CHAPTER NINETEEN

A tidal wave of anger burst over Rudi, the insensate desire to kill hammering in his veins. Before he was even aware of what he was doing, he drew his sword and leapt to attack.

“There’s no need for this.” Gerhard’s blade sprang from its scabbard, blocking the blow as he moved to evade it, but he held back from delivering the counter strike that Rudi had been expecting. As in their previous encounters, the witch hunter seemed content to fight defensively rather than going in for the kill. “Put your sword down, and let’s talk. There’s a lot you need to know.”

“I’ve seen how you talk,” Rudi snarled, renewing the attack. “I was there when you talked to Frau Katzenjammer, remember?”

“I told you, that was a regrettable necessity.” Gerhard parried his next attack, and stepped back to open the distance, hemming himself in between two of the projecting bookcases as he did so. “There’s so much at stake here.”

“So you say,” Rudi said, moving in to take advantage of his enemy’s inability to evade. He cut at the witch hunter’s head, intent on nothing more than spilling his blood, blind to every other consideration. His heartbeat thundered in his ears. Gerhard ducked in the nick of time, and Rudi’s sword embedded itself in the wood of a bookshelf, the tip of it slicing into an incunabulum, raising a cloud of dust and scattering the pages as the age-rotted leather binding split. Rudi wrenched frantically at the weapon, trying to free it, but it was stuck fast in the age-darkened wood. Before he could recover the sword, Gerhard had taken full advantage of his loss of momentum, diving at his chest and grappling like a wrestler.

Rudi stumbled backwards, trying to shrug off the witch hunter’s pinioning arms, and feeling a sudden shock of impact against his back. A moment later the unexpected blow was followed by agonising pain, searing up into his torso. Turning, he found von Karien behind him, a bloody knife in his left hand, and an expression of shock in his eyes.

“You…” Rudi tried to draw his own dagger, but Gerhard forestalled him, expertly shifting his grip to clamp a muscular hand around his wrist. The senior witch hunter glared at von Karien.

“Are you insane? You know what happens if he dies!”

“He just stumbled into me.” Von Karien dropped the red-stained dagger, which clattered loudly on the stone floor of the chamber. “I only drew it in case I needed to parry.” His arm went around Rudi’s shoulders, holding him up just as the young forester’s knees gave way. Rudi tried to speak, but the taste of blood filled his mouth, and he hawked crimson phlegm onto the flagstones. The images of Bruno, and all the pirates and ruffians he’d killed since leaving Kohlstadt, rose up in his mind, taunting and vindictive. Was this how their last few moments had felt? His kinsman’s voice held an edge of desperation. “Is there anything we can do?”

“If Sigmar wills it,” Gerhard said calmly. He pulled one of a pair of thin leather gloves from his belt, and held it between his palms, murmuring a prayer beneath his breath.

Von Karien lowered Rudi to the cold stone floor as gently as he could, the chill seeming to seep upwards into his very bones as he did so. Rudi’s vision began to blur, and something seemed to stir in the darkest depths of his soul. Despite the pain, he felt a sudden surge of malevolent triumph sweep through him, leaving him giddy and disorientated.

“Hurry.” Von Karien rolled Rudi over onto his side. “He hasn’t got long.”

Recalling the event afterwards, Rudi was never quite sure what actually happened next. The glove in Gerhard’s hands seemed to dwindle and shrink, like dispersing smoke, and then it vanished, as if it had never been. Gerhard knelt, and pressed his hand to Rudi’s back, right where the wound from von Karien’s dagger had been inflicted.

A wave of pain surged through his body, spasming his muscles, and with a howl of agony the shadowy presence deep within him returned to wherever it had emerged from. Both witch hunters sighed with relief.

“Sigmar be praised,” von Karien said, making the sign of the hammer. Gerhard nodded.

“Indeed,” he concurred dryly. He shrugged. “It seems I’ll need another new pair of gloves.”

“A small price to pay,” von Karien said, and Gerhard nodded his agreement.

“Can you sit up?” he asked, supporting Rudi’s shoulders again.

To his surprise, Rudi found that he could. The pain in his chest was gone, replaced by a numbing chill. He drew in a shaky breath, unimpeded by blood or phlegm.

“What did you just do?” he asked, curiosity driving out fear and anger, at least for the time being. Whatever his reasons, Gerhard had clearly just saved his life. Shaking the witch hunter’s arm off, he staggered to his feet, leaning against the table for support. Von Karien retrieved his sword from the bookcase and his own dagger from the floor, placing both well out of reach, and moving to block the door. Gerhard pulled out a chair, and motioned to Rudi to sit.

“I prayed to Sigmar for aid,” he said. “Sometimes he intercedes, if the cause is just.”

“It looked like sorcery to me,” Rudi said. If he still felt too weak to fight the man physically, he could always lash out with words. “Shouldn’t you run off and burn yourself?”

“There is absolutely nothing like sorcery in the blessings of the gods!” von Karien said angrily, “and only a heretic would dare to suggest such a thing!” For a moment, Rudi thought his kinsman was about to strike him, and tensed for the blow, but to his surprise Gerhard intervened.

“It’s a natural mistake to make,” he said evenly. “Both magic and prayer can alter the fabric of the world. The difference is that a priest can only do so by the grace of the divine, while witches and sorcerers can change reality by the force of their own wills.”

“You’ve lost me.” Rudi sat down slowly, waiting for the strength to return to his body. There were two of them, it was true, but he’d fought against worse odds than that before. The real problem was the locked door behind him, but once he’d subdued his opponents, finding the key wouldn’t present too big a problem, he was sure.

“Then I’ll make it simple,” Gerhard said, sitting down opposite him. “I healed you by calling on the power of Sigmar. Your friend the witch incinerates people by calling on the power of Chaos. That’s the difference.”

“He’s been consorting with witches?” von Karien asked, the expression of horror on his face echoed in the timbre of his voice. He looked at Rudi with obvious contempt. “He’s clearly been tainted beyond any possibility of redemption.” His expression became appraising. “Is that why you went to the Bright College before coming to my house? Escorting your witch friend to be with her own kind?”

“There were reports of a disturbance outside the college gate last night,” Gerhard said thoughtfully. “I take it that means her application was unsuccessful?”

“She’s safe,” Rudi said, hoping the half-truth would serve to protect the girl. “You’ll never get your hands on her now.”

“I’ll take that as a no,” Gerhard said levelly. “If the Bright Order had taken her in, you wouldn’t have been able to resist throwing that in our faces. Why did they reject her?”

“Because she was tainted, wasn’t she?” von Karien put in. “Her mother was a witch, and a worshipper of the Lord of Change. That’s how she got her magical talent, straight from the Dark Powers.” Rudi wondered how much else Gerhard had told his friend of what he’d discovered in Kohlstadt and Marienburg.

“Rudi,” Gerhard leaned across the table, his voice calm and reasonable. “Your loyalty is admirable, however misplaced, but surely you must realise how dangerous Hanna is? She’s almost as dangerous as her mother.”

Rudi shook his head stubbornly, trying to forget the expression on Gerrit’s face as he’d died, the burning silhouettes of Alwyn and Conrad, the indifference, even malevolence, Hanna had seemed to show every time she’d used her abilities to maim or kill since they’d fled from Marienburg.

“If she is, then who made her that way?” he shot back. “You’re the one who tried to kill her, just for being who she is. So far as I’m concerned, she’s entitled to do whatever it takes to defend herself!”

“Where is she?” von Karien loomed over him, his face dark. “We might need you alive, boy, but that doesn’t have to mean whole.”

“Osric.” Gerhard made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “We’re getting away from the point here. The witch will keep for now, wherever she is. We have a far more pressing problem to deal with.”

“That’s true.” Von Karien nodded reluctantly, and pulled up a chair of his own. “I don’t suppose she’ll get far, with both the templars and the colleges after her, in any case.”

“She’s safe!” Rudi insisted, “with friends.” He glared at von Karien, “You can keep on asking until you’re blue in the face, but I don’t know where. Greta said that was for the best, and I’m beginning to see why.”

“So her mother’s here too.” Gerhard exchanged a glance with von Karien. “They’ve probably taken refuge with the Silver Wheel, then. Perhaps you’d better start lifting a few stones when we’ve finished here, and see what crawls out.” Von Karien nodded.

“Perhaps I’d better,” he said. He glanced at Rudi. “You think they’re planning something to do with him?”

“It’s possible,” Gerhard said. “Greta Reifenstahl was living in the same village for years, undoubtedly keeping an eye on Magnus von Blackenburg and his cult. Now she’s here in Altdorf, and reunited with her daughter, just when we’ve caught up with Rudi. That’s a pretty big coincidence, and we know only too well that there’s no such thing as coincidence where the Lord of Change is concerned.”

“Then we’d better finish this quickly,” von Karien said.

“Finish what?” Rudi asked impatiently.

“I’m afraid it’s rather a long story,” Gerhard said, “and much of it is inference and deduction, but it all goes back to the night we raided the von Karien estate, and found your father’s cult enacting a hideous ritual.”

“I know about that,” Rudi said. “Osric told me.”

“I told you some of it,” von Karien said. “What I didn’t mention before was that you were there. You were a part of it.”

“What do you mean, I was a part of it?” Rudi asked, apprehension and horror sweeping over him with renewed vigour. His months as a watchman had made him adept at detecting evasions and falsehoods, and both men spoke in the level tones of someone telling the absolute truth. All the thoughts he’d had of fighting his way free were gone. The only thing he wanted was to know the full story of his past, although his hands trembled with unease at the prospect. “How could I have been?” An appalling possibility presented itself, as he recalled von Karien’s words the previous night. “You mean they were going to sacrifice me? My own parents?” His stomach twisted at the enormity of it, but to his vague relief von Karien’s plaster-thick porridge seemed determined to remain where it was.

“Worse than that,” von Karien said heavily. Gerhard nodded.

“It took some time to deduce the nature of the ritual. It was one we’d never seen before, and the battle left few traces of what had been going on, but in the months that followed, as we combed through the papers your father had left, and interrogated the peripheral members of the cult we’d been able to track down, we began to find clues as to what he had hoped to achieve.”

“Which was what?” Rudi asked, his mouth dry. Gerhard was silent for a moment, clearly wondering how best to explain.

“What do you know of the nature of daemons?” he asked at last. Completely taken aback by the question, Rudi shrugged.

“Nothing at all,” he said. He looked from one witch hunter to another, and clearly this was the answer they’d been expecting. “Well, only what everybody knows,” he added, trying to be helpful. “They’re powerful and nasty, and you don’t want to meet one.”

“True enough,” Gerhard said, “but what most people don’t realise is that the most powerful tend to be servants of a particular one of the Dark Powers. Your parents were attempting to invoke a daemon prince of Nurgle, the Lord of Disease.”

“The same power that Magnus worshipped?” Rudi asked.

Gerhard nodded. “Him and his cult, both in Kohlstadt and Marienburg, although the one in the city seems to have had another leader, at least in his absence.”

“The lawyer, van Crackenmeer?” Rudi asked.

“He’s a plausible suspect. Why do you think that?” Gerhard asked.

“I found a letter from Magnus in his office,” Rudi explained, “talking about me, and Greta Reifenstahl, and somebody’s grandchildren. I’m not sure who the grandchildren were, though.”

“His fellow degenerates,” von Karien said, with manifest loathing. Rudi’s confusion must have shown on his face, because he paused to explain. “The Plague God’s acolytes refer to him as Grandfather Nurgle. Presumably in an attempt to deny the truth of what they’re worshipping by making it sound protective and benign.”

“I wanted to talk to van Crackenmeer to find out where Magnus was living,” Rudi explained, “but by the time I got to his office, he was already dead.”

“I realised you hadn’t killed him as soon as I saw the body. It was obviously the work of a mutant. If you’d discussed matters reasonably then, as I asked, instead of making a fight of it, I would have made that abundantly clear.”

“It was Hans Katzenjammer,” Rudi explained. There was no point in not being as honest as he could at this juncture, he thought. The witch hunters obviously knew more about what was going on than he did, and any information he was able to add to that would only enable them to explain things to him more clearly.

“Katzenjammer?” Gerhard looked surprised for the first time. “Are you sure?”

“I’m a tracker,” Rudi reminded him, “and I’d followed him through the woods, remember? The traces he left were pretty distinctive.” He hesitated, and then hurried on, reminding himself that there was no point in holding anything back. “Besides, I’d already seen him in Marienburg. He was there with Greta. They attacked Magnus and his cultists.” He frowned, still trying to understand the bizarre confrontation that he’d witnessed. “I still don’t know what to make of it, to be honest. I got lost in the Doodkanal shortly after we arrived in the city, and I found this old warehouse on the waterfront. Magnus and his followers were there, chanting about a boat, and then Greta and Hans arrived and killed them all, or, most of them, anyhow. Magnus got away, and a few of the others I think.”

“A boat?” Von Karien looked confused. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” said Rudi. “They kept saying, ‘Hail the vessel’.” Another thought struck him. “That’s what they were chanting in the forest too, just before the beastmen attacked.”

“You were there as well?” Gerhard asked, his voice intent.

“I just stumbled into the clearing. I was looking for my father in the woods, and somehow I knew the right way to go. It was like that in the city too, when I found the warehouse. It just seemed right.”

“You were being summoned,” von Karien said. “At least…” he hesitated, and glanced at Gerhard. “The vessel was.”

“It can’t have been,” Rudi told him. “Kohlstad’s miles from the Reik. There’s nowhere a boat could dock anywhere near the place.” He glanced at Gerhard. “You’ve been there, you must remember.”

“The main characteristic of daemons,” Gerhard said, “and it’s a fortunate one indeed, is that they’re tied to the Realm of Chaos. Except for the most tainted of places, they can’t remain in the mortal world for long, unless they possess a mortal host.”

“I see.” Rudi nodded, a tight knot of terror winding itself around his gut. The implications were obvious, but he still couldn’t bring himself to face them. “So this daemon my parents were invoking would have vanished again soon anyway.”

“Ordinarily, yes,” Gerhard nodded soberly, “but it seems that your father had struck a bargain with a daemon prince. In exchange for power, and knowledge that only a madman would crave, he agreed to provide it with a host, a vessel.”

“His own son.” Von Karien’s voice was so thick with disgust that it was barely recognisable. “You.”

“That’s impossible!” Rudi protested, more by reflex than because he believed it to be true. So much that had perplexed him now made a twisted kind of sense. “If I was possessed, I’d know it, wouldn’t I?”

“Not necessarily,” Gerhard said. “It’s quite common for the victims of possession to be unaware of the presence inside themselves.” He gazed levelly at Rudi. “Have you ever woken somewhere with no memory of how you got there? Found periods of time missing from your recollection?”

“No.” Rudi shook his head, feeling the first faint stirrings of relief. “Nothing like that.” He remembered something else. “Besides, you interrupted the ritual, didn’t you? It was never completed.”

“Exactly.” Von Karien nodded soberly. “At the time, we thought that would be enough to thwart their fell design. It was only after we’d examined Manfred’s papers that another, more disturbing possibility presented itself.”

“Which was?” Rudi asked, already dreading the answer. Gerhard went on, his pale blue eyes boring into him like an auger.

“That enough of the daemon’s essence had already entered you for it to remain trapped there, in a dormant state. It’s my belief that the ritual in the woods was intended to revive it, and complete the process.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Rudi protested, uncomfortably sure that it wasn’t.

Gerhard shook his head soberly.

“It’s my belief that whoever removed you from the house sent you to Kohlstadt, perhaps by magical means, knowing that von Blackenburg would prepare the way to complete the pact. You said yourself that he’d had dealings with the von Karien family. Manfred must have been aware that he was a fellow cultist, at the very least.”

“Why would he wait so long?” Rudi asked, seizing on every objection he could think of to the chain of reasoning that Gerhard was laying out so patiently.

Von Karien shrugged. “Partly because he needed to make extensive preparations,” he said. “Incarnating and binding the daemon would require a great deal of power, and a full coven of worshippers.” Gerhard nodded his agreement.

“Not only that, some kinds of ritual magic are most potent at particular times. The Chaos moon was in exactly the same alignment that night as it had been when your parents first tried to summon the daemon. It wasn’t until I examined the site of the ritual, and searched von Blackenburg’s house, that I began to notice certain similarities with what I’d seen fifteen years before. I began to wonder if you might possibly be the missing vessel, and set out to find you. By then it was too late. You’d already fled.”

“Then if the beastmen hadn’t attacked…” Rudi’s voice trailed away, unwilling to complete the thought.

Gerhard nodded soberly. “The daemon would have taken control of your body, consuming your soul in the process. As it was, it seems to have remained dormant, at least for the most part.”

“So that’s why Magnus tried to kill me,” Rudi said. He felt numb, beyond all feeling. The magnitude of the concept was just too great to grasp. Gerhard nodded.

“He knew he’d lost. All he could do was free it, and allow it to wreak as much damage as possible.”

“So if I die,” Rudi said, looking from one witch hunter to the other, letting the idea sink in slowly, “the daemon escapes.”

“That’s right,” Gerhard said, “and sooner or later, you will. Everyone does, and that leaves us with a considerable problem.”