Witch Finder Read online

  At one hour of the clock, an ancient fertility rite of the Old Faith might be found beside the foul practices of the Arabyan snake cults. At the next, it might have moved much deeper within the book, lurking between a necromancer’s spell for instilling vigour in undead automatons, or a Norse shaman’s ritual for bestowing the curse of the werekin upon a warrior. The words themselves were cryptic, written in a dazzling array of languages, every sentence ridden with double-meanings and deliberate contradictions. Some of the ciphers the long-dead witches and enchanters had used to guard their spells were among the most complex Furchtegott had ever seen. Even without the book’s malevolent trickery, dredging anything useful from its pages was a study in frustration.

  He should have destroyed the damned thing, reduced it to slag with his own spells. But he allowed its power to seep back into the air around him. No, anger would not help him now. He had to keep his mind clear, to consider his best course of action.

  Baron von Gotz was deteriorating at a faster pace than Furchtegott had imagined possible. Whatever the spell had been, it was working its unholy sorcery swiftly. The wizard reflected on how easily that first spell had revealed itself to him, that ritual said to preserve a man against the ravages of disease and plague. It had been almost as if Das Buch die Unholden had abandoned its usual tricks and misdirection in order to ensure Furchtegott’s ruin.

  Furchtegott looked over at the heavy beechwood shelves that loomed against the walls of his workshop. The accursed grimoire would not help him, but he had other resources to draw upon. A wizard of the gold order was an alchemist as well as a conjurer, and the array of chemicals, powders and elixirs resting upon those shelves represented the tools of his art. Among them were compounds and concoctions so deadly that even the most murderous Tilean poisoner would hesitate to employ them.

  It had become a choice of life or death – the baron’s life or his own. Furchtegott realised that there was really no choice at all. He walked to the shelf and removed an iron bottle. The way the baron was gorging himself, Furchetgott was certain that there would be ample opportunity for the contents to find their way into his stomach.

  Herr Doktor Freiherr Weichs sucked at his finger as he studied the prone figure lying on the floor of the cage. Quite an interesting specimen, he concluded, ignoring the unease that flickered deep within his subconscious. The skaven had dragged him from the river, so the claw leader that brought the man to Weichs had claimed. Not the most healthy of environments in the best of times, and with his manufactured plague still ravaging the city, these certainly were not the best of times. Still, mere sickness seemed an inadequate explanation of the man’s many abnormalities. His temperature was far colder than it should have been. Respiration and pulse were so faint as to be almost imperceptible. And, of course, there was that thick treacle that oozed from the man’s forearm when Weichs had cut him. The doktor had seen much blood in his life, but he would swear that the filth slopping through the specimen’s veins was not blood. Even the black pollutant that coursed through the bodies of the skaven had more in common with human blood than what he had drawn from the man’s wound.

  A mutant, Weichs decided, but not like any he had studied, or even created. It was unfortunate that the specimen seemed to have lapsed into some form of coma. The sharp smell of rat musk drew Weichs from his thoughts. The scientist turned around to observe Skilk and his bodyguard scuttling through his laboratory, causing the skaven working the larger furnaces and the presses to abase themselves and squirt their pungent fear-scent.

  ‘Doktor-man,’ Skilk snickered as the horned skaven hobbled toward Weichs. ‘Progress? Like-hear much-much.’

  ‘I am trying some new compounds,’ Weichs explained, unable to keep the fear from his voice. The words clearly did not appease his inhuman patron. Grey Seer Skilk’s face split in a menacing smile, his fangs like daggers. Weichs took a step back, fearful that Skilk’s patience had finally reached its limit. Suddenly, the ratman’s head cocked to one side, whiskers twitching.

  ‘Man-thing die-die soon,’ Skilk declared as he peered into the cage. ‘Doktor-man make bad-drink?’ The grin was back on its verminous face.

  ‘No.’ Weichs protested. ‘He was brought here in that condition by your people. My potions will help him, make him strong again.’ Skilk chittered his laughter, shaking his head. Somehow, watching the skaven make such a common human gesture was more unsettling than his natural habits.

  ‘Death-smell never false-speak,’ Skilk stated, one claw tapping the side of his snout. ‘Die-die quick-soon. Food for doktor-man’s warren.’ The colour drained from Weichs’ face. Of all the disgusting habits of his skaven patrons, their penchant for human flesh was the vilest. Any meat would appease their voracious appetites, even that of their own kind. Man-flesh was no different. Weichs had long ago been forced to allow his subjects to be consumed when they expired from his experiments. The scientist averted his eyes, trying not to think any more upon the gruesome subject.

  ‘I have a few new preparations I will be trying on the latest batch of subjects,’ Weichs announced, gesturing for the skaven priest-sorcerer to follow him. Skilk waited for the man to lead the way. Skaven leaders were especially wary of allowing their underlings to linger behind them – at least those leaders who hoped to live very long.

  Skilk listened as Weichs prattled about his latest experiments, his black soul secretly mocking the man. Weichs was clever, for a human, but stupid too. He really did believe Skilk was interested in finding a way to unlock the healing properties of warpstone. The idiot. Skilk was not sick. What did he care about curing disease? The doktor-man was too foolish to see that Skilk was studying the effects of warpstone upon the human form, learning how much or how little was needed to corrupt it. Men were a violent, frightful breed, their minds moved by strange motivations and imaginings. They could not endure the taint of mutation among their own, unless that taint manifested in one of the nestlings produced by their own breeder. Then they would try to defend what they would otherwise destroy, forming strange alliances to protect their own from those they had formerly called protectors.

  It was another of the many weaknesses that pervaded the human race, their curious affection toward others of their kind at the expense of their own well-being. It made little sense to Skilk, and the grey seer had spent his entire life studying humans after the example of his mentor, Grey Seer Kripsnik. But Skilk did not need to understand it to exploit it, any more than Kripsnik had truly understood the human lust for the yellow metal when he conceived of flooding the lands of men with poisoned coins. It was enough to know that the weakness was there, waiting to be used. The world of men would tear itself apart from within.

  Skilk would be the instrument of that final triumph, polluting their cities in ways that the plague monks of Clan Pestilens and the warlock-engineers of Clan Skryre had never dared imagine. Then it would be his name, not that of Thanquol or Gnawdoom or Skrittar, that would be pre-eminent among the Order of the Grey Seers, he who would be acknowledged as the one true prophet of the Horned Rat.

  The grey seer’s paws scratched at his fur as he listened to Weichs’ explanation, its own secret dreams and ambitions kept secret behind the skaven’s beady eyes.

  The dank stench of the sewers was overwhelming, overpowering even that of the shambling shapes that silently marched alongside him. Carandini would have preferred the noxious reek of his zombies. To him, the stench of death and decay was comforting. It smelled like power.

  The necromancer exerted his will, compelling the two zombies carrying him through the effluent river beneath Wurtbad’s streets to stop. The former priests of Morr complied, their ungainly husks swaying slightly as Carandini’s weight shifted. The Tilean scowled as he considered how very close he had come to being dropped into the mire that soaked the zombies’ feet.

  ‘The mighty deathmaster fears getting his feet wet?’ a hissing voice laughed from the shadows. Carandini could see Sibbechai’s smouldering eyes in the darkness
. The necromancer silently cursed the vampire. Let it laugh, he told himself, for the necromancer would laugh louder when he spat on Sibbechai’s ashes and stamped them into the dust.

  ‘Are we near the castle yet?’ Carandini demanded. Wurtbad’s sewers were not extensive, certainly not so all-encompassing as those of Altdorf or Nuln, where the entire city was served by a network of underground canals and channels. The sewers of Wurtbad extended only beneath the wealthier districts, allowing the elite of the city to enjoy the same comforts they enjoyed when travelling to the Empire’s other great cities. The brick-lined tunnels conducted the waste out into the Stir, spoiling the riverfront even as the noses of the wealthy were spared.

  The vampire’s skeletal face leered. It had been Sibbechai’s plan to use the sewers. It had returned to its lair after reconnoitring the area around the Schloss von Gotz, its travels taking it close to the river and the culverts that drained the sewers into the Stir. Carandini had to reluctantly admit that Sibbechai’s plan was well plotted, if odious.

  ‘Not so far now,’ Sibbechai pronounced. ‘We are beneath the royal quarter.’ Carandini did not bother to ask the vampire how it could know such things. The supernatural senses of the undead were impossible for a mortal mind to comprehend.

  Suddenly, the vampire snapped around. Carandini could see its lips pull away from its fangs. Sibbechai seemed to glide toward the wall, its feet causing not even a ripple upon the foul waters. Its clawed hand reached out, pulling one brick free. Carandini expected mud or dirt to spill from the wall, but instead there was only darkness. Sibbechai tossed the brick into the filth at its feet.

  ‘It seems we are not the only sappers beneath Wurtbad,’ Sibbechai mused.

  ‘Some thief’s strongbox,’ Carandini postulated. The vampire shook its head.

  ‘I can feel the air stirring here. It must open into a tunnel of some kind, not some ruffian’s hiding place.’ Carandini snapped his fingers, motioning for the zombies to advance. The rotting workers began to chip at the wall with picks and hammers.

  ‘This tunnel of yours may be an old escape route from the castle,’ Carandini observed. ‘If it is, our work shall be much easier.’

  ‘There are many fell powers in the night, necromancer,’ Sibbechai declared. ‘Some of them older and more merciless even than the houses of the vampires.’ His eyes shone with a terrible intensity. ‘If you still pray to any of the gods of men, pray that we find only dirt and stone and nothing more.’

  Carandini watched as the opening in the sewer wall grew, finding Sibbechai’s words of warning more frightful than the monster’s threats. It was not wise to ponder what manner of creature could evoke caution in a powerful vampire.

  A curse echoed about the old torture chamber, as Streng tossed aside his shovel to remove the large stone that disturbed his digging. Thulmann could not quite kill the smirk that grew on his face; his henchman never did have the heart for manual labour. The heaps of dirt set against the walls continued to rise. The witch hunters might not be experienced miners, but their enthusiasm was a worthy surrogate. Stripped to the waist, the templars attacked the blocked tunnel with vigour, hacking away at the earth and stone as though it were the neck of an enemy. Captain-Justicar Ehrhardt stood in reserve, powerful arms folded across his chest, waiting for the diggers to uncover any large stones that his immense strength could remove.

  Thulmann could well understand the drive that motivated these men. The skaven had violated the sanctity of their chapter house, caused the ignoble death of their comrades. Already the diggers had uncovered one of their brethren, crushed and suffocated by the tunnel’s collapse. The steady pace of the diggers had increased after that discovery, more eager than ever to come to grips with the loathsome underfolk.

  It was not thoughts of retribution that stirred Thulmann’s mind. Hanzel Gruber was dead; whatever the plague doktor could have told had died with him. His killers were now the only link to Weichs. The witch hunter looked at the hole his men were tearing into, almost wishing to see a rodent’s snout, furry bodies and clawed hands spill into the chapter house. Thulmann gripped the pistols in his hands. He would need to be careful with his shots. Some of the underfolk could speak and understand enough Reikspiel to converse with men. If Thulmann could capture such a beast, it might have some very interesting things to tell him. He looked at the two Wurtbader templars beside him, their pistols held at the ready. He had given orders to shoot to maim, hoping that they could master their emotions long enough to show restraint.

  Thulmann spun around as a foot struck the stone floor behind him. It was not some rat-faced fiend, but one of the chapter house’s young page boys. The boy’s eyes were on the filthy carcass Streng had dragged from the corridor outside and thrown into a corner of the chamber.

  ‘You should not be here,’ Thulmann stated. ‘Go back upstairs.’

  ‘There is a visitor to see you, sir,’ the page reported. ‘Silja Markoff. Should I send her down?’ The boy’s eyes strayed back to the unnatural carcass of the skaven. Silja had seen enough horror for one night. The least that Thulmann could do was spare her the sight of such an abomination.

  ‘No,’ he replied. ‘I will see her in the reception hall. Please tell her I will be come to her directly.’ The page needed no further encouragement, hurrying from the subterranean chamber. Thulmann gave orders to the men to maintain their vigilance while he was gone, encouraging them to take one of the ratmen alive if at all possible.

  His thoughts turned to Silja, and the purpose of her arriving so late. The witch hunter sighed as he mounted the steps. The last thing he needed to hear this night was more bad news.

  CHAPTER TEN

  ‘We should do something about the slums.’ The voice of Baron von Gotz was like the sound of a dog slobbering into its water dish, a nauseating, wet lapping noise. Furchtegott cringed as the baron spoke, struggling not to picture that grotesque parody of a mouth. The wizard had drawn the heavy curtains about the baron’s bed, advising the nobleman to avoid drafts, yet, even with that ghastly bulk obscured, he could not vanquish the image from his mind.

  ‘They are a breeding place for the plague,’ the baron continued, noisily biting into the plate of mutton that rested in bed with him. ‘The sooner they are removed, the sooner my city shall be free of the Stir blight. Besides, they obscure my view of the river.’ The baron laughed, causing Furchtegott to think of swine wallowing in a pigpen.

  ‘As you say, excellency,’ Furchtegott replied, trying to keep his dinner down. Why by all the gods was he not dead? The wizard had chosen three of the deadliest substances known to his order, fairly drenched the nobleman’s food in the stuff, and still he would not die. He didn’t even seem to notice the poison, continuing to glut his insatiable hunger upon an unrelenting tide of dishes. He’d eaten enough to feed a battalion in the last few hours, and ingested enough poison to kill an entire army. And Furchtegott was becoming hard pressed to keep the servants out, to intercept the baron’s meals at the door.

  He shuddered, reaching for a bowl of soup the baron had yet to slurp down. The wizard removed the iron bottle from his bag, upending it and draining its contents into the soup. Troll vomit was one of the most caustic acids a man could find, capable of gnawing through just about anything if given enough time. Only magic kept it from eating through its bottle, but no magic would contain its deadly bite once it was resting in the baron’s bloated belly. It would chew its way through the walls of his stomach, rip its way free of his flesh. It was the most horrible way to die that the wizard could imagine, aside from the loathsome metamorphosis already consuming the baron. But the troll acid simply had to work. It was his last hope.

  The sound of angry voices outside the door turned the wizard’s attention away from the baron’s bed. Furchtegott had just risen to his feet when the door swung inward, a flush-faced Lord Markoff stalking inside like a rabid wolf, the guards hurrying behind him.

  ‘What is the meaning of this outrage?’ Furchtegott demanded.
‘The baron is not receiving visitors.’ The wizard lifted his hand, pointing imperiously at the open door. ‘Get out of here.’

  ‘Save your crooked words and twisted spells, sorcerer,’ snarled Markoff, the fury in his voice causing Furchtegott to involuntarily flinch. ‘My words are for the baron, not his simpering lapdog.’ The two guards exchanged nervous glances, their halberds held at the ready. Furchtegott did not know what bribes or threats Markoff had used to force his way inside, but it was clear they were regretting their decision now. Two armed soldiers against the unarmed Lord High Justice might not be the one-sided affair they had imagined.

  ‘Do I hear voices?’ the baron slobbered. It was Markoff’s turn to flinch, the colour draining from his face. Sigmar’s grace, was that the baron’s voice? ‘Do I hear my dear Lord High Justice?’

  ‘Yes, excellency,’ replied Furchtegott. ‘You must tell him to leave. He is disturbing your rest.’ Sweat was streaming down the wizard’s forehead. If Markoff threw aside those curtains, if he saw the thing lying upon the bed…

  ‘I will not leave,’ Markoff snapped. ‘There are things I must discuss with your excellency. Crimes that must be addressed.’ The magistrate’s words dripped menace like the venom of an adder, his cold tone belying the terrible anger boiling just below the surface. Furchtegott could see the guards grow tense as Markoff spoke.