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The Wages of Terror - C L Werner

About the Author

An Extract from ‘Cursed City’

A Black Library Publication

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The Wages of Terror

C L Werner

The tavern that bore the sign of the Black Ship was crowded with whalers and lobstermen. A spectral storm had risen over the Cor Mortifus, driving many of the ships back into port earlier than they'd have liked lest their crews be decimated by the angry spirits of the drowned. Bitter men leaned against the bar and clustered about the tables, nursing little cups of bone and tin while they groused about their misfortunes. Paid a percentage from their catches, the near-empty holds of their ships meant they had less to trade while ashore. Sailors who'd anticipated the warm forgetfulness of vodka and ale now found themselves limited to the lowest-grade grog, a foul brew derisively called gutter skim.

The place being filled to capacity, the grot perched on a stool near the taverns entrance waved new customers away. Those who tried to argue were turned out by a much more formidable obstacle - the hulking orruk guard who stood behind the little creature. Sometimes the bruiser even remembered to lift the purse of those it slugged and threw into the street, proffering the plunder to the diminutive mastermind of the pair. The Black Ship's proprietor preferred to have the non-humans act as sentries, since their fungoid flesh and internal fluids had little appeal to the things that haunted Ulfenkarn.

The slums outside the door were more than a place of squalor and poverty. They were a hunting ground. Rotting deadwalkers stalked the darkened alleys, hungry ghouls lurked in the cellars of dilapidated buildings, flocks of blood-bats flittered above the streets. The howls of wolf-like vargskyr rang out in the night, and the monstrous cries of unspeakable things rose from the ruins at the heart of the city. Ulfenkarn was a place of nightmares given shape, a prison from which none could escape.

Sitting in a dark niche away from the main floor of the tavern was one man who'd willingly walked into this grim underworld. There was something of the night-panther in the prowling eyes that stared from his hawkish face, ever roving, ever ready to spot either danger or prey. His build was also that of a hunting cat, compact but strong, a contrast to the raw bulk of a creature like the orruk at the door. A cloak of heavy sealskin covered his frame, defending him from the chill that never loosened its grip on the city even in the light of day. Beneath was a suit of blackened leather reinforced with studs of metal. Though their shine was dulled by lampblack, each of them was forged from silver and etched with the emblem of a hammer. Though ineffectual against the more powerful forms of the undead, they offered some protection from the hungry attentions of wandering zombies and deathrattle without a master to command them. Tucked beneath his shirt was a more effective repellent of the restless dead, a Sigmarite talisman engraved with solemn prayers to invoke the God-King's power. Even a vampire might balk when its eyes fell on such a token held by a man of absolute faith.

Jelsen Darrock's faith was absolute. Otherwise he'd never have made the dangerous trek from Carstinia to Szargorond to venture into the blighted remnant of Mournhold that its new tyrant had renamed Ulfenkarn. He'd never have persisted in his deadly pursuit of vampires throughout Shyish following his expulsion from the Order of Azyr if he wasn't convinced he was doing the will of Sigmar. Morals, restraint - these were things those without the stomach for doing what needed to be done used to excuse their timidity. Jelsen had no use for such people and even less for the limitations they'd thought to impose on him. To secure a place for the living, to safeguard the scattered bastions of civilisation in the Realm of Shyish, he was prepared to do whatever was necessary.

Even suffer a lesser evil to vanquish a greater one.

Jelsen sat with his back against the wall, a little table of coffinwood between himself and the woman he shared the alcove with. His stein of ale was half empty. Hers was untouched. He had his suspicions why. It would be an easy enough thing to reveal what she was, but he had no interest in doing so. Whether she was a vampire herself or merely and agent of them didn't matter. What mattered was that she provided him resources to destroy the fiends. The information she'd given him had enabled him to find the hidden refuge of Count Vorkov and drive a stake into the fiend's heart while he lay in his coffin. That was his second kill since arriving in Ulfenkarn. It would not be the last.

The pale courtesan let one of her colourless fingers circle the brim of the stein and studied Jelsen with her intense eyes. He was never certain whether that look betrayed amour or a more sanguinary appetite.

'I have this for you,' the woman said at last. She'd never told him her name and he'd never asked for it. It was for her own good. Vampires were known for their ability to wrest even the most closely guarded secrets from a man's mind.

'I'm sure it will be useful,' Jelsen said as he accepted the tightly wrapped bundle she pushed across the table to him. It was about the size of his fist, rectangular in its shape. The outer binding was merserpent hide, at least an inch thick to judge by the corner he plucked with his fingernail. The contents under the wrapping were clearly something she didn't want anyone to get a glance at. Or perhaps she was loath to touch it herself.

'Mortsilver?' he asked.

A flicker of nervousness crossed her face. 'You'll be growing low on ammunition by now. It could be useful to have an ingot to cast more bullets.'

Jelsen nodded and hid the package under his cloak. 'A place like Ulfenkarn abound with targets,' he said. His hand closed into a frustrated fist. 'Of course, the prey I really want keeps out of my sights.'

The woman's eyes flashed with warning. 'Radukar is not a foe to be taken lightly. I know you think highly of yourself, Darrock, but only a fool would rush headlong into the Ebon Citadel.'

'Sigmar will see me through,' Jelsen told her. 'My faith is strong.'

'The streets of Ulfenkarn are filled with people of faith,' she reproved him. 'Their bones are locked in gibbets and their bodies impaled on poles. Never think faith is a substitute for strategy.' She leaned forwards, her face only inches from his own. 'The best way to fight Radukar is through his disciples. Weaken the Thirsting Court and you weaken their master.'

She smiled, exposing those pearly teeth that always looked too long and too white to him. 'A man of your skill shouldn't be kept idle.'

Jelsen didn't see how it got there, but suddenly there was a map on the table between them. He could see that it was a section of Ulfenkarn, inked on vellum.

'Do you know this area?' she asked him.

'This is the statue of Grand Prince Gunther Gaunt,' Jelsen said, tapping his finger on the map. 'Here is the memorial garden where his household staff and their families were buried,' he added, following along the map.

'Very good,' the woman said, nodding. She indicated one of the streets that ran into the square where the statue stood. 'If I were to tell you that a member of the Thirsting Court was going to be travelling this way tomorrow night, what plans would you make?

Jelsen studied the map. He looked at the surrounding buildings. 'I think it would depend on how they were travelling and whether there was an entourage.' He indicated a few of the buildings. 'Depending on the route, I'd need to know how sound these structures are. If they're still standing.'

'They are,' she told him. 'Countess Zora Grigasova will be travelling by coach with an entourage of perhaps twenty deathrattle. Maybe more. They will likely be commanded by one of her thralls, a vampire named Arno.' She traced her finger along one of the roads. 'She'll be coming along this route from her tomb to attend Radukar at the Ebon Citadel.'

Jelsen digested the information. His mind raced with possibilities. 'In that case, I have some ideas.' He lifted his eyes and stared at the courtesan. 'I'm afraid I'll need to use your gift for something other than bullets. Don't worry though. I still have enough to get the job done...'

The old statue of Grand Prince Gunther Gaunt leaned sickly from the top of its stone plinth, the bronze ankles of the nobleman's horse sagging from the weight of the iron gibbets that had been chained to the sculpture. Most of the bodies were only bones now, but a few were fresher fare. At one cage, a pair of blood-bats continued to bite at the flesh, grim evidence of how recently the captive had been condemned. Jelsen despised the sight but wasn't going to waste a bullet on the filthy animals. Once the tyrant of Ulfenkarn was deposed, he was sure the liberated populace would put every bat nest to the torch.

The nearby streets were broad avenues. In the days of Mournhold, this had been a wealthy district where merchants maintained their residences and the most prosperous guildmasters had their homes. Anyone of wealth in the city found it lucrative to be near the palaces of the nobility, the better to curry favours from those who ruled in Szargorond.

Of course, those days were long past. What Jelsen looked on now was decay and destruction. The malignant influence of the Shyish Nadir had ravaged the city, transforming it into blighted Ulfenkarn. Much of the core of the city had been cast into ruins and this area hadn't been spared its share of collapse. Many of the buildings overlooking the square and the statue were just jumbles of debris. Others showed the evidence of strange fires that had withered their woodwork until it crumbled into dust. He could see roofs that were naught but exposed beams and occasional patches of shingle. There were townhouses with their facades eaten away, exposing the rooms and halls within to the elements. Several buildings were being strangled by great masses of pallid vines, the necrotic weed sepulchrists called cryptcreepers. Jelsen tried to give those as wide a berth as possible, aware of the common wisdom that maintained that the pollen of the bone-coloured flowers would steal shreds of a person's spirit in order to propagate itself as it drifted on the wind.

Jelsen gave thanks to Sigmar that the most advantageous of the buildings overlooking the road Countess Zora would use was also the most intact. He'd already made his preparations on the road itself, but to carry out his plan, he needed a high vantage point. The former merchant residence was almost perfect for his needs.

Jelsen started towards the structure and thought about the strange path that had led him to Ulfenkarn. He was a witch hunter, trained for years by the Order of Azyr to hunt down the dangerous arcane practitioners and agents of Chaos who lurked in every community. The lure of the Dark Gods was strong and there were always those who let a thirst for power blind them to the nature of that power. The same held true for those who dabbled in the black magic created by Nagash, the Lord of Undeath. While there were some who claimed to harness necromancy for the betterment of civilisation, most were naught but depraved sorcerers obsessed with preserving their own obscene existence. Jelsen had sought to expose such fiends, but after a time he fixated on a different and very specific menace to the mortal denizens of Shyish.

Vampires. The Order of Azyr did maintain a small cadre of hunters especially tasked with destroying the undead, but Jelsen felt they didn't go far enough. On his own he ranged across Carstinia and sent three vampires to destruction. Then had come his sinister patron, who often financed his exploits with sacks of Nulahmian doubloons. From the information she provided him, he claimed thirteen more vampires. Then his sights settled on Ulfenkarn and the most notorious of these monsters short of the Mortarchs themselves: Radukar the Wolf.

One day, Jelsen promised himself, he'd drive a stake of Aqshian fyrewood into the tyrant's heart. But he was practical enough to agree with his informant that for now he wasn't ready to tackle such a feat. He needed to bide his time until he devised a plan that could not fail and found the opportunity to put it into practice.

In the distance, Jelsen could hear the howls of wolves and the screams of dying things, the panoply of savage sound become a fixture of Ulfenkarn since its ruination. There was some slim comfort in the noises, however. It meant that whatever was making them was far away. The witch hunter was worried about what might be slinking through the abandoned buildings around him, unheard and unseen. He considered the many horrifying rumours the inhabitants of the slums told about the creatures that infested the ruins. One of the more grotesque was that of Gorslav the Gravekeeper, a grisly fiend who exhumed corpses for Radukar's necromancers to turn into undead slaves, and who just as readily would bury the living alive to feed the ravenous, sentient grave-pits that dotted the cursed city. As he thought on such things his hand tightened about the grip of his sword, a blade of cold-forged silver thrice blessed on the altar of Sigmar and inscribed with potent prayers to smite the God-King's enemies.

Crossing the street, Jelsen came near the building he'd chosen for his hunting stand. It was just a glimmer of light, a reflection off something like glass, that alerted him to the menace that was near. When he looked at the source of the reflection, he found he was looking at a big fat corpse-rat, only the animal wasn't what it should be. Fur and flesh, blood and bone, the whole of the vermin had been transformed into a figure of smoky glass. From its purple colour and the unnatural chill that emanated from it, he knew the grim little shape was saturated with dark magic. He'd seen its like before in the haunted streets, and he'd seen the bodies of humans similarly afflicted, the life drawn out of them until they were left as frozen shells. Macabre statues of solidified magic.

Jelsen didn't know how long the dead rat had been there, rigid upon a heap of rubble. Its killer might be far away, or it might be just around the next corner. Each heartbeat fairly roared in his ears now, a clamour he was certain would draw the supernatural to him like a shark to a bleeding seal. He eased the sword from its scabbard, bracing himself. Trying to be ready for whatever might be watching him from the ruins.

When it did emerge, Jelsen found he was anything but ready. It didn't rise up from behind the mound of rubble, but instead passed through the obstruction, its phantasmal essence disturbing not so much as a pebble. It swept out at him in silent malice, determined to strike him down with the rampant energies that crackled around it. In shape it was like a gigantic skull, larger than that of a gargant, but with all the translucence of glass. Jelsen could see through the thing, though things behind it were tainted by the apparitions purplish hue. The fleshless jaws clacked together hungrily as bolts of amethyst magic flittered around it. His mind reeled as a keening wail rattled his senses, a sound he knew was spectral rather than audible. A cachinnation that was heard by the soul rather than the flesh.

Jelsen darted back as the screaming manifestation surged towards him. The grace of Sigmar was upon him, for as he dodged the skull none of the crackling ribbons of dark magic struck him. If any had, he knew he'd have been drained as completely as the corpse-rat.

The sword in his hand was useless against this phantom, for it was a thing of raw, unharnessed magic. He had, however, a weapon that would work. When the skull turned and came rushing back at him, he fled from it, strewing the ground behind him with the contents he'd taken from a pouch on his belt. The skull was unable to cross the substance, a mixture of salt and silver, and as Jelsen ran he created a long line that soon became an effective wall against the manifestation.

The skull railed and gnashed its teeth, but try where it would, it couldn't cross the line. Even the bolts of energy crackling off it were unable to penetrate. For a time it prowled about, dumbly trying to force its way through. Then, showing the same abruptness with which it had attacked, the thing turned about and drifted away down the street. Jelsen watched it for a time, energy flashing from it as it flew off into the distance.

'To you, Great Sigmar, belongs all the glory,' Jelsen said, setting his hand upon the hammer talisman he wore. Satisfied that the giant skull wouldn't return, he moved back towards the building.

There was still much to do before nightfall, when Countess Zora would make her final bow.

The carriage was a macabre memory of its former opulence. When the city had still been Mournhold, still a place of order and civilisation, it must have been a splendid sight. Jelsen could almost picture the burnished fittings along its sides, the bright polish of its mahogany panels, the wispy gauze of its silk curtains. The coat of arms on the doors would have been picked out in gold, the servants who stood at the rear of the coach would have been arrayed in fine livery. The horses that drew it would have been matched for size and colour and their manes and tails carefully braided. The lamps that hung from its sides would have burned with the cheery glow of candlelight or whale oil.

Yes, Jelsen could imagine what had been as he gazed down on what now was. The carriage had been painted a lustreless black, the better to conceal its presence in the shadows. The curtains were now heavy draperies every bit as dark as their settings, thick and massive to blot out the rays of the sun. The old coat of arms had been knocked away - instead the doors were marked by bleached skulls. The servants who stood behind the coach and who drove its animals were likewise skeletal, unliving creatures dressed in rotted rags and rusted armour. The horses were ghastly things with decayed flesh and flaming eyes, their bodies swathed in shroud-like caparisons of black. The lamps smouldered with a ghastly green, the flickering malice of gheistlight cast by trapped wisps of spectral energy.

Countess Zora's entourage jogged alongside the carriage as it hurried through the desolate streets, a dozen deathrattle in mouldering suits of mail, carrying ancient blades. With them ran an almost human-seeming figure, a man wearing lighter armour and a fur-lined cape. This, Jelsen reasoned, must be the vampire thrall Arno, exerting his power over the other undead so they could keep pace with their mistress' coach.

'A little closer now,' Jelsen breathed as he watched the carriage progress from the rooftop.

The moment came. Zora's entourage moved far enough along the road to trigger the trap the witch hunter had set. Lifted up from the dust of the street, a long wire snapped into view, gleaming in the moonlight. As it sprang into place it stretched across the road at a height that put it level with the legs of the horses. The undead steeds tried to stop but were unable to arrest their momentum. They slammed into the wire and spiked barbs Jelsen had fitted to it, crafted from the mortsilver ingot.

Undead flesh sizzled against the silver and the horses reared back in pain. The sudden stop flung the skeletal coachman to the street shattering its skull. The deathly valets at the back were tossed down onto the cobblestones. Arno and the running guards stopped and drew away from the barrier.

Jelsen trained his rifle on the carriage door. He was trusting to a bit of superstition that he'd always found to be true. When given a choice of paths, a vampire always picked the left. The sinister.

'What is this outrage!' Zora's voice snarled from within the coach.

The thrall, Arno, turned and started back to the coach. 'Some kind of wire across the road,' he reported. Jelsen thought there was a note of suspicion in his tone. Certainly there was when he motioned with his hands and called to his mistress. 'Stay inside...'

Even if the vampiress had attended the warning of her thrall, it was already too late. The door had swung open and Zora started to step out. She presented a remarkable sight, clad in a gown of rich velvet and silk, her black hair framing her pale face. Were there not so much cruelty to their cast, Jelsen might even have called her features beautiful, but a vampire could merely feign the warmer emotions. In repose their visages showed their monstrous nature.

The rifle jerked in his hands the moment Jelsen squeezed off the shot. The discharge echoed across the square. He enjoyed the bitter smell of the gunpowder. It was the smell of success.

Below, Countess Zora staggered in the doorway. Blood erupted from her chest where the bullet struck, gushing over her ostentatious raiment. The mortsilver was as effective as any stake in piercing vampires heart and bringing destruction. She swayed for a moment then toppled into the street. Her body was already beginning to disintegrate into dust when Arno reached her.

'Assassin!' Arno snarled. The thrall was sharp enough to immediately discern what had happened to Zora. He swung away from the crumbling body to duck behind the open door. He raised his head and stared up to where the shot had come from. His eyes flashed with rage. 'There!' he called, pointing up at Jelsen. 'Get him!'

At the vampire's command, the deathrattle surged towards the decayed structure. Once they were near the building, Arno dashed out to join them, moving too fast for even Jelsen to take a shot at him. Reluctantly, he returned the rifle to the scabbard slung across his back.

'Time to leave,' the witch hunter muttered to himself.

The building below Jelsen was now filled with the undead, but he had a few surprises for them before they could climb up to his perch. He smiled when he heard a roar from below. He knew the stairs he'd undermined had just collapsed under the weight of the armoured skeletons. Before they could pick themselves out from the rubble, he was going to be well on his way.

Instead of trying to find a way down, Jelsen had prepared a way across. Shifting along the roof, he came to the ladder he'd brought from below. Carefully, he laid it across the gap from one house to the next. Satisfied his improvised bridge was stable, he scrambled over to the next rooftop. On the other side, he drew the ladder back after him. Let Arno and his skeletons climb through his former refuge now. Every step they took would only take them farther away from him. Briefly Jelsen wondered if he should stay and try to shoot the thrall when he reached the roof, but he discarded the notion. It was likely he'd send the deathrattle up first and one of them might spot him and spoil the scheme.

Jelsen hurried down through the house, scrambling past the decaying furnishings and startling several rats creeping through the darkened halls. He reached the shadowy alleyway behind the building and ran down it, quickly putting distance between him self and the executed vampire.

'The graveyard should be just ahead,' Jelsen reminded himself, recalling his informant's map. Beyond that is the old canal. Now only a dried-out ditch, the old waterway would offer his best way to extract himself from Ulfenkarn's ruinous centre and reach the slumland where the surviving populace lived.

'One less bloodsucker,' Jelsen congratulated himself. By the grace of Sigmar, there would be a lot fewer in Ulfenkarn before he was through.

Jelsen emerged from the alleyway on the periphery of the little graveyard where Gunther Gaunt's servants had been buried. The iron fence that had once circled it was collapsed in many places and the cemetary itself was no less decayed. What he could see of it through the icy fog that had settled down upon Ulfenkarn was strewn with weeds and debris, the trees dead and withered, their branches reaching up at the sky like bony hands. A red-feathered owl watched him from one of the branches, its beaked face somehow imparting an expression of sardonic amusement.

'The canal's that way,' Jelsen told himself, trying to quiet the pang of fear that nagged at his mind. He strode across a fallen section of the fence and started out among the old gravestones. He scanned his surroundings as he went, wary for the first hint of motion. Intent on what might be out there lurking in the fog, he didn't notice something strange about the ground he was crossing. It was only when he stumbled on an overturned tombstone that he had occasion to look down at his feet. The earth here was fresh, churned up recently. Evidence of new digging in a long-abandoned cemetery.

Jelsen drew his sword an instant before the fog lessened and he could see the creatures clustered about an open grave. They noticed him at the same moment. Gnawed limbs fell from fanged mouths and clawed hands dropped necrotic flesh back into the pit. Six lean, twisted beings glared at him, enraged that their hideous repast had been disrupted. He recognised them at once: ghouls! The lowest form of human in all Shyish, ghouls were people who, through desperation or depravity, had taken to consuming the bodies of the dead. Their necrophagy brought with it a ghastly curse, turning them into these degenerate monsters that had more in common with the undead than they did with the living.

'Stand back,' Jelsen warned the ghouls as they crept away from the hole. Their yellow eyes shone in the moonlight as they glared at his sword. A motion from the biggest ghoul and they began to fan out, moving to surround the witch hunter.

'Stand back, or face Sigmar's wrath.' Jelsen made a threatening flourish of his blade. For a moment, he thought his gesture was enough to dissuade them. The ghouls drew back, their eyes wide with fright. Then he realised that they weren't looking at him, but at something behind him.

Jelsen swung around, putting a marble obelisk between himself and the ghouls, and gazed into the fog. He quickly saw what had scared the creatures. Striding through the fog was a huge scarecrow of a man. Rail-thin yet nearly as tall as an ogor, he carried a long spade in one hand, while slung across his shoulder was a big sack. Jelsen's suspicions of what was in the bag were confirmed when he saw it squirm and heard a moan rise from within it.

The tall man flung his burden down into an open pit and, to Jelsen's horror, began to shovel grave-soil on top of the inmate of the sack. Screams of terror rang out as the doomed captive realised what was to be his fate. Jelsen understood now how the ghouls could find food in a long-disused graveyard.

The first screams sent the ghouls fleeing into the dark. As they dashed away, the sound of their scrabbling claws drew the notice of the gravedigger. He turned away from the pit and looked about. Jelsen had a clearer look at him now and saw that his clothes were rough and spattered with soil. His face was masked by a covering of old bones, but through the macabre veil he could see the diggers eyes, as cold and vicious as those of any shark prowling the waters of Banshee's Bay. The witch hunter could feel the murderous intensity of that gaze. He knew he'd met the reality behind one of Ulfenkarn's dark legends. This was Gorslav the Gravekeeper.

'Come to offer yourself to the earth?' Gorslav asked, his voice a hollow hiss. 'Few are so obliging as to come to me of their own accord.' The gravedigger took several steps towards Jelsen.

'Offer yourself to Sigmar, while you've time,' Jelsen growled back. His sword flashed out as Gorslav came close. The big man lurched away from the stroke, and when the witch hunter made a second strike at his gangly foe he was stunned when Gorslav swung the spade and swatted aside his blade. The force of the blow was incredible. The impact crackled along Jelsen's arm, stunning his nerves. The silvered blade fell from his numb hand and landed among the weeds.

'Don't worry,' Gorslav mocked him. 'You won't have to share a hole. I've got another grave to put you in.'

The hulking man grabbed for Jelsen, but though his arm was numb the witch hunter was otherwise unfazed. He ducked beneath the clutching hand and dived behind the tombstones. The spade struck out after him, its sharp edge shearing through the tops of the memorials. Jelsen winced as one of the broken stones slammed against his shoulder, but he had no time to attend his hurt. Scrambling on hands and knees, he followed the example of the ghouls and hurried to lose himself in the dark.

Behind him he could hear Gorslav's frustrated snarl, and then the sound of the gravedigger thrashing about among the tombstones as he searched for him. Jelsen felt confident he'd lost his enemy when he reached the edge of the cemetery and jumped over its dilapidated fence. But when he looked at the street he was now in, a sickening realisation hit him. He didn't recognise this place. Gorslav wasn't lost. He was.

Jelsen rushed along the street, desperately trying to find his bearings. Any building that might give him some sort of landmark to tell his position. He tried to calm his fear, only too aware that there were things in Ulfenkarn that could track a man's fright the way a wolf could follow a scent. Control of his emotions wasn't an easy thing to maintain in the blighted city. At every turn there was some grisly sight to greet him. The body of an exsanguinated man nailed to a wheel and left for the rats to gnaw. The desiccated husks of dogs strewn beneath the web of a mammoth spider with glowing green eyes and a carapace as grey as ash. The spectral image of a woman prowling through the ruins wailing for her lost children. Once, turning a corner, he found the ground itself surging upwards and reaching for him with hungry tendrils shaped from its blood-soaked soil.

At times, when he paused to catch his breath, Jelsen could hear a strange scraping sound in the street behind him. It was impossible to tell through the fog, but he thought it was the sound of Gorslav's spade being dragged across the cobblestones.

Unexpectedly, Jelsen found a sight that offered reassurance. A patch of mud on the street bore the marks of carriage wheels. The condensation in the tracks had yet to turn to frost, so he judged them to be very recent, and there was only one coach he knew of that had been abroad this night. 'Sigmar grant I'm not led astray,' he intoned as he set off in the direction the coach had taken. If he could but find the square where he'd shot down Countess Zora, then he'd be able to get his bearings again and strike out for the slums.

His luck held. It wasn't too long after finding the tracks that Jelsen began to recognise the decaying structures. Soon he spotted the glow of the gheistlights from Zora's coach shining through the fog. He started running towards them. The sound of pounding feet close behind told him that whoever or whatever was following him had likewise picked up their pace.

The sight of the coach appeared ahead in the fog. Jelsen could see the vampiress' gown lying on the cobbles, her ashes strewn about it. The undead horses, goaded by the almost invisible wire that stretched across the street, had broken away and galloped off into the night. He saw none of the deathrattle save the driver who had been thrown, its skull crushed against the stones. There was no immediate enemy ahead of him.

Not so to his rear. Some whim of providence, some subconscious warning of danger, caused Jelsen to duck when he did. The sharp edge of a shovel flashed through the air just above him with such impetus that it would have decapitated him had it struck true. Out from the fog appeared the gangrel figure of Gorslav.

His sword lost in the graveyard, his rifle empty, Jelsen drew the hatchet he employed to chop the heads from the vampires he caught in their coffins. He backed away as the gravedigger advanced. The axe felt a puny weapon against an enemy of his size.

'You only delay the inevitable,' Gorslav hissed, his voice like foul air seeping from a sealed crypt.

Jelsen tightened his hold on the hatchet and continued to back away. He wasn't sure if Gorslav was some mortal corrupted by the dark powers of Ulfenkarn or some manner of undead abomination. Even the stories told about him couldn't agree on what he was, only on what he did to those who fell into his clutches. But if he were undead, then the witch hunter might yet have a ploy to use against the fiend.

When he threw the hatchet at Gorslav, Jelsen caught his adversary by surprise. The witch hunter was master of many weapons, but versatility with a throwing axe wasn't among his aptitudes. Had it been, perhaps he could have ended the struggle right then. As it was, the hatchet spun end over end, and when it struck the gravedigger it was with the back of its handle rather than its cleaving edge.

Gorslav grunted as the weapon glanced from his chest, and charged towards Jelsen.

Jelsen turned and ran, but he did so with purpose. He saw the wire ahead and ducked beneath it. Gorslav, intent only on his prey, didn't spot the barrier in time. He plunged straight into it and rasped in pain as the silver barbs pierced his flesh.

'That,' Jelsen mocked as he circled around the gravedigger to recover his hatchet, 'was inevitable.'

Jelsen's bravado was ill-timed. No sooner had he picked up the hatchet than Gorslav wrenched free of the wire. The eyes behind his mask of bones blazed with rage and the giant gravedigger came storming after him.

Jelsen turned and dived towards the coach, his boot kicking away Zoras ashes. He plunged through the door just as Gorslav's spade came whipping down, its edge ripping away the fastenings and sending the door crashing to the street. He reached in to grab the witch hunter, but Jelsen had already smashed through the opposite door and was on the other side.

The eerie glow of the lamps inspired Jelsen to a desperate move. Gorslav was too big to pass through the carriage as he had done and must either climb over or run around the coach to reach him. The gravedigger chose the latter course and while he did so, Jelsen brought the edge of the hatchet smashing against the lamp. By the time his enemy had rounded the coach, he had the sputtering lamp freed from its bronze fastenings.

'Lighten up,' Jelsen snarled at Gorslav as the gravedigger rushed towards him. He threw the lamp full into the creature's face. At once the enchanted glass broke and the gheistlight was set free. The hulking killer cried out in agony as the spectral tatters swirled around him, clawing and ripping at him, trying to draw out his life force.

Jelsen didn't think anything living could withstand such an assault, but Gorslav remained standing, swatting at the gheistlight as though fending off the attentions of swarming mosquitoes. The witch hunter didn't know if the killer would prevail or not, but he wasn't going to take the chance. While Gorslav was distracted, he ran back towards the alleyways and side streets he'd scouted earlier. If the gravedigger did win his way free, Jelsen intended to be far away when it happened.

Rushing into the darkened alleyway behind the building he'd fled to after shooting Zora, Jelsen suddenly found himself beset from all sides. He cursed his inattentiveness as fleshless fists smacked him down. He'd been so worried about Gorslav that he'd neglected to be on the lookout for other foes. He crumpled to his knees as the skeletons beat him. His senses reeled as blow after blow was struck against his head. He couldn't tell how many enemies were around him; he only knew that before he had a chance to fight it had been taken from him.

'Enough,' Arno's voice snapped and the beating instantly stopped. The thrall peered down at Jelsen, his face every bit as cruel as that of his former mistress. 'Killing you now would be too easy.' He motioned to the deathrattle and they dragged Jelsen back into the street.

Vampire and skeletons alike stopped when they saw the towering figure of Gorslav stalk towards them. Jelsen could see that the gravedigger had managed to free himself from the escaped gheistlight, though his raiment hung in strips from his gaunt body and there were lacerations wherever his skin was exposed. The anger in his eyes, however, hadn't lessened.

'That one is mine,' Gorslav hissed, pointing his spade at Jelsen. The witch hunter shivered as he pictured the grisly death the gravedigger intended for him. To slowly suffocate as he was buried alive.

Arno recovered from his surprise and walked forwards to meet Gorslav. He held out a document for the gravedigger to see. Jelsen spotted Radukar's seal fixed to the paper. Perhaps it was merely Zora's summons to the Ebon Citadel, but whatever was written on the page was enough to cow Gorslav.

'This one is mine,' Arno corrected the gravedigger, throwing his own words back at him. He stood, the image of arrogant authority, while Gorslav slowly withdrew from the square. Then the vampire turned back to Jelsen.

'Keep a firm hold on him,' Arno ordered the skeletons gripping Jelsen's arms. He cupped his hand under Jelsen's chin and forced him to look into the vampire's merciless eyes. 'You're for the dungeons,' Arno declared. 'You destroyed my mistress and that means I might be destroyed for failing to protect her. But at least I know I'll have my revenge.'

He paused and displayed his long, sharp fangs.

'I don't know what the Wolf will decide to do with you, but I guarantee whatever it is, you'll wish I'd given you over to Gorslav.'

About the Author

C L Werner’s Black Library credits include the Age of Sigmar novels Overlords of the Iron Dragon, Profit’s Ruin, The Tainted Heart and Beastgrave, the novella Scion of the Storm in Hammers of Sigmar, and the Warhammer Horror novel Castle of Blood. For Warhammer he has written the novels Deathblade, Mathias Thulmann: Witch Hunter, Runefang and Brunner the Bounty Hunter, the Thanquol and Boneripper series and Warhammer Chronicles: The Black Plague series. For Warhammer 40,000 he has written the Space Marine Battles novel The Siege of Castellax. Currently living in the American south-west, he continues to write stories of mayhem and madness set in the Warhammer worlds.

An extract from Cursed City.

Though the shutters were barred, and the doors bolted, the Black Ship was more alive in the long hours of the night than it had been during the dreary grey day. The tavern was ablaze with the light of whale-oil lamps and its common room rumbled with the clamour of a hundred raucous conversations, people huddling together in the warmth that was absent in the cold streets. Flagons of ale, steins of beer, bottles of pungent vodka and glasses of dark wine were carried to patrons throughout the building’s three levels, borne upon wide copper trays by the buxom, strong-armed beer maidens employed by Effrim Karzah, the establishment’s roguish proprietor. Notes of music crawled through the rooms as a rotund performer worked a hurdy-gurdy and bellowed salacious sea shanties.

A long casketwood bar dominated one side of the common room. Patrons flocked to the counter, loudly shouting for more drink. Whalers with salt-encrusted slickers would brush shoulders with crookbacked lobstermen, their fingers and hands scarred from the claws of their catch. Stokers who worked the immense try pots to render blubber into oil sought to cool their hot work with cold ales. Drovers and stevedores propped their boots on the copper rail that ran along the base of the bar and swapped lies about the day’s custom. Among those seeking to retreat from their labours mixed those whose vocation catered to such relaxation. Gamblers and panderers, sellers of wares and seekers of services all ventured to the counter to engage those gathered there.

Only at one spot was the bar not crowded. Towards the back of the common room, for a radius of a dozen feet, there was an open space. Within that space only two people stood. The two men had been there for some time now, yet none of the carousing inmates of the tavern intruded on their privacy. From the guarded looks that sometimes were directed their way, it wasn’t courtesy that provoked such distance, but fear.

One was tall with a light complexion and locks of fair hair spilling out from beneath his wide-brimmed hat. His features had a rugged handsomeness about them, with a hawkish nose and piercing blue eyes. A long coat encompassed his figure, but around the waist it was bound by a wide belt from which hung a rakish sword and a big horse pistol. It was not the open display of weapons that so unsettled the occupants of the Black Ship, however. Hanging about the man’s neck was a pendant, a little silver talisman cast in a symbol long taboo in Ulfenkarn. The hammer of Sigmar. To openly display veneration of the God-King in the city was to invite swift and terrible destruction. Had night not already fallen, were the doors not already barred, there were many who would have slunk back to their slovenly hovels. As things stood, they tried their best to keep apart from the stranger. When doom came for him, nobody wanted to share in it.

Except perhaps the man who was with him. He was thin with short black hair and a trim moustache beneath his knife-sharp nose. Though he wore clothes that were rich by the standards of Ulfenkarn, his skin had the grey pallor of those who toiled away in the mushroom plantations beneath the streets. His eyes looked as though they were caught in a perpetual scowl, disdainfully appraising everything and everyone they gazed on. From his haughty demeanour and sinister appearance, there were many in the Black Ship who marked him as an agent of Ulfenkarn’s rulers, one who’d been promised the Blood Kiss by his masters. Why a spy for the vampires was sharing a drink with a Sigmarite was a mystery none felt inclined to explore.

Gustaf Voss pushed back the brim of his hat so he could better see the bottles arrayed on the rack behind the bar. ‘They’ve a nice vintage from Carstinia there,’ he commented to his companion. ‘That is if you don’t think it would be too strong for you?’

The other man gave him a stern look. ‘That’s an old Belvegrodian fable, you know. That they don’t drink wine.’ He frowned at his glass and tapped a finger against its stem. ‘I don’t like drinking in public. It dulls the senses and you never know what might be watching, waiting to exploit the first hint of weakness. If you’re going to have libations, it’s better to indulge when you’re alone.’

Gustaf cast his eyes at the empty space around them. ‘We’re as good as alone right now, Vladrik,’ he said.

‘All it takes is wealth to be popular in places like this,’ he replied. ‘Though I don’t know if there’s enough money to make them friendly while you’re wearing that.’ He gestured to the hammer around Gustaf’s neck.

Gustaf took a pull from his beer stein and wiped away the residue of foam from his mouth. ‘There was a saying, something along the lines of “Let them hate as long as they also fear.” That wisdom has served me well until now.’ He gave Vladrik a more serious look. ‘If I make myself conspicuous then the man I’m looking for might find me, instead of making me find him.’

‘Or you might draw attention from those you don’t want to see,’ Vladrik cautioned. ‘I’ve told you I’ll find Jelsen Darrock for you.’

‘It’s been two weeks that I’ve been hearing that,’ Gustaf said. ‘You haven’t given me any results.’

Vladrik swallowed some of his wine and dabbed a monogrammed handkerchief against his lips. ‘Better than anyone, you should know that those who serve the Order of Azyr can be very hard to find when they want to be. I think Darrock has been keeping himself under cover right now. He’s been busy. Only two days ago someone broken into Count Vorkov’s coffin and put a stake through his heart. Aqshian fyrewood. Very rare. Very dangerous. The kind of thing even a vampire doesn’t recover from.’

Vladrik leaned closer and laid his hand on Gustaf’s arm.

‘That’s one thing I’m still unsure of. Did the Order of Azyr send you to Ulfenkarn to help Darrock or to stop him? You’ve never told me which.’

‘No, I didn’t,’ Gustaf said. ‘If you expect an answer, find Darrock for me.’

Gustaf spun around suddenly, one hand dropping to the big horse pistol on his belt. Someone had entered the circle of privacy that surrounded them. A haggard stevedore, the quality of his tunic and the polish of his boots indicating him to be a mark above the labourers who crowded behind him, marched towards the shunned pair. He threw back his head and gave Gustaf a sneering study.

‘You make sport of us, do you, outlander?’ He gestured at the talisman hanging from Gustaf’s neck. ‘Even a fool fresh off the boat knows better than to wear that openly. So, if you aren’t a fool, you must be an idiot.’

Drink slurred the man’s words, but Gustaf wasn’t one to allow even a tipsy antagonist to challenge him.

‘Where I come from, men are still men. They don’t hide their faith and cower in the shadows like vermin. They don’t bow and scrape to the monsters that prey on them.’

The stevedore’s face turned red. His hands curled into fists at his sides.

‘He’s got a gun, Loew,’ one of the other labourers warned.

Gustaf fixed his steely gaze on Loew. ‘I don’t need gun or sword to settle accounts with cowards,’ he said, moving his hands away from the weapons hanging from his belt. For a moment, the tableau held, the two men glaring into one another’s eyes, each ready for his foe to make the first move.

Loud pounding against the Black Ship’s door interrupted the brewing fight. Silence descended on the tavern. Most of the patrons turned to look towards the barred entrance while others retreated into the nearest shadow. From outside, an imperious voice demanded entry.

‘The Volkshaufen,’ Vladrik hissed. He quickly bolted what was left of his wine.

‘Maybe,’ Gustaf said. It was rare for the watchmen to be abroad at night. Ulfenkarn had other guards who patrolled the city when the sun set… but not the sort to ask admittance.

‘Make yourself scarce until we know who it is,’ Gustaf told Vladrik. He didn’t watch his companion withdraw and climb the back stairs to the Black Ship’s upper floor. His attention was fixed on the barred door and whoever was demanding entry.

Perched on a stool near the entrance was a short, scrawny creature with long ears and scabby green skin. The grot looked across the room to where Karzah sat at one of the gambling tables. The Black Ship’s proprietor nodded reluctantly. The grot jabbed the hulking brute that stood beside it with a sharp stick. The square-jawed orruk roused itself from its fungus-addled lethargy and drew back the bar on the door. Karzah preferred to use the greenskins as his establishment’s first line of defence because their blood wasn’t appetising to the things that prowled the city.

Instead of the Volkshaufen, it was a trio of men in finely cut sealskin coats who sauntered past the orruk. Gustaf noticed the mirror discreetly placed on the ceiling above the door. All three men were reflected in it, but that meant nothing. If one of them was a vampire and was aware of the mirror’s presence, he could project an image into the glass and thereby conceal his nature.

Of course, in Ulfenkarn, a vampire had little reason to hide what he was. At least from people who weren’t Jelsen Darrock. Or Gustaf Voss.

‘Looks like it’s already too late to teach you anything,’ Loew told Gustaf, a trace of regret in his voice. ‘May the soil rest easy on your grave,’ he added, withdrawing back among the labourers. They retreated while the three men walked straight towards Gustaf.

‘Now there’s a peculiar sight,’ one of the men quipped as he approached. He turned his ferret-face and glanced about the tavern. ‘It seems no one wants to drink with you. Don’t you have any friends?’ The question brought a cruel laugh from one of his associates, a bull-necked ruffian who looked more like a shaved bear than anything human.

‘No company is better than poor company,’ Gustaf replied. He raised his beer stein and took a quick drink.

Ferret looked at his associates. ‘Bravado,’ he said. ‘I like that. I tell you what, I don’t like to see someone drink alone.’ He walked to the counter and snapped his fingers at one of the barkeepers. ‘Bring me ale,’ he demanded.

While Ferret waited for his flagon, the men with him circled around Gustaf. Bear took position to his left while the other, a nasty specimen Gustaf decided to think of as ‘Cur’, sidled towards his right.

‘We’ll have a drink and then we’ll leave,’ Ferret said, a sneer on his face as he regarded Gustaf. ‘No smart words for me now?’ He glanced at his associates. ‘Notice how the banter falls off when they feel the noose get tight?’

Bear laughed at the remark. Cur just closed his fingers around the grip of his sword.

‘To your health, as long as it holds out,’ Ferret toasted Gustaf, raising his flagon.

At that moment the subject of his mockery exploded into action. To onlookers, it all seemed to happen simultaneously, so quickly did the outlander move. A boot kicked out and struck the flagon, bathing Ferret’s face in ale. Gustaf threw the beer in his stein into Cur’s face, blinding him. Bear sprang forwards, but as he did the stein came smashing down onto his head and dropped him to the floor.

Gustaf dashed away from his reeling foes and hurried across the common room. Before he reached the door, the orruk had once more drawn the bar away. He lunged past the greenskin and out into the darkened street. He could hear angry oaths and the stamp of running feet from the building behind him.

Of more immediate concern were the men who’d been waiting outside.

The ruffians converged on Gustaf the moment he stepped from the Black Ship. In their eagerness to seize their victim, they made a costly mistake. Like Ferret and his associates inside, these men discovered that their enemy was far from helpless. Steel flashed in the light escaping from the tavern as Gustaf whipped the sword from his belt. Its keen edge slashed across the face of the closest ruffian. He reeled away across the icy ground and pitched backwards into the arms of his comrades, screaming and clutching at the gory wreckage left by the blade.

Shocked by the abrupt violence, the ruffians were slow to react when Gustaf turned from them and ran down the darkened street. It was only when Ferret appeared in the Black Ship’s doorway and cursed at them that they remembered their task. Leaving their maimed companion to writhe in the dirt, the thugs set off in pursuit of their quarry.

‘You can’t escape, outlander!’ Ferret shouted as he led the mob. ‘I’ll carve your face worse than you did Karl’s before I turn you over to the boss!’

Gustaf risked a glance over his shoulder as the threats reached his ears. There were nine men chasing after him, each brandishing a sword as they ran. A single adversary, even two, and he’d have stood his ground and crossed blades with them. These, however, were odds that surpassed even his confidence.

He saw the dark mouth of an alleyway ahead of him on his left, just beyond the shadowy hulk of a broken wagon. Gustaf feinted a sideways lunge to the right, then pivoted and threw himself to the left.

‘He’s ducked under that wagon!’ one of the thugs shouted.

Gustaf grinned and hurried down the alleyway. He’d soon put distance between himself and the ruffians.

At least that was the hope, but after only a few steps into the narrow alley Gustaf was betrayed. Trying to keep tabs on his pursuers, he didn’t see the pillory until he blundered into it. The prisoner, some manner of thief to judge by the marks branded into his cheeks, had been left out to give back to the community what he’d stolen in the only way the poor could make recompense. Locked in the pillory, the prisoner’s blood could be drained by anyone who wished to offer it in place of their own as their blood tithe. Usually a prisoner didn’t live long enough exposed in the cold to see the sun set, much less to last after nightfall. By some perverse chance, there was just enough life left in the thief to cry out when Gustaf stumbled against him.

The cry carried out into the street.

‘He’s not here, you idiots!’ Ferret roared. ‘He’s down there!’

Gustaf ran as his pursuers picked up his trail. His lead was less than a dozen feet. The slightest setback would see him fall into the clutches of his enemies. When he dashed out the other side of the alley, he found that setback. The narrow pathway opened into a small courtyard bounded on all sides by dilapidated buildings. He was trapped.

Vicious laughter rang out behind him. Gustaf spun around to see Ferret and his men slowly emerging from the alley.

‘Outsmarted yourself, didn’t you?’ Ferret grinned. He waved for the thugs to spread out and encircle Gustaf. ‘Remember, the Elder said he wants him alive. Whatever else happens’ – he made a dismissive shrug – ‘happens.’

‘I can promise a few of you won’t have an easy time of it,’ Gustaf swore, punctuating his words with a flourish of his sword. His other hand pulled the horse pistol from its holster.

‘Good.’ Ferret laughed. ‘If you kill a few that just means more pay for the rest of us.’ He gestured with his hand, motioning his confederates to close in.

Before they could, Ferret barked in alarm. His sword clattered against the cobblestones as he raised his arms in surrender.

Standing behind Ferret, the edge of her sword pressed against his throat, was a woman wearing a long black cloak. Gustaf could only see clearly the hand gripping the sword. The skin was coarse and deeply tanned, the fingers calloused from rugged employment. The face was largely hidden by the shadow of a hood, but he could feel the intensity of her gaze as she looked at him.

‘You seem to be the leader,’ she snarled at Ferret, pressing the sword closer so it drew a bead of blood from his neck. ‘Call your dogs off.’

‘Do as she says,’ Ferret called to his men. None of them moved in response to his plea. ‘I’m the only one who knows the Elder. If I die, nobody gets paid.’ The last bit of logic swayed the ruffians. Sullenly they backed away from Gustaf and shuffled towards the edges of the close.

Gustaf peered suspiciously at the woman behind Ferret. He kept a firm grip on his weapons, but didn’t move.

‘What are you waiting for?’ the woman snapped at him.

‘I’ve been in Ulfenkarn long enough to know better than to trust anything,’ Gustaf replied. He glanced around at the thugs and the narrow confines of the close. ‘Nobody does anything in this city unless it is to benefit themselves.’

Ferret laughed. ‘Is that what you want? A cut of the reward?’

The woman responded by whipping her sword away from Ferret’s neck and smashing the hilt against his ear. He crumpled at her feet, staggered by the blow. ‘Get moving or stay here with your playmates,’ she shouted at Gustaf. ‘I’ve done my part.’

She turned and ran into the dark alley.

Gustaf lost all hesitation. He sprang forwards and dashed into the alleyway, mashing Ferret’s face with his sword’s guard as he passed.

‘After them!’ Ferret shrieked, one hand trying to staunch the flow of blood from his broken nose. ‘I want them! I want both of them!’

Gustaf reached the street and caught sight of his rescuer’s cloak whipping around a corner on the other side. With the sound of pursuing thugs behind him, he raced after the mysterious woman. He still had no idea who she was or what her motives might be, but at least it was certain she wasn’t in league with Ferret and his mob. For the moment that was enough to sway Gustaf.

When he reached the next street, Gustaf glimpsed her dashing into a narrow gap between a half-ruined net-maker’s shop and a fishmonger’s stall. He rushed after her, slipping into the shadows a moment after she vanished from sight. As the dark closed around him, he felt the point of a blade pressing against his ribs. Only faintly could he make out the outline of a hood in the feeble light seeping down through the fog.

‘Easy,’ he said. ‘I’m Gustaf Voss. The man you rescued just now.’

‘I know who you are,’ the woman said. ‘I’ve been observing you for a week now.’

The explanation escalated Gustaf’s suspicions. ‘So that swine was right. You are after my scalp. What are you? Bounty hunter? Assassin?’

The blade was withdrawn. The woman took a step forwards and drew back her hood.

‘Neither. I’ve nothing to do with such scum.’

Gustaf could make out her face now. There was a loveliness there, but it was subdued, locked away beneath the resolute and uncompromising strength that dominated her visage. Her eyes were like flakes of steel and their gaze pierced him every bit as her blade had threatened to do.

‘I’m Emelda Braskov.’

Her name made Gustaf’s fingers tighten about his sword. ‘Braskov!’ he cried. He raised the pistol, pointing it at her face. She met the threat with a steely stare.

‘The last of the Braskovs,’ Emelda explained. ‘The last that… that isn’t one of his creatures. The last living Braskov. If you understand what that means, then you’ll know why a man like you interests me.’

Gustaf peered keenly at the woman’s face, searching for the least hint of deception. Long years training in the Order of Azyr had made him an expert in distinguishing truth from trickery.

‘If you know who I am, then you know it is fatal to tell lies to a vampire hunter.’

By way of reply, Emelda pressed her hand to the amulet Gustaf wore. He felt her fingers against his chest as they curled tight around the icon.

‘If I were one of them could I do this?’ she challenged him. ‘I tell you, I am Emelda Braskov. The last of my line.’

Gustaf turned to face the street. He could see two of the ruffians hurry around the corner. It was obvious to him that the thugs were following their trail through the snow.

‘Braskov or no, right now we’ve other problems,’ he said. ‘Two against nine are still bad odds.’

‘There’s a back way out,’ Emelda said.

The vampire hunter sheathed his sword and let her draw him down a darkened pathway. The buildings pressed close upon them so that Gustaf was compelled to remove his hat as they went. He could smell the chalky odour of a stone-cutter’s shop as they progressed. At the end of the path he saw a small yard littered with unworked marble and granite. A few partly carved stones were leaning against a wooden framework. A sledge and a small cart peeked out from beneath the shadow of a wooden awning. A rusty iron fence circled two sides of the yard, while the others were bordered by the surrounding buildings.

‘We can lose them in those streets.’ Gustaf pointed to the dark lane outside the yard’s gate. He started towards it, but Emelda held him back.

‘We’re not alone,’ she told him. ‘I’ve been around long enough to recognise an ambush.’ She reached down and recovered a splinter of stone from the cracked cobbles. With a powerful throw she sent it flying against one of the half-finished memorials. The impact brought the heavy block tipping over. It crashed against the ground with a resounding boom.

All around the yard, figures sprang out of hiding. They started towards the fallen block, but quickly realised their mistake.

‘They’re over there,’ Ferret snapped at the thugs as he emerged from beneath the awning’s shadow. He glanced over at Bear and Cur, who’d likewise been hiding in the dark, beckoning them forwards. Another man kept to the shadows, only the outline of his head and shoulders visible. ‘Get them before they get away again,’ Ferret ordered the ruffians. ‘They can’t take all of us.’

‘Maybe not, but you won’t be spending any blood money!’ Gustaf shouted. He raised his pistol and fired at Ferret. Flame exploded out the gun’s barrel, briefly illuminating the yard. The bullet slammed into Ferret’s chest, the impact hurling him back like a rag doll. He crashed against the sledge, then toppled forwards onto his face, a gory hole the size of a fist in his back where the shot had punched through his flesh.

For an instant, the remaining thugs stood in stunned silence. Then a raspy voice snarled at them from under the awning.

‘There’s still a fifty-weight of whalebone to share among you.’

The speaker stepped into the dim light. The ‘Elder’ of which Ferret had spoken. A gaunt shape dressed in crimson, heavy cape drawn about his shoulders, feathered hat poised above his predatory features. His was a face impossible to forget, lean to an improbable degree, the flesh drawn tight about the bones. There was a savage aspect to his visage that evoked the snarling wolf and the prowling jackal. His eyes were like firebrands, shining with wicked hunger. His ashy skin was drawn away from his mouth, exposing the long, jagged fangs.

‘Vampire,’ Emelda hissed when she beheld the creature.

‘It calls itself Viscount Lupu,’ Gustaf told her. He thought about what Vladrik had said. There could be only one reason the vampire had taken such pains to lure him out of the Black Ship. It was looking for Darrock and had mistaken Gustaf for the witch hunter. Gustaf decided not to disabuse Lupu of the error. ‘It is a pity I didn’t find your coffin when I was disposing of Count Vorkov.’ He shifted his grip on the spent pistol, feeling the bite of its hot barrel through his glove. The heavy, studded butt of the gun would make a vicious cudgel. With his other hand he drew his sword. ‘At least you’ve done me the courtesy of not forcing me to look for you.’

‘You destroyed the master,’ Lupu growled. ‘Without him, I don’t know what will become of me. But I know what will become of you.’ The vampire pointed one of his clawed fingers. ‘Kill them,’ he commanded the ruffians. ‘Kill them both.’

The thugs came at them in a rush. ‘Guard my flank and I’ll guard yours,’ Gustaf told Emelda as he sprang forwards to meet the charge. He was startled to find that she’d lingered back in the alleyway, leaving him to face six killers on his own. There wasn’t time to consider her unexpected timidity. He had trouble enough to match the surge of enemies. In a swirl of blades, he parried enemy weapons and slashed at unprotected shoulders and arms with his sword and tried to club them with his pistol. None of his strokes did more than nip the skin of the ruffians, but it served to make them draw back.

While grateful for the respite, Gustaf feared the consequences of giving his enemies time to think. If they came at him with any measure of coordination, he was finished.

‘Lost your taste for blood?’ Gustaf mocked the thugs. ‘I can assure you your employer hasn’t. Right now, it’s probably lapping up whatever spilled out of your leader.’

Before he could gauge if his taunts were having any effect, a scream rose from the alleyway behind Gustaf. He turned his head to see Emelda come rushing out. She’d thrown aside her cloak, revealing a hauberk of boiled leather and studded steel. The sword in her hand was stained with blood.

‘The two we saw in the street,’ Emelda explained as she joined Gustaf. ‘When the wolf is before you, you can’t afford to forget the weasel at your back.’

Gustaf nodded and glared at the other ruffians. ‘No more help,’ he warned them. ‘Just you and us. My only question is, who wants to die first?’

‘Kill them or suffer,’ Lupu threatened the thugs. The vampire’s displeasure was more a menace in the minds of the ruffians than the swords of Gustaf and Emelda. Shouting fierce battle cries, they swarmed the two warriors.

Emelda’s blade ripped open the leg of the first thug to get near to her. The man staggered back, wailing in agony. Two others closed with her, however, and gradually forced her back. Gustaf was left to contend with the remaining three. They fought with a sloppy, careless style, displaying the prowess of men unused to opponents who could fight back. To their slovenly technique, however, was added a frantic recklessness that made them attack with little regard for their own safety. Beset by such foes, Gustaf found he had to suppress his own instincts. If he capitalised on an enemy who blatantly left an opening for him, he would expose himself to the blades of the others. He was compelled to adopt a defensive approach and employ a caution he hadn’t shown since he’d first learned to swing a sword.

At length, one of Gustaf’s enemies exposed a weakness that he felt safe to capitalise on. He plunged forwards, stabbing his blade deep into the ruffian’s chest when the man let down his guard. Blood spurted from the wound as the killer’s body sagged at the end of Gustaf’s sword.

Before he could wrench his blade free of the dying man, the vampire hunter was thrown onto the ground, his fingers ripped away from the weapon’s grip. The pistol went skittering away from his other hand.

It wasn’t a mortal thug who had knocked Gustaf to the ground. Viscount Lupu leaned over him, the vampire’s rank breath blowing down into his face. The fiend had waited for his enemy to be disarmed before entering the fray. Now Lupu exulted in his supremacy.

‘See to the woman,’ Lupu snarled at the surviving ruffians. His claw-like hands pressed down on Gustaf’s arms, pinning him to the ground. The vampire’s fangs glistened in the moonlight. ‘This one… This one is mine.’

Gustaf lifted his head and spat in the cadaverous face. Lupu hissed in rage, but then a wicked smile curled his withered face.

‘Killing you will be thirsty work,’ he promised.

Gustaf closed his eyes and whispered a prayer to Sigmar. He’d resigned himself to a death like this when first he took it upon himself to hunt vampires in Carstinia. Even so, now that the end was upon him, he was determined to resist it to the last.

A flash of spectral light caused Gustaf to open his eyes. The pressure against his arms lessened and he wrested himself free of Lupu’s grip. He found the vampire writhing in agony. The ashy skin was blackened and crumbling, flakes falling away to disintegrate on the ground.

While Gustaf crawled away from the vampire, there came a second burst of spectral light. This time he saw the glow envelop Lupu, watched as the undead sizzled within the horrible luminescence. The vampire opened his mouth to scream, but as he did, teeth fell free from the jaw and the charred residue of his tongue fell back into his throat.

Across the yard Gustaf spotted a sinister shape draped in black robes. The man held a crooked staff topped by a scythe-like blade in the pale hand that he was pointing at Lupu. The interloper had a dark and morbid countenance, drawn and wasted in its expression. Gustaf could see the narrow slit of a mouth moving, whispering words he knew to be some manner of incantation. While he watched, an orb of ghostly energy flitted away from the staff and struck the vampire. This third blast of arcane power was too much for the undead. Lupu was bowled over by the assault and when his burnt body struck the ground, it disintegrated into a mound of ashes.

The vampire’s destruction provoked screams of terror from the surviving ruffians. To a man they fled across the yard, leaping over the iron gate and scattering into the surrounding streets. Emelda leaned down and cleaned her blade with the shirt of a fallen enemy. Then, like Gustaf, her attention was fixed on the strange interloper.

‘Your help was rather timely,’ Emelda said, an edge of suspicion in her tone. Though she’d cleaned her sword, she made no move to return it to its scabbard.

The wizard brushed aside the complaint. ‘No more so than your own, Emelda Braskov. Like yourself, I’ve taken an interest in our friend Gustaf Voss. It would have been inconvenient to me if he’d perished for the sake of that grave-leech’s petty revenge.’ He made a dismissive wave at Lupu’s ashes.

Gustaf recovered his own weapons. He replaced the pistol in its holster but like Emelda, he kept hold of his sword. ‘You’ll be welcome to my thanks once I know your motives…’

‘Morrvahl Olbrecht,’ the wizard said, stroking the long black beard that hung from his chin. ‘I see that name means little to either of you, but there are some in Ulfenkarn who have reason to tremble when it is invoked.’ He nodded and wagged his finger at Gustaf. ‘Yes, it would surprise you who does know me here. For the nonce, let us say I intervened because we share mutual enemies. That makes us friends, doesn’t it? Or am I presumptuous?’

‘It makes you hasty,’ Gustaf said. ‘At best. I know something of magic and its character. What you used to destroy Lupu… that was necromancy.’

‘A necromancer,’ Emelda growled, brandishing her sword.

Morrvahl shook his head. ‘There isn’t time for this,’ he said. ‘You picked a poor night to tussle with Lupu and his hirelings. This district will soon be crawling with patrols.’

‘Because of Lupu?’ Gustaf asked.

‘No,’ Morrvahl said. ‘Because of the murder.’

A bitter laugh escaped Emelda. ‘Murder? There are murders every night in Ulfenkarn!’

Morrvahl turned towards her. His eyes had an intense quality to them. ‘Not like this one there aren’t.’ He glanced about the yard and swung around towards the gate. ‘Come along with me. I know a safe place to hide that isn’t far from here. You can lie low there until the hue and cry dies down.’

Emelda looked over at Gustaf. ‘I don’t trust him.’

‘That’s two of us,’ the vampire hunter agreed. He glanced at the heap of ashes then back to the robed wizard waiting for them at the gate. ‘I confess I am intrigued to know what kind of game he’s playing.’

‘So, what do we do?’ Emelda asked.

‘For now, we follow him,’ Gustaf said. ‘Just keep your eyes open.’ He nodded at Emelda’s blade. ‘And keep your sword close. If Morrvahl is up to something, he won’t give us much time to do anything about it.’

‘Hurry along,’ the wizard urged them. ‘If we tarry too long the Ulfenwatch will decide one of us is the killer. Trust me, that’s one death you don’t want blamed on you.’

Dragomir was unique among the ranks of the Volkshaufen. He hadn’t bought his captain’s commission through either bribery or blackmail. He’d risen through the ranks by dint of his skill alone. He’d proven himself a keen investigator and a remorseless persecutor of the city’s criminal elements. Whether uncovering the hiding spots of those who would defy the city’s blood-tax or rooting out a nest of proscribed Sigmarites, his accomplishments had garnered him notice. Even the corrupt mortals who administered the slums of Ulfenkarn knew better than to defy the desires of the vampires who ruled the city.

In all his years patrolling the streets and back alleys, Dragomir couldn’t remember a scene to equal the ghastliness of that within the courtyard. It was remarkable enough that even his commander had agreed with him that the nobles should be informed of what had been found. It still came as a shock to him when a troop of Ulfenwatch arrived to cordon off the courtyard while an emissary from the Ebon Citadel itself investigated the scene.

Dragomir had a twinge of envy as he watched Silentiary Arno. The man had a bloodless pallor to him, yet exuded a sense of strength and vivacity that was largely absent in the mortal denizens of Ulfenkarn. A gift from the vampires. Some small part of their own immense power bestowed on a favoured servant. Arno was bundled up in a fur-lined cloak, the jewelled pectoral of his station hanging loose against his chest. There was a hungry light in the silentiary’s eyes as he crouched over the body, his gaze roving over every inch of the victim’s butchered remains.

‘It certainly wasn’t robbery,’ Arno said. He shook the purse of pearl discs that had been found alongside the corpse and nodded at the dead woman. ‘One look at her could tell you that, though. No thief would be that depraved.’

Arno nodded and stepped away. As he did, Dragomir again was afforded a view of what had been done to her. There wasn’t any face left. The murderer had carved away every shred of flesh and muscle until all that was left was a grinning skull. The face had been utterly obliterated, denuded by the killer’s knife.

‘We know who she was,’ Dragomir explained. ‘People recognised the clothes. She was a cutpurse named Annika. If the killer was trying to hide her identity, they did a bad job of it.’

‘Yes,’ Arno agreed, ‘but it is the murderer’s own identity that is of consequence here.’ He frowned at the corpse. ‘I’ve tried to call her spirit, but it won’t respond to me.’ He raised a finger to emphasise his point. ‘That is unusual.’ He pointed down at the bloodied cobblestones. ‘That is also strange. The blood is discoloured. I’ve never seen blood look like that before.’

Dragomir realised the silentiary was speaking more to himself than the captain. Arno turned away and gestured to the closest of the Ulfenwatch. Silently the skeletal warriors marched over, their ancient glaives held at the ready. Arno plucked the weapons from their fleshless claws and dropped them on the ground, then waved at the murdered woman.

‘Pick it up,’ Arno commanded the skeletons. ‘Take it back to the Ebon Citadel. Chamberlain Torgillius may be interested in it.’

The undead advanced and clumsily picked the corpse off the ground. One gripped her feet, another pulled her up by the shoulders. Together the skeletons carried her away.

Arno turned back to the bloodstains. He leaned down again and used a knife to scrape some of the residue into a glass vial. ‘Very unusual,’ he muttered as he walked away. The remaining Ulfenwatch fell in around the silentiary as he left the courtyard.

‘Can you beat that?’ one of his watchmen whispered to Dragomir when the undead were gone. ‘Silentiary Arno is interested in this killing. Torgillius might even look into it. You’ll have the notice of important people if you do things right.’

Dragomir shook his head. ‘It’s dangerous for small people to be noticed by their masters,’ he told the watchman. He didn’t like attention from the dreadful beings who ruled Ulfenkarn.

If there were more murders, Lord Radukar himself might notice them.

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First published in Cursed City in Great Britain in 2021.
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