05 - Warrior Priest (41 page)

Wolff saw faces in the clouds rushing overhead. His brother’s mainly, filled
with anguish as he begged for mercy, but there were others too, a whole army of
dead souls, all gazing down at him with hatred in their eyes. “Sigmar forgive
me,” he muttered.

“He’s waking up,” came a voice from somewhere nearby.

Wolff lifted his head and wiped the rain from his eyes. Ratboy and Anna were
sat watching him. They both looked awful. Their rain-lashed faces were white
with exhaustion and pain. As Anna climbed to her feet and hobbled towards him,
Wolff saw that the crossbow bolt was still embedded in her thigh and the lower
part of her robe was black with blood. Ratboy was sat just a few feet away and
Wolff guessed it was his voice he had heard. He was rocking back and forth,
cradling his damaged hand, but there was a look of fierce determination in his
eyes that the priest had never seen before. Wolff could hardly recognise him. He
seemed to have aged a lifetime in an evening.

Wolff looked at them both in silence for a few seconds, unsure what to say.
He felt somehow naked, ashamed of what they had witnessed during the night.
Ashamed that they now knew so much about him. They had not only heard every word
of his disgraceful confrontation with Fabian, but they had also seen his
weakness and stupidity. It appalled him to think that without Ratboy’s courage,
Fabian would have escaped. His brother had made him a fool. “How can I have been
so blind?” he said, lowering his head in shame.

“He fooled us all, Jakob,” said Anna, reaching his side and placing a hand on
his shoulder.

Wolff winced at the pity in her voice. She had never had any love for him, or
his beliefs, so her sudden kindness made his skin crawl. What a pathetic figure
he must have become if even Anna felt sorry for him.

“None of us could ever have dreamt that he would engineer a whole campaign—a whole war—just to ensnare his own brother,” she continued. “That’s the
thinking of a lunatic. How could we have guessed he was working to such an
insane plan? To sacrifice so many innocents,” she stumbled over her words and
closed her eyes for a second, “beggars belief.”

“I should have seen it,” said Wolff, recoiling from her touch. “I knew him. I
should have known.” He threw himself back on the grass. “And everything he said
about me was true. I was blinded by rage. I left all those men to die. I’ve
betrayed everyone: you, the flagellants, Felhamer, Maximilian, Luneberg,
Gryphius—the entire army. Everyone.”

“Nothing he said was true,” replied Ratboy, shaking his head fiercely. “His
whole existence was a lie.” He climbed to his feet and looked down over the
sodden trees. “I
did
lose my nerve for a minute,” he said, with a note of
shame in his voice. “I couldn’t recognise you for a while, as we fought through
the marauders. I saw something in your face that terrified me.” He rushed to
Wolff’s side and looked at him with panic in his eyes. “But Fabian lied. I would
never have betrayed you. It was a moment of fear, nothing more.” He dropped to
his knees and looked imploringly at his master. “Even if Maximilian hadn’t
stopped me, I would’ve come back. As soon as I came to my senses.” He shook his
head. “I know I wouldn’t have abandoned you. That’s how I saw that he was
nothing more than a cheap trickster. That’s how I knew I had the strength to
kill him.”

Wolff took Ratboy’s hand. “I never doubted your courage, Anselm. You’ve
nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, you were right to fear me. I could think of
nothing but revenge and murder. And even in that one, simple task I failed.” He
turned his face to the rain and closed his eyes. “In the end, I couldn’t kill
him. If you hadn’t been there he would have gone free. It was my faith that
failed, not yours.”

For a while the only sound came from the rain, drumming against the hillside.
None of them even had the strength to crawl back towards the trees, so they just
sat there in a disconsolate silence, letting the water soak through their
clothes. Wolff was still staring up at the clouds, and still haunted by his
brother’s face. In those final seconds, when he saw the fear in Fabian’s eye, a
kind of awful epiphany had stayed his hand. It was his own religious zeal that
had driven his brother down his dark path—he had suddenly seen that quite
clearly. What an unbearable child he must have been: always so perfect, always
so pious. Who could blame Fabian for rebelling? Who could blame him for
attempting to find his own form of devotion?

After a while, Anna looked over at him. “I think you’re wrong, Brother
Wolff.”

The priest looked over at her with a frown.

“I don’t think it was a lack of faith that stayed your hand,” she continued.
“I think it was your humanity.”

She looked at the blood that still covered her hands. “We’re just frail
mortals, all of us: nothing more, nothing less. But maybe that’s what makes us
worth saving?”

“But my brother was a monster! To let him live would have been to loose a
great evil on the world. Don’t you see? Every decision I’ve made has led to
bloodshed.” He groaned and clutched his head in his hands. “I’m no better than a
dumb animal. I don’t even remember half of the battle. In fact, I’m just the
same as Fabian. I’ve been deluding myself all this time that I have to save the
Empire from his evil, but in reality, I’m no better than he was.”

Anna shook her head. “No, Jakob, Fabian was a monster.” She grabbed his hand.
“And the very fact that you let him live proves that you’re not. He had become
inhuman but, in the end, after everything, you were still just a man.
That’s
the difference between the two of you.” There was an intense urgency in her
voice and Ratboy suddenly realised why: she was desperate for Wolff to forgive
himself, so that she could do the same.

As Wolff looked back at her, a tiny glimmer of hope flashed in his black
eyes. They held each other’s gaze for a few seconds and then, briefly, the harsh
lines of his face relaxed. He gave a barely perceptible nod and squeezed Anna’s
hand in gratitude. He closed his eyes and muttered a quiet prayer of thanks that
was lost beneath the sound of the rain. Then, when he opened his eyes again, he
noticed Anna’s wounded leg and gave her a brusque nod. “Let me see if I can
help,” he said, spreading his hands over the wound.

As a soft, healing light began to leak from the priest’s
fingertips, Anna looked over at Ratboy with tears in her eyes and a faint smile
playing around the corners of her mouth.

The Great Poppenstein would not be missed. In the few months since his
arrival, the villagers of Elghast had quickly grown tired of his tatty costumes
and amateurish tricks. Maybe he had been telling the truth when he boasted of
his years in the Tsarina’s circus, but if so, his age and alcoholism had long
since robbed him of any real skill. His hands had trembled as he had performed
even the most basic illusions and his juggling had been positively dangerous.
When the conjuror’s body was discovered, half eaten in the back of his bright
red cart, no one was much surprised. The bear, Kusma, seemed destined for better
things, and the villagers did not really blame him for wanting to dispose of his
less talented partner.

The rain had turned the gardens of remembrance into a treacherous swamp of
half-submerged headstones and slippery, flower-strewn paths. A few mourners had
turned up, in the vain hope of seeing some of Poppenstein’s celebrated circus
friends, but they had soon hurried away again when they realised he had misled
them about that too. With war continuing to rage across the province, funerals
had begun to lose their appeal as a spectator sport. There was hardly a day that
passed without some poor wretch being crammed into the packed cemetery.

Erasmus gave a grunt of exertion as he stamped the final mound of sod into
place. Mud oozed over his sandals and between his toes and he grimaced in
disgust. Then he leant back with his hands on his hips until his back gave a
satisfying
crack.
“Udo,” he called to the raven perched on a nearby
headstone. “Let’s get back inside. This weather will be the death of us.”

It was already nine, but there was no sign of sunlight breaking through the
low clouds. For weeks now, the village had been smothered in a perpetual gloom.
News of the Iron Duke’s victory in the north had been greeted with little
enthusiasm. Few doubted that it would be long until the next incursion. Even the
rumours of his mysterious disappearance held little interest for people so
concerned with their own survival. Times were hard and the villagers of Elghast
had long since lost their appetite for war. As the priest made his way back
through the headstones towards the small temple he pulled his robes a little
tighter and gave a long weary yawn.

The raven remained perched on the stone and let out a peevish croak.

Erasmus paused and looked back over his shoulder. “Come on, old girl,” he
said, peering through the downpour at the huge bird. “I’ve not even had my
breakfast yet. Let’s get inside. If I don’t eat some porridge soon, my stomach
will digest itself.”

The bird refused to follow Erasmus, but skittered from side-to-side across
the top of the stone instead, letting out another harsh cry.

“Udo!” snapped the priest as he stomped back through the ankle-deep mud.
“What on earth’s the matter with you?” His robes were now completely soaked and
he shuddered as several icy trickles ran down his back. Upon reaching Udo he
held out his arm and glared at the bird in an angry silence.

It was only after a few seconds of scowling that he realised they were not
alone. There was a figure: a young man, or a boy even, cowering beneath the
eaves of a large mausoleum and watching them intently. Erasmus squinted through
the rain but could not make out who it was. The mourner was hooded and small,
but beyond that he couldn’t make out any details. Elghast was barely more than a
hamlet and Erasmus knew most of the villagers by name, but this boy did not look
familiar. “Were you a friend of the deceased?” he called to the robed figure.

There was no reply, so he stepped towards him. “I’m afraid the service is
over. Is there anything I can help you with?”

The mourner remained silent.

Erasmus gave an irritated sigh and walked a little closer. “Are your parents
in the village?” he asked, stepping under the roof of the mausoleum.

As he reached the mourner, Erasmus realised his mistake. The stranger was not
a boy at all, he was just incredibly hunched and frail.

The man lurched forwards and threw back his hood, revealing a gleaming mask
of burnt flesh. “Heal me,” he whispered. His lips had been burned away, leaving
his mouth in a permanent grin and the rest of his face was scorched beyond all
recognition. Erasmus had no doubt who the man was though. Despite the awful
scarring that covered his skin, his colourless eyes were unmistakable.

“Sigmar help me,” gasped Erasmus, staggering backwards as the witch hunter
grabbed hold of his robes. “Sigmar.”

Udo finally launched herself from the headstone, letting out
another croak as she headed back towards the temple, leaving the two men
struggling desperately in the shadows.

After a music career so disastrous it landed him in court,
Darius Hinks
decided a job in publishing might be safer. Since joining the Black
Library he’s worked on such legendary titles as
Inquis Exterminatus
and
Liber Chaotica
as well as writing
The Witch Hunter’s Handbook
and
short stories for several of the Black Library’s anthologies. Rumours that he
still has a banjo hidden in his loft are fiercely refuted by his lawyers.

Scanning and basic
proofing by Red Dwarf,
formatting and additional
proofing by Undead.