[Mathias Thulmann 01] - Witch Hunter Read online

  The necromancer let the small object fall to the floor with a metallic ping.

  Carandini walked ahead of his zombies, willing them to bring the bodies into the living room. It would be much easier to perform the ritual over all the bodies at once. The little boy began to cry again in the necromancer’s arms.

  Carandini set him down, smiling at the dirty-faced blond child. The child’s face was dripping with tears and a thin stream of snot dangled from his nose.

  “Now then,” the necromancer said, “don’t cry so.” His eyes lit up, and he let a false enthusiasm spring into his tone. “You know, I might have something for you if you’re good and quiet.” He took a few dried berries and a tiny glass vial from a pouch on his belt.

  So utterly predictable, these men of the Empire, Carandini thought as the boy stuffed the berries into his mouth. That was why his confederate’s ploy was unnecessary. Because the witch hunter would not be escaping the trap Carandini had set for him.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The witch hunter shut the heavy wood-bound volume closed with a crash, pushing it across the table from him in disgust. He reached to his face, pulling away the tiny pair of pince-nez reading glasses he had adopted upon beginning his labour and rubbed his eyes, then snatched up the cup of now-cold tea a servant had brought to the library some hours ago.

  The witch hunter made a sour face as the drink chilled his lips, cursing once more whatever thrice-damned sadist had constructed Klausner Keep. He could imagine a Kislevite kossar catching a cold within the gloomy damp of the fortress, with its infinite drafts and omnipresent chill. It had been a steady struggle to keep warm, and several times he had pondered casting some particularly uninformative volume into the hearth to augment the sparse heat being generated there. It had been a tedious vigil, delving into the massive collection of portfolios, books and uncollected manuscripts through the small hours of the morning and on until now, somewhere beyond the dreary walls, the sun was at its full height.

  The sound caused the head resting on the other side of the table to shoot up, Gregor Klausner sputtering in surprise. The young noble cast an ashamed look over at the witch hunter.

  “I am sorry, Herr Thulmann,” he said, trying to stifle a yawn. “I must have dozed off for a moment.”

  “Yes,” sighed Thulmann, pulling another massive old history toward him and flinging the cover open. “You did,” he said, eyes locked upon the coarse yellow paper, “about four hours ago.”

  Gregor looked at the witch hunter, his face incredulous. “Four hours?” He reached toward one of the cups, recoiling when he discovered that the tea had gone cold. “Did I miss anything?”

  The witch hunter kept his eyes on the pages before him. “Streng ran out of questionable wood cuts about the time you took your nap and left, most likely to avail himself of the wine cellar or a chamber maid, whichever he happened upon first. Then about an hour ago Ivar Kohl returned, quite pleased with himself, though that quickly passed when I told him I wouldn’t be needing to see the scene of the latest murder since I had already been there.”

  “I should have thought he’d have told my father and had you removed from the keep,” commented Gregor.

  “Perhaps he was too tired,” Thulmann answered, an uncertain quality to his voice. “Of course, with somebody as duplicitous as your father’s steward, I doubt his motives are quite so simple. Still, he’s let me alone.”

  Gregor rose from his chair, walking around the table to glance down at the book Thulmann was perusing. The young noble’s brow knitted as he tried to decipher the scrawl.

  “The career of Gustav Klausner, head of your line about three hundred years ago,” the witch hunter informed him. “Volume eight of sixteen,” he added in a weary grumble.

  “Have you found anything that might be of help?”

  Thulmann looked up from the book, closing the ponderous volume. An ironic smile tugged at his face. He lifted a thick pile of parchment sheets from the tabletop. “My notes,” he informed Gregor. “Your family has quite a colourful history, as you might imagine.” He let the papers drop back to the table, rubbing his eyes again. Gregor leaned forward and read what the witch hunter had written.

  “Renzo Helder, Hierophant of Nuln; Detlef-Erich von Engelstoss, the Ghoul-lord; Faustine Kurtz, the Black Witch…”

  “It reads like a roll-call of the chamber of horrors in Marienburg,” the witch hunter told him. He pointed his finger at the volumes strewn about the table and the nearby floor. “One could hardly accuse your ancestors of being idle.”

  Thulmann took his notes from Gregor, leafing through them. “I’ve tried to eliminate a lot of the chaff. We know that the foul art of necromancy is involved, so I have concentrated my efforts on that arena, eliminating such villains as…” Thulmann glanced over the top sheet, picking one of the names he had written down and then crossed out, “Grey Seer Kripsnik. One of your father’s investigations. Then there are the ones whom we know to be dead,” he rummaged through the notes again, choosing another name he had drawn a line through. “For instance, Giselbrandt Vogheim, one of the disciples of the late and unlamented Great Enchanter. They still have his skull on public display at the temple of Morr in Carroburg.” The witch hunter shook his head and sighed. “Even so, there are fifty-seven names on my little list.”

  “Surely we could eliminate the older names,” observed Gregor. He gave voice to a soft laugh as he picked up the heavy tome Thulmann had been perusing. “I mean, is it really necessary to go back three hundred years to put a name to our fiend?”

  “It might be,” Thulmann informed him, his voice carrying a sense of deadly seriousness. “The filthy art of necromancy has at its heart a twisted search for immortality, and it is a testament to the power and twisted genius of some who practise that art that they can extend their lives well beyond the span granted to them by the gods. Some can even bind their spirits to their bodies after death and motivate their own corpses into a gruesome parody of life.” Thulmann smiled thinly at the young noble. “Who can say how long such a creature might harbour a grudge, and your ancestors have certainly crossed the path of more than a few of them.” He lifted the notes again.

  “For instance, your grandfather was responsible for bringing down the profane Nehekharan vulture god cult established by the deranged wizard Tefnakht in Averheim. While he did succeed in bringing Sigmar’s justice to the sorcerer, he himself was not satisfied that all of Tefnakht’s followers had been captured. Your great grandfather made battle with a creature calling itself Khanzhik Vasalov somewhere near the Kislev border. His account relates that he took all the necessary precautions in disposing of the creature, but one can never be entirely certain with vampires.”

  The witch hunter ruffled through his notes again. “We might even go so far back as the progenitor of your line, Helmuth Klausner, who relates that he destroyed a vampire calling itself Sibbechai in the cursed city of Mordheim over five hundred years ago.” Thulmann set the pages down.

  “Even your father has his share of skeletons in his history,” he told Gregor. “He tracked down the vile Enoch Silber in Helmsgart, although that loathsome individual escaped before he could be burned at the stake for his crimes.”

  Thulmann paused, recalling his own encounter with the insane “Corpse Collector” in the catacombs beneath Talabheim. The witch hunter still shuddered at the recollection of the madman’s collection of “bits and pieces’, each crawling or screaming with an unnatural vitality. Silber was not Thulmann’s best choice, being far too demented for the care and craft he had seen exhibited by the mind behind the Klausberg crimes, yet he was not a possibility the witch hunter wanted to dismiss out of hand. “Then we have his encounter with the necromancer Dragan Radic, who was discovered looting old barrow mounds in Sylvania. There is an interesting fact that escaped your father, although he hung Radic, there have been recent reports of the necromancer being seen in the Ostermark.”

  Thulmann shook his head again. “Any one of the
se disgusting creatures might be behind your district’s affliction. Or none of them, I have only just scratched the surface of your family’s history. As you well know, it was common practice for all the Klausner men to offer their service to the temple.”

  Gregor turned away. “Yes,” he sighed, “a tradition which my father has broken with. He has forbidden either of us to follow that tradition. He fears that by serving the temple we will somehow invite great tragedy upon ourselves.”

  When Gregor turned back around he found the witch hunter staring at him intently. “For myself, I would like to serve, to become a champion of Sigmar and purge this land of the forces of the Old Night. It would somehow give me a sense of worth, make me feel that I truly deserve to inherit the family fortune and the right to wear the name of Klausner.”

  “And your brother?” Thulmann said, his voice low.

  “I think he resents my father’s edict even more than 1,” Gregor told him. “Anton has always lived his life under a shadow. Mine, I am afraid. He’s lived his life knowing that everything he saw, everything he touched, would one day be inherited by me. I imagine that makes him feel somehow less important than me, as if he didn’t matter as much. Becoming a witch hunter would have given him purpose, made him feel that he had worth and value.”

  “And yet, if anything, your brother is more eager to please your father than you are,” Thulmann pointed out. Gregor conceded the issue.

  “Yes, and he has always done so,” he said. “Anton has always tried to impress my father, in whatever way he can. He might not like my father’s edict, but he would never question him about it.”

  The door of the library suddenly swung inward, causing both men to turn around in alarm, Thulmann’s hand sliding toward the pistol resting beside his papers on the table. Standing in the doorway was a grimy, flush-faced man wearing a tunic of studded leather over his stained breeches and shirt. Streng grinned through his unkempt beard.

  “Sorry to disturb you, Mathias,” he said, hooking his thumbs in his belt. “Thought you might be interested to know that our friend struck again last night.” Streng’s smile grew broader as he elaborated. “It seems our foe is getting bolder. They wiped out an entire household this time.”

  “What?” exclaimed Gregor, shock and fury filling his voice. Thulmann motioned for the young noble to be silent.

  “Where did this happen?” the witch hunter asked. “And how did you come to hear of it?”

  “Not far from here,” the mercenary answered. “Only a short ride. Heard about it from one of his,” Streng pointed a finger at the young Klausner, “brother’s bully boys’

  “Well, that answers our questions about why Kohl was content to leave me here,” Thulmann said in disgust. “They must have discovered this atrocity last night.”

  “Could be,” agreed Streng. “But shouldn’t we go and have a look anyway?” There was a note of enthusiasm in the thug’s voice.

  “Kohl might have overlooked something of value,” Thulmann said after a moment of thought. “In any event, we shall be no worse off than we are now.” He looked over at Gregor Klausner. “I imagine that you want to come as well?”

  “Try and stop me,” Gregor told him, the lisp stretching his words. Thulmann studied the determination, the smouldering outrage in the young noble.

  “Then let us be on our way” Thulmann said.

  * * * * *

  Beneath the shelter of the few rotting beams that were the last remains of the old cottage’s roof, Carandini sat, his gleaming eyes focused upon the grisly object he had set upon the ground. It was a noxious thing, a large preserved hand.

  The withered claw was wrapped round with dirty grey-green cloth, upon which the faintest outlines of script could still be seen. It was old almost beyond belief; the man to whom it had belonged in life had been born well before even Sigmar had walked the lands of men. There was the blackest of sorcery about the claw, both in the fell magics that had preserved it down through the ages and the lingering power of the spirit of the man to whom it had originally belonged. Mighty had the vanquished tomb king Nehb-ka-Menthu been in life, and some of that power remained in his severed hand.

  Carandini stirred from his half-sleep as the claw began to twitch. The necromancer leaned forward, staring intently as the limb began to move.

  The spirit of Nehb-ka-Menthu was still tethered to his hand, trapped between the worlds of death and life, even that of unlife. It could see far beyond the mortal world, even into the ancient past or the unwritten future at times. And what that spirit saw, the hand could relate.

  Carandini had dipped the fingers of the claw in ink before setting the ethereal spirit of the old tomb king to watch over the farm house he had visited the previous night. It would watch and wait, reporting all those who came and went.

  The necromancer stared as the claw began to scratch its picture-script upon the sheets of human skin that Carandini had set beside it on the ground. The necromancer was attentive to remove each sheet as they filled up with the claw’s observations, so that the ghoulish oracle might have a fresh page upon which to write.

  Carandini smiled as he read the hieroglyphs. The prey was almost in the trap.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The house was fairly nondescript on the outside, like so many other half-timbered structures that dotted the countryside throughout the Empire. A small number of log outbuildings and a barn with a thatched roof completed the small compound. The log fence that surrounded the buildings had clearly been neglected, tied together by bundles of rope and twine in places where the ground had given way, sagging forward in awkward angles in others.

  As Thulmann’s party rode toward the small farm, the witch hunter spied a half-dozen horses tethered to a hitching rail between the buildings. A number of men exited the structure as the witch hunter approached. At their head was Anton Klausner.

  “You have the nose of a vulture,” Anton said as the witch hunter rode through the gate. “We only just found this place ourselves.”

  “Then you must have spent a fair time riding circles around this place,” Thulmann stated, having seen the poached earth left behind by the hooves of Anton’s men’s horses. Whatever tracks there might have been to follow, Anton and his men had obliterated them, trying to impair the witch hunter’s own hunt. Clearly, the tracking skills of Anton’s group had not yielded any great success, leading the frustrated nobleman back to the farmstead.

  “How bad is it?” Gregor asked, his face drawn with concern. Anton sneered up at his brother.

  “Not a man, woman or child left alive,” he declared. “He even killed the Brustholz’s little dog. This is certain to stir up the village this time. They might even turn on our friend the witch hunter,” Anton hissed. “People are so very fond of… dogs.” The brute chuckled, gesturing for his followers to mount.

  “I grow tired of what passes for your wit,” Thulmann warned the brash ruffian as he climbed into his saddle. “And I’ll not tolerate any further interference from yourself and Kohl.”

  “It is you who is interfering,” Anton snapped coldly. “This is my father’s land and it is his job to defend it!”

  “These lands are still a part of Sigmar’s Empire,” Thulmann retorted in a voice every bit as devoid of warmth. “You and your father might remember that.”

  “When the messenger my father dispatched to Altdorf speaks with your superiors, it is you who will be reminded of your place,” Anton warned. He whipped his horse’s head about with a savage tug of the reins and spurred his steed into a gallop. His comrades quickly followed his example, thundering out of the gates in his wake. Thulmann watched the horsemen disappear down the muddy path.

  “You know,” Streng commented, looking askance at Gregor, “I am really starting to not like your brother.”

  Mathias Thulmann dismounted, tying his horse’s reins to a fence. The witch hunter cast his gaze across the compound. There was no sign of life, not even a single chicken or goose. He would have expected
the animals to remain, bound by habit to the place despite the death of their owners. However, if these deaths were indeed the work of the fiend he sought, then perhaps the animals had sensed the unnatural nature of the events and been frightened into flight.

  He knew that it was not uncommon for dogs to sense the workings of sorcery, and not unheard of for lower animals to also be disturbed by lingering traces of magic.

  Thulmann withdrew one of his pistols from its holster as Gregor and Streng dismounted. He looked over at the two men, his eyes lost in shadow beneath the brim of his hat. “Be on your guard,” he cautioned them. “There is something not right here.”

  Gregor nodded his own understanding, checking that his sword was loose in its scabbard. Streng simply grinned, pulling his crossbow from its sheath on his saddle.

  “Expecting trouble?” the warrior asked, an eager note to his speech.

  “fust keep an eye open,” Thulmann told him, striding toward the house.

  The front door had been battered from its hinges, lying upon the earthen floor just inside the threshold. It was a fitting precursor to the scene of destruction and horror that occupied the room beyond. Furnishings, meagre and fragile to begin with, had been toppled and destroyed, wooden tables and chairs crushed and shattered in a mindless rage, clay pots and jars broken to shards that crunched underfoot as the witch hunter strode into the room. But it was the sight at the centre of the room that arrested their attention.

  The bodies had been piled like cordwood, stacked in a precise and cold manner that was utterly at odds with the reckless destruction that surrounded them. All wore their nightshirts, their exposed skin pale and tinged with a sickening purple hue. Vacant eyes stared out from rigid faces that were locked in the last grimace of some agony, their hands contorted into frozen claws.