[Mathias Thulmann 00b] - Meat Wagon Read online

  A WARHAMMER SS

  MEAT WAGON

  Mathias Thulmann - 00b

  C.L. Werner

  (An Undead Scan v1.5)

  This is a dark age, a bloody age, an age of daemons and of sorcery. It is an age of battle and death, and of the world’s ending. Amidst all of the fire, flame and fury it is a time, too, of mighty heroes, of bold deeds and great courage.

  At the heart of the Old World sprawls the Empire, the largest and most powerful of the human realms. Known for its engineers, sorcerers, traders and soldiers, it is a land of great mountains, mighty rivers, dark forests and vast cities. And from his throne in Altdorf reigns the Emperor Karl Franz, sacred descendant of the founder of these lands, Sigmar, and wielder of his magical warhammer.

  But these are far from civilised times. Across the length and breadth of the Old World, from the knightly palaces of Bretonnia to ice-bound Kislev in the far north, come rumblings of war. In the towering Worlds Edge Mountains, the orc tribes are gathering for another assault. Bandits and renegades harry the wild southern lands of the Border Princes. There are rumours of rat-things, the skaven, emerging from the sewers and swamps across the land. And from the northern wildernesses there is the ever-present threat of Chaos, of daemons and beastmen corrupted by the foul powers of the Dark Gods. As the time of battle draws ever near, the Empire needs heroes like never before.

  The door of the coaching inn was flung open with a loud bang, causing the denizens of the place to look up with varying degrees of alarm and surprise. The figure framed momentarily in the doorway was a brutish one, a head below average height but nearly twice as broad as most men. A leather hat with a wide brim was scrunched about his head, covering the blonde fuzz that clung to his skull. The brute’s face was full and meaty, a bulbous nose crushed in some long-ago brawl looming above an expansive mouth filled with black teeth. In one gloved fist, the man held a coiled whip; the other gripped the edge of the door.

  “Coach be leavin’ soon,” the harsh voice of the wagoner grunted. “Suggest you lot get yerselves organised.” With no further word, the hulking drover turned, stomping back out the door and slamming it closed as he left.

  “Wretched villain,” muttered one of the seated patrons of the inn’s bar-room. He was a middle-aged man, his body on the downward spiral towards obesity. His raiment was rich, more of his fingers burdened with bejeweled rings than without. “Why I should suffer such disrespect from that creature…”

  “Because, like the rest of us, you want to be in Nuln, and you want to be there quickly,” responded the man seated at the table just to the left of the complaining merchant. He was a tall, young, thin man, his striped breeches and double-breasted tunic as refined as the clothes of the merchant, though more restrained in their opulence. The bearded man with the long, gaunt face flipped over two of the small bone cards set upon the table, smiling as he saw the faces of the cards revealed.

  “And why are you in such a hurry, might I ask, Feldherrn?” the fat-faced merchant grumbled. “Surely there are pockets you have not yet picked in Stirland?”

  Feldherrn didn’t look up, continuing to turn over cards arrayed on the table before him, matching them into pairs and sets. “I don’t hold a knife to anyone’s throat. If a man loses the contents of his purse in my company, it is by his own carelessness. But I am sure that taking the silver of those drunkards who crawl into the bottles of vodka you caravan down from Kislev is a much more noble vocation, Steinmetz.” The gambler looked back at the merchant, then turned his gaze to the person seated beside the fat man. Steinmetz’s sullen glower at the gambler’s words turned into an open scowl as he noted the direction of his antagonist’s gaze.

  The woman seated beside Steinmetz was pretty, young and frail in build. Her skin displayed the pallor of the north country, the hue of Ostland and the Kislev frontier where the rays of the sun were weak and the hours of night were long. A flush of red coloured her face as the young girl noted the gambler’s attention. She smiled slightly, but the smile was quickly banished as Steinmetz gripped her forearm, his chubby fingers pinching her skin.

  “Ravna,” the merchant called, his tone sharp. A towering, broad-shouldered man rose from a stool set against the back wall of the room. Unlike the other occupants of the room, this man wore armour, steel back and breast plates encasing his torso and similar ones upon his legs and upper arms. The bodyguard marched toward Steinmetz, one callused hand resting easily on the pommel of the longsword sheathed at his side. Without rising from his own seat, Steinmetz pulled the girl to her feet as Ravna came near. “Escort Lydia to the coach,” Steinmetz ordered. “We are to be leaving soon.” With a dismissive flick of his hand, the merchant turned his smirking face back toward Feldherrn. The gambler gave Steinmetz a look that suggested indigestion.

  “Indeed, we should all be boarding that travelling termite circus,” rumbled the deep voice of the person seated at the table beside that of Feldherrn. The speaker was a dwarf, just under five feet in height, but broader of shoulder than most full grown men. A long, flowing black beard engulfed his face, only a bulbous nose and a pair of stony grey eyes emerging from the mass of hair. The dwarf tipped the clay stein he had been drinking from, draining the remaining two-thirds of the tankard in a single swallow. With a belch of satisfaction, the dwarf slammed the stein down and returned the rounded steel cap of his helmet to his head.

  “Revolting,” complained a voice both rich and husky. It belonged to a woman seated alone, nearer the door. Tall, her features even, too devoid of warmth and softness to properly be termed beautiful, the woman wore a travelling dress of rich green fabric, her gloves and boots trimmed with white ermine. Like the departed bodyguard, she wore a slender bladed sword at her side, but unlike the weapon of Ravna, the woman’s sword bore a gilded hilt and there were gems set into the pommel. The woman stared at the dwarf for a moment, then wrinkled her nose in distaste, putting such effort into the grimace that it set her chestnut-hued tresses bouncing about her face.

  “I must agree with you, Baroness von Raeder,” Steinmetz’s thick tones rolled from the fat man’s mouth. “Quite a disagreeable sight. To travel in the company of such crude creatures is more of a trial even than that loutish coachman. Why we must tolerate their kind in our lands…” The merchant cast a snide, condescending look at the dwarf. “They should all crawl back into their burrows in the mountains and stop pretending that they are men.” The dwarf glared back, clenching his fists until the knuckles began to whiten.

  “Hardly an enlightened statement,” Feldherrn commented, still intent upon his cards. “When we get to Nuln you might have a look at the walls, or perhaps the sewers. They have stood for centuries, and are as sturdy today as when they were first laid down by Fergrim’s ancestors,” The gambler looked up as he finished his speech. Fergrim Ironsharp nodded his head slightly in the gambler’s direction.

  “The walls and sewers are built,” Steinmetz grumbled. “We don’t need their kind anymore.”

  “I understood that Herr Ironsharp was to be an instructor at the engineering school?” the Baroness von Raeder commented.

  “That is so,” Fergrim said, turning to face the Baroness. “By invitation of your master engineers.” The dwarf smiled at the noblewoman. “I apologise if I offended you, my lady.” The dwarf bowed at the waist and clicked his heels together in the fashion of young officers of the Reiksguard presenting themselves in social situations. The Baroness smiled back at the dwarf engineer. Fergrim jabbed a finger over his shoulder to indicate Steinmetz. “Don’t mind him. He doesn’t like my people because we prefer good wholesome beer that puts meat on a person, not the poisonous bear-piss he b
rings down from the north.” Bowing again, and with a last malicious look at the merchant, Fergrim left the room. Steinmetz mumbled several colourful oaths about the dwarf’s tastes under his breath.

  “We should be going as well,” Feldherrn declared, rising from his chair and gathering up his cards. “Our coachmen look to be just the sort of villains who would leave us behind.” The gambler walked towards the door. As he walked near the noblewoman, he extended his arm. “Shall we repair to your carriage, Baroness?” Her hand lightly resting on Feldherrn’s arm, the noblewoman allowed the adventurer to escort her to the waiting coach.

  Steinmetz grumbled a few more coloured expressions as they left, waiting a full minute before rising to his own feet and making his own way outside.

  The coach stood just before the small roadside inn. It was a large, oak pannelled carriage with two massive stallions hitched to the yoke at its fore. Dark leather curtains enclosed the carriage itself, providing some insulation from the elements for the passengers within. The roof of the coach was laden down by the packs and luggage of the travellers, lashed into place by heavy ropes. A small iron seat had been folded out at the rear of the coach, a similarly tiny ladder allowing Fergrim to ascend to his position behind the carriage. The dwarf cast an appraising eye at several wooden boxes lashed atop the coach, each box bearing a single dwarf rune burned onto its surface, his keen gaze looking for any hint that they had been disturbed. The other passengers were seated within the carriage itself, awaiting the arrival of the merchant, Steinmetz.

  At the fore of the weathered, yet serviceable coach, a thin, spindly man sat upon the fur-lined bench within the driver’s box.

  The man’s features were somehow unpleasant, the cast of his face suggesting a furtive and calculating nature. Greasy locks of long dark hair streamed from beneath his feathered hat, disappearing into the collar of his heavy longcoat. The man’s skin was dirty, his thin moustaches displaying traces of bread crumbs and dried soup, his clothing grey with dust and flakes of mud. Yet despite his squalid bearing, three shiny earrings, each a wide hoop of gold, tugged at the lobe of his left ear.

  The sinister little coachman cast a sullen gaze at the door of the inn, then looked down from his seat to where the massive frame of his brutish partner stood beside the still open door of the carriage.

  “How long does that swine think to keep us waiting?” the coachman’s thin, weasely voice croaked, the words tinged by just the slightest hint of an accent. The coachman kept his voice low, so that the already embarked passengers would not hear his complaints.

  “That prig be thinkin’ ta be fashnably late,” the hulking wagoner grinned up at his partner, his paw clenching about the length of whip clasped in his hand.

  “It is a real pleasure to have someone of his like among our custom, eh, Herr Ocker?” the coachman hissed, a sly light in his eye.

  “Indeed it be, Herr Bersh,” the burly Ocker replied, smiling broadly as Steinmetz strolled casually from the inn, making it a point to display the lack of haste in his stride. “Indeed it be.”

  The coach was less than an hour out from the inn when there suddenly appeared a figure standing in the road ahead. Bresh and Ocker slowed the coach down, trying to take in the cut of the man who seemed to be waiting for them. The road wardens did not patrol this particular path too frequently and it would not be the first time they would have found themselves forced to drive off a highwayman. But as they drew closer, and more details became apparent, the wagoners found themselves wishing it was a mere brigand awaiting them.

  The lone man was dressed opulently: a scarlet shirt trimmed with gold thread, a long black cape trimmed with ermine. A tall, conical hat with a broad round rim rested atop his sharp-featured face. About his waist a dragonskin belt supported a pair of holstered pistols and a sheathed longsword. The man’s face was thin, a slender moustache beneath his dagger-like nose, a slight tuft of grey beard upon his chin. The grey eyes of the man were focused intently upon the coachmen, silently commanding them to stop.

  “Witch hunter!” swore Bresh, almost under his breath.

  “Ride ’im down,” suggested Ocker in a low hiss. But even as the man made the suggestion, a second man appeared on the road. Unlike the witch hunter, he was dressed shabbily, his worn leather armour struggling to contain his powerful build. The other man was mounted, leading a second horse. But it was not these details that attracted Ocker’s attention. It was the loaded crossbow in the second man’s hands and the murderous twinkle in his eyes that suggested he would dearly love an excuse to use the weapon.

  The coach slowed to a stop as Bresh reined in the horses. A muffled protest as to the stop rose from the carriage but the coachman ignored the complaint.

  “How can we help you, templar?” Bresh called down in what he hoped was his most affable voice.

  The witch hunter’s cool eyes washed over the coachman for a moment. “I have need of passage,” his sharp voice said. “My horse has thrown a shoe.” Bresh and Ocker looked over to note the second animal being led by the mounted crossbowman. “It is fortunate that you happened along.” The witch hunter strode towards the side of the coach.

  “I would normally be most happy to aid a noble servant of mighty Sigmar…” Bresh began to say. In midsentence, the witch hunter opened the door of the carriage and began to climb in.

  “I am very happy to hear it,” the witch hunter observed. “It would be a much better realm if everyone observed their duties to Sigmar so well.” So saying, the man disappeared into the coach. Ocker began to climb from the box to protest in a more forcible fashion, but a second glance at the witch hunter’s mounted companion convinced him to reconsider.

  “You can continue now,” the witch hunter said, then withdrew his head back into the carriage. Bresh grumbled and flicked the reins, commanding the horses to gallop forward. The witch hunter’s companion fell in behind the coach, still leading the other animal.

  “Well, that fixes things,” snarled Bresh in a low voice.

  “Khaine take me if’n it do,” swore Ocker. “That fat pig got more on ’im then we seen sin’ Mittherbst! An that dwarf is alwayz fuss’n bout that cargo uv ’is.” The Ostlander twisted his face into a greedy smile. “I figger that’ll turn morn’ a few groats.”

  “But the witch hunter…” protested Bresh.

  “Yer friends ’ll deal wiv ’im,” Ocker stated. “Like dey alwayz done before.”

  Within the carriage, the witch hunter took a seat, forcing Baroness von Raeder to shift her position closer toward the gambler Feldherrn. The templar removed his hat and smiled thinly at his fellow passengers.

  “My name is Mathias Thulmann,” he said. “Ordained witch hunter in the service of the most high Temple of Sigmar.” The introduction did little to warm the cool atmosphere within the carriage. Thulmann’s next words made the carriage positively icy. “We have a long ride ahead of us. Perhaps we might pass the time by getting to know each other. Now tell me: who are you, where do you come from and what are you doing?”

  It was late in the day when the coach emerged from the embrace of the ominous sprawl of the forest. Ahead of the travellers lay a small hollow of rolling land. Once there might have been lush fields and pastures claiming the open ground, but now it was given over to wild grass and squat thorny bushes. Here and there the remains of a stone wall or a lone chimney jutted up from the grass, the only forlorn evidence that this place had once known the hand of man.

  As the coach made its way along a narrow, barely visible path that wound its way through the rolling heights and deep depressions in the hollow, a dark cluster of buildings slowly became visible. For a space, the settlement would disappear from view as the wagon’s path took it into some low indentation in the valley floor or it rounded some small hillock. But always it became visible once more, visible but indistinct, like a mirage flickering across the horizon. Within the carriage each passenger quietly wondered what breed of men would mark out such a lonely and isolated a spot for
their habitation.

  Then the coach rounded one final hill and, as if some conjurer had suddenly torn away one last obscuring veil, the town loomed before them. A mass of roofs were visible, rising above a clustered mass of buildings, strewn about like litter. The roofs were in ill repair, timbers sticking through long rotten thatching like broken bones thrust through skin. The empty bell tower of a shrine rose above all else, all the more wretched for its diminished sanctity.

  A timber gate stood before the cluster of buildings, the doors open, their panels sagging in their crude iron frames, warped by the forces of wind and rain. A small rectangle of wood dangled from a rusting chain, barely discernible letters burnt into the sign.

  “Mureiste? What manner of name is that?” wondered the Baroness as she read the faded letters.

  “Sounds like some foreign doggerel,” snorted Steinmetz, grimacing as though from a foul odour.

  “It is Sylvanian,” stated the witch hunter, his voice low, filled with suspicion.

  “Sylvanian?” gasped Lydia, her eyes going wide with sudden alarm, a delicate hand clutching at her throat. Her skin paled to an even more marble-like hue as the innumerable nightmare tales of horror originating from the blighted former province wormed their way at once to the forefront of her mind. Beside her, the bloated fingers of Steinmetz fumbled to form a crude mark of Sigmar.

  “But why in the name of Ranald would we be anywhere near Sylvania?” asked Feldherrn, his own face becoming suspicious.

  “Indeed,” observed Thulmann. “It is a curious road that leads to Nuln in the south-west by taking its travellers north-east.”

  The coach continued on into the town. The buildings, seen close up, were indeed as dilapidated as they seemed from afar. Many of the mudbrick hovels had all but collapsed, great holes pitting their walls, thatch roofs fallen in, doors lying amid weeds and brambles. The wooden structures leaned like drunken men, looking as if they might topple onto their sides at any instant. And yet, as ramshackle as they were, to the witch hunter’s keen gaze, alarming incongruities presented themselves. Some of the buildings bore marks of crude unskilled repair, dried mud pushed into holes, fresh grass and branches thrown upon a thatched roof. Decayed and forsaken the town of Mureiste might be, but there were signs that it was not abandoned.