[Mathias Thulmann 01] - Witch Hunter Read online

  There really had been no hope that the fool’s plan might have worked, the vampire told itself. It was too weak to confront Helmuth Klausner so soon, and even if they had accomplished some miraculous victory over the deranged witch hunter, Sibbechai doubted if it would have been able to escape with the book afterwards. That was what mattered. Not Helmuth’s death, not some noble attempt to thwart the witch hunter’s insane schemes.

  The transcription of the Great Ritual was fragmentary, Helmuth’s hopes of recreating it were nothing more than delusions. Far greater minds than his had tried and failed. Nor was revenge enough to spur the vampire to such foolish and suicidal action, though the old priest had been quite willing to believe it would.

  No, Sibbechai decided, all that mattered was regaining that which had been stolen from it. It would take some time to heal the injuries done to it this day by Helmuth, but it would recover. And then it would reclaim its property, if not from its brother, then another. The book was all that mattered.

  As the vampire reached that decision, and slipped back into the shadows of the night, a tiny voice deep inside it, a part of it that had grown steadily weaker and quieter, screamed as it faded into darkness…

  Sibbechai rose from its study of the sarcophagus, withdrawing from its reverie. The vampire’s claw scratched a jagged line down the unblemished stone face. “How did he die?” it asked, not looking away from the disfigured sculpture.

  “He was old,” Wilhelm Klausner said. “Very old. He had lived a full and prosperous life, commended and decorated by the Grand Theogonist himself. He was given this district by the Elector Count of Stirland.”

  The patriarch swallowed as he considered the haunted legend that had been handed down from generation to generation, the cautionary parable that warned against using Das Buck die Unholden for more than protection. “As I said, he was very old. He took to keeping himself in his room, not even allowing his son to see him. The flicker of candlelight could be seen from his window at all hours. It was thought that he was trying to prepare for his death, to set his affairs in order or to leave a complete record of his deeds. Then one dark night, the keep was awakened by the sound of a pistol shot. Helmuth’s door was broken down when he did not answer. Smoke rose from the pistol that lay upon the floor, and beside it lay the first Lord Klausner. He had put a golden bullet through his brain.

  “He’d not been writing,” Wilhelm went on. “He had been reading, reading from that accursed tome. He was afraid of death and knew that in that blasphemous body of profane knowledge he could find a way to defy death. A ghastly, abominable way, but a way. In the end, he triumphed against the temptation,” there was a note of pride in Wilhelm’s tone. “He chose to destroy himself rather than succumb to the lure of unlife.”

  Sibbechai’s filthy voice bubbled with a grim laughter. “He could have been no more a monster dead than alive,” it hissed, a faint trace of faded emotion echoing through its twisted mind. For a moment, the monster idly considered whether the bullet its brother had ended his life with had been the same one that had nearly caused its own demise amidst the corruption of Mordheim. “Long may he rot.”

  The vampire turned its gaze about the remainder of the room, its head freezing in place as it sighted the large stone lectern that rested in front of the rear wall. The necrarch made a low cackle, like a starving man who has discovered a scrap of bread.

  “At last,” its loathsome voice croaked. “After all this time, it is mine again. Flesh of my flesh!” The skeletal apparition rounded the lectern, its grisly visage lifted into a mask of morbid rapture.

  The smile fell away, supplanted on the corpse-creature’s visage by an expression of such malevolence that might chill the spirit of a god. Sibbechai glared across the crypt at Wilhelm Klausner, seeing the glimmer of proud triumph that shone in the old man’s eyes. The vampire’s claws gripped the lectern, toppling the heavy stone pedestal to the floor.

  The necrarch’s thin lips pulled back in a howl of frustrated fury. Its fist slammed into the wall, crumbling the marble. Wilhelm Klausner fled, placing the stone sarcophagus between himself and the vampire. Anton withdrew several paces up the darkened stairs. Sibbechai’s howl of anguish lingered as the vampire punched the marble wall again and again. Then its wrath turned toward Klausner.

  “Where is it?” Sibbechai raged. “It was here! What have you done with it?” Wilhelm cowered before the furious monster, watching as the embers of its eyes seemed to glow white-hot. The vampire’s thin figure grew rigid, then it lunged for the old man, hurling itself across the small room.

  The crack and roar of a pistol thundered above even the snarls of the vampire. Sibbechai’s body was punched in mid-air, dashed against the wall as a bullet smashed into the vampire’s breast.

  Anton turned his head, lips drawing back in a savage snarl as he saw the two men descending the stairway.

  A look almost as rapturous as that which had come upon Sibbechai when the monster had reached out to claim Das Buch die Unholden filled Wilhelm Klausner’s features as he saw Mathias Thulmann stalking down the darkened stairs.

  “Doom and judgement are upon you!” the witch hunter shouted. “This night, Sibbechai of the necrarchs, you atone for your crimes of sorcery, heresy and outrage upon the Empire!”

  Anton Klausner hurled himself at the witch hunter, hands curled into claws, face contorted into an animalistic leer. Streng fired his crossbow into the rushing monster, the bolt smashing into its ribs. The Anton-thing stopped, uttering a menacing chuckle as he tore the missile from his body, not so much as a drop of blood weeping from the wound.

  “You can’t hurt me!” he spat. “So what do your little toys matter?” Anton watched with grim amusement as Thulmann pointed his second pistol at the monster. Before the witch hunter could fire, the vampire lunged up the dozen steps that separated them. Anton’s claw forced Thulmann’s hand upward, causing the witch hunter to fire his shot into the ceiling.

  The vampire’s other claw closed about the Templar’s neck, forcing Thulmann’s head back, exposing the warm pulse throbbing at his throat. Anton distended his jaw, exposing the chisel-like fangs.

  Suddenly the vampire’s face twisted in pain. Anton released his grip, retreating several steps. He held his hand against the bleeding wound that punctured his side, staring in shock as he saw the blood staining his pale claw. Mathias Thulmann firmed the grip upon his sword, stalking downward.

  A look of fear pulling at his features, Streng drew his own blade, but was careful to keep well behind the avenging figure of his employer. Having seen the vampire already demonstrate its invulnerability to honest steel, the mercenary was resolved to allow the witch hunter to attend to it with his priest’s tricks and Sigmarite mummery.

  “Yes, you bleed, blood-worm!” the witch hunter spat. “This is the sword of Sigmar, blessed by the Grand Theogonist himself. You are not the first unclean abomination to feel its kiss,” Thulmann told the vampire. “Nor will you be the last,” he promised.

  The sneer Anton had worn in life slithered onto its cold flesh as the thrall drew its own sword. “It seems we shall finish that fight we started in The Grey Crone, old man,” he hissed. “But I should warn you, I am not the same man I was a few days ago.”

  With no further word of warning, the undead creature launched itself at Thulmann. The witch hunter’s blade clashed against Anton’s sword and so began the deadly game of lunge, parry and strike.

  Wilhelm watched in horrified fascination as what had been his son attacked the witch hunter. The blades of man and thrall were a blur of flickering steel, the ring of weapon against weapon echoing through the crypt, rebounding from the dripping walls. They were evenly matched, it seemed. The cold, calculating skill of a seasoned swordsman, a man who had learned his art from accomplished masters, was behind the witch hunter’s blade. But behind Anton’s was the savage strength of the undead and the feral swiftness of a thing from beyond the grave. It was hard to tell which would prove the deciding qualit
y, but Wilhelm prayed with all his being that it would be Thulmann’s sword that emerged victorious and granted to Anton the death that was now the only thing that could redeem the boy from the horror that had claimed him.

  As the patriarch continued to watch the duel, he saw Anton’s tireless strength begin to take its toll. The vampire could put its full power behind every sweep and still muster the same power for its next blow.

  The witch hunter did not have such supernatural reserves to call upon. More and more of Anton’s blows were slipping past the Templar’s guard, delivering painful slashes to arm and thigh. The witch hunter had managed to avoid any of the vampire’s more telling attacks, but Wilhelm knew that his luck could not endure forever.

  The old patriarch reached out his hand to the cold stone lid of the sarcophagus, grasping the sword that lay upon the image of Helmuth Klausner. The chill grip of the sword felt like ice in the old man’s hand.

  He turned to lend his own meagre aid to the struggle, but even as he did so, a different sort of ice closed upon his left hand. Wilhelm gasped in pain as the vice-like grip of Sibbechai’s clutching claw crushed the old man’s bones.

  “The book,” the ghastly vampire hissed. Its chest wept a thin black tar from where the witch hunter’s blessed bullet had slammed into it. But after five hundred years, Sibbechai was not so easily defeated. Even a bullet of pure silver, blessed in the Great Cathedral of Sigmar, was capable of little more than stunning the monster. Where Helmuth Klausner’s bullet had almost fatally paralysed the necrarch, Mathias Thulmann’s had only immobilised it for a few minutes. The vampire’s fangs gleamed as it exerted its strength and broke every bone in Wilhelm Klausner’s hand.

  “Where is my book?” Sibbechai hissed again, depraved madness blazing within its grotesque gaze.

  The old patriarch crumpled before the might of the vampire, falling to his knees before it. Sibbechai closed its hand still more tightly, grinding the shattered bones against each other. The incredible pain caused Wilhelm to drop his ancestor’s sword, the heavy weapon clattering upon the marble floor. He glared defiantly at the undead monstrosity.

  “Where you will never find it!” he snarled. Maddened by rage, Sibbechai flung Wilhelm against the side of the sarcophagus with such force that the snapping of the old man’s back could be heard even above the clash of swords echoing from the entrance. The vampire roared at the broken man, its rat-like fangs bared.

  “Living or dead,” Sibbechai shouted, “you will tell me!”

  Thulmann desperately parried the flash of Anton’s blade, knocking the blow aside, feeling the power of the assault shudder up his arms. The witch hunter risked a quick glance at his henchman. Streng nodded in understanding, removing a small vial of coloured glass from a pouch on his belt.

  With a grimace of uncertainty and dread Streng rushed forward, flinging the contents of the small glass vial ahead of him. The liquid splashed across the left side of the vampire.

  Anton uttered a shriek of agony as his flesh began to steam and his skin began to bubble. The thrall dropped his sword, pawing at his steaming face. Thulmann did not hesitate, rearing back and putting his force into a brutal slash that severed the thrall’s hands and caused its head to leap from its shoulders. The decapitated monster slumped against the wall even as its head bounced into the crypt below.

  The witch hunter drew a deep breath, trying to regain his strength.

  “You’re going to get yourself killed playing with things like that,” Streng grumbled as he kicked Anton’s body away from the wall.

  “I wanted to save the Tears of Shallya for the other one,” Thulmann wheezed. The witch hunter collected himself, sprinting down the remaining steps with his sword held before him.

  He found the necrarch leaning over Wilhelm’s broken body, a great gash torn into the vampire’s wrist.

  Tarry black blood oozed from the wound. At the sound of the witch hunter’s approach, the vampire’s grotesque face turned upon him. Thulmann could feel the ageless malignancy of the monster clutch at him, seeking to drain his courage and resolve.

  The witch hunter blinked away the momentary confusion. He had been here before, this place of doubt and despair, facing the black sorcery of Erasmus Kleib, the strength of his will his only defence against the dark sorcery of his foe, faith in Sigmar his only armour. He had not failed then and he would not fail now.

  Thulmann forced his foot forward, forced his sword to rise. Words came pouring from his lips and it was only after they were spoken that he realised he was reciting a prayer of protection. The vampire twisted its body away from the broken figure of Wilhelm, surprise showing on its corpse-like face.

  “I have killed more of your kind than I can count,” mocked Sibbechai. “If you go away now, I might forget this pathetic display.” The witch hunter took another step forward.

  “This sword has put an end to one blood-worm this night,” he retorted. “It is hungry for another.”

  Sibbechai drew back, its face contorting with fury. The smouldering embers of the vampire’s eyes bored into the witch hunter’s, probing for any trace of fear, any sign of weakness. Finding none, the vampire uttered a disgusted hiss.

  “I should show you the foolishness of such a boast,” Sibbechai said. “But I will concede that there is a slim chance that you could cause me harm with such a trinket.” The vampire gestured toward the toppled lectern, waiting for Thulmann to shift his gaze. When the witch hunter did not, it continued in an arrogant tone. “There is nothing here to give me cause to entertain such a risk. The gods of fortune are fickle, after all.” The shadows darkened around Sibbechai as the vampire crept back toward the wall. “But know that to every dawn a night must fall.”

  Thulmann lunged forward, realising that while he had avoided the more obvious ploy of having his attention diverted, he had not escaped the subtle, disarming tone in Sibbechai’s voice. As the vampire’s soft hissing speech had crawled through the witch hunter’s mind, he had let his guard down. Now, the darkness swelled and billowed about the creature, summoned from the shadows of the crypt.

  Thulmann slashed at the pillar of darkness. In reaction to his stroke, a grisly shape fluttered past his head, a gaunt bat with ebony wings, leathery hide stretched tight over a skull-like face. Its tittering laughter bounced about the crypt.

  The bat circled the chamber twice, then flew up the stairway, easily avoiding Streng as the mercenary swung at it with his crossbow. The thug shouted after the fleeing nightbird, raining every curse in his colourful vocabulary upon the creature.

  Thulmann turned away, walking to where Wilhelm Klausner’s broken body had crumpled. Blood stained the old man’s face, thick and dark with bile. Heretic or misguided servant of Sigmar, the old patriarch would answer to an authority higher than any to whom Thulmann could have sent him. As the witch hunter stared down at him, the old man’s lips began to move. Thulmann leaned down to hear Wilhelm’s feeble voice.

  “Tha… thank you,” the patriarch whispered. “Thank… you for… saving…Anton…”

  “He is at peace now,” Thulmann assured the dying man.

  “What… of… Gregor?” Wilhelm asked, voice cracking with despair.

  “Your son will live,” Thulmann replied, not knowing if it was the truth or a lie, but praying that it was the truth he spoke. The statement brought a flicker of contentment to the dying man’s face.

  “It was all for them,” Wilhelm said, tears boiling up in his eyes. “I did it all for them… destroyed the tradition, put an end to it all.” He looked at the witch hunter, his eyes filled with a deep shame. “I… I know it should… should have been for Sigmar… for the poor people… but it was… for them.”

  Thulmann stared intently at the old man, trying to discern his meaning.

  “The… the ritual,” Wilhelm explained, coughing another quantity of bloody spray. “There were never… six. There… were seven. The spell needed to feed…needed to feed. It fed on the trees… the life of the trees. But it n
eeded a man to focus it… it needed to suck the vitality from a man.” Wilhelm’s words drowned into another fit of coughing. Thulmann considered the old patriarch’s words. It explained much, the so-called “blight”, the premature ageing of Wilhelm himself, all to feed some ancient pagan spell. And Wilhelm determined to prevent his sons from being consumed by the ghastly tradition as he had been consumed.

  The old man lifted his heard, a pleading, intense energy filling his face. “Sibbechai did not… did not get… the book.” Wilhelm closed his eyes against the pain that surged through him. “Couldn’t keep… it… here. I couldn’t…destroy… it. Sent it away… to Wurtbad. Look… look for… the book… in Wurtbad. It’s there.” The old man’s head sagged downward, toward his chest. “Forgive…” he hissed as the death rattle bubbled up from the back of his throat.

  Thulmann put his fingers to the old man’s face, shutting his eyes. The witch hunter stared down at the crumpled figure, uncertain how he should feel. The man’s mixture of virtue and heresy was a puzzle the witch hunter doubted he would ever be able to accept or understand.

  “He may have been a murdering heretic bastard,” Streng commented in his gruff tones, “but he died like a champion.” The mercenary gestured at the room around them. “We burn the bodies here, Mathias?” he asked.

  Thulmann stared once more at the broken form of Wilhelm Klausner, the man who had defied gods and monsters for the sake of his sons, who had risked even his immortal soul to ensure their welfare and safety. The witch hunter glanced over at the corrupted remains of Anton. He almost felt sorry that the old man had seen his dreams die before him.

  “No,” Thulmann told his waiting henchman. “We will carry them out of here and burn them in the open. Somewhere clean.”

  EPILOGUE

  Two riders slowly made their way down the road that snaked away from the township of Klausberg, winding between small hills and fields of wheat. Eventually it would join up with the much larger main road that would return them to the city of Wurtbad.