Dead Winter Page 8

  Hugo turned his head, watching as the mob threw torches onto the roof of the house. ‘Maybe… maybe they really did kill this man,’ he tried to convince himself. ‘Maybe what they’re doing is right.’

  ‘They’re murderers,’ Walther told him. He pointed his thumb at the tanner’s throat. ‘This wasn’t cut. It was bitten. Gnawed.’

  Hugo stared in shock at the body, unable to believe what he’d heard. ‘Bitten? We’re in the middle of Nuln! What kind of animal would be able to do this in the middle of the city and sneak away?’

  The rat-catcher didn’t answer him. He was staring instead at the three little black dogs. Each of the ratters was trembling, their fierce little hearts filled with a conflicting mix of eagerness and fear. Their ears were flat against their heads, their bodies tense, poised for the attack. Despite the heavy odours of the tannery, the dogs had caught the scent of the man’s killer. What was more, they recognised it.

  Walther rose to his feet and whistled for the dogs. Despite the evidence of his eyes, he wasn’t ready to believe. It was insane to even consider such a thing. If he was right, then Erwin had been killed by a rat, his throat gnawed to bits by the chiselled fangs of an enormous rodent, a monster the size of a full grown sheep! He wasn’t ready to permit the existence of such a horror!

  Yet, as he walked away from the tannery, as he turned his back on the little stone house engulfed in flames, the rat-catcher’s mind mulled over what such a nightmarish creature could mean to him.

  There was a lot of money to be made catching normal rats. How much more might there be in hunting down a giant?

  Middenheim

  Kaldezeit, 1111

  Middenheim was unique among the city-states of the Empire, rising high above the forests and meadows of Middenland. The entire city was built upon the flattened stump of rock the dwarfs called Grazhyakh Grungni – Grungni’s Tower. Men called it the Fauschlag and the Ulricsberg, believing that once it had been a great mountain sacred to the god Taal. God of the wild places, Taal governed nature with his wife Rhya and a congress made up of all the animals. Because of the creature’s craft and guile, Taal expelled the wolf from this congress, an act which incensed Ulric. To bring peace between the gods, Taal gave his sacred mountain to his brother. In a fit of rage, Ulric struck the top of the mountain with his axe, shattering it and leaving the flattened stump behind.

  The dwarfs had helped the ancient Teutogen tribes to settle upon the flattened peak, providing the humans with a natural fortress unrivalled in all the Empire. Over the centuries, four great causeways were built, rising from the plains below to converge upon Middenheim from each direction. Mighty walls were erected about the perimeter of the stump, forming an impregnable barrier against any enemy. For over a thousand years, Middenheim had stood inviolate, a bastion for humanity in the wild northlands.

  Prince Mandred toured the battlements of the Ulricsberg, feeling the brisk mountain wind whip through his fur cloak. He often walked the battlements, enjoying the view the walls afforded. He could look out across the sprawl of Middenland, picking out the keeps and villages scattered across his father’s forested realm. Early in the morning, the mist obscured everything, making it seem as though the city was adrift upon a sea of cloud. Then would come that magical moment when the rising sun burned away the fog and the realm suddenly stood revealed before his eyes.

  Normally, Mandred found that moment the most enchanting vision in the world, but today the sight was blemished, corrupted by feelings of guilt and shame. As the fog burned away, he could see the squalid cluster of tents and shacks sprawled at the base of the Ulricsberg between the northern and eastern causeways. Ar-Ulric’s prediction that the plague would spread had been borne out. Thousands of refugees had abandoned their homes, fleeing before the approach of the dreaded Black Plague. From places as far apart as Solland and Nordland they came, hoping to escape the creeping contagion. Some came because of the perceived strength and invulnerability of the Ulricsberg, many more came because Middenheim was the holy city of Ulric and they hoped to gain their god’s protection by being close to his great temple and the Sacred Flame.

  Hope had drawn these people here, but that hope had been betrayed by Graf Gunthar. Mandred felt a cold rage building inside him every time he thought about his father’s cruel decree. There was enough room atop the Ulricsberg to shelter the refugees. The springs deep within the mountain provided Middenheim with more than enough water. True, food would be a problem, but through careful rationing that obstacle could be overcome. Many of the noblemen could do with skipping a few meals.

  It galled Mandred to think of his father as such a callous tyrant. Even from the height of the city walls, the squalor and misery of the shantytown was obvious. The refugees had been condemned to a slow and shameful death, a death of neglect and starvation. The toll once the snows came would be hideous.

  Mandred’s jaw tightened. He had reached a decision. Turning upon his heel, he called for his bodyguard, a hulking bald-headed knight named Franz. The boisterous dienstmann was the prince’s constant companion; ostensibly his protector, he seldom had the stamina to deny Mandred’s impetuous decisions. Graf Gunthar had often reprimanded the knight, decrying him as the prince’s accomplice rather than his guardian.

  ‘Fetch our horses,’ Mandred told the knight. ‘I’m going for a ride.’

  An uneasy expression came across Franz’s face. He could see the direction of the prince’s gaze when Mandred had been looking down from the battlements. ‘Surely you’re not going to Warrenburg, your grace.’

  Anger flashed in the boy’s eyes. ‘What did you call the refugee camp?’ he demanded.

  The hulking Franz looked away, his face darkening with embarrassment. ‘The soldiers call it “Warrenburg”, your grace. Because it’s all confused and disordered. Like a rabbit warren.’

  ‘These people have suffered enough,’ Mandred said. ‘I don’t think their dignity needs to be insulted any more than it already has.’

  ‘Yes, your grace,’ Franz hastily agreed, clicking his heels together in stiff, soldierly fashion. ‘But I must ask why your grace wishes to go down there. It isn’t the sort of thing a prince should be doing.’

  ‘Those people came here looking for help,’ Mandred told the knight. ‘Now they have been betrayed and abandoned. Someone has to let them know they haven’t been forgotten, that not everyone up here is blind to their suffering.’

  ‘His highness won’t be happy, your grace,’ Franz said.

  ‘You let me worry about the Graf,’ Mandred said. ‘Just have the horses ready.’

  Mandred felt proud as he rode towards the East Gate, proud to defy the unjust position adopted by his father, proud to be standing up for the dignity of his fellow man. There was a time, he knew, when Graf Gunthar would have been proud too. He could still remember the day when his father had stripped a despotic raugraf of his lands and title for the crime of abusing his peasants. The Graf had explained his actions to his son, observing that no matter how high a man’s station, he had to remember that he was still a man and answerable to the gods for his actions. The most noble house could make itself baser than the lowest virgater by its own deeds.

  How base, then, had the Graf made his own house by abandoning the refugees? How much greater was his crime than that of the cruel raugraf?

  Mandred would set things right. As much as it was within his power, he would atone for his father’s cruelty. But first he had to see for himself first-hand the situation in the refugee camp. Perhaps if he reported to his father the way things stood, he could make the Graf appreciate that these were people, not some faceless complication to be dismissed with a wave of his hand.

  Franz was visibly uneasy as they rode through the market district towards the massive gatehouse which opened onto the eastern causeway. The bald knight kept looking over his shoulder, staring off in the direction of the Middenplatz and the Graf’s palace. Mandred felt a twinge of sympathy for his bodyguard. Franz had always been
a loyal retainer, devoted to Mandred but obedient to the Graf. Never before had the prince placed him in a position where he had to choose between his loyalties. It made him happy to know Franz had sided with him.

  The prince saluted the guards stationed at the gate. ‘Raise the portcullis,’ he called down to them.

  The soldiers looked nervously at one another. The sergeant in command of the gate advanced towards Mandred’s horse. ‘Your grace, his highness the Graf has ordered that no one is to leave the city.’

  ‘That order doesn’t apply to me,’ Mandred said, adopting his most imperious tone, a tone of such arrogance that it brooked no defiance. Every peasant was born to obey such a voice, to defer to the superiority of their noble lords. The sergeant was no exception. Turning back to his men, he started to give the order to raise the gate.

  What stopped him was the sound of galloping horses. Through the cobbled streets of the market district, a squadron of cavalry came thundering towards the gate. The snowy wolf-pelts and crimson armour the knights wore marked them as White Wolves. At their head, his dark blue robe fluttering about him, rode Graf Gunthar himself.

  The sergeant saluted as the cavalry drew rein before the gate, but he went ignored by the Graf. His face crimson with anger, the Graf walked his horse between Mandred and the gate. ‘What do you think you are doing?’ Graf Gunthar snarled.

  For an instant, Mandred cowered before his father’s wrath. Then the thought that right was on his side put steel back into his spine. The prince stared defiantly into his father’s eyes. ‘I’m doing what you should have done,’ he said. ‘I’m going down there and helping the refugees.’

  Mandred wasn’t sure what kind of response he expected, but it wasn’t the one he got. Graf Gunthar’s face went white, his eyes shined with horror. Before Mandred could react, his father’s hand smacked against his face with such violence the prince was nearly knocked from the saddle.

  ‘Get back to the palace,’ Graf Gunthar snarled, his voice trembling. Mandred stared in confusion when he heard that tone. It was the voice of a man on the edge of panic. He looked at his father, noticing his body shivering under the rich blue robe. He’d left the palace in such haste he hadn’t even paused to don a cloak against the winter chill.

  Remembering why his father had left the palace, all sympathy drained out of the prince’s heart. ‘I won’t,’ he growled back. ‘Someone has to help those people.’

  Colour rushed back into the Graf’s face. His body stiffened as anger swelled up inside him. ‘You’d like to bring them inside our walls?’ he challenged. ‘Bring all those sick people up here, pack them in with our own, shelter them in our own homes? And when they bring the plague into Middenheim what will you do then? What will you tell our people when they lie sick and dying in the streets? What will you tell our people when they throw their dead over the Cliff of Sighs?’

  More than the slap against his face, the Graf’s words made Mandred reel. The prince shook his head, stubbornly trying to defy the ghastly logic of his father’s words.

  ‘Our duty is to our own people,’ Graf Gunthar told him. ‘Not to strangers.’ His expression softened, he reached to grip his son’s shoulder. ‘Believe me, if we could help those people without endangering the city…’

  Mandred shook off his father’s hand, his mind refusing to accept the grim reality the Graf had resigned himself to. He had done his father an injustice when he had called him a tyrant. He wasn’t cruel. He was scared.

  But that still didn’t make him right.

  Without saying a word, Mandred turned his horse and started back into the city. Franz followed behind him. The boy scowled at his bodyguard. There was only one person who could have told his father about what he was doing.

  ‘You don’t have to come with me,’ Mandred told the knight. ‘I’ll behave myself now. You can stay with my father.’

  Bitterness and a feeling of betrayal poured venom into Mandred’s voice as he galloped ahead of Franz.

  ‘You’ve shown me where your loyalty lies.’

  Skavenblight

  Kaldezeit, 1111

  The stink of stagnant water and swamp seepage created an atmosphere almost sufficient to blot out the rotten odour of the plague priest. Within the confines of the stone-walled vault, the smell of the ratman’s mouldering green robes and mangy fur was enough to turn the stomach of even another skaven.

  Perched atop a heap of broken masonry, Warlord Krricht pressed a blood-soaked rag to his nose in an effort to stifle the reek. The dozen armoured stormvermin surrounding the warlord weren’t so fortunate, coughing and wheezing as their keen noses rebelled against the stink.

  The plague priest cared nothing for the discomfort of the other skaven, his warty lip pulling away from his fangs in an expression of contempt. The simpering flea-lickers of Clan Mors were no true children of the Horned One. They were ignorant of the true face of the Horned Rat, unable or unwilling to embrace the pernicious glory of their god. They would learn, however. Like the rest of skavendom, they would join the Pestilent Brotherhood or they would perish.

  Poxmaster Puskab Foulfur pulled back the tattered hood of his habit, exposing a face hideous with decay. The patchy remnants of once-white fur were darkening into a jaundiced yellow. The bare flesh of his cheeks was rotten and leprous, strings of muscle gleaming wetly where the skin had peeled away entirely. A pair of crooked antlers sprouted from his scalp, stained with filth and pitted with decay. Only the priest’s eyes seemed alive, shining from the shadows of deep sockets, blazing with a fanatic intensity.

  Warlord Krricht shifted uneasily upon his perch. He had selected this meeting place because he could arrive early and claim the high ground. Skaven respected height – they were naturally subservient to those who could look down upon them. In any negotiation, it was the wise ratman who assumed a dominant position without a single word being uttered or a single drop of musk being vented into the air.

  Unfortunately, Puskab wasn’t fazed by the warlord’s dominant position and as for the musk of supremacy, even if Krricht had secreted it there was no chance the diseased priest would smell it over his own filthy odours. The warlord looked anxiously at his coughing bodyguard, grinding his teeth at their display of weakness in the face of the plague priest. He had counted upon them to present a formidable sight, to cow Puskab with their menacing presence if all else failed. They were a dozen to the three plague monks which had accompanied Puskab, that should have been enough to intimidate the representative of Clan Pestilens. Instead, his stormvermin made a pathetic spectacle of themselves instead of bracing up and performing their duty!

  Krricht took another whiff of his bloody rag and stared down at Puskab through watery eyes.

  ‘We have heard much-much about the great Poxmaster,’ Krricht said, his voice drifting between a squeak and a growl. ‘Man-things call new pestilence “Black Plague”. It will kill much-much. Leave man-things ready for conquest.’

  Puskab leaned his bloated bulk against the knobbly wooden staff clutched in his leprous paw. He peered up at the warlord through malicious eyes. ‘Why Clan Mors seek-want squeak-speak with Vrask Bilebroth?’ he snarled.

  Krricht lashed his tail in amusement. For all their show of religious fanaticism and zealous devotion, Clan Pestilens was just as grasping and selfish as any other skaven, their ranks rife with rivalry and petty ambition. Bilebroth was Puskab’s chief rival – the spies Krricht had hired couldn’t quite agree if Puskab had stolen the secret of the Black Plague from Bilebroth or if Bilebroth had tried to steal credit for the new plague from Puskab. For his purposes, it didn’t really matter. It was enough that the feud was there and waiting to be exploited.

  ‘Clan Mors wants a friend in Clan Pestilens,’ Krricht explained. ‘We didn’t want to presume upon so renowned a skaven as Poxmaster Puskab, so we approached a lesser priest instead.’ The warlord bobbed his head in an appeasing gesture. ‘Great Warlord Vrrmik says even the Council of Thirteen speaks of Puskab Foulfur.’


  Was that a flicker of alarm that passed through the plague priest’s yellow eyes? Krricht twitched his whiskers in amusement. Even the feared Puskab knew fear at mere mention of the Lords of Decay. Grey Seer Skrittar’s actions at the council meeting had aggrandised Puskab at the expense of Arch-Plaguelord Nurglitch. Hardly the sort of thing to assure Puskab’s position as Nurglitch’s favourite.

  ‘What does Mors-meat want-want from Pestilens?’ Puskab growled.

  ‘Alliance,’ the warlord said, gesturing with his bloody rag at his warriors and Puskab’s plague monks. ‘Mors offers warriors to help Pestilens. You will help us by using the Black Plague against the dwarf-things.’

  Puskab’s decayed lips exposed his blackened fangs in a sneer. ‘Lord Vecteek tell-say use-use plague against man-things. Council vote to do what Vecteek say-tell!’

  ‘Vecteek claim-want too much power!’ Krricht hissed. ‘Takes name-title of Grey Lord. He thinks he is better than council. Thinks Rictus-rats should rule all Under-Empire!’

  A wracking cough shook Puskab’s bloated frame. It took Krricht some time to realise the plague priest was laughing at him. His fur bristled as he realised the filthy monk was mocking him.

  ‘Clan Rictus powerful. Mighty. Best warriors. Many black-furs.’ Puskab’s bulk quivered with renewed amusement. ‘Clan Mors not so powerful. Not so many black-furs.’

  ‘You could change that,’ Krricht hurriedly squeaked. He waved his claw through the air. ‘Change-fix plague so that it will sick-kill Rictus-rats. Break Vecteek! Vrrmik take much-great power without Vecteek. Share-gift some-much to Clan Pestilens.’

  Puskab’s yellow eyes narrowed with suspicion. Krricht licked his fangs, waiting to see how the plague priest would react to such treasonous words. Clan Pestilens might be disinterested in helping Mors overwhelm the dwarfs, but no skaven could ignore the promise of a better position on the council.