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What Price Vengeance?

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WHAT PRICE VENGEANCE

A Brunner the Bounty Hunter story by C. L. Werner

The ragged group of riders slowly made their way through the craggy grey piles of jagged stone. The men wore dirty, unkempt clothes, their armour soiled by grime and fresh blood. Mud caked the legs of their steeds. The horses themselves moved slowly, their tired limbs rising and falling with an almost machine-like cadence. The animals were too tired even to protest the continuing march. Their masters, too, sagged in their saddles, fatigue wracking their bodies. They were no less spent than their animals, but, unlike the horses, a greater need urged them forward. In each of the bleary eyes that stared from the riders’ haggard faces there burned an ember, a tiny coal that kept their weather-beaten bodies in the saddle.

The line of riders manoeuvred past an old, half-dead tree, its skeletal limbs pawing at the dark, rain-laden sky. Soon, the clouds would again unleash the storm.

The riders hoped to achieve their destination before the rain came upon them once more, but rain, or no, they would take no shelter save that offered by the castle of Claudan de Chegney, son of the Viscount Augustine de Chegney.

The men rode around the dead tree, their horses barely protesting the abrupt change in the tedium. The next to last horseman paused as he jerked his steed’s head about with the reins. He paused, then fell, his body crashing into the mud beneath him. The man lifted his arm, reaching toward the stirrup of his saddle, his hand trembling from cold and fatigue. He pulled on the stirrup for a moment, then his hand dropped back into the mud and he was still. From a rent in his brigandine, dark crimson seeped into the mud.

‘There goes Tonino,’ the rider in line behind the fallen man reported, his voice expressionless. He was a swarthy man, his moustached face split along one side by the grey slash of an old scar. The riders ahead of him turned in their saddles, tired eyes staring at the comrade who lay bleeding in the mud.

The man at the head of the column nodded his head grimly. It was encased in a dark steel helmet, plated chin guards framing the man’s sharp features. The leader of the riders sighed, sagging a little more in the saddle as he made the sound. One hand released the reins to make the sign of the goddess Myrmidia in the air. Then, the leader turned about once more. After a moment, his men followed suit. Soon, the entire column of twenty had marched on, leaving the body in the mud, the horse to go where it would.

‘We shall just add Tonino to what is owed us,’ the leader of the riders declared, his voice low, harsh, and murderous. The tiny ember of vengeance burned a little more brightly in his eyes.

Gourmand, steward to the Comte de Chegney, stared from the window of the watchtower that loomed above the gate of the foreboding castle that had once been home to the deposed House of von Drakenburg. For centuries, the barons von Drakenburg had guarded the pass through the Grey Mountains, protecting Imperial interests from the ambitions of their Bretonnian neighbours. But such was in the past. For five years now, the lord of the Schloss Drakenburg owed fealty not to the Emperor in Altdorf, but the king in Couronne. Or more precisely, the viscount in the Chateau de Chegney.

Gourmand leaned a little forward from the window, looking over at the armoured man-at-arms by his side. He pointed with a knobby hand at a number of riders slowly making their way down the slope of the pass through the mountains.

‘Bandits?’ the soldier remarked, straining to make out more than the general outline of the men and their steeds.

‘Keep a watch on them,’ he said, clapping the soldier’s mailed shoulder. ‘They appear to be heading towards the castle. I will inform the comte and see what he wishes to do.’

When Gourmand returned to the West Tower with his master, a young, dark-haired man who sported the rakishly short beard and moustache currently favoured in the great courts of Bretonnia, the riders had drawn much nearer indeed. Even the steward’s tired old eyes could make out the battered armour and bloodstained clothes, the mud-caked tack and harness, the wearily plodding steeds and swarthy skinned men.

‘Bandits, my lord,’ stated the sentry Gourmand had charged to keep an eye on the approaching riders.

‘Bandits thinking to storm a castle in the middle of a storm?’ the Comte de Chegney shook his head. ‘Mercenaries, more likely.’ As he made the observation, the nobleman peered still harder at the approaching men.

‘Whoever they are, they’ve seen some swordplay,’ said Gourmand, still covering the riders with a suspicious gaze. ‘Recently too. A few of them look as though their wounds are still fresh. Perhaps they are some free-company that thought to raid villages and found the knights of Bretonnia more than they counted upon.’

‘By the Lady, I think I recognise them,’ the comte declared. ‘When last I was at my father’s house, he was engaging a band of Tileans. That man below I seem to remember as being their leader.’ Claudan de Chegney waved at the men below. The leading rider, a man in a tight-fitting steel helm, returned his greeting.

‘Call the archers off,’ Claudan told his steward. ‘I’d not turn away any man in such a state with the Grey Mountains in such an ill humour. That these men are of my father’s house makes it doubly my duty to shelter them.’

‘Your father would not think so,’ grumbled Gourmand, still regarding the riders dubiously.

‘I am not my father,’ the Comte de Chegney snapped, a brief flash of fire in his eyes.

The Comte de Chegney was below in the courtyard when the gates opened and the motley group of haggard horsemen entered the Schloss Drakenburg. Two men-at-arms flanked him, each in the de Chegney livery, and by Gourmand. A scabbard and sword had been donned by the comte, but he wore no armour, the blade at his side more a facet of tradition and decorum than any foreboding of danger on his part. These men had already been in a battle, they were tired, and seemingly wounded to the man. Even were they not loyal to his father, men such as these could hardly pose any manner of threat in their condition.

‘Hail and well met,’ the leader of the troop called out to the Bretonnian noble, his words deeply accented as he translated the Tilean greeting into the softer tones of Bretonnia.

‘I welcome you to the Schloss de Chegney,’ Claudan said, though even he still thought of the castle as Schloss Drakenburg. ‘You may rest here, and shelter within my walls until the foul mood of the Grey Mountains has passed.’

The leader of the horsemen smiled at the Comte de Chegney’s words. ‘Well, that is indeed kind of you, my lord. We were seeking cover from the rain when we sighted your castle. I hope that our presumption is forgiven.’ The man’s tones were the well-tutored semi-servile voice favoured by the mercenaries of Tilea, accustomed to deferring to the mad whims of the ruling merchant princes, while inwardly sneering at the idiocy of these same employers.

‘How came you to be abroad with a storm in the air?’ interrupted Gourmand. He stared past the leader’s sharp features, casting his gaze across the entire company. He noted the blood-caked weapons and armour, the tightly bound injuries. ‘And how came you to be in such a condition? Set upon by orcs, perhaps?’ It was bait; anyone familiar with the region knew that there had been no orcs in this part of the Grey Mountains since the death of the Great Enchanter many long years past.

‘Your castle seems a bit shabby,’ the helmeted Tilean commented, ignoring Gourmand’s words. ‘Not like your father’s.’

‘I asked what happened to you,’ the steward repeated, stepping forward. A glower from the massive Tilean beside the leader made the elderly servant retreat past the closest man-at-arms. The brute favoured the servant with a gap-toothed grimace.

‘That’s the problem with wealth and position,’ the leader continued. ‘Someone always has a little more than you do.’

‘My steward asked you a question,’ the Comte de Chegney said, his voice flat. Now he too was becoming aware of the aura of menace about these men. He had almost forgotten that trickery and treachery had claimed the lord of this castle once before. Now they would do so again.

‘Still,’ the leader sneered, ‘that is the only problem with wealth and position.’

The comte’s eyes were locked on the right hand of the Tilean mercenary, waiting for the villain to reach for his sword. Even as the Bretonnian drew his own blade, his eyes were still focused upon the right hand of his chosen foe. Claudan de Chegeny never saw the blade that whipped downwards to slash his throat. He would have understood the means of his death even less, the cunning Tilean device secreted in the sleeve of the mercenary captain, a coil of steel clenched between metal braces, triggered by pressure on a button-like contrivance to shoot a long-bladed dagger from the sleeve of the man’s tunic into the grip of his hand.

As the Comte de Chegney fell, the other mercenaries sprang into action. A crossbow bolt from a weapon that had already been armed before entering the castle and was now aimed with terrible speed and accuracy skewered the throat of the man-at-arms to the left of the dying count. The other soldier was trampled by the powerful warhorse of the brutish hairy Tilean that had seconded the leader even as the Bretonnian raised his pike to ward off the sudden and vicious charge. The hairy Tilean roared like a blood-mad bear as he brought his heavy cavalry mace crashing downwards at the cringing, horrified steward. The old man raised his arm to ward away the blow. The steel weapon snapped the man’s arm, but did no more than graze the old man’s head. Gourmand fell, groaning. On the verge of unconsciousness, he could do no more than roll away from the hooves of the horsemen as they charged up the steps that led from the courtyard into the castle itself.

‘Inside, everybody!’ the leader shouted. ‘Don’t give their archers a clean shot!’ As if to punctuate the mercenary’s words, an arrow flew from the window of a tower to strike one of the rearmost riders in the back. The man fell with a garbled scream. More arrows flew downwards, striking the stone steps and walls as the Tileans charged into the safety of the keep itself.

Ursio looked at his men. Eighteen, there were only eighteen of them now. He had started with fifty-four when he had been engaged by the Viscount de Chegney. Six had fallen when they had seen to the capture of the viscount’s neighbour the Marquis le Gaires’s annual tithe of gold to His Majesty King Louen Leoncoeur. The others had died when the viscount’s own men had ambushed the Tileans, seeking to silence these pawns of their master. Ursio vowed that his treacherous former employer would pay for every man he had lost.

‘Spread out!’ Ursio roared. ‘Search every room! Every hall!’ There was a strangled cry and a man-at-arms who had been storming down the stairs toppled down the remainder of the flight, a black bolt of steel and wood protruding from his chest. ‘We find the boy, we get paid! The mercenaries roared their approval of their captain’s words, many of them tearing away the bandages they had tied about their bodies, for few in the company were as injured as they appeared. The smell of vengeance and the promise of gold lent their fatigued bodies a new vigour. As if sharing in the vitality of their riders, the horses offered no protest as the mercenaries spurred their steeds down hallways and up stairs.

Betraying us, thought Ursio, is going to cost you dearly, viscount.

In the nursery, Mirella de Chegney and her son’s nurse cowered together. They could hear the sounds of battle and bloodshed echoing throughout the castle all around them. A brave woman in her own right, a part of Mirella desperately wished to race from the protection of the as-yet undisturbed nursery to see what had befallen her husband. But a newer and greater concern ruled her thoughts and enthroned a new fear in her heart. A fear for the small, fragile little life she clutched against her body, trying to stifle its crying wail in her bosom.

Suddenly, the door burst inward. A massive brown stallion, flanks caked in mud and dried blood, froth dribbling from its mouth, smashed through the heavy Drakwald timber. The steed whickered in a mixture of protest and pain as the rider upon his back straightened. The man was no less horrid in appearance than his warhorse. A powerful, brutish looking man, his face encased in a mangy black beard, his head sporting a mane of black hair as caked in blood and mud as the flanks of his steed. The man cast blazing brown eyes at the cowering women. With a snarl that was only half laughter, the man dropped from his saddle, shuffling towards the women with an almost hound-like lope.

‘The boy,’ he grunted, his words as thick and heavy as his voice. The man’s huge hands closed about the tiny crying shape pressed against Mirella’s body. The Tilean began to pull the baby from its mother, his bestial strength overcoming the noble-woman’s desperate hold. The Tilean stared at his prize with hungry eyes, jostling the wailing infant in his hands as if to hear the clinking of golden coins.

‘Unhand my son, scum!’ Mirella screamed. The Tilean turned his burning eyes at the woman. He saw the bright flash of metal in the firelight as Mirella drove a knitting needle into the soft flesh of his groin. The improvised weapon was deflected by the metal of the mercenary’s codpiece, but stabbed into the tender flesh of his thigh with scarcely impeded force. With the reflexes of a professional soldier, the Tilean ignored the pain and smashed a meaty fist into the blonde woman’s face. Mirella staggered away as the mercenary ripped the needle from his thigh, ignoring the wailing child he had dropped to the fur-laden floor.

‘You dropped this,’ the Tilean spat as he rushed the reeling Mirella. The woman’s hands left her broken nose as the Tilean drove the knitting needle into her midsection. The butcher wasted no further thought on the dying noblewoman, but turned his attention back toward the wailing baby. He saw the nurse clutching the crying child, trying to soothe its pain and terror, while casting horrified eyes on the Tilean’s advancing bulk.

‘Thinking of killing them too, Verdo?’ a cold voice rasped from the doorway. The Tilean looked over to see his captain framed in the entrance of the nursery. ‘We need the child, and unless you think you can nurse a baby, we need the girl too.’

‘I can wait,’ Verdo growled, snatching a fistful of the nurse’s hair and pulling her to her feet.

Gourmand groaned as another sharp pain rasped against his flesh. ‘Don’t die on me,’ a voice snarled. Gourmand recognised those cold tones, that mocking sneer. It was the leader of the mercenaries, the man who had killed his master. The stricken steward groaned and forced his eyes to settle upon Ursio. The man scowled down at him.

‘I have a message for you to deliver, messenger boy,’ the mercenary captain tossed a leather packet down, letting it settle on the wounded man’s body. ‘You take that to the Viscount de Chegney. You tell him what happened here. You also tell him that we have his grandson.’ Ursio gestured to the courtyard, once again filled with Tileans, and now joined by the mounted figure of the nursemaid and the swaddled form she held in her arms. ‘If he doesn’t want his line to die out with him, he will follow those instructions to the letter. Now on your way, messenger boy. And don’t die until you deliver that to the viscount.’ Ursio’s face twisted into a cold, murderous leer.

‘For the boy’s sake.’

The centuries hung heavy within the great hall of the Chateau de Chegney. For a thousand years the de Chegney family had dwelled in the massive brooding stone fortress, guarding the narrow pass through the Grey Mountains that linked the Kingdom of Bretonnia with the sprawling Empire. The lands ruled by the viscounts de Chegney had alternately prospered or suffered under their lords, accepting the justice and tyranny alike with the dogged stoicism and subservience of the Bretonnian peasant, but seldom had they bowed their heads in fealty to so terrible a man as he who now sat brooding within the castle’s great hall.

The Viscount Augustine de Chegney was no longer a young man, yet his build bespoke an animalistic strength and vitality. The man was not tall; indeed his stature was somewhat squat, slightly below that of the average Bretonnian. But the viscount’s shoulders were broad, his head rising from those shoulders on a thick bull’s neck. The head perched atop that neck was likewise massive, the viscount’s forehead sloping immediately from his thick brows to join his steel-grey hair, cut in the bowl shaped fashion of the Bretonnians. The man’s nose was broad, his mouth a thin gash above his scarce chin.

The viscount lounged in his high-backed chair wearing a tunic of scarlet trimmed with the fur of a wild cat, a bejewelled dagger thrust through the leather band of his belt. His leggings were tucked into a set of high leather boots, their toes shod in steel and silver. A trim of wolf-skin had been sewn to the mouth of the boots, the grey fur exactly matching the cold eyes of the viscount’s face.

It was the eyes of Viscount Augustine de Chegney that unnerved those who met them. Like the wild cat and the wolf, there was a ferocious cunning and ruthlessness about them, a quality of vicious determination that offered no quarter to those who might stand between the man and his desires. Even the closest of the viscount’s associates dreaded the steely gaze of their master, more so when the fire of emotion crept into them and glared from behind the icy grey pools to strike with the force of a basilisk’s stare.

Elodore Pleasant was facing such eyes at this moment, nervously adjusting his weight from one foot to the other. Pleasant was Augustine de Chegney’s oldest and closest crony, and had become his master’s seneschal following the sudden and unexpected death of Augustine’s father. A slender, haggard-looking man, Pleasant’s pate was bald, a thin mane of unkempt white hair fringing the back of his head. The merest suggestion of a moustache struggled in the shadow of Pleasant’s sharp, bird-like nose. The man wore a long black robe fringed in gold, his hands heavy with over-sized rings. Indeed, if Augustine de Chegney suggested some feral predator, then Elodore Pleasant suggested a vulture. Only in the eyes were the two men similar, for both viewed the world through cunning orbs, though the craftiness behind Pleasant’s pale blue eyes was akin to that of the fox.

‘Tell me,’ the viscount mused, sloshing the last mouthful of wine about the bottom of his crystal glass, ‘why do they call you “pleasant”?’ The grey eyes narrowed and the nobleman rose from his seat. Angrily the viscount hurled the glass against the wall, its gleaming debris scattering across the hall. ‘For as long as I have known you, I have heard only ill tidings from your mouth!’ the viscount snarled.

‘It is better that a friend deliver such news,’ Pleasant replied, trying to keep his tone even, not let any anxiety cloud his words. ‘One who knows your heart and might better council you in such matters as these.’

‘Was it not your council that advised I let that dolt Norval deal with Ursio and his men?’ challenged Viscount de Chegney, his tone low and full of menace.

‘Yes, my lord,’ agreed Pleasant, bobbing his head like the carrion bird he so resembled. ‘We have employed him for such matters before, and never had cause to regret…’

‘My son is dead!’ roared the viscount, clenching his fist in anger. ‘And now this foreign rabble have my grandson as hostage, demanding I pay them twice the fee for their services as payment for his safe return!’ The viscount scratched at the hairy growth on his throat and jowls. ‘Tell me, Pleasant, what do you advise that I do? Hmm? Shall I pay these animals for killing one heir to ensure the return of another?’

‘Begging your leave, my lord,’ the black-garbed seneschal stuttered, ‘but I do not think that paying them will achieve anything. They have been betrayed, and seek more than gold as compensation.’

‘Do you think that thought has not occurred to me?’ snorted the Viscount. ‘But what other choice do I have? I have spent a lifetime expanding the realm and fortune of the de Chegneys, I shall not see it fail for want of an heir! We shall pay these vermin ten times what they ask, but I will have my grandson returned!’

‘There is another way, my lord,’ Pleasant said, not daring to let his eyes settle upon the viscount in his present humour. ‘We could recover the child ourselves. That would ensure his return and not force you into a compact with this mercenary rabble.’

‘These men are not morons,’ snapped the viscount. ‘I would not have engaged them in the first place if they were. If Ursio even thinks my men are close to finding him, he will kill my grandson.’

‘Then we shall not use any of your men,’ Pleasant offered. ‘I agree, the Tileans would certainly discover an armed force sometime before they themselves were in peril. But a single man? One man could discover their hiding place, infiltrate it and recover the child.’

‘Know you of such a man?’ the viscount asked, his tone dubious.

‘Our smuggler friends in the Empire speak of a bounty hunter, a man named Brunner,’ Pleasant answered. ‘They say that once he is on a man’s trail, he will follow them to the Wastes themselves, and return with his prey.’

‘A bounty hunter?’ scoffed the Viscount. ‘You would entrust the safety of my grandson to a bounty hunter?’

‘They say that this Brunner is of noble blood, that when he takes a commission, he always sees it through to the end,’ the seneschal responded, somewhat defensively. ‘His reputation is quite terrible amongst our friends, and in this case, that is to our benefit.’

The viscount considered Pleasant’s council for a moment, his feral eyes narrowing as he thought. At last he turned his gaze back upon the vulture-like seneschal. ‘Very well, Elodore, if you can find this bounty hunter, engage him. Tell him to bring me my grandson. Or Ursio’s head.’

Pleasant bowed before his master. ‘As you wish.’

Elodore Pleasant and his hulking bodyguard pushed their way past a gang of drunken farmers and entered the cave-like gloom of the Braying Ass, the most disreputable of Albrechtsburg’s taverns. Pleasant brought a perfumed handkerchief to his nose, trying to blot out the vile mixture of cheap beer, unwashed humanity and dry urine that wafted out of the tavern. Beside him, the bodyguard rolled his eyes, annoyed that his charge had already broken his advice to keep a low profile in this thieves’ nest. Pleasant did not pay his protector the slightest notice but arrogantly pushed his way into the darkness.

Pleasant doubted if the rumours about the man’s nobility could be true. How any person of note could allow themselves to be surrounded by such filth and squalor was beyond the Bretonnian’s ability to comprehend.

Pleasant scanned the room, his eyes lingering on every dirty bearded face, his gaze taking in the large oak bar, its surface nicked and pitted by countless brawls and endless games of mumbeley-peg. The burly Bretonnian man-at-arms beside Pleasant nudged the seneschal’s arm, drawing his master’s attention away from the antics of a fat coachman and a serving wench. Pleasant’s gaze settled upon the dark corner his henchman indicated. The two Bretonnians headed toward the isolated table and its sole occupant.

The man seated at the table was an unnervingly grim sight. In build, he was a well muscled man, displaying a quality of strength such as might grace a professional soldier rather than the brawn of a common labourer. The man’s legs were enclosed to just below the knee in black leather boots with steel toes, while dark steel cuisses encased his upper legs, a faded eagles rampant visible on each piece of armour. A suit of brigandine armour protected his torso, a breastplate of fabulously rare gromril fastened over the cloth-and-metal armour. The dull tan of coarse fabric shirtsleeves was largely obscured by steel vambraces that encased his arms. His hands were clothed in black leather gauntlets, the knuckle of each glove sporting a tiny spike-like stud of metal. The man’s head was covered by the rounded bowl of a sallet-helm, the face of the helmet concealing the man’s features as completely as an executioner’s hood. Icy blue eyes regarded the Bretonnians from behind the visor of the helm, while the exposed mouth below the armour sipped from a wooden cup.

‘Do I have the distinction of speaking with the gentleman known as Brunner?’ Pleasant said in his most fawning manner as he approached the darkened corner.

‘Who wants to know?’ came the guarded reply.

Pleasant’s dour face broke into a wide grin. ‘I am Elodore Pleasant, seneschal to his lordship the Viscount Augustine de Chegney,’ the man said, lowering himself into the chair opposite that of the bounty hunter.

‘I don’t recall asking for company. Who invited you to sit down?’ There was a note of challenge and warning in the bounty hunter’s voice that froze Pleasant in mid-motion, his rear inches from the seat of the chair, his face inches away from the killer’s. It was as if he had come face to face with a snarling wolf. Beads of perspiration gathered about Pleasant’s brow. The hulking bodyguard took a step forward, hand falling to the pommel of his sword.

‘Before he can draw that frog-stabber of his,’ the bounty hunter’s menacing voice rasped, ‘I’ll have your throat slit.’ In the second it took the bodyguard to digest the threat, the bounty hunter erupted into action. A silver flash of metal caught the tavern’s dim light, then was pressed against the skin of Pleasant’s throat, a bead of crimson surrounding the point.

At the same time, the bounty killer’s other hand rose from beneath the table, a small crossbow gripped in his gloved fist.

‘We don’t want any trouble,’ Pleasant declared, rising slowly from the chair, the bounty hunter’s dagger rising with him. A sidewise gesture of his hand made the seneschal’s henchman sullenly back away. The bounty hunter set the crossbow pistol down upon the table, its lethal dart still pointing at the bodyguard, and removed the dagger from the chastened functionary’s throat.

‘Why are you looking for me?’ demanded Brunner.

‘I understand that you hunt men,’ Pleasant stammered, dabbing at his bleeding throat with his perfumed handkerchief. ‘And that you are the best there is to be had in that line of enterprise.’

‘That much is obvious,’ Brunner looked across the dingy tavern. ‘It would take quite a reputation to bring so fine a gentleman as yourself to a place like this.’ The bounty hunter lifted a small wooden cup to his lips. ‘What’s the job?’ he asked before sipping at the schnapps.

The anxious look on the Bretonnian’s face eased somewhat and Pleasant smiled. ‘The castle of the viscount’s son was ransacked by mercenaries discharged from my lord’s service,’ the seneschal began. ‘They killed my master’s son and his wife, as well as very nearly every living thing in the place.’

The bounty hunter slowly set the cup down, his cold eyes locking on those of the functionary. ‘I have already heard news of the unpleasantness across the border.’ Pleasant was visibly shocked by the bounty hunter’s words. ‘I make it my business to be well-informed,’ Brunner explained. ‘A man’s life sometimes balances upon the merest shred of information.’

‘The brigands have taken the viscount’s grandson with them,’ Pleasant continued. ‘They are demanding ransom for his safe return.’

‘I collect bounties, not children,’ Brunner replied, lifting the wooden cup to his mouth again.

‘The viscount is prepared to pay you very well,’ Pleasant reached into the breast of his tunic and withdrew a large leather pouch. ‘Two hundred gold crowns,’ the Bretonnian said, setting the bag down on the table.

Several sets of eyes turned toward the scene as the distinct report of coins jostling against one another insinuated itself into the clamour of the tavern’s atmosphere. Brunner reached a hand toward the bag, running his gloved digits across the cool leather surface. ‘One hundred now, the rest when the viscount’s heir is safely returned.’ Brunner turned his helmeted head away, leaning back in his chair so that his back rested against the tavern’s peeling plaster on wood wall.

‘A fair price,’ the bounty hunter admitted. ‘But I am not interested.’ Brunner bolted the rest of his schnapps and set the cup down upon the table.

‘I could speak to the viscount,’ Pleasant said, his tone desperate. ‘He would surely agree to any reasonable sum.’

Brunner sucked his teeth and stared at the Bretonnian. ‘I don’t want your money,’ he said, his tone menacing. ‘I’ve had more than enough of you Bretonnians and your lordly ways. I am my own man, not some foppish snail-eater’s errand boy.’

Pleasant’s mouth dropped in disbelief as the bounty hunter’s crude words impacted upon his ears. The functionary trembled in outrage, wishing he had more of the viscount’s men with him so he could teach this villain some manners. The seneschal’s tongue worked itself to voice a retort but all that emerged was a feeble croak. The bounty hunter turned away, motioning for a serving wench to bring him another drink, his would-be patron already dismissed from his attention. Balling his fist in outrage, Pleasant rose and stormed away from the table.

‘This has been a fool’s errand,’ Pleasant snapped as he passed his bodyguard. The other Bretonnian took his place at the seneschal’s side. The two men marched their way toward the feeble light seeping under the tavern’s door. Neither man noticed the scruffy figures who had preceded them into the street, or the two rat-faced men who followed after them.

Elodore Pleasant’s face was a mask of sullen, brooding rage as he stomped through the dirty streets of the township. The seneschal dabbed his handkerchief against the cut the bounty hunter’s blade had left on his throat. The outright audacity of the scum! Pleasant wondered if he might not use some of the funds he had quietly diverted from the viscount’s coffers towards seeing some justice meted out upon the arrogant vermin. But such thoughts of revenge were for another day. For now, there was still the matter of rescuing the viscount’s grandson, or seeing his abductors dead.

Pleasant was so lost in his thoughts that he did not notice the darkened lane his steps had carried him into, nor the warning hiss of his bodyguard. It was only the sight of three men standing in his path that snapped Pleasant from his dark humour, bringing his attention back to his surroundings. Pleasant looked at the men, their dirty, grimy clothes, their unwashed faces and gap-toothed grins. The Bretonnian’s face wore an expression of contempt as his eyes met those of the men, but the flesh that hung from his cheeks trembled with nervous anxiety as he noticed the clubs and blades the men gripped in their dust-blackened hands. He chanced a look back at his bodyguard, noticing for the first time that the soldier’s sword was drawn, and that two more ruffians had closed upon them from the opposite side of the lane.

‘I am on my master’s business,’ Pleasant said in a voice he hoped conveyed more authority than the fear that was building within him. ‘Give me space to pass.’

One of the ruffians swaggered forward, a short-bladed sword clutched in his hand. He flipped a strand of dirty blond hair from his forehead as it fell into his eyes. The man grinned, exposing a set of yellow and pitted teeth. He spat a glob of phlegm into the dust.

‘We ’eard ’bout yer little errand in da Brayin’ Ass,’ the ruffian said, his voice raspy. ‘Two-hunert gold fer retrievin’ some wine-swiller’s brat.’ The ruffian clucked his tongue. ‘That’s a pretty price, no mistake.’

‘I am afraid that I am not at liberty to offer that particular commission to anyone but the man my master considered skilful enough to accomplish it,’ Pleasant tried to keep his cool, but was all too aware of the beads of sweat trickling from his brow.

‘Is that so?’ the blond-haired man sneered. ‘So we can’t take this little job from yer? Can’t earn us the two-hunert?’ The man cast a mock regretful look at his companions and sighed. ‘Well, I guess we’ll just have to settle fer the hunert yer carry’n!’

The men laughed as they advanced toward Pleasant. The hulking Bretonnian bodyguard was soon beside the seneschal, trying to interpose himself between both the three men closing upon his charge and the other two quietly advancing from the rear. All five robbers were chuckling under their breath, their eyes gleaming like those of a wolf pack lighting upon a tethered horse.

‘Easiest money I ever done made,’ the leader of the thieves snorted as he closed upon Pleasant, drawing his sword back for a sideways swipe at the Bretonnian. The man’s chuckle trailed off into a gurgling death rattle as a spike of steel impacted into his throat. The sword clattered from his hands and he fell to his knees, dirty hands fumbling at the crimson tide gushing from the hole in his windpipe where the crossbow bolt had torn its way through his neck.

The other muggers were thrown into confusion and disarray by the sudden death of their leader. It only lasted a moment, but even so slight an instant was enough. The hulking Bretonnian smashed his shield against the leg of one of the club-wielding men closing upon the Bretonnians from behind. The bone snapped under the impact and the ruffian fell to the dirt street, howling with agony.

The bodyguard lashed out at the other robber with a downward stroke of his blade, the thief barely managing to raise his own sword to parry the blow.

The men facing Pleasant snarled and made to leap at the seneschal, determined to claim the weighty purse of gold before making good their escape. But even as they sprung into action, a new player introduced himself into the fray. A heavy falchion sword ripped through the spine of one of the men as the steel blade was thrust through his body from behind. The man didn’t scream, his eyes instead staring in incomprehension at the bloodied steel that protruded from the gory ruin of his belly. The eyes had glassed over by the time the blade was withdrawn and the robber’s body fell into the dust.

The other thief turned, glaring at the black-helmed figure that had seemingly materialised from nowhere to spoil their game. He raised his stout club, its fire-blackened wood further enhanced by a cluster of iron spikes driven into the cudgel. With an oath that might be voiced by any cornered animal, the robber charged at his foe. The face below the visor of the sallet-helm smiled as the ruffian came towards him. With one hand, he raised the falchion sword, notching the thief’s wooden weapon as he swung at him. The robber spat a second curse and renewed his attack. Again the armoured man parried the robber’s attack with his bloodied sword, but this time the man’s other hand leapt into action. As the thief was again repelled by the man’s guard, the armoured fighter’s left hand smashed into his face, plunging the blade of the dagger it held into the robber’s eye.

The robber dropped to the ground, screaming and writhing in agony, burying his bleeding face in the dirt. Brunner smiled as he strode towards the thief and calmly raised his falchion. There was a final cry of pain and the crunch of breaking bone as the bounty hunter plunged his sword between the wounded robber’s shoulders.

Pleasant stared about him, his mouth gaping open at the carnage he had witnessed. He had seen many combats in his time, but seldom had he seen a conflict begin and end with such swift dispatch. He looked for his bodyguard, finding the man already walking back towards him, wiping blood from his blade. The seneschal then turned his gaze back upon the bounty hunter. He watched as Brunner withdrew a rag from his belt and wiped the blood from his sword before sheathing the weapon. The bloodied dagger he returned to his gloved hand as he advanced toward the Bretonnian.

‘We were lucky you came along,’ the nervous seneschal stammered, the corners of his mouth twitching. ‘It would have been a near thing. I am no warrior, and all five of these men against my bodyguard might not have turned out so well for me.’

Brunner didn’t speak, instead his eyes turned toward the blond leader of the robbers, his breath still gurgling from the wound in his neck. ‘Let’s not be all day about it,’ the bounty hunter’s harsh voice hissed. Leaning over the dying man, Brunner raked the dagger across his throat, letting the new-made corpse pitch forward into the street.

‘There was no luck in my finding you,’ the bounty hunter said, turning his eyes toward Pleasant. ‘I followed you from the tavern.’

‘Followed us?’ Pleasant asked. ‘Then you have reconsidered the commission from the Viscount de Chegney?’ Hope flared in the seneschal’s devious heart.

‘Reconsidered?’ there was actually a suggestion of mirth in the bounty killer’s voice as he repeated the Bretonnian’s comment. ‘I intended to take the job the moment you sat at my table.’

Pleasant’s eyes sharpened, his face screwing into a suspicious leer. ‘Then why did you refuse my offer?’

Brunner rose and stalked toward the other side of the lane. The ruffian the bodyguard had smashed with his shield was trying to crawl away. Brunner set a booted heel against the man’s broken leg, pinning him in place and bringing a fresh cry of pain from the robber.

‘You made yourself a target, showing your wealth in such a den of jackals,’ the bounty hunter shook his head. ‘I had to see what sort of rats would scurry out of the shadows to relieve you of that fat pouch of gold.’ Brunner looked down at the groaning man at his feet. ‘Though I must say I am less than impressed by the results. I doubt if I shall get more than thirty silver for these sorry cutthroats.’

‘You used me as bait!’ howled Pleasant. His earlier glee at the bounty hunter’s acceptance of the viscount’s commission had once again been overtaken by a fervent desire to see the arrogant commoner painfully put back in his place.

‘I would prefer to think of it as seizing an opportunity that presented itself.’ Brunner returned his attention to the man at his feet.

‘I trust that you will show more expediency in retrieving the viscount’s grandson,’ Pleasant declared, choking down the more choice words that threatened to explode from his mouth. ‘Time is of the essence in this matter.’

‘I just have a few things to finish here,’ Brunner said, still considering the man at his feet. ‘If time is so valuable, I suggest you attend to effecting your return to Bretonnia. You can give me the details I will require on the road.’

Pleasant bristled under the bounty killer’s tone. He, a viscount’s seneschal, was being dismissed by a hired sword? Perhaps there was truth in the rumours of Brunner’s noble birth; Pleasant had never encountered such audacity in anyone that did not have some manner of breeding in their background. With a sharp word to his bodyguard, the fuming seneschal turned away from the bounty hunter.

‘Oh, messenger,’ Brunner called after the Bretonnian. Pleasant turned to face the killer again. Brunner held a gloved hand in the Bretonnian’s direction. ‘The hundred gold crowns.’ With a muttered oath, Pleasant savagely dug the pouch from the pocket within his tunic and tossed it to the bounty hunter. Brunner caught the jingling sack one-handed and tucked it into his belt.

The bounty hunter casually set a few more sticks into the circle of his campfire and unlimbered his packhorse of its tack and harness, hobbling the animal’s legs to keep it from wandering too far. His riding horse, a magnificent bay, he left untethered. There were few things the bounty hunter placed any trust in, but the fealty of his Bretonnian warhorse was one. He could be certain that the animal would stay by his side, come fire or sorcery. Brunner patted the great horse’s muzzle with a black gloved hand and returned to preparing his camp.

As Brunner continued to arrange his packs and blankets, the bounty hunter’s attention was only minimally upon his task. This was the place Pleasant had named as the rendezvous with the kidnappers. Brunner had a deep knowledge of this region, certainly a more intimate familiarity than a rabble of Tilean mercenaries could acquire in a few months of employment. He had counted three men watching the barren glade from supposed places of concealment. He could have easily disposed of them but he had no way of knowing what other precautions the ransomers might have made against any treachery on the part of the viscount. Brunner had thus ridden into the lurking mercenaries’ supposed control, and prepared to let the Tileans make the next move.

Brunner settled himself down upon a blanket, propping his back against his saddle. The killer faced the fire, seemingly unconcerned by what might be transpiring in the trees all around him. But the bounty hunter’s steely gaze was all the time scanning the edges of the clearing, all the time his ears were listening for the sharp crack of a twig or the rustle of a branch. Beneath the cover of his blanket, Brunner’s hands kept a loose grip upon his weapons.

‘Hallo to camp,’ an accented Tilean voice shouted from the darkness. ‘May I share your fire?’ There was a note of question as well as suspicion in the Tilean’s voice. Brunner allowed himself an inward smile. His elaborately staged calmness and unconcern had disarmed the men. They were unsure if he was the man they were expecting or just some chance wanderer who had muddled along into their affairs.

‘Provided you be no Ulricite zealot, please yourself,’ the bounty hunter called back.

That reply should further disorder the villain’s mind, Brunner thought.

The Tilean strode forward, the fire revealing his olive-hued features. He was a young man, a bright slash of a duelling scar across his cheek, a thin moustache worming its way across his lip. The mercenary wore a suit of loose fitting armour, a broadsword at his hip and a crossbow slung over his back. Even as the man strolled forward with a seemingly casual swagger, he rested a hand on the pommel of his blade.

‘I might be spending a cold night in the crook of a tree,’ the Tilean said, his eyes taking in Brunner’s figure, a smile flickering on his face as he saw the sword and other weapons resting near the reclining man. Near enough to reach should any visitor to his camp think to cause him any trouble, but not near enough to reach should that visitor have friends lurking in the dark with crossbows trained upon the warrior before that trouble began.

‘Then, by all means, warm yourself,’ Brunner offered, inclining his head towards the fire. The Tilean advanced, making a display of warming his left hand above the dancing tongues of flame. His other hand still hung at his side, casually resting on the pommel of his sword.

‘It is by Taal’s grace that I saw your fire,’ the Tilean commented, his eyes still studying what he could see of the face below the visor of his host’s helm. ‘How come you to be in this blighted place?’

‘I should ask you the same question,’ Brunner replied, his gaze piercing that of the mercenary.

‘My horse threw me,’ the mercenary answered. ‘I was acting as an outrider for a wine merchant who hopes to establish a new route through the pass to sell his grapes in the Empire. I must have ridden too far out for them to hear my oaths as the wretched pony unseated me and ran into the hills. You can be sure I will have some words with the man who sold me that gangly brute.’

A smile appeared on Brunner’s face. He had been listening to the creaks and cracks emanating from the dark, gauging the position of those who made the sounds. His watchers had drawn closer, eager to catch every word of the exchange.

‘Strange,’ Brunner said, spitting into the dust. He fastened his eyes on the Tilean once more, the mouth below the black slash of his helm split in a mocking smile. ‘Do you not find it strange that a wine merchant would employ a foreigner as an outrider, rather than a man native to the region?’

An angry snarl appeared on the Tilean’s features. An accomplished liar the man might not be, but to be caught in a lie was insulting to him all the same. The blade at his side flew from its sheath, the firelight dancing in the exposed fang of steel.

Thunder and smoke rose from the reclining figure on the blankets. Fiery pain blazed into the Tilean’s chest, pitching him backward with such force that he crashed upon his back in the campfire. The mercenary’s body rolled from the flames, his armour smoking, a wail of suffering rising from his throat.

The violent flash and boom of the discharge of the blackpowder gun the bounty hunter had fired through the fabric of the blanket momentarily startled and disoriented the two crossbowmen in the trees. The veteran killers did not hesitate for more than a breath before snapping the strings of their weapons, sending two steel bolts slamming into the target they had carefully marked. But in the thick grey smoke, the Tileans were not able to see that their would-be victim had thrown himself into motion even as the crack and boom of the gun’s firing resounded across the night. Brunner had flung his body to the side at once, rolling away from the blankets and the saddle, away from the carefully laid out weapons to the left of his previous position. One bolt impacted in the centre of the blanket; another struck midway between the blanket and the weapons.

Brunner kicked aside the pack of provisions, lifting the strange crossbow he had secreted beneath the leather bags. A long black box sat atop the weapon and, unlike the weapons of the Tileans, the implement of death the bounty hunter now hefted bore not one but two taut steel bowstrings. Brunner sent one missile crashing into the chest of the crossbowman to his left before the mercenary even had time to register the fact that his prey had escaped his carefully prepared shot. The second man had a single moment to react as Brunner spun the weapon in his direction. Panic seized the man and instead of dropping to the ground, the Tilean fumbled at his weapon, trying to reload it. The second bolt from Brunner’s repeating crossbow punched through the wooden stock of the Tilean’s weapon and embedded itself in the man’s lung. The mercenary fell then, a fraction of a second too late to save his life.

Brunner strode across the clearing, fetching up his sword from the display of weapons and calmly walked over to the still writhing man he had peppered with the blast of his firearm. The Tilean was cursing freely, his body wracked with pain. As he sensed his enemy drawing near, the Tilean stretched a bloodied hand towards his sword. Brunner set his boot on the mercenary’s hand. He flipped the mercenary onto his back with his other foot. The armour was flecked in blood and pitted by the small steel pellets the bounty killer’s gun had disgorged.

‘You’re lucky,’ Brunner observed as the Tilean’s face twisted into a grimace. ‘The armour stopped most of the impact. The shot barely nipped your skin.’ In truth, Brunner had been thankful for that armour. He needed one of the men alive.

‘In case you are wondering,’ Brunner said, turning his eyes from the wound in the mercenary’s chest to the man’s face, ‘Viscount de Chegney did send me.’ The information brought a groan not entirely of pain from the Tilean. ‘He wants his grandson back, but he prefers to pay for him with steel instead of gold.’ The bounty hunter put all of his weight to the boot crushing the man’s hand, bringing a new cry of pain. ‘Perhaps you would like to tell me where the viscount’s heir is?’

‘If I tell you, how do I know you won’t kill me?’ the Tilean snarled through clenched teeth. Brunner favoured the man with a frigid smile.

‘Because if I killed you after you lied to me and made me lose the bounty the viscount is offering for his grandson, I wouldn’t be able to kill you later for lying to me.’ Brunner ground the mercenary’s hand under his heel, twisting the broken bones against one another, wrenching another cry from his prisoner. ‘So, where are your friends hiding?’

Under cover of night, Brunner replaced his gear on his packhorse and threw his saddle onto the back of the towering bay. He spared a single glance at the man he had tied to the trunk of the gnarled old tree the locals called the Wizard’s Bones. The Tilean glared back at him from above the linen gag the bounty hunter had shoved down his throat.

‘You seem to harbour me some ill will,’ Brunner commented as he lifted himself onto the back of his charger. ‘Perhaps you have called down all manner of curses on my head.’ Brunner smiled beneath his helm. ‘But consider this. If your friends kill me, do you think they will come back here looking for you? Do you think anybody is going to happen along here before hunger or thirst does for you? Or perhaps a pack of wolves will decide to pick your bones clean before that.’

Brunner clicked his tongue and turned his steed’s head away from the clearing.

‘Just something to keep your mind occupied,’ the bounty hunter said, as he disappeared into the night.

The lonely grey tower stabbed into the night sky like the defiant fist of some fallen giant. Brambles and weeds encircled the structure, choking doorways and windows with dry brittle limbs. Massive grey stones littered the ground all about the forlorn tower, falling prey to the same verminous growths that had surrounded the fort from which they had fallen.

Cold, hard eyes gazed at the tower from the shadows of the forest. Brunner noted the faint flicker of firelight in one of the lower windows of the tower. The captured ransom collector had told the bounty killer the truth, but, then, Brunner had never doubted that he would. Perhaps the bounty hunter would even hold to his part of the bargain and return for the man before the wolves made a meal of him.

Brunner considered the tower. Once there would have been a scarlet pennant flying from the now broken roof, displaying the drake rampant that was the device of the Baron von Drakenburg. Once there would have been four sentries patrolling the rampart that peeped from below that roof, each dressed in the von Drakenburg livery, each a veteran marksman, for the Baron von Drakenburg would hire only the most capable of men. The face beneath the black helm smiled mirthlessly. Perhaps the baron had not been such a good judge of men, for he had been betrayed in the end, after all. Although, it had to be admitted, that even the traitor had been very capable.

Brunner studied the rampart again, satisfying himself that only a single man patrolled the roof, a weary looking Tilean with a crossbow who barely spared a glance towards the forest as he made his regular sweep of the battlement. Brunner watched the mercenary, studying his regular, unvaried movements. The sentry was slipping into that dire, inattentive boredom that always threatened to dull a sentinel’s wariness. With the man’s mind wandering away from the tedium of his duties, his eyes might miss a dark shape emerging from the cover of the forest. No doubt his watchfulness was not so far-gone that he would fail to see that same figure creep to the base of the tower itself. But there would be no need for the bounty hunter to test the guard’s capability that far.

Brunner made his way to a large overgrown bush, a massive thorny brute that promised no berries or leaves to any that might show interest in it, only the sting of dagger-like nettles. Brunner grabbed the bush, pulling it back from the small rise it leaned upon. As the bush moved, a dark opening revealed itself, a hole that dug its way into the rubble-strewn plain. Without hesitation, the bounty hunter worked his body past the unwholesome plant and into the darkness of the narrow tunnel. A predatory smile crossed Brunner’s features. The Tileans might have made the fortalice their lair, but they would soon discover that they knew very little about their temporary stronghold.

The mercenary wiped the crust from his eyes and refocused his attention on the dim landscape beyond the fortalice. The narrow window afforded only a slight view of the terrain, but Ursio had wanted a man stationed here just the same. He was taking no chances that any party of the viscount’s knights bent on revenge would fall upon the mercenaries without warning. Hence Ursio had placed two watch-points, one atop the tower, in the ruin of its roof, and a second here, in a damp room mid-way up the tower’s height. The wily captain was always a careful man. Men sneaking up on the tower might see the sentry above, and hide themselves from his vision, but having seen one sentinel, they would not think to look for a second and would perhaps reveal themselves to the concealed watchman.

It was a sound theory, but it did not change the fact that the Tilean’s post was a cold, dreary and boring one. Not for the first time, the Tilean began to recite old ballads to himself, imagining the times when he had first heard them, carousing with his comrades through the taverns of Luccini after a successful campaign.

The mercenary’s soft humming ended in a ghastly gurgle as blood bubbled into his throat. He toppled forward, his body sliding off the dagger blade that had neatly punctured the back of his neck.

‘You were off key,’ the grim figure of the mercenary’s killer stated, wiping the blood off the dagger with a bit of rag. Brunner turned away from the corpse and made his way back to the far wall of the chamber. His gloved hand caressed a worn stone several inches above the height of his head. Soundlessly, the wall sank inward. Brunner waited a moment, then slipped into the darkness from which he had emerged to kill the watchman.

Brunner emerged from the shadows that claimed the collapsed section of tile and timber which sagged across the greater portion of the roof. He watched the Tilean crossbowman making his rounds for a moment. The bounty hunter had finished scouting the tower. He had found that there were nine villains within it. Three were bivouacked in a long chamber that had once served as a barracks for the tower, busily playing at dice, gambling with the ransom money they had not yet earned. Another had been keeping watch over the horses, though now the horses were keeping watch over his body. Three others, one of whom he took to be the leader, were with the child and a nursemaid, busily plotting a triumphant return to Tilea and the strengthening of their depleted band. The other two had been the watchmen, the dead one below and the man death now stalked.

The drowsy sentinel finished his circuit and turned to retrace his steps. His mouth dropped open in shock as he found himself face to face with an armoured figure, its face hidden within a helmet of blackened steel. Icy eyes burned back into the young Tilean’s stunned gaze.

A sharp stabbing agony shot up the left side of the mercenary’s body and the crossbow clattered to the stone floor. The bounty hunter withdrew a bloody fang of steel, the same he had already used to send two of this man’s companions to Morr’s realm this night. The young mercenary gasped as the pain seared into his vitals and blood seeped from his side. The bounty hunter’s gloved hands gripped the wounded man’s body. He turned the sentry towards the crenelated wall. Stealth had played its part. Now it was time to let the sheep know that the wolf had arrived.

‘Scream for me,’ the bounty killer’s murderous voice hissed into the Tilean’s ear as he flung the injured man from the top of the tower.

The sentry’s wail of horror echoed through the corridors of the fortalice in the brief instant before it was silenced in a dull crunch of bone. Cries of surprise and alarm sounded from the two rooms still occupied by the Tilean kidnappers. Ursio met the gaze of the foremost man from the former barracks.

‘Find out what is going on!’ the mercenary captain snarled. ‘And kill it!’ he added, slamming the door shut after him.

The trio of mercenaries crept up the stairway, swords held before them, making their way to the roof. They had already discovered the body of the lower watchman, removing any question that someone was loose in the tower. The men were wary, cautious and more than a little enraged. At least one more of their comrades gone, another debt of blood to be collected in this vendetta with the Bretonnian viscount.

The rearmost of the Tileans was only a few paces behind the leading pair when he paused. He had heard a sound: the scrape of stone against stone. He turned, facing a dark opening in the wall that had not been there a moment before. He opened his mouth to shout, but found his words silenced as a length of steel tore into his gut.

‘Aren’t you pleased you found me?’ Brunner asked the dying man as he pushed him off his sword. The bounty hunter turned his body as he emerged from the concealed passage and made ready to meet the attack of the other Tileans as they reacted to the sound of their companion’s demise. Brunner smiled to himself. The men would join their friends soon enough.

Ursio stared at the door of the room that had once served as the quarters for the commander of the tower. The sounds of combat, the ring of steel on steel and the gasping cries of dying men had sounded from beyond that now closed portal. The mercenary captain cast a nervous look over at his remaining men. The wiry, scar-faced Vernini nodded at his commander, hefting the loaded crossbow in his hands. Vernini was the best shot among all his men. Whoever opened that door would be rewarded with Vernini’s quarrel in his heart.

The brutish mass of Verdo glowered at Ursio. The homicidal thug was still chafing from the violent reprimand his captain had given him. When they had discovered that there were intruders in their hideout, a fit of rage had consumed the black-bearded mercenary. Before Ursio could stop him, Verdo had snapped the neck of the abducted nursemaid with his bare hands and was lumbering toward the basket that contained the baby before a blow from the hilt of Ursio’s sword had restored some degree of reason in the thug’s murderous mind. Verdo stood, his heavy cavalry mace clenched in his hands, his chest heaving, every muscle in his body tensed in anticipation. Ursio thought his brutish comrade was not unlike a hound straining at the leash, or a Norse berserker working himself into a frenzy.

Ursio’s roving eyes rolled to the basket and the crying form within. The mercenary captain had lost everything because of the Viscount de Chegney’s treachery. The small life in that basket represented the only way Ursio could make his deceitful former patron suffer. The Tilean’s face settled into a snarl. He pulled his long-bladed dagger from its sheath and moved toward the woven basket.

Just then, the heavy door swung open, its rusty hinges groaning. Vernini did not hesitate. The sharp snap of his crossbow discharging drowned out the creaking sound of the old hinges. The bolt sped into the shape that filled the doorway, smashing through leather tunic, flesh and ribcage. The body jerked as the bolt impacted, then fell forward as it was pushed into the room.

Brunner wasted no time discarding his cadaverous shield, shifting to the right as the body pitched to the floor. Vernini was already hastily reloading his crossbow, swinging his body about to bring the still unloaded weapon to bear on Brunner. Ursio froze above the basket, dagger in hand; his eyes locked upon the black-helmed figure that had slain so many of his men.

‘Blood of Khaine!’ the mercenary swore as recognition came to him. ‘Brunner!’

As if to punctuate the Tilean’s oath, the bounty hunter fired the smouldering weapon gripped in his left hand. The shot from the black powder pistol smashed into Vernini’s forehead with a force far greater than that of the marksman’s crossbow. The mercenary’s face disappeared in a red ruin as the shot punched through the Tilean’s skull and the man was dead before his body finished falling. Brunner let the spent pistol fall too, dropping the weapon and drawing the heavy falchion from the scabbard at his side.

As the roar of the firearm began to fade, it was replaced by a thunderous bellow no less violent. Verdo charged forward like a maddened bull, swinging his mace at the bounty hunter as if it were the avenging maul of Ulric himself. The bounty hunter managed to dodge the powerful but clumsy blow, kicking the brute in the knee. Verdo grunted, but did not stagger. Howling his wrath, the Tilean lashed out at Brunner again, this time finding his weapon blocked by the intercepting steel of the bounty killer’s sword.

Ursio cursed again, gathering up the child from the basket, heedless of the wailing infant’s cries. Keeping the baby pressed against his chest, the mercenary captain circled around the duelling figures of Brunner and Verdo. He did not favour his thuggish comrade’s chances against the notorious bounty hunter, but perhaps Verdo could keep the hunter occupied long enough for Ursio to effect his own escape. As if to speed Ursio’s flight, as he neared the doorway, he saw Brunner’s blade slip past Verdo’s guard, slashing the man’s left arm almost to the bone.

The Tilean was running when he passed from the chamber of death and into the corridor outside. His steps were heavy and swift. He did not see the tiny glittering objects strewn about the floor, the sinister little steel spiders that met his weighty footfalls. They were caltrops, metal spikes designed to cripple warhorses, dropped by the bounty hunter to maim any escaping prey. As Ursio’s booted foot encountered its first caltrop, the metal spike pierced leather and flesh, gouging a hole through the sole of his foot. Ursio cried out in pain, flinging both child and blade from him as both hands instantly sought to arrest his fall. The mercenary captain landed badly, another caltrop punching through the palm of his hand, three others digging into his chest and legs as he impacted against stone, another puncturing his right cheek.

Ursio writhed in pain, trying to dig the caltrop from his face with his uninjured hand. The sound of boots scuffling against flagstone brought a new horror to the Tilean. Ursio looked up to see Brunner framed in the doorway, wiping the lifeblood of Verdo from his sword with a rag torn from the mercenary’s tunic before sheathing his blade. Ursio saw the bounty hunter cast a glance at the small swaddled object that lay against the wall, now silent and unmoving. The face below the visor of the helm was unreadable as Brunner strode toward Ursio’s prone form.

‘Wait!’ the mercenary stammered. ‘I’ll go with you! I won’t try to escape!’ Ursio knew who had set the infamous bounty hunter on him, he knew that he could expect slow death and torture when he was delivered to the sadistic Bretonnian viscount. But it would take days to reach the viscount’s castle, and Ursio was desperate to gain even so small a respite from his journey to the gardens of Morr. ‘You can take me to the viscount. I won’t resist!’

Brunner leaned over the pleading sell-sword. ‘I will take you to the viscount,’ his cold voice stated. Ursio’s eyes grew wide with fright as he saw the bounty hunter draw a large serrated knife from its sheath. ‘But the viscount is only paying me for your head.’

‘My grandson is dead then?’ the question emerged from Viscount Augustine de Chegney’s mouth like the forlorn growl of a wretched and dying wolf.

Brunner looked up at the seated nobleman upon his raised throne-like chair. He could imagine the man sitting there – not as he was, a morose creature who had seen his last chance for posterity taken from him, who knew that his long and noble line would now end with his last breath – but as a cruel and sadistic brute, resplendent in treacherous triumph. He could imagine the viscount sitting there, slowly sipping his wine as a sobbing maiden with long golden hair washed his feet with her tears, begging with the beast that had become her father to spare the battered and broken man whose blood still stained the stones of the hall’s floor. He could almost hear the viscount’s words of conciliation, of acquiescence to the pleas of his daughter-in-law. He could almost see the shabby, lice-ridden shapes of the slavers standing in the shadows of the room, there to ensure that every promise the viscount made to the maiden would become a lie.

‘They never had the boy,’ the bounty hunter’s cold voice said. ‘After leaving the castle, they killed the nurse and the baby, feeling that their prisoners would be too much of a burden to maintain. They never intended to return the child to you,’ the bounty hunter concluded. He reached over and carefully unwrapped the small knotted cloth bundle that sat at his side upon the floor. The soiled cloth unfolded itself and the head of Ursio cast its sightless eyes upon the viscount.

The viscount trembled with emotion, one hand rising to conceal his face from the bounty hunter. With his other hand the nobleman gestured to his seneschal. ‘Pay the man,’ the viscount spoke through his fingers.

Elodore Pleasant shambled forward, withdrawing a leather pouch from the breast of his tunic. Brunner rose, opening his hand, letting the heavy sack of money sink into his palm. The bounty hunter bowed slightly to Pleasant.

Brunner favoured the viscount with a final icy stare. The viscount looked back, seeing only the hired killer his henchman had engaged. Brunner bowed again, leaving the viscount to consider all that he had lost.

The armoured traveller emerged from the rear room of the tavern, leaving the young woman and the quietly sleeping baby behind. He turned his black-helmed head towards the innkeeper, a slightly balding man in early middle age. The merchant gulped as he met the icy eyes of the bounty hunter.

‘When I brought the child here three days ago,’ the voice beneath the helm rasped, ‘I promised you gold if you would care for him.’ The man’s gloved hand placed a leather pouch upon the counter of the bar, the sound of clinking metal whispering across the tavern as the bag came to rest. The innkeeper stepped forward, placing a protective hand on the bag of money.

‘Rest assured, sir,’ he said, his voice betraying his nervousness, ‘I shall look after him as though he were my own.’

‘You will do better than that,’ the warrior said, his tone slipping still lower. ‘Look after him as though his life were your own.’ The bounty hunter strode towards the door. ‘Because it is.’

‘I shall return from time to time,’ Brunner said over his shoulder as he opened the door of the tavern. ‘To check on my grandson, and to bring you more gold. Take good care of him, Wiedemann.’ The bounty hunter’s last words seemed to linger as he closed the door.

‘I’ll find out if you don’t.’

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

C. L. Werner

C. L. Werner

was a diseased servant of the Horned Rat long before his first story in Inferno! magazine. His Black Library credits include the Chaos Wastes books, Mathias Thulmann: Witch Hunter, Runefang, the Brunner the Bounty Hunter trilogy and the Thanquol and Boneripper series. Currently living in the American south-west, he continues to write stories of mayhem and madness set in the Warhammer World. Visit the author’s website at www.vermintime.com

A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

Published in 2003 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd 2012., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK

Cover illustration by Karl Kopinski

© Games Workshop Limited 2003, 2012. All rights reserved.

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A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-0-85787-629-4

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