Sitting opposite Dieter was a man of law clutching a
scratched and scuffed leather satchel, not unlike Dieter’s own battered scrip.
The lawyer was well into middle age, his beard grey and teased to a point. He
had apparently been summoned from Altdorf to defend a merchant accused of
unnatural and debauched acts by the Templars of Sigmar.
Sitting next to Dieter was a man in his late twenties who
appeared to be a collection of contradictions. He looked like he might very well
have come from aristocratic stock but he travelled with the minimum of luggage
and had no servant in attendance. He appeared to be a dandy for he wore the
clothes of the latest fashion—a frill-wristed shirt, tightly fitting,
gold-buttoned doublet, red velvet duelling cape, linen trousers and calfskin
boots—but the blade he carried at his waist was a heavy, soldier’s sword and
certainly no duelling rapier. The dandy wore his hair in a ponytail tied back
with a ribbon and had a close-cropped, carefully-cultivated goatee beard, but
his face bore the scars of a life lived at the rough end, on the borders of
civilisation or even beyond them. He looked like he would be equally at ease
within the Imperial court as he would be battling trolls at the World’s Edge
Mountains.
Dieter had not ventured to discover any more about his fellow
passengers beyond what little he had gleaned by their appearance and what
information they had volunteered themselves. When the lawyer had asked the
black-robed, pale young man with unkempt, raven-dark hair and an intense look in
his eyes what his business was in Bögenhafen, Dieter had replied simply, and
honestly, that he was a student of the physicians’ guild there. He had offered
no more.
For the most part, Dieter was lost in his own thoughts as he
tried to resolve the many different conflicting thoughts and feelings raging
within him. It was still only twelve days since his father had died and Dieter
was still in mourning—as much for his sister’s loss as for the hole that he
felt had opened up inside him.
It had been three days since he had left Hangenholz and, with
the second day of Sigmarzeit coming to an end, he was almost back in Bögenhafen
where he could put behind him all that had happened over the last two weeks. For
back in Bögenhafen he could pretend that nothing had happened at all.
Gustav peered into the night from beneath the brim of his
hat. The walls of the town rose out of the darkness, black against the velvet
blue of night, their battlements limned with moonlight.
Half a mile away to his right he thought he saw the orange
flicker of lantern light, but in that direction there lay only the town
cemetery. Perhaps Morr’s priest was working late this night, preparing another
body for burial; there would certainly be a steady stream of townsfolk requiring
his attentions and blessings before they made their final journey into Morr’s
twilight kingdom.
Then, the gleam of metal on the road ahead of the coach. Two
figures, both on foot, were standing in the middle of road. Gustav’s heart
skipped a beat. But then a calm warmth passed through his agitated body. They
were flagging the stagecoach down and, as the carriage neared them, Gustav could
see that they were wearing the uniforms of Imperial roadwardens: armoured
hauberks and visor-helms over leather jerkin and britches. Practically level
with them now, he could also see that one of them was holding a warhammer
casually over his shoulder. The other had an unsheathed sword in his right hand.
Gustav reined in the sweating horses. “Evening, officers,” he
said, smiling nervously. “What can I do for you on a night like this?”
The squatter and sturdier of the two patrolmen, the one with
the sword, sauntered up to the stagecoach and the driver’s position, whilst his
companion approached from the other side, hefting the heavy hammer in both
hands.
“I don’t know if it’s so much what
you
can do for us,”
the roadwarden said in a lazy voice, “as what your
passengers
can do for
us.”
It was only then that Gustav noticed how poorly fitting the
wardens’ uniforms were and how tarnished, and ill-cared for, their armour.
“Driver, why have we stopped?” a voice came from inside the
carriage. Gustav recognised it as the man of law’s.
“Now you just get down and don’t cause us any trouble and
we’ll let you live.” The highwayman raised his sword and poked it at Gustav.
The coach driver glanced to his left at the taller of the two
opportunist scoundrels who was getting closer to the carriage door on the other
side.
“What sort of cargo are you carrying tonight then?” the
talkative highwayman asked. His tone was unpleasantly jovial and he treated
Gustav to a broken, gap-toothed smile. The tip of his sword never wavered from
its position at his stomach.
Gustav said nothing in reply. Deep down he had known that he
should have stopped at Vagenholt. He shouldn’t have travelled at night, not
without an additional guard on the coach. He would be lucky to keep his job now,
that was if he even escaped from this with his life. He needed to do something
about the situation and quickly.
“Why don’t we just take a little look, eh?” The more gangly
of the highwaymen snickered and, adjusting his grip on the hammer, put a hand to
the handle of the carriage door.
Dieter turned his head to the left as all inside the carriage
heard the door open. The dandy, who was closest to that side of the carriage,
put a hand to the sword sheathed at his side.
The door was opened fully and the ugly, stubble-bristled face
of a roadwarden appeared in the space beyond.
“Well, well, what have we here?” the patrolman slurred.
“Look here, what’s going on?” the lawyer demanded.
Dieter wasn’t able to answer that question but there was
certainly something not quite right about this roadwarden patrol, they could all
sense the wrongness of it.
“Ambush!” the driver’s voice came down from the roof of the
carriage above them, confirming all their suspicions.
Then several things happened very quickly, within seconds of
each other.
Without saying a word the gentleman swordsman was suddenly
out of his seat. He grabbed the carriage door with both hands and yanked it
shut. Startled, the roadwarden himself let go and stumbled forwards, the weight
of the warhammer in his other hand helping to unbalance him.
An instant later, the soldier of fortune forced the door open
again, ramming it directly into their would-be robber’s face. Dieter thought he
heard a crack as the man’s nose broke.
There was a shout of “Yah!” and the pistol-crack of leather
reins being cracked.
The swordsman was half through the door, ready to finish the
idiot highwayman, when the carriage lurched forward again, the horses neighing
in distress. Wrong-footed and sent off balance himself, sword now in hand, the
man fell headlong out onto the road.
The lawyer gasped and leant forward as if to help the other.
Dieter, who was already half out of his seat, fell backwards, his elbow hitting
the door handle behind him and pushing it down. That door then opened too and
Dieter tumbled backwards out of the coach. Fortunately for him he landed on the
soft verge at the edge of the road, rather than the harder, stonier surface of
the highway itself.
His scrip, which he still clutched reassuringly to himself,
came with him. Dieter rolled over amidst thick tufts of grass, wet with
night-dew, ending up almost on his knees. The turf was soft beneath his feet and
hands as he pushed himself up into a crouch.
The coach rumbled away down the road before coming to an
abrupt halt again. Slowly and yet with the inevitability of a felled tree, the
coach driver toppled out of his seat and crashed onto the road; doing nothing to
break his fall. He lay there motionless. The sword-wielding brigand was still
standing where the coach had been moments before, his blade now held at his side
as if he had just made a thrust with it, looking at his victim’s body.
Dieter knew that the driver was dead. Having goaded the
horses forward to get the stagecoach and its passengers away from the bogus
roadwardens, the highwayman had lunged at the driver, managing to deliver a
fatal blow. And then, just like that, the poor wretch was dead. The driver’s
brave attempt at facilitating an escape had resulted in his own premature death.
Dieter could hear the lawyer, still inside the carriage,
yelping in fear and panic. The bandit could hear him too. He jogged over to the
now stationary coach and then disappeared from view as he climbed on board.
Dieter heard loud protests followed by an angry muffled exchange, which finished
abruptly with a chilling womanly scream. Dieter closed his eyes tight, a cold
chill seeping through his body, biting his own tongue to stop himself crying out
in terror as well. The killer had added another coldblooded murder to his list
of crimes.
The terrified physician’s apprentice opened his eyes again.
If he kept them shut for too long it could spell his own end. A ragged shroud of
cloud moved away from the face of the moon Mannslieb, bathing the scene on the
road in its unearthly, silvery light.
Across the road from him, Dieter could see the swordsman
sprawled in the dirt. The leaner bandit wobbled over him, blood pouring in a
thick dribble from his nose, still unsteady on his feet, reeling from the blow
to the face he had received. The dandy swordsman appeared to be injured as well.
He was having trouble moving one leg—had he twisted his knee, or sprained it?—and couldn’t get to his feet. At the same time he was trying to bring his
sword to bear, to defend himself as the brigand was still managing to raise the
hammer above his head, ready to strike.
Dieter froze, laying himself flat in the long wet grass at
the side of the road. No matter how skilled at arms he might be with his sword
or how many foes and horrors he might have bested in his life, an unhappy
accident and cruel fate were going to bring about his demise. The only one who
could do anything to help him now was him, and he was too terrified to do
anything.
The hammer crashed down. Dieter heard the sickening crunch
quite clearly.
The cry the swordsman gave out was like that of a wounded
animal rather than a sound that Dieter would have thought a human being was
capable of making.
Dieter felt his gorge rise in his mouth. He swallowed hard,
trying to keep the contents of his stomach down. The swordsman rolled over onto
his back, holding up the broken mess of his sword arm, the hand flopped
backwards, the fingers twitching spasmodically. The man’s sword lay on the road
out of reach, useless.
The hammer descended again. The man’s cries were cut off.
Adrenaline suddenly filled Dieter’s body. He knew that he had
to do something or he would be a dead man too. Between them the brigands had
already killed three times; they wouldn’t hesitate to do so again.
On his feet now, Dieter moved at a lolloping run across the
grass, away from the road, keeping low as the ground dropped down to form a
natural ditch, and into the shelter of the trees of the spur of woodland that
edged the road as it ran parallel to Bögenhafen.
But he did not stop there. He scrambled over the bank formed
of knotted root boles, catching his robe on a broken branch tip and tearing the
heavily woven fabric, as panicking he pulled himself free. His pulse was almost
a throbbing pain in his ears, his heart straining against his ribcage.
He could hear the men on the road behind him. They were
arguing already, as was the way of thieves and murderers, but not over their
ill-gotten spoils.
Dieter paused, his lungs heaving, and cautiously peered over
the lip of the ditch.
“There was another one!” Dieter could hear one of the bandits
shouting at his partner-in-crime.
The other’s voice was muffled and incomprehensible, the sound
distorted by his broken nose.
“Where did he go?” the first bandit was saying. “Khaine’s
teeth! We can’t let him get away.”
Dieter could see the thickset brigand, clearly outlined by
the moonlight, peering towards the trees. He ducked down immediately. He could
not understand the other’s reply.
“The watch will be sniffing around here in no time at all. We
can’t let that bastard get to them.”
Then Dieter was off again, his robe flapping around his legs
as he heard the brigands’ feet running along the road towards Bögenhafen. He ran
as though Morr’s disaffected brother the god of murder himself were after him.
For if he was caught by the murdering impostor roadwardens, it might as well be
Khaine at his heels, for it would be the patron of murderers and assassins who
would feast on his damned soul.
Dieter sprinted across the rough, uneven ground as fast as
his legs could carry him, his breathing frantic and ragged, his feet slipping on
the wet, spongy turf or tripping in unseen rabbit holes and gulleys in the
darkness.
His mind raced as he ran. Following a sudden outburst of
violence which couldn’t have lasted more than a minute, three lives had been
taken. Three men were dead.
How dare the brigands attack so close to the town? The
audacity of it! But then how dare they attack at all? How could they commit
murder so coolly? How could they do such a thing if they had a conscience? Morr
take their souls, the devils!
Dieter reached the edge of the garden of Morr, skidding to an
abrupt stop against the dry-stone wall. But he didn’t stop there. The wall
wasn’t high and it was no effort for him to scale it, even with his scrip still
in his hands, and climb over into the gardens beyond.
As he recovered his breath he took stock of his situation
once again. With each great lungful of chilled night air he inhaled, so his
racing mind became calmer and his thinking more logical. He doubted very much
that the murdering highwaymen would keep up their pursuit for very long, not
with the risk of being pursued themselves by the watch an imminent concern in
their own minds. Neither did he think that they would think to look for him in
the gardens of Morr, for most people wouldn’t think of a graveyard, a place of
the dead, as a safe place to be after dark. But then Dieter Heydrich, son of a
priest of Morr, wasn’t most people.