[Mathias Thulmann 01] - Witch Hunter Read online

  Thulmann motioned for her to proceed. “I need to speak with your son,” he told her. “There is something I need him to help me with,” he added as he saw the fear swell up in Ilsa’s eyes. The woman cast a lingering look at her son, then retreated through the small door that connected the chapel with her own room.

  “There really is no hope, is there?” Gregor said when she had left.

  “For your father,” the witch hunter replied. “No. He is guilty of such crimes that his life must be forfeit.”

  “And for the rest of us?” Gregor asked, a tremor in his voice. He had heard the dark tales that were sometimes whispered, tales about overzealous witch hunters who, having found one member of a family guilty of sorcery had then scoured the length and breadth of the Empire to destroy the entire line.

  “He claims that only he and his servant knew what was going on,” Thulmann said. “I believe him, in that much at least.” He placed a reassuring hand on Gregor’s shoulder. “A man is not damned by the sins of his father, he must damn himself. Two of the most famous members of the Order of Witch Hunters were Johann van Hal and Helmut van Hal, both of them direct descendants of the infamous necromancer Frederick van Hal.”

  Thulmann paused for a moment, recalling the skeleton swinging from his own family tree, the black sorcerer Erasmus Kleib.

  Like the van Hals, the existence of such a foul taint upon his lineage helped to strengthen his spirit and resolve, fill him with a consuming need to atone for the misdeeds of his wicked relation.

  Gregor’s face was contemplative for a moment as he too considered the witch hunter’s words, appearing to find some reassurance for himself in them. He had hoped for some reassurance for his father’s fate. “Must he… must he be put to the torment?” Gregor asked in a subdued, fearful whisper.

  “Unless I can pry the secrets he refuses to relate from Kohl,” the witch hunter sighed. “I have to go below and see if Streng has broken Kohl’s determination yet. I need someone to remain here and watch the patriarch.”

  “You would trust me with such a task?” marvelled Gregor.

  “You are intelligent enough to know that you would not be doing the old man any service by helping him escape. He would be hunted across the land like an animal, and his soul would assuredly be damned to the darkness.” Thulmann smiled grimly. “Besides, I have seen the strength in you, the honour and courage that makes me think the taint that has attached itself to your line does not run deep. You would never be able to help a murderer escape justice, to let innocent blood go unavenged.”

  Gregor watched as the witch hunter stalked away. A part of him was proud that Thulmann trusted him enough to bestow such an important duty upon him, that childish part that still believed in honour and duty, that still looked with wonder and awe upon the great deeds of the Templars. The other part of him seethed with silent rage as it watched the witch hunter leave, so certain that he could trust his evaluation of Gregor’s character. The part that saw past the codes of honour and devotion and obligation. The part that saw one brutal, simple fact.

  His father was going to die. Slowly or quickly, his father would die.

  The doorman maintained his position within the massive entry hall, watching from the shadows as the witch hunter descended the stairs and made his way down the corridor that led to the cellars. The Templar was going to join his henchman, no doubt. The doorman did not envy Ivar Kohl when the witch hunter arrived. It had been a strange and fear-fraught night. The dramatic entrance of Gregor Klausner and the witch hunter’s entourage, a bleeding Ivar Kohl in tow. The horrific story told by the shepherdess the men had rescued from Kohl. Then there had come the raised voices emanating from Lord Klausner’s room, the ghastly accusations of the witch hunter echoing down from the heights of the keep. The doorman wondered where it would all lead.

  He was certain that things would grow worse before they became better.

  The sound of the heavy iron door ring pounding against the massive wooden portal brought the servant out of his gloomy reflections. He strode across the hall, swinging the heavy wooden panel inward. He was somewhat surprised to see Anton Klausner on the other side. As the doorman held the portal open, Anton stepped inside, without any of the swearing or slapping that had characterised his exit earlier. The younger son of his lordship had left the keep only a few hours before, brimming with anger and outrage. The night air seemed to have done the young Klausner a great deal of good, for it had certainly cooled his temper, though his skin was very pale. The young man must be frozen to the bone, thought the servant.

  “Welcome back, Master Anton,” the doorman said. Before he could elaborate, the pale young man turned, staring back into the blackness of the courtyard with an intense gaze.

  “Enter this house freely and of your own accord,” Anton said into the night. The doorman glanced outside, trying to determine who the noble was addressing. Darkness and shadow seemed to become solid, just beyond the threshold. The doorman flinched away from the sudden chill, from the charnel stench, but it was already too late. A thin, almost skeletal hand shot out from the darkness and with one deft motion broke the man’s neck like a twig.

  The shadow glided over the twitching corpse of the servant. Anton bowed before its advance, following in the apparition’s wake. Sibbechai paid the vampiric slave no further mind. The thrall had achieved its chief purpose. There were strange limitations to the power of the undead, one of these being that they could not cross the threshold of a dwelling unless first invited by one of its occupants. The corpse-face of the vampire smiled as it again considered how the necromancer’s scheme had turned against him. Sibbechai wondered how long it had taken the wolves to finish its erstwhile ally.

  “There,” Anton hissed, pointing a pale hand to the stairs. “The Klausner is up there.”

  Sibbechai’s smile grew wider, the grotesque fangs gleaming in the flickering light cast by the hearth. Soon, all that had been taken from it would be restored.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The witch hunter’s cloak billowed after him as he swept down the narrow stairway that burrowed into the basement levels of the keep. Thulmann’s mood was as black as the garment he wore.

  The revelation that the Klausners had never been the pure and pious champions of the temple that legend and history proclaimed rested ill upon the witch hunter’s heart. If such a noble lineage as the Klausners could be so grotesquely tainted, then there truly was no saying how far corruption had sunk its fangs into the fabric of Imperial society.

  Despite Thulmann’s reassuring words to Gregor, the taint of his family was more ghastly and hideous than anything Thulmann had ever heard of. This was no case of a lone madman profaning the name of his family by his misdeeds. This was a tradition of horror and heresy that stretched back hundreds of years, back to the very foundation of the line. Van Hal had been but a single man, Klausner was a dynasty, the entire honour of its name nothing but carefully maintained illusion. Whatever lies they told themselves, however they might justify their sorcerous heresy, the Klausners were every bit the filth they hunted in the name of Sig-mar.

  Perhaps Gregor could redeem the name, reinvent the line? Certainly it would fall to him, because Thulmann did not see Anton rising to such a thankless task. It would take many lifetimes to atone for the crimes of their ancestors, many generations to wash away the evils of the past.

  First though, this foul tome of sorcery that had tempted Helmuth Klausner to his fall had to be destroyed. Thulmann could not allow such a profane work to exist.

  He thought again of the spidery script of van Hal crawled across the pages of the Liber Mortis, the taint of madness dripping from every word. He would sleep better knowing such a work had been purged from the face of the world. It might not be within his power to decide the fate of the Liber Mortis, but it was within his power to destroy the grimoire of Sibbechai. There could be no redemption for the House of Klausner while the source of their corruption remained intact.

  The w
itch hunter’s steps carried him to the heavy iron door that closed off the old torture chamber from the rest of the cellars. It was something of a testament to the erratic eccentricity and morbidity that had infected the Klausner patriarchs that such a room, devoted to such a purpose, should be situated here, where servants would constantly be passing by it as they hurried about their duties, rather than hidden away in some dark corner.

  Torture was a vital tool of the witch hunters, fear of torment was something that had broken many a witch and set many a sorcerer into flight, thereby revealing himself. But it was still a despicable tool, for all its necessity, and one that the Templars did not display for all to see. The location of this room was exactly that, the open flaunting of what the long dead patriarch had been and what he had done.

  A groan sounded from beyond the door, followed by a harsh snarl in Streng’s brutal tones. Thulmann lifted his gloved hand, banging on the cold iron surface of the door. “Sigmar protects,” the witch hunter said. It was an arranged code between himself and his henchman to indicate that all was well and that he should open the door.

  Thulmann knew that he was taking a risk by conducting his investigation here, but he also knew that it was the quickest way to unmask the conspiracy at work, to flush out the rats who had been associated with the heresy.

  The witch hunter did not care overmuch for his own safety. His life and death were almost inconsequential things to him. He had left a sealed report of his discoveries with Reikhertz back in the village, instructing the innkeeper to ride to Wurtbad and deliver the report to the temple of Sigmar there should Thulmann fail to return by dawn. He was certain that the simple tradesman would follow his instructions, and the report would soon come to the attention of Sforza Zerndorff.

  His own death would not help the Klausners, Thulmann concluded grimly. Just the opposite, they would be trading the surgeon’s knife for the headsman’s axe, for Zerndorff would not be so careful about trifling matters of innocence and guilt. If the Witch Hunter General South read that report, he would come with a small army and blast Klausner Keep into rubble.

  Streng pulled the door inward, a glowing iron rod clenched in his upraised hand, ready to dash the brains from any unwanted visitor who might be accompanying the witch hunter.

  The mercenary stepped back when he saw that Thulmann was alone. The witch hunter slipped past him, his icy gaze considering the dank, miserable room he had entered.

  It was like stepping into the study of a Solkanite inquisitor. Iron manacles hung from steel staples fixed to two of the walls. A massive fire pit had been hacked into the stone floor, a large bellows looming beside it to ensure that the flames would be as hot as the breath of a daemon. Gibbets and small iron cages that seemed too small to hold a human body no matter how contorted hung from the beams overhead.

  A dusty wooden rack held a grisly assortment of pincers, tongs, bone saws and even a few implements that Thulmann did not recognise and whose use the witch hunter was not too eager to contemplate. A gigantic iron sarcophagus dominated one corner, its surface morbidly cast into the image of a praying abbess.

  Thulmann had employed such “iron sisters” before; sometimes the mere sight of such an instrument of slow and agonising death was enough to break the will of a heretic. Beside the iron sister sat the cruel framework of a Tilean boot, a ghastly device that made a slow and exacting art of breaking every bone in the foot of its victim.

  Ivar Kohl was bound to a long wooden table that dominated the very centre of the chamber. The steward’s hands were locked into an iron bar, his feet bound likewise at the other end of the table. Thick ropes connected the iron bars to the pulleys that were fixed to either end of the table.

  The rack, a fiendish invention concocted by some long forgotten sadist; a loathsome device, but one that was as necessary to Thulmann’s trade as the sword and the pistol.

  The man bound to the table did not react as the witch hunter stared down at him. Kohl’s face was pale, beads of sweat dripping from his brow, jaws clenched against the steady and persistent pain. Thulmann glanced down at the man’s injured leg, noting with some alarm a faint trace of crimson splattered upon the surface of the table.

  The steward was already weak from his wound, and might not be able to withstand being put to the question for long.

  “Has he said anything?” Thulmann snapped as Streng shut the iron cell door with a metal crash.

  “I’ve only had him an hour,” protested the mercenary. “Haven’t even pricked his skin or scraped his bones yet.” Streng grinned down with sadistic anticipation at his prisoner. “Don’t worry, he’ll be talking soon enough.” The grin grew wider. “But not too soon I hope,” he added.

  “I care not about your bloodthirsty amusement,” Thulmann snapped at his underling. “Get this wretch talking!”

  “I was about to introduce Herr Kohl to my little friend here,” Streng gloated, brandishing the red hot iron and ignoring his employer’s reprimand. “He’ll be singing like one of the divas of Altdorf’s theatre district in a few moments,” he added boastfully. The shape stretched upon the rack whimpered pitifully as Streng drew closer.

  Thulmann lifted his hand, motioning for the torturer to hold back.

  “My associate is very eager to be about his work,” the witch hunter said, his silky voice frigid with menace. “Give me a reason to keep him off you and I shall. All you need do is tell me exactly what I want to hear.” Kohl groaned as he heard Thulmann speak his threat. The steward’s eyes were open now, staring with wretchedness and defeat at his captors. Thulmann fully appreciated the resignation in that broken gaze.

  “I know that you were taught these profane rituals by your master,” the witch hunter stated. “He has confessed as much to me.”

  Thulmann smiled as he heard the captive groan again as whatever hope he had that Wilhelm Klausner might be able to save him was dashed. “Though it took me some time to get that much from him,” the witch hunter said. He smiled as he continued. “He was most adamant that he knew nothing of what you were up to. Perfectly willing, eager even, to place all the blame for these heretical acts upon your head.”

  Kohl growled, then sobbed in agony as he heard Thulmann describe the patriarch’s betrayal of his servant. It was of no importance to Thulmann that he had told a lie. The greatest obstacle facing him would be Kohl’s loyalty to his master. Once that was destroyed, the steward would be only too willing to tell Thulmann whatever he knew.

  “Lord Klausner would not…” Kohl sputtered through his broken, swollen lips. The witch hunter pounced upon the steward’s desperate protest.

  “Your master is concerned with saving his own neck now,” Thulmann told the steward. “He is perfectly willing to paint every person in this household as a heretic if he thinks it might keep his own neck from the noose. Or him from sharing your position on the rack,” the witch hunter added with a slight maliciousness.

  “I have served him faithfully” Kohl cried. “All that I did was as my masters ordered.”

  Thulmann chuckled grimly, his gloved hands running along the length of a set of grotesquely oversized tongs. “I seem to recall an epitaph of that sort,” he mused. After a pause, he gasped in mock recollection. “Oh yes, Macherat, the captain of Vlad von Carstein’s Sylvanian guard. I think they inscribed that on the ten-foot stake they impaled him on. Took the swine a week to die, so they say” Thulmann stared coldly at the prone man. “But I imagine that you will be more forthcoming than Macherat was.”

  Kohl screwed his eyes shut, unable to maintain the witch hunter’s intense stare. “Lord Klausner gave me a parchment upon which he had transcribed the rites he wanted me to perform. He said that they were meant to protect his family, to hold back the forces of Old Night.”

  Thulmann nodded his head as he digested his captive’s words. “So old Wilhelm never showed you any book, any record of spellcraft? He only gave you this parchment, written in his own hand?” Thulmann began to pace across the chamber. “Tell
me, is this how Wilhelm’s father instructed you in performing this ritual as well?”

  The witch hunter watched as the remaining colour in Kohl’s face drained away. Clearly the steward was not very comfortable with Thulmann knowing of his involvement with the earlier crimes. The time for soft words and false kindness was over. The witch hunter stormed across the torture chamber, slamming both hands down upon the surface of the rack.

  “I know full well the extent of your evil, Ivar Kohl!” Thulmann spat. “And you will answer for every atrocity that has blackened your loathsome soul! But first you will tell me how you learned these obscene practices and then you will tell me where it is!”

  “Where what is?” the steward’s broken voice squeaked. The witch hunter leaned down, his face only inches from that of his prisoner.

  “The grimoire,” Thulmann hissed. “The source of all this evil. Helmuth Klausner’s tome of sorcery.”

  Gregor stood beside the door of his father’s chamber, staring in silence at the old, withered figure of the patriarch. The old man stared back, his gaze filled with such shame that Gregor knew the witch hunter would not have to kill his father now. With the ugly secret revealed, everything Wilhelm had been was gone.

  No one would remember the hero who had hunted the darkest corners of the Empire in his pursuit of the enemies of man. No one would remember the gracious ruler who kept his lands safe and prosperous. Perhaps no one would even remember his all-consuming love for hearth and home, his limitless devotion to his family.

  “I am so terribly sorry,” the old man croaked at last. “I never appreciated how this could affect you and Anton. I never thought that my crimes might shame you. The risk to myself I never gave a thought, but I would not have allowed you to be hurt by my deeds.” There was an imploring quality in Wilhelm’s voice. “Please understand that. I would never have allowed any harm to come to either of you. Everything I have done has been to keep you safe.”