Brunner the Bounty Hunter Read online

  Brunner the Bounty Hunter

  By

  C.L. Werner

  Product Description

  This is the dark saga of the ruthless bounty hunter who goes by the name of Brunner. Goblins, vampires, outlaws and even dragons—they’re all fair game for this dark hero’s blade. Across the length and breadth of the grim Warhammer Old World, Brunner plies his trade, tracking down and killing monsters. But he also faces challenges from within his own dubious profession as a rival hunter stakes a claim to his bounty.

  This is a dark age, a bloody age, an age of daemons

  and of sorcery. It is an age of battle and death, and of the

  world’s ending. Amidst all of the fire, flame and fury

  it is a time, too, of mighty heroes, of bold deeds

  and great courage.

  At the heart of the Old World sprawls the Empire, the

  largest and most powerful of the human realms. Known for

  its engineers, sorcerers, traders and soldiers, it is

  a land of great mountains, mighty rivers, dark forests

  and vast cities. And from his throne in Altdorf reigns

  the Emperor Karl-Franz, sacred descendant of the

  founder of these lands, Sigmar, and wielder

  of his magical warhammer.

  But these are far from civilised times. Across the length

  and breadth of the Old World, from the knightly palaces

  of Bretonnia to ice-bound Kislev in the far north, come

  rumblings of war. In the towering World’s Edge Mountains,

  the orc tribes are gathering for another assault. Bandits and

  renegades harry the wild southern lands of

  the Border Princes. There are rumours of rat-things, the

  skaven, emerging from the sewers and swamps across the

  land. And from the northern wildernesses there is the

  ever-present threat of Chaos, of daemons and beastmen

  corrupted by the foul powers of the Dark Gods.

  As the time of battle draws ever

  near, the Empire needs heroes

  like never before.

  Table of Contents

  MAP

  PREFACE

  FOREWORD

  WHAT PRICE VENGEANCE

  BLOOD MONEY

  PROLOGUE

  THE MONEY-LENDER’S PRICE

  WOLFSHEAD

  THE DOOM OF GNASHRAK

  BLOOD MONEY

  THE TYRANT

  HONOUR AMONG VERMIN

  THE BLACK PRINCE

  BLOOD & STEEL

  PROLOGUE

  BENEATH THE VAULTS

  SICKHOUSE

  DEATHMARK

  WHERE WALKS THE MARDAGG

  BLOOD OF THE DRAGON

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  EPILOGUE

  PREFACE

  I blame my father, really. From a very young age he conspired to completely confuse my moral compass with repeated viewings of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly and For a Few Dollars More. The characters in these films, ruthless bounty hunters who killed for money and thought nothing of shooting a man in the back, were so much seedier than the heroes I had been exposed to up to that point that the experience was something like a traumatic epiphany. Here were guys who paid the villains back in their own coin, who saw the higher moral ground and realised it was a refuge for those who didn’t really want to win. It would be many years before I discovered Machiavelli and his observations about ends and means, but by the time I did I was already quite familiar with the concept thanks to Sergio Leone.

  The character of Brunner evolved from my lifelong exposure to westerns and especially the ‘Spaghetti Westerns’ made in Italy in the 1960’s and 1970’s. The steely-eyed bounty killer who knows no honour greater than a fistful of gold is a natural fit for the grim, forbidding and morally ambiguous Old World of Warhammer. It was certainly an archetype that I knew would entertain my father to no end. When, after acceptance of my second short story in Inferno! I was asked by Marc Gascoigne to consider a longer work for publication as a novel, my mind instantly gravitated towards bounty killing as my subject matter.

  Brunner evolved over the course of several months of planning and development. A dozen short stories were plotted out to form the nexus of a novel-length collection. I have always enjoyed short stories and still feel that they are the best vehicle for introducing a character to a reader. It worked for Sherlock Holmes and Conan of Cimmeria, after all. In the end, one of the stories was cut from Blood Money, appearing in Inferno! instead. ‘What Price Vengeance’ has been pilfered from the files and is included in this collection, along with restored text that was cut from its magazine appearance that features Brunner meeting the infamous Judge Vaulkberg.

  ‘Wolfshead’ and ‘Sick House’ have similar stories to tell. ‘Sick House’ was originally plotted to be included in Blood and Steel but was cut when ‘Where Walks the Mardagg’ expanded beyond to dominate the collection. It eventually appeared in the final issue of Inferno! ‘Wolfshead’ was a story planned as a lead-in for Blood of the Dragon dropped when it was decided to concentrate solely on Brunner’s battle with the dragon Malok. After some extensive rewrites an improved version of ‘Wolfshead’ appears in this collection.

  Some readers have asked about the name ‘Brunner’. While developing the character, a suitable name proved somewhat elusive. Names like Kolb and Rasche lacked the punch that was need. It was Marc who suggested naming my bounty hunter ‘Brunner’. I was instantly drawn to the name, liking it for the connection to the heroic priest in the Bela Lugosi film White Zombie. Marc’s inspiration was even less obscure, being a contraction of Blade Runner. I only hope no one was expecting Harrison Ford when they started reading the stories in Blood Money!

  Cold, ruthless, brutal and pragmatic, Brunner is the protagonist of these stories, but not what I would call a hero. Certainly, he has his moments, but at the end of the day it is all about two things for him: money and revenge. In a more civilized setting, he’d be the villain of the piece. In a world as wracked with corruption and lurking evil as that of Warhammer, however, his brand of mercenary justice is often just what the situation demands. Indeed, it is the amoral versatility of Brunner that fits him so well into so many situations. There is, after all, almost nothing he would not hunt if the price is right and almost no-one he would not work for if they have the gold. I hope you will enjoy these stories as much as I enjoyed writing them.

  C.L. Werner

  May 25th, 2009

  FOREWORD

  It has been several years since I first began recording the adventures of the ruthless bounty killer Brunner. Originally published in cheap shilling dreadfuls in Tilea, I am surprised at how far these lurid publications have spread. Even the nobility of Parravon seems to have taken an interest in these stories and I am continually called upon by the Duc himself to recount further exploits of this sinister personage. There is undeniably something fascinating about a man of such amoral pragmatism, and it seems even more so to the Bretonnians, who are weaned from birth on elaborate codes of chivalry and honour.

  I have prepared this manuscript for publication as a single volume by Altdorf Press. In compiling these stories, I have delved deeply into my notes, spending many a long night reading the words of Brunner in all their chilling brutality. Revisiting the tales of Brunner, I am reminded of the old Miragliano witticism about
the best way to remove a rat from a hole being to send in a bigger rat. It is a bit of folk wisdom which is fearsomely appropriate when discussing the bounty hunter, as the story ‘Honour Among Vermin’ will illustrate.

  By way of introduction, it would be remiss of me to forget to state that I have decided to lead this collection of stories with a tale that was not told to me by Brunner himself, but which was instead related by a knight in service to the Viscount de Chagney. The one time I mentioned the matter to Brunner, the bounty hunter fixed me with his coldest stare and walked out into the street, abandoning his drink. I could not shake the impression that I was as near to tasting the edge of the Headsman against my neck as I have ever come. A terrifying moment, I can assure the reader and one which I do not intend to repeat. Without Brunner’s corroboration, I cannot vouch for the veracity of the story I have titled ‘What Price Vengeance’ and I leave it to the reader to decide what is truth and what is fiction.

  Ehrhard Stoecker

  Parravon

  I.C. 2509

  WHAT PRICE VENGEANCE

  The ragged group of riders slowly made their way through the craggy grey piles of jagged stone. The men wore dirty, unkempt clothes, their armour soiled by grime and fresh blood. Mud caked the legs of their steeds. The horses themselves moved slowly, their tired limbs rising and falling with an almost machine-like cadence. The animals were too tired even to protest the continuing march. Their masters, too, sagged in their saddles, fatigue wracking their bodies. They were no less spent than their animals, but, unlike the horses, a greater need urged them forward. In each of the bleary eyes that stared from the riders’ haggard faces there burned an ember, a tiny coal that kept their weather-beaten bodies in the saddle.

  The line of riders manoeuvred past an old, half-dead tree, its skeletal limbs pawing at the dark, rain-laden sky. Soon, the clouds would again unleash the storm.

  The riders hoped to achieve their destination before the rain came upon them once more, but rain, or no, they would take no shelter save that offered by the castle of Claudan de Chegney, son of the Viscount Augustine de Chegney.

  The men rode around the dead tree, their horses barely protesting the abrupt change in the tedium. The next to last horseman paused as he jerked his steed’s head about with the reins. He paused, then fell, his body crashing into the mud beneath him. The man lifted his arm, reaching toward the stirrup of his saddle, his hand trembling from cold and fatigue. He pulled on the stirrup for a moment, then his hand dropped back into the mud and he was still. From a rent in his brigandine, dark crimson seeped into the mud.

  ‘There goes Tonino,’ the rider in line behind the fallen man reported, his voice expressionless. He was a swarthy man, his moustached face split along one side by the grey slash of an old scar. The riders ahead of him turned in their saddles, tired eyes staring at the comrade who lay bleeding in the mud.

  The man at the head of the column nodded his head grimly. It was encased in a dark steel helmet, plated chin guards framing the man’s sharp features. The leader of the riders sighed, sagging a little more in the saddle as he made the sound. One hand released the reins to make the sign of the goddess Myrmidia in the air. Then, the leader turned about once more. After a moment, his men followed suit. Soon, the entire column of twenty had marched on, leaving the body in the mud, the horse to go where it would.

  ‘We shall just add Tonino to what is owed us,’ the leader of the riders declared, his voice low, harsh, and murderous. The tiny ember of vengeance burned a little more brightly in his eyes.

  Gourmand, steward to the Comte de Chegney, stared from the window of the watchtower that loomed above the gate of the foreboding castle that had once been home to the deposed House of von Drakenburg. For centuries, the barons von Drakenburg had guarded the pass through the Grey Mountains, protecting Imperial interests from the ambitions of their Bretonnian neighbours. But such was in the past. For five years now, the lord of the Schloss Drakenburg owed fealty not to the Emperor in Altdorf, but the king in Couronne. Or more precisely, the viscount in the Chateau de Chegney.

  Gourmand leaned a little forward from the window, looking over at the armoured man-at-arms by his side. He pointed with a knobby hand at a number of riders slowly making their way down the slope of the pass through the mountains.

  ‘Bandits?’ the soldier remarked, straining to make out more than the general outline of the men and their steeds.

  ‘Keep a watch on them,’ he said, clapping the soldier’s mailed shoulder. ‘They appear to be heading towards the castle. I will inform the comte and see what he wishes to do.’

  When Gourmand returned to the West Tower with his master, a young, dark-haired man who sported the rakishly short beard and moustache currently favoured in the great courts of Bretonnia, the riders had drawn much nearer indeed. Even the steward’s tired old eyes could make out the battered armour and bloodstained clothes, the mud-caked tack and harness, the wearily plodding steeds and swarthy skinned men.

  ‘Bandits, my lord,’ stated the sentry Gourmand had charged to keep an eye on the approaching riders.

  ‘Bandits thinking to storm a castle in the middle of a storm?’ the Comte de Chegney shook his head. ‘Mercenaries, more likely.’ As he made the observation, the nobleman peered still harder at the approaching men.

  ‘Whoever they are, they’ve seen some swordplay,’ said Gourmand, still covering the riders with a suspicious gaze. ‘Recently too. A few of them look as though their wounds are still fresh. Perhaps they are some free company that thought to raid villages and found the knights of Bretonnia more than they counted upon.’

  ‘By the Lady, I think I recognise them,’ the comte declared. ‘When last I was at my father’s house, he was engaging a band of Tileans. That man below I seem to remember as being their leader.’ Claudan de Chegney waved at the men below. The leading rider, a man in a tight-fitting steel helm, returned his greeting.

  ‘Call the archers off,’ Claudan told his steward. ‘I’d not turn away any man in such a state with the Grey Mountains in such an ill humour. That these men are of my father’s house makes it doubly my duty to shelter them.’

  ‘Your father would not think so,’ grumbled Gourmand, still regarding the riders dubiously.

  ‘I am not my father,’ the Comte de Chegney snapped, a brief flash of fire in his eyes.

  The Comte de Chegney was below in the courtyard when the gates opened and the motley group of haggard horsemen entered the Schloss Drakenburg. Two men-at-arms flanked him, each in the de Chegney livery, and by Gourmand. A scabbard and sword had been donned by the comte, but he wore no armour, the blade at his side more a facet of tradition and decorum than any foreboding of danger on his part. These men had already been in a battle, they were tired, and seemingly wounded to the man. Even were they not loyal to his father, men such as these could hardly pose any manner of threat in their condition.

  ‘Hail and well met,’ the leader of the troop called out to the Bretonnian noble, his words deeply accented as he translated the Tilean greeting into the softer tones of Bretonnia.

  ‘I welcome you to the Schloss de Chegney.’ Claudan said, though even he still thought of the castle as Schloss Drakenburg. ‘You may rest here, and shelter within my walls until the foul mood of the Grey Mountains has passed.’

  The leader of the horsemen smiled at the Comte de Chegney’s words. ‘Well, that is indeed kind of you, my lord. We were seeking cover from the rain when we sighted your castle. I hope that our presumption is forgiven.’ The man’s tones were the well-tutored semi-servile voice favoured by the mercenaries of Tilea, accustomed to deferring to the mad whims of the ruling merchant princes, while inwardly sneering at the idiocy of these same employers.

  ‘How came you to be abroad with a storm in the air?’ interrupted Gourmand. He stared past the leader’s sharp features, casting his gaze across the entire company. He noted the blood-caked weapons and armour, the tightly bound injuries. ‘And how came you to be in such a condition
? Set upon by orcs, perhaps?’ It was bait; anyone familiar with the region knew that there had been no orcs in this part of the Grey Mountains since the death of the Great Enchanter many long years past.

  ‘Your castle seems a bit shabby,’ the helmeted Tilean commented, ignoring Gourmand’s words. ‘Not like your father’s.’

  ‘I asked what happened to you,’ the steward repeated, stepping forward. A glower from the massive Tilean beside the leader made the elderly servant retreat past the closest man-at-arms. The brute favoured the servant with a gap-toothed grimace.

  ‘That’s the problem with wealth and position,’ the leader continued. ‘Someone always has a little more than you do.’

  ‘My steward asked you a question,’ the Comte de Chegney said, his voice flat. Now he too was becoming aware of the aura of menace about these men. He had almost forgotten that trickery and treachery had claimed the lord of this castle once before. Now they would do so again.

  ‘Still,’ the leader sneered, ‘that is the only problem with wealth and position.’

  The comte’s eyes were locked on the right hand of the Tilean mercenary, waiting for the villain to reach for his sword. Even as the Bretonnian drew his own blade, his eyes were still focused upon the right hand of his chosen foe. Claudan de Chegeny never saw the blade that whipped downwards to slash his throat. He would have understood the means of his death even less, the cunning Tilean device secreted in the sleeve of the mercenary captain, a coil of steel clenched between metal braces, triggered by pressure on a button-like contrivance to shoot a long-bladed dagger from the sleeve of the man’s tunic into the grip of his hand.