CHARNEL CONGRESS

Joshua Reynolds

‘Sylvania. Its name stands out on a map like a pox-mark. It is a black boil that has been lanced again and again, yet never ceases to plague Sigmar’s children and it is one that I fear never will. I would journey into that sinister demesne more than once at my taciturn companion’s side, though never without paying a higher toll in blood and hope than I would have liked.

Ulrika…

Sylvania, whose only export is death; Sylvania, whose serpent-fanged masters cluster in forgotten places like the great bats whose bones decorate the rude peasant shrines which line the black road! It was – and is! – a dangerous place, even for a Slayer, and more so for this all-too-human wordsmith. But as to just how dangerous, we were sorely unaware.

Luckily, or unluckily, we were soon to make the acquaintance of a tutor of some distinction…’

From My Travels with Gotrek, Vol. II by Herr Felix Jaeger (Altdorf Press, 2505)

The black water split as the pole came down. It pierced the murky depths and stirred up the dull mud below. Leaning hard against the pole, Andree Borges whistled tunelessly through stumps of rotted teeth as he forced his skiff through the water, a single torch to light his way. The tune was half-prayer and half-bawdy sonata, and had been passed down from father to son since as far back as Andree could recall. Which, he had to admit, wasn’t very far. He wasn’t a thinker, Andree, and he knew it. You couldn’t be a thinker and survive in Hel Fenn. Instinct and faith… those were the only tools that mattered. Well, those and a good strong axe.

Eyes long since turned yellow from cheap rotgut scanned the arthritic trees which clustered on the legion of hummocks and boles of strange black earth that seemed to float on the oily water. The torch, its flame caged in an iron hood with holes punched in to let out the light, made the ugly little islands seem to dance. Andree shuddered. His grandfather had avowed as those buboes of dirt were graves, and that the Fenn was naught but a bone-garden flooded way back when.

Andree could believe it. If there was one thing that the Fenn didn’t lack for, it was bones. White, yellow and brown, hiding in the tangled roots of trees or beneath the mud, there were bones everywhere, of every shape and distinction. Anatomists and articulators from as far away as Altdorf paid a pretty penny for full skeletons in good condition. Carnival men paid even more for mismatched specimens, strung together with catgut and twine, that they could pass off as mutants or daemons. And maybe some of them even were.

The dark between the trees hid many secrets, after all, and there were bowers and run-offs that Andree would not have gone into for all the karls in Stirland or all the ale in Nordland. Hel Fenn was home to more than just the dead, though they were, by far, the most visible inhabitants.

‘Dead no see, spirits no hear,’ Andree murmured, pitching his thin shoulder against his pole. It was an old prayer, but a good one, especially this close to the Black Road. ‘Keep the Kings of Bats and Rats from smelling our fear,’ he continued, listening to the whispers of the Fenn. If you had ears trained to hear, it spoke volumes, this old swamp. The flap of a heron’s wings or the splash of a snake sliding into the water told you where it was safe to go. The chittering of marsh-rats spoke to the presence of the waterlogged dead that stumbled mindless through the trees, still fighting a battle long over and the participants dust. The rats ate the dead as they wandered, riding them like a furry cloak, squirming and heaving as they gnawed and fought over the putrid meat. That was the story, anyway, and he had seen enough to know that stories were close enough to the truth where the Fenn was concerned.

Andree felt his gorge rise and turned his thoughts to other things; namely shiny things, or even rusty things, as long as they were old things. For generation upon generation, the Borges had ploughed the Fenn for the treasures of ancient days. And not just them – the fenmen were as numerous as the townsmen, though less apt to congregate.

The Fenn had been the sight of so many battles, of so much death, that beneath its stagnant waters was wealth enough to forge a nation. The arms and armour of human kings and lords and dwarfen thanes and elven princes were there for the taking, if you knew where to look. Aye, and more besides that; when the Blood Counts had marched to war out of the mountains and forests, they had sunk towns and villages into the mire with dark magics. Andree’s ancestors had been the survivors of one such great drowning, or so his grandmother had sworn.

In a way, if you looked at it right, it was only just that he ply the swamp for his livelihood, since the swamp had taken so much in its turn. He resumed his whistling, momentarily cheered. He bent his pole forwards, digging into the mud.

The whistle died behind his lips as the skiff thumped to a halt. Mouth suddenly dry, he braced himself and probed the water with his pole. It was a root or a rock, nothing more, he thought. But the water is skull-deep, a small voice whimpered in the back of his head.

He jabbed down with the pole, hoping to dislodge or shift whatever he had run into. The swamp had gone silent. Andree began to tremble. He jabbed again, more forcefully.

Something grabbed the skiff. He shrieked in disbelief as the hand came out of the water and fastened on the prow of his skiff with an ugly wet sound. Bloated, dripping meat hooked the wood. Fingers like rotten sausages tightened and the skiff dipped. Andree fell onto his rear and crab-crawled backwards, trying to get away as water slopped over the sides and filled the prow. ‘No, no, no…’ he babbled.

A slash of orange split the water a moment later, and a strange gurgling sound filled the air. Fear gave Andree frenzied strength and he jerked the pole loose from its captor and drove it down towards the strip of orange even as it thrust upwards. The sound became words and the pole was seized scant moments from impact by a ham-sized hand. A face out of nightmare rose from the water, spitting curses.

‘–on of a pox-riddled grobi!’ the dwarf snarled, ripping the pole out of Andree’s hands. A single eye blazed furiously at Andree out of a face that had seen the wrong end of too many fists, and a great orange crest of hair dipped and bobbed alarmingly over the sun-browned expanse of a shorn skull. The dwarf spun the pole and gripped it like a spear, thrusting one end down at something he was seemingly straddling below the water line. ‘Die, you oversized hunk of offal! Die and be damned,’ the dwarf bellowed, his massive shoulders bunching and flexing as he struck his unseen target again and again.

Whatever-it-was shifted beneath the water and the dwarf toppled into the skiff, still beating at it with Andree’s pole. The skiff’s prow sank lower, thanks to the dwarf’s weight, and Andree screamed, fearing he’d be in the water with the thing in moments.

But, instead of sinking the skiff, the dwarf’s opponent chose to follow him out of the dark embrace of the Fenn. Eyes like boiled eggs glared blankly out of a face-that-wasn’t. The dead man’s jaw champed mindlessly as the zombie reached for its prey. Andree yelped.

‘You want something to chew on, maggot-belly? Have this,’ the dwarf growled, clambering to his feet and letting fly with the pole. The zombie’s skull exploded in a burst of black gore and stinking meat as the dwarf’s blow connected.

The skiff bobbed back above water as the twitching corpse slumped back into the swamp. The dwarf watched it sink, and turned to Andree. He was big, bigger than any other of his kind the fenman had seen before. A veritable ambulatory boulder, he was bare-chested and clad only in a pair of striped trousers and thick boots. A leather patch covered one eye and a delicate chain connected one nostril to one earlobe. Vibrant blue tattoos covered the muscular frame and moved in odd ways as the dwarf breathed. ‘See the other one anywhere, manling?’ he rumbled, gripping the pole tight enough to cause the hard wood to creak.

Andree could only gape. The dwarf grunted in apparent exasperation. Then his one good eye narrowed and he raised the pole, as if to do to Andree what he’d done to the zombie. Andree shrieked and tried to dart past him. The dwarf shoved him aside and brought the pole down on the head of the second zombie as it pulled itself up onto the rear of the skiff. It fell forwards, revealing a large axe embedded in its back.

‘There it is,’ the dwarf grunted. He tossed the much-abused pole to Andree and stamped on the back of the zombie’s neck. He grabbed the axe, wrenching it easily out of the squirming corpse’s back, and then, almost casually, let fly with a backhanded swipe that sent the zombie’s head splashing into the water some distance away.

The dwarf kicked the headless body into the water to join its head, and then turned to Andree. ‘Well? What are you waiting for, manling? Get out,’ he said.

‘W-what?’ Andree said, clutching the pole tight to his chest.

‘Are you deaf? I said get out,’ the dwarf said, examining the edge of his axe. In the torchlight, it seemed to glow with an eerie fire. He ran a thumb across the blade and popped it into his mouth. ‘I need your skiff. I’ve got more maggot-men to return to their graves.’

‘Look to your left,’ Felix Jaeger shouted as he drove the edge of his sword through the soft neck of an ambulatory corpse. ‘Damn it Heinz! Left, I said!’ As his opponent fell, still clutching for him blindly, Felix splashed towards the other man as fast as he could. It wasn’t fast enough, unfortunately. Luckless Heinz gave an abortive shriek as the dead man he hadn’t seen grabbed his head and gave it a brutal twist. Felix winced at the sound of bones popping and ligaments snapping, but then he was on the thing, with no more time for anything save violence.

Felix chopped through a mossy skull, dropping the zombie like a rock. He yanked Karaghul free and spun, just in time to see Heinz, with his head still the wrong way around, stagger upright. ‘Heinz…’ Felix said as a chill caressed his spine. They had met the man in Wurtbad, and he’d seemed a decent enough soul for a sell-sword. Now he was anything but.

Felix ducked under Heinz’s groping arms and stabbed upwards. His sword cut through the corpse’s chest and thrust upwards, burrowing towards the dead man’s skull. Kicking Heinz’s now-quiescent body into the hip-deep water, Felix whispered a silent prayer to Morr for the man’s soul. As Heinz’s face vanished beneath the water, he said, ‘I guess you were right, Heinz. We should never have left Wurtbad.’

He looked around, blinking sweat out of his eyes. It felt like they had been fighting for hours, but he knew it had only been minutes. Minutes since they had brought their quarry to ground, only to find themselves caught in a trap.

In retrospect, it should have been an obvious ploy. They’d been fools to think the necromancer wouldn’t know they were on his trail and wouldn’t prepare some obstacle for them. Said obstacle had been a number of zombies hidden beneath the dark waters of the Fenn to overturn and shatter their boats. Now they were all waist-deep in the foul waters of the Fenn, fighting a seemingly innumerable horde of zombies. ‘Hindsight makes seers of us all,’ he grunted to himself as he waded towards the others. They had been twenty strong setting out from Wurtbad. They were now only ten.

Well, nine; Gotrek was Sigmar alone knew where. The Slayer, already at a decided disadvantage in the water, which was shoulder-deep for a dwarf, had been pulled underwater by a trio of dead men and had, as yet, not resurfaced. The thought left a bad taste in Felix’s mouth. Not just because Gotrek’s death would vastly increase the odds against his own survival, but because he had sworn to witness said death. Despite everything, he had come to believe that the Slayer truly did deserve a saga to celebrate his berserk death-wish.

That and he had no doubt whatsoever that the Slayer’s shade would haunt him unmercifully if he failed to deliver that saga. Gotrek had pulled him from beneath the hooves of the Emperor’s elite cavalry, and Felix had sworn thereafter to chronicle the dwarf’s heroic doom. Alcohol had been involved, as it was in most things involving the Slayer, but Felix’s sense of honour, battered as it was, held him to his newly chosen course.

A scream of pain jerked him out of his reverie. Two zombies fell on a brawny mercenary named Hugh, their jagged teeth tearing into his flesh. He howled in agony as they dragged him down beneath the water. A third fell on him and bit out his throat, reducing the number of the group to nine. As Felix passed them, he took the head off Hugh’s killer. There was nothing else he could do for the man, and standing still for too long would only ensure that he joined him in death. Or undeath, as the case was for some of their companions.

He thought of Heinz, and felt sick. The clutching dead were as foul as anything he’d encountered in his travels with Gotrek, even worse than mutants. At least mutants were still alive; ugly, but alive.

Nearby Marten Holtz, a scar-faced priest of Sigmar, roared out prayers and imprecations as he swung his hammer with almost mechanical precision. Near him, Stefan Russ, a templar of the Order of Sigmar, fired one of the seemingly innumerable pistols that were holstered about his person and potted a stumbling corpse before it could close with the bellowing Holtz. The two men were the nominal leaders of this possibly doomed expedition, and though Felix had little use for either the witch hunter or his priestly companion, he had to admit that both men were giving a good account of themselves.

Maggot-riddled fingers became tangled in his red Sudenland cloak, nearly jerking him from his feet. Felix almost dropped his sword as the zombie hauled him backwards. He fumbled at the cloak’s clasp as it constricted about his throat. A sword flashed and Felix stumbled forwards, off-balance. The zombie, de-limbed, turned slowly, groaning. The sword flashed again, dropping the creature to its knees.

‘Eyes forward, Jaeger,’ the blade’s wielder said. Pale skinned and shock-headed, Andryzy Iuldvitch, a templar of Morr, was nearly as inhuman-looking as the corpses they fought.

Felix coughed his thanks and swept Karaghul out, bisecting a cadaverous thing with a cleft face. Iuldvitch joined him and they turned in a circle, dispatching the moving corpses that sought to surround them. ‘Where’s Olaf?’ Felix said over his shoulder.

A sizzling spurt of flame nearby gave him his answer. Olaf Norheimer, bulky and bullet-headed beneath his vibrant crimson beard and wildly-spiked hair, splashed forwards, gesturing with his staff. ‘Burn, you maggoty beasts, burn!’ the wizard bellowed. As zombies were reduced to staggering torches, he began to laugh wildly, his eyes glittering. A sash made of clattering bronze keys dangled from his torso and a belt of the same swung about his waist. Strange tattoos covered his muscular arms and chest.

‘He enjoys his work,’ Iuldvitch noted dispassionately as a burning corpse toppled into the water in front of him.

‘Perhaps a bit too much,’ Felix muttered. The wizard had accompanied Holtz and Russ from Altdorf, though neither man appeared happy with his presence. Felix couldn’t blame them. He’d met several magic-users in his time, and Olaf was by far the most disturbing. The wizards of the Bright College were, to a man, the most dangerous of their kind, as wild and uncontrollable as the flames they wielded.

Then, none of their group was what a sane man would consider to be a particularly comforting presence. A zealot priest, a witch hunter, a servant of the death god, a mad wizard, and, of course, Gotrek… A stranger crew Felix couldn’t imagine.

And their quarry was even worse. Ernst Schtillman was, by all accounts, a third-rate necromancer whose sole claim to previous fame was being arrested for making dead rats dance in a restaurant that had refused his custom. Now he was accused of stealing a reliquary of some importance from the Garden of Saints beneath the Grand Temple of Sigmar in Altdorf, and murdering a number of priests and templars in the process.

The greatest heroes of the Empire were interred in the Garden of Saints, including past emperors, high-ranking fellows of the Colleges of Magic and notable members of several templar orders, so Felix could only imagine what Schtillman had stolen. The skull of one of the Patriarchs of Magic or the preserved finger of a Grand Theogonist, perhaps… It could be anything. Neither Holtz nor Russ was saying, though Felix had tried his best to worm the answer out of them on the road from Wurtbad.

Besides the reliquary, Schtillman had also kidnapped the daughter of a semi-friendly publican who had been keeping Gotrek in ale during their stay in Wurtbad. The man was a companion from Gotrek’s days as a mercenary, or so he said. That had been enough motivation for Gotrek to bully himself and Felix a berth in the hunting party.

Thinking of the girl elicited a stab of guilt. Elsa. Felix had hoped she’d share his bed, but Schtillman had put paid to that. Abruptly, a rusty sword looped towards his head and he was forced to defend himself. He pushed all thought of the girl aside. Despite Olaf’s sorcery, their attackers’ numbers didn’t seem at all diminished. Their quarry had all the dead of Hel Fenn at his disposal, apparently, and he wasn’t shy about it.

Something that might have once been an elf lurched at him from the side, moving with a crooked sort of grace. Flesh crawling, Felix parried the too-swift blow it launched at him and tried to remove its head. The zombie jerked back, blind eyes rolling in its skull. Its thin, needle-like sword darted for him, piercing his guard and tracing a line of fire across his arm. Even in death, it was faster than a human.

Cursing, Felix stumbled and fell on his rear in the foul water. The elf-thing loomed over him, raising its sword. Desperate, Felix shoved his weapon up and the zombie impaled itself on the point. With a grunt, Felix tossed the twitching body over his head and accepted a hand up from a gaunt Stirlander named Horst. ‘We’re going to die here,’ Horst said, seemingly neither pleased nor displeased with that fact.

‘Possibly,’ Felix said, jerking past him to spit a zombie that had been creeping up behind the man. Kicking the corpse off his blade, he continued, ‘But I don’t intend to make it easy for them.’

‘We may not have a choice,’ Horst’s equally dour cousin, Schultz, moaned, braining a long-dead orc. ‘They’ll overwhelm us if we don’t–’ he began, but whatever he’d been about to say died with him as an axe older than Felix chopped down into his head. Schultz sank to his knees, tongue protruding, eyes bulging as the dripping zombie pulled its weapon free. Horst shrieked and made to stab his cousin’s killer, but two more dead things grabbed him by his arms and pulled him in half. Felix blinked in horror as blood splattered his face and then he scrambled back as more cadavers erupted from the water.

He backed away, his sword extended and his heart sinking. More corpses stepped out from between the close-set trees or rose from the water. Schultz had been right. Holtz and Russ fell back, Iuldvitch trailing them. Olaf joined Felix, his face split in a wild grin. ‘Down to us, lads!’ he barked, ghostly flames coruscating around his hooked fingers.

‘Don’t sound so happy about it,’ Felix said.

‘Sigmar stands with us!’ Holtz snapped, getting a better grip on his two-handed hammer.

‘And Morr guides our hands,’ Iuldvitch said mildly. Holtz and Russ glared at him. The latter pulled two pistols from beneath his ragged cloak and cocked them. Felix readied Karaghul, the hilt slippery in his hands. He swallowed, trying not to gag on the stink of death that surrounded them. He hadn’t planned on dying this way. I hadn’t planned on dying at all, he thought desperately.

‘Bugger all gods,’ Olaf yelped, throwing his hands out. The water boiled and the zombies that waded through it began to cook. The wizard gesticulated and spat painful syllables and the heat grew blisteringly intense, causing the water to turn into a stinking mist and nearby trees to curl up like dead bugs.

Despite the heat, however, the dead kept coming. They had neither fear nor physical sensation to exploit. The rotting flesh sloughed off their bones, cooked into a stinking stew. Olaf cursed virulently as skeletal hands groped towards him, grabbing for his spiked beard and robes. He fell back, his bravado melting into momentary panic as he flailed backwards. Felix and the others stepped forwards to join him, stabbing and shooting.

Fingers that looked like burst sausages clutched at Felix’s wrist and blade, and the flesh of his hands turned red as he stamped and cut and shoved. Felix’s arms and shoulders began to cramp from exhaustion and heat, and his hands and face stung from the burns. A steaming skull thrust towards him, blackened jaws gaping. He cried out and made to swat it away, until he realised that it wasn’t attached to anything.

Instead it hurtled past him, struck a tree and fell into the water with a hiss. A moment later he realised that he could hear a familiar voice bellowing imprecations in Khazalid, the tongue of the dwarfs. A shattered ribcage and a snapped femur fell into the water at his feet as the steam began to dissipate.

‘Trying to kill them all yourselves, manlings?’ Gotrek Gurnisson growled.

Gotrek was perched like a gargoyle on the prow of a skiff. Relief flooded Felix. Zombie parts floated around him, some still twitching, and the Slayer’s muscular form was covered in spoiled blood and rotting meat. ‘Where did you find this skiff?’ Felix said, looking up at the Slayer.

The Slayer motioned absently towards the swamp. ‘Out there,’ he said. It was obvious that he had cut his way through the rear of the horde as Olaf’s wall of steam had consumed them from the other side, though he wasn’t even breathing hard. Gotrek looked around. ‘You didn’t leave me much to do, manling,’ he grumbled, fixing Felix with his single glittering eye.

‘You weren’t around, so we had to make do,’ Felix said, laughing shakily.

Gotrek sniffed. ‘No fault of mine. My axe was stuck.’ He looked around at the others. ‘Looks like enough of you survived, at any rate,’ he said dismissively.

‘No thanks to you,’ Russ snapped. The witch hunter was a lean man with hang-dog features and hard eyes. He was busily reloading his pistols. Felix got the feeling that the man would have been happier with a good death than he was with Gotrek’s rescue.

Gotrek fixed the man with his one good eye. ‘Am I expected to fight your battles for you then, burner of women?’ he said. Felix swallowed, recognising the tone in Gotrek’s voice. The Slayer was still worked up and killing-mad. The zombies hadn’t dulled his frenzy as much as strengthened it. He could explode into violence at any time.

‘I burn heretics, Slayer,’ Russ spat. ‘Be they men or women, human or otherwise.’

Gotrek flushed and bared crooked teeth in a snarl. His axe trembled in anticipation.

‘An argument serves no purpose,’ Felix said quickly, moving between them. ‘Schtillman is still out there and likely planning to send more of his corpse-legions after us. Maybe we should get while the going is good.’ Even as he said it, a twist of guilt speared through him, though he knew the likelihood of Gotrek agreeing was slim to none. He didn’t like the thought of leaving Elsa to the necromancer’s attentions, good reason or not. ‘We could go back to Wurtbad. Rouse the militia…’ he said half-heartedly.

‘Run away? Flee from maggot-men and a near-sighted whelp of a necromancer?’ Gotrek guffawed. Felix forced himself not to smile in relief. ‘My axe thirsts for more substantial fare, manling, and I’ll not deny it!’

‘Aye, and Sigmar demands justice,’ Holtz said. ‘The necromancer’s desecration of sacred ground must not stand.’ Russ nodded, obviously in full agreement.

‘Schtillman has been for the pyre for a long time now,’ the witch hunter added.

‘Not to mention the fate of the girl,’ Iuldvitch said, sheathing his sword. The guilt in Felix’s gut grew heavier. He glanced towards the trees and immediately wished he hadn’t. ‘Gotrek…’ he hissed, his fingers tightening around his sword-hilt.

‘Aye, I see them,’ Gotrek said.

‘We all see them,’ Russ muttered, his fingertips dancing nervously across the butts of the pistols hanging across his narrow chest in their waterproof holsters. ‘Sigmar preserve us…’

‘He does,’ Holtz said. He had his eyes closed, as if in prayer.

Clumsy shapes splashed through the trees. More zombies, Felix realised with a chill. ‘How many dead men does this cess-pit hold?’ he said.

‘Thousands,’ Holtz said, opening his eyes. His scarred face twisted into an expression of distaste. ‘More even than fell in the Battle of Hel Fenn. They say every river in Sylvania carries corpses to the Fenn.’ He patted the hammer that lay across his shoulder. ‘It is a cursed place. One day we will burn it from the map.’

Olaf laughed. ‘Count me in, scar-face. Let’s start today!’ He gestured and a spurt of flame crashed into the trees. Ranks upon ranks of zombies, both human and otherwise, were illuminated by Olaf’s conjured flames. Had they been watching them all this time, Felix wondered?

Several of the creatures began to stumble forwards. Gotrek snarled. He tightened his grip on his axe and plunged off the skiff and into the water to meet the lurching dead. They closed in about him and the Slayer disappeared from view. Felix started forwards.

‘What are you doing?’ Russ said, grabbing his arm.

‘Gotrek needs help!’ Felix said, shaking his arm loose of the witch hunter’s grip. There was a roar and then several rotting bodies skidded across the water like skipping stones.

‘No,’ Gotrek grunted, ‘I don’t.’ The Slayer floundered through the water, dripping and sullen. ‘Dead things are no challenge,’ he growled, fiddling with his crest, which drooped alarmingly thanks to his plunge in the water. ‘Well. Is that it?’ he roared out, shaking his axe at the swamp. Silence greeted the Slayer’s demand.

Then, in the darkness, someone laughed.

‘Am I mistaken, or were there more of you earlier?’ a thin, reedy voice said, vicious amusement evident in its tone. ‘Oh, wait… There they are!’

Familiar faces stepped into the light of Olaf’s fire. There was Hugh with the gaping hole in his throat and Schultz, his bifurcated face grinning and frowning at the same time. Horst was there as well, and the others who’d fallen.

‘Quite a group,’ the voice continued. ‘Hard men all, and dangerous, I’d say; some of you more than others.’ A giggle followed. Then, a thin shape stepped out from between the trees, followed by a herd of corpses, some better preserved than others. The firelight was reflected by a cracked pair of spectacles. The face was that of a perpetual youth, spoiled and beardless. Pox scars dotted the hollow cheeks and yellow teeth surfaced from between thin lips as Schtillman the necromancer smiled at them like a boy greeting long-absent friends.

‘Abomination,’ Holtz roared. He smashed a low-hanging branch in his fury, his hammer reducing the inoffensive limb to splinters.

‘Hello,’ Schtillman said mildly. His eyes moved weasel-quick across the rest of the group. Felix felt himself shiver as the necromancer looked at him; there was nothing recognisably human in that gaze. ‘Welcome gentles all, to this, my crowning moment of glory,’ he continued, gesturing grandiosely. With the air of a lecturer, he bent and sat on a tree root, head bowed. ‘I was not expecting an audience, it must be said, but needs must when daemons drive, eh? Eh?’ He spread his hands and shrugged. ‘I would ask who put you on my trail, but I know I’m quite certain, my yes, the culprit or culprits, as it were, indubitably et cetera and such…’ he trailed off, head tilted. ‘Still, no reason you can’t bear witness to such historical proceedings.’

‘Enough ranting,’ Russ snapped, unlimbering a pistol and taking aim. ‘Return what you have stolen, thief, and your death will be as easy as we know how to grant.’

‘Death is never easy,’ Schtillman said, removing his spectacles and rubbing them on his robes. ‘And I am no thief, I assure you.’

‘The stolen souls of our companions say otherwise,’ the witch hunter said, cocking his pistol. ‘Four brothers, pure and strong, stolen from the very halls of the Grand Temple in Altdorf are added to your debt, Schtillman.’

‘Is that you, Stefan?’ Schtillman said, putting his spectacles back on. ‘I thought I recognised your voice. You of all of these should know me better than that, I should think. Corpse-fondler and restaurant critic I might be, yes, but thief? I have some standards, you dyspeptic clod.’

Russ’s pistol sparked. A rotting heron, flying despite the condition of its bedraggled wings, intercepted the bullet and tumbled into the water, where it thrashed in an altogether hideous fashion. Russ made to draw another pistol, but more dead birds burst out of the trees and swarmed him. He screamed as cracked and broken beaks tore at him.

Olaf roared and flung out a hand. Talons of crackling flame arched towards the dead birds. Felix charged forwards and tackled the witch hunter into the water as a wave of heat and flame engulfed the squawking cloud, incinerating the zombie flock. As Felix rose, pulling a spluttering Russ with him, he glared at the wizard.

‘Are you mad?’ he snarled.

Olaf appeared not to hear him. The Bright Wizard howled with laughter as he consumed the flock in a tornado of fire. As if this were the signal he’d been waiting for, Gotrek gave a bellow and broke into a charge, his axe held over his head as he fought his way through what was shoulder-deep water far quicker than Felix thought possible.

Schtillman looked momentarily nonplussed and shot to his feet. He spat a stream of nonsense words and Gotrek hesitated, his eye narrowing as a black cloud seemed to take shape around him. ‘What’s this?’ he growled. Then he grunted and slapped at himself. Soon he was swatting at the air. ‘Cursed insects!’ he shouted, staggering. The cloud followed him, doubling in size. Gotrek howled and dived under the water. He surfaced a few feet away, but the insects followed, and something else as well… Felix called out a warning as the immense shape of a snake cut through the water towards the preoccupied Slayer. Gotrek turned as the zombie-serpent coiled around him. Roaring, arms pinned, he toppled backwards.

‘Bugs, beasts and birds,’ Schtillman cackled, clapping his hands. ‘The dead come in all shapes and sizes, you know.’

‘Send them all, we will not be deterred,’ Holtz said, striding forwards, his hammer gripped tightly. Felix and Russ drew their swords and joined him as Olaf drove the end of his staff into the water. Two walls of fire rose to carve them a corridor through the gathering zombies. ‘Sigmar guides us and damns you, necromancer. Return our reliquary, return the girl and return the dead to Morr’s embrace!’

‘No, no, and no,’ Schtillman said, hopping backwards. ‘Not when I’m so close! Not when I’ve finally found him!’

‘Then die and be damned!’ Holtz said, racing forwards suddenly, his scarred features alight with mad fervour. His hammer crashed down and connected with the interposed shield of a corpse clad in rotting armour. The dead man whipped out a rusty sword and nearly gutted the priest. Holtz stumbled and the corpse followed, moving with a smoothness Felix took to be a bad sign. Several more armoured cadavers followed the first, and with a start Felix, recalling the heraldry drills his status-conscious father had forced him to do, recognised the faded emblem on one’s breastplate… the bat rising and the dragon rampant of the von Carstein family!

‘Sigmar preserve us,’ he muttered, closing with one of the dead men. Sudden suspicions as to Schtillman’s purpose clustered at the edge of his mind as he blocked a surprisingly strong blow. ‘It can’t be!’

‘Oh, but it can!’ Schtillman said, apparently having heard him. ‘Persistence yields success,’ he said, sounding for a moment like one of Felix’s old tutors. ‘Study yields results and results allow extrapolation! From extrapolation, we can match variables and triangulate and thus, he rises! Unconquered! Undaunted! Undead!’ The necromancer’s voice rose to a shrill shriek. ‘Bring forth the sacrifice!’

Two zombies stepped from around the tree, dragging an unconscious form between them. Felix immediately recognised Elsa, and he redoubled his efforts. Karaghul seemed to twist in his hands as he battered at his opponent, sending it slumping to one knee. His sword cracked the ancient helmet and spilled what was left of its brains into the water and then he was past it, moving quickly. More of the dead barred his path and his frustration boiled over into violence. He looked around for help, hoping to see Gotrek, but willing to settle for anyone. Unfortunately, all of the others were engaged in their own struggles. Exhaustion and numbers were beginning to tell, and even Olaf’s flames were fading. Where was Gotrek?

On the hummock of black earth, Schtillman was ordering his zombies to position Elsa’s limp form as he drew a curve-bladed dagger from within his robes. ‘One thrust and the deed is done,’ the necromancer said. He raised the weapon, and Felix knew that he wasn’t going to be in time. All at once, everything went silent, as if the entirety of Hel Fenn were holding its breath. Time seemed to slow to a crawl.

And then Gotrek’s axe took off Schtillman’s hand at the wrist on its way towards embedding itself in the skull of one of the zombies gripping Elsa. Schtillman screamed and grabbed at the gushing stump. Felix turned and saw Gotrek rising from the water, his squat form covered in welts from the insect bites and the head of the snake gripped between his jaws. The dwarf spat out the head and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. ‘Insects!’ he thundered as he stomped forwards. ‘You try to kill me with insects and snakes? Are you stupid as well as mad, manling?’

Schtillman whined like a dog and sank to his knees, futilely trying to stem the blood spraying from his wrist. The zombies staggered and slumped as his concentration wavered. Gotrek stepped past the huddled necromancer and ripped his axe free of the zombie’s head. More gently, he plucked Elsa from the slack grip of the other corpse and tossed her easily to Felix. Felix caught the woman and grunted, going to his knees.

Gotrek raised the necromancer’s chin with the flat of his axe. Schtillman’s whimpering changed in cadence. ‘Gotrek, he’s chanting!’ Felix cried, shifting Elsa around and trying to get at his sword.

Schtillman’s good hand shot out, clawing for Gotrek’s face. Gotrek jerked back with a curse and twisted his axe around with a flick of his wrist. The edge bit upwards through Schtillman’s frenzied features, obliterating them in a splash of gore. Gotrek stepped away, not wanting to get any of the writhing body’s blood on him as it fell forwards. The necromancer’s body twitched and jerked for several moments and then fell still. Gotrek spat on the body and turned to Felix. ‘No doom here manling, grand or otherwise; just old death and maggots,’ he growled.

Felix looked down at Elsa and thought that Gotrek was missing the point, as usual. No sense in saying as much, however. The Slayer would be in a foul mood as it was. Surviving made him irritable. The woman in his arms stirred, but didn’t awaken.

‘Mandrake root and grave mould,’ Iuldvitch said, touching her cheek. Felix looked at him.

‘How did you know?’ he said.

‘Necromancers are a bit like cooks. They all use the same basic recipes for certain things, like drugging sacrificial victims,’ he said. ‘She’ll sleep for a few days, if Schtillman didn’t misjudge the dose.’

‘You look like you could use the same,’ Felix said.

Iuldvitch smiled tiredly and shook his head. ‘No rest for the weary.’

‘Where is it?’ Holtz shouted, causing them to turn. ‘It has to be here!’ The big priest was tearing through Schtillman’s belongings, meagre as they were. Russ watched silently, as did Gotrek, though the latter’s expression was anything but interested. ‘It’s not here!’ Holtz spun around, his glare accusing.

‘Maybe he was telling the truth,’ Felix said.

Holtz goggled at him. ‘What?’

‘I said, maybe he was telling the truth when he claimed not to have stolen the reliquary.’ Felix shrugged. ‘Are you certain he was the thief?’

‘Certain? Certain?’ Holtz said, his face flushing purple. The scars on his face stood out like livid tattoos. He motioned to the floating bodies that filled the nearby waters. ‘What more certainty do I need?’

‘I’m not denying that he was up to something, but maybe he wasn’t the man we were after,’ Felix insisted, wishing he could simply shut up, but finding it impossible to do so. ‘Who gave you his name? Who put us on his trail?’

‘You ask a lot of questions for a sell-sword, Jaeger,’ Russ said, wiping muck off his blade. ‘Schtillman was our man. He must have hidden the reliquary. Perhaps in Wurtbad…’

‘Perhaps,’ Felix said, sharing a look with Gotrek. The Slayer looked disgusted.

‘What of the fiend’s body?’ Olaf said, holding up a finger upon which a flicker of flame danced. ‘Should we burn it?’

‘Let the swamp have it,’ Holtz grunted, shouldering his hammer. ‘Let us go.’ He started off back in the direction they had come from, Russ at his heels. Olaf shook his head and followed, Iuldvitch trailing behind. Felix looked at the body of the necromancer and shifted Elsa’s weight. Gotrek held out his hands as they climbed up out of the water onto a hummock of solid, albeit soggy earth.

‘Give her to me before you drop her, manling,’ the Slayer said. Almost tenderly he cradled the unconscious young woman to his barrel chest and set off after the others, moving across the patches of dry ground carefully. Felix hesitated, fingering his sword. He didn’t like the idea of leaving the body as it was. But he didn’t plan on sticking around to see to it by himself either.

‘Curse it,’ he muttered, hurrying after Gotrek.

Behind him, Schtillman’s blood pooled in thick puddles in the soft ground and ran beneath the roots of a tree, first in trickles, then in rivers. The tree was black-barked and crooked, bulging with knotty tumours and sickly lichen. Its barren limbs scraped together in a sigh as the blood bubbled and dripped into the depths beneath its roots.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

And, after a time, something long dead, but nonetheless dreaming, opened its eyes and said, ‘Ahhhhh…’

Like pale blossoms unfurling after a rainstorm, the worm-white fingers pierced the black soil that was packed loosely amongst the tangling roots of the tree. The fingers stretched up and up, until the cat-like nails that dotted each tip hooked into one of the thicker roots. Then, with a convulsive heave, a skeletal shape swam to the surface, dirt and mud sloughing off long-buried limbs.

Flanged nostrils quivered in a death-mask face and needle teeth sprouted from bloodless gums. Pointed ears twitched above a rat’s nest of grey hair and wolfish jaws gaped, sucking in a great lungful of foetid air, tasting it in the same way a snake would. ‘Ah,’ it said.

It grabbed the higher roots and pulled itself up and out into the dark of Hel Fenn, bare feet scraping across the wood. Muscles that had remained rigid for a century or more pulsed and flexed. Memory, thought and instinct warred in a reptile-sluggish mind. Hunger and caution met and the former won, prompting the shape to again taste the air.

It crouched as a tantalising scent intruded. Covered in mud and soil, and remaining motionless, it blended easily with the surface of the tree. Pale pink eyes blinked slowly, watching the approach of its prey, and a colourless tongue dabbed hungrily at almost nonexistent lips.

Andree Borges cautiously made his way across the shifting hummocks, prodding the path before him with a bent stick he’d found. As he moved, he cursed the thieving dwarf under his breath. The curses burst into full flower as he saw the state of his skiff. The little boat had drifted into a nearby fire and it had been reduced to a charred ruin.

‘No!’ Andree wailed, rushing towards it. Sighting the floating bodies nearby, he skidded to a halt, almost falling face-first into the water. Warily he looked around, taking in the carnage. The stink of old death hung heavy on the air and his spirit quailed. There were places in the Fenn a sane man didn’t go and this was one of them.

Maybe he should find the dwarf and his companions… There was safety in numbers, and it would be the least they could do for destroying his skiff. Unwillingly, but unable to do otherwise, his eyes were drawn to the bloated tree that occupied the centre of the immediate area. It was an old thing, resembling a grasping hand rising from the belly of the swamp. The fenmen told stories about that tree, about packs of shrieking ghouls dancing about it on nights when the witch-moons were full, and the strange, thready rhythm that seemed to rise from the swamp when the water was low.

Something scraped against wood, and Andree froze, sweat popping on his face despite the chill in the air. ‘No, oh please no, no,’ he muttered, looking around, trying to see everywhere at once. The stories his father had told him as a boy swam to the surface of his mind unbidden, filling his head with terrors.

Water splashed and he spun, jabbing out with his stick even as he clawed for the hatchet in his belt. There was nothing behind him. Branches rattled and he turned again, biting down on a scream. He needed to get out of here. He could get a new skiff. He began to back away.

There was a wet growl and Andree’s limbs locked involuntarily. His eyes bobbed in their sockets, taking in the shadows lingering between the close-set trees. Something cold brushed across the back of his neck and this time he did shriek. He lashed out with his stick and hatchet, but hit nothing but air.

He whirled again, and caught a glimpse of pale limbs as something bounded away. What was it? A ghoul? A daemon? The Fenn was full of them. His breath whistled harshly in his ears as he turned to run. He began to crash through the trees, not watching the path or the water. There was no time for caution, not anymore.

He ran blind, swatting aside clutching branches and tripping over snakey roots. Something pursued him; he could hear its claws tearing up the ground and rattling the branches. Andree didn’t turn around. He didn’t want to see it.

Water splashed up around his thighs and his run slowed to a crawl. Heart thudding in his chest, he looked down and a strangled moan escaped from between his lips. Not water… quicksand! Tears rolled down his weathered cheeks as he thrashed about, hoping to make it to the shore, knowing it was impossible. A shadow fell over him and he looked up.

The thing watched him from its perch, eyes shining dully from behind a curtain of stringy hair. It hissed like a kettle coming slowly to the boil. It wore the remains of strange armour and fine clothing, all reduced to mud-encrusted rags and bulges.

‘Please…’ Andree croaked.

It leapt. The weight drove him down into the quicksand, and his attacker sank with him, leaving behind only a stir of bubbles to mark the existence of either. Silence fell.

The quicksand bubbled, burped and split as a tall shape rose from its outer rim, striding purposefully towards solid ground. Despite the apron of blood that covered it from mouth to groin, the shape looked more human now than earlier. Sustenance-starved muscles had thickened somewhat and the white hair had filled out. The pink eyes now blazed a bright crimson.

It examined its hands and then ran them over its arms and chest. It wore ancient armour of anarchic make. Sharp edges and jutting ridges made it unlike anything worn by man, and the remains of a great cloak crafted from the fur of wolves and bats hung lankly from the shoulder plates.

‘Where…’ it croaked, licking blood from its teeth. It wiped a palm across its mouth and looked at the congealing blood there. ‘Blood,’ it said, more strongly. The animal-mind shuddered and the red fog receded. ‘It’ became ‘he’ as patchwork fragments of memory swirled about the hurricane of hunger that tried to consume him.

He shook himself and extended his hand, spreading his fingers wide. He could feel the winds of death circling him and he reached out to grab them. ‘Dhar,’ he murmured, feeling the ethereal threads gather about his fingers. The winds of dark magic kissed his fingertips like excited wolf-pups, and he drew his fingers together, pulling the power towards him. He glanced at the quicksand pit.

He brought his hand to his lips and blew gently, sending the tendrils of power coursing down into the quicksand. The surface twisted and bubbled and then Andree’s blood-drained corpse hauled itself out of the quicksand with slow, agonised movements. The former fenman rose into a parody of a bow and then bobbed from one foot to the next with the unsteadiness of the newly undead.

He turned away and snapped his fingers. ‘Come.’ The zombie followed obediently, insects already clustering about the gaping wound where its throat had once been.

The fog in his head began to lift as the stolen blood flowed through his body. It was not enough, but it would do for now. He ran his claws through his stringy hair. Eyes closed, he marshalled his thoughts as his last waking memories threatened to overwhelm him. He could feel the heat of that accursed sword as it cut towards him. The sword had writhed in his killer’s hands like a thing alive. Its blade was squirming with runes that were painful to his magically-attuned senses, even at a distance.

He had turned to face his pursuers where the Stir entered Hel Fenn, pinned by the elements and his own pride. How many had he killed? Not enough. The sword – that cursed sword! – had pierced him through and true, the heat of it burning him as it slid through his withered heart.

He staggered, clutching at his chest. He could feel a rippling scar there now, beneath his black armour; a parting gift from his murderers. A reminder of the price of arrogance, he thought bitterly. It hurt still. He leaned against a tree, eyes closed, letting the winds of death caress him and dull the pain. ‘Martin,’ he snarled. ‘Martin!’

The name meant something. It tasted foul in his mouth. ‘Weak,’ he said, eyelids cracking open. The zombie, true to its nature, said nothing. The silent dead made adequate companions. He looked into the zombie’s filmy eyes and then away. His last memory was of death. So, why then was he alive?

Quickly he made his way back to the tree, his eyes narrowing to slits as he scanned the area, taking in everything. Even dulled by the circumstances of his resurrection, his mind was like quicksilver. He touched a scorch-mark high on a tree and probed the edges of a zombie’s cleft head. Then he caught the scent of fading magics and bounded towards one body in particular. Jerking the headless carcass up by its sodden robes, he laughed darkly and shoved the body towards the zombie. The zombie staggered, but held the body up in a parody of an embrace.

‘It stinks of dark magic,’ he murmured, turning to look at the ground. There were papers and books scattered about the marshy earth. ‘Ah,’ he said, stooping. He snatched up a thin volume bound in tanned skin and flipped through the pages. The writing was cramped, but legible. ‘Schtillman,’ he hissed after a while. ‘That was your name, was it? You meant to spill virgin blood on my remains, and so you did, though not precisely in the way you had intended, eh?’ He grunted. ‘Necromancers… all work and no sense of pleasure.’

The name was familiar, though. Where had he heard it before and in what context?

He looked back at the body, red eyes narrowed. Then he slit the robes open with a thumbnail and exposed the scrawny chest. ‘Ha,’ he said, tapping a curious brand scarred into the flesh above the heart. He dug his claws into the slack flesh around the mark and twisted his wrist, ripping the gobbet of flesh free. He wrung it like a rag over his upturned mouth, and then casually flensed the skin from the meat, tossing the latter aside and examining the flap of skin.

He pursed blood-stained lips and ran a thumb over the brand. ‘A mark below a mark,’ he said. His eyes flickered up, meeting those of the zombie. ‘And both of them are familiar, though I cannot say why.’ He looked past the zombie and gestured to the half-sunken remains of one of the skiffs littering the area. ‘Fix it,’ he said. ‘I would see civilisation once more.’

Wurtbad, the capital city of Stirland, was two cities in one. The High Town sat high up on the hill that Wurtbad had been built on, while the Low Town sat on the River Stir like a toad. As places went, Felix judged that he had seen better. Everything smelled of damp and mould and the locals looked like criminals. When he said as much to Gotrek, the Slayer had given him a look that might have been considering and said, ‘You’re one to talk, manling.’

Felix blinked. ‘Was that a joke?’

‘Dwarfs are renowned for their sense of humour, manling. Ask anyone,’ Gotrek said with a belch. He was as close to cheery as Felix had ever seen him, though it was likely due to the amount of ale he had put away since they’d sat down. Old Hugo, Elsa’s father, had been so overjoyed to see his daughter alive and unharmed that he had re-opened Gotrek’s tab. Felix thought, somewhat sourly, that Hugo’s generosity was likely to burn out sooner than Gotrek’s thirst. The Slayer could put away enough alcohol to drown a regiment.

There were two things that Gotrek was good at, Felix had often noted. Drinking and fighting, not always in that order. When he wasn’t doing the one, he was engaged in the other. Felix thought that perhaps both were forms of forgetting; what little he knew of Slayers in general, and Gotrek in particular, suggested that whatever shame had forced Gotrek into assuming the orange crest and tattoos of the Slayer-cult could be as minor as a point of personal pride or as major as a criminal offence.

Felix, like any good poet, often speculated on that point. It nagged at him in quieter moments. What had set the dwarf on his path? What had propelled him across the width and breadth of the known world in a quest to die? And speaking of which…

‘Why would Schtillman go to Hel Fenn?’ Felix said, looking at Gotrek. ‘Sylvania, I understand. But surely there’s no lack of corpses in more comfortable climes. He could have gone north, or fled the Empire entirely.’

‘Hel Fenn is a sump of death-magic,’ Gotrek said. ‘Always has been. Even in my father’s day.’

‘Your father?’ Felix said, his ears perking up. It wasn’t often that the Slayer spoke of his family. Indeed, not at all, to Felix’s recollection.

‘Aye, manling,’ Gotrek said and his voice became softer than its usual rock-hard rumble. ‘He was there, you know…’

‘Where?’ Felix said.

‘Hel Fenn, on the day that dwarf and man stood shoulder-to-shoulder against the lords of unnatural creation.’ The Slayer sighed wistfully. ‘They say it was a dark day, that. The sky was as black as a grobi’s heart and the wind from the Fenn was foul. The sky was full of carrion-birds, following Mannfred von Carstein and his rotting legion.’

Von Carstein… The name sent a chill through Felix’s heart. He knew the story; every child born in the Empire did, though the implications were hidden behind a veil of myth.

‘My father stood with the other Longbeards,’ Gotrek continued, pride evident in his voice. ‘Only my people held their ground that day. When the men broke, driven to flight by fear of the dead, my people stayed firm. They gave Martin of Stirland, the elector count, time to rally his men.’ Gotrek grinned, displaying his gap-teeth. ‘He was a brave one, that manling. Went blade-to-blade with the arch-undead himself, old Mannfred. Pierced him through as well, and sent the blood-sucker running.’ Gotrek laughed. ‘Didn’t get far though, and my father was among those who brought him to bay at the edge of the Fenn.’ His laughter faded. ‘They say Mannfred killed a dozen men, even dying, and that when he fell, no man dared touch him. They let him sink into the swamp, and good riddance…’ He gazed at his mug sourly. ‘That’d have been a doom worth singing about.’ And just like that, the Slayer’s good mood evaporated into melancholy.

Felix recognised the look in the Slayer’s eye well enough. He’d get no more out of him tonight. He looked around. The taproom of Hugo’s tavern was crowded with rivermen and travellers of all shapes and descriptions. Lumber merchants travelling the Old Dwarf Road south mingled with fruit-sellers from the Moot, who bought a round for a trio of dwarf prospectors, all of whom glared balefully at Gotrek, who pretended not to notice.

It was curious to Felix that Gotrek’s reception among his own kind veered between the two extremes of relief and dismay. There was no middle ground that he had seen. He contemplated asking Gotrek about it, and then decided that his time could be better spent on other, more pleasant tasks.

‘I’m going to go check on Elsa,’ he said, rising to his feet.

‘The templar is with her, manling,’ Gotrek burped, shaking his tankard up over the table. When only a single drop dripped from the rim, he frowned thunderously. ‘Hugo!’ he roared.

‘Does that mean I shouldn’t pay my respects?’ Felix said, strapping on his sword-belt.

Gotrek leered at him blearily. ‘Is that all you’re planning?’

‘You’re drunk.’

‘No. What I am is thirsty! Hugo!’ Gotrek bellowed again, slapping the table with one broad hand.

‘Enjoy abusing Hugo’s hospitality,’ Felix sniffed.

‘You too,’ Gotrek said.

Stung, Felix headed for the stairs. Gotrek was right, of course. It was folly of the worst sort to pant after their host’s daughter. But he couldn’t help himself. Felix liked to think of himself as a romantic, but in his more self-reflective moments he had to admit that he fell in love the way Gotrek drank… stupidly and often.

‘Or maybe I’m simply being too hard on myself because I’m angry,’ he muttered as he climbed the stairs, leaving the cacophony of the taproom behind. Angry with myself, angry with Holtz, angry with the situation, he thought. It rested like a leaden ball in his gut.

The trip back to Wurtbad hadn’t been pleasant. Holtz had gotten it into his head that Elsa had been involved with Schtillman, and that she knew the whereabouts of the lost reliquary. Russ had backed the priest up, leading to a number of stand-offs with the others. Olaf didn’t seem to care either way, but Iuldvitch had come down firmly on Felix’s side. Whether that was because he agreed with Felix, or simply because he didn’t like the Sigmarites very much, Felix couldn’t say.

At the moment, Iuldvitch was seeing to Elsa. Once they’d arrived in Wurtbad, the templar had sent away to an alchemist for herbs and potions to treat the daze Schtillman had put her into. Felix was grateful, but at the same time ever-so-slightly jealous of the templar’s ministrations. Even though he knew that his chance to garner Elsa’s affections had long since passed due to circumstance, it still rankled.

He reached the landing, and the sound of raised voices reached him. Instinctively his hand found Karaghul’s hilt and he strode quickly towards the door to Elsa’s room. Russ was lounging against it, his arms crossed over his chest and his fingertips stroking the brass butts of his pistols. His eyes narrowed as he saw Felix approaching. ‘Keep walking, Jaeger. This doesn’t concern you.’

‘No?’ Felix said, not stopping.

Russ pushed himself away from the door, opening his mouth to form a reply. Felix’s fist shot out, catching the witch hunter in his prominent nose. Russ staggered back, both hands flying to his abused snout, and Felix shoved past him into the room.

Holtz spun around, eyes wide. ‘Get out of here, sell-sword!’ he snapped. The priest was in full oratory mode, the Book of Sigmar clutched to his chest, his amulet wrapped around his other fist. Iuldvitch stood between Elsa, who cringed back on her bed, and the red-faced priest.

‘No, I think not,’ Felix said, kicking the door shut on Russ and pressing his back to it. ‘I thought we had made it clear to you earlier, Holtz. The girl had nothing to do with the theft. She was the victim, remember?’

‘So you say,’ Holtz spat. ‘The cults of the corpse-eaters spread like leprosy. Their taint is well-hidden, unlike the marks of Chaos.’ He grimaced. ‘She must know something. She must have seen what he did with the–’ He stopped short.

‘What he did with what, Holtz?’ Felix said. ‘What is so cursed important that you’d chase a man from Altdorf to Stirland and threaten an innocent girl for it? I think it’s time you told us.’ Behind him, Russ began to beat on the door.

‘What do you care, mercenary?’ Holtz said, pulling himself up to his full, imposing height. ‘You stink of the strange, Felix Jaeger.’

Felix’s chin jerked. ‘Oh?’

‘Yes,’ Holtz continued, stepping closer. ‘A stink almost as bad as that of necromancy…’ In the light of the candles strewn about the room, the priest looked decidedly sinister and Felix felt himself quail slightly. He shoved his hesitancy back and forced his shoulders to square. Travelling with Gotrek had taught Felix more about intimidation than any puffed-up priest could manage.

‘Are you making an accusation, Herr Holtz?’ Felix said, stepping to meet the priest. Behind him, the door opened, but it was too late to worry about it.

It was Holtz’s turn to hesitate. Before Felix could press his advantage, he heard the click of a pistol behind him, and felt the chill of a barrel as it dug into the back of his skull. ‘Your usefulness to the Church has ended, Jaeger,’ Russ said.

‘Not until you’ve paid us, it hasn’t,’ Gotrek rumbled. Felix turned and saw the Slayer standing behind Russ, his axe pressed gently against the man’s spine. The Slayer swayed slightly, and Felix realised that he was still drunk.

‘We didn’t ask for your help,’ Russ said. Felix couldn’t help but admire him. Not every man could mouth off with Gotrek’s axe a hairsbreadth from reducing him to a red ruin.

‘True enough,’ Felix said, stepping aside. ‘But we helped all the same. I daresay without us you’d be quite dead.’

‘True,’ Iuldvitch said, speaking up. The pale man met Holtz’s glare. ‘And it is not their fault, nor is it the girl’s, that Schtillman wasn’t the thief you were after.’

‘That is still to be determined,’ Holtz said harshly. ‘If you would let us put her to the question…’

‘I think we’ve all had enough questions, eh?’ Olaf rumbled from the hall. The red-bearded wizard stood behind Gotrek, his thumbs hooked in his belt. Beside him stood Hugo and two of his sons, as brawny as their father. Olaf sniffed and examined his fingernails. ‘Hugo here was concerned, so I brought him up. Wanted to show him his daughter wasn’t being bothered after everything.’ The wizard grinned, showing his teeth. ‘And here we find her deluged with protectors, eh?’

Felix shot a grateful glance at the wizard, whose grin grew wider. Olaf hadn’t seemed overly concerned with the girl’s fate on the trip back. Likely it was just his way of tweaking Holtz’s nose… something the wizard seemed to enjoy.

‘Is she well, templar?’ Hugo asked respectfully. This close to the dark forests of Sylvania, the servants of Morr were better regarded than elsewhere in the Empire. Where the dead walked, those who made it their life’s work to see such abominations back safely in their graves were figures of high esteem; much more so than officious priests or brutal witch hunters, at any rate.

‘Well enough for her ordeal,’ Iuldvitch said. He looked at Elsa, who shot a look at Holtz and then nodded briskly.

‘Well enough to get back to work, at least,’ she said, stepping towards her father.

‘No! You must rest,’ Hugo protested.

‘And who will serve your customers, poppa? Hans? Wilhelm?’ she said, jerking her chin at her brothers. ‘They’re more liable to give them baths than beers, considering how clumsy they are.’ Her brothers protested half-heartedly, but Felix got the impression that Elsa had won that argument long ago. Hugo took his daughter in his arms and herded his children out of the room and away from the clutches of the seething Sigmarites.

Olaf rubbed his hands together. ‘I hear a beer calling my name. Who’s with me, eh?’

‘Drink is the hobgoblin of the soul,’ Holtz said mechanically. He glared at the empty bed and then turned and stalked out of the room, trailing after Olaf. Russ followed him, pausing long enough to gesture at Felix with his pistol. Felix repressed the urge to swallow.

‘There will be trouble with those two, manling,’ Gotrek said, watching them go. ‘Your priests aren’t the most tolerant sort.’

Felix looked at him for a moment, struck by the ridiculousness of the Slayer chiding anyone for their lack of tolerance. Then he turned to Iuldvitch. ‘What now?’ he said.

‘I’m for the Temple of Morr, myself,’ the templar said. ‘Schtillman has been a mark in our books for some time now and I need to report his passing.’ He looked at Felix. ‘That and you’ve gotten me curious about the object of our friends’ concerns.’

‘And you think the Temple of Morr will have answers?’

‘We are quite knowledgeable in some areas, yes,’ Iuldvitch said blandly. He shrugged. ‘Besides, Holtz will almost certainly be reporting to the local prelate of Sigmar. I can do no less. Appearances must be kept up.’

‘May I accompany you?’ Felix said.

‘Still want to know what gewgaw the priest is hunting, manling?’ Gotrek said.

‘Don’t you?’ Felix said.

‘Not particularly,’ Gotrek said. ‘But I’m sober now, so I might as well accompany you.’ He shouldered his axe and snorted. ‘Besides, Hugo’s ale leaves something to be desired.’

‘It is free though,’ Felix said.

‘Aye, there is that.’

Swords sang off bleached bone, and the sky was full of the sound of wings, feathered and otherwise. Horses and men screamed and wolves howled and the Carrion Winds blew strong and steady. Clawed fingers scratched thin lines in the filthy surface of his cuirass, right above the point where the blade had entered him.

He lounged in the rear of the repaired skiff, his eyes half-closed, letting his tattered memories have full rein. Hel Fenn faded in the distance, and his earlier weakness with it. Hunger still gnawed at him, but several days along he was more fully in control of his desires. The Stir would carry them further and faster than a horse, but he found himself missing his coach. Long gone now, as were his holdings and servants, he judged.

How long, though? One year or a hundred, it was all the same. His eyes flickered open and he examined his withered claw. The raw stuff of the blood he’d taken had faded, leaving him weak again. He reclined, looking up at the cold stars. The heavens had once fascinated him, he recalled. Now, above his head was simply a void… eternal, cold emptiness.

‘Like the grave,’ he rasped. The zombie didn’t react. He reached down and picked up his sword. He’d retrieved it from where it lay beneath the tree, sleeping in its mouldering sheath. Just like him. He unsheathed it, admiring the terrible beauty of it. It was a thing of death, his sword. Larger and heavier than a normal man could wield, it felt as light as a feather in his hand.

His nostrils flared as the wind shifted and brought an influx of scents to him. He sat up, his red eyes fastening on a distant shape drawing swiftly closer thanks to the zombie’s inexorable poling. Even at a distance of however much time had passed, he knew a pleasure barge when he saw one. The River Stir had always been a popular route for the moneyed traveller. Cutting through the Great Forest as it did, it was a beautiful trip if you were in no particular rush.

Swiftly, he gave orders to Andree and then slid over the side so quietly that there was nary a splash. While it was true that all of his kind suffered Nagash’s Curse and thus had to avoid the glare of the sun, running water was only an obstacle to the weaker among them. He sank down slowly, and bounded up, loping across the river bottom, his unnatural eyesight easily piercing the darkness of the Stir’s depths. Freshwater fish scattered at his approach, shooting in all directions. Silt billowed around his boots, and his cloak flared around him like the cap of a toadstool as he gazed up at the shadowy shape of the pleasure barge.

He pushed himself upwards, extending his hands. His claws sank into the wood of the barge and slowly, cautiously, Mannfred began to climb the slope. As the crown of his head pierced the water’s surface, Mannfred caught the rough voices of the pleasure barge’s crew. Stirlanders by the accents, he thought. They were calling out to Andree, who was keeping the skiff just out of the light cast by the lanterns mounted on the rail. Mannfred grinned and scuttled to the side. The barge was a side-wheeler of the type once devised by the dwarfs as war machines. Obviously, the design had been co-opted by some mercantile-minded individual.

He hopped up onto the rail, his cloak settling about him. Saliva gathered as his mouth became a sharp slash filled with needles. He inhaled softly, his spear-blade nose quivering. The crew had their backs to him, occupied as they were by Andree. He heard gasps as Andree and his skiff drifted at last into the light. A zombie, especially one in Andree’s condition, was never a pleasant sight.

He rose to his feet and shrugged back the folds of his dripping cloak. ‘Permission to board?’ he asked, breaking the horrified silence. Men spun, their hands clawing for weapons. He laughed and dived upon them. A sword slid past him, ripping the cloak from his shoulders, and he thrust his claws into its wielder’s face, crushing bone and gouging flesh. Stripping the meat from the man’s skull, he flung the bloody mess into another man’s face. A boat-hook swung at him and he caught it easily. Jerking it from the crewman’s grip, he snapped it in two and drove the jagged end of one half into the astonished man’s belly.

He lifted the dying man over his head and spread his jaws to an inhuman degree, his tongue uncoiling like that of a serpent. As he gulped down the ensuing shower of blood, he used the other half of the boat-hook to shatter the neck of another crewman. Dropping the body, he looked around. There were five men left on deck, though someone was below decks ringing an alarm bell. He spread his arms and bared crimson-stained teeth. ‘Come one at a time or all at once. The music fades and I’d have this dance done,’ he snarled.

He could have used his magics to sweep the life from them, he knew, and, at one time, he might have done so. It had always been his nature to take the slow path, to proceed cautiously. But he felt the urge to stretch his killing muscles; there was an undeniable pleasure in physical carnage, especially when he had for so long been denied the pleasures of the flesh. He didn’t even need to draw his sword. Not for pitiful specimens like these. His playfulness was flushed out of his system on the instant, replaced by a sudden burst of hunger. His claws and fangs extended and his vulpine features became something horrible to behold as he pounced.

He shrieked, grabbing a man’s head and ripping it in half like a soft melon. Swords and clubs rattled off his twisted armour as he tore through the sailors and the deck was awash in blood when he finished with them. The stink of fear filled his sinuses, calming him, and he turned, looking towards the upper deck. Terrified faces stared at him like mice stunned by the sudden appearance of a snake in their midst.

Slowly, savouring the fear emanating from them, he made his way to the upper deck. ‘I apologise for my most abrupt embarkation. Regrettably, I have need of your vessel.’ He paused, as if thinking, and then continued, ‘And yourselves.’ His tongue extended in a cat-like fashion and dislodged the drying blood from his mouth. The hunger had him now. More blood, he needed more. He needed seas and messes of it.

There were half a dozen men and women on the observation deck. Two of the men stepped forwards as he came up the stairs; both drew rapiers, though only one looked as if he knew how to properly use it. He drew his own sword, relishing the way their faces went pale at the sight of it. ‘W-who… who are you?’ one said.

He stopped. ‘Who,’ he said, curiously. It wasn’t a question he had thought about before. In sleep, he had had no need of a name or an identity. And in his life he had had many; dozens of them, hundreds of them and the titles to go with them. He flashed through them, trying to find the most recent. Who was he, at this time, in this place? The answer came in a flash of red and he gave a courtly bow as he said, ‘Allow me to introduce myself… I am Mannfred von Carstein.’ His lips skinned back from his fangs. ‘And I am hungry.’

The Low Town of Wurtbad was like a different country. Thanks to the prevalence of river-traffic, Low Town was home to a wide variety of people from all over the Empire, as well as more than a few from beyond. A babble of accents and languages mingled to create a persistent background hum. Business went on in Low Town at all times. The setting of the sun was no impediment.

Felix spun as he heard the clash of steel echoing off the baked clay bricks. One hand hovered over his sword-hilt. Gotrek chuckled unpleasantly. ‘Paranoid, manling?’ he said.

‘Just cautious,’ Felix insisted, hurrying to catch up to the Slayer and Iuldvitch. The templar walked briskly, his palm resting on the hilt of his sword.

‘Wurtbad is a vibrant place,’ Iuldvitch said, not sounding at all happy about that fact.

‘Surprising, considering how close we are to Sylvania,’ Felix said.

‘In my experience, you humans never laugh louder than when you’re trying to ignore the wolf at your door,’ Gotrek grumbled.

‘Better than the alternative, I suppose,’ Felix said, shrugging. ‘Strange that the temple would be in Low Town,’ he went on, looking at Iuldvitch.

‘Not really,’ the templar said, smiling thinly. ‘Morr is a necessary god, but not a loved one. And the dead are regarded more warily in these regions. Those who live in High Town have their own private mausoleums and their own pet priests, but for the rest of the population, the Garden of Bones must suffice.’

They moved across a square and then to a battered wooden footbridge that led across a narrow, brick-rimmed channel. Felix looked down into the sluggish water, marvelling at the feat of engineering that had gone into creating the web of man-made tributaries that provided water to every part of Wurtbad. Altdorf had something similar, as did Nuln, or so he’d heard. ‘It’s amazing, isn’t it,’ he said, looking down at Gotrek.

‘Eh?’

‘This, all of this,’ Felix gestured around them.

Gotrek’s reply was a wad of spittle plopping into the water. They left the bridge behind. The Bone Garden sat silent in an empty space at the end of a quiet plaza. Felix looked down and realised with a start that the face of Morr had been picked out in ivory stones in the centre of the plaza. He stooped, curious, and then straightened abruptly. They weren’t stones. ‘Gotrek…’ he began, his mouth dry.

‘Aye, it took you long enough to notice,’ Gotrek said without stopping.

‘Men of faith donate their bones to the temple, even as we donate our bodies to Morr’s service,’ Iuldvitch said, stopping before the great gate of iron that marked the boundary to the Garden of Morr. He looked at Felix. ‘You disapprove?’

‘I – ah – no,’ Felix said hesitantly.

‘Good,’ Iuldvitch said, smiling. He turned back to the gate and reached for a silver bell mounted in the wall. ‘The temple here is a small one. Only one priest, but then, we have never needed more…’

‘Wait,’ Gotrek said suddenly, raising his hand in a gesture of warning.

‘What?’ Felix said, his hand dropping to the hilt of his sword.

‘The gate is open.’

‘What?’ Iuldvitch drew his blade. Gotrek, axe in hand, tapped the gate and it swung outwards with a shrill shriek. Felix flinched, the noise causing his teeth to vibrate in his gums and the soles of his feet to itch. He looked down.

‘Gotrek,’ he said. ‘Look, footprints.’ Felix gestured with his sword, showing the dark footprints that stained the white space before the gate. ‘And bare feet as well; who would wander bare-footed through a cemetery?’

Iuldvitch cursed and darted through the open gate. Felix shared a look with Gotrek and then they hurried after the templar. A persistent mist curling off the river permeated the cemetery, drifting between the headstones and statuary. Felix’s flesh crawled at the cold feel of the mist and he remembered suddenly that he had always hated bone-gardens. Morr was not a comforting presence, as gods went. His was the sad inevitability of oblivion, and no man liked to think of that, not with the memory of wine still on his tongue or the touch of a woman’s hand on his heart.

Gotrek, of course, seemed altogether unbothered. ‘Burying your dead in the dirt,’ he grumbled. ‘That’s what causes the problems, manling. Stone is the only appropriate resting place for the dead. You never see the dead of a dwarf hold rising in revolt!’

‘Give it time,’ Felix muttered. Gotrek glared at him but didn’t reply. They caught up to Iuldvitch just outside of the garden chapel. He waved them to silence, his pale eyes narrowed. The chapel was a squat square of brick, adorned with skulls that clustered in nooks and crannies. A peaked roof studded with weathervanes completed the image of something that was less an actual building than the merest aperture of some unseen temple.

Gotrek sniffed the air. ‘Spoiled meat,’ he growled low in his throat. ‘And old blood as well.’ Iuldvitch started forwards, his sword out. He opened the chapel door and stepped inside. Gotrek and Felix followed, one to either side of the templar.

The chapel was little more than a corridor filled with softly-burning candles and rough wooden benches. At the opposite end, beneath the light cast by a lantern held by a stone image of Morr, was the altar. And on the altar was the priest. But he was not alone.

Felix choked on a sudden rush of nausea. Gotrek snarled and hefted his axe. Iuldvitch started forwards, his face a stiff mask.

The white, hairless things that had been crouched over the priest turned, their bestial faces twisting in surprise. There were five of them, and they were skinny creatures, balloon-muscled and bloat-bellied. One of them shrieked, sounding like the largest, angriest bat that Felix had ever heard. Then, with a howl, they sprang off the altar and rushed towards the trio.

The woman squirmed in Mannfred’s grip. He drank deeply of the pulsing red river of her life, but stopped short of running it dry. Contemptuously, he rolled her body off him and rose to his feet. Stepping over her, he stalked to the rail, licking blood from his claws.

The other five were attached to each other and to the lounging bench by the anchor chain. Blood encrusted the links, and they all hung limp and weak in their bonds. He had drunk from them all in the past few hours, and he would again before they reached their destination. He would drain them of every drop of noble blood that they possessed and replace it with something older and finer. He smiled, a razor slash in the dim torchlight. Mannfred leaned over the rail, the painted wood cracking in his grip. This was only the beginning.

His memories were less haphazard now. He had glutted himself, and his form, while still weak, was stronger now than it had been. Strong enough to do what came next, at any rate.

He looked down at Andree standing among the bodies of the slaughtered crew and raised his hands. The Carrion Winds caressed the edges of his mind and he spoke, the words echoing like shattering ice. On the deck, the bodies began to tremble. They twitched, squirmed and finally sat up, some still clutching the weapons that had proven so useless against their new master. In his head, Mannfred could hear the groans of horror as the bound spirits realised their predicament.

He smiled, glorying in the delicious spiritual agony. To master the dead was a fine thing indeed. To rip them from the clutches of jealous Morr filled him with a raw pleasure that was only matched by taking their lives in the first place.

‘Only the beginning,’ he hissed. Dominance came naturally to his kind. It was built into them to strive and conquer and rule. Even more so than the humans they preyed upon. Vlad had taught him that; one of the few useful lessons his creator had ever given him.

Only the strongest could conquer. Only the most cunning and the canniest could rule. Instinct demanded that he return to Sylvania, to the ancient places of power. But Mannfred had ever been master of his instincts. Of them all, he had been the most cunning. While Vlad had become lost in ancient books and wasted lovers, and Konrad had raged impotently against phantom enemies, Mannfred had gone out into the wider world and supped on its delights.

He had learned things: the arts of Dhar and Shyish, the way of manipulating men and indeed, more than men. He had walked unseen in the deserts of the Land of the Dead and faced foes more terrible than any elector count armed with a bit of borrowed dwarf steel.

He frowned. That, of course, simply made his failure all the more painful. The Empire, by rights, should have been his. All of the pieces had been in place, everything was perfect, and then… what?

Mannfred reached into his belt and extracted the slice of Schtillman’s flesh. He examined the brand again, his still-sluggish memories shuffling into view in his mind’s eye. The brand was of old Khemri, but it had been used much more recently. Mannfred hissed in frustration as he tried to recall what it had signified. He squeezed the scrap of skin so hard that it stretched and tore in his hands.

‘What are you?’ he growled. He had brought the necromancer’s notes with him, hoping for answers of some kind. He – all of the von Carsteins, really – had been Schtillman’s life work. The wretched creature had spent decades hunting for Mannfred’s last resting place. But nothing in his interminable notes told Mannfred why.

Necromancers served his kind. It had always been thus. Vlad had said that it had been one of the first vampires who had passed on Nagash’s ancient wisdom to the cattle, and taught them the arts of necromancy. Mannfred could see that. Some among his kind, while sorcerous in nature, had less magical aptitude than a rock. They knew the why and the how, but lacked that spark that all humans possessed that allowed them to commune with the winds of magic.

Mannfred himself had no such need for the Schtillmans of the world. He had scoured the Nine Books of Nagash clean of knowledge and drained the Concordances of Arkhan of all that they might teach him. Granted, there was still more to be learned. There was always more. But unlike some, the knowledge he sought had a use.

He looked down at the ragged shred of flesh in his hand and traced the mark on it, noting again how it looked to have been cut up, as if someone had tried to remove it or otherwise deface the brand. He knew what it was. He had to. But he could not bring it to mind.

Mannfred snarled in frustration, and his captives whimpered in fear. His mind was still wounded, even if his body were growing stronger. It had been all he could do to raise the dead crew and set them to work getting the barge moving. He turned from the rail, stuffing the scrap of Schtillman’s flesh back into his belt.

He needed more blood.

Gotrek gave a bark of joy and bounded past Felix and Iuldvitch to meet the ghouls charging towards them. ‘Ho, corpse-eaters! Come to Gotrek!’

Three of the beasts pounced on the Slayer while their two fellows darted past, heading for Felix and the templar. Felix stepped back as one of the things leapt up onto a bench and launched itself towards him. It crashed into him, surprisingly heavy for its size. An unpleasantly human face thrust itself into his and it bit at him wildly. Thrusting it back, he drew Karaghul and made to disembowel the monster. It twisted aside and leapt at him again. Felix whirled, sweeping his cloak out to catch it. The creature shrieked as it became tangled. Felix jerked his cloak aside and stabbed the off-balance creature. It folded over his blade, weeping black blood. Disgusted, he kicked it off and turned to help Iuldvitch.

The templar needed no help, though. He fought more fiercely than Felix had seen; he literally battered the creature he faced off its feet, his normally stoic features twisted in an expression of disgust. Another of the creatures flew between Felix and Iuldvitch, trailing a tendril of dark blood. It hit the far wall and flopped down, motionless. Felix turned and saw Gotrek stamping on another’s neck, even as he held the last of the grisly beasts above his head.

‘Ha!’ the Slayer laughed. ‘My axe isn’t to your tastes, eh?’ He looked up at the last beast and grinned into its snarls. Then he slammed it down atop its fellow and drove his axe through the both of them in a display of strength that stunned Felix momentarily. He was even more stunned when the floor gave a groan and the boards split and fell in, carrying the bodies with them.

Gotrek disappeared into the newborn pit with a roar. The floor gave way beneath Felix’s feet and he followed the Slayer with a yelp.

He hit the bottom of the pit with a thud and something clattered beneath him. Bones, he realised with horror. Gotrek was already on his feet. The Slayer had held onto his axe on the way down, but Felix’s sword was still above ground. Gotrek looked at him and shook his head. ‘I’ve never yet met a human who could hold onto his weapon,’ he grunted.

Felix restrained the urge to snap at the Slayer and scrambled to his feet. The pit was full of bones, and more of them decorated the walls. ‘What happened? Why did the floor collapse?’ he asked.

‘Shoddy human workmanship, I’d wager,’ Gotrek growled, peering around. There was a foul stink rising from the pit below, and Felix wished he had a handkerchief. It was dark and a wet mist rose up, carrying the stink with it. ‘The ground is soft here, manling,’ Gotrek said looking more closely at the walls of the pit. ‘It’s been dug out as well, though not by tools.’

‘It’s a ghoul warren,’ Iuldvitch intoned hollowly from above them.

‘Ghouls,’ Felix repeated, the word bringing with it a creeping sensation of dread. Even to a man with his upbringing, the word was one of horror, dredging up as it did every half-true fable of starving families eating the dead to survive a harsh winter and degenerating into inhuman scavengers as a consequence. Better slow death by starvation than that. He prodded one of the bodies that had fallen with them with his boot, his curiosity momentarily overcoming his disgust. In death, they looked human enough, despite the slick greyness to their skin and the bestial cant to their spine. He paused as he noticed a strange brand on each of the beasts, on shoulders or haunches. It was a curious, crawling shape and it hurt his eyes to look on it.

‘They cling like blowflies to the grounds of some cemeteries,’ Iuldvitch said. Felix looked up at him. His flesh crawled at the thought. How long had the corpse-eaters been scurrying beneath Wurtbad and carving their foul-smelling tunnels?

‘I thought it your lot’s job to keep them from doing that!’ he said.

‘It is,’ Iuldvitch said grimly. ‘I’m going to go find a rope or something. Don’t move.’

‘Where would we go?’ Felix shot back. Iuldvitch vanished without replying.

He looked at Gotrek. The Slayer was running his hand across the rough circumference of the pit. ‘The templar is wrong,’ he grunted.

‘This looks like part of a warren to me,’ Felix said.

‘It’s more than that. No beast can dig through stone that easily,’ Gotrek said. He dug his fingers into the mud and pulled a chunk away, revealing what looked to be smooth stone.

‘What is that?’ Felix said.

‘It’s a keystone, manling,’ Gotrek said, pressing his palm to the stone. He looked up, squinting. ‘My people use them to identify routes and passages.’ He looked down, his eye searching for something. ‘This is a landing. There are stairs here, somewhere. More than one set, and dwarf-work.’ Gotrek’s eye narrowed. ‘Wurtbad was built over an older settlement, if I recall.’

Felix heard a strange scraping sound and turned. The bones in the walls of the pit were shifting and crumbling. ‘Gotrek,’ he said, wishing he had his sword. The scratching grew louder, sounding like rats behind the walls of a house. The sound was echoed from the other sides of the pit. Even Gotrek had stopped to listen, his head cocked.

‘Rats,’ he said.

‘That’s not rats,’ Felix said.

‘Big rats,’ Gotrek said.

The walls of the pit collapsed inwards, showering both of them with mud and bones. Felix found his arms pinned against his sides as the dirt swept him back. Dozens of ghouls, much larger than the others, bounded out of the holes towards them.

‘Those aren’t rats!’ Felix yelled, trying to free himself. Gotrek had managed to get his arm free, but not his axe. As a ghoul lunged at him, the Slayer’s hand shot out, his palm covering the lower half of the creature’s face. With a quick push, Gotrek snapped the creature’s neck.

Felix fought desperately to free himself as several ghouls moved towards him on all fours, their distorted bodies moving more like those of cats than the men they had once been. Gotrek snarled in pain as a ghoul avoided his fist and leapt onto his back, burying its teeth into his shoulder. With a powerful shrug the dwarf ripped his other arm free of the mud and reached up to grab the ghoul.

Felix jerked back as a ghoul made a playful snap at him. Three of them circled him, licking their chops and chuckling. He forced his hand down, reaching for the dagger sheathed on his belt. It wasn’t going to be of much use but it was better than nothing.

Gotrek forced himself up out of the mud, but was quickly bowled over by the ghouls. The bigger beasts were far stronger than their smaller cousins. Gotrek bellowed and thrashed, driving an elbow into the jaw of one creature, knocking it backwards. He rose and grabbed another in a bear-hug. Felix heard bones snap and pop.

He got his dagger free at the last moment and jabbed it upwards into the soft spot under a lunging ghoul’s jaw. It leaned into him, eyes bulging hatefully. Felix forced the blade further in, hoping to pierce the creature’s brain. Its foul breath washed over him and then it sighed and slumped. Black blood washed over his hand, burning his flesh slightly.

He tried to jerk the dagger free, but he knew he wouldn’t get it loose in time. The other ghouls were too close. Felix steeled himself for the bite he knew was coming.

But it didn’t.

Felix’s eyes cracked open. The ghoul’s jaws gaped, but its eyes had rolled up in its head, as if looking towards the blade of the axe embedded in its skull. Gotrek had hurled it across the pit, killing the creature moments before it could do the same to Felix.

‘Is everyone all right?’ Iuldvitch called out from above.

‘Oh yes, just fine,’ Felix said, his voice a touch more hysterical than he would have liked. ‘I’m not dead,’ he said.

‘No,’ Gotrek said, retrieving his axe and plucking Felix out of his predicament. As he hauled Felix out of the mud, he pointed to where the ghouls had emerged. ‘Stairs, manling,’ he said triumphantly.

‘I never doubted you,’ Felix protested. There were indeed stairs there and they appeared to go down, but Felix wanted to go up and he looked away from them as Iuldvitch lowered a thick chain snagged from one tomb or another. ‘Best I could find, I’m afraid,’ the templar said apologetically.

‘It’ll do,’ Felix said, as he and Gotrek climbed out quickly. ‘Thank you,’ Felix said, brushing mud off his sleeves. Iuldvitch didn’t reply. He was staring at the body of the priest. Gently he began to arrange the dead man’s outflung limbs to hide the gaping ruin of his belly and chest. ‘I would have thought this place would be safer than most…’ He turned and Felix noticed that his hands were trembling slightly.

‘Those creatures weren’t alone,’ Gotrek said. ‘Remember the footprints, manling?’ He gestured with his axe towards the gates. ‘Like as not, the rest of the pack went into Low Town. And judging by the stink, there were a lot of them.’

‘You can tell that?’ Felix asked.

Gotrek tapped the side of his nose. ‘Of course; the stronger the stink, the more of them there were. It’s the same with grobi and skaven.’ He headed for the door. ‘My axe still thirsts. We can probably catch up with them if we hurry.’

The thought of fighting more of the things caused Felix to squirm inside, but he hurried after Gotrek nonetheless. He stopped when he realised that Iuldvitch wasn’t following them. The templar had drawn his sword and was kneeling in front of the altar and the priest’s body.

‘Iuldvitch?’ Felix began.

‘Leave him, manling,’ Gotrek said, grabbing Felix’s arm. ‘He’s got his own path to follow.’

‘He’s right,’ Iuldvitch said without turning. He stood slowly, leaning on his sword. ‘Where one pack rises, others are sure to follow, unless the warren is purged. This close to Sylvania, there’s no telling how many packs of the creatures are lurking. I’ll not have this place corrupted any further.’

Felix hesitated. ‘Surely we should help,’ he said, looking at Gotrek.

‘We will be, manling,’ Gotrek said, shoving the chapel door aside. ‘By tracking down and slaughtering the rest of this filth before they do to any others what they did to the priest.’

Iuldvitch smiled thinly at Felix. ‘Go on, Jaeger. This is what I do, and I do it best alone. Besides, one of us should warn the authorities. There could be more ghouls in the city, especially if we’ve stumbled afoul of some deeper plan.’

‘Plan?’ Felix said.

‘Ghouls don’t do this sort of thing on their own initiative. They’re scavengers. Even a pack this size…’ Iuldvitch shook his head. ‘Something forced them up here. Be careful.’

Felix nodded and hurried after Gotrek’s swiftly stumping form.

‘Wurtbad, jewel of the Stir,’ Mannfred murmured, leaning across his cocked knee, his red eyes gazing at the approaching docks in barely repressed eagerness. ‘It has been some time since I last tasted its delights,’ he continued, more loudly, as he turned. The six newly-made vampires hissed and snarled in reply as they clustered about him, feral faces twisted in hunger.

Mannfred slapped aside a vampiress who’d gotten too close and snarled at the thirsty pack, causing them all to scramble to the opposite side of the deck. He’d drained them dry over the course of the trip, and then filled them up again, with his essence. Their thoughts, full of hunger and frustration, fluttered around the edges of his consciousness like moths around a dark flame.

Ruthlessly, he spread the tendrils of his mind and gathered their thoughts before crushing them, causing the vampires to twitch and moan. Satisfied that they would cause no trouble, he grunted and turned away to watch the zombie crew move mechanically about their duties. In truth, he’d have preferred to avoid the whole messy process of creating more of his kind. Weak-minded as they were at the moment, they were more a threat to each other than him, but as his experiences with brother Konrad had shown, vampires were not pack animals, despite being able to assume the form of wolves.

Unfortunately, he needed servants of a more durable nature than Andree and his new fellows. Armies had to start somewhere. He extended his tongue, tasting the air. It was foul, this close to the city, smelling as it did of industry and strange spices. But below that, he could scent the far sweeter smell of death, and necromancy. It was a familiar scent, and not in the general fashion that all things derived from necromancy were familiar.

It was frustrating, that familiarity. Magic, when wielded by a particular hand, had a particular odour. It was a tang that prodded at the heightened senses of sorcerous beings like Mannfred. He could follow that tang across any ground, as his every instinct now urged him to do. To hunt was his nature and it had been too long.

He signalled his zombies to drop anchor in a bend in the river. The boat would be safe enough here, on the outskirts of Wurtbad’s docklands. Abandoned jetties and outbuildings lined the shore, used only by smugglers and other rabble engaged in illicit dealings. Other than a few members of the river-watch, who were likely in the pay of those aforementioned smugglers, no one would notice. Not until morning at any rate. And he intended to be someplace else by then. Wurtbad played host to a number of secret places and lairs for one of his kind. He had set up most of them himself, in fact, during his last visit.

Planning and preparation had ever been his way. The cautious spider, rather than the rabid wolf, as Konrad had been. He had even been more cautious than Vlad, in the end. Suddenly, he looked up, eyes widening slightly, and grunted. ‘No… It couldn’t be,’ he muttered, pulling the scrap of Schtillman’s flesh out of his belt. ‘But if it is…’

He traced the brand with the tip of a claw. It had been the thought of Vlad that had done it. That was where he had seen that brand before. And a very particular brand it was. ‘Would they dare?’ Mannfred said, looking at his vampires as if expecting a reply. None was forthcoming, of course. Their will was his will. They could have no other.

There was a scrape of wood on wood as the crew brought them close to the jetty and he turned, stuffing the scrap back into his belt. He glanced at the vampires and pointed at them. ‘Stay until I call for you, then come in all haste,’ he said. Without waiting for a reply he leapt from the prow to the jetty, his shape blurring as he fell. Bone cracked and twisted and stiff hairs pierced his flesh like thousands of spear-points, causing him to be surrounded in a bloody mist as he dropped downwards. Changing shape was a pleasurable sort of pain for Mannfred. The bodies of his kind were dead and thus ultimately malleable. The more power they had, the more shapes that were theirs to assume. Weak as he still was, there was only one shape that met his current needs.

Four feet landed on the jetty, causing the wood to bow slightly, and a great black wolf bounded into the fog. Mannfred ran faster than any wolf, however, and his claws struck gouges in the wood of the jetty. Muscles pumping with stolen blood, he sprang from the jetty to the roof of an outbuilding and ran towards the city.

He went unnoticed past the trio of watchmen heading to investigate the newly-arrived barge, and gave a silent, snarling laugh at the thought of what awaited them, should they board the barge. His new followers would satiate their hunger on the unlucky men and be ready to aid Mannfred in whatever endeavour awaited him tonight.

The wolf dropped into the crooked alleys of Low Town, moving with the surety of one whose absence has not resulted in much change in old haunts. The Empire did not change, Mannfred knew. It simply persisted. It was as much a zombie as Andree, lumbering down through the centuries, its blood growing thinner and thinner with each generation.

That was reason enough to put it out of its misery. The wolf that was Mannfred growled in satisfaction, thinking of things to come. He would rebuild his forces in the secret places of the Empire, and when the time was right, when the eyes of the Empire’s defenders were turned elsewhere, he would strike.

The wolf bounded up onto the awning of a vendor’s stall and leapt onto a sloping roof, scrambling up and across. He ran across the rooftops of Low Town, following the skeins of dark magic he had scented in the harbour. They permeated the town, tangled up in the damp mist that seeped upwards out of the streets. Mannfred skidded to a halt as the stench of rotting meat and spoiled milk caught his attention. He loped to the edge of the roof and gave a bark of surprise as he saw the pale shapes of a dozen or more ghouls creeping towards him from the opposite direction. They swarmed up walls and across the curves of the rooftops of the city, moving like spiders, their pale gangly limbs flashing in the moonlight as they crept closer.

But not towards him; the ghouls were creeping towards the building he crouched on. Mannfred sank down, inhaling as his shape billowed back out to its human proportions. He smelled a strong wood fire and cooking meat, fermentation and human sweat. It was a tavern. Mannfred rose to his feet even as the first ghoul landed with a thump on the roof.

It shrilled at him, baring yellow teeth. Others joined it, swarming up to crouch in a semi-circle of simian malevolence around Mannfred. There were twenty of them, and he could smell more of them coming closer. One snarled and stretched out a hesitant claw. Mannfred met its dim gaze and flashed his fangs. It squeaked and shoved back, nearly dislodging several of its fellows from their perches. The brands on their flesh burned like torches to his eyes and he snarled. It was the same brand as marked the shred of Schtillman’s flesh.

They had been sent on some errand, but his presence had cowed them for the moment. Deep in their tainted blood, the beasts knew who their real master was, no matter the petty magics that leashed them to hidden hands. Their kind had served his since their first degenerate antecedent had sworn fealty to the first vampires.

Curious, he stepped aside and gestured. Almost gratefully, the ghouls piled past him, whimpering and growling. They began tearing at the roof. He could hear their fellows doing the same to the closed shutters of the upper-storey windows. He watched them for a moment longer and then whispered a guttural phrase. The strings of necromantic magic that were hooked into the brands on the ghouls stretched back the way the beasts had come, across the rooftops. Mannfred gave a short, sharp laugh and set off on the trail of old friends he had thought long since gone to their well-deserved graves.

Even on two legs, his speed was preternatural, carrying him swiftly from the roof of the tavern to another overlooking a bone-coloured square that marked the entry point to the local cemetery. He caught sight of the image on the floor of the plaza and hissed, throwing up a hand instinctively. Wincing, he hurled himself the distance from the edge of the roof to the top of the wall surrounding the Garden of Morr.

Even Mannfred, the most logical of his breed, felt some small disquiet at the thought of willingly entering an abode of the God of Death. Everything that Morr was, Mannfred and his kind made mockery of. And Morr, like any god, was a jealous entity, and prone to grudges.

Crouching on the wall, Mannfred sniffed the air cautiously. The Bone Garden reeked of dark magics. Like an apple eaten inside out by rot, it was no longer dedicated to the Final God, but instead to – what? It stank of necromancy, and the mist clung fiercely to the headstones and mausoleums. Mannfred dropped down into the cemetery and the mist coiled up around him, like striking serpents. With a gesture, he dispersed it and started towards the chapel. He could feel the tingle of the sacred there; a final holy flame.

A born conspirator, Mannfred knew a plot when he stumbled over one. It would take a sorcerer of his standing years to undermine the innate protections of a Garden even as small as this one. And the brand on the ghouls bespoke a familiar band of plotters indeed. Memories surged, bobbing to the surface of his wine-dark thoughts.

He smelled the delightful scent of newly-spilled blood emanating from the chapel. Licking his lips, he stepped inside. The mist retreated, and Mannfred himself felt an invisible pressure radiating from the altar at the other end. A figure knelt, head bowed in prayer. The syllables struck Mannfred like slaps, and he could not restrain a snarl.

The man sprang to his feet and spun around, eyes widening as he caught sight of Mannfred. ‘Who–’ he began.

Mannfred did not let him finish. He rushed forwards, cloak flaring out behind him, the curved ridges of his armour swallowing the light. His fangs and claws extended and he dived onto the warrior. A sword slashed up, nearly bisecting him, and Mannfred twisted in mid-air, avoiding the blow. He landed on the altar and lunged at the swordsman without pausing. Mannfred did not know him, but he was familiar nonetheless. He had faced servants of the death god before and he knew their maggoty stench.

The sword burned with letters of cold fire and Mannfred’s flesh crawled as he ducked under a precise sweep and dug his claws into his opponent’s steel gorget. The blow lifted the warrior off his feet and flung him back to crash into the closest of the benches that lined the chapel. Mannfred tossed the bent gorget aside and stalked towards the warrior, who lay in the ruins of the bench, gagging.

Mannfred scooped up the fallen sword, but tossed it aside with a yelp. His palm had blistered at the touch of the hilt and he cursed himself for being foolish. He thought of drawing his own blade, but dismissed the thought. Why sully it? The warrior was trying to get to his feet, one hand to his damaged throat. Mannfred could almost admire such determination… almost, but not quite.

Mannfred sprang forwards and grabbed the pale man by his head. He restrained the impulse to crush the man’s skull like an egg and instead leaned close. There was something going on, and he wanted to know what.

‘Tell me what you know,’ he hissed, his eyes widening and his thoughts driving forwards to pierce the mind of his captive. The templar jerked and groaned as blood began to run from the corners of his eyes and his nostrils. Mannfred pulled him closer. ‘Tell me…’

The mist seemed thicker somehow, and Felix could taste a hint of strange rot in his sinuses. The mist was high enough now that Gotrek’s crest cut through it like a shark’s fin. ‘Maybe we should rouse the others,’ he said as they left the Bone Garden behind. Gotrek snorted.

‘And what use would they be, manling?’

‘Quite a bit, in Olaf’s case, I think,’ Felix said bluntly. He threw a hand in the direction of the Garden. ‘You saw the look on his face, Gotrek. And you said yourself that there’s bound to be a lot of those beasts loose in Low Town! We need to alert someone – anyone!’

‘What, and spook the corpse-eaters?’ Gotrek seemed aghast.

‘Weren’t you the one who was just talking about preventing any further deaths?’ Felix snapped. He batted in annoyance at the mist as it curled around his hands. It hung off everything like a wet shroud. It made him think of Hel Fenn, something he really could have done without. Because thinking of Hel Fenn made Felix think again about Schtillman and what he’d been planning. He had not voiced his suspicions as to the necromancer’s intentions, seeing no need. But he wondered if that had been the correct course, considering what they had seen in the Bone Garden.

Of course, he had no proof as to what Schtillman’s intentions had been. He had seemingly been the only one to hear Schtillman’s ranting and the thought of it was inconceivable. Resurrecting Mannfred von Carstein? The idea was laughable.

Then again… Felix shook droplets of wet off his sleeve. He looked up and tried to see the stars through the mist, but it was too thick. ‘We need to rouse help, Gotrek,’ he said. ‘Especially if…’ He trailed off.

‘If what?’ Gotrek said impatiently. The Slayer stopped so suddenly that Felix almost ran into him. ‘What’s stuck in your craw, manling?’

‘It’s von Carstein!’ Felix burst out.

‘What?’ Gotrek said.

‘That’s who Schtillman was talking about in the swamp,’ Felix said. ‘What if he succeeded, what if Elsa was just meant as an – an appetiser for something that was already back and hungry?’

Gotrek shook his head. ‘Manling…’ He turned to continue on, but by the set of his shoulders Felix could tell he was still listening. He decided to press his luck.

‘What if that’s what Holtz and Russ are after?’ Felix insisted. ‘What if the reliquary weren’t a reliquary at all, but a body?’

Gotrek stopped again. Felix bobbed from one foot to the other nervously. The mist seemed to press against him from all sides, like hands at an Altdorf orgy. ‘Even the Sigmarites wouldn’t be that stupid… to not destroy the vampire’s body, if it had been found,’ Gotrek said, but he sounded doubtful.

‘Of course they would!’ Felix said. ‘It’s common knowledge that they keep all manner of monsters in the Great Temple!’

‘Common knowledge, eh?’ Gotrek said.

‘Well, rumour and innuendo, but every fiction has a kernel of truth,’ Felix said. ‘Gotrek, we may not be just facing ghouls, but one of the Lords of the Undead as well!’

‘And?’ Gotrek demanded.

‘And? And?’ Felix said. ‘Gotrek, we have to tell someone. If Mannfred von Carstein has returned, the entire Empire is in danger!’

‘All the more reason to chop the snake’s head off now,’ Gotrek said. ‘Speaking of which…’ Felix saw the Slayer’s axe loop out and he threw himself to the ground. There was a scream from behind him and a ghoul crumpled to the cobbles, jerking and dying. Gotrek ripped his axe loose and flicked a blob of sticky blood from the blade. ‘Looks like we found the ghouls,’ he said.

Felix looked up and saw dozens of red lights shining above him in the mist. He drew his sword. Gotrek roared and cut a falling ghoul in two. A shower of gore filled the alleyway, but Gotrek didn’t appear to notice. More ghouls dropped from the walls and rooftop, moving with almost reptilian grace. Several tried to dog-pile the Slayer, but Gotrek became a blur of muscle and metal, and body parts rolled into the gutters.

Felix, while not as deadly, was also not the target. The ghouls seemed less concerned with him than with bringing Gotrek down, and he couldn’t blame them. Nonetheless, Karaghul darted out and a ghoul staggered, clutching its bloody throat.

Felix’s former nausea was washed away in a rush of hatred. These creatures were monsters, not men. Whether of their own accord or at the behest of some monstrous master, they had dug their own grave as far as Felix was concerned. Any pity he might have felt for them was gone. He hacked and slashed at the capering figures and the world dimmed to a red tunnel.

Only when his sword scraped the brick of a wall did he come out of it, and he heard Gotrek laugh. ‘Good, manling, good. But they’re getting away.’ Felix turned and saw black shapes scampering away. Gotrek was already charging after them.

Felix hurried after him. He could hear the sound of alarm bells ringing and the cry of horses; he couldn’t see where the sounds were coming from, but it sounded like all of Wurtbad was in an uproar. The mist was literally crawling up the walls of the buildings around them. He could see barely a foot in front of his face. Indeed, he had lost sight of Gotrek entirely.

‘Gotrek?’ he said.

‘Smell that, manling?’ Gotrek said, from somewhere close to his elbow. Felix jumped, startled.

‘What?’

‘Smoke,’ Gotrek said, waving his bloody axe through the mist. Felix sniffed and then looked. There was a dim glow in the haze.

‘And where there’s smoke, there’s fire,’ he said grimly.

‘Let’s go, manling,’ Gotrek said. ‘That’s Hugo’s tavern!’ The Slayer took off at a run, and Felix followed. He didn’t ask how the Slayer knew that it was Hugo’s tavern that was on fire; the dwarf’s senses were far keener than a human’s. Instead he concentrated on running. Fear for the others, especially Elsa, filled him, lending him speed. If the ghouls had attacked them as they had gone after Gotrek and him…

The mist seemed to draw back suddenly, like a curtain being twitched aside, and a two-storey inferno was revealed. Hugo’s tavern was indeed burning. The street in front of it was jam-packed with people, most running in all directions, and not a few ghouls. The latter were tearing into the panicking crowd with berserk abandon. Gotrek roared and launched himself to the attack. Felix left him to it and grabbed a running figure. ‘Where’s Hugo?’ he shouted.

‘They’re still inside!’ the soot-stained man said. ‘Let me go! Those things are everywhere!’ The man jerked himself free of Felix’s grip as a ghoul bounded towards them. With a start Felix realised that it was blind, its eyes boiled in its sockets, and char-marks and blisters covered its greasy hide. It leapt towards him and he jerked Karaghul up at the last moment, separating its grasping hands from its wrists. It shrieked and tumbled past him. Felix didn’t bother to finish it. Instead, he rushed past it towards the burning tavern.

‘Gotrek, Hugo and the others are still inside!’ he called out to the Slayer, who was busy bashing his skull into that of an unlucky ghoul. Gotrek looked up, his face a mask of ghoul-blood.

‘Then what are we waiting for, manling? Let’s go get them!’ the dwarf said, dropping the dead ghoul and uprooting his axe from the body of another. But even as they headed for the door, a tide of screaming, burning ghouls barrelled out of the fiery tavern and ran blindly towards them.

Gotrek shoved past Felix and his axe swung out in a savage arc, spilling frying entrails and bubbling blood across the street. Felix rammed his sword through a howling ghoul, driving it back against the smouldering door-post. It clawed at him in agony and he ripped Karaghul free and dived past it into the tavern. There was smoke everywhere and Felix pulled his cloak, still damp from the mist, up to his face, hoping it would protect him long enough to find the others.

The common room was almost entirely aflame, and comets of burning wood dripped from the ceiling. The upper floors were completely consumed, Felix knew, and anything that had been in them. In the centre of the common room, within a ring of overturned tables, stood Olaf, his arms outthrust, the flames cascading around him like an eggshell and his feet set. Blood stained the front of the wizard’s robe, pouring down from under his wide beard, and even at a distance and through the smoke Felix could tell that he was weakening. Holtz knelt beside him, cradling a limp shape, and Hugo was slumped nearby, the flames licking at his boot-heels.

Ignoring the heat, Felix rushed towards them. Olaf saw him and gave a bloody smile. His legs began to buckle and his long arms stretched out. Felix felt a moment’s relief from the heat. ‘Olaf, you–’

‘Caught me in the throat, surprised me,’ Olaf gurgled, blinking blearily. ‘Let it loose without thinking… stupid.’ He bobbed like a drunkard, but shook his head violently as Felix reached out to steady him. ‘Get ’em out, Jaeger. Get ’em…’

Felix looked down. Holtz was slumped and his robe was ripped and bloody. Felix’s heart jumped to see Elsa in his arms, however. From above there came a groan and a crashing creak. He looked up. ‘Grab her and lets go, manling, the ceiling is giving way,’ Gotrek snarled.

Felix looked over and saw the Slayer carrying Hugo draped over his shoulders. The Slayer jerked his head and made for the door. Felix reached down to take Elsa from Holtz’s slack arms. The priest didn’t resist. Indeed, he toppled over as Elsa’s weight was removed. Felix hesitated, wondering if he should try and get the Sigmarite out as well, but Olaf shook his head weakly. ‘He’s dead, the stupid bastard. All dead. Go, Jaeger. I can’t… can’t keep the flames at bay much longer.’ He coughed and more blood spilled down his chest.

The flames pressed closer suddenly and he could hear Gotrek roaring his name. Felix held Elsa close, shrouded in his cloak, and made a lurching run towards the door. He felt more than saw Olaf topple to the floor behind him, and one of the stout timber beams of the roof gave way, smashing into the floor and hiding the wizard from sight.

With the fire clutching greedily at him, Felix hurled himself and Elsa out the doorway and into the street. Noise ripped through the smoke that filled the air. More alarm bells were being rung throughout Low Town and the sound of weapons rang through the streets. Dropping Elsa to the ground as gently as he could, he ripped off his cloak and beat out the flames that clung to it. ‘Good job, manling,’ Gotrek said. Felix looked over and saw the Slayer pinching out the wisps of fire that had scorched the top of his crest. Hugo sat beside him, coughing.

‘What happened in there?’ Felix said, helping Elsa sit up as she came around. He patted her back as she coughed. ‘Was it the ghouls?’ he said, looking around. Shadowy shapes lurked on the rooftops and the bodies of those they’d killed lay in the street.

‘Never known the corpse-eaters to set fires,’ Gotrek said. He shifted his grip on his axe as his nostrils flared. ‘They’re watching us,’ he growled.

‘It was the wizard. Olaf,’ Hugo said hoarsely. ‘Ghouls came in through the upper storey and attacked Holtz and the witch hunter in their room. The fight got loud and Olaf went to help. By then, there were ghouls swarming through the common room, attacking everyone. The wizard’s fire got out of control…’

‘They cut his throat,’ Felix said, rubbing his own. ‘It must have made it hard to concentrate.’

‘M-my sons?’ Hugo said, looking at Gotrek. The Slayer hesitated and then put a hand on the publican’s shoulder. Hugo’s face crumpled and he hunched over, sobbing. Elsa went to him, tears streaming freely down her cheeks. She looked up at Felix.

‘They tried to help the witch hunter upstairs, but they never came down,’ she said. ‘I went to find them, but the priest – he stopped me – oh Felix, he was bleeding and then the ghouls came and he fought them but there was so much blood…’ She trailed off, staring at nothing as she unconsciously comforted her father.

‘All dead,’ Felix said, echoing what Olaf had said. ‘Gotrek…’

‘It’s as the templar said, manling,’ Gotrek said, starting back towards the Garden of Morr. ‘And I know where they’re coming from.’

‘Gotrek, we can’t just leave them,’ Felix said. He looked down at Elsa and her father.

Elsa looked up, her features twisting into a mask of hatred. ‘Leave!’ she spat. ‘Go kill them! Kill all of them!’ Felix flinched, but set his face and turned to follow Gotrek, who hadn’t stopped.

‘Why would they attack Holtz and the others?’ Felix said as they moved swiftly through the ever-thickening mist. ‘Out of all the public houses in Wurtbad, why did they pick Hugo’s?’

‘Maybe they weren’t a fan of his ale,’ Gotrek said nastily. He was nothing but a dim, ape-like figure in the mist, but Felix thought he could see the glint in the Slayer’s eye nonetheless. Gotrek was angry, and that did not bode well for the ghouls.

‘Gotrek, something is going on!’ Felix said, exasperated. ‘If I can see it, surely you can as well!’

‘You’re a poet, manling. It’s your job to see stories where there are none,’ Gotrek said.

‘Iuldvitch said it himself… something is driving them out of their warrens! They don’t do this,’ he said, gesturing to the city. Shapes ran across the mouth of an alley, and he heard a piercing shriek rise up before being abruptly silenced. More screams echoed from all over and the smell of smoke was omnipresent.

Despite that, they arrived back at the cemetery without incident. Gotrek didn’t slow down as the gate rose up before them out of the mist. One broad shoulder struck the gate, slamming it open. Felix came after him, calling out ‘Iuldvitch!’ He hoped that the templar hadn’t already gone into the warrens. If he were right and there was a vampire on the loose, then a templar of Morr would come in handy.

‘Save your breath,’ Gotrek growled, hurrying along. Felix ignored him. The ground felt soft and mushy beneath his feet, and for a moment he wondered how far the ghoul warrens extended beneath the cemetery. ‘He’s either already down there or he’s dead. Either way, he’s no help to us,’ the Slayer continued.

They went inside the chapel. The smell of blood was strong, stronger than it had been before. The hole was still there, where Gotrek had put it. The Slayer looked down into the hole, his face like carved stone. ‘Mannfred von Carstein is dead and gone, manling,’ he said, after a moment. ‘But you’re right; someone has sent the ghouls out.’

‘But why?’ Felix said. ‘And if not the vampire, then who?’

‘Does it matter, manling?’ Gotrek said, running his thumb along the blade of his axe. He eyed the bead of blood on his thumb for a moment, and then rubbed it out. ‘They are, and that’s enough for me. Are you coming?’ Without waiting for a reply, the dwarf leapt easily into the pit and started down the ancient stone steps. Felix hesitated, then climbed awkwardly down the chain and followed suit.

Within moments, darkness had enveloped them. Felix was forced to trust Gotrek’s sense of direction. He knew dwarfs could see in the dark to some degree. As they moved downwards, he was reminded of their trip to the City below the Eight Peaks, and another shudder wracked him. The troll-thing that they had faced there was worse than any ghoul, he knew, but it was hard to be objective in the dark. Especially when he was certain that he could hear the damn things scraping and crawling on the other side of the loose-bricked walls of the ancient stairwell.

‘There are towns almost as deep as any dwarf hold in this part of your Empire,’ Gotrek said, his voice echoing off the walls. ‘Every time they’re destroyed, you just build over the ruins, like ants.’ Felix couldn’t tell whether the thought pleased Gotrek or disgusted him.

‘I’ve heard there’ve been three cities here, since Sigmar’s time. And Low Town burns to the river bed every summer, when the wildfires on the plains get out of control,’ Felix said, more for something to say than any other reason. He kept his voice low, but it echoed nonetheless.

They reached the bottom of the stairs and Gotrek paused, as if steeling himself. ‘Gotrek,’ Felix said.

‘Did I tell you my father helped hold down the leech-king at Hel Fenn, manling?’ Gotrek said, staring into the darkness of the tunnel. ‘Held him in place while the Stirlanders put him down…’ His axe flashed out suddenly, striking the wall of the tunnel and causing a shower of sparks to burst into being. ‘I have longed to test my axe against one of his kind, manling. To meet one of the carrion-kings in combat,’ Gotrek said. Then, more loudly, ‘Come out, corpse-lovers! Come to Gotrek!’ He roared and cursed for several minutes, spitting oaths into the darkness.

There were vague, distant shufflings in the darkness, but that was all the reply Gotrek’s cries received. Felix’s eyes were becoming accustomed to the dark, and he blinked as he saw that contrary to his earlier assumption, there was, in fact, some light to be had. It was a faint, surreal glow, just enough to see by, emanating from oddly-shaped patches of mould that grew on the walls and ceiling.

‘Grave mould,’ Gotrek said helpfully. ‘They say it grows on untended graves.’

They continued on, following the sloping corridor. Felix thought that it might have been a street at one time, for the walls were less solid stone than stone punctuated by hard-packed river-clay and soil. Vague shapes that might have been bricked-up doorways lined the tunnel and at points in the ceiling, Felix caught sight of strange rectangles that he knew were coffin bottoms.

Gotrek’s mood grew fouler as they moved further down. The sound of scuttling grew omnipresent, as did the distant hum of the River Stir, which caused the river-side wall of the tunnel to vibrate and drip incessantly.

‘Where are they?’ he snarled. He struck out at the walls, scoring the stone and causing the unseen scuttlers to move faster and further.

Personally, Felix was glad for the lack of enemies. His muscles ached and he was ready to call it a night, ghouls or no. ‘Maybe they’ve all gone up. Maybe Iuldvitch was wrong, and this was just a random attack by these beasts…’ he said, somewhat hopefully.

‘Ghouls don’t attack cities, manling,’ Gotrek asserted. ‘Not without encouragement.’ He touched the wall and rubbed a bit of powder dribbling from the place his axe had cut between his thumb and forefinger. ‘Limestone, and thin, manling; the river is right on the other side.’

‘How can you be sure–’ Felix began, when the sound of scuttling suddenly ceased. He looked at Gotrek, whose good eye widened slightly. Beneath Felix’s feet, the stone gave a subtle shift. ‘Oh no,’ he said.

With a shrill crack, the stone gave way and they hurtled down into the lightless abyss below.

Mannfred, crouching in the eaves of the roof, watched the dwarf and his human companion enter the ghoul warren and grunted in satisfaction. They hadn’t seen the body. The templar had resisted until the end. He had pitted his mind against Mannfred’s and died in the doing.

Mannfred dropped from the eaves and then he stepped to the door of the chapel and sent out a silent call, plucking the ever-strengthening strings of magic and blood that bound him to his followers.

He flexed his talon-tipped fingers and watched the play of his muscles in the light of the guttering torches. He looked up at the sky, judging that there were several hours yet until sunrise, which meant that there was plenty of time to deal with the current situation.

Mannfred shook his head. ‘How the fates do conspire,’ he murmured. It seemed appropriate, somehow, that the very agents of his destruction should themselves be destroyed on the eve of his resurrection.

Oh, they hadn’t driven the blade into his heart, but it was they who had sown the seeds of his demise, spiteful wretches that they were. His lips skinned back from his fangs and he looked at the dead ghouls on the floor, and the familiar strange shifting brand that marked them as the property of their masters… the brand of the Charnel Congress.

The Charnel Congress, Vlad von Carstein’s pet necromancers, schooled in the art of the Wind of Death by Vlad himself, whose knowledge of necromancy was greater even than Mannfred’s. Mannfred snarled softly. And they were pets; loyal dogs, nipping at the heels of Vlad’s heirs in the years after the first von Carstein’s final death. They had scattered when mad, bad Konrad had assumed the stewardship of Sylvania, though he had hunted them mercilessly, desiring their service. Mannfred had thought them destroyed, until well into his own reign, when they had resurfaced, hungry for vengeance on him.

They had blamed him – him! – for Vlad’s fall, and acted accordingly, pestering him as he fought a running battle with his other enemies. The leaping hound might not bring down the hunted bear, but it can render it vulnerable to the hunter’s spear-thrust.

Granted, it had been his hand that had guided Vlad’s enemies in disposing of him, but they hadn’t known that. They had only suspected. It was almost insulting.

‘Vlad, you chose your servants poorly,’ Mannfred said aloud, tearing the flap of Schtillman’s skin from his belt and ripping it in two. ‘As did the Congress, apparently; was that why they removed you from their ranks, Schtillman, you petty hedge wizard? Did you fail them? Or did you succeed in something untoward?’

Such as learning the location of Mannfred’s mortal remains, perhaps. No, they wouldn’t want that, would they? Mannfred’s return might upset whatever scheme they had going. ‘Might,’ he growled. There was no might, no perhaps. He would smash it. And smash them, because it pleased him to do so. Betrayal could not go unpunished, even so long after the fact, now could it?

The question was, what were they planning? Ghouls slinking through the city streets, while a pleasant enough evening’s diversion, were not enough to seize control of Wurtbad. No, there was something else. Something he wasn’t seeing. Something, perhaps, that had to do with the dwarf and his companion; why else would they be here?

He looked back at the body of the templar, and his smile grew savage. In life, the templar had resisted him, but in death? He bounded towards the altar. Scooping up the body, he tossed it onto the altar and looked up at the statue of the death god with a snarl. ‘Thus to you, god of maggots,’ Mannfred said, as he tore open the templar’s chest, exposing his heart and organs to the torchlight.

It was the work of a moment to sever the spinal column and pull loose the dead man’s skull and brains. Mannfred lifted the head in both hands and breathed into its mouth. Red mist passed his lips and filled the head’s nostrils, lips, ears and eyes. It was no small thing to do this, especially to a servant of the death god. Morr guarded the souls of his servants and protected them from the call of the Carrion Wind. But though he could not make the templar walk at his behest, he could make him talk. He forced more of his essence into the spell, shoving aside the defences around the templar’s spirit by brute force. He felt his limbs, newly engorged by blood, begin to wither and shrink as he breathed more and more red mist into the head in his hands. Finally, the slack face twitched. ‘Tell me what you know,’ Mannfred rasped.

The lips quirked and squirmed as the word ‘Theft,’ dropped out. Mannfred grunted. ‘What sort of theft? What was stolen?’

‘Don’t… know…’ the head moaned.

‘Who does?’

‘Huh-Holtz…’

Holtz… Mannfred’s jaw widened and he sucked back some of the mist, drawing images and names out of the head. Holtz was the priest of that jumped-up barbarian king-cum-god Sigmar. Vague notions and theories spread through Mannfred’s mind like cobwebs. Something had been stolen from the Great Temple in Altdorf, something necromancers would want. Something–

‘Ah!’ he said, his eyes widening. He gave a guttural growl. ‘You pathetic mongrels,’ he said. Only this Holtz would know for sure, but if what Mannfred suspected was true, then this whole affair might prove to be even more amusing than he’d first thought. He drained the rest of the mist from the head, sucking it back into him, bolstering his flagging strength. Then he hurled the head from him.

He swept the body of the templar aside, off the altar, and sat in its place. With his arms spread he called to the Wind of Death, letting it sweep around him. It was easy, especially in this place, at this time. With a sharp gesture, he sent it hurtling off through the city streets, seeking the recently dead.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, there were many of those, their spirits winking like fireflies. Fires raged throughout Low Town, and High Town had sealed its entrances, the rich and powerful setting their private soldiery to the task. Come plague or peril, their response was ever the same. Vlad had been fond of saying that one could judge the season by the mood of the nobility.

The ghouls of the Congress were rampaging through the streets, attacking those that the mist – magically induced – hadn’t driven indoors. Men and women died in alleyways, and Mannfred’s spells curled lovingly around their corpses, dragging them to their feet. Finding one dead man would be tricky, even under the best circumstances. The simplest plan, then, was to bring all the newly dead to him. Besides, Mannfred had no doubt that he would find a use for them.

And speaking of use… he chuckled, thinking of the man and his stunted ally. He recognised the taste of the magics on the dwarf’s axe, though only in a general fashion. It was a fell thing, and mighty. Mannfred himself would hesitate to face it, especially in his current state. And the sword the man – Jaeger was his name, according to the templar’s shade – bore was no mere chopping blade, but something that was, in its own way, as potent as the Slayer’s axe. The dwarf was implacable, and he would keep the Charnel Congress occupied while Mannfred prepared to deliver the killing blow.

Spectres and ghosts groaned in the air above him, pulled from their rest by his manipulations. It wasn’t much of an army, but it would do for Mannfred’s purposes. The key would be hiding it from the Congress’s own magics. If they knew of his presence, they would scatter and flee like the graveyard rats they were. Mannfred could not allow them to interfere with his second life. Hopefully the dwarf would keep them busy long enough for his forces to gather.

‘Masssster…’ a feminine voice purred. Mannfred smiled. His servants had arrived. The vampires hesitated at the door to the chapel, fearing to come in. Behind them, zombies hunched and shuffled, carrying makeshift weapons.

‘Come,’ he commanded, rising to stand on the altar. He drew his sword and felt the dark magics bound to the blade stir. With a roar, he spun and sliced through the head of the statue of Morr, sending the chunk of marble crashing to the floor. Kicking it aside, he turned as a burnt corpse stumbled into the chapel, drawn by his summons. The vampires pulled back from it, hissing. Mannfred leaned on his sword. ‘Welcome, Holtz,’ he said, holding out a hand to the charred carcass of the warrior-priest. ‘We have much to discuss, you and I. And then we will go to war.’

The fall proved less a plummet than an ignoble slide into the darkness. Felix rolled to a stop, slamming into Gotrek’s immoveable shape with a curse. Coughing, Felix let Gotrek haul him to his feet. ‘Do you live, manling?’ Gotrek said.

The words seemed to boom out thunderously. Felix looked around. They had fallen into what appeared to be a great cavern. The dark length of the Stir poured over the rocks through a natural channel, and the air was thick with a wet haze that settled unpleasantly on Felix’s skin. More of the strange fleshy, glowing fungi Gotrek had pointed out earlier clung to the rocks and to their clothes as well. ‘No thanks to our tunnel-digging foes,’ Felix said. ‘I’m getting tired of traps, Gotrek.’

‘All the more reason to give them a taste of good steel,’ Gotrek replied.

‘Yes,’ Felix said, looking around. He felt cold and his clothing was sodden. The ground beneath his feet was powdery and there was a strange smell on the air. Not the river, though that was part of it. ‘Gotrek, do you smell something?’

Gotrek sniffed. ‘Bats,’ he said, looking up. Felix did the same, and immediately wished he hadn’t. He had seen bats before; what native of Altdorf hadn’t? But those had been minuscule things compared to the abnormalities that clung to the roof of the cavern, huddling amongst a veritable upside-down jungle of glowing fungus. They were huge, with wingspans as wide as a rich man’s coach.

‘Sigmar preserve us,’ Felix whispered.

‘Grimnir send them to us,’ Gotrek snarled. Felix grabbed the Slayer’s shoulder and Gotrek turned to glare at him.

‘We’re not after bats, Gotrek!’ Felix hissed.

‘The bats are after us though, right enough,’ Gotrek growled, grabbing the front of Felix’s shirt and yanking him forwards. Something leathery and hard brushed through Felix’s hair and then the great bat was soaring away, up into the darkness. Squeals and shrieks echoed from above and Felix felt a moment of panic. ‘Draw your sword, manling!’ Gotrek said, shoving away from him.

The Slayer roared out an oath and something screamed a reply. Felix drew his sword and slashed wildly at the hairy shape that flopped towards him. Several bats hopped towards him on all fours, the way he’d heard that their smaller cousins in the New World did. Gotrek cut them off, slugging one in the side of the head and burying his axe in another’s humped back. The cavern soon became a tornado of teeth and leathery flesh as more and more bats dropped from their roosts to launch themselves at the men who had invaded their sanctuary.

‘Gotrek, we have to get out of here!’ Felix shouted, trying to be heard over the shrieking of the bats. Gotrek gave no sign that he heard, however. All Felix could see of him was his brightly-coloured crest and the flash of his axe as it struck the wall.

A bat swooped low and crashed into Felix a moment later, carrying him backwards and down. Felix could feel the force of the river vibrating through his back as he struggled to get his sword up. The bat’s wings folded around him like a clammy blanket, and its talons scratched at him, gashing his arms and chest. Its foul breath washed over him and Felix gagged as it snapped its knitting-needle teeth at him. ‘Gotrek!’ he cried out.

The only reply he got was the sound of stone cracking. The rocks beneath his back shifted, and water began to spray from the cracks. ‘Gotrek!’ he tried again, more insistently. The bat lunged for him, its jaws snapping closed only inches from his face. Felix took a chance and grabbed its quivering, flanged nose in one hand and twisted, eliciting a squeal that set his teeth to shivering. As the bat’s weight shifted, Felix brought Karaghul up and buried it to the hilt in its furry, bloated body. The bat bucked and screamed, and there was a loud crack and then Felix found himself pushed into the waters by the dying bat. He slammed into the rocks and spun away from his thrashing opponent, carried by the irresistible current. Gasping, he fought to keep his head above water, and more than once his skull connected with the roof of the tunnel as the waters dragged him deeper and deeper into the darkness.

He held tight to Karaghul’s hilt and tried to jam it into the rocks to halt his tumbling progress, without success. Sharp edges and fang-like stalagmites jarred him, reducing his world to one of darkness and pain until at last he was caught up in a swirling spout that spat him down a narrow tube of rock and, from there, into a blessedly still body of water. Felix hit the surface hard enough to wrench him out of his daze and he surfaced with a gasp and much splashing. The water glowed softly, lit from below by more of the fungi. Bones of all shapes and sizes were visible beneath the water.

The body of the bat he’d killed floated nearby, its eyes staring sightlessly at him. It wasn’t alone… other bodies, of bats and other, stranger beasts, bobbed around him. With a start, he realised that the pool was yet another trap – a natural run-off, used by the ghouls to collect food from above. There was an entire world down here that no one above even suspected. These ghouls were not Sylvanian invaders, Felix knew, but native Stirlanders! They fished the Stir, even as their human cousins did, sifting the waters for food.

Swiping water out of his face, he slowly made his way towards the shore. Halfway there, waist-deep in water, he froze. Pale shapes glided out of the forest of stone, chuffing and chittering as they came to squat on the shore. ‘And here come the attentive fishermen now,’ Felix muttered. He raised his sword. The ghouls didn’t seem bothered, however. Several had already entered the water and were dragging the dead bat onto shore.

Others started towards him, licking bestial lips with pale tongues. Felix prepared himself for the incipient charge. The gunshot, when it came, was surprising. It echoed through the cavern, and the ghouls scattered, yowling.

‘Jaeger, you are just full of surprises,’ a familiar voice said. Felix gaped as Stefan Russ stepped out of the darkness, his witch hunter’s outfit replaced by dark leathers and a hooded doublet. He still wore his pistols, however, and as he re-holstered the one he’d just fired, he drew a replacement and cocked it. ‘I laid odds that the dwarf would have made it, rather than you.’

‘Russ? But Olaf said…’ Felix trailed off as more men, dressed similarly to Russ, stepped out to join him.

‘Olaf? I wouldn’t put much stock in what a dead man says,’ Russ said, smiling. Felix found the expression more disturbing than the more familiar glower. ‘He is dead, isn’t he? I was aiming for his head.’

‘He’s dead,’ Felix said, feeling a sinking sensation in his stomach.

Russ nodded briskly. ‘Good. I never liked him, the loudmouth pyromaniac.’ He tapped his cheek with the barrel of his pistol. ‘As soon as our servants warned us of your arrival, I wondered which of you would make it to this point. I was hoping for Iuldvitch, myself.’

‘He’s busy alerting the watch,’ Felix said. He had no idea where the templar was, but he could hope.

‘Or maybe he’s lying in ragged pieces in the tunnels above,’ Russ said. ‘Now, drop your sword, Jaeger, or you can join him.’

‘I might prefer that to whatever you and this lot have planned,’ Felix said. Was Iuldvitch dead? Russ had to be lying. Felix hoped for his own sake that that was the case.

‘Maybe. Then, you won’t find out unless you drop that sword. Now.’ Russ gestured with his pistol. Several of the other men moved forwards, wading into the water towards Felix. Their faces were pale and drawn, their eyes shining with an unhealthy light. Felix gave a moment’s thought to resisting, and then handed Karaghul over to one of the men.

‘Fine,’ Felix said. ‘You’ve got me. Now what?’

‘Now? Now you finally get the answer to that question you’ve been asking so incessantly,’ Russ said. ‘Aren’t you the lucky fellow?’ Strong hands grabbed Felix’s arms a moment later and he was dragged to shore, not feeling particularly lucky at all.

Felix was tossed to the rough stone floor of a torch-lit cavern. It was more compact than the other, with an air of design to its smoothly-shaped walls that spoke of long use. He rolled over onto his hands and knees with a groan and pushed himself into a kneeling position. His hands had been bound in front of him. Stalactites and stalagmites decorated everything, and pillars of dripstone spiralled in all directions, giving Felix the unpleasant impression that he was in the mouth of some massive beast. Russ stood behind him with one hand tangled in Felix’s hair, the black-clad men surrounding him. ‘He survived,’ someone said. ‘You owe me a karl, Stefan.’

‘Feel free to collect anytime, Utrecht,’ Russ said. A heavy-set man stepped out into the light, his thumbs hooked into the broad leather belt around his waist. To Felix he looked like any other wealthy burgher, made heavy by too much good living. Utrecht sniffed as he took in Felix’s bedraggled appearance.

‘I think I would have preferred the dwarf. This one looks far too thin and pale.’

‘He’s not thin, he’s… slender,’ a woman said. She joined Utrecht in looking at Felix. She too was dressed finely, though inappropriately for her surroundings. Her dress swept the floor clean behind her as she stepped forwards and bent low, running her sharp fingernails across the trail-seams in Felix’s face. ‘Rather like a stray cat,’ she continued, her tongue running across her lips.

‘Thank you, Ilsa, your contribution is so noted. Someone note that please,’ Utrecht said, looking around. ‘Who’s taking the minutes?’ Felix saw several other figures behind Utrecht and Ilsa.

‘I believe it falls to me, Utrecht,’ a thin man said, pushing his gold-rimmed spectacles back up the bridge of his nose. ‘Then, it always falls to me, doesn’t it?’

‘Don’t be sour, Norrys,’ Ilsa said, still looking at Felix. ‘You like taking notes.’

‘We all have our hobbies,’ another woman said, stroking the fur stole that was wrapped around her shoulders. ‘I knit, for instance.’

‘No, you pay people to knit while you watch, Helga,’ Russ said, shoving Felix forwards. ‘That’s different.’

‘But I do know how, and that’s more than some of us can say,’ Helga said mildly, looking at Ilsa, who stuck out her tongue.

‘At least I don’t wear human hair and pretend it is real fur,’ the younger woman said. She tapped her belly. ‘I keep my fashion accessories subtle, thank you very much.’

‘A corset made of human bone is hardly a taboo-breaker, my dear,’ Norrys said. ‘It’s all the rage in Kislev, I understand. Then, they are a funny folk.’

‘That’s the problem with the younger generation… no sense of work ethic,’ an older man said bitterly, with the air of one making an old argument to an audience that long ago ceased listening. ‘In my day, we dug up our own materials and stitched our own soldiers.’

‘In your day, you wore black rags and hid in ruined towers,’ Utrecht said. ‘We do things differently in Wurtbad. We have come far, since the good old days. Why, some of us are even upstanding members of the church!’

There was scattered applause and Russ bowed ironically. Felix felt sick. ‘Who are you people?’ he said. Russ grabbed his hair again and forced Felix to look up at him.

‘The masters of your destiny, Herr Jaeger,’ he said.

‘Very poetic,’ Utrecht said. With a grunt, he sank to his haunches and examined Felix the way a butcher might examine a cut of beef. ‘You should feel honoured, Herr Jaeger. You are in the presence of history itself.’ He threw out a chubby hand, indicating the walls of the cavern, which, in the light of the mounted torches, could be seen to be decorated by strange carvings and paintings, all of which made Felix uncomfortable. ‘By now, you’ve seen the Under Town, which goes with the Low and the High. It has been abandoned for a thousand years, by everyone except our servants and us.’

Felix heard a quiet shuffling sound and saw that ghouls huddled in the corners and on the overhanging ledges of the cavern. They stayed just out of the light, as if frightened by the men and women gathered there. ‘What are you people?’ he said.

‘We are the last faithful servants,’ Utrecht said. ‘The finest hour, stretched over centuries.’

‘Now who’s being poetic?’ Russ asked. ‘We’re necromancers, Jaeger. From long, proud lines of the same… though some lines are longer than others,’ he said to Felix. Russ seemed to be enjoying Felix’s growing disgust. ‘And we have been waiting a very long time for this moment. Generations of our families have been manoeuvring and searching for what would be needed to accomplish the last great task our ancestors were given by our lord and master.’

‘Enough talking! Do you have it?’ the older man barked, pushing past Helga and Norrys to point a shaking finger at Russ. ‘Where is it, damn your eyes?’

Russ released Felix and snapped his fingers. One of the black-clad men stepped forwards, holding a small, sturdy-looking chest. ‘Here, Helm, you old bone-bag… straight from the Garden of Saints in Altdorf.’

‘You were the thief!’ Felix said. Russ casually kicked him in the chest, knocking him backwards.

‘Technically, I was allowed in there,’ Russ said. ‘I am a servant of the church, after all. Those foolish priests were quite surprised when I killed them.’

‘Then Schtillman…’ Felix began. He needed to keep them talking. The more they talked, the greater his chance of escaping. He glanced around, looking for the man who held Karaghul. He was relieved that they hadn’t simply thrown the sword away.

‘Was an idiot and a traitor,’ Helm, the old man, snapped as he cradled the chest. ‘And dangerous to boot.’

‘Luckily, your friend dealt with him in a most effective manner,’ Russ said. ‘Two birds with one stroke, you might say.’ He smiled nastily. ‘Schtillman had bad habits and a dangerous obsession; one that endangered us all. But you saw to that, you and that dwarf. And now, as a reward, I think you should see just what it is you keep asking about…’ He reached over and flipped open the chest that Helm held, revealing its contents.

‘Behold,’ Utrecht said, ‘the skull of Felix Mann!’

As the echoes of his booming proclamation faded, all eyes turned expectantly towards Felix, who looked at the fractured, yellowed skull in confusion. ‘Who?’ he said.

‘Felix Mann,’ Russ said intently, gesturing. ‘Mann! The thief who stole Vlad von Carstein’s source of invincibility? The man who singlehandedly saved your Empire from the clutches of the Vampire Counts?’

‘Felix Mann,’ Helm hissed. ‘The Bastard Thief! The only man who knows the location of the object we require!’

Felix frowned. ‘I was never one for ancient history,’ he said.

Russ, looking chagrined, cleared his throat. ‘That was disappointing. Fine. We didn’t save you for your limited capabilities as an audience anyway.’

‘Why did you save me?’ Felix said, pulling his legs up. If he could just get his feet under him…

‘We are firm believers in efficiency, Herr Jaeger,’ Helga said. ‘Why kidnap a sacrificial victim when one handily waltzes into your lair?’

‘Sacrificial?’ Felix said hoarsely. ‘Oh bilge.’

‘Two birds, one stroke,’ Russ said again, chuckling. He looked at Helm. ‘Well, old man? I think we’ve wasted enough time, don’t you? We have a god to resurrect.’

Felix was jerked to his feet by Russ’s men. ‘A god?’ he said desperately. ‘Which god?’

‘Why, the creator of us all,’ Ilsa purred, patting Felix’s cheek. ‘He is our Father in Darkness, if you will.’

‘The Avatar of the Wind of Death,’ Helga said reverentially.

‘The king of the cats,’ Utrecht said.

‘Nehekhara reborn,’ Norrys said, fiddling with his spectacles.

Helm lifted the skull from the chest and tossed the latter aside. ‘Vlad von Carstein,’ he whispered, a crooked smile creasing his features.

The name tore through Felix like the blade of a knife. It was a name that stretched across the history books like an ever-suppurating scar. Vlad von Carstein, the first of Sylvania’s bloody counts, the being that had brought death to the very walls of Altdorf and shattered the armies of the Empire with an ease that the servants of the Dark Gods envied. Childhood nightmares spun through his mind’s eye, bringing with them a cold, wet fear that settled about him like a cloak, strangling thought and courage in its embrace. He wanted to shout denials, to hurl curses, but no sound came out.

As Felix watched, mute, each of the six necromancers pulled a plain-looking amulet from somewhere about their person. Scratched into the surface of each was the same symbol that Felix had seen on the ghouls earlier. ‘That symbol,’ he said. ‘What is it?’

‘It’s ancient Lahmian,’ Norrys said, apparently happy to lecture. ‘It’s quite interesting, in essence it is–’

‘Our master’s initials,’ Russ said. ‘Stop talking to the sacrifice, Norrys.’

Felix fell silent. His arms were held by two of Russ’s men. No one was paying attention to him, however. All eyes, even those of the ghouls, were fastened on the skull in Helm’s hands. Felix’s hackles bristled as a cold breeze wafted through the cavern, causing the torches to whip and dance wildly. Three of the necromancers were chanting, their voices growing louder and louder.

Ilsa sidled close to Felix. ‘Can you feel it, Herr Jaeger? Dhar… the Wind of Darkness; it flows strongly through these tunnels, and has since Mannfred von Carstein used them to raid into the Empire centuries ago.’ She stroked his hair and Felix shied away. She giggled and he shuddered. ‘You’ll make a fine sacrifice,’ she said. ‘Your blood will be the gate and the key and then he will return, even as was foretold…’

A sickly light had suffused the skull and it bobbed and shifted on Helm’s upraised palms like a sack full of rats as the chant became wilder. Felix wanted to look away from it, but he was unable to. The skull rose into the air, its fleshless jaws clattering in an almost comical fashion. The necromancers raised their hands as if pushing it upwards. They strained, as if the skull were far heavier than it looked.

Helm muttered fiercely, his eyes closed, his arms thrust above his head. The other necromancers watched as the skull began to rotate faster and faster until suddenly it ceased, and bent low, as if it were attached to an overlong neck. Felix winced as something that was less a voice than a stab of cold pain flowered in his mind. It was asking a question, one he was glad wasn’t directed at him.

Russ stepped forwards, his fingers dancing nervously on his pistols. ‘You know who we are, Mann!’ he said. ‘And you know what we want! Where is the ring of the von Carsteins?’

Felix shifted slightly. His guards paid no attention, being preoccupied by the entity before them. Felix looked around, hoping to see something – anything! – that would help him out of this situation. There were plenty of weapons available, but even if he could grab one, it’d be only a matter of moments before he was overwhelmed. That was, if Russ didn’t simply shoot him out of hand.

‘Answer me, Mann!’ Russ shouted, his face going red. ‘We bind you thrice and forevermore by your bone and name! Answer us!’

A twitching, dying ghoul plummeted into the centre of the cavern, landing in a heap. Gasps of alarm and curses filled the air and men drew swords as a burly, bloody shape appeared on a high ledge. Felix looked up, his face breaking into a wild grin. ‘If it’s an answer you want, traitor, I’ll be glad to give you one!’ Gotrek shouted, gesturing with his axe.

‘Gotrek, you’re alive!’ Felix said, relief flooding him.

‘Water and stone and overgrown vermin are no death for a Slayer,’ Gotrek snarled. ‘Maybe you prancing fools can do better!’ With a loud cry, Gotrek took a running leap off the ledge as the other ghouls closed in on him. He landed lightly for a being of his bulk, his axe unimpeded by either the skull or the torso of the guard it cut through on the way down. As the body fell in two halves, Gotrek snatched Felix’s sword from the ground where it had fallen and sent it sliding towards him. ‘Here, manling! Join the fun!’ Then, laughing, Gotrek waded into the fray as men and ghouls moved to bring him down.

Felix lunged, wrapping his bound wrists around Ilsa’s neck. The young necromancer hissed like a cat and elbowed him in the gut. Felix bent double, narrowly avoiding the blade she pulled from within her dress. She stabbed at him again and he caught the blade in his bonds. With a swift tug, the ropes frayed and parted and his hands were free. She shrieked in rage and flew at him, but he stepped aside and scooped up Karaghul. He flung aside his scabbard just in time to meet a downward stroke from one of the black-hooded men.

The man was strong, and had a wild gleam in his eye that Felix didn’t like. He booted him in the groin and leapt past him, heading for the sound of Gotrek at work. Despite all they’d been through this evening already, the Slayer didn’t seem tired. Indeed, he was as energetic as Felix had ever seen him, bounding back and forth like a typhoon of destruction, tackling any opponent that either got too close or didn’t scramble aside fast enough. His horrible axe looped out and spun, cleaving air, stone, steel, muscle and bone alike. The stones beneath his feet were slippery with the axe’s leavings and Felix fought to keep his balance as he made his way to Gotrek’s side.

‘Glad to see you up and about. Had enough of a rest, then?’ Gotrek said.

‘I could ask the same of you,’ Felix said, parrying a sword-stroke meant for Gotrek’s back. ‘The last I saw, you were busy with the bats!’

‘Aye, devils in the air, but not so good in the water,’ Gotrek said. ‘Most of them drowned or flew away before I could get to them!’

‘Shame,’ Felix said.

‘Yes,’ Gotrek said, lopping off a clawed hand as it scratched at his beard. ‘It is.’ He looked around. ‘Where’s the traitor? I’d like to decorate his skull for what he’s done…’

‘I didn’t realise you were that friendly with Olaf and the others,’ Felix said.

‘I wasn’t,’ Gotrek snarled. ‘But that black-hearted bastard burned down the only decent tavern in Wurtbad!’

A gunshot sounded, echoing above the roar of voices, and Gotrek’s crest wobbled as the bullet plucked a few stiffened bristles loose from his scalp. Gotrek spun and Russ danced back, his eyes wide and his mouth twisted in a snarl. ‘Kill him. Kill him!’ the necromancer howled.

‘Yes, kill me,’ Gotrek said. He leapt towards Russ. ‘But first…’

Felix cracked a ghoul in the face with his elbow, knocking the beast down. He saw Russ scrambling backwards, Gotrek advancing on him implacably. The necromancer threw aside his useless pistol and raised a hand. Strange garbled syllables spewed from his lips and black lightning crackled. It spilled across the upraised edge of Gotrek’s axe, lashing out at the men rushing to attack him from either side and causing them to topple in clouds of blood. Russ’s expression turned comical.

In truth, Felix knew that he and Gotrek were likely only still alive because their enemies’ numbers were working against them in the confined space of the cavern. As soon as the other necromancers regained their senses, they’d surely employ whatever fell magics they possessed against the Slayer, and then Felix in turn. He didn’t like to think about his odds without Gotrek by his side. They needed an edge… His eyes lit on the still-hovering skull. The other necromancers were still shouting questions at it, but the spectre they had summoned seemed either unable or unwilling to answer.

‘Gotrek, we need to get that skull!’ he shouted. Gotrek, intent on Russ, didn’t appear to hear him. The dwarf’s axe thudded into the rock between the necromancer’s legs and Russ scrambled up. Gotrek made to bring him down, but he was bowled under by a trio of ghouls. Felix cursed and headed for the floating skull and its questioners. If he could get his hands on it, maybe it would be enough to trade for their lives.

Before he could reach it, however, he felt the floor beneath his feet begin to tremble with the sound of booted feet, ringing on the stone. Felix’s heart leapt. Perhaps someone had roused the watch. Felix cut down a gibbering ghoul and turned to face the direction of the sound, a sloping tunnel. A shape burst into the cavern, beheading a ghoul as it came.

His words of welcome turned to ash in his mouth. It wasn’t the watch. The man, if it was a man, wore bloody clothes and looked as if he had undergone the tortures of the damned. Red-eyed, the being was followed by several others like it, all of them stinking of the river and slaughter, as well as a host of dead men. The zombies were of every description and condition, most of them smelling faintly of smoke.

In that moment, Felix felt as if every drop of blood in his veins had turned to ice. The red eyes of the pack found him, examined him and dismissed him the way a hawk would a singularly unappetising mouse. Felix found himself unable to move, frozen in place by that glance.

He was not alone. Throughout the cavern, bodies stilled their motion. Even Gotrek, normally as sensitive as a stone, had paused in his rampage. Every eye was on the newcomers. The only sound was the hiss of flames and the whimper of frightened ghouls. The latter backed away from the red-eyed beings, crouching and whining like beaten dogs.

A single word burst into Felix’s brain at the sight of the newcomers… vampire! These were the blood-drinking heirs to the wickedness of Sylvania, with far less distance between him and them than he would have wished. He had fought their kind before, but to see this many of the creatures in all their terrible glory, and so close, was terrifying. He swallowed and looked for Gotrek.

The temperature in the cavern had dropped and the torches flickered as if a dark wind had them in its clutches. The dead shifted and stumbled around the newcomers, or, in some cases, crawled. One of these struggled to a sitting position, its shattered spine sticking through its tattered back. One of the red-eyed women stroked the dead thing’s head, as if it were a faithful hound.

‘No,’ Helm moaned, breaking the silence. The necromancer’s voice was heavy with despair. He raised his crooked hands protectively.

‘What is it?’ Russ snapped. ‘What is it? What’s going on, Helm?’

‘He’s here…’ the old necromancer groaned, his eyes bulging. ‘He’s here!’

‘Yessss,’ something hissed. Felix shuddered at the sheer malignity evident in that voice. It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once. The torches flickered again. ‘Yes, Helm, you old wretch.’ The shadows cast by the torches shifted like creatures preparing to pounce. ‘Did you think I was dead, Helm?’ A sound like snakes slithering across the rock followed those words. Felix’s nerves felt strained to breaking point. Something rustled in the darkness of the cave’s ceiling. ‘Did you hope that Schtillman had failed?’ it purred, and Felix felt a chill caress his spine. ‘Did you hope that I would remain buried in history and mud?’

The rock walls echoed with the scrape of claws. The tread of heavy, unseen boots circled them all like the pacing of an unseen animal. ‘You sent assassins to kill him, to stop him from bringing me back to feel the kiss of the Carrion Winds, because… Why? Were you afraid that I would stop you, Helm?’

‘No, false one,’ Helm said. ‘No. You are too late! We have summoned the spectre of Felix Mann and he will give us the location of that which we seek!’ The other members of the Charnel Congress moved into a protective circle around the old man.

‘Oh? You mean Vlad’s pretty little ring, then?’ the horrible voice said, its words echoing. It chuckled and Felix thought that he caught a flash of crimson in the darkness. ‘I thought that might be why you stole those brittle old bones. A very good plan or, it would have been, if that skull had actually belonged to the thief…’

‘What?’ Utrecht said. The necromancer and his fellows all had weapons out or their hands readied for sorcerous gestures. Felix held his own sword up. The shadows seemed to be creeping closer, coiling through the fang-like stalagmites. Felix saw that Gotrek stood stock-still, his one eye moving steadily, as if following something only he could see. Could the Slayer see whatever – whoever – it was that their opponents were so terrified of?

‘Did you honestly think I would allow the bones of a man who knew what Mann knew, a man who I killed precisely because of that knowledge, to fall into the hands of my enemies?’ the voice hissed. ‘Surely you were wondering why that dead thing hadn’t answered you yet.’

‘You mean–’ Helga gasped.

The cavern echoed with foul laughter; the shadows seemed to ripple with the sound of it, and the ghouls set up a wail. As the laughter faded, the voice continued, ‘Mann’s remains are in a place known only to me, and the secret of Vlad’s bauble is buried with him. And you traitors, you deceivers all, you will pay for your trespasses against Mannfred von Carstein!’

Quicker than Felix’s eye could follow, the shadows solidified into a tall and cadaverous shape. It had sharp, corpse-like features and a smile like the grin of a shark. Razor-blade teeth surfaced from behind thin lips as it lunged, the fat, long blade of its sword driving through Norrys’s narrow body and pinning the thin man to a dripstone like an insect to a board. The other necromancers scattered in shock and terror, scrambling for safety amongst their minions.

The creature jerked his sword free of Norrys and the stone and turned to face the others, smiling like a tiger. Its eyes narrowed to fiery slits. ‘Kill them,’ it snarled. The zombies jerked into motion and barrelled into the stunned ghouls and black-clad cultists, and the cavern suddenly rang again with the sounds of the melee.

Mannfred stalked through it all, unconcerned. The ghouls shied back from him, and the few human servants who dared close with him were swept aside like leaves in a hurricane wind. Felix had the impression that few living things could match this creature in the physical realm. He had seen the hideous strength of the abominable warriors that served Chaos, and knew that even a champion among them would have had difficulty facing the vampire; no, not just a vampire – the vampire. Mannfred von Carstein was the purest incarnation of that horrible word.

The shadows seemed to cling to him as he waded through his enemies, and Felix felt the urge to flee, to run back into the darkness and throw himself into the Stir and let the river take him away from this monster. So paralysed by fear was he that he almost missed the telltale hiss of something behind him. Felix forced himself to move and threw himself aside as a female vampire lashed out at him lazily, her mouth full of fangs.

He hit the hard stone and rolled onto his back, blocking her second blow when it came. The strength of the blow left his wrists aching, and he jabbed a boot into her gut, all thought of chivalry cast aside. She snarled and grabbed at his leg and her hand vanished in a spray of blood. The vampiress shrieked and reeled as Gotrek knocked her down and separated her head from her shoulders.

‘Things have gotten complicated,’ Felix gasped as Gotrek hauled him to his feet.

‘No,’ Gotrek said, a berserk light dancing in his eye. ‘The solution is still the same, manling. Kill them all and let Grungni sort them out.’

Mannfred expected the necromancers to flee. Instead, they attacked. He felt the threads of dark magic coalescing as they hurled their magics at him. He spat a word and the stabbing tendrils of black lightning clashed with his hastily-summoned defences, driving him back a step.

‘You should have stayed in the grave, usurper!’ one of the necromancers, the one called Ilsa, shrieked. Withering words followed and Mannfred snarled as he felt them tear at him. Their mastery of necromancy had improved since he had last faced them.

‘And you should have stayed hidden,’ Mannfred said, grabbing for her. She screamed as he bore her to the ground, his fangs sinking into her pale throat. He smashed her head into the floor as he tore her throat out. One of his vampires screamed as it was turned into a walking torch. It fled into the melee, setting zombies afire in its blind blundering.

Tendrils of human hair seized him, jerking him up and flinging him back. Mannfred clawed at the animated substance. Helga cursed and gestured, her stole of living hair tightening its grip on the struggling vampire. Mannfred set his feet and began to pull her towards him.

A rapier pinked him in the neck and he twisted, snarling at the fat necromancer, Utrecht, as he danced back, face red with hate and fear. ‘I was satisfied to send your ancestors scrambling for rat-holes, but I’ll exterminate you fools roots and branch,’ Mannfred said, freeing a hand and gesturing towards Utrecht, who grabbed his chest and screamed. The necromancer toppled as his internal organs began to bloat and fuse within him. ‘Even at their peak, the Charnel Congress was no match for me!’

He turned back and snagged the lengths of animated hair that now sought to dig into his skin. With a roll of his shoulders, he ripped it free of Helga’s grip and tore it apart. Tossing the shredded stole aside, he dived at her.

Cold flames struck at him, causing his flesh to bubble, and Mannfred winced. Forcing past the pain, he tweaked the skeins of magic, cutting off the spell at its source. Helm staggered back, eyes bulging. Mannfred slapped Helga to the ground and advanced on Helm. ‘What did you fools think was going to happen here, eh? Did you think you’d simply resurrect Vlad and… What? The days of wine and roses and babies spitted over the roasting fires?’

‘Vlad von Carstein is the Wind of Death made manifest,’ Helm babbled, trying to beat aside Mannfred’s will and resume control of the winds of magic roaring through the cavern. ‘It is our duty to bring him back, we have sought his ashes scattered across the Empire…’

Mannfred lunged and caught Helm by his throat. With contemptuous ease, he tore the locket from the necromancer’s neck and held it up, examining it. ‘So I see… and you thought to bring him back, even as Schtillman brought me back. Tell me… did you think he’d thank you?’

‘Admittedly, you weren’t part of the picture,’ someone said.

The pistol barked and Mannfred screeched as the bullet took him in the spine, piercing a weak place in his armour. He flopped to the ground, momentarily nonplussed. Russ, his clothing torn and bloodied, tossed aside the smoking pistol and drew two more. ‘Silver bullets, usurper, in case you were wondering. I’ll put you back where that fool Schtillman found you!’

Mannfred laughed and wriggled like a snake, launching himself off the floor and striking, his teeth clamping down on Russ’s hand. The necromancer yelped and fired his other pistol, taking Mannfred in the shoulder. Mannfred gathered his legs under him and swatted his opponent to the ground. ‘How the once-mighty have fallen,’ he said, pinning Russ in place with a boot to the chest. He crushed the man’s pistol and looked down at him. ‘Your magics are so weak you must rely on these toys? Would you kill me with bullets and swords and scalps?’

‘What about an axe then?’ Gotrek said, charging towards Mannfred.

Mannfred turned and caught the axe blade between his palms with a grunt. ‘I forgot about you,’ he said from between clenched fangs. ‘I won’t make that mistake again.’

‘Glad to hear it, lord of maggots,’ Gotrek said, his muscles bulging as he forced the axe towards Mannfred’s face. The vampire bent back for a moment and then began to meet the Slayer’s strength with his own.

Mannfred caught a glimpse of Jaeger circling them and he hissed in frustration. These two were proving obstinate in their survival. They had been adequate distraction, but it was time for the finish. ‘You cannot defeat me, trollslayer. I have fought legions of your stunted kin, after all, and all of them with better reason to kill me than you.’

‘Maybe, but if you knew anything about me and mine, leech, you’d know that your defeat is… a… bonus!’ Gotrek roared, veins writhing on his arms and neck as he threw every bit of his strength into forcing the axe down. Mannfred blinked as the blade slid through his palms and his shape dispersed into a mist as the axe chopped down.

He screamed as whatever ancient magics had been wrought into that blade struck at him, even in his mist-shape, and he reformed a few feet away, black blood dripping from between his fingers. ‘You… hurt me?’ he said, hardly able to credit it. He had known the axe was a fell thing, but knowing and feeling were two different things. He staggered, shaking his head.

He looked around. The situation had deteriorated while he’d been distracted. The cavern was lit as brightly as a summer’s afternoon by the burning remnants of his zombies and those that were left were being finished off by the ghouls and few remaining human servants of the Charnel Congress. As he watched, the last of his fledging vampires was pinned to the ground by several swords.

‘Now, take him!’ Russ shouted, pointing. Mannfred turned as a number of the surviving ghouls ploughed into him, knocking him down. Magic thrummed through their spindly limbs and he knew at once that a flesh-working had been cast. He roared and thrashed, trying to free himself, but too late.

Mannfred howled like a broken-backed wolf as the ghouls began to melt into one another, their whimpers of agony becoming a deeper, uglier sound. Even as he tore at the bubbling, pulsing flesh, it healed itself and he found himself trapped in the thing’s gut.

It took an unsteady step, on a dozen feet, and groaned as the surviving necromancers approached. ‘Thrash all you like, usurper,’ Helm cackled, holding up his broken amulet. ‘You might have thwarted our plan, but we are nothing if not adaptable, eh, Helga?’

The woman smiled and made a curling motion. The flesh-tomb split, disgorging Mannfred, his arms and legs bound by shifting ligaments and steely bones. ‘Indeed, blood and the ring would have been the best, but a vampire’s blood is even more potent!’

She spat in Mannfred’s face. ‘Besides, this way seems more fitting somehow… from out of his traitorous offspring’s essence shall Vlad’s resurrection be wrought!’

Felix watched as Gotrek and Mannfred faced one another, marvelling that the Slayer could meet the creature’s eyes. And when Mannfred turned into a mist, he hoped the creature would flee. Instead, the necromancers captured it, and Felix knew that while their earlier scheme was no more, the change of circumstances wasn’t in his and Gotrek’s favour.

The cavern was rapidly filling with smoke and the members of the Charnel Congress were fleeing through a side-tunnel, their hideous creation lumbering after them. Coughing, Felix started towards Gotrek.

The dwarf was kneeling, leaning on his axe and breathing heavily. Burning zombies stumbled around him, bereft of will at Mannfred’s capture. Felix raced through them and grabbed Gotrek by the shoulder. ‘Gotrek, get up,’ he said, trying to pull the Slayer to his feet. Gotrek was bleeding from dozens of scrapes and bites that Felix hadn’t noticed earlier.

‘Where is the leech?’ Gotrek muttered, pushing himself up. Felix prodded a burning zombie aside.

‘They’ve taken him through one of the tunnels, and I think we should follow them. This whole cave is filling with smoke and I don’t fancy suffocating,’ Felix said, coughing. Gotrek shook his head as if to clear it.

‘Then point me in the right direction, manling,’ he growled.

They hurried through the crawling flames, Gotrek seeming to regain his strength with every step. The tunnel was lit by rusty lanterns, and it sloped upwards sharply. Rough steps, much like those they’d descended in the chapel, had been cut into the stone. Gotrek took them two at a time, and Felix followed. Blood and other, less pleasant, fluids dotted the stairs, marking the trail of the conjoined thing. At a curve in the stairs, a crossbow bolt narrowly missed Gotrek, skipping off the stones. The dwarf pushed Felix back flat against the wall as a second bolt followed the first.

‘Looks like they don’t want anyone following them, manling,’ Gotrek said, frowning.

‘Well, I don’t intend to go back down there,’ Felix said, gripping his sword more tightly.

Gotrek nodded sharply and then, with a roar, he pushed away from the wall and charged up the stairs. Felix hesitated a moment and then followed, cursing under his breath. More bolts skidded off the angles of the tunnel as they came and Felix saw a trio of black-clad forms waiting for them at the head of the tunnel. The Charnel Congress obviously didn’t want to risk anyone following them up out of the Under Town. He ducked his head and charged on in Gotrek’s wake.

A final bolt bounced off Gotrek’s axe and then he and Felix were among them. Felix cut a crossbow in half and kicked its wielder down the stairs. Gotrek killed the other two with one sweep of his axe, spraying the stone with blood. ‘I smell wine,’ Gotrek said, stepping over the bodies.

‘Well, we are in a wine cellar,’ Felix said, poking his head out through the aperture the dead men had been guarding. ‘They said that these tunnels go throughout the city. I guess it only makes sense that some of them would come up under houses.’

Gotrek grabbed a bottle off the rack and cut the neck off with his axe, then upended the broken bottle over his open mouth. Felix winced as the wine ran down the sides of Gotrek’s mouth and dripped through his beard. ‘That’s a Tilean Burgundy, Gotrek, not a mug of ale,’ he said.

‘Tastes like something elves drink,’ Gotrek burped, dropping the bottle and heading for the cellar stairs. As they climbed them, Felix could smell the river and hear the sound of alarm bells ringing.

Gotrek, not in the mood for niceties, bashed the door open and strode through into the corridor beyond. Distant screams echoed and the light of fires was reflected in the windows. Felix went to the latter and looked out. ‘We must be in High Town, Gotrek,’ he said.

‘I don’t care where we are,’ Gotrek growled. ‘I want to know where those cowards are!’

‘The city is burning,’ Felix said, turning from the window.

‘Maybe it’s a welcoming party for the beast they were planning to bring back,’ Gotrek said acidly. ‘There. They went up those stairs. Follow close manling, I doubt I’ll have time to save you if we get separated again.’

Felix said nothing. There was a time for argument and a time for simply following in the trollslayer’s wake. They climbed the stairs, and Felix studied their surroundings. It was a fine house, reminiscent of his father’s house in Altdorf. Fancy furnishings decorated the interior, though there was a sense of rot that pervaded everything. Whoever lived here had other considerations than the upkeep of their property. He wondered which of the necromancers owned this place.

Voices reached their ears, intoning strangely. Gotrek moved more quickly, reaching the landing. Felix caught up to him before he could bellow a challenge and signalled the Slayer to remain silent. Gotrek glared at him and Felix hastily drew his hand back.

‘Quietly, Gotrek,’ he hissed. ‘For all they know, we’re dead.’

‘Not yet,’ Gotrek said grimly.

‘Let’s do it carefully. After all, if I get killed, there’ll be no one to tell the story of your battle with the last of the von Carsteins, will there?’ Felix said desperately.

Gotrek’s one eye blinked slowly, and he rubbed his eye-patch. ‘Good point,’ he said truculently. They crept along more slowly, following the rising murmur of voices. Gotrek stopped and raised a hand, and gestured towards a door.

The necromancers had placed no guards. Perhaps they had no guards left. Or they felt that they would need none. Gotrek pressed himself flat against the door frame and Felix swung around to the other side. He peered around the frame. The room beyond was barren of everything, save several hastily-lit braziers and the bodies of two of the black-hooded guards. The conjoined ghoul-thing squatted in the centre of the room, drooling and wheezing. Mannfred, still held by the creaking lengths of muscle tissue, struggled and snarled at his captors, his eyes blazing as bright as the torches. A twitching hand was clamped tight over his mouth.

The three surviving necromancers were holding their amulets, as well as those of their fallen fellows, before Mannfred. Helm raised a goblet of what could only be blood taken from the two dead men on the floor and slowly shook something from his amulet into the goblet.

‘Is that dust?’ Felix mouthed, looking at Gotrek. Gotrek shook his head.

As if in answer to his question, Helm said, ‘Behold, usurper, the very essence of our lord and master, gathered from across this damned world. The priests of Sigmar burnt him and scattered his ashes to far-flung chapels and holy places, but over the centuries, bit by bit, we gathered every fleck of ash or stub of charred bone. It took generations to gather it all, but it has been done and now, only the quickening of these cold ashes is left to do. They will gain form in the blood of our servants, but with yours, that form shall become what it once was!’

Mannfred’s struggles redoubled, and his prison jerked back and forth. The vampire’s strength was useless without leverage, however, though the ghoul-thing moaned in obvious strain and agony.

‘All of our lives have been bent to this moment,’ Helm said. In his hands, the goblet was bubbling and frothing. Mannfred’s thrashing grew more furious and his eyes glowed like lamps as he gnawed at his bonds and mumbled muffled imprecations.

‘Quiet!’ Russ snarled, and stabbed Mannfred in his exposed torso. The vampire screamed and then Gotrek dived around the door frame and charged towards the necromancers.

‘Ho, hedge wizards! Leave him! He belongs to me!’ Gotrek shouted. Russ spun and stabbed at the dwarf, but Felix slid smoothly between them, almost eager to lock swords with the necromancer.

‘Surprised to see us?’ Felix said. Russ’s only reply was a growl of frustration and he swung wildly. Felix blocked the blow and jerked forwards, his brow cracking against Russ’s. The ex-witch hunter reeled and Felix sliced his arm open. The man grunted and backed away. ‘You killed good men, Russ,’ Felix said, advancing. ‘I didn’t care for you before, but now I’ll happily cut out your heart.’

‘The feeling is mutual,’ Russ said, twisting around and bringing his sword down on Felix’s head. Felix stumbled aside and Karaghul sank into Russ’s side. The necromancer gasped and fell against the wall, leaving a streak of blood as he sank down.

It was almost anticlimactic, considering the things Russ had done. Felix yearned to say something clever, to mark the traitor’s passing, but nothing came to him. He turned to see Gotrek driving the other two necromancers back.

Behind him, Mannfred had begun to struggle and his strength was such that the ghoul-thing staggered and whimpered. Helm gave a great cry as Gotrek’s axe cut across his chest and the goblet went flying. The frothing substance within splattered across the floor. A moment later, Mannfred tore his arm free of the cage of living flesh with a snapping of ligaments and a cracking of bones. Distracted, the necromancers had allowed their spell to weaken. And now Mannfred was free. The ghoul-thing sank down onto its numerous knees in its death-throes. Mannfred ripped his way out of the sagging cage-creature as quick as a cat and tore out its throats with a laugh, letting the whole roiling mass collapse.

He landed in a crouch before Helga, and even as the terrified necromancer wove a defensive spell, Mannfred punched his claws through her chest and out her back, removing her heart in the process. The woman slid off his arms and he turned to Felix. ‘Thank you for the distraction, Jaeger. There is one more service you can provide me however, for I thirst,’ he said, gliding towards Felix.

Gotrek’s bellow caught their attention. The Slayer’s axe sparked as it cut through one of Helm’s spells and the flare of dispersed energy momentarily blinded Felix. When he could see again, Mannfred was almost upon him. ‘Put the sword down,’ the vampire hissed.

With those red eyes on him, it was all Felix could do to hold on to his sword. The urge to drop it grew overpowering and he grabbed Karaghul’s hilt with both hands. Sweat rolled down his face and his muscles felt as if they would rip free of his bones, so hard was he shaking. Mannfred gave a little chuckle and lunged. He grabbed Felix by the neck, forcing him back against the wall. ‘A strong will is like a fine spice,’ the vampire said. ‘It merely enhances the taste. First I will wring the juice from the meat of you, and then I will do the same to your stunted companion.’

Felix saw movement behind him. Mannfred, realising that Felix wasn’t looking at him, turned slightly, fully expecting to see Gotrek. Instead, something snarled and sent both man and vampire staggering back in shock and horror.

The process of Vlad’s resurrection had not been interrupted by the spilling of the blood-soaked ashes. Quite the reverse, in fact; the concoction had crept across the floor, seeking the sustenance it craved, the sustenance necessary to begin rebuilding the thing that had called itself Vlad von Carstein. But instead of healthy human blood, or even the charged brew of a vampire’s fluids, it had found the corrupted juices of the dying ghoul-thing. What resulted both was and was not Vlad von Carstein.

The strange brew bubbled and stirred, the dark liquid emitting a thin shrill sound as a noxious smoke began to rise from it. In the smoke, a face formed and its mouth opened in a silent howl as it billowed and contracted according to the breeze. As it broke apart, something ugly surfaced from the spreading blood. Yellow fangs clashed in a bone jaw and it snarled again, despite lacking either lungs or flesh. More bones grew and clattered as the thing heaved itself up out of oblivion. The skull, up to this point vaguely human-shaped, began to sprout blossoms of cartilage as it shattered and spread, widening into a new shape. The other bones snapped and fibres of marrow grew between the tumbling halves, lengthening them into inhuman proportions.

The flesh of the ghoul-thing heaved itself free of the crumbling old bones and stretched over the new, thinning and then thickening. Coarse bristles burst through the gaping pores, spreading like a plague. The skull snapped and twisted as flesh flowed over it.

Finally, the heaving, hairy shape rose onto four twisted limbs and opened its fang-filled maw to give voice to something that was not quite the scream of a man, nor the shriek of a bat or even the howl of a wolf. The monster that crouched before them was a mingling of the worst aspect of all three creatures, with a size to match.

Felix’s bowels turned to water as the great, foul eyes found him and a hungry grunt echoed through the room. ‘What-what-what–’ he stammered.

‘Varghulf,’ Mannfred hissed, flexing his claws.

‘Looks like just another bloody vampire to me,’ Gotrek said. He tossed the limp body of Helm at the abomination and it tore it from the air and stuffed the old man’s corpse in its greedy maw. Still chewing, it looked around at Felix and Mannfred and shrieked again as the latter tried to sidle away. ‘I think it recognises you, leech,’ Gotrek said.

‘Impossible,’ Mannfred sputtered.

The varghulf stretched itself, its stubby wings raking the ceiling and splintering the wooden beams. It snarled and Felix thought there might have been words there, but he couldn’t be sure. Mannfred, however, apparently was. He snarled something in a strange language and scooped up Russ’s fallen sword.

The varghulf threw itself at the vampire, roaring. Gotrek, echoing it, stretched out a hand, grabbed a hank of the beast’s mane and hauled himself up its broad back. The varghulf’s talons tore up the floorboards in its haste to come to grips with Mannfred. Felix jumped aside as a flailing claw tore a section out of the wall. In its frenzy, the monster was destroying the scene of its rebirth.

Gotrek, straddling the monster, brought his axe down. It screeched and reared, reaching for him. As it did so, Mannfred rose and rammed his sword into its belly. It howled and plucked Gotrek from its back and slammed him down on Mannfred, sending them both sprawling. Gotrek’s axe was dislodged from its back, and Felix saw with horror that the wounds the vampire and the dwarf had created were already healing.

Felix backed away, until his back thumped against the far wall and the great curtains that covered it. Turning, he stripped the curtains aside, revealing great bay windows that opened out onto a wooden balcony overlooking the section of the Stir that cut through the city. Felix saw movement reflected in the glass and ducked as the varghulf pawed at him, shattering the windows in the process. Felix scrambled out onto the balcony as the beast squeezed out after him, burning spittle drizzling from between its jutting fangs. It snapped at him and he dived between its legs, scrambling back into the room.

‘Out of the way, manling,’ Gotrek growled, running towards the balcony. He leapt at the creature, his axe biting into its face and skull. It tore at the dwarf, snatching him out of the air and smashing him into the floor hard enough to shatter several floorboards. It released the Slayer and stepped back, blood coating its claws.

And then Mannfred was there, his sword piercing the top of the varghulf’s skull and exploding out through the bottom of its jaw. Hanging from the hilt, Mannfred looked into the beast’s bulging, animalistic eyes and hissed, ‘Have the good grace to die this time, Vlad!’

In reply, the varghulf slapped the vampire off its head and into the wall. Behind the beast, Felix saw a glimmer of light. With a start, he realised that the sun was rising.

The varghulf moaned, pawing at the sword in its head, trying to dislodge it. Felix looked at his own sword and knew that no matter what power it contained, it wasn’t going to do the trick. He saw the shattered boards at the monster’s feet shift. Gotrek’s hand rose and Felix knew what he had to do.

He snatched up a brazier and stabbed the flaming end like a spear at the monster. It snarled and tried to grab the brazier from his hands. Steeling himself, he stabbed at it again, trying to get it out on the balcony. Instead, it lifted a wing and let the brazier slide past it as it lunged, jaws wide.

‘Ha!’ Gotrek cried, thrusting his axe up as the monster passed over him. The edge bit into its hairy throat, releasing a spray of foul blood. Gotrek, legs coiled beneath him, shoved upwards, using his body to force his axe’s edge all the way through the monster’s neck.

The varghulf’s head came free of its neck and rolled across the floor, snapping mindlessly. Gotrek, covered in blood, hacked at the body, which had remained upright. ‘Gotrek, get it outside!’ Felix said, using the brazier to pin the snarling head in place. ‘The sun is coming up!’

Gotrek seemed to have heard him and the dwarf redoubled his efforts, chopping at the stumbling shape and driving it backwards. It went blindly and ungracefully, its limbs moving independent of one another.

‘You’re a wise man, Herr Jaeger,’ Mannfred said. Felix spun, raising the brazier. Mannfred seized it with one hand and shoved Felix down, distressingly close to the still-animated head of the varghulf. ‘Nagash’s Curse will see to that abomination readily enough,’ Mannfred said, glancing at the varghulf’s head. He frowned in distaste.

He rose, yanking Felix to his feet. In a quick movement, he reversed their positions and Felix found himself with the length of the brazier pressed against his windpipe. In his other hand, Mannfred grabbed the varghulf’s head. He forced Felix towards the balcony. The sun was an orange stripe on the horizon, and Felix felt Mannfred shiver. The vampire’s armour cut into his back and Felix tried to move as little as possible.

On the balcony, Gotrek was on all fours, clutching his chest near the unmoving body of the varghulf. He was breathing heavily, and Felix knew that the night’s activities had taken their toll on the dwarf’s superhuman vitality. Still, Gotrek had his axe to hand and when Mannfred stepped out onto the balcony, his one eye flashed.

‘Well done, Master Dwarf,’ Mannfred called out. He tossed the varghulf’s head towards the dwarf, and Gotrek batted it aside. ‘You two have helped me greatly, I must admit.’ Mannfred’s teeth clicked together distressingly close to Felix’s ear. ‘As a reward, I will let you lie in Morr’s embrace undisturbed when I rebuild my forces.’

Gotrek shifted and let his axe fall with a thunk into the balcony. Beneath their feet, the wood gave a groan. Mannfred blinked. Gotrek gave a gap-toothed grin. ‘Why are you smiling? Are you so welcoming of death?’

Gotrek uprooted his axe and let it fall again. The balcony trembled slightly. ‘Not quite, leech. Not unless it’s your death you’re talking about.’

‘Gotrek, what have you done?’ Felix croaked, clawing at the brazier. Mannfred tightened his grip.

‘Followed your advice, manling,’ Gotrek said. ‘You said get it out on the balcony. It’s not my fault the balcony is typical shoddy human craftsmanship.’ He chopped at the balcony again. There was a creak and everything shifted suddenly towards the water. ‘Rotten joists; it’s the river water that does it. That’s why dwarfs use stone instead of wood. Wood rots. Stone doesn’t.’

‘Stop it,’ Mannfred said. His eyes blazed in their sockets and Gotrek stiffened. Felix could feel the vampire’s black will beating against the iron of Gotrek’s own just as it had beat against his own earlier. His head was filled with a purple agony that pulled the strength from his limbs.

‘Even stones crumble before the tide, dwarf,’ Mannfred said. He forced Felix forwards. ‘Drop your axe,’ he commanded. Mannfred’s semi-human countenance faded as he stared at the dwarf. His flesh, marble-pale before, had gone practically translucent. Black veins spread across it like a spider’s web of cracks and his fangs had grown as long as Felix’s finger. Madly, Mannfred champed at the air, his lips writhing against the force of unspoken curses. And still, the Slayer stood firm.

Gotrek’s fist tightened convulsively around the haft of his axe. Veins bulged alarmingly along his arms and neck, and his teeth were bared in a frozen snarl. His eye started from his head. The head of the axe trembled and then fell, straight into the floor. Gotrek gave a satisfied grunt as the damaged joists squealed. Mannfred hissed in consternation. The vampire shot a glance at the door. Felix felt a chill and realised that the vampire was changing shape.

‘Gotrek, he’s trying to escape!’ he said, jerking forwards and trying to drag Mannfred off balance. Gotrek jumped forwards and got between Mannfred and the door. The sun was no longer a strip of light, but a wide swath of brightness. Mannfred’s shape steamed and he snarled, his body twisting and changing as he made for the door.

‘Not this time!’ Gotrek said, slicing through the vampire’s foggy shape. Mannfred screamed and the mist turned crimson, and then he was solid once more and staggering back. Felix stretched out and the vampire tripped over him and slammed into the balcony’s railing. The sudden shift in weight was followed by a snapping and tearing of wood. Felix lunged for the door and Gotrek moved past him, throwing himself at Mannfred even as the balcony gave way in a burst of brick, splinters and noise.

Felix felt the world fall away and pain flared in his chest as he caught the edge of the lintel and held on. Dangling half-in and half-out of the room, he pulled himself up and to safety. Then he turned and looked down.

Gotrek’s axe had become embedded in one of the remaining support beams, which hung awkwardly, half-cracked in two from the force of the collapse. Gotrek held onto his axe – not even death would break that hold – but his skull was bloody and he looked badly dazed. And clinging to his leg was Mannfred. The vampire hissed up at Felix, his formerly aristocratic face now a bestial mask not that far removed from that of the varghulf. Claws dug into the Slayer’s thigh, and Gotrek’s blood ran down Mannfred’s arms. Slowly, the vampire reached up, grabbing the dwarf’s shoulder, obviously intending to climb up.

Felix stood and, before he could reconsider, climbed down towards the support beam. It shifted beneath his feet and he sank to all fours. ‘Gotrek,’ he said.

‘Save your breath, Jaeger,’ Mannfred snarled. ‘You’ll join him in death soon enough!’ But even as the words left Mannfred’s mouth, Gotrek’s eye snapped open and he reached up, grabbing the vampire’s throat. Mannfred’s eyes widened and he scrabbled at Gotrek’s arm. The Slayer grunted, obviously in pain, and swung Mannfred away from solid ground and held him out over the Stir, directly into the gaze of the sun.

Mannfred howled and his increasingly furious struggles caused the support beam to shift and creak alarmingly. Felix didn’t stop, but instead crept closer to Gotrek.

Mannfred’s features began to smoke and burn and his screams became high and thin. Gotrek jerked the vampire close and stared into his agonised eyes, as if wanting to commit to memory every moment of his death. But then Mannfred swiped his claws across Gotrek’s face and the Slayer roared, releasing his hold on the vampire.

Mannfred von Carstein plummeted downwards, striking the surface of the Stir like a screaming black comet. But even as the water closed over the vampire’s form, the support beam finally gave way. Felix lunged, grabbing Gotrek’s wrist and nearly falling himself. ‘Hold on!’ he said.

‘What in Grimnir’s name do you think you’re doing?’ Gotrek said incredulously. ‘He’s getting away!’

‘Drowning in the Stir isn’t exactly a heroic doom, Gotrek!’

‘Dwarfs don’t drown!’ Gotrek snapped. But he grabbed onto what was left of the support beam and began to pull himself up, grumbling the entire way. Felix didn’t waste his breath arguing.

When they had gotten back to the doorway, Felix looked down at the river and said, ‘Do you think he’s dead? Again, I mean.’

Gotrek looked at him steadily. Then he hefted his axe and glared at the runes inscribed on the blade, as if they were responsible for yet another failure to die. ‘I hope not,’ he said finally.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Josh Reynolds was formerly a roadie for the Hong Kong Cavaliers, but now writes full time. His work has appeared previously in anthologies such as Specters and Coal Dust, Historical Lovecraft and How The West Was Weird as well as in magazines such as Innsmouth Free Press and Hammer and Bolter. Feel free to stop by his blog (http://joshuamreynolds.blogspot.com/)

A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

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

Cover illustration by Winona Nelson

© Games Workshop Limited 2012. All rights reserved.

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ISBN 978-0-85787-587-7

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