[Gotrek & Felix 12] - Zombieslayer Read online

  “Surgeon Tauber! Clear your table!”

  Felix recognised von Geldrecht’s voice, and so did the rest, for they all stopped shoving as the steward limped through with two household knights behind him. He was using a cane to walk.

  “Tauber!” he gasped. “You must see to General Nordling at once. He has a pestilence in his—” He stopped as he saw the scene before him. “Bosendorfer, what is this? Unhand our surgeon!”

  “My lord,” said Bosendorfer, saluting. “It is Tauber who has caused the pestilence. Look!” He flashed a hand around at the wounded, all moaning and putrefying in their cots. “Look at their wounds. He has poisoned them!”

  “You don’t know that, Bosendorfer!” said Zeismann.

  Von Geldrecht cringed as he looked from horror to horror, then turned back to Tauber, a frightened look in his eyes. “Is—is this true, surgeon?”

  “No, lord steward,” said Tauber. “I don’t know what has caused it. I swear to you.”

  “He’s lying!” shouted Bosendorfer. “He’s killed us all!”

  “My lord,” said Felix, “I don’t think he has. If he was responsible, wouldn’t he have tried to slip away? He has been at his post, tending the wounded.”

  “He has been sickening them!” cried Bosendorfer.

  “How d’ye know it was him that did it?” said Zeismann. “It could be anyone!”

  Everyone began shouting at once, with von Geldrecht bellowing over them all for silence, but then, into the room pushed four household knights with General Nordling on a stretcher between them, and the cacophony died away to a whisper of murmured prayers and indrawn breaths.

  The general, so straight and proud when Felix had first seen him, now lay on the stretcher like a victim of famine. His limbs, under the bloody shirt that was his only cover, were bone-thin and swollen at the joints, and his face was gaunt and grey. His breath came shallow and fast, like a panting dog. Felix saw only one wound on him, but it was terrible. A spike of broken bone jutted out of his left leg above the knee, and the gash through which it stuck was black and bubbling with green pus, and stank of death.

  Zeismann choked as the knights put Nordling on a table. “Sigmar, what happened to him?”

  A frightened field surgeon who had trailed in behind the knights shook his head. “He was well enough after he fell from the chapel roof. Just the broken leg, and he made jokes about it as we carried him to the barracks, but only moments after we cleaned the wound he was like this. I don’t understand it.”

  Von Geldrecht turned to Bosendorfer and motioned to Tauber, who was still pinned in the greatsword’s iron grip. “Release him. Let him work.”

  Bosendorfer reluctantly let go, and Tauber stood erect, his limbs shaking.

  “Thank you, lord steward,” he said, bowing to Von Geldrecht.

  “If you are responsible,” said von Geldrecht, putting his hand on his sword, “you will reverse the poison. If you are not, you will cure him, or it will be the worse for you.”

  Tauber swallowed, and a look passed between the two men that Felix could not read. “I—I will try.”

  The surgeon motioned to his assistants and approached the table as they began to prepare his implements.

  “Tell me everything you did,” he said to the field surgeon as he checked Nordling’s pulse and pulled back his eyelids. “Omit no detail.”

  “We did only what we always do,” said the man. “We removed his armour and clothes, examined him thoroughly, then washed his wounds clean of dirt and gave him strong wine to drink so that he would feel it less when we put the bone back. But… but we never got so far as that. He sickened too fast. He wasted away before our eyes!”

  Tauber frowned, seemingly baffled, then looked back uneasily at von Geldrecht, who gripped the hilt of his sword with white knuckles. “I am not sure what to do, my lord,” he quavered. “He appears to be dying of dysentery, but to reach such an advanced stage of the disease should take days, not minutes.”

  “I care not what it is,” said von Geldrecht. “Only heal him.”

  “But, my lord, to heal a man in this condition takes days—weeks. He will not get better in a matter of moments, no matter what I do.”

  Von Geldrecht said nothing, only drew his sword, his face white. Tauber sighed and turned his assistants. “Wash his wounds clean of pus and spoon-feed him water,” he said. “After I salve the wound we will set the bone.”

  The assistants nodded. One dipped a cloth in a basin beside the table, then began dabbing at the black meat of the wound as the other tugged Nordling’s mouth open and began tipping water into it from a spoon, one drop at a time. Tauber crossed to a shelf and began pulling down pots and vials. But as he laid them out on a tray, there was a commotion in the hall and a woman’s voice, high and strained.

  “Let me through! By all mercies, let me through!”

  The soldiers at the door parted and Sister Willentrude pushed in between them, her round face red and shiny, and her heavy chest heaving like a sail. Her eyes widened when she saw Nordling on the table, and she shot out a hand.

  “Stop!” she cried. “Do not touch him with that cloth! Take away that spoon!”

  The assistants cringed back and Tauber turned, staring at her.

  “What is this, Sister Willentrude?” he asked. “Is there something—”

  “The water,” she gasped as she tried to catch her breath. “The lower well has been poisoned. And every jug, canteen and horse trough I have checked.” She turned to von Geldrecht. “My lord, you must tell everyone. Do not drink or wash with water until we can test it all.”

  “You see!” cried Bosendorfer, turning back to Tauber as von Geldrecht stared. “The traitor has poisoned us all!”

  SEVEN

  Von Geldrecht turned on Tauber, eyes filled with fear and questions. “Surgeon—”

  Tauber stumbled back. “My lord steward, I assure you! I have not done this thing. I haven’t any such power. I am just an ordinary man. You know that.”

  “Don’t listen to him!” shouted Bosendorfer. “He’s poisoned me before!”

  “Please, lord steward,” said Sister Willentrude. “I can’t believe it could be Tauber. He is a fine surgeon, a dedicated man of medicine! It couldn’t be him!”

  “Can you prove it wasn’t?” asked Bosendorfer. “Can you prove he is innocent?”

  Von Geldrecht said nothing, only stared at Tauber as Bosendorfer and the sister continued to argue.

  Felix couldn’t take it any longer. He stepped forwards and shouted at von Geldrecht. “Steward! Are you going to stand here while the men of the castle are still drinking and bathing in tainted water? Give the order!” Von Geldrecht’s eyes snapped around to Felix, hot with anger, but then he stopped, paling with realisation. He turned to the men. “On my order,” he said. “Speed to every corner of the castle. No one is to drink or touch water until I say. Go! Spread the word.”

  The men, cowed by the horror of Nordling’s condition, hurried out of the surgery without argument, yelling to everyone in the hall and leaving von Geldrecht and his knights, Bosendorfer, Zeismann, Felix, Kat and the slayers standing around Tauber and his assistants, who looked shaken and sick.

  “Water,” Tauber mumbled. “How was I to know? How was I—”

  A breathy rattle interrupted him and everyone looked at General Nordling. His shallow panting had stopped, and he lay absolutely still. Tauber went white and stepped to him, taking his pulse again and listening to his chest. He closed his eyes and murmured a prayer, then stood.

  “He—he is dead, my lord steward.”

  The household knights groaned and lowered their heads, but Bosendorfer spun to von Geldrecht.

  “Kill him, my lord,” he said. “Kill him as you said you would!”

  “No!” cried Kat. “He must see to Gotrek! Tauber has to clean the Slayer’s wound!”

  “My lord, you mustn’t kill him,” said Sister Willentrude. “Without water, we will have to find other ways to clean and dres
s wounds. We will need his expertise.”

  “His expertise is in death,” snarled Bosendorfer. “Hang him! Or the men will do it for you!”

  Von Geldrecht had said nothing through this storm of argument, only held eyes with Tauber, but at this last he shot a sharp look at Bosendorfer.

  “With General Nordling’s death,” he said, cold and quiet, “I am now acting commander until Graf Reiklander recovers. And as commander, I will not allow a man to hang without trial, nor will I allow him to be subject to barracks justice.” He turned to the household knights. “Classen,” he said to a young knight sergeant with tears in his eyes. “Lock up the surgeon. He will stay in the dungeon until we get to the bottom of this.”

  “But, my lord,” said Sister Willentrude. “That is no better. How will he do his work from a cell?”

  “How will he clean Gotrek’s wound?” asked Kat.

  “Until I know where his loyalties lie,” said von Geldrecht, “he remains under lock and key. Take him away, Classen. And his minions too.”

  The young knight nodded, then motioned to the others to arrest Tauber and his men.

  “Now,” said von Geldrecht, sighing. “We will check the stores. I want to see if anything else was tainted.”

  Kat looked like she was going to protest Tauber’s arrest again, but the Slayer shook his head.

  “Forget it, little one,” he said. “It’s all part of the doom.”

  Felix gagged as Gotrek knocked in the top of a barrel of salted meats with his axe. Fat maggots crawled all over bubbling beef and the stench of rotting flesh burned his eyes. Kat cut open a sack of beans, then choked as clouds of mildew spores billowed up from it. In other parts of the vaulted cellar von Geldrecht and the rest were finding similar horrors. Sister Willentrude was opening a sack of onions that had become black balls of slime. Bosendorfer was picking distastefully through apples and turnips gone brown and runny while Zeismann was cringing away from the hard sausages that hung from the beams, their casings split and giving birth to a swarm of flies.

  From the far side of the room came a dismayed dwarfen shout. “Not the beer, too!”

  Felix and Kat looked around. Rodi was standing on tip-toe staring into a keg almost as tall as he was, his hands white-knuckled on the lip. Snorri was staggering back, awkward on his peg leg, waving a big hand in front of his bulbous nose.

  “Snorri thinks that’s the worst beer he’s ever smelled.”

  Von Geldrecht blinked at the two slayers, then turned and hurried to a long rack of dusty wine bottles. He grabbed one and broke the top off by knocking it against the wall, then inhaled over the open neck. He coughed and winced, holding the bottle away from him and covering his face in the crook of his arm.

  “This flour might be saved,” said Zeismann.

  The rest came over to look at the sack he had split open. The flour that spilled from it was crawling with tiny beetles, but did not appear rotten.

  Von Geldrecht looked revolted, but nodded. “It will have to be sifted, but it seems we have flour at least.”

  “Yes,” said Bosendorfer. “Though no water to mix it with, thanks to Tauber.”

  “Mmmm,” said Zeismann, rubbing his skinny belly. “Dry flour, with bugs.”

  Sister Willentrude shook her head. “The necromancer has nearly defeated us in a single night,” she said. “The bats killed scores of men. The poisoned water has killed scores more, and hunger and thirst will finish the rest. It is impossible that the castle can still stand.”

  Von Geldrecht glared at her. “It must stand! We must hold until our relief gets here.”

  “But how?” asked the sister. “A man might live a week on biscuit, though he will be as weak as a child, but a week without water? Impossible. Four days at the most, and much less if he is forced to fight.”

  “And we will be forced to fight,” said Felix.

  “Can’t you pray to Shallya?” asked Bosendorfer, holding up a disintegrating apple. “Can’t you make it all wholesome again?”

  “The food is fouled beyond redemption,” said Sister Willentrude. “But prayers to Shallya might purify some water, though how much I couldn’t say.”

  “What about taking water from the river?” asked Felix. “Surely the necromancer can’t have poisoned the whole Reik?”

  “He don’t have to,” sighed Zeismann. “We’re downstream from the Reiker Marshes. The water for miles below that stinking swamp ain’t fit to drink unless it is boiled.”

  “So start boiling,” said Gotrek.

  Von Geldrecht swallowed, looking as pale and sick as one of the poisoned defenders. His first moments as acting commander of the castle had not been auspicious ones. “Yes,” he said. “Start boiling. And pass word to the men that the food has been poisoned as well. I… I will consult with the graf.” And with that, he turned and limped out of the room.

  As they left the store room and Bosendorfer and Zeismann went to tell the castle about the spoiled food, Kat stepped after Sister Willentrude.

  “Sister,” she said, “can you look at Slayer Gotrek’s wound? It must be cleaned or he may die.”

  The sister turned, smiling patiently. “Child, I must begin my prayers. The danger we face is bigger than the wounds of one dwarf.”

  “But he isn’t only a dwarf,” pleaded Kat. “He is a slayer. Who else is strong enough to fight the wight king if he comes back?”

  Rodi snorted. “You’d think he fought the bastard alone,” he said under his breath.

  Gotrek ground his teeth. “I told you to forget it, little one.”

  But Sister Willentrude was frowning, considering. She looked at Gotrek. “I saw you fight on the walls, herr dwarf. You are indeed worth a score of men. But where is this grievous wound? I see only the scratch on your leg.”

  “That is it,” said Felix quickly. “It was made by Krell’s axe, which leaves poison splinters that seek the heart and kill in time.”

  “And it is too late to remove them,” growled Gotrek, impatient. He turned and started for the courtyard. “There are worse wounded, priestess. See to them.”

  “No, herr Slayer,” Sister Willentrude called after him. “You are key to our defence. For the sake of the castle, if not your own, I will ask you to come with me.”

  Gotrek kept walking, but Kat caught up to him and put a hand on his massive arm.

  “Please, Gotrek,” she said. “Let her try.”

  Gotrek walked for a few more steps, but at last he stopped. “For you, little one,” he said, “I will go.”

  The sister smiled as he turned back to her. “Thank you, herr Slayer. Follow me.”

  She led them back towards the surgery, talking over her shoulder as she went. “It isn’t just for your fighting skill that I wish to keep you among the living. You lot have cool heads, and with General Nordling dead now, we will be needing all of those we can lay our hands on, I’m thinking.”

  They entered the surgery, where Sister Willentrude’s initiates were tending to the moaning rows of wounded, and followed her to a pantry-sized shrine of Shallya at the back.

  She pointed Gotrek to a bench as she gathered forceps, lens, jug and cloth, and pulled a stool up in front of him. “General Nordling ran the castle well,” she sighed. “But with him dead and the graf unwell, that leaves von Geldrecht, and I fear old Goldie ain’t up to the task.”

  The sister took up the jug of water and began praying over it as Felix and Kat watched and the slayers waited at the door, Rodi still muttering about Gotrek not being the only one to have fought Krell. The Slayer’s gash was not deep, but it was grimed with little black flecks.

  Finishing her prayer, Sister Willentrude tasted the water, then, satisfied, poured it liberally over the wound and sponged it with the cloth. The flecks lessened, but did not vanish. Next she took up the lens and the forceps.

  “Yes,” she said, prodding the wound. “There are slivers well buried in the muscle. Many of them.”

  Gotrek sat stoic, his jaw set, as she gripped a
nd pulled with the forceps, removing splinter after splinter from his flesh and wiping them onto the cloth.

  “So, Graf Reiklander is confined to his bed?” asked Felix as she worked. “He is that ill?”

  Sister Willentrude sniffed. “I know not. I saw him once, the day he returned with his troops, and he was gravely wounded, but since then the Grafin Avelein has not seen fit to let me see him, only Tauber. Only he and von Geldrecht are allowed into his rooms, and they tell me nothing other than, ‘his lordship is recovering’.”

  “Is that why von Geldrecht would not allow Bosendorfer to string Tauber up?” asked Felix.

  “Very likely,” she said. “Thick as thieves the steward and the surgeon have been since Graf Reiklander returned.” She shook her head bitterly as she removed another sliver. “I wish the graf were well again—or that his son would return from university in Altdorf. The graf was an able commander, wise and strong, and Dominic a sharp-minded lad. Neither would have locked Tauber up for fear of Bosendorfer. They would have locked Bosendorfer up for insubordination. Now I must do double duty as physician and sister, and spend time and strength I don’t have praying for pure water. Hopefully von Geldrecht will come to his senses. Besieged like this we cannot survive long without a real surgeon.”

  “Is Tauber a good surgeon?” asked Kat.

  The sister chuckled without looking up from her work. “Felt the lash of his tongue, have you? Well, he’s never been a friendly sort, and going north only made that worse. So many men dead. So many men he couldn’t save. It left him bitter, but you’ll find no more talented bone-cutter in the Empire. He treats Karl Franz himself when he summers here.”

  With a sigh she sat back and mopped her brow. “Well, I’ve removed all I can see,” she said. “But there are more. I’m certain of it.” She pushed to her feet and stepped to her cupboard again, where she began pulling down pots and jars. “I will prepare a poultice that will, Shallya willing, draw out more, but I don’t know if even that will get them all.”