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

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

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

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

and great courage.

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

largest and most powerful of the human realms. Known for

its engineers, sorcerers, traders and soldiers, it is

a land of great mountains, mighty rivers, dark forests

and vast cities. And from his throne in Altdorf reigns

the Emperor Karl-Franz, sacred descendant of the

founder of these lands, Sigmar, and wielder

of his magical warhammer.

But these are far from civilised times. Across the length

and breadth of the Old World, from the knightly palaces

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

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

the orc tribes are gathering for another assault. Bandits and

renegades harry the wild southern lands of

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

skaven, emerging from the sewers and swamps across the

land. And from the northern wildernesses there is the

ever-present threat of Chaos, of daemons and beastmen

corrupted by the foul powers of the Dark Gods.

As the time of battle draws ever

near, the Empire needs heroes

like never before.

Reiner Hetzau watched through the barred window of the camp brig as the hangman tested the trap of the gallows on the parade ground. With the pull of a lever, the trap fell open and a sack of dirt hung from the noose dropped and jerked in a way that made Reiner swallow - then laugh.

He swallowed because he was due for that drop tomorrow morning at dawn before the assembled troops of Count Jurgen's army. He laughed because, after all the foolish things he'd done in his misspent young life, he was to be hung for crimes he had not committed.

Certainly he wasn't entirely blameless in the affair. But when he had recognized his errors and seen the coming horror he had done his best to rectify the situation. In fact, it wouldn't be going too far to say that he had saved the camp, and by extension the whole army, from a plague of Chaos that might have brought down the Empire.

But had they rewarded him? Showered him with titles and lands? No. They had thrown him in the brig with the dregs of the Empire's armies: murderers, deserters, thieves, rapists, profiteers and smugglers, and fitted him for a noose.

He laughed again. To think that three days ago he had been complaining to Hennig - poor Hennig - of boredom. By Ranald, he would give all the gold in the world to be that bored again.

Reiner and Hennig stood with their feet in the door of Madam Tolshnaya's house of joy, trying to keep her from closing it in their faces. Their breath hung in the air and fat snowflakes pin-wheeled down from the grey sky and clung to their cloaks.

'I assure you, my dear procuress,' said Reiner, 'the paywagon is due tomorrow. We will be able to pay you twice what we owe.'

'You say that last week.' said Madam Tolshnaya, a proud Kislevite beauty of middle years with a nose like a hawk and the curves of an Araby harem dancer.

'But this week it's true,' said Hennig.

'Have a heart,' begged Reiner. 'We are stranded far from home, deprived of all gentle company.' He put an arm around Hennig's shoulder. 'Look at this lonely lad.' Karl was a beardless boy of seventeen, three years Reiner's junior. 'Won't you do your part to raise the spirits of a noble warrior who defends your land from the depredations of Chaos?'

Madam Tolshnaya curled her lip. 'You want spirits raised, raise you some money.' She slammed the door.

Hennig jerked his foot back in time, but Reiner wasn't so quick. The door caught his toe and he hopped around on his bad leg, hissing and cursing in the muddy street. He flung himself onto a wooden bench outside the tavern next door to Madam Tolshnaya's, groaning. 'Any more of that Samogon, Hennig?' he asked.

Hennig joined him and handed him his flask. 'Just a swallow.'

Reiner gulped down the potent Kislevite liquor, wincing as it burned its way to his empty stomach. 'Good lad. I'll fill this again tomorrow, when...'

'When the paywagon comes,' finished Hennig dryly.

They sat for a while in the lazily falling snow, watching the endless river of shabby refugees who were crowding into the town, fleeing the devastation in the north, from Praag, Erengrad and little hamlets too numerous to name, all razed to the ground by the unstoppable hordes of Chaos.

That was why Reiner and Hennig were here on the Empire's border with Kislev. Noble sons, like most pistoliers, they had come up with Von Stolmen's Pistols from Whitgart only two weeks ago, attached to Count Jurgen's army. Upon arrival, they had been sent instantly to the front without a chance to recover from the long march, and thrown into a fierce action against mounted marauders at Kirstaad. What a mess that had been. No briefing. No orders. Just in at a gallop and every man for himself. The pistols, light cavalry meant to wheel, fire and retire, had been forced to stand and fight like armoured knights when a troop of halberdiers broke before a Chaos charge and blundered willy-nilly into their line of retreat.

Reiner and Hennig had both been wounded in the hard-fought withdrawal; Reiner with a gash in his thigh - and hadn't that bled like a river - Karl with a handful of broken fingers. After the battle they had been declared unfit to fight, and sent back to Vulsk with the other wounded, where the army was quartered, to recover from their wounds.

Now, two weeks later, with his wound only a throbbing annoyance, Reiner was going stir crazy. Vulsk, like border towns the world over, had its share of diversions: brothels, taverns and bear pits, even a crude little inn-yard theatre where broad slapsticks were performed, but nearly all had been commandeered by the army for officers' quarters, stock rooms and stables. Every space with four walls and a roof was packed with counts and their retinues, knightly orders with their grooms, cooks and servants, companies of greatswords, crossbowmen and pistoliers and engineers with barrels of volatile substances, as well as assorted priests of Sigmar and Morr, and their acolytes. And what space the army disdained was crawling with refugees: starving peasants huddled in the lees of buildings, desperate merchants standing guard over mud-spattered wagons, threadbare Kislevite cavalry tented with their horses on frozen stubble fields. There wasn't room in town to swing a cat, not that there were cats to swing, for food was scarce, and many was the peasant Reiner had seen eating cat, rat or his own shoe leather and calling it dinner.

But even if the army and the refugees hadn't been in residence, and all the town's entertainments open for business, Reiner and Hennig still wouldn't have been able to partake, for they were flat broke. Reiner had not lied to Madam Tolshnaya. The paywagon was due the next day, just as it had been due a week previous, when a party of raiders had ambushed it and made off with everything. The army hadn't been paid in a fortnight, and the meagre allowance Reiner's miserly father had reluctantly doled out to him before he left home was long gone.

'By Sigmar, Hennig,' said Reiner. 'I am damned tired of this poverty.'

'As am I.' agreed Hennig. 'I wonder how the poor stand it.'

'I'm a man of the world,' said Reiner, gesturing grandly. 'I need sophisticated diversion. Music, poetry, stimulating company, food worthy of the name.'

'Eh?' said Hennig, affronted. 'You don't find me stimulating company?'

'Not below the waist, lad. Terribly sorry.'

Hennig guffawed. 'You cut me to the quick.'

Reiner rested his chin on his palm. 'How to make some money? There's no looting to be done.' He waved at the shambling river of refugees. 'These poor wretches have nothing, and the campaign will be over before we're allowed back to the front. No chance at battlefield trophies or Chaos curios to sell to "men of learning". Even selling my armour wouldn't buy enough for a night's drinking. Sigmar curse my father's skinflint heart. He wouldn't pay for new kit. Hand-me-downs he gives me. A bunch of dented tin an orc wouldn't go to battle in.'

'What about dice?' asked Hennig. 'Didn't you tell me you once made your living at the tables?'

'One needs a stake to enter a game.' said Reiner defensively. He didn't care to mention that he'd lost his taste for gaming during the hurried retreat from Kirstaad, when he'd also lost his 'special' dice.

There was a commotion across the street. Reiner and Hennig looked up. An Empire foot patrol had stopped three carts crowded with prostrate forms - sick soldiers by their moans and shivers. The drivers didn't look much better than their passengers, slack jawed, rheumy-eyed fellows. The only member of the party who seemed at all alert was a woman on the lead cart. She was a slim waif in the robes of a Sister of Shallya, goddess of mercy and healing.

The captain of the patrol was Deiter Ulstaadt, a pompous fool whom Reiner knew well. He was an 'unbribable' who had broken up some of Reiner's recent money-making schemes: the card parlour in the powder magazine, the conscript prize fights, the sale in charms for protection against Chaos. Reiner leaned forward to listen.

'It is out of the question,' Deiter was saying. 'You'll have to take them elsewhere.'

'But, my lord,' said the priestess, 'they can go no further. They are very ill.'

'Precisely the point, sister,' said Deiter. 'With the town so full and our hospitals overflowing, disease spreads like wildfire. We need no more fuel for the blaze.'

The sister looked about to weep. Reiner's heart went out to her. The poor thing seemed crushed by her responsibilities.

'Sir knight,' she said, 'will you truly turn away noble heroes of the Empire, struck down in the fight of Chaos?'

'I have my orders, miss.'

'Could you not relax them for pity's sake? Our convent was not wealthy, but in the wake of its burning, I have been entrusted with its treasury. I know the lot of a soldier far from home is a hard one...' She moved the skirts of her habit aside to reveal a silver chased casket under her seat.

Deiter held up a hand, his face reddening. 'In light of your desperation, sister, I will forget this if you turn about now and leave here peaceably.'

The priestess of Shallya hung her head, and Reiner thought he saw a not very Shallyan snarl twitch her lips as she motioned her drivers to turn the carts around. Deiter marched away with his squad, no doubt to find some poor innocent to harass.

Reiner sat up, mashed toes forgotten. 'Hennig, my lad,' he said. 'If that wasn't the hand of Ranald dropping golden opportunity in our laps, I'm a ratman.'

'You mean to steal that box of swag?'

'Don't be crude. Of course not. She's going to give it to us.'

Reiner and Hennig stepped into the crowded street where the priestess's caravan of casualties was still manoeuvring.

'Reverend sister.' called Reiner. 'I couldn't help overhearing your poor treatment at the hands of that oaf, and I think I may have a solution that could benefit us both.'

The priestess, who was quite attractive, in a pale, drawn sort of way, looked nervously over her shoulder. 'I have no wish to break the law, my lord.'

'Oh, pish,' said Reiner smoothly. 'Is it a just law that turns out the sick? If you can pay a little for rent, and... ah, the efforts of your humble servant, the law won't enter into it.'

The woman sighed, relieved. 'The blessings of Shallya upon you, my lord.'

A warm glow filled Reiner's heart. 'My thanks, sister. Wait but a moment, and I will arrange all.'

'Absolute no!' said Madam Tolshnaya, crossing her arms over her ample chest. 'This clean house. I want no sickness here. Bad for business.'

'But madam,' said Reiner, 'there is no need to put them in the house. Are not your stables vacant? Kuryev and his Eagles certainly don't need them anymore.'

'You speak so of the dead?'

'I meant no disrespect. The tale of their valiant sacrifice will be sung in the halls of the boyars for generations, but they have left a vacancy, have they not?'

'Not for sick peoples.'

'Madam.' Reiner lowered his voice conspiratorially. 'The sister carries the treasury of her convent with her. You could charge her double, perhaps triple.'

Madam Tolshnaya's eyes narrowed. 'Triple?'

'And I would ask only a fifth, for bringing the business your way.'

'Only a fifth,' said Madam Tolshnaya dryly. But Reiner could see her calculating. At last she nodded. 'Yes. Is good. Bring around back, so nobody see. And they no come in house, ever!'

'Of course not, madam,' said Reiner, bowing. 'You won't regret this.'

He strode back to the street, grinning. Money at last!

It wasn't easy money. The invalids were more diseased than Reiner could have imagined. In fact, he had a hard time believing men so ill could still be alive. Most were carried into the stables on planks, and even those who could walk shambled like sleepwalkers and were covered in purple pustules. One little fellow, a Kislevite with long moustaches and an enormous hat of snow leopard fur decorated with a gold and red cockade, had an open wound in his arm that crawled with maggots. They were laid down one to a stall on either side of the stable's central aisle.

Reiner stood well upwind of them as he accepted from the priestess, who introduced herself as Sister Anyaka, a small purse of reikmarks and jewels. He palmed it quickly. It wouldn't do to let Madam Tolshnaya see the transaction. Not when she had already paid him.

That night, at one of Vulsk's better taverns - which meant only that the floor was stone and not dirt, and that they burned wood and not yak dung in the fireplace - Reiner and Hennig toasted their good fortune with mugs of samogon bought with the sister's gold.

'It gives one a warm feeling, Hennig, doing good,' said Reiner.

'Absholutely,' said Hennig, well on his way to inebriation. 'Burns all the way down.'

Reiner wiped his mouth. 'There's nothing more gratifying than charity. Particularly when it pays so well.'

'Poor li'l sister,' said Hennig. 'Tendin' all those sickies. How does she stand the shmell?'

'That's what religion is for, lad.'

'It takes away the shmell?'

'No. Just makes you feel noble for bearing it. To your health.'

'And to yers.'

The next morning, with heads that felt full of burning rocks, Reiner and Hennig returned to Madam Tolshnaya's to see if there was anymore milking to be done. By Reiner's estimation, the jewelled casket Sister Anyaka was carrying was still two-thirds full. But as the two friends walked around the brothel to the stables, Madam Tolshnaya stormed out to intercept them.

'She not keep them in stables!' she cried.

Reiner clutched his aching head. 'Say again, madam? Quietly, if you please.'

'The sick men. They walk around in middle of night. Scare my girls.'

'Ridiculous.' said Reiner. 'Those lads can barely crawl.'

'Svetya say she see sick man limp out back gate.'

'Most likely a drunk soldier.' said Hennig. 'Off to make yellow snow.'

'You're jumping at shadows.' added Reiner.

'Well.' said the madam sulkily, 'you tell shadows I want more money.'

They left her and knocked on the stable door. After a moment the sister opened it.

Reiner bowed. 'Good morning, sister. I trust the accommodations are adequate?'

'Most satisfactory, my lord.'

'I am gratified to hear it. We came to ask if there was anything else you required.'

The priestess frowned. 'Er, there are two things, but I hesitate to ask. One is less than pleasant.'

'We are yours to command.' said Reiner.

The woman bit her lip. 'Well, the first thing is easy enough.' She pulled a piece of parchment from her robe. 'Only take this to a wise woman and purchase these medicines. It is the second that may tax you. One of my patients is beyond my abilities to cure. He has a problem of the liver and needs the care of a surgeon. If you could get him to the infirmary of your camp, all would be well. The trouble is that he is a Kislevite.'

Reiner sucked air through his teeth. 'Mmm, yes. That is difficult. The doctors are a bit strict about who they let in. I'd have to ask a few people to look the other way, which might require further applications of cash.'

'Oh, certainly.' said the priestess. She opened the purse at her belt and pulled out a handful of coins, rings and brooches. 'Will this be enough?'

Reiner elbowed Hennig in the ribs, for the lad was gaping. 'Oh yes, this should do.' he said nonchalantly.

Half an hour later, Reiner and Hennig were laughing and slapping one another on the back as they rode from the Empire camp on the cart with which they had delivered the sick man to the infirmary.

'A bit difficult, he says.' giggled Hennig. 'It was all I could do to keep a straight face.'

'Well you did, lad. There's more to be had from that fountain. We wouldn't want to spoil things. The girl's the easiest mark I've ever laid eyes upon.'

It had cost Reiner and Hennig exactly four silver pfennigs to purchase a uniform of the Talabheim Pike from a black marketeer, and while dressing the sick man in it and shaving his Kislevite moustaches had been less than pleasant experiences - he smelled awful and complained constantly that he was infested with daemons - the effort was worth it, for the rest had been easy. They had delivered him to the infirmary, left him and a description of his symptoms with an orderly, and rode away again with no questions asked and the golden contents of Reiner's purse untouched.

'Now,' said Reiner cheerily, 'let's go get the shopping done, and retire to Madam Tolshnaya's for a much-deserved reward.'

But the second task proved more difficult. Even finding a wise woman was a chore. The villagers they asked wouldn't even admit that the town had a wise woman, insisting that they were modern people just like their Empire neighbours.

Reiner was confused by this attitude, attributing it first to anxiety over being thought inferior, but the words weren't said defensively, but with a sullen furtiveness. At last Reiner realised that the townsfolk were afraid he was a Sigmarite witch finder, looking to hang their local dispenser of love charms for witchcraft.

The response changed instantly when he asked instead, in the hesitant and embarrassed voice of a schoolboy, if there was someone who sold talismans for protection against lover's pox. Then he was told, with smirks and elbow nudges, to go see old Mother Yagna. She would put everything right.

Reiner and Hennig found the wise woman in a thatch-roofed shack outside a small fishing village just a few leagues down the river road. She was a short, frog-faced old crone in colourful rags who scuttled between towering jar-lined shelves, a clay stove and her mortar and pestle with the activity of a spider. She was less suspicious than the villagers. It was obvious she was used to soldiers seeking her out for protections against hangovers, pox and unfriendly arrows, but her demeanour changed abruptly when she glanced at Anyaka's list.

She looked up at them sharply. 'You be murder somebody?'

'I beg your pardon?' said Reiner.

She waved a gnarled hand at the paper. 'These very dangerous. Make you sick. This one poison. This one...' She hesitated. 'Bad magic.'

'Ridiculous,' said Reiner. 'These were ordered by a Sister of Shallya, sworn to preserve life, not take it.'

The wise woman grunted. 'Huh. She got rats, this sister?'

'Undoubtedly. She's staying in a stables. Would this kill rats?'

The crone chuckled. 'Oh sure. Plenty rats.' But she made no move toward her jars and bottles, only continued looking at Anyaka's list.

'I don't mean to rush you, woman,' said Reiner impatiently. 'But we have many things to do today.'

Mother Yagna pursed her lips and held out the list. 'Am sorry. I have not these things. I cannot help you.'

'Foolish old crone,' said Reiner, losing patience. 'Do you dare defy me?'

Reiner loomed over the woman menacingly. She smelled of turnips and bitter herbs. 'Listen, witch. You exist here at the mercy of the Empire, which has so far turned a blind eye to your heathen hedge magics. But it could just as easily go hard on you if you were accused of consorting with daemons, if someone were to say you'd been kissing the enemy's fundament by the light of the full moon. Do you understand me?'

Mother Yagna met his eye with an unblinking glare. She said nothing.

'Now, I am a fair man,' Reiner continued, 'I care not what two pfennig wart charms you fob off on ignorant peasants. I only want what I know you have, and I am willing to pay for it. Look!' He shook his purse. It jingled impressively. 'I will give you ten times what your leaves and twigs are worth. Only fill the order and let me be on my way.'

The old woman's expression hardened to stone. She turned without a word and began filling packets of dry leaves with powders and herbs. By the time she had finished, a hard knot of remorse had formed in Reiner's chest. He had no compunctions about getting what he wanted through guile, but intimidation of the weak wasn't his way. It had no finesse. Consequently, when he dipped into his purse to pay her, he took out more than he intended, letting fall on her table a handful of coins and jewels.

'Here, mother,' he said. 'May this soothe your pride.'

The old woman sneered. 'I no want your...' She stopped, staring. With trembling hands she picked up a ring. 'Where you get this?' she demanded.

'Curse your insolence,' snarled Reiner. 'Why should I...'

'Graverobber!' The old woman advanced on Reiner, eyes wild. 'This ring of boyar of village. Give him by Queen Katarin herself. He die fighting at Praag. You dig him up! You steal his ring!'

'Madam,' said Reiner, 'I assure you...'

'I know you now!' she interrupted. 'You no Imperial. You Chaos! Beast of Chaos!'

'Madam, please. Contain yourself.'

The old woman scooped up the coins and jewels and hurled them at Reiner and Hennig. The two pistoliers ran, ducking out of the door.

Halfway back to Vulsk, Hennig turned to Reiner, who sat lost in thought next to him on the buckboard of the cart.

'She didn't say it was for rats.'

'Hmmm?' Reiner lifted his chin off his palm.

'The sister. She didn't say the stuff was for rats. She said it was medicine.'

'I know that, lad,' said Reiner.

'But then why did you say...'

'I was only trying to ease things along.' He laughed harshly at that.

Hennig frowned. 'So then, do you think the witch was right?'

'Of course not! The witch is an ignorant peasant. She is doubtless unaware of the higher curative properties of her so-called poisons.' But Reiner was less than sanguine. If the business with the boyar's ring had been an isolated incident, he might have laughed it off as the crazed imaginings of a demented crone, but the ring, on top of the revelation of the poisons, and Madam Tolshnaya's grumblings about the priestess's patients going bump in the night, it was all beginning to gnaw on him.

Reiner stole alone into the stables. Hennig was buying samogon for the both of them in the tavern next door.

'Sister Anyaka?' Reiner called. 'Sister, I would speak with you!' He glared around in the dim interior, looking for the priestess. He wished instantly that he hadn't entered. The smell was horrific, and the moans of the sick men fell unpleasantly on the ear. He could only barely make out their forms in the stalls, and was glad of it, but found that he was oddly distressed that he didn't see the little fellow with the snow leopard hat.

Sister Anyaka hurried out of the tack room at the back of the stable. 'Master Hetzau, is all well?'

'That you shall have to tell me, lady,' said Reiner stiffly. 'I have just... Er, could we talk outside. It's a bit, er...'

'Certainly,' said the priestess. 'I am used to the smell, but I understand completely.'

She led him into the yard. The afternoon sun had melted the morning's snow and there was a dry bench against the stable wall. They sat.

'Tell me, my lord,' said Anyaka, turning to Reiner. 'What is troubling you?'

Now that he came to it, Reiner was suddenly less certain about things. The young woman looked so innocent that he found his suspicions melting away. 'Er, well, er... I say, where's the little fellow with the big hat? The snow leopard hat.'

Anyaka looked confused a moment. 'Oh, you must mean Ulenko. He's getting some air.'

'Is he now? You surprise me. I wouldn't have thought he could even sit up.'

The priestess frowned. 'My lord, I can't believe you've called on me to ask after the health of one of my patients. What is wrong?'

Reiner's face fell. 'Forgive me. It's just a bit... Well, you see, I had a most awkward encounter with the wise woman you asked me to find. She recognized a ring you gave me and accused me of robbing her boyar's grave to get it. Most disturbing. And I was wondering...'

Anyaka put a soft hand on his arm. 'You poor man.' she said. 'To be harangued so on a mission of mercy. I only wish I had been there to explain to the woman.' She looked at him sadly. Her eyes were green, with the depth of the ocean. 'She was indeed correct. The ring's owner was a boyar from near here. I curse myself for not thinking of the distress it might cause.'

She touched a hand to her chest. 'You see, our mission was just outside of Praag. We took in many of the dying during the battle, and many, being devout men, bequeathed to us their possessions as thanks for the comfort we gave them in their final hours. When...' She paused, and a shiver passed though her. 'When the raiders overran the convent, I brought the treasury and those I could save south to continue Shallya's work here.' She looked up at him again, eyes moist. 'Have I explained things to your satisfaction, my lord?'

'Oh, yes. Absolutely.' said Reiner, blushing. He felt horrible, having asked such a question of so virtuous a woman. 'I crave your forgiveness.'

'You require none.' She put her hand on his. A warm thrill shot through him. 'Anyone might have thought the same.'

'Nonetheless...'

'And I wish,' she said, leaning forward so that the fabric of her habit tightened against the swell of her breasts, 'that since you are obviously a man who cares little for gold, there were some other way I might repay you for your trouble.'

Reiner's heart thudded audibly in his chest and perspiration sprung out on his brow. The priestess traced the veins of his hand with a delicate finger. 'The sisterhood of Shallya is dedicated to relieving suffering in all its forms.' she said softly. 'And I sense, Master Hetzau, that you are suffering from loneliness, that you are ill from want.'

'Sister.' said Reiner hoarsely, and took her by the shoulders. She stopped him with a hand on his chest.

'Forgive me, my lord. It would be an honour - nay a pleasure - to tend to your needs, but the needs of my patients are greater, and there are things I must do before I can give you the attention you deserve.'

'How soon will you be done?' asked Reiner curtly. He couldn't remember when he had been so filled with desire.

The priestess smiled. 'Well, I'll be done the sooner, if you will once again assist me.'

'Anything,' said Reiner, licking his lips. 'Anything.'

'The lengths you will go to get your wick waxed will be the death of me,' growled Hennig as they again manoeuvred the cart through the teaming town. 'Sigmar's oxter, what a stench.'

'Don't blaspheme, Hennig,' said Reiner. 'We do holy work.'

'But you're the only one who'll be getting a reward.'

'Now, lad. It isn't as if you've lost on the deal. I convinced the sister to give us more gold, as well as, er, intangibles.'

'I'm not sure if it's worth it.'

This time the cart's cargo was two corpses, reeking of death and disease, and covered in lesions and festering boils. Anyaka had tried her best, she said, but the two men - a handgunner from Nuln and a Kislevite lancer - had slipped through her fingers. She had asked Reiner to dispose of the corpses: the handgunner to the army's priest of Morr, who operated the camp mortuary on the west side of town, and the Kislevite to the village's cemetery on the east, where the priests incorporated local customs into the ceremonies.

It was not a pleasant task. Even in the cold, the smell was overwhelming, and Hennig, stomach still delicate after the previous night's revels, had had to jump off the cart and vomit before they'd travelled half a league. But eventually they reached their first stop, the camp mortuary. Erected a discreet distance from the camp itself, it consisted of a few low black tents, one of which was a consecrated temple of Morr. A small, wood-framed shack sat behind it, which housed the furnace that cremated the dead. Tall stacks of firewood were piled next to this, and stacks of bodies, almost as high, were piled in front of the temple. The smell that drifted from them was the first thing to drown out the stench of the bodies Reiner and Hennig carried. Black-robed acolytes of Morr crawled over the mounds like flies over carrion, preparing the corpses and taking them into the black canvas temple.

A burly acolyte with his sleeves folded back approached them as they trundled up.

'What have you there, my lords?' he asked.

'A citizen of Nuln,' said Reiner. 'Name unknown. And a Kislevite who we take to the local temple.'

'Very good, my lord,' said the man, turning to whistle at two acolytes who wore heavy gloves and kerchiefs over their faces. 'Though there'll be a wait until we can see to him properly.'

Reiner surveyed the mounds as the masked acolytes lifted the body off the cart, 'Does the war truly go so poorly?'

'Taint the war, my lord. It's sickness. Last day or so they been dropping like flies. Don't know why.'

'Most disturbing.'

'Yes, sir.'

It was dusk. Shopkeeps were boarding up their storefronts and taverns were hanging out lanterns. As they rode through town to drop off the second body Reiner and Hennig noticed a commotion in the town square. Villagers were using ropes to haul something out of the well, and just as Reiner pulled abreast, the men succeeded in getting it over the lip. It flopped to the street with a wet smack. It was a body, so bloated as to be unrecognizable. What was readily apparent however, was that the fellow had been terribly sick before he fell in. Though his waterlogged skin was the colour and consistency of gruel, Reiner could see black gangrenous wounds all over it.

'That accounts for the wave of illness,' he said.

'Good thing we only drink samogon,' said Hennig.

Reiner was urging the carthorse forward again when a villager fished something else out of the well. At first Reiner thought it was a drowned cat, but then he saw it was a large Kislevite hat of snow leopard fur, pinned with a red and gold cockade.

'Damn and blast!'

'What's the matter?' asked Hennig.

Reiner geed the cart horse into a trot. 'That hat! Getting some air, was he? Ranald curse the woman!' he cried.

'Who?' asked Hennig. 'The sister? Why are you angry at her?'

'Because if she's up to what I think she's up to, I won't be getting my "heavenly reward" this evening.'

Reiner drove the cart as fast as he could, which wasn't very fast. The streets were as crowded as ever with refugees, and Reiner spent as much time bawling at lollygaggers to get out of his way as he did moving forward. They were just three blocks from Madam Tolshnaya's and moving well at last when Reiner heard Hennig gasp.

'Reiner!' he said. 'Reiner, look! The corpse!'

Reiner glanced behind him and froze at the sight that met his eyes.

The Kislevite had been a trim, well muscled warrior in life. Now his abdomen was more bloated than that of the fellow who had drowned in the well. He looked like he'd swallowed a hogshead of Marienburg Ale whole. His belly was taut as a drum head; so tight that the skin was splitting. But that wasn't the worst of it. The balloon of flesh bulged and squirmed like a sack full of rats.

Reiner pulled on the reins and brought the cart to a juddering stop, then turned, staring.

'What is it?' asked Hennig. 'I've heard corpses fill with gas when they-'

His sentence went unfinished, for with a horrible wet pop, the body's stomach erupted in a shower of rotting flesh and putrid viscera. Reiner and Hennig recoiled, instinctively covering their faces as they were spattered with clots of stinking flesh. Choking and blinded, they didn't at first notice that, mixed in with the reeking ejecta, were small snot-coloured creatures that skittered over the cart on tiny, malformed legs.

The first Reiner knew of them was when one sank needle-like teeth through his boot into the flesh of his calf. He yelped and knocked it to the ground. His hand came away smeared with slime. Another bit his left toe. More climbed Hennig's legs. He plucked them off, gagging.

The street, a narrow way lined with tanneries and low taverns, was crowded with idle soldiers, street-hawkers and sisters of joy. The slimy vermin leapt off the cart into that river of humanity like fleas, biting and clawing, and the normal street chatter was replaced by bellows of pain and surprise. A roiling knot of victims twisted and swatted at the miniature horrors, looking for all the world as if they performed some strenuous dance. It would have been ludicrous were it not for the unfortunate soul, who fell, screaming, with eyes plucked out and veins chewed open to the muddy ground.

'What are they?' wailed Hennig, trying to knock one loose with his sabre.

'Nurglings!' said Reiner, snatching one off his shoulder and hurling it away. 'Revolting little beasts, aren't they? Ow!' He stomped on one that was biting his ankle.

Recovering from their initial shock, soldiers lounging outside nearby taverns rushed forward, swinging swords and stabbing with daggers. Reiner and Hennig jumped down and joined them.

'Second time today,' said a crossbowman. 'Things just like this attacked the camp hospital not two hours ago. Killed a score of wounded before we put 'em down.'

Reiner frowned at this news, but a nurgling jumped on his leg and he had to attend to it.

The tide was turning when a young guardsman, riding past at a gallop, reined up sharply. 'What happens here?' he demanded, breathless.

'Nurglings,' said Hennig, still swatting. 'Corpse was full of them.'

'Sigmar preserve us,' said the guard, making the sign of the Hammer. 'It's an infestation. The same thing happened at the mortuary. I ride to inform Captain Ulstaadt. Now I shall have two tales to tell.'

'The mortuary?' said Reiner, but the boy had already spurred away. Reiner's stomach sank like he had swallowed lead shot. 'Hennig!' he called, climbing onto the cart. 'Mount up.' He pushed the exploded corpse off the cart with his boot, then grabbed the reins as Hennig swung up to the buck board beside him. Reiner slapped the reins across the horse's rump and they were off at a trot.

It was full dark when they reached Madam Tolshnaya's, and the evening's festivities were already in full swing. Drunk troopers staggering in and out, arm in arm, singing bawdy songs. Knights intent on breaking their knightly vows ducked in discreetly, the badges of their orders hidden under plain cloaks. Fiddles and flutes mixed with feminine laughter behind the glowing mullioned windows. But though those sights and sounds would normally have made Reiner green with envy, tonight he was too angry to pay them any mind. He disliked being beaten at his own game. He was nobody's dupe. Nobody's.

He slewed the cart into the yard behind the brothel, scattering protesting soldiers as he went, and reined up with a skidding of hooves and a skittering of wheels. Drawing their sabres, he and Hennig leapt off the cart before it had come to a full stop and kicked in the stable door.

The long room was dark and silent, but smelled like a charnel house. Reiner and Hennig clapped hands over their faces, retching. At first they could see nothing, but soon their eyes adjusted. Anyaka's patients lay in their stalls as before, but seemed now very still - too still. Reiner and Hennig could hear no breathing or movement. All sound was lost in a constant low buzzing.

'What's that?' whispered Hennig through his fingers.

Reiner swallowed thickly. 'Flies, lad.'

The patients were dead, all of them. Reiner wondered with a prickle of dread if he had ever seen them alive, if they had all along been corpses, animated by some foul magic.

A faint orange glow emanated from the tack room. He put a finger to his lips and they tiptoed down the aisle, trying unsuccessfully to breathe without smelling. As they reached the tack room door the death stench mixed with another scent: a sweet, cloying mildew odour over a thick fecal reek that burned the eyes. They looked in the door.

Kneeling with her eyes closed behind a brazier of coals was Anyaka, but not the sweet Anyaka Reiner and Hennig knew. She had thrown open her priestess's habit, revealing her small but sinewy body, which glistened in the heat of the coals. At first Reiner thought that the swirling designs and eldritch symbols that covered her body - and which were echoed by others painted upon the tack room's wooden walls - were tattoos, but looking again, he realised, with a heaving of nausea, that they were deep cuts sliced into her skin, black with necrosis.

Over the brazier's coals sat a frying pan in which bubbled a viscous green stew. Prehensile tendrils of steam rose from it to caress Anyaka's nakedness obscenely.

As Reiner and Hennig watched, the priestess added to the stew from the packets Reiner had purchased for her, then ran her finger inside the cuts in her breast and abdomen and flicked into the pan the pus she gathered there. Fetid steam billowed up from the soup.

Hennig choked as the noxious cloud overwhelmed them. Anyaka's eyes flashed open. 'Defilers!' she cried. 'The ritual must not be interrupted!'

'Oh, but it must, lass,' said Reiner, advancing. 'Now back away from that fire.'

Anyaka did just that, but rather quicker than Reiner expected. She leapt up, snatched a dagger from her robe, and pulled a whip from a peg on the wall.

'Charge her!' cried Reiner. He and Hennig ran around the brazier. But as they did, Anyaka leapt over it and dashed out of the door. Reiner turned and ran after her, but Hennig paused.

'Wait, Hetz.' He kicked the frying pan. It slid off the brazier and splashed to the ground. Hennig jumped to avoid the spray and joined Reiner at the door.

'Good thinking, boyo,' said Reiner. 'Now quick, before she gets too far.'

But as they ran into the stables they saw Anyaka was standing near the door, hands raised. 'Servants of Nurgle, come forth and slay these unbelievers!' she called.

Reiner and Hennig slowed, looking around uneasily, half expecting daemons to materialise out of thin air. Reiner smirked when nothing happened. 'You seem to have an exaggerated opinion of your powers, lass.'

He and Hennig advanced on her again, but faint sounds to their left and right made them pause. It was a creaking, stretching noise, like leather being pulled taut. Their eyes settled on the body in the stall nearest them. Its stomach was swelling like a bladder filling with air. Reiner glanced at the stall opposite. That body too was swelling.

'Oh gods,' he groaned.

A wet pop sounded from the darkness, and another, followed by a horrible chittering and rustling. The body on their left exploded, showering them with rotten flesh as mucus-covered nurglings spewed from its stomach. The body on the right followed like an echo.

'Sigmar save us,' quavered Hennig. 'So many.'

'Forget 'em, lad.' said Reiner, starting forward. 'Get their mistress.'

He and Hennig ran at the sorceress, while corpses exploded left and right. But before they'd closed half the distance, Hennig cried out and fell.

Reiner stopped. Hennig was clutching his boot and screaming. Reiner looked down. Hennig's boot was falling apart. Where splashings of Anyaka's brew had touched it, the leather was eaten away, and the flesh beneath it boiled with blisters that split and popped as if Hennig's foot was on fire.

Hennig's shrieks grew louder. His hands, having touched his boots, were blistering as well. 'Stop it, Reiner! Make it stop!'

'Lad, I...'

Anyaka laughed. Reiner looked up. The sorceress was stepping into the yard and closing the door behind her.

'Foul witch!' he cried, but there was no time for curses. Out of the darkness a seething carpet of nurglings was converging on them.

'Hang on, lad.' Reiner grabbed Hennig under the arms and dragged him as fast as he could toward the closed door. It wasn't fast enough. A nurgling leapt on Reiner's back. Three climbed up his legs. Another bit into his arm. They were crawling over Hennig like roaches. The boy swatted at them weakly, but they only bit his hands.

A nurgling clawed Reiner's neck. He dropped Hennig involuntarily and flung the little beast away. Hennig instantly disappeared under the wave of vermin. Reiner tried to pull him out, but nurglings swarmed around him, biting and scratching him to the bone. He roared with rage and pain and was forced to leap onto a parked draycart, stamping his feet and scraping with dagger and sabre to dislodge the beasts that clung to him. He was bleeding all over.

'Reiner!' shrieked Hennig, his voice unrecognizable in his terror. 'Reiner, save me!'

Hennig was but a thrashing mound under the madly squirming forms. An arm shot up out of the mass, clawing the air. It was stripped, only a few pink scraps hanging from wet bones. Then the arm sank again, falling apart as it dropped. The little daemons had even eaten the cartilage.

Reiner's throat constricted. His friend was gone, who had moments before been a laughing, skirt-chasing lad with a contagious smile. 'Hennig... Karl. I... Gods, what am I to tell your mother?'

A nurgling bit his foot. Reiner yelped and danced back. No time for grief. The little daemons were swarming up the cart's wheels. Reiner looked around desperately. He was too far from the door to run for it. The nurglings would bring him down before he got halfway there. He couldn't kill them all. He was no Sigmar, and nurglings were much smaller targets than orcs. If only he had wings.

The thought made him glance up, and his heart flooded with new hope. The hayloft had a small door, directly over the main door. Reiner leapt up, caught a crossbeam, and clambered up to the loft. A few nurglings came with him, clinging to his boots, and he rolled and kicked, twitching and biting back screams, until he had crushed the tenacious vermin into red paste.

The others didn't give up. Hearing a scrabbling, he looked down. The nurglings were climbing the posts, digging their needle-sharp claws into the wood. Reiner hurried to the loft door and pushed it open. In the yard below, Anyaka listened at the stable door, belting her robe. Reiner smiled. Here was an opportunity not to be missed.

He leapt down, slashing with his sabre.

It was not quite the devastating attack he envisaged. First, he misjudged his leap, and jarred his sword arm against the wall as he dropped, so that while he knocked Anyaka flat, he missed her utterly with his sword. Second, he had forgotten his wounded leg. He grunted in pain as he landed on it and fell flat on his back.

Anyaka was up instantly, advancing with dagger and whip.

Reiner raised his sabre. 'Sorry, lass. Your ceremony will remain unfinished while I live.'

She smiled, her eyes focusing behind him. 'That won't be long.'

Reiner glanced back. The stable doors were swinging out, pushed open by a mass of nurglings spilling into the yard like a river breaking through a dam.

'Your doom is upon you,' laughed Anyaka.

Reiner cursed and scrambled painfully to his feet. 'At least you won't live to rejoice in it.' He lunged at her and cut her shoulder.

She yelped and ran, trying to angle toward to the street, but Reiner blocked her way, slashing again. The nurglings swarmed toward them, their little eyes glinting in the lamp light like jewels.

Anyaka wheeled for the brothel's back door and disappeared into the kitchen. Reiner was behind her, limping madly.

The nurglings were right behind him.

Anyaka and Reiner crashed through the narrow kitchen, frightening the Kislevite cook and the half-naked serving maids, and burst into the brothel's front room, a candle-lit salon crowded with rowdy, red-faced knights and laughing, languorous harlots.

'Save me!' cried Anyaka. 'Save me, gentles! He means to slay me!'

'Stop her!' bellowed Reiner. 'She's a sorceress! She's loosed a plague upon us!'

But both appeals were lost in a rising chorus of shrieks and curses as the nurglings erupted from the kitchen and fell upon the revellers. Harlots screamed and climbed the furniture, drunken knights roared and bashed at the nurglings with daggers, bottles and candlesticks, shouting for their swords. In their inebriated state, the men did as much damage to each other as to the nurglings: wild swings cut fingers, mashed toes and bloodied noses. Fights broke out among friends.

In this carnage the nurglings flourished; raking eyes, biting hands and feet, opening veins in leg, neck and arm. All over the room harlots and soldiers alike shrieked as blood pumped from shredded arteries. Others fell to the floor with severed tendons to drown in a chittering swell of teeth and claws.

Caught in this mad whirlpool, Reiner and Anyaka continued their chase. Reiner felt like he was in a dream, where no matter how swiftly he ran, he moved only inches, but at last he cornered the sorceress in a romantic nook, complete with a love seat and plaster cherubs.

'Spare me!' cried Anyaka, piteously.

'As you spared Hennig?' Reiner pulled back for the killing thrust, but strong hands pinned his arms.

'How now, sir?' said a black-bearded knight. 'Do you violence to the good lady?'

'For shame.' said another, a blond giant with cavalry braids.

'She's not a good lady.' panted Reiner. 'She's a priestess of Nurgle!'

'Protect me, noble knights!' Anyaka begged. 'It is he who is a servant of Nurgle. It is he who has summoned these foul vermin.'

'A sorcerer, hey?' said the first knight. 'He has the look.'

'Don't believe her!' said Reiner desperately. 'She wears marks of Chaos carved into her very flesh. Open her robe and look for yourself.'

The blond knight punched him in the face. 'Swine! Dare you ask us to abuse a Sister of Shallya thus?'

Reiner spat blood. 'But she's-'

He was interrupted as a pack of nurglings discovered the party and attacked. Anyaka bolted from the alcove. Roaring in pain, the knights dropped Reiner and slashed at the nurglings with wild abandon.

Reiner wormed between the two giants, chopping at clinging nurglings as he went, and ran back into the salon. He spied Anyaka through the surging crowd, making for the kitchen. He ploughed after her, and after a frantic push reached the kitchen and rushed through it. A serving maid sobbed, eyeless, in a corner. The cook lay sizzling in his cooking fire, dead from a thousand bites.

Reiner ran into the yard. Anyaka wasn't there. He limped quickly to the stable and listened. A murmur of chanting reached him.

Picking up a wooden bucket, he crept down the aisle past poor Hennig's bones to the tack room door, and listened again. The chanting continued unabated. He looked in. Anyaka had righted the frying pan and was once again filling it with poisonous ingredients, muttering over it all the while.

Reiner drew back. He hefted the bucket, took a deep breath, then spun into the door and hurled it. The bucket crashed into the brazier, overturning it, scattering hot coals and sending the frying pan flying.

Anyaka shrieked and fell back as boiling liquid splashed her. Reiner limped forward, sabre high, but the sorceress rolled away from him, around the fire. Reiner attempted to turn, but had to leap awkwardly over the spreading pool of poison and jarred his bad leg. Anyaka scrambled out of the door.

Reiner staggered after her, kicking through the fire that was spreading across the straw-covered floor. The stable aisle was empty, but he could hear the sorceress moaning from one of the stalls. He approached it cautiously. Anyaka was crooning as if enjoying the most sensuous pleasures imaginable. 'Lord Nurgle, I thank you for this glorious pain, for the poison that wracks my body so deliciously, for the gift of plague that I shall spread to all who feel my touch.'

Reiner looked into the stall. Anyaka huddled beside an exploded corpse, but as Reiner's flame-cast shadow crossed her, she looked up. He stepped back, aghast. The boiling poison had splashed her face, raising flame-red blisters from her left temple to her chin. Her lips on that side had shrivelled away from her teeth, and her left eye was a bulging white orb with no pupil, too big for its socket.

With an animal snarl the sorceress leapt at him, the corpse's curved Kislevite sword in her hand. Reiner parried, but her blow was so powerful it knocked his blade against his brow, stunning him. He fell back, Anyaka raining blows on him like twenty women. She was frighteningly strong, striking sparks with every slash. His sabre was soon so pitted it looked like a saw blade.

At last he bound her high, but she kicked him in the chest and he flew back, crashing against a stall. She advanced slowly, smiling, the fire from the tack room billowing into the aisle behind her.

'I congratulate you, my lord,' she said. 'You have stopped my plans from reaching fruition.' She raised her sword to her face and drew the honed edge down her scalded flesh, slicing open angry blisters. Thick yellow pus oozed out, coating the blade and eating into its steel. 'But there will be other camps, and other greedy fools ready to help a poor Sister of Shallya in need.'

'You won't win many hearts with that face, lass,' said Reiner, struggling to get up.

'Grandfather will heal me, as he has before. He will hide my wounds and corruption within, so that I may walk among the populace undetected and spread his blessings to all.'

Reiner grimaced. 'I begin to be glad we didn't kiss.'

She lunged with the poison blade. Reiner blocked it an inch from his face. Its foul ichor choked him. He staggered back, and she pressed her attack, forcing him toward a mound of burning hay. The fire was spreading quickly. The posts that held the hayloft were trees of flame. Hot smoke burned Reiner's eyes, but he couldn't blink, couldn't let Anyaka past his guard, for the merest scratch from her blade would mean death. His lungs ached. His strength was waning, while hers seemed only to increase. He dodged a slash and fell backward over Hennig's bones. She knocked his sabre away into a flaming stall, then stepped over him, triumphant, raising her sword for the killing blow.

Reiner scrabbled for something, anything, to throw, and grabbed Hennig's skull. He hurled it. It caught her on her blistered face. She barked in pain and stumbled back.

Reiner rolled to his feet and kicked her before she could recover. He looked frantically for a weapon. His sword was behind a wall of flame. A length of rope hung coiled on a peg. He grabbed it.

Anyaka lunged again. Reiner dodged and stepped behind her, looping the rope around her neck like a garrotte. She flailed wildly. Her sword bit into his boot. Had she cut him? He couldn't tell.

He kicked her legs out from under her. She choked and thrashed again with her sword. He needed to get away from that poisoned steel. He threw two more loops of rope around her neck and knotted it, then jumped back.

Hissing like a cat, Anyaka scrabbled at the rope, but before she could free herself, Reiner tossed the coil over a beam and hauled on it. Anyaka jerked into the air, kicking and retching. Reiner heaved again until she swung a yard off the ground. She dropped her sword and clawed at the makeshift noose.

Reiner laughed. 'Where's your grandfather now, witch?'

Anyaka turned flame-reflecting eyes on him, so filled with hate that, impossible as it was for her to reach him, Reiner still stepped back. She ceased struggling and began instead to spit out a rasping incantation while calmly moving her hands in sinuous patterns. A green glow began trailing from them. Fear gripped Reiner's heart as he felt invisible forces squeezing his windpipe, shutting off his breath like the rope shut off Anyaka's. He'd hung her, and she was still killing him.

Choking, eyes streaming from pain and smoke, Reiner darted forward and snatched Anyaka's poisoned blade from below her feet. She kicked feebly at him, still chanting.

Reiner's throat closed entirely. The world turned black and red and spun past his eyes. He swung the blade blindly and was rewarded with the satisfying bite of steel into flesh. Anyaka cried out. Her incantation stopped, and the pressure in Reiner's neck eased. He swung again and again, until the sorceress's screams stopped at last.

Reiner collapsed to the ground, sucking air as his throat opening fully. Hennig's skull looked at him, tilted at a jaunty angle. Reiner nodded to it. 'Thank you, lad. Well struck.'

The flames encroached from all sides. Reiner was just heaving himself up and make for the door when a group of men hurried through it.

'What's all this?' asked a familiar voice.

Reiner squinted through the smoke. It was Captain Deiter Ulstaadt and the watch.

'Hetzau,' cried Deiter. 'I might have known. What in Sigmar's name have you done?'

'Saved the Empire.' coughed Reiner, staggering up. 'Or at least this little bit of it.'

'You call murdering a Sister of Shallya saving the Empire?'

'But she wasn't. She was a priestess of Nurgle. She meant to spread disease and confusion through the camp.'

Deiter scowled sceptically. 'This little thing? I don't believe it.'

Reiner waved behind him. 'Look in the tack room. She covered it with unholy symbols. She was brewing...'

The tack room collapsed in an explosion of falling beams and roaring flames. Reiner and Deiter and his men jumped back.

'Most convenient.' drawled Deiter.

'But, but... look at her. Look under her robes. She's carved marks of Chaos in her flesh!'

Deiter wrinkled his nose. 'You ask a Knight of the Banner to look upon a woman's nakedness?'

'No, you pompous ass!' cried Reiner, losing patience, 'I ask you to use your head for once in your miserable life!'

Deiter sniffed. 'I think we have had more than enough of that.' He motioned to his men. 'Bring him.'

The guardsmen marched Reiner out, still protesting, just seconds before the roof beam cracked and the stable collapsed.

In the yard, soldiers, knights and harlots had formed a bucket brigade to try and quench the fire, while the brothel's neighbours were draping their roofs and walls with wet blankets. Others were tending to those who had been maimed and killed by the nurgling invasion.

'He's the one!' shouted a pikeman, pointing at Reiner. 'He's the villain who lead those little horrors into the brothel.'

'And he the one who talk me into putting up sick people in first place,' said Madam Tolshnaya, bustling up importantly.

Deiter glared at Reiner. 'After I turned them away?'

'And I saw him earlier today,' said a handgunner. 'He kicked a body off a cart and it exploded with nurglings.'

'Actually, it exploded, then I kicked it off,' said Reiner weakly, but nobody was listening.

The burly acolyte of Morr pushed through the crowd. 'And he left a corpse at the mortuary that birthed a swarm of monsters!'

Deiter looked at Reiner in disgust. 'It becomes clear that it was you, not the sister, who meant to spread disease and confusion, that it is you who is the servant of Chaos.' He raised his voice. 'Reiner Hetzau, in the name of our benevolent Emperor, Karl-Franz, I arrest you for the crimes of murder, treason, sorcery, and consorting with the enemy.' He turned to his men. 'Gentlemen, take him away.'

Reiner sighed as the guardsmen marched him to the street. It was just as Ranald taught. No good deed goes unpunished.

The hangman checked the lever again. The trap dropped and the sack of earth twitched at the end of the noose. It was late afternoon. The long shadow of the gallows touched Reiner's face. He turned away from the brig window. There was no laughter in him now. The sunset behind the gallows would be his last. No more dice. No more cards. No more women. No more fine food and drink. He hung his head. It wasn't fair. His life couldn't end like this. He had to escape. There must be a way!

If he could get out of the camp - out of the cell - he could make his way to the Sea of Claws. Then he might sail south to... anywhere really anywhere the Empire's shadow didn't fall: Tilea, Estalia, the Border Princes. There were always opportunities for men of adventurous nature to be had there. All he had to do was get out of here.

He looked around with eyes refreshed by desperation: thick walls, iron bars, narrow windows. He couldn't break through all that, not by tomorrow morning, certainly. He stepped to the cell's heavy oak door. The lock looked simple enough, but picking locks was not a skill he'd learned, and smashing the door down was a foolish fantasy. It was as thick as the walls.

He looked through the door's tiny barred window. The turnkey sat on a stool just outside, picking his nose. Reiner brightened. He knew the man: a dull, stolid trooper he had diced with on many occasions - and taken many a reikmark from. It had been like stealing alms from a blind man. There was hope after all.

'Vassendorf, my lad,' he whispered through the bars. 'A word in your ear.'

Scanned, layouted and proof-read by Mon

Version 1.0