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Wolfshead - CL Werner

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Wolfshead

by
C. L. Werner

Trees loomed thick and brooding on every side, casting weird shadows by the sickly light of Morrslieb. The gibbous moon glowered like the face of some malignant god from the starless sky, its more wholesome companion Mannslieb just a thin silvery sliver cringing against the horizon like a whipped cur. What had started as a clear and distinct path through the forest had degenerated into little better than a boar run, overgrown shrubs and bushes pressing in to reclaim the ground.

It was rough going for the two horses that forged their way through the overgrown track, but for the man who walked behind the beasts, the passage was nothing short of tortuous. His lean face was a scabby bruise from where branches had whipped across it, his rough homespun garments were tattered and torn by the ravages of thorns and his goatskin boots were almost shapeless within thick layers of dried mud. The man stumbled, his arms pulled taut ahead of his body and his hands crossed and lashed together by a thick cord of rope. Its other end was tethered securely to the tack of the smaller of the animals, a grey packhorse, its back laden down with bundles and sacks, a small wooden keg lashed to its side and the ugly hook of a halberd peeking from beneath rolled blankets.

‘Shallya’s blood!’ the man cursed as another branch smacked across his nose, splitting the skin. ‘It’s too dark to go on!’

The rider on the foremost horse, a huge black destrier, turned in the saddle, cold eyes staring from behind the visor of a steel sallet helm. The captive blanched as he felt those eyes bore into his own.

‘I don’t like it any better than you,’ the rider said, his tone as menacing as the purr of a panther. ‘I don’t like it when they want the merchandise delivered still breathing.’ He leaned over in the saddle, spitting the taste of his cigar into the brush. ‘You might mention that to Judge Vaulkberg when you see him.’

Beads of sweat peppered the prisoner’s face as he heard the name of the magistrate. Viktor Schwartz had fled the Reikland when he learned the infamous Judge Vaulkberg was looking for him. The confidence man had gone too far when he had assumed the title of ‘Baron von Schwartzhelm’ in his last racket. The real von Schwartzhelms had taken offence at the indignity of their name being appropriated by a criminal and made their displeasure known in no uncertain terms. He had thought Stirland would be beyond Judge Vaulkberg’s reach. He hadn’t thought about the fat bounty Vaulkberg had set on his head to appease the von Schwartzhelms, nor how far the ruthless breed of men who made their living as bounty killers would go to collect that reward.

Viktor had certainly never imagined a man as tenacious and relentless as the one who had finally caught him. Single-handed, the bounty killer had dragged him from the nest of river pirates with whom he had taken refuge. The confidence man shivered as he recalled the gruesome epilogue to that murderous scene. The bounty killer had set fire to the pirate lair, then shot down the outlaws as they came out the door, only he had been spared such a miserable death. That had been barbaric enough, but afterwards he had been forced by his captor to help him poke among the cinders for any bodies recognisable enough to turn in to the riverwardens. Viktor turned his horrified eyes to the wooden keg lashed to the side of the packhorse the bounty hunter grimly called Paychest and felt his stomach turn. He ran his hand against his neck, imagining the steel teeth of the killer’s knife sawing through flesh and bone.

Brunner was nothing if not pragmatic. Why drag the entire body away, when just the head would do?

The bounty killer cut a formidable aspect upon the back of his grim black warhorse, a Bretonnian steed named Fiend. The man wore a suit of weathered brigandine armour, metal studs poking through the layers of reinforced leather. Steel vambraces shielded his forearms, a breastplate of thick gromril covering his chest. Bandoliers of crossbow bolts and throwing knives criss-crossed his torso and from his leather belt a riotous array of weapons dripped like venom from a serpent’s fang. The fat-bladed knife with its serrated edge, the morbid Headsman Viktor had seen in action among the ashes of the pirate lair. A thick hatchet, its wooden heft deeply stained from its blood-drenched career. A pair of slender, almost-delicate looking crossbow pistols hung at his hips, their blackened steel frames almost melding with the sombre coat of Fiend as they slapped against the horse’s flanks. Across his belly, Brunner wore a holstered duelling pistol, one of the killer’s hands lingering close to the grip of the firearm. Against the bounty hunter’s left hip, the sheathed length of a murderous falchion, a butchering blade capable of tearing the steel from a man’s grip as easily as it could gut the man himself.

Brunner’s face was largely hidden beneath the visor of his rounded sallet helm, but what Viktor could see was a hard, unforgiving countenance with a mouth turned down in a perpetual scowl and a shallow grey scar pulling at the chin. He knew the man was a Reiklander by his speech and accent, but highborn or low commoner was something Viktor found strangely difficult to extract from the bounty hunter’s voice. Certainly the hunter’s casual disdain for Viktor’s attempts at bribery to secure his release bespoke no commoner scraping to earn his living by such a dangerous profession. Though, perhaps, this was simply because he had not offered enough?

‘You know,’ Viktor began without preamble. ‘I have some rather influential friends who would make it well worth your while…’ He paused as another branch came slashing into his face, opening an oozing cut in his cheek. Viktor cursed lividly, then struggled to refocus his thoughts. ‘My friends would pay well to have me back safe and sound, and wouldn’t be too particular about who they paid, or why.’

Viktor felt rather than saw Brunner’s steely glare as he swung back around in his saddle.

‘Friends like your pirates?’ the bounty hunter sneered. ‘All the money I want from that sort I can put across Paychest’s back.’ Brunner tapped the metal handle of the Headsman in a grim gesture. ‘As for you, I’d consider what I had to say very carefully. I’m not a tolerant man and my indulgence is over.’ Brunner turned back around, spitting the stump of his cigar into the darkness. ‘Vaulkberg wants you alive. He didn’t say anything about with or without tongue.’

All the colour drained out of Viktor Schwartz as he heard the threat, stunned into silence by the casual manner in which it was made. Shocked into silence, the outlaw was almost pulled from his feet as the bounty hunter’s animals continued their march through the benighted forest. Too terrified even to curse, Viktor stumbled along in his effort to keep up.

Suddenly, Viktor found himself crashing into the rump of Paychest. The grey packhorse stood stock still, its eyes wide with alarm, its ears standing up, its hooves pawing nervously at the ground. Ahead, he could see the black bulk of Fiend and even the warhorse seemed agitated, swinging its huge head from side to side as though trying to spot some hidden menace. The bounty hunter upon its back was likewise rigid with concentration, listening for any errant sound among the shadows. His hand had fallen to the grip of his pistol, slowly inching the weapon from its holster.

All was silence, even the chirping of crickets seemed to be muted by some unseen malignance. Viktor could hear his heart hammering in his chest, feel his throat going tight from fear. He could feel it now, as surely as the horses and the hunter. There was something out there, something obscene and unnatural.

From somewhere deep in the forest, a piercing howl rose into the night. It was a savage, feral sound, both deep and sharp, seeming to echo in the very bones of those who heard it. It was not unlike the cry of a wolf, but of such volume and magnitude that defied belief. Viktor muttered a quiet prayer to Taal, god of the beasts and the wild, as he heard it. The bounty hunter’s horses nickered and stamped their hooves in agitation. For his part, Brunner drew his pistol and checked to see that the firing cap was secure upon the weapon’s steel nipple.

A chill wind rustled through the brush, fanning the terror of the two horses, forcing the bounty hunter to forget his weapon for the moment to quieten his steed. Viktor dodged out of the path of the bucking Paychest until the bounty killer dismounted and calmed the draft horse as well.

When he turned from his chore, Brunner ripped the pistol back from its holster, allowing his other hand to slip around the hilt of his falchion. Ahead, in the darkness, a shape moved, creeping through the brush towards the two men.

Brunner aimed his pistol at the approaching shadow, his finger loose around the trigger. The slightest pressure would send a lead ball blasting through the head of the advancing wraith. Though he could make out nothing but a darker shadow beyond the bushes, the manner in which Fiend and Paychest reacted to the unseen denizen of the dark was enough to make him aware that it was no natural thing. The woods and forests of the Empire were havens for all manner of goblins and beastmen, as well as other, less wholesome inhabitants. A few more steps, and Brunner would make the wilds of Stirland safer by one less monster.

The bounty hunter gave a sharp cry of alarm as the pistol fell from his gloved hand. The leather smoked where the suddenly white-hot weapon had seared him where he gripped it. The spectral chill of sorcery whirled around him, creating a sinister contrast to his burned hand. Brunner tore his falchion from its sheath, staring into the darkness, ready to rush his spell-slinging foe. The shadow he had seen before was no longer there. The bounty hunter’s instincts caused him to spin around towards the other side of the path.

A dark figure smiled at him with a ratty, gap-toothed grin as Brunner raised his falchion to strike.

‘None of that, sweetie,’ the figure croaked in a voice that was withered with age and evil. ‘It’s no harm Mamma Miranda means to you. It’d be a true pity for me to have to burn your other hand now.’

As she spoke, the woman stepped forwards into the dim light of the moon. She was a little creature, barely tall enough to touch the fetlocks of Brunner’s charger, her back almost as crooked as a woodsman’s bow. She leaned upon a knobbly cane of oak and was wrapped tight in a dark woollen shawl, the hood pulled close about her scraggly white hair and shrivelled head. It was a desiccated, reptilian face that stared from the frame of the hood, the skin splotched with brown blemishes and wrinkled like old leather. Her nose was a little bulb set above her wide, rodent-like mouth and the eyes that gleamed from either side of it were strangely luminescent in the darkness. A tangle of charms and talismans rattled about her throat and dangled from her wrists, bearing symbols of Ahalt the Drinker and other, even more unspeakable gods.

Brunner slowly lowered his sword, carefully returning it to its sheath. Miranda watched the action with seemingly rapt attention, then her rat-like grin hardened.

‘Don’t think I don’t see you going for your knife while you put yon boar-cutter away,’ the old woman cackled. ‘It’s a good turn I mean you and you have nay right to bear me such ill.’

‘Is that so?’ the bounty hunter returned. He folded his arms across his chest in a seeming gesture of defeat. ‘What have I done to warrant the interest of a witch?’

Miranda scowled at the word and her glittering eyes took on an even uglier appearance. ‘It’s careful you should be about baiting me, child. There’s Powers I be beholden to and They be the ones what have an interest in you, nay old Mamma Miranda. Left to me, and I’d leave you to have your bones picked clean and your guts spilt across the forest!’

‘I care nothing for your daemons or your magic, witch!’ Brunner growled back. The fingers of his left hand slipped gradually beneath the vambrace on his right arm, reaching for the slender throwing knife hidden there. ‘I have business in Reikland and no desire to waste words with a heretic hag!’

The witch uttered a cackle of scornful amusement. She stabbed a crooked finger at Viktor. ‘Your dead man will never reach the judge, and weeds will grow through your gnawed bones and a fitting end it would be too.’ Miranda’s scowl grew even sicklier and she fingered one of her talismans, a metal sliver of moon intersected by a disc. ‘Unfortunately it would sit ill with my Masters if I were to allow harm to befall you because of my magic, and Their displeasure is not a thing to be taken lightly.’

With a speed that even Brunner found amazing, the old woman removed a bundle of weeds from beneath her shawl and threw them at the bounty hunter’s feet. ‘You are not the only hunter abroad this night, Brunner of Drakenberg. When the beast picks up your scent, you must burn these herbs.’ Miranda saw the incredulous twist of Brunner’s mouth. ‘There are things against which lead and steel are not enough,’ she warned. ‘That is when you might be thankful for an old witch’s magic!’

Brunner bent down to retrieve the bundle of herbs, using the motion to cover his hand as he finished pulling the knife from beneath his armour. His eyes were only off the witch for an instant but, when he straightened to hurl his weapon at her, he found himself staring only at the night-blackened forest. He fought back the twinge of supernatural dread the hag’s vanishment evoked.

‘She… she disappeared… right there! While I was… was watching!’ stammered Viktor, pointing with his tethered hands at the empty bushes.

Brunner stalked over to his captive, checking his bonds. The witch might have vanished, but his prisoner wasn’t going to follow her example.

‘She… she was a witch!’ Viktor gasped. He grabbed Brunner’s arm in a desperate gesture. ‘She said I would never reach Judge Vaulkberg, that I was a dead man!’

Brunner shook off Viktor’s grasping hands. ‘The hag was wrong,’ he hissed. ‘You should be worried about what the judge is going to do to you, not some crazed hedge mage’s predictions.’

The bounty hunter walked back to Fiend, his contempt for the witch’s words still ringing in Viktor’s ears.

That Brunner did not discard the bundle of dried weeds, but stuffed them carefully in a saddlebag was an observation the frightened Viktor failed to make.

He was too busy listening to the renewed howling in the darkness and trying to convince himself it was not closer than it had been before.

The wolf howl dogged Brunner through the long hours of the night, sometimes closer, sometimes farther, but always there. The persistence of the howl had made Paychest all but unmanageable, and even Fiend was on edge. As for his captive, he had been forced to tie Viktor to his own saddle to prevent the fear-crazed man from trying to scramble into a tree every time he heard the howl. A broken leg would make getting him to the Reikland a good sight more difficult and Brunner would just as soon avoid such complications.

It was when the howling dropped off entirely that the bounty hunter came on edge. Viktor, oblivious to Brunner’s increased wariness, took the silence as sign that the wolf had forsaken them to find less formidable prey. The continuing agitation of the horses made it clear that the predator was still close.

When the attack came, it was of such speed and ferocity that even the bounty killer was caught unprepared. One instant there was the darkness of the path, the brambles and thickets pressing close to the overgrown trail. The next a pair of red eyes shone from the blackness. Brunner drew his pistol even as a terrible growl rumbled through the night. Branches snapped as something lithe and powerful lunged from its hiding place.

Brunner had an instant to observe the sleek black shape as it leapt upon him, bowling him from the saddle and smashing him to the ground. It was a wolf, a huge specimen of its breed. Its jaws flashed white in the moonlight, froth dripping from its jowls. Brunner fired his pistol into the beast as its leap brought it crashing against him, shocked when the brute did not so much as yelp when the weapon discharged inches from its snapping fangs. A misfire was always a possibility, but the smoke and fire should have been enough to scare the animal off.

His second shock came as he struck the ground, the beast atop him. Brunner felt fingers close around his wrists, pinning him to the ground. As he stared up at his attacker, he saw only the canine snout and black-furred head of a wolf, its eyes gleaming with a cruel intelligence. Nursery fables and half-remembered legends flooded into Brunner’s mind as he felt the baleful gaze of the wolf fixed upon him. He fought down his superstitious dread with more difficulty than he had in his encounter with the witch. Natural or child of Old Night, the surest way to die beneath a predator’s jaws was to show fear.

Unfortunately, the same lesson had not been taught to Viktor Schwartz. The outlaw pulled at his tether, shrieking and wailing like a lost lamb. The noise of his terror brought the wolf’s head snapping about. Whatever intellect might lurk within the beast, it had no mastery over its savage instincts. Brunner felt a heavy weight press down on him, then the wolf was away, springing off of him and pouncing upon the screaming Viktor.

The prisoner fell beneath the beast’s weight, crushed to the earth with savage violence. Blood spattered the bushes as the wolf’s claws tore into him, each of its hand-like paws ripping into his body with feral brutality. Viktor’s high-pitched screams degenerated into a bubbly gargle as the wolf’s fangs snapped close around his neck and began to worry at his throat. Arterial spray, almost black in the moonlight, spurted from the wound, bathing prey and predator in Viktor’s blood.

Brunner staggered to his feet, his chest still feeling the crushing weight of the wolf against it. He drew the crossbow pistols from his belt, taking aim even as he watched the beast slaughter his prisoner like a wayward calf.

‘Your pelt better be worth three hundred crowns, cur!’ Brunner snarled, loosing the bolts from his pistols into the wolf’s back. Both missiles struck home, stabbing into the beast. Brunner took a step back, once again struck with shock and horror. The bolts had struck true, but their effect could have been no more useless had he loosed them into a side of beef. The wolf barely deigned to notice their impact, but continued to savage the quivering body of its prey. As it snapped and slavered, the bolts seemed to work themselves loose from its body, falling into the mush of dead leaves on the ground.

Brunner tried to tell himself it was some trick of light and shadow, but the effort was too great. It was no wolf that held its prey in paw-like hands, and no beastman who defied bullets and bolts. It was something else, something that, as the witch had warned, did not respect steel and lead.

The bounty hunter pulled his tinderbox from a pouch on his belt, hurriedly trying to light the withered weeds the old woman had thrust upon him. The wolf-beast seemed to take notice the instant he began. It dropped Viktor’s gory carcass, its muzzle pulled into a snarl as it fixed him with its scarlet eyes. The creature slowly crept towards him, an angry growl rumbling through its powerful frame, keeping itself upright upon two legs, its clawed hands closing and opening in their eagerness for violence.

The weeds had just begun to smoulder, the first faint hint of noxious smoke rising from them, when the wolf-beast lowered its head and coiled its body into a crouch. Brunner dropped his tinderbox and dragged the hatchet from his belt. The move was only just in time as the wolf lunged for him, uncoiling in a black-furred streak of bestial fury. The bounty hunter twisted as it jumped, staggering from the glancing impact instead of being crushed beneath the beast’s body as he had before. As the wolf dove past him, he lashed out with the axe, slashing its edge through fur and flesh, hearing the steel scrape against bone. But when the beast was past and he looked at his axe, he found the blade unmarked by blood. He did not need to be a witch to know that the wolf’s hide was similarly unmarked, preserved by whatever unholy forces gave it power.

The wolf coiled to spring again, but as it did so, it began to shake its head, snuffling loudly. It brought a forearm scratching against its muzzle, then rolled its face in the dirt. Brunner could see that the bundle of weeds was now smoking fiercely, the pungent reek almost overwhelming. Its effect on the wolf-beast was even worse and, with a mournful wail, like the whine of a child, the brute darted towards the trees.

Before it could vanish, Brunner was pulling his sword from its scabbard. If the weed could wreak such havoc on the beast, perhaps they had also foiled its invulnerability to steel. He started after the wolf, but the familiar sound of an explosive crack caused him to drop. The trunk of a nearby tree exploded with splinters as a bullet slammed into it.

Brunner rolled onto his belly, watching for the hidden shooter, the wolf having already vanished into the undergrowth. After a few moments, he could hear the unmistakable sound of a rider ploughing his way through the undergrowth. The glow of a lantern appeared in the murk of the forest, soon followed by the one who held it.

The rider was a well-dressed man, the doublet beneath his engraved breastplate was extravagant and colourful, his stiff cavalry boots monogrammed with gilded letters, his rounded helm sporting outrageous plumes of ostrich feathers. The sword that hung from his belt was thin and rakish, with a jewelled hilt and silver etchings along its scabbard. The man’s face was clean, handsome in the classical Imperial style, with well-tended moustaches waxed into twisted curls. Pale blue eyes regarded Brunner with alarm and a smoking pistol almost fell from the rider’s beringed fingers.

‘Taal’s mercy!’ the rider gasped. ‘I didn’t see you there! Morr’s oath, I saw only the wolf!’

‘Then you missed,’ Brunner said, picking himself from the ground and gesturing at the injured tree. The bounty hunter’s eyes were narrowed and filled with menace, scrutinising the horseman and his weapons.

The rider’s face flushed somewhat at the remark and he shoved the pistol back into its holster with an embarrassed motion. ‘I am truly sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know there were other hunters abroad tonight. Those damn Kislevites will be whoring and drinking by this time and, well, they are burying Otto in the morning.’

Brunner stalked over to his horses, trying to quiet them down. Only the fact that it was tied to Fiend’s saddle had prevented Paychest from bolting during the ghastly encounter. He paused to regard the rider, his interest piqued not by apologies for slovenly marksmanship, but by mention of hunters and a hunt.

‘What’s this about a hunt?’ he asked.

The rider seemed to be taken aback by the question. ‘Then you weren’t engaged by my father?’

‘I don’t even know who your father is,’ Brunner said, patting and rubbing the neck of his packhorse.

The rider straightened in his saddle, throwing out his chest in a manner that would have looked out of place even in a Sierck play. ‘I am the Baronet Dietrich Hartog, son of his lordship the Baron Friederick Hartog.’

‘An awful lot of barons for one stretch of forest,’ Brunner muttered under his breath, looking sadly at the gory wreckage of Viktor Schwartz.

‘I am sorry about your friend,’ Dietrich said. ‘I will help you take him back to the village for burial.’

Brunner turned away, shaking his head and pulling himself into Fiend’s saddle. He cut away the tether and threw it onto the ground beside the body. ‘Leave him,’ the bounty hunter said, his voice cold. He cast a last glance at the mangled corpse. ‘He’s no good to anyone… now.’

As Dietrich Hartog led him through the forest, the baronet filled Brunner in regarding the situation in his father’s domain. Roughly a year before, a strange predator had appeared, preying on the herds and generally wreaking havoc through the district. Every effort made by his father’s gamekeepers to track it down failed and before long the beast progressed from picking off the odd goat or calf to feeding on those who tended them. Once a month, when Morrslieb the Chaos moon was at its height, new outrages would shock the district. Those few who had seen it and survived described an enormous black wolf, bigger than a steer and possessed of unnatural strength and boldness.

Dietrich was not prepared to endow the wolf with such powers, though he grudgingly admitted it was far more cunning than common for its breed, ‘more fox than wolf ’, he mused. It was too smart for local hunters to bring down and his father had been forced to recruit hunters from all across Stirland to try and defeat it. One and all had failed, many of them becoming victims of the wolf themselves. In desperation, the baron had finally increased the bounty on the black wolf to five hundred crowns and had dispatched couriers to bear news of the reward to the far corners of the Empire.

The swollen bounty had brought wolf hunters swarming upon the district, but even experienced marksmen from Hochland and veteran woodsmen from the Drakwald had failed to best the beast.

‘My father can hardly increase the bounty any more than he already has,’ Dietrich said as they emerged from the tangle of the forest and into the open fields beyond. In the distance, little snakes of smoke marked the village and beyond it, with the morning sun just beginning to peek above its battlements was the looming bulk of Castle Hartog. ‘And if the wolf isn’t stopped, the peasants will start abandoning us in droves.’

Brunner gave the nobleman a shrug. ‘They expect the baron to protect them. That’s why they pay him taxes and give him their fealty. If your father can’t honour that obligation, then he has no right to expect them to stay.’

Dietrich’s face flushed with outrage at the impertinent words, his hand falling to the jewelled hilt of his sword.

Brunner seemed to ignore the angry gesture, pointing instead to a curious structure standing in the middle of the fields. ‘What is that?’ he asked, nodding his chin towards the ring of crude stone monoliths and the little wood hut nestled in their shadow.

‘A shrine to Rhya, the Earth Mother,’ Dietrich answered, almost automatically. ‘It has stood here since before the time of Sigmar, so they say,’ he added with a surly note.

‘Your people must be extremely pious,’ Brunner said, watching as a line of figures draped in black emerged from the hut and began to walk into the stone circle. Closer now, he could see a pile of wood at the centre of the circle. Towards this, the figures bore a burden covered in a linen shroud.

‘The nearest priest of Morr is three hundred miles from here,’ Dietrich said. ‘It is imprudent to wait for him to visit us, so we consign the dead to Morr’s gardens in the old way.’ He pointed at the shrouded body. ‘I don’t think Otto will complain.’

The mourners laid their burden upon the pile of kindling, then began to step away from the mound. Brunner put his spurs to Fiend’s flanks as he saw another mourner emerge from the hut, a flaming brand in her hand. Dietrich cursed and spurred his own mount after Brunner, taken aback by the bounty hunter’s sudden rush toward the circle.

Brunner reined his horse before the woman bearing the torch, blocking her from the pyre. He saw now that he was mistaken, she was not one of the drab mourners, but a priestess. Beneath a cape of woven leaves and a mantle of flowers, she wore a shrift of thin white cloth, a garment so fine it might have been crafted from strands of gossamer. The almost transparent robe left nothing of the woman’s supple body to the imagination and the face that regarded him from beneath the flowery headdress was of almost divine beauty. There was no accusation in her soft blue eyes, no hardening of her velveteen lips as the huge black charger blocked her path. She simply gestured at the sky and spoke in a voice that was like the sigh of a breeze through long grass.

‘The morning grows apace, child,’ the woman said. ‘If this poor man’s soul is to be entrusted into Mother Rhya’s care, I must consign him to fire in time for the flames to meet the first rays to shine upon the sacred circle.’

‘I will only be a moment,’ Brunner told her, turning Fiend and moving towards the pyre. He barely looked up when he heard Dietrich reach the standing stones, the nobleman’s face contorted with restrained rage and something more, an expression of profound relief.

Brunner reached down and pulled back the shroud, staring intently at the face, then passing his gaze along the length of the man’s mutilated body.

‘You dare interrupt the ceremony?’ Dietrich challenged. This time he would have drawn his sword, but for the slender hand that restrained him.

‘There is time yet,’ the priestess said. ‘And it is fitting there should be one mourner here who did not come because of the baron’s largesse.’

Brunner watched the exchange, noticing the way the priestess’s eyes lingered on Dietrich, the way her hand tightened almost imperceptibly around that of the baronet. He filed the observation away with the others he had already made.

Brunner pulled the shroud back in place, leaning back in his saddle. He nodded to the priestess. ‘I don’t recognise him, or at least he doesn’t look like anybody I’m interested in.’ He stared at Dietrich. ‘It looks like the wolf played a bit of havoc with your man.’

‘Maybe you should reconsider your interest in my father’s reward,’ came Dietrich’s cold response.

‘Maybe,’ mused Brunner. ‘But your wolf has already cost me three hundred gold crowns. It would be nice to make that back, and with interest.’

Confusion showed on Dietrich’s face. ‘My name is Brunner,’ the bounty killer explained. ‘I hunt men. That carrion we left in the forest was bound for Reiksfang prison and the court of Judge Vaulkberg.’ Brunner smiled thinly as he saw the disgust on the nobleman’s face when he mentioned his profession. ‘I admit that wolves aren’t my usual quarry, but for five hundred crowns I’d pull a troll from its hole. Besides, is a wolf really so much different from a man?’

Brunner let the nobleman consider the barb, turning instead to regard the comely priestess. He made an expansive gesture to the pyre. ‘I’m done. You can burn him now.’

Baron Friederick Hartog was an old man and the years had not been kind to him. Only wisps of hair clung to his scalp, his wrinkled skin sunken against his weary bones. His toothless mouth drooled from the corner where a stroke had paralysed his face and the eyes which stared out from deep within their sockets were heavy with melancholy and despair. The rich purple robe he wore seemed almost to smother him and press down upon his weakened frame with its weight. A page ran after him, carrying his ring and crown and other badges of rank and office. The old baron wheezed as he sank into his gilded chair at the head of the long table in the castle’s grand hall.

The arrival of the bounty hunter, and his harrowing escape from the wolf, had provoked the baron into holding a feast. Brunner suspected it was an excuse to hold the celebration, a futile effort on the old man’s part to escape from his problems, if only for a few hours.

Brunner found himself seated close to the baron, much to the chagrin of the courtiers and landed gentry who surrounded him. He suspected that, in the current crisis, the baron had more use, and more reason to entertain, the company of men such as himself than fawning hangers-on who could offer no solution to his troubles.

At the baron’s side, glowering at Brunner whenever his eyes strayed in the bounty hunter’s direction, was Dietrich. The baronet had tried to convince his father that even in their duress they did not need the services of a hired killer such as Brunner. Indeed, Dietrich had argued the subject with surprising vehemence until finally roared down by a diatribe that brought a fit of coughing from his father’s wasted body.

When he was not glowering at the bounty hunter or trying to soothe his father’s fears, Dietrich’s eyes would stray down the table and linger on a slender figure seated among the district’s aristocracy. A less observant watcher might have missed the coy glances shared between the baronet and the raven-haired beauty from the stone circle. She had discarded her thin robe and leaf mantle for a more sociable emerald gown and doeskin gloves. This, Brunner learned, was Frieda, the priestess of Rhya and the district’s spiritual mentor. Brunner had heard little about the worship of Rhya, her faith was suborned to that of Taal in less backward provinces. Only in Stirland did she still receive worship in her own right rather than as the wife of the nature god Taal. He wondered what manner of strictures the Old Faith had regarding its priestesses and how Mother Rhya might take one of her servants dallying with a baronet.

‘This damnable wolf!’ the baron cursed, spilling wine from his goblet as he slammed it angrily against the table. The cheery lute music of the minstrels died away and conversation around the table fell to a hushed whisper. The celebration had done nothing to snap the baron from his brooding thoughts and now he was giving voice to his outrage.

‘I can feel its damn fangs at my throat!’ Friederick said, closing his clawed hand about his neck. ‘It is bleeding me dry. The peasants are too frightened to work the fields, too terrified to tend the herds. My land is dying around me and there is no one to save it!’

‘We have try, great boyar,’ the words came from a dusky ruffian seated to Brunner’s right. He was a stocky, powerfully built man, bald but with bushy eyebrows and a moustache. His clothes were the furs and leather of a colder clime, heavy bearskin boots and a furry goat-hide jacket. The stink of sweat and kvas had soaked into the garments so that even the smell of the feast could not mask them. This, Brunner understood, was Kazan, one of the Kislevite wolf hunters.

‘I have hunt the wolf in many land,’ Kazan continued, pausing to noisily slurp down a goblet of wine and snap his fingers at a servant to bring more. ‘I have the many pelt to show for my skill. One of my wolf, his hide sit in the Tsarina’s palace, and no lie!’ He tapped his chest. ‘When Kazan tell you this wolf, he is clever, then you know it is truth. But he will no get away from Kazan and Pujardov!’

Kazan reached his arm beside him, grabbing the shoulder of the man seated next to him. Pujardov was much younger than Kazan, his thick black hair tied back in a long scalplock, his face just starting to darken with beard. Like the elder Kislevite, he wore rude garments of hide and leather and around his neck was a crude necklace of bear claws, talons that looked to be sharper than daggers, even when removed from their original owners.

‘Will that be before or after the crops fail!’ quipped one of the aristocrats. Kazan glared at the courtier, but the arrival of another goblet of wine distracted him from the object of his ire.

‘The wolf, very soon he is being mine,’ Kazan promised. ‘Pujardov saw sign of him only this night.’

The baron sneered at the boast. ‘Nurse that wine, Kazan. It is liable to be the last you take from my table.’ The old man scowled at the two wolf hunters. ‘So your son found sign of the wolf, did he?’ A crooked finger pointed at Brunner. ‘This man saw more than sign. He saw the beast itself! That is more than you Kislevite layabouts have done in six months!’

Dietrich closed his hands on his father’s shoulders, easing him back into his seat. ‘They have done better than the other hunters,’ he reminded his father. He stared directly into Brunner’s icy eyes. ‘The others were all killed by the wolf.’

Brunner set down the sliver of cormorant he had been eating. He stared back at Dietrich and smiled. ‘If it is a wolf,’ he said. He had kept certain things from Dietrich and his father, but the boasting of the Kislevites had made him think that perhaps he had made a mistake in doing so.

‘What you mean, “if it is wolf”? You no think Kazan know wolf when he see his tracks!’ The Kislevite grabbed the breast of Brunner’s tunic, pulling the bounty hunter to his feet. ‘You say that again!’

Brunner said nothing. Instead he buried a fist in the wolf hunter’s gut, doubling the man over, then brought his forearm smashing into Kazan’s neck, spilling him onto the floor. A kick to the head ensured the Kislevite would stay there. Brunner stabbed his finger into Pujardov’s face as the youth surged towards him, pointing straight between the boy’s eyes. The menacing gesture brought the young Kislevite short and he took a step back.

‘Enough of this!’ shouted Dietrich. ‘If you scum cannot conduct yourselves like civilised men, you can go take your supper in the kennels!’

Brunner shook his head and chuckled as he returned to his seat. A pair of servants dragged the unconscious Kazan away. Pujardov lingered for only a moment, then hurried after his father, pausing only to rip a bottle of wine from the hands of a valet.

‘At least it smells better now,’ the bounty hunter said, returning to the roast cormorant on his plate. Dietrich continued to glare at him, but whatever he was going to say was cut off by his father’s voice.

‘You say it is not a wolf, Kazan insists it is,’ Friederick said. ‘One of you must be wrong.’

‘Kazan is an experienced wolf hunter,’ Dietrich interrupted. ‘What does this… this assassin know about hunting wolves?’

‘It isn’t a wolf,’ Brunner repeated coldly. ‘Did you ever see a wolf that walked upon its hind legs or had hands to close around its prey? Has Kazan told you how a wolf can ignore lead bullets and steel bolts, how it can dance away unmarked after being struck with an axe?’

‘Then if it is not a wolf but some invulnerable monster, how did you escape?’ Dietrich asked, his voice thin and mocking.

For an answer, Brunner tossed a few burnt weeds onto the table. The dramatic gesture brought gasps from those closest to him and those further away craned their necks to see what he had produced. Frieda rounded the table and stepped over Kazan’s vacated seat to examine them.

‘Hawthorn,’ she pronounced, drawing away in revulsion. ‘A strange weapon to use against a wild animal. How did you think to burn hawthorn to drive it away?’

Brunner rubbed a hand through his close-cropped hair, scanning his audience, trying to judge their mettle. Any community so far from the niceties of civilisation was likely to be more pragmatic than pious. Whatever he said, if they thought he could help end their problem he would be safe enough.

‘I encountered an old woman in the forest,’ Brunner said. ‘It was she who gave me the weeds and told me how to use them.’

The reaction of the other listeners was nothing beside that of the baron. He straightened himself in his chair, leaning forward, gazing intently at Brunner.

‘The woman! How was she called?’ growled the baron. It was a demand, not a question.

‘Miranda,’ Brunner answered. ‘Mamma Miranda.’

The baron’s face became ashen. Trembling, he rose from his chair, then stumbled, relying upon his son to help lead him from the dining hall. Shocked silence followed his exit.

Brunner watched the noblemen leave, then looked over at Frieda. ‘I guess that means dinner’s over.’

As a valet showed Brunner to the room that had been prepared for him, he found himself suddenly face-to-face with the baron and his son. The old man was still visibly shaking, the sadness and defeat in his eyes even more pronounced.

‘You were not lying when you spoke at my table?’ the baron asked.

‘I don’t lie to people about to pay me five hundred crowns,’ Brunner answered, his words clipped with irritation.

The baron grabbed his hand, holding it tight in his withered claw. ‘You shall have a thousand, two thousand!’ The offer faded into a wracking cough. Dietrich tried to assist the baron, but the old man waved him back.

‘The witch!’ the baron continued. ‘Find her again. Tell her to lift this curse she has placed upon my lands! If she won’t,’ he paused, wondering if he dared voice the words. ‘If she won’t, kill her and bring her head back to me! Do this, and you shall have a fortune!’

Brunner remained impassive, detaching the baron’s fingers from his hand and brushing them aside. ‘Why not send a messenger to Wurtbad. You can have witch hunters here inside a week, and they will work much cheaper.’

The baron started to speak, then cast a nervous glance at his son and the valet. ‘I need her gone now!’ The authority drained out of his voice and his words became desperate, almost pleading. ‘You will do it for me!’

‘I’ll take it under serious consideration,’ Brunner answered, motioning for the valet to lead on. The servant hesitated, unsure if his master had finished speaking with his guest, but when the baron made no protest, he motioned for Brunner to follow him down the stone-walled corridor.

‘Two thousand crowns!’ the valet whistled once they were out of sight of the baron. ‘You could buy all of Wurtbad with that much money! Still, to go after a witch…’

Brunner interrupted the lad’s thoughts. ‘You know where the Kislevites sleep?’ he asked.

The valet blinked, confused by the abrupt question. ‘Yes, of course.’ He shivered as the bounty hunter took something from his belt and tossed it at him. Instinctively, the boy caught it, apprehension turning to joy when he found it to be a silver shilling.

‘You’ll have to earn that,’ Brunner warned him, causing the valet’s grin to soften. He reached into his belt again, removing a small pouch. He handed it to the boy. ‘I want you to grind that into their boots. They can’t see you doing it and once it’s done you can’t say anything about it.’

The boy gulped at the implied threat, but nodded his understanding.

‘One last thing,’ Brunner told him. ‘I want to know as soon as the Kislevites leave the castle tomorrow. There’s an extra shilling in it for you if I can still smell kvas at the gates.’

Brunner motioned for the valet to be off on his clandestine errand. He watched him race off, then turned and entered his room. It was not thoughts of witches and wolves that occupied him, it was the memory of Viktor’s body and the marks the wolf had left upon it. How very different from the marks on the dead wolf hunter’s body. Those wounds had looked like the sort of thing that might be left by a bear claw honed to razor-keenness.

Brunner strode across the courtyard of Castle Hartog, the chill of morning turning his breath to mist before him. He stepped into the stables. A young stable boy was sleeping just inside, nestled within a mound of hay. A kick roused the boy from his slumber. He blinked at the bounty hunter, eyes going wide with fright.

‘You’ve been here all night?’ he demanded. The youth nodded, too afraid to speak. ‘What did the Kislevites ask you to do to my horse?’

The boy shuddered, quickly scrambling to the pile of hay and digging in it for something. He swiftly turned back around, displaying a pair of cruel-looking triangular pieces of metal.

‘He asked me to put these in their hooves,’ the boy confessed. ‘But I didn’t do it! I swear I didn’t, no matter what they paid me!’ The lad’s face turned a sickly green. ‘I had a look in that barrel when we removed the tack from your packhorse. I wouldn’t do nothing to provoke you, as Rhya is my witness I wouldn’t!’

‘Well spoken,’ the bounty hunter’s chill voice answered. He watched as the boy wilted beneath his gaze. ‘A wise decision. Now I need you to fetch me a pig, the leaner the better, and a length of rope to use as a leash.’ He waved the boy away. ‘I’ll take care of saddling my own horse.’

The bounty hunter cast a strange sight as he left the castle. Mounted on the back of his charger Fiend, he was crouched low in the saddle, watching the pink and brown swine the stable boy had found for him as it tugged and strained on the end of its leash. He set the beast down. Instantly its nose was snuffling against the ground, and it uttered a sharp squeal. The pig strained at the end of its rope. Brunner chuckled grimly to himself. Farmers in Bretonnia would train hogs to hunt truffles and they held that the noses of their hogs were sharper than any hound. He was counting that the snouts of the Empire’s swine were no less keen. If there was one thing a pig enjoyed eating more than a truffle it was a snotling. The snotling dung he had the valet grind into the boots of the two Kislevites was something he doubted the slovenly wolf hunters would even notice but, to the pig, it was the scent of a most delicious supper.

Brunner let the eager pig lead the way. Wolf and witch would wait. First he would need to attend to his rivals. He had no intention of ending up like Otto and however many other hunters the treacherous Kazan and Pujardov had ambushed and killed.

For most of the morning, the boundless appetite of the pig guided Brunner through the winding paths of the forest. Even by day, there was a brooding intensity about the place, an air of lurking menace. The trees pressed in close about him and he found himself watching every shadow for signs of movement. He knew that Fiend would sense the wolf-beast long before he did, but he felt there was no reason not to be cautious just the same.

It was nearly noon before a sharp cry echoed through the forest. The bounty hunter was not surprised to find that the sound came from the direction the pig was leading him. He tied the end of the swine’s leash to a branch and pressed on ahead. It seemed he had been harsh belittling the skills of the Kislevites. In only a few hours they had managed something it seemed the baron had never been capable of. They had caught the witch.

The two wolf hunters were crouched in a small clearing, a little fire burning on the ground between them. Lying on the ground, trussed up like a Sigmarzeit goose, was the old hag Mamma Miranda. Her feet, thrust full in the flames, had blackened, blood oozing from the split skin. Pujardov, kneeling close to her head, kept pouring kvas down her mouth each time she seemed about to pass out, the burning spirit snapping her back into awareness.

‘It is so simple, little mama,’ Kazan scolded. ‘All you do is lift curse. I tell Lord Dietrich, Pujardov pulls your feet from fire and everyone happy.’ The Kislevite stabbed a curved dagger into the soil, snorting with agitation. ‘Why you so stubborn? You like to hurt? That is what make you glad?’ He stood and drew an ugly-looking axe from his belt. ‘It is your choice, little mama,’ he sighed. ‘Pujardov, hold out her hand. I start with thumb and work the way around.’

So intent were they on the vicious torture that the first the two wolf hunters were aware of Brunner’s presence was when Fiend bolted out from the brush. The charger slammed into the stunned Kazan, knocking the man into the fire. He squealed and shrieked as he rolled across the ground, trying to douse his smoking garments. Pujardov rushed at Brunner, a spiked club in his hand. Brunner swung Fiend around, a kick of the charger’s hoof sending the hunter’s furred cap flying into the bushes and throwing the man himself to the ground.

‘I kill you!’ Kazan snarled, rising to his feet, the axe still clenched in his fists. ‘I kill you, you son of…’

Brunner’s pistol barked and Kazan’s threat died in a gargle of blood. The bounty killer holstered the spent weapon and dropped down from the saddle. Pujardov groaned as Brunner strode past the prone Kislevite. Brunner reached down, grabbed hold of the youth’s scalplock and slammed his face into the ground until he stopped moving.

Brunner rose from the unconscious wolf hunter and walked to the abused wreck of the old woman. Fire, it seemed, had not been the first motivational tool the two Kislevites had used on her.

Miranda’s eyes fluttered, but she forced them to focus on the bounty hunter as he loomed over her. A vindictive smile spread across her face. ‘So you took Mamma Miranda’s advice,’ she cackled, oblivious to the trickle of blood streaming from her mouth as she spoke.

‘The baron is paying me two thousand crowns to end your curse,’ Brunner told her. ‘Whether you live or die doesn’t interest him so long as the curse is lifted.’

The witch laughed, spitting gore into the grass. ‘So he remembers me, does he? As well he should. It’s not every man bold enough to take the virtue of a priestess.’ A sly grin worked its way through her pain. ‘Though you might say it is a trait of the Hartogs!’

‘The curse, witch!’ Brunner growled. He was not certain what kind of magic there was in the old woman, but he did know what kind of damage had been done to her. Whatever she would do, she did not have long to do it.

‘The curse!’ Miranda cackled. ‘Oh yes, it will survive old Mamma Miranda, have no fear. There’s some things it is easier to invoke than send away.’ She looked sternly into Brunner’s eyes. ‘Take no part in it!’ she hissed. ‘My Masters will not forgive me if you die because of my magic and death is no refuge from Their wrath!’

‘Then end your enchantment!’ Brunner said.

‘You don’t understand what I’ve done,’ the witch answered. ‘What is done can’t be taken back! “Even the noble heart, that fears not Old Night, may be cursed and damned, by the werekin’s bite!” It was the blood of the werekin I mixed into the philtre, to damn and destroy the baron’s preening son!’

Brunner found himself recoiling from the hag’s slobbering words. The werekin, men that wore the shape of beasts at the full of Morrslieb, things so terrible that most insisted they were nothing more than fable and traveller’s tales. He remembered the strange paws of the wolf and the terrible intelligence in its strange eyes. Was that what the witch had summoned to work her revenge?

Miranda was laughing again, forcing herself onto her elbows. ‘End the enchantment you say?’ Blood dribbled down her chin as she laughed. ‘Oh, aye, that I can do, and won’t the baron and his son be so happy when it is done!’ Brunner thought the words would be her last, as the ravaged body shuddered in a spasm of coughing. But the witch had strength enough to point at the curved dagger Kazan had stabbed into the ground.

‘There is your key, Brunner of Drakenberg!’ she hissed. ‘Cut the beast but once with that blade and the enchantment will be broken! Aye, the enchantment will be broken!’ Another fit of laughter gripped her, but this time there was no strength to sustain the toll it took from her body. She collapsed, her last breath wheezing from her bloodied lips.

Brunner bent to the earth and retrieved the dagger from the ground. He slid it beneath his belt and moved on to the chore of binding Pujardov. The wolf hunter regained awareness just as he was finishing the labour. Pujardov struggled against his bonds, but found himself trussed tightly to the trunk of an oak tree.

‘Save your energy,’ Brunner advised Pujardov as he stepped away. ‘You’ll need it.’

Pujardov hurled curses at the bounty hunter, then gave a wail of horror as he saw his father’s body strewn along the ground. ‘You killed my father!’

Brunner looked up from reloading his pistol. ‘Be thankful I need live bait to lure the wolf to me, or you’d have gotten the same,’ he warned.

Brunner looked at the position of Mannslieb and judged that another hour had passed. He raised his pistol into the air and fired. The report echoed through the forest. He was playing a dangerous game, he knew, but he was trusting that he had guessed the lay of the land correctly. Coiled in the branches of a big oak at the edge of the clearing, the bounty hunter looked down at the bait tethered to the trunk below.

Pujardov glared up at him. ‘This won’t work, murder swine! The wolf won’t come where it hears hunters!’

Brunner poured powder down the barrel of the pistol. ‘If it was a wolf, you’d be right. But this beast, I think, likes to fight. That is why Dietrich paid you and your father to kill all the other hunters and make it look like the beast’s work.’ Pujardov’s sullen silence was all the confirmation he needed. ‘He pays you to make sure no one hurts the beast?’

‘Clever,’ a sharp voice snarled from the shadows. Brunner swung around, firing his pistol at the voice. He swore as he heard the round smash against a tree.

‘No more of that!’ Dietrich growled, stepping into the clearing, his pistol pointed at Brunner. The bounty hunter was perched in the tree above Pujardov, a vantage point that allowed him to watch almost every approach to the clearing and his bait. ‘Unless you want to die where you stand!’

‘You won’t kill me,’ Brunner told him. ‘You can’t afford to now.’

A tinge of doubt crept into Dietrich’s hate-filled eyes. ‘What are you talking about?’ He glanced at Pujardov, a terrible suspicion growing in his mind.

‘Your assassins didn’t get anything out of the witch before she died,’ Brunner said. ‘But I heard a few things. Something about a philtre and how to break an enchantment.’

Dietrich’s body trembled with rage. ‘Tell me what she said!’ he ordered.

‘No,’ Brunner answered. ‘We bargain for that. Throw away your pistol.’

Indecision crawled across the baronet’s face, his anger warring against his fear. It was the fear that finally won out. ‘Throw away yours first,’ he said, gesturing at Brunner’s crossbow pistols. The bounty hunter nodded, carefully unfastening the weapons and letting them fall to the ground. With a sour expression, Dietrich threw his own weapon away.

The instant the threat of the pistol was gone, Brunner dropped from the tree, using Pujardov’s body to cushion the fall. The Kislevite’s livid curses went unnoticed as the bounty hunter rolled across the ground. As he straightened, a slender throwing knife flew from his hand. The blade slashed into Dietrich’s arm, biting deep into his noble flesh.

The baronet recovered from his surprise almost too quickly for Brunner. The jewelled sword was in his hand a moment before the heavy falchion of the bounty killer came smashing down. Instead of collapsing the noble’s skull, the blade only grazed his shoulder. Dietrich paled at the sight of his own blood on Brunner’s sword.

‘Surely the man who hunts wolves with neither spear nor bow isn’t afraid of a little blood,’ Brunner snapped. ‘Because I assure you, there is more where that came from!’

The bounty hunter ripped his falchion free from Dietrich’s parrying steel, nearly breaking the slender blade of his enemy in the manoeuvre. He swung the falchion at the nobleman’s face, at the same time bringing his boot cracking into his shin. The unexpected move staggered the baronet. Brunner moved in for the kill.

The deathblow never struck. From the darkness, something black and savage exploded, smashing into the bounty hunter with the force of a lightning bolt. Brunner was knocked sprawling. He felt fangs scrape against his helm as he rolled on the ground, felt claws catch in his armour. The bounty hunter smashed a fist into the wolf-like face of his attacker, then brought the iron pommel of his falchion crushing down on one of its hand-like paws.

The wolf yelped more from surprise than pain, but its cry was picked up by the wounded Dietrich.

‘Don’t dare strike her, you scum!’ he raged. ‘Don’t you dare touch my Frieda!’

As it heard the name, the wolf-beast disentangled itself from Brunner. With a quick, loping trot, it ran to the wounded nobleman. Dietrich’s vengeful advance was halted in a piteous display of affection as the wolf nuzzled its face against his body, licking timidly at his wounds. The baronet’s hand stroked the wolf’s pelt, not with the idle touch of man and beast, but the adoring caress of lovers.

‘She cheated me!’ Dietrich raged. ‘The witch cheated me. She said the philtre would make Frieda love me despite her vows to the goddess. She said nothing about… about… this!’ He turned tear-rimmed eyes to the she-wolf. ‘He won’t hurt you, my love! None of them will ever hurt you!’

Brunner staggered to his feet, another throwing knife in his hand. The wolf-beast turned, snarling at him. Dietrich glared at the bounty hunter, some trace of reason overcoming his concern for his lover.

‘You can’t hurt her,’ he smiled. ‘When she is like this, no one can. So what does your knife matter!’

‘It’s not for her!’ Brunner growled back. In a fluid motion, he sent the knife whistling through the air and slamming into the nobleman’s injured shoulder. Dietrich screamed in pain, his agony exciting the wolf-beast’s adoring fury. The monster lunged at Brunner, covering the clearing in a single bound.

The bounty hunter was ready for her, the witch’s curved dagger slashing through the black pelt. The she-wolf wailed as the blade struck her, blood bubbling from the wound. Brunner leapt back as the beast clawed at him. He readied himself for another attack, then hesitated as he saw the wolf-beast’s body shudder. He remembered what Miranda had told him about breaking the enchantment.

If he expected the wolf to change back into a woman, however, he was disappointed. It was still the lupine face of a beast that regarded him when the convulsions passed and the wolf lifted herself from the ground. The only change that had come upon it were the eyes. No longer blazing red, they were a soft blue, filled with horror and disgust and shame. Filled with so many things, but not a trace of love.

‘Frieda!’ Dietrich screamed, rushing to the fallen wolf.

Again the wolf-beast reacted to hearing her name. Understanding shone in her eyes. She knew all that had been done to her and why. She also knew who had forced this nightmare upon her.

With a snarl that was more than that of an animal, the she-wolf leapt upon Dietrich, her fangs closing about his throat. Savagely she worried at the nobleman’s flesh, scattering his blood across the clearing. The baronet shrieked, wailing in agony that was more than physical. His hand closed about the heft of a jewelled dagger and with a moan of utter despair, he drew the blade and sank it into his lover’s side.

Man and beast slumped to the ground, each quivering as death crept into their limbs. Dietrich struggled to touch his hand to the she-wolf’s head, the wolf struggling just as hard to pull away from his noxious touch. In the end, it was the beast who won and an almost human smile spread across its muzzle as it saw the baronet’s hand slump into the grass just out of reach of her.

Brunner dropped to the ground, watching through the night. If tradition was right, then the carcass of a werekin would change back into its human shape with the dawn. It was a terrible thing to consider, the only thing the body of a dead priestess would earn him would be a noose. Still, he did not want to risk the legends being right. After all, the dagger Dietrich had stabbed into the beast had been a silvered one, and silver was the only metal that could bring harm to a werekin.

‘You’ve got your beast!’ snarled Pujardov, struggling against his bonds. ‘Untie me!’

The bounty hunter shook his head, then a grim smile started to form. What was it the old witch had said? The bite of the werekin would make a courageous man into a werekin? If so, then it would certainly do the same to a murderous Kislevite slug. Brunner walked towards the hunter, releasing him from the tree but leaving his hands tied. He shoved Pujardov towards the body of the wolf-beast. The hunter cringed away from the carcass in mortal terror, but another shove from Brunner pitched him to the ground beside it.

‘You’ll die for this! And for what you did to my father!’ Pujardov threatened.

Brunner ignored the curses raging off the Kislevite’s tongue, instead seizing the man’s arm and shoving it between the gaping jaws of the wolf. Eyes wide with horror, Pujardov tried to squirm away as Brunner pushed the jaws of the dead beast close, sinking their sharp fangs into the Kislevite’s flesh.

A dead priestess was worth nothing, but a live monster, that would be worth a considerable reward, enough to warrant waiting at the castle until the next time Morrslieb was full. When the baron watched Pujardov change, whatever the Kislevite tried to tell him would be forgotten.

On the ground beside him, Pujardov wailed in agony, horrified at what the bounty hunter had done to him.

Brunner shook his head. ‘What are you crying about? You would have made a lousy orphan anyway.’

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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 Palace of the Plague Lord and Blood for the Blood God, Mathias Thulmann: Witch Hunter, Runefang and the Brunner the Bounty Hunter trilogy. In 2009, he began recording the exploits of the notorious Thanquol with the novel Grey Seer. Currently living in the American south-west, he continues to write stories of mayhem and madness set in the world of Warhammer.

A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

Published in 2010 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK

Cover illustration by Clint Langley

© Games Workshop Limited, 2010, 2011. All rights reserved.

Black Library, the Black Library logo, Games Workshop, the Games Workshop logo and all associated marks, names, characters, illustrations and images from the Warhammer universe are either ®, TM and/or © Games Workshop Ltd 2011, variably registered in the UK and other countries around the world. All rights reserved.

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

ISBN 978-0-85787-378-1

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise except as expressly permitted under license from the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.