[Mathias Thulmann 01] - Witch Hunter Read online

  “No,” he protested. “I have told you I would not let this evil touch my sons. That is why I forbade them to become witch hunters, forbade them to continue the hunt for Sibbechai. I felt that if the vampire was let alone, if the monster was not hounded and if… other measures… were taken, it would have no reason to menace this house any longer.” Wilhelm’s eyes shone with a desperate eagerness. “Don’t you see? This was to be the last time there would be any reason to perform the ritual! I was going to bring the shameful tradition to an end!”

  “By making peace with an undead monster who lusts after the death of the world?” Thulmann sneered. His eyes narrowed as he fixed upon the subject Wilhelm was trying to avoid. “How did Helmuth learn this loathsome ritual? What was the source of his knowledge?” The old patriarch looked away, refusing to speak.

  “I will find out,” the witch hunter’s voice was like steel. “Either now, or after my man has torn your old body into an open wound!”

  The burning embers of Sibbechai’s eyes flared within the darkness, tiny pinpricks of malice floating amid the shadows of the night. The vampire strode between the rotting trees, its unnatural vision allowing it to navigate flawlessly through the pitch black that had fallen across the land as the moons once again were consumed by the brooding clouds overhead.

  The vampire stared at the sombre sky, its face twitching with the faint echoes of memory. It had been on just such a night, so very long ago, that it had nearly been destroyed, that it had been cheated of its vengeance. Sibbechai had long ago ceased to believe in such things as fate and destiny, but there was something terribly fitting that the hour of its long-denied victory should mirror that of its ignoble defeat.

  The vampire rotated its skull-like head, watching the wretched thrall it had created from Anton Klausner. There was still much of the man within the thrall, it had not been dead long enough yet for the thoughts and cares of life to fade. Sibbechai struggled to remember what it had been like to have such vibrant emotions surging within it, struggled to try and capture the faintest trace of the man it had once been. It could remember the events, remember the places it had walked when alive, the people it had known, the things it had done. But the vampire could no longer feel the emotions that had been attached to those places and persons. It knew that it had loved a woman and a tiny baby girl, but it recalled that fact with distance and coldness, as though it had been another who had felt such things.

  Sibbechai could remember leaving the village, and finding the haunted tower where it was said a sorcerer lived. It could still see the corpse-visage of the thing that had killed the man Hessrich Klausner and put in his place the vampire Sibbechai. The vampire could remember too the horror and loathing it had felt for its condition in those days and weeks after it had been transformed, only its lingering love for its family keeping it from going mad.

  That link was severed when Sibbechai had returned to its village, severed by flame and fire. Severed by Helmuth Klausner, the man who had been its brother.

  The vampire looked again at Anton Klausner, and the skull-like face peeled back in a gruesome smile. So very like Helmuth this one was, bristling with ambition and petty jealousy, filled with cruelly and brutality. Helmuth Klausner, the man who had lusted after his brother’s wife, who had bristled with resentment and envy every time he saw Hessrich’s family pass him upon the street. Helmuth Klausner who, to indulge his bitterness and innate cruelty had become a witch hunter and begun a vicious purge of the township, all in the name of cleansing it of the wickedness that had drawn the plague there.

  When it had returned to the town, Sibbechai had been stunned that Helmuth’s cruelty had dared to claim even his own family, imprisoning and torturing his own niece and stepsister and then condemning them both as witches to be burned at the stake. The vampire was not so naive now. All life was treacherous and cruel, self-serving and unpredictable.

  Helmuth and his followers had managed to overcome the vampire, for in those days, Sibbechai did not fully understand the power of what it had become, nor was it so detached from the emotions that had flowed through it in life as to be inured to the grief that wracked its dead heart.

  Rather than destroying the vampire outright, Helmuth had decided to imprison and study it. It was a foolish decision, for he underestimated how powerful the undead monster was and when the sun again set, Sibbechai had escaped the jail with ease. But the witch hunter had captured more than just the vampire, he had also taken from it the thing it had stolen from the tower of the elder necrarch, the thing it had hoped would save its family from the plague.

  Sibbechai clenched its bony fist, the old withered flesh creaking as the knuckles cracked. It would reclaim that tome, that grimoire of ancient secrets and profane lore. It had read and understood enough of the book to know the power that was contained within its pages. That power would belong to Sibbechai again.

  The vampire stared once more through the darkness, peering past the twisted trees. It exerted its malignant will and the Anton-thing turned its eyes upon the necrarch.

  “As you command,” the thrall hissed.

  The vampire strode out from amongst the shadowy boughs, stalking across the path, ignoring the dismembered corpses that only hours ago had been its friends and comrades. The vampire walked toward the small bridge and the stream it spanned.

  Anton hesitated for a moment as it reached the bridge, new senses warning the fledgling vampire of the faint echoes of power that yet coursed about the barrier. Then he stepped out onto the wooden planks, striding with purposeful steps across the span. From the blackness of the wood, Sibbechai smiled.

  The protective circle was no more. The power that had guarded the Klausners for centuries had been banished. Now nothing would stop Sibbechai from reclaiming its own.

  Not the dead. Not the living.

  Carandini sat upon the cold, wasted ground within the ruins of the farmhouse, his eyes narrowed as the intellect behind them slithered through the twisted corridors of his mind.

  Events were proceeding swiftly, threatening to slip beyond the necromancer’s ability to control. Now, so close to all that he hoped for, so close to the knowledge that he desired, things were at their most dangerous.

  The vampire was becoming reckless, something that Carandini had not anticipated. He had expected the monster to be shrewd, certainly, and he understood that Sibbechai was not so foolish as to trust the necromancer any more than he trusted it. But he had not imagined that a creature who had waited centuries might become impatient when the goal was so very near at hand.

  Sibbechai had set off on its own, to confront the Klausners and the outlander witch hunter in person. Carandini was at a loss to understand such a foolish action. He would have stayed safe within the darkest depths of the forest and sent wave after wave of reanimated warriors to assault the keep, not setting foot inside until he was certain that no living thing remained within its walls. That was the way to be sure. The vampire’s way courted calamity.

  Perhaps it was true what was whispered about the bloodline of the necrarchs, that all of that unholy brotherhood were insane, or perhaps there was indeed a cleverness in Sibbechai’s insanity. Perhaps the monster was not so contemptuous of Carandini’s powers as it tried to appear. Perhaps it feared the inevitable confrontation between them when victory was at last theirs.

  The necromancer smiled as he considered this pleasant thought, that his knowledge of the black arts was enough to impress one of the undying necrarchs. Maybe the vampire felt it had good reason to put itself at risk, intending to seize the prize and escape with it before Carandini could react to the monster’s treachery, perhaps even leaving the necromancer behind to contend with the witch hunter, should the vampire leave the man alive.

  Quite clever, in its way, if such had been the vampire’s purpose. There was only one problem with Sibbechai’s plan. Sibbechai was a vampire, and as such needed a place of sanctuary when the sun bathed the land in its golden rays.

  Oh, the c
reature had taken such pains to keep its lair hidden and secret from Carandini, but the necromancer had discovered the cave with Sibbechai’s casket all the same. Carandini had continued to “search” for the vampire’s refuge ever since to deceive the monster into thinking its secret was still safe. For who continues to look for something they have already found?

  Oh yes, Sibbechai would attempt some treachery, of that Carandini was most certain. But the vampire would have a rather interesting surprise when it slunk back into its cavern to hide from the sun and rejuvenate its unclean vitality within its casket.

  The necromancer was quite pleased with his plotting. It was rather like a game of regicide, only as a mortal man, Carandini had a slight edge over his supernatural opponent. For a man was not bound by the same rules as a vampire. Carandini stared out into the night, chuckling as he imagined Sibbechai’s reaction when it saw what had been left in its coffin.

  A sudden movement in the shadows caused the necromancer to stand. Only eyes as unnaturally attuned to the night as Carandini’s could detect the low, slinking shapes that crept about the fringe of the ruined farmhouse walls.

  The necromancer hissed under his breath, fumbling about within the secret pockets of his gown. It seemed that the vampire had not been derelict in making its own treacherous plans. Carandini cursed his overconfidence. He should have prepared for something of this sort, should have brought the entire host of his animated soldiers back with him instead of the feeble quartet that had taken hold of Anton Klausner.

  The low, grisly snarls of Sibbechai’s rotting wolves sounded from the darkness. Even as Carandini willed his skeleton warriors into action, mangy lupine shapes lunged at them from the night. The wolves smashed the slow-moving skeletons to the ground, ignoring the fleshless talons that tore at their maggot-ridden flesh as their jaws worried and savaged the brittle bleached bone of their foes.

  Carandini cursed again, spinning about just as another wolf lunged out of the night, the black-furred beast streaking toward him. The necromancer flung a foul grey powder into the zombie animal’s face, causing the wolfs muzzle to disintegrate into a steaming white ash. The wolf crashed to the ground, its body shuddering as the powder continued to eat its way down the length of the creature.

  The necromancer cast more of the powder into the second wolf that lunged for him. The creature’s leg crumbled, spilling it to the ground in a writhing pile of fur and swollen entrails. The other dire wolves rose from the mangled remains of Carandini’s warriors. There would be no help from that quarter for the necromancer. His hand sifted the bottom of the small elf-skin pouch that held the consuming dust.

  Carandini’s face twisted into a look of horror as he considered how much powder remained as opposed to the number of Sibbechai’s wolves that now began to circle him with hackles raised. He did not find the calculation to be a favourable one.

  The monstrous wolves prowled about the embattled necromancer, their rotting muzzles scrunched into feral, hungry visages. The lights that shone in their wasted eye sockets gleamed from the black shadows of their skulking forms. Warily they paced, awaiting the ideal moment to pounce. The necromancer stared back at them with cold resignation.

  The hollow, deathly howl of the pack leader sounded in the darkness and like a midnight wave crashing upon the bow of a ship, the wolves leapt upon their prey.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “The vampire’s grimoire,” Thulmann proclaimed as the idea came to him. He saw shock flare up in Wilhelm’s eyes and knew that he had struck upon the truth. The witch hunter considered how much sense his guess made. Helmuth Klausner had captured his vampire brother, a vampire that was of the sorcerous necrarch breed. It made sense that he would have seized whatever book of spells the monster carried, spells, perhaps, that it had hoped to use to protect its family from the plague. It also explained something else that had been nagging at the witch hunter.

  Wilhelm had tried to describe the vampire’s motive as being a centuries-long quest for revenge. With another of the polluted breeds of the vampire, Thulmann might have believed the old man. It was known that while vampires did not feel emotion the same way as living men, they were still capable of many of the baser emotions like hate, lust, envy and spite. But a necrarch was something different. In them, even the most base of emotion seemed diminished, if not absent altogether.

  No, they were motivated by something colder and less human even than hate. The necrarchs only cared about their sorcery, their store of profane knowledge. The quest for supreme mastery of the black arts was the one thing that drove their inhuman hearts, even as it consumed their minds and souls.

  Revenge would not have kept a necrarch haunting the Klausners. But the repossession of some tome of blasphemous knowledge might.

  “Helmuth kept the vampire’s spell book,” Thulmann declared again. Fury swelled up within him as he recalled his own sickening glimpse into the Liber Mortis. “Sigmar’s Blood! How far into the pit of heresy and evil does this family’s madness run!”

  Wilhelm shook his head with what strength remained to him, an imploring look on his wrinkled features. “He never sought to become some nightmare of sorcerous power,” the old man gasped. “No, he sought to use the works of the enemy against itself! To fight fire with fire! To use the foul magic that had destroyed his brother in the service of Sigmar, to scour the Empire of the filth that festered within it!”

  “Your ancestor was a heretic and a warlock!” spat the witch hunter, violence in his eyes. “Recall the scriptures: “Suffer not the necromancer, shun his works. By smoke and by fire shall they be consumed and blessed shall be the land whose sorcerers are ash.” So said Sigmar in his wisdom. “Your ancestor would have done well to heed the voice of his god.”

  “He served Sigmar,” Wilhelm growled. “As have all the Klausners!”

  “Even Hessrich?” Thulmann directed his comment like a sword. “Whatever lies Helmuth told himself to justify his purposes, he was heretic and worse. Better men than him have paved the road of their damnation with the noblest of intentions. But it was damnation awaiting them just the same.” The witch hunter’s voice trailed off, the image of Lord Thaddeus Gamow suddenly springing into his mind and the horror that exalted figure had caused. He broke from his recollection, glaring down into the old patriarch’s eyes.

  “I want what the vampire has tried to take from this fortress for five hundred years,” he told the old man. “I want the book!” Wilhelm sank back into his pillows, a sad smile on his face.

  “I cannot give it to you,” Wilhelm said.

  Thulmann pounded his fist against one of the posts that supported the bed’s canopy.

  “Unrepentant wretch,” the witch hunter hissed. “Is it not enough that this book has been allowed to taint and corrupt this family for hundreds of years? Is it not enough that it has drawn unspeakable evil to these lands like moths to a flame? End this horror! Give me the book so I can destroy it and put an end to this nightmare!”

  The smile remained on the old man’s face as he shook his head. “Some things are not destroyed so easily,” he said. “Even if I could, I cannot help you.”

  Thulmann sprang forward, his gloved hand pointing accusingly into the patriarch’s face. “Cannot? Or will not?”

  “Whichever you like,” Wilhelm sighed. “It is the same.”

  Thulmann turned away from the old man, pacing the room once again like a caged lion. “I will find out,” he said. “I will find out.” He turned to face the old man again. “I will not hesitate to put you to torment if you refuse to confess all to me and renounce this filth that has tainted your legacy!”

  A part of Thulmann desperately hoped it would not come to that. The old man would have to die for his crimes, there was no getting around that, but the thought of putting this man, who had once been a hero of the temple, a champion against the dark, the thought of putting such a man to torture sickened Thulmann.

  Then there was Gregor to consider. Despite all he had learned, Th
ulmann was still certain of the young man’s nobility and character. He would spare Gregor as much misery as he could. The execution would be hard enough, the youth did not need this as well.

  The witch hunter shook his head in disbelief as the old man still refused to speak. “I give you until I return to reconsider your position,” he said. “Fortunately, I have another prisoner at my disposal.” Thulmann’s voice slipped into a threatening growl. “If you still pray to Sigmar, pray he tells me what I want to hear.”

  Thulmann stalked across the room, knocking upon the door that connected to the small chapel. He swung the door inward, only slightly surprised to find two figures kneeling before the altar instead of one.

  “Lady Klausner,” the witch hunter said, dipping his head, yet keeping one wary eye on the room behind him and the old figure lying upon the bed. “I did not mean to interrupt your prayers’

  “Sigmar knows what I would ask of him,” Ilsa Klausner returned. “I am sure he would welcome a respite from hearing an old woman pleading over and again for the same thing.” The woman rose to her feet, looking squarely into the witch hunter’s eyes. “Tell me, will it be quick?”

  A look of regret came on the witch hunter and there was a touch of genuine pain in his eyes. “That I cannot say” He turned his head to look back at the bed ridden patriarch. “It depends on him. There is much that must be done this night.”

  Ilsa nodded her head in understanding. “Then I should prepare some tea,” she said. “Would you like some tea, Herr Thulmann? I promise not to poison it, should that thought have occurred to you.”

  The witch hunter smiled thinly and shook his head. “I am afraid that I can only allow myself to trust one Klausner right now,” he apologised. “I am sure that you can understand my position, given the circumstances’

  “Well,” sighed Ilsa Klausner. “I think I will find some tea for myself then.” A suggestion of fear and anxiety crept past her air of resignation as she started to leave. “That is, if I am still free to do so?”