[Mathias Thulmann 00b] - Meat Wagon Read online

  The coach came to a stop in what once must have been the town square of Mureiste. At its centre, the remains of a once heroic statue stood upon a weed choked stone pillar. The dreary facades of shops and a two-storied guild-hall considered the decayed champion with dark, gaping windows. One side of the square was dominated by a temple, the bronze hammer icon drooping from its steeple proclaiming it as having once been devoted to Sigmar. Alone among the rotting structures of Mureiste, the temple was constructed from stone, great granite blocks that must have been transported at great expense through forest and hollow.

  Bresh shared a knowing look with Ocker, then slid back the small wooden window at the rear of the driver’s box to speak to the passengers within the carriage.

  “Just a short rest stop,” the coachman assured his passengers. “This is the last fresh water for some distance. We shall see to the horses, then we’ll be on our way again.”

  His reassuring smile faded as he saw the barrel of Thulmann’s pistol rise from the compartment and point at his face.

  “If either of you scoundrels makes a move to drop from that box,” Thulmann’s voice hissed, “you will have the distinctly unpleasant experience of having your brains blown out of the back of your skull.”

  Bresh froze under the witch hunter’s threat, the only motion in his entire frame limited to a pleading sidewise glance at his partner. Ocker slowly pulled the wide-mouthed musket from its place at the side of the bench, well beyond the limited vision of those within the carriage.

  “I shouldn’t do that,” snarled a harsh voice from beside the coach. Ocker’s hand froze against the frame of the firearm. He looked over at the mounted ruffian who had accompanied the witch hunter. A heavy crossbow was held in Streng’s hands, the bolt aimed at the Ostlander’s midsection. “Breathe in a fashion I dislike and I’ll split your belly.”

  From his position at the back of the coach, Fergrim Ironsharp stood upon the metal seat, trying to peer over the top of the carriage to see what was unfolding before him. The dwarf craned his neck one way then another trying to see past the barrier of boxes and crates. Then he whipped his neck around, staring at the decayed buildings around the coach. His sharp eyes, excelling at piercing the dark like all of his tunnel dwelling kind, discerned motion within the blackened doorway of an old tanner’s shop. Fergrim noticed more motion in the dark recess of an alley, seeing two indistinct figures lurking within the mouth of the shadowy lane. The dwarf licked his suddenly dry mouth. There was something disturbing about those shapes, something unnatural.

  “I don’t think we’re alone,” Fergrim declared, but his words did not reach down into the compartment below. The dwarf continued to watch as the shadowy figures began to multiply. Again he muttered an unheard warning.

  Suddenly, from the darkness of a dozen doorways, from the shadows filling alley and lane, horrible shapes loped into the fading light. Each was lean, pale skin stretched tight over lanky limbs and wasted bellies, tattered mockeries of garments draped about loins or cast over shoulders. Long claws tipped each of the creatures’ hands, talons more suited to a vulture than anything resembling a man. The faces of each were drawn, the heads bald, long noses perched above wide, fanged mouths. Beady red eyes glared from the pits of each face, burning with an overwhelming hunger. With a low moan-like howl, the loathsome throng began to sprint toward the coach.

  “Hashut’s bald beard!” screamed Fergrim, ripping his throwing axe from his belt, knuckles whitening over the haft of the blade. This time the dwarf’s shout could not fail to be heard and the leather curtains were pushed aside, the occupants of the coach screaming their own cries of horror as they saw the fiendish host emptying from the ruinous streets of Mureiste.

  At the front of the coach, Streng looked away from Ocker, the witch hunter’s henchman staring in disbelief as the twisted inhabitants of Mureiste howled and wailed in unholy hunger. A slight movement from the driver’s box brought Streng whipping around and he fired the bolt from his crossbow just as Ocker was levelling the musket towards him and drawing back the hammer. The bolt smashed into the villain’s belly and the Ostlander gave vent to a loud scream of agony. He fell from the driver’s box, landing partially underneath the coach. As Ocker’s body hit the ground, the musket still held in his hands was discharged by the violent impact with the ground.

  The thunderous boom of the firearm caused the stallions to spring into a terrified gallop. The animals sprinted forward, pulling the carriage after them. The rear wheels of the coach passed over the legs of Ocker, and a fresh scream rang from the wagoner’s lungs as the bones were pulverised under the tremendous weight. At the rear of the coach, Fergrim was jostled, nearly falling from his seat. The axe fell from the dwarf’s hands as his stubby fingers assumed a death-grip on the frame of the roof. Fergrim risked a look over his shoulder, blanching as he saw the first twisted creatures reaching towards him, their claws pawing at the empty air in a desperate effort to rend his flesh.

  The speed of the terrified horses soon outdistanced the creatures that had converged upon the rear of the coach. But other twisted monstrosities gathered in the path of the carriage. Atop the driver’s box, Bresh was vainly attempting to get some measure of control over his animals. The stallions plowed into the first of the degenerate things, crushing three of them beneath their hooves. Another of the monsters sprang at the wagon, clinging to the panels like a great spider. The beast’s twisted face peered in through the window, drool dangling from its jaws. Lydia screamed as the hideous thing’s eyes focused upon her.

  The Baroness was not so distressed, leaning back in her seat and smashing her boot into the grinning monstrosity’s face. The malformed thing howled anew as the violence of the woman’s kick caused it to lose its grip on the coach and its body was crushed under the wheels.

  Bresh was trying to steer the coach away, out of the blighted village. Everything had gone wrong this time, they should never have come here. He should never have let Ocker talk him into bringing the coach here after they had picked up the witch hunter. As he turned the wagon still once more, he saw yet another lane choked with thin, hungry shapes. Bresh cursed once more, slipping into the seldom used words of his native tongue. They should never have come here before dark. He cursed Ocker once more, and as if summoned up by his words, the coachman saw a pile of bones and blood lying upon the ground, a pile of bones and blood wearing the Ostlander’s face. The denizens of Mureiste were indeed hungry this night.

  “Make for the temple,” a harsh voice snarled through the window at the back of the box. “If you don’t, we’re all dead!” Bresh swore once again, then directed the horses toward the looming stone structure. The stallions were breathing hard now, bleeding from dozens of cuts, filthy black wounds caused by the claws of the deformed monsters. Bresh knew that they would not last much longer. Cracking the whip mercilessly, he drove the failing animals onward, toward the shrine. The animals almost made it.

  One of the lead horses failed a dozen yards from the temple, dropping instantly as its heart was stilled by the poison working through its veins. The momentum of the coach and the sudden violent stop caused it to crash onto its side, snapping the yoke, freeing the remaining stallion to drag its dead comrade a few dozen paces before it too staggered and fell. As the coach crashed, a tiny figure was thrown upwards, rocketing ahead of the wagon and crashing into the short flight of steps that led to the rickety wooden doors. The wagon itself continued onward, plowing across the ground, its momentum pushing it forward. Bresh, with an almost inhuman agility, had leaped atop the carriage as it turned over, clutching to the now topmost side, riding the destroyed coach like a child upon a sled.

  Fergrim Ironsharp rolled onto his back, groaning loudly, trying to force the sparks to stop dancing before his eyes. As his vision cleared, the dwarf muttered another curse, watching as the mammoth shape of the coach slid towards him. He braced himself for the crushing impact, throwing his arms before his face. After a moment, he peered through his arm
s. A great cloud of dust was billowing all about him, and in the centre of the dust cloud, he could see the shape of the coach, ground to a halt so near to him, that the dwarf could reach out and touch the splintered remains of the driver’s box.

  Atop the coach, Bresh began to laugh, overwhelmed to have survived the ordeal. The coachman lifted himself, began to slide down to the ground, when a hand closed about his ankle, causing his descent to turn into a fall. The coachman groaned, grasping at his twisted foot. As he turned his eyes upward, he saw the door of the carriage open and the dishevelled form of the witch hunter pull himself from the wreckage. His pistol was gone, but a longsword was gripped purposefully in his hands. Thulmann glared down at the injured Bresh, murder in his eyes.

  “Hurry up, Mathias!” shouted a voice from the doorway of the temple. Streng stood at the top of the steps, his crossbow gripped in his hands. “They’ve nearly finished fighting over the horses. They’ll be on us next!”

  Mathias Thulmann dropped to the ground, landing beside Bresh. “I have half a mind to leave you for the ghouls,” his harsh tones hissed. The witch hunter gripped the front of the coachman’s tunic, pulling him painfully to his feet. “But there is a rope waiting for you,” Thulmann snarled. “Scum such as you is for hanging.” The witch hunter pushed Bresh ahead of him, following after the coachman’s hobbling steps.

  Behind them, other figures were slowly, painfully, emerging from the wreckage. First the Baroness, lifted from below by powerful hands. The woman perched atop the coach for a moment, then slid down to the ground, a glance at the nearness of the ghouls lending haste to her feet. Even as the next occupant of the carriage pulled himself through the door, the noblewoman was already sprinting into the temple, skirts lifted about her knees.

  By some miracle of fate, none of the occupants of the carriage appeared to have sustained more than bruises. In short order, the other passengers were free of the wreck, the bulky merchant Steinmetz coming last of all, pulled from the compartment by his burly bodyguard, Ravna. The fat-faced vodka seller froze as he saw the lean, hungry figures rising from their dinner of horseflesh. Faces crimson with gore turned in his direction. For a moment, man and ghoul stared at one another in silence. Then the moment passed. The ghoul’s gory mouth dropped open, a howl escaping its wasted frame. As though it were a call to arms, the sound brought dozens of the creatures to their feet. Soon a mob of the emaciated fiends was sprinting toward the overturned coach.

  “Sigmar’s holy hammer,” Steinmetz stammered as his bowels emptied. Ravna tugged at his employer’s arm, trying to get him to move. But the obese man was frozen to the spot, eyes fixed on the quickly advancing horde. Finally, the bodyguard pushed Steinmetz from the top of the wreck. The bulky merchant struck the ground with his shoulder, grunting with pain. He looked about him, as if the impact had snapped him back to reality. A girlish wail rose from his lungs and, with a speed which seemed impossible for a man of his decadent build, he ran for the open doors of the temple.

  Ravna was right behind the fat man, leaping down from his perch even as the obese man struck earth. The mercenary saw Fergrim sitting at the base of the steps, the dwarf still trying to shake some sense back into his skull after his flight from the back of the coach. Ravna cast a beefy arm about Fergrim’s waist, lifting the heavy dwarf from the ground. The bodyguard cast a glance over his shoulder, eyes going wide with horror as he saw a gaunt shape scrabbling over the coach.

  “A poor place to gather your thoughts, master engineer,” the mercenary commented, leaping across the steps two at a time in his haste to reach the sanctuary of the temple. A pair of ghouls raced after him, snarling and snapping like feral dogs. As Ravna and his heavy burden reached the top of the steps, one of the ghouls let out a cry of pain, spinning about and crashing back down the stairs, a crossbow bolt lodged in its ribs. The other ghoul clawed at the bodyguard with its talons, ropes of gory drool dangling from its jaws. The claws scraped across Ravna’s backplate, scratching the metal but failing to harm the man within. The ghoul was not so fortunate, as a thin sword blade pierced its side. Ravna raced past Feldherrn as the gambler freed his blade from the dying ghoul. Feldherrn cast a single look at the dozen or so other monsters racing toward the steps and hurried after the mercenary.

  The wooden doors slammed shut behind Feldherrn, almost in the very face of the foremost of the ghouls. Streng and Baroness von Raeder put their full weight into the effort of holding the doors shut. Feldherrn quickly sheathed his own sword and pounced upon the heavy bronze-bound doors just as they began to inch inward. Ravna set Fergrim down on one of the pews that littered the ramshackle chamber of worship. The dwarf snorted as he was set down. The mercenary looked over at the pale figure of Lydia.

  “See if you can do anything for him,” Ravna snapped at the girl, racing toward the doors to help hold them against the hungry mob of cannibals outside. He did not spare a second glance at Steinmetz, cowering behind an old podium, muttering a long overdue prayer for absolution of his many moral failings.

  The doors threatened to open once again as the weight and frenzy of the ghouls nearly overcame the strength of the four people desperately trying to keep the barrier closed.

  “You know, I once escaped from the Reiksfang prison,” Feldherrn said, his voice loud to be heard over the clamour of the ghouls. “Suddenly having my head separated from my shoulders by Judge Vaulkberg’s ogre doesn’t seem such a bad way to go.”

  Streng adjusted his feet to lend more strength to his upper body even as he chuckled at the gambler’s gallows humour. As the professional torturer cast his eyes toward the gambler, he saw a figure in scarlet and black walking toward them from the inner reaches of the hall.

  “Lend a hand, Mathias,” the henchman grunted. For reply, the witch hunter drew his remaining pistol. Thulmann advanced upon the embattled doorway. Sighting a hole in the wood, he stuck the barrel of the pistol to it, pulling the trigger. A loud howl of pain sounded from beyond the door and the pressure against the portal faded away almost at once. The witch hunter favoured the four people holding the door with a smile and calmly holstered the smoking weapon.

  “That should keep them back for a little while, but I suggest you break up a few of these pews and reinforce that door. When the sun fully sets, I think we can expect them to try again,” Thulmann turned about, his black cape swirling about him. “Sigmar will understand the need. You’ll find some nails in the cleric’s cell. There is also a window behind the altar and a side door next to the storeroom. I suggest you barricade those as well before our friends outside remember them.” The witch hunter began to stalk away.

  “And just what are you going to be doing?” demanded the Baroness.

  “Interrogating my prisoner,” Thulmann replied without turning around.

  Bresh was tied hand and foot, lying upon the floor of the old priest’s cell at the back of the temple. Thulmann had taken the leather thongs from the saddlebags of Streng’s horse, both the henchman’s and the witch hunter’s animals having been brought into the temple along with the thuggish hireling.

  The coachman was struggling against his bonds, trying to worm his wrists free when he heard the dreaded stomp of the witch hunter’s boots. Bresh looked up from the floor, flinching slightly as he saw Thulmann’s scowling face.

  “Not one of your better days, I imagine,” the witch hunter sneered. He made an elaborate show of removing a number of steel needles from a pouch on his belt, then leaned down toward the terrified man. Thulmann favoured the villain with a cruel smile. “Have you ever heard the old proverb that evil will always reveal itself?” Bresh was sweating now, the salty liquid causing dirt to slip from his face. “It is only by chance that we happened upon your nasty little racket. My friend and I were trying to find a petty noble whose misdeeds warranted the attention of the Temple. We thought we might be able to pick up his trail again if we followed the stage route he used to escape Carlsbruck.”

  Thulmann leaned forward, stabbing one of the
needles into the coachman’s hand. Bresh snarled in pain, a litany of curses slipping from his lips. The witch hunter nodded his head as the foreign vulgarities continued to stream from the rogue’s mouth.

  “I thought so,” Thulmann mused. “You had a certain look about you beneath that grime. I thought at first you might be a Sylvanian under all that filth. Thank you for correcting me.” The witch hunter began to replace the needles into their pouch. “I was wondering how you two cut-throats managed your vile scheme. The good citizens of Mureiste make a meal of your passengers, and you two divvy up their valuables. That is the arrangement, is it not, swine?” Thulmann smashed the toe of his boot into the trussed thief’s side.

  “You’ll never leave this place alive!” swore Bresh, spitting at Thulmann. The witch hunter wiped the spittle from the front of his scarlet and gold shirt, then kicked his captive again.

  “You were nervous about me being along for the ride,” Thulmann continued. “You rushed things. We were supposed to arrive later, after the sun had set, after your other partner was around to keep the ghouls under control.”

  “The Master will kill you, witchfinder!”

  Thulmann smiled back at Bresh. “We’ll see about that. This was a temple of Sigmar, and unless someone had a chance to desanctify it, it is still holy ground. That gives me an edge over your ‘master’, Strigany.”

  Bresh rolled onto his back, sneering at his captor. “Your Sigmar won’t help you! The Master will drain your body and toss the husk to the ghouls!”