figurehead. Look at her. What could she know about ruling a city? No doubt the governor runs the show.”

A dozen heads turned to glare disapprovingly at the two witch hunters, and Fargo fell silent. Vaught could see why he had been so surprised. The Tsaritsa seemed little more than a waif, her slender form dwarfed by the oak block of her throne, and by the bodyguards who stood behind her. As Vaught watched, she said something to her herald, and he stepped forwards to speak.

“Be standing for the Tsaritsa,” he boomed, and everybody clambered back to their feet. Some of the older merchants wheezed with the unaccustomed effort, and here and there joints popped like cracking ice.

The Tsaritsa may be young, Vaught thought as he watched her, but she was fair. Her hair was so blonde that it was almost as white as the fur cloak she wore, and her kohl-darkened eyes were as soft as a doe’s.

She spoke again to her herald.

“Kneel for the Tsaritsa,” he boomed, the rich baritone of his voice rolling across the room.

Vaught and Fargo looked at each other, and then joined the other petitioners as they sank once more to their knees. The old man beside him grimaced through his beard as he knelt.

Again the little princess spoke to the herald, and again the herald spoke.

“Stand in the presence of the Tsaritsa,” he said.

“Here, grandfather,” Fargo said to the old man besides him. “I’ll help you.”

Gripping the old man’s elbow, he helped him back to his feet, and was rewarded with an embarrassed smile.

The Tsaritsa waited until everybody was standing before whispering to her herald.

“The Tsaritsa commands you,” he said, and then paused as several of the petitioners dropped to their knees.

When they looked up in confusion, the Tsaritsa broke into a peal of laughter. The courtiers around her, taking this as their cue, joined in with the merriment, and the petitioners followed them. Their laughter echoed back from the stone heights, as harsh as the cawing of a flock of crows.

Vaught and Fargo exchanged a glance. The witch hunter was hardly aware of the disapproving scowl on his face until the Tsaritsa herself noticed it. Her eyes fixed on him, and the sycophants’ laughter died as swiftly as her own. She whispered something to the herald, who pointed an accusing finger at Vaught.

“You,” he called, disapproval evident in every perfectly formed syllable. “The Tsaritsa will speak to you.”

There was a murmur of protest from those who waited at the front of the room. Vaught didn’t blame them. Menshka had told him that they had been waiting here all night, but however long they had been waiting, all it took was a flutter from their ruler’s eyes to silence them.

Vaught ignored them as he strode forwards, Fargo following behind. The herald bustled forwards to meet him. Although a pallid, weak-looking man, he pushed through the assembled petitioners with the assurance of a barbarian chieftain.

“Oh dear,” he said when he saw who Vaught was. “You’re the fellows from Altdorf, aren’t you? You haven’t made a very good impression, I’m afraid.”

Everybody around stood stock still, ears almost twitching.

The herald coughed and raised his voice.

“Bow to the Tsaritsa as you approach the dais,” he instructed, his voice haughty as before. “Address the Tsaritsa as Tsaritsa, but don’t speak to her at all unless she speaks to you first.”

He walked the witch hunters forwards until he was standing at the edge of the platform. It was waist high, and Vaught had to look up to see the Tsaritsa as she perched on her throne. Despite the trappings of courtly life, she retained the sinuous grace of a wild animal.

“Who are you?” she asked, watching the witch hunter through lazily lowered lashes.

“I am Vaught, Tsaritsa,” Vaught said, “and this is my comrade Fargo. We are here to execute a traitor.”

“Are you now?” The Tsaritsa asked. “That sounds like fun.”

The courtiers who waited behind the throne shifted uneasily.

“It is my duty,” Vaught shrugged.

“It’s my duty, Tsaritsa,” the herald prompted, but his mistress waved him into silence.

“Your duty,” she asked, leaning forwards in sudden interest. “Is that how you got those scars?”

“Yes, Tsaritsa.”

She looked at him, her eyes as blue as his own, and licked her lips. “I hear that cousin Karl’s witch hunters are very enthusiastic about their duty. You burn people, don’t you? Tie them up and set fire to them.”

“Yes, Tsaritsa.”

“Even children. You burn them too?”

Vaught remained as impassive as ever.

“Sometimes, Tsaritsa.”

They held each other’s gaze.

“You burn children, yet you make no justification,” she said. It was more statement than question.

“I need no justification. I follow my duty to whatever conclusion.”

The Tsaritsa sat back, her eyes alight with some strange excitement.

“Yes, I suppose you do. The prince regent certainly speaks highly of you in his letter.” She waved a disinterested hand to the pile of papers that lay on a table beside her. “Do you know, I am looking forward to hearing about your hunt. I have only one condition.”

“What is that, Tsaritsa?”

“When you catch this man, the one you are after, don’t bum him until you have informed me. I want to watch. By the way, what is the name of the unfortunate creature?”

“Grendel, Tsaritsa.”

One of the courtiers who waited behind the throne choked, and raised a hand to his mouth. Vaught looked at him. Although young, and as beautiful as the Tsaritsa herself, he looked sickly, debauched. There was something wrong with his skin, too. It had a strange, doughy texture that Vaught had never seen before.

Dismissing this as the result of aristocratic decadence, Vaught forgot about the foppish young man and turned back to the Tsaritsa.

“Grendel,” the Tsaritsa rolled the word around her tongue. “Strange name. I bet he’ll squeal like a pig when the flames start licking around him.”

“They sometimes do,” Vaught allowed.

“Very well, you have my permission. Go and catch your Grendel, but remember, don’t start the fun without me!”

Vaught and Fargo bowed low and, following the herald’s whispered instructions, backed away. As they did so, the sickly looking noble sidled forwards to speak into the Tsaritsa’s ear.

Her face remained impassive as she listened, her eyes locked onto the two witch hunters. The last thing they saw before they left the room was the look of pure hatred the courtier shot them as he whispered to the Tsaritsa.

“Wait here,” the herald told them before the great doors swung shut behind them. “I will get the clerks to draw you up a letter of marque.”

Vaught nodded and turned to the men who had been waiting in the antechamber.

“How did it go, captain?” asked Peik, unable to contain his enthusiasm.

“We have permission to perform our duty,” Vaught told him.

“Not only that,” Fargo said with a wink, “but the captain here made quite an impression on the Tsaritsa.”

“What do you mean?” Peik asked, his brows furrowing in puzzlement.

“Let’s just say it’s a bit too soon to be talking about wedding bells,” Fargo said archly.

“Really?” Peik’s mouth fell open. “You’re courting the Tsaritsa, captain?” His comrades guffawed with laughter. Even Vaught’s perpetual frown lifted.

“Ignore this old mercenary,” he said. “He once told me that the prince regent was a woman dressed as a man.”

“And so she is,” Fargo said.

“Then how do you explain the beard?”

He shrugged.

“Something to hold onto.”

The men were still laughing when a courtier emerged from the audience chamber and came up to them. He swept off his felt hat and started twisting it nervously.

“Are you the Imperial barbarians?” he asked.

Vaught looked at him. The courtier swallowed.

“Yes,” the witch hunter said, “I suppose we are.”

“Oh good, would you come with me, please? You need to see the chief clerk.”

“Very well. Wait here, my brothers. Fargo and I can handle it.”

“Better if they come with you,” the courtier cut in quickly, “this corridor is reserved for those waiting for an audience with the Tsaritsa.”

“As you like.”

“Good. Well, follow me.” So saying, the courtier crammed his hat back onto his head and led off at a brisk pace. The witch hunters followed him from the marbled magnificence of the antechamber into a smaller, granite blocked corridor, and then into a maze of passages with flaking plaster on the walls.

From time to time, the courtier would glance back over his shoulder, as if anxious that his charges would make a break for it. When they finally reached their destination, he almost sagged with relief.

“Here we are,” he said, pointing to an oak barred door at the end of the passageway. “Go and wait in the courtyard outside. The clerk will be along in a moment.”

“Not waiting with us, then?” Fargo asked as the official sidled back up the corridor.

“Can’t,” he called back over his shoulder. “Too busy.”

Vaught and Fargo looked at each other.

“I have a funny feeling about this,” the older man said.

Vaught shrugged and pushed the oak door open.

“So do I, but what can we do? We are guests.”

Squaring his shoulders, Vaught led his men out into the courtyard beyond. It was a cobbled square, no more than twenty feet to a side, and the walls were steep enough to cast the whole yard in deep shade.

Peik was the last of the witch hunters to step into the cold shadows, and no sooner had he done so than there was a shriek of falling metal followed by the clang of iron on stone.

The eight men drew their swords in a single fluid movement and leapt together so that they were standing back to back. Vaught saw that an iron portcullis had fallen behind them, barring the door and cutting off their escape.

“Stay in formation,” he told the circle of men, and then went cautiously over to check the portcullis. The metal slats of its construction were as thick as a man’s arm, and although they were brown with rust, bright scratches revealed the strength of the steel beneath.

“I told you I had a funny feeling,” Fargo muttered as Vaught gazed up at the little rectangle of sky that lay above them. The walls were sheer, the granite blocks fitting together so tightly that the edges might have been carved from a single piece of stone. Although, maybe if they could work a dagger’s point into the cracks, they could…

“Captain Vaught.”

The voice rang out against the narrow stone walls. Vaught looked up to see a head and shoulders silhouetted against the sky.

“Is that Captain Vaught?” the shape asked again.

“Yes, who is that?”

“Menshka, we met at the gates and now, unfortunately, we meet again. I am to arrest you and your men and escort you to a safe location.”

“Safe?” Vaught repeated, squinting up at Menshka. The dark silhouette could have belonged to anybody. It was so black against the silver sky that it could have been cut out of cloth.

“That’s right,” Menshka agreed, “safe. Don’t worry, we wouldn’t harm an envoy of Altdorf’s king.”

“Prince regent.”

“Whatever.”

Vaught exchanged a glance with the nearest of his men. Then he looked back up.

“In that case, come and arrest us,” he said, sheathing his sword. Reluctantly, his men did the same.

“First of all, you need to throw your weapons through the gate,” Menshka told him. “Not that I don’t trust you, captain, but I have my orders.”

Vaught shook his head. “We are forbidden to give our weapons to anybody outside of our order.”

There was movement from above, and the twang of a bowstring. The arrow whistled down to strike a spark from the stone a couple of feet above Vaught’s head.

“You don’t have a choice,” Menshka shouted down.

“I thought you said you wouldn’t harm us.”

“Not unless I have to.”

Vaught scowled, and turned to Fargo. He shrugged.

“We don’t have much choice, do we?”

Nor did they. With a curse, Vaught removed his weapons from their sheaths and pushed them through the bars in the gate. His men followed suit, their blades clinking into a lethal pile of razored steel. When they had finished, figures emerged from the corridor beyond, a linen basket between them. With a chink of metal, they emptied its contents onto the floor, and then turned to the abandoned weapons.

“You,” Fargo told one of them as they started to bundle up the swords, “be careful with that blade. It is worth more than your family combined.”

The man looked up with a sneer, and would have spoken, had Menshka not cut him off.

“Do as the gentlemen say,” he barked down from his perch. “Treat their weapons with respect.”

The men obeyed, laying the weapons into the basket gently.

When they had finished, they turned back, gathered the manacles from the floor, and passed them through the portcullis.

Vaught looked at the manacles with disgust.

“Sorry,” Menshka called down from above. “Tsaritsa’s orders.”

“I’ve heard so much about Praagian hospitality over the years,” Fargo said, shaking his head as he closed the manacle around his wrist, “but I had no idea that it was all true.”

Vaught weighed the chains in his hand, and cast a last look around the pit in which they had been trapped. There was no way out, no way at all. Inwardly cursing the treachery of the northerners, he clipped the manacles closed on his own wrists. Then, straightening his back, he turned to address his men.

“Don’t worry,” he told them. “Our captivity will not last long. The righteousness of our duty is stronger than any steel, and all things are possible through Sigmar’s grace.”

The screech of the raised portcullis punctuated his sentiments, and a moment later the eight of them were led away.

 

Neither the bite of the wind nor the jarring of the carriage beneath him intruded on Kerr’s concentration. His gaze remained fixed on the pebble that he held in one cold hand, and although his eyes dripped with tears, they remained unmoving.

The horses clopped on, following the road to the north. They had left the last few shivering trees far behind them. Now, there was nothing to see but grasslands, scattered villages and the occasional flock of sheep.

At least, nothing to physically see.

As Kerr was beginning to understand, the world was composed of a lot more than the physical.

Even as the thought occurred, he let it drift away. Neither accepting nor rejecting the idea, he kept his focus on the stone in his hand: its shape, its weight, and the texture of its surface against the skin of his palm.

Another man might have given up long since. Another man might, but not Kerr. The starving years he had spent on the streets of Altdorf had hardened him, forging his patience from hunger and danger, just as a smith uses fire to forge steel.

As a boy, he had spent entire days waiting, still as stone, for the one moment when a baker might take his eyes from his wares. He had clambered amongst the terrifying decay of Altdorf’s steepled roofs, his attention immersed in the slip and the slide of the ancient slates. And in the winter, when other vagabonds had stayed huddled in their bolt holes, he had danced barefoot through the iced streets, forcing himself to steal and beg his way through the lethal season.

It had been a hard training, a good training, a training better than any for sale in Altdorf’s academies. It might even have been coincidental.

“Kerr,” Titus bellowed from the inside of the carriage.

Kerr let the sound roll over him and through him. When it had gone, it left barely a ripple behind.

“Answer me, boy.”

This time there was a furious knocking on the underside of the carriage’s roof. The horses whinnied uncertainly and glanced back to their driver. Reassured by his perfect stillness, they turned back to the journey ahead.

“Do you hear me?” Titus roared.

When there was still no response, the carriage heaved to one side, and the wizard’s head and shoulders bulged out through the window. He glared up at Kerr, who remained indifferent. The wizard drew in a deep breath and roared with laughter.

“Well done!” he said. “I thought I might have tricked you. The exercise is over.”

Kerr stretched, blinked the tears from his eyes and returned the stone to his pouch.

“I’m getting better at it,” he said, looking down to the fat face that beamed up at him from below.

“How do you mean?” Titus asked, and then cursed as a pothole in the road jolted him. “Damn this for a way to talk. I’m a wizard, not a contortionist. Stop the carriage and you can tell me what you mean while we eat something.”

Kerr pulled up the horses, and lashed the reins to the running board. As the carriage rolled beneath Titus’ shifting weight, he stood up and scanned the horizon. The world seemed empty of everything apart from grass and the shadows of the racing clouds above. Praag, their destination, was still hidden beyond the curve of the world, the road they followed the only sign that it existed.

“Come along,” Titus called, rubbing his hands. “Set out lunch and we can talk about your progression.”

With a last look to the north, Kerr jumped down and retrieved the hamper that contained their food. Titus strolled around as he clambered back onto the carriage to retrieve the small table and sturdy chair that had been strapped to the roof.

He set out the furniture and food, and then called Titus over to eat.

“Ah good,” the fat man said, sitting down at his dining table. “Ham.”

Kerr sat on the running board of the carriage and waited for him to speak.

“So,” Titus said, when he had eaten the leg down to the bone. “Why do you think you are getting better at the exercise?”

“Because I can keep my attention on the pebble for longer periods, and I can keep my eyes focused for longer too. Except…”

“Except what?” Titus tossed the bone to Kerr and unwrapped an apple pie.

“Sometimes my eyes go a bit funny.”

“Funny?” the sorcerer asked, and took a huge mouthful of pastry.

“The stone seems to glow, and I can see wisps of colour tracing through the air.”

Titus, chewing away, looked at him thoughtfully.

“I suppose it’s just that my eyes aren’t used to the work,” Kerr said, “but don’t worry, boss. I’m sure they’ll get stronger.”

The sorcerer continued to stare at Kerr. The expression on his chubby face was not one to inspire confidence. It made him look like a farmer wondering whether his prize lamb was fat enough to slaughter, but when he swallowed, and spoke, his voice was as friendly as ever.

“Those colours you see,” he said, “can only be seen with those who have the strongest eyes. It is good that you are one of them. If not, there would have been no point in continuing with your apprenticeship.”

“So they’re real?” Kerr asked. “How can you be sure that they aren’t just tricks of the light? You know, like the stars you see when you hit your head.”

Titus grinned.

“Tricks of the light!” he scoffed, wolfing down the rest of the pie. “If you’d told me that you could see sparks of the Hysh, then I would have known you had the ability right from the start. Mind you, I knew anyway. I could always recognise talent.”

“What’s Hysh?” Kerr asked.

Busying himself with a loaf of bread and a roll of cheese, Titus considered his answer.

“Let’s not worry about that for now,” he said. “First, I want you to repeat this word.”

“What word?”

Titus said a word.

Kerr repeated it, letting the syllables roll off his tongue.

“Not quite,” Titus told him. “The ‘Z’ should be softer and the ‘U’ longer. Try again. Yes, that’s it, and again?”

Kerr pronounced the word as if he’d known it all of his life.

“Excellent.” The sorcerer celebrated with a mouthful of cheese. “Now, click your fingers. That’s it, perfect.”

“Now what?” Kerr asked, wondering if his master had gone mad, or possibly madder.

“Now I’m going to rest my eyes, and you are going to practise staring at the stone again. Only this time, if you see any red wisps of colour, think about them instead of the stone. Then click your fingers and say…”

Titus waited expectantly.

“That word?” Kerr suggested.

“Perfect.” The sorcerer nodded. “Wake me if there’s any trouble.” With that, he leant back in his chair, ruffled his cloak around his neck, and fell asleep.

His apprentice watched the slumbering figure of his master for a moment. He considered how the sight of a well-dressed man sitting on an easy chair and sleeping off his lunch was such a normal sight in the city, but out here, in the endless wilderness of grass and sky, he thought that it was one of the most bizarre things he had ever seen.

Then, conscientious as ever, he took the stone from its pouch and started to exercise.

 

* * *

 

This time the colours came more quickly. After barely half an hour, hints of them started to drift through his field of vision, each wisp a different hue. He waited until he saw a drift of perfect red. It described a lazy spiral in the air above the remains of Braha’s lunch, and could almost have been smoke if the wind hadn’t been blowing right through it.

Ignoring a twitch of apprehension, Kerr transferred his attention from the hard shape of the stone to the hazy impression of colour. He thought about the way it moved, the perfect weightlessness of it, and the brightness of its colour.

Then, with perfect timing, he clicked his fingers and spoke the word.

It was a moment he would never forget.

As soon as he had spoken, the coil of red started to change. It glowed with a new energy, and as the shape grew heavier, so the colour altered. The perfect red flickered into orange, and then into yellow. It bubbled with a liquid intensity, forming and reforming in a constantly moving stew of colour.

Kerr watched the strange beauty of his creation as it unfolded. It had grown bright enough to warm the slumbering form of Titus with its light, and to cast a faint shadow behind him. Although Kerr knew that he should wake his master, he remained transfixed, struggling with the feeling that he had seen something like this before.

The realisation of what it was hit him a second before the ball of fire touched the polished wood of the table.

There was a whoosh of flame as the wood ignited. The plates were sent spinning through the air, and the sizzle of burnt pork joined the acrid stink of burnt wood. There was also a terrible scream as Titus, who had been woken by the sheet of flame, tumbled away across the grass.

Kerr rushed over to help him, but the sorcerer shooed him away. Despite the smouldering of his beard and the scorch marks that singed his robes, he seemed quite happy to have awoken in a furnace.

“Was that you?” he asked, slapping at the smouldering cloth of his cloak.

“I think so,” Kerr admitted, looking back towards the table. There wasn’t much of it left. The fire had devoured it in a single moment, leaving nothing behind but for a charred skeleton of timber.

“Who would have thought it?” Titus asked nobody in particular. He looked from the table to Kerr and back again. “It took me years to learn how… Well, never mind. It must be because we are so far to the north.”

“What’s due to us being so far to the north?” Kerr asked, but Titus just shook his head.

“One step at a time,” he decided. “Anyway, I think that it is time to continue. You quite spoiled my nap.”

Kerr looked thoughtfully at the ruins of the furniture, and then shrugged and went to soothe the straining horses. At least he wouldn’t have to keep lugging that damned table around.

“Oh, and Kerr,” Titus paused before climbing back on board the carriage. “I think we’ll leave that part of the training from now on. Do this instead.”

With a wheeze of effort, the sorcerer leant into the carriage, rummaged about amongst his carpetbags, and retrieved a ball of wool with two needles stuck through it. He tossed it to Kerr, who snatched it out of the air.

“What’s this for, boss?” he asked, weighing the wool in his hands.

“Knitting,” the sorcerer said as he lumbered back into his seat.

“But I can’t knit.”

“Then it’s time you learned.” Titus shifted into a more comfortable position and slammed the carriage door behind him.

“Wake me when it’s dinner time,” he mumbled and, pulling his hat down over his eyes began to drift off to sleep.

“That I will,” Kerr replied and, running a calming hand over the nearest horses muzzle, he climbed back onto the driver’s seat and steered the carriage cautiously around the scorched remains of his first spell.

 

A hundred miles due north, and caution was the last thing on Grendel’s mind. He had been dreaming again. At least, he assumed that the visions had been dreams.

As he leapt screaming from his bed, such semantics were the least of his concerns. Fighting a rolling wave of nausea, he had staggered across to the curtains and tore them open to reveal the city below. The brightness of the setting sun stung his eyes, and he blinked away the tears that had already been there.

Clinging to the heavy drapes, his beard tangled with sweat, Grendel stared unseeingly out towards the northern horizon. Then he giggled.

Today, for the fifth day in a row, he had been struck with a lightning bolt of inspiration, a thunderclap of pure genius: a gift from the gods.

Well, he thought, a gift from one god in particular.

Pushing the sodden mop of his hair back from his pallid forehead, he turned away from the light of the window and lurched towards his desk. It was a massive slab of oak, perhaps twenty feet long, and its surface was covered with the paraphernalia of his art.

Phials of powders stood in a dozen mismatched racks. Bottles and flasks jostled together, their contents every colour of the rainbow. Herbs were everywhere, whether in bundles or in stone jars. Amongst this innocent detritus there lay other, less savoury ingredients. Teeth and rolls of strangely repellent leather were scattered about, as were the decapitated heads of at least three different races. The halfling looked particularly put out, the cured leather of his face puckered into a perpetual scowl.

Maybe they killed him before his last supper, Grendel thought, and giggled again. It was a shrill, broken sound, neither laughter nor sobbing, but something in between.

As he rummaged through his grisly materials, there was an imperious knock at the door.

“Go away,” Grendel snapped without looking up. “I’m busy.”

The latch lifted and the door was flung open.

“Grendel, you old stoat,” Zhukovsky said as he swaggered into the room. “I need something special from you today. I’m feeling a bit jaded.”

The wizard spared him a single contemptuous glance, and snorted. A month ago, he wouldn’t have even considered displaying such disdain. A couple of weeks ago and he wouldn’t have dared, but now things had changed. As Zhukovsky’s appetites had grown, so had his dependence on the wizard, and dependency never inspires much respect.

“You are sick,” Grendel said, turning back to his work. “Go and rest.”

For a moment, Zhukovsky seemed about to argue. Then he shrugged. What argument was there? His skin had become so loose and flabby that he looked like a glutton after a month of dysentery, and burst blood vessels had left his eyes as pink as a rat’s.

Even Zhukovsky’s swagger was a stiff legged thing. Wasting muscles and numbed bones had put paid to his youthful exuberance, and he had taken to carrying a silver-topped cane, but his viciousness, at least, remained unabated.

“It’s funny,” the count said, squinting at the afternoon light that poured in from the window, “but I could have sworn you just snorted at me.”

Grendel, busily weighing powders into a brass scale, ignored the comment.

For a second, Zhukovsky’s expression twisted into a silent snarl, but only for a second. By the time he had reached the window, he was smiling again, or at least, trying to smile. The nerveless flesh of his bottom lip hung loose, revealing the remains of his teeth.

“Grendel,” he said, turning so that his silhouette was framed by the window.

“What do you want?” The sorcerer frowned and turned to stare at him. “Can’t you see that I am busy?”

“I can see that you are ignoring your count,” Zhukovsky said, whacking the silvered head of his stick into his hand. “That’s what I can see. Another man did that once, but only once. I had him taken down to the kitchen, tied to a spit, and roasted like a pig. You should have heard him scream.”

Grendel, who a month before had been begging at this man’s feet, looked at him with something approaching pity.

“Count Zhukovsky, I do not mean to ignore you, but I find it difficult to work with interruptions.” The count opened his mouth to reply, but Grendel cut him off. “Imagine what would happen if something went wrong with my spellcasting.”

The count imagined. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down and he plucked nervously at the loose skin that clung to his wrist.

“It won’t go wrong,” he decided, although he didn’t sound convinced. “Slaanesh wouldn’t allow it.”

Grendel winced at the mention of the name and looked around.

“Not here,” he said.

Zhukovsky shrugged.

“Well, I can’t stand here bandying words with you all day. You have work to do. Morrslieb is due to rise in a fortnight’s time and we are to have a… a celebration.”

Grendel nodded thoughtfully. For the first time, Zhukovsky had arranged for an assembly of his entire coven, and the sorcerer was looking forward to it. He felt like an artist who has been offered a pallete full of brand new colours.

“How many celebrants will attend?” he asked.

“Maybe a dozen,” Zhukovsky shrugged, “but they don’t matter. What does matter is that we will have a guest, a very special guest. So it has to be…” He paused, seeking the right word. Eventually he gave up. “It has to be good.”

Grendel giggled again. If he noticed the look of surprise on the count’s face, or the way he took a cautious step back, he didn’t show it.

“Oh, it will be more than good.” The sorcerer rubbed his bony hands together. “It will be more than good.”

With a new gleam in his eye, Grendel turned back to his work. As an afterthought, he threw a vial of powder to the count, tossing it like a morsel for some favoured pet.

The vial fumbled through the nobleman’s shaking fingers and cracked on the floor. He fell to his knees and scooped it up.

“Mix the powder with water and drink it,” Grendel said, already rummaging amongst his equipment for some new ingredient.

“What does it do?” Zhukovsky asked, his haughty demeanour replaced by pathetic eagerness.

“It will make those who look at you see the man you used to be.”

“Is that it?”

“Look in the mirror,” Grendel snapped, “and answer that question yourself.”

For a moment, it seemed that Zhukovsky was about to berate the sorcerer. Before he could, a sudden fit of twitching seized one side of his face and so, without saying another word, he turned to go.

Grendel didn’t notice him leave. He was too deep in thought. If only those fools in the college could see what I have achieved, he thought. If only they could see what I am about to achieve. Curse them all, he would show them. One of these days, he would bring such a cataclysm down on them that they would think him a god.

He was still muttering to himself when Zhukovsky slipped back out of the room and closed the door silently behind him.