Witch Killer Read online

  The shrieking, whining skaven gave no thought to Thulmann and his comrades, scrambling around them as they fled before the malign power of the daemon. The witch hunters were of no mind to stop them. It was all they could do to control their own terror, to stand their ground before the towering daemon. The vermin lord’s laughter scratched and echoed through the cavern as it watched the skaven flee before it. Consigned to the darkness beyond, betrayed into death by the paws of its own kind, Kripsnik exulted in his brutal dominion over the ratmen.

  Thulmann looked around. The only ones still standing within the cavern were himself and the survivors of his group. Haussner’s flagellants were down, victims of the struggle against the skaven. Lajos was nowhere to be seen, lost in the tide of battle. Haussner sported a grievous wound that split one side of his face and carried on into the remains of his shoulder. Krieger favoured his left leg, the other wrapped tightly in a hastily improvised bandage. Of their group, only himself, Silja and the indefatigable Ehrhardt seemed largely without impairment.

  Kripsnik cocked his head in their direction, staring down at them, eyes gleaming with horrific intelligence and wicked mirth. Thulmann was struck again by the size of the daemon, easily three times as tall as any man. The vermin lord seemed to sense their despair, its mammoth jaws opening in a sneer. It spoke, its words clawing the minds of those who heard it, profaning the very souls that endured its susurrations. ‘Nice meat not flee. Kripsnik rend filth for Horned One.’

  Thulmann felt what valour lingered within him wither as the vermin lord strode towards them, its every step sending tiny ghost rats scurrying into nothingness. There was nothing he could do, nothing any man could do before such horror.

  ‘The voice of the daemon is heard in our land!’ The outburst rose from Haussner’s ruined lips. The zealot held the Deus Sigmar in his mangled left hand, his axe in his right. The crazed light of fanaticism shone in his wild-eyed stare. ‘It shall not be allowed to endure. It shall not profane the dominion of Lord Sigmar with its obscenity.’

  Haussner charged towards the daemon, armed with nothing more than his axe and his determination. The vermin lord regarded the witch hunter with something that might have been disbelief and lashed out at him with its claw. Haussner was ripped open by the massive talon, split from belly to breast. The fanatic crashed to the ground, wallowing in his own gore.

  Somehow, Haussner’s crazed charge electrified Thulmann. If a deluded fanatic’s faith could be so great, how could he demand less of his own resolve? Better to die a martyr, fighting to the last breath against the ruinous powers, than to flee before them and shame Sigmar with his cowardice. Thulmann tightened his grip on his sword and with an inarticulate roar, charged towards the slavering daemon. Still contemplating the wreck it had made of Haussner, the daemon did not react to Thulmann’s attack until the witch hunter’s sword slashed into its furry leg, digging deep through its unclean substance. Before his blessed blade, Kripsnik’s skin bubbled and smoked, the stink of sulphur adding to the cavern’s reek.

  The vermin lord snarled in pain, turning its massive body towards Thulmann. The witch hunter braced himself for death as he saw the daemon fix him with its eyes. He imagined the ripping talons of the monster tearing him to ribbons, but the blow never came. Thulmann had not been the only one to be shamed into action by Haussner’s death. He saw Ehrhardt’s armoured form, dwarfed by the mass of the daemon, chopping at the horror with his enormous sword. Gernheim, too, slashed and cut at the daemon, ignoring the spear-shaft a skaven had thrust into his side as he unleashed his mute fury on the monster.

  The witch hunter felt his pride in the heroism of his comrades wither when he saw Silja jabbing at the daemon’s flank with a spear she had recovered from one of the dead skaven. He’d been so wrapped up in his own guilt and shame that he hadn’t considered that Silja too was menaced by this abomination. He felt his stomach sicken when he saw Kripsnik reach down once more, seizing Gernheim in its claws. The daemon lifted the struggling man to its jaws, snapping its enormous fangs closed around him, biting off the man’s head and a massive portion of his torso in one bone-breaking chomp. How easily that could have been Silja’s fate.

  Thulmann attacked the daemon with renewed ferocity, slashing it savagely with his blade. Unlike the brutal blows of Ehrhardt and Gernheim, the cuts Thulmann dealt seemed to pain the creature, but any hope Thulmann had drained from him as he saw the steaming wounds slowly closing behind his sword. There were few mortal weapons that could do any lasting harm to a daemon’s ethereal substance. Even a blade blessed by the late grand theogonist himself was little more than a penknife against a thing like the vermin lord.

  Kripsnik swung his massive body around, focusing on the little human slicing away at its leg. The daemon snarled at the impudent little maggot. The daemon leaned down, sweeping its enormous hand along the ground. Silja dodged aside as the daemon’s claws flashed past her, but Thulmann, intent on his attack, was too slow in reacting. The back of Kripsnik’s hand threw Thulmann, sending him rolling across the ground. The witch hunter stopped himself just as he rolled near the edge of the crevasse, eyes staring into the limitless gloom that stretched away beneath him.

  ‘Templar,’ a shrill, terrified voice called out to him. At first Thulmann thought the daemon’s blow had rattled his senses, but as he painfully regained his feet, it came to him again. ‘Templar, you can’t beat him that way.’

  ‘Then I’ll die trying, Weichs,’ Thulmann hissed. He watched in agony as the vermin lord tried to stomp Silja with its hoof, the woman narrowly avoiding the daemon’s pounding step. He searched the ground near him for his sword, settling for a rusty skaven blade when he didn’t see his own.

  ‘It will kill her,’ the plague doktor said. ‘It will kill us all if you don’t listen to me!’

  This time Thulmann turned to face the heretic. At some point during the melee, Weichs had sought shelter beneath the huge skaven mining machines, cowering beneath their steel frames like a cringing cur. ‘Why should I believe you?’ Thulmann demanded.

  ‘Because I have read this,’ Weichs said. The plague doktor reached beneath his coat, removing the bloodstained bulk of Das Buch die Unholden. His own hide hadn’t been the only thing Weichs had tried to escape with during the battle. ‘I didn’t tell Skilk everything. I kept a little back, like how to deal with this horror should it actually respond to his ritual!’

  Thulmann glared at the physician. ‘Then do so, you scum!’ Weichs shook his head.

  ‘I don’t have the stomach for that sort of thing. I am quite content to leave that to fools like you.’ Weichs returned his hand to the inside of his coat, removing something else from the pockets within. He tossed a small sackcloth bag to Thulmann. ‘According to the book, the thing Skilk called into being exists only partially in our world. The rest of it is in whatever hell it came from. Cast the powder in that bag into its face, and it will materialise fully within our reality.’

  Thulmann fought down the impulse to hurl the packet into the crevasse. He could feel its cool, clammy evil, the unclean touch of sorcery about it. He glared back at Weichs, fingering the edge of the sword he held.

  ‘Don’t you understand! If you make it real, then it will act like any normal beast. It will bleed, templar. Steel will make it bleed!’

  Thulmann stared again at the little bag in his hand. It was vile, the foul product of sorcery, the handiwork of a murderous heretic. He couldn’t use such filth. There had to be another way, but he knew there was no time to find one. He had to act. The sorcerer’s filth was his only chance, their only chance. If he acted now, he could use it to send this abomination back to the abyss. He could force its evil to do good. Briefly, the image of Wilhelm Klausner and the evil he had embraced in the name of good flashed through his mind. The laughing faces of Freiherr Weichs and Erasmus Kleib danced before his eyes, men who had become monsters because they thought they could bring good from evil.

  The last of his doubts faded as he saw the vermin
lord turn towards Silja. With a howl of savage fury, Thulmann charged back towards the daemon. He tore open the sackcloth, hurling the black powder within into the rat-like face of Kripsnik. The daemon shielded its eyes with its claws, recoiling from the cloud of dust. Thulmann grabbed Silja, pushing her away from the daemon’s lashing tail. He waited, watching, expecting something to happen. The daemon did not so much as cry out, instead sneering down at him as the cloud dissipated and it unshielded its eyes. The powder had done nothing. Weichs had lied to him. He’d trusted the word of a heretic and he would die for it.

  Then Kripsnik threw back its head, bellowing in pain as Ehrhardt’s blade slashed into its leg once more. This time the wound did not close behind the steel. This time thick black blood jetted from the wound. This time tendons parted before the steel, bone splintered and flesh tore. The vermin lord howled as its maimed foot crumpled beneath its weight and it crashed to the ground with a thunderous impact.

  Kripsnik reared its head, glaring straight into Thulmann’s eyes. It knew what had happened and who had caused it. Thulmann turned and fled as the daemon scurried after him, crawling on all fours like some titanic rat. The witch hunter leapt across the crevasse, joining Weichs on the far side. The vermin lord followed him, lunging across the pit, crashing on the far side with an impact that set the digging machines rattling. Weichs retreated before the enraged daemon, but Thulmann turned and slashed at its face, cutting deep into its muzzle.

  With a bellowing roar, Kripsnik lunged for Thulmann, smashing into the mining machines head on. Thulmann was thrown back by the daemon’s impact, knocked from his feet as the mining machines shuddered across the floor. The world exploded into a whining, shrieking clamour. Thulmann risked a look back at the enraged daemon. It was only a few yards behind him, but pursuing the witch hunter had become the least of its concerns. In its headlong charge, the daemon’s massive bulk had struck the line of machines with the force of a thunderbolt. That impact had driven Kripsnik’s body hard against a pointed drill, the fury of its velocity impaling the monster’s chest on the device. The violence of its attempt to free itself had somehow caused the machine to become active, the churning drill slowly digging its way deeper and deeper into Kripsnik’s struggling bulk.

  Thulmann watched as the shrieking, wailing monster tried to pull itself free, oblivious to the path its struggles were leading it. There was almost something human about the expression that came over the vermin lord’s features as it suddenly felt its hindquarters hanging over empty space, but Kripsnik’s surprise had come too late to aid him. Unbalanced, the hulking daemon fell into the crevasse, the immense weight of the digging machine hurtling after it into oblivion.

  As the daemon disappeared from sight, Thulmann could feel the oppression in the air vanish and the chill stink of sorcery fade. However they had been brought about, the powers of Old Night had been driven back.

  ‘Masterful, absolutely masterful.’ Thulmann turned his eyes from the crevasse to see Weichs creeping towards him. The witch hunter stalked towards the old man, causing him to recoil in terror. ‘Your promise! You swore an oath!’ Thulmann glared at the plague doktor, seizing the tome the old man cradled in his arms. Weichs resisted for a second before deciding to relinquish his claim on the tome. The book was a small price to pay for his liberty. Thulmann studied the human-skin binding for a moment and then stuffed it under his arm, trying to contain his disgust. He stared again at Weichs, regretting the desperation that had made him agree to the villain’s bargain. Weichs smiled back at him, recognising the frustrated outrage in his expression.

  ‘You aren’t going to let him go,’ Silja exclaimed. Thulmann turned, discovering with some surprise that Silja and Ehrhardt had crossed the crevasse to join him. The witch hunter shook his head sadly.

  ‘I swore an oath,’ he said sadly. Silja gave him an incredulous look, as if doubting his sanity.

  ‘Given to a maggot, a murdering parasite,’ she swore. ‘Such an oath counts for nothing!’ Weichs trembled as the woman turned on him. ‘I didn’t swear any oath.’ Thulmann grabbed her by the arm, pulling her back to him.

  ‘I spoke for you as well as myself,’ Thulmann said. ‘My oath may not mean anything to you, but it does to me.’

  Weichs grinned at the two lovers, smoothing out his coat. He flicked a snide salute to Thulmann and turned to leave. He found his way blocked by Ehrhardt’s armoured bulk.

  ‘A templar of Sigmar does not speak for a knight of Morr,’ Ehrhardt’s sepulchral voice intoned. The knight’s armoured gauntlet closed around Weichs’s shoulder, lifting him from the ground. The plague doktor turned ashen with terror.

  ‘Stop him, Thulmann! Call him off!’ he screamed. Thulmann smiled as Ehrhardt carried Weichs towards the crevasse.

  ‘You heard the man, Herr Doktor,’ the witch hunter said. ‘The Order of Sigmar has no right to speak for the Black Guard of Morr.’

  A litany of curses and pleas rolled from Weichs as he struggled in Ehrhardt’s grip. At last the knight stood beside the crevasse. He extended his arm, holding Weichs above the black pit’s depths. ‘I think I’ll let you go after all,’ the knight said. ‘Morr can be most merciful.’

  Weichs’s last scream seemed to linger after him as he plummeted into the abyss.

  Thulmann held Silja close to him as they made their way back through the carnage. She found his sword lying near the altar and he found one of his pistols lying beneath a mangled ratman’s corpse. Ehrhardt made his way over to Krieger, helping the injured man back to his feet. Whatever the Black Guardsman felt about the man, he was not going to abandon him in the black depths of the skaven lair.

  As they made their way back towards the tunnels, Thulmann paused beside one of the smouldering warpstone lanterns. He watched its eerie green flames dance and shimmer. Silja sensed the change that came over him.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked. He looked at her and then down at the book cradled under his arm. Das Buch die Unholden glistened in the unholy light.

  ‘So much suffering, so much death over this abhorrent thing,’ Thulmann said, ‘so much evil unleashed in the world because of one book, one madman’s collection of corruption. It would be so easy to destroy it, here, now.’

  ‘Why don’t you?’ Silja asked. ‘Tell Zerndorff you didn’t find it. Tell him you couldn’t stop it from being destroyed.’

  Thulmann sighed. ‘It is a lie that would sit ill with me. For better or worse, Sforza Zerndorff is my superior, his order is my command.’ He held Silja tighter. ‘He is also a man who has a habit of seeing through deception. He is most zealous in pursuing those who offend him. No place in the Empire would be safe for us if I did that.’

  Thulmann felt the warmth of Silja Markoff against him. He felt the clammy chill of Das Buch die Unholden under his arm. He watched the green flames flicker and dance.

  Even after all these years, he still wanted things both ways.

  EPILOGUE

  Oblivion. Gregor Klausner embraced it eagerly, desperately as his corrupt body slipped back into the death it had perverted. His every waking moment had become a struggle, a battle against the unclean filth within him and the obscenity he had become. How much longer could he have continued that struggle, that hopeless fight to remain human? How much longer before he was a thing like Sibbechai, before in mind as well as body he became one of the accursed undead, a vampire? It was better to die while he was still a man and not a monster.

  Harsh grey light banished the darkness of oblivion, the tangy odour of blood exciting his senses, setting the abomination within him on fire. Gregor’s tongue licked his lips, finding them coated in warm, wet blood. The vampire could not subdue the hunger, licking his face clean before he could even begin to resist. When the compulsion faded, he reached to his chest, shocked to find that the arrow that had pierced his heart was gone. He turned his head, finding a body lying only a few feet away. For a moment he wondered if against all odds he had managed to overcome Streng even after having his heart skewer
ed, but a closer look showed him the body was not that of Streng, but some poor shepherd. Gregor saw the dead man’s youthful face, his features twisted in terror, his life stripped from him in a moment of crimson horror. Gregor hung his head, gripped by misery. He couldn’t even remember killing the boy. Somehow that made the murder even more terrible.

  ‘Don’t carry on so,’ a condescending voice said. ‘You didn’t do anything to him.’ Gregor looked up, finding the necromancer Carandini standing nearby, one of his cadaverous crows perched on his shoulder. ‘The poor lad simply had the misfortune to fall on somebody’s knife.’ The Tilean made a show of replacing his bloody dagger in its sheath.

  ‘Why?’ Gregor demanded. The necromancer smiled at him.

  ‘We needed his blood,’ Carandini replied. Gregor shook his head.

  ‘No, why did you bring me back?’ he asked. ‘Why couldn’t you let me stay dead?’

  ‘I was tempted,’ Carandini warned. ‘I must say you disappointed me terribly. That man was injured and unarmed, yet somehow you conspired to let him kill you. One might think you have some kind of death wish.’

  Gregor glared at the sneering sorcerer. ‘I only want to die. You had no right to bring me back.’

  ‘I thought you might still be useful to me,’ Carandini said. ‘That was all the reason I needed.’ The necromancer removed a small silver icon from his pocket. Gregor cringed when he saw it, feeling it sting his eyes. The Tilean laughed at his discomfort. ‘You see, I know you will try harder next time, because you know now that I can bring you back any time I choose. Every time you are restored a little bit less of what was once you comes back. The vampire becomes even stronger.’

  Gregor tried to force himself to look at the icon Carandini held, but knew he could not. The light of Sigmar had abandoned him, now he was a profane thing and the talismans of his god were anathema to him. Even the simple silver hammer Carandini held reviled him.