01 - Empire in Chaos (34 page)

Karl and his knights had made their way towards the templars of their order,
and Thorrik had left to speak to one of the Imperial commanders—he knew
several of them, having been stationed around Bechafen for years, fighting
alongside many of these same warriors.

“There are many here who are not soldiers,” commented Annaliese.

“There are,” said Grunwald. The streets were filled with desperate looking
people, families clearly dispossessed by the wars and following close to the
army for protection. “But the outcome of the coming battle will effect them as
much as it will the soldiers on the field.”

Many of the ragged, dirty people were
clearly trying to eke out an existence as camp followers, cooking and cleaning
for the soldiers in return for food. Others prostituted themselves, their wives
or their daughters to feed their families, and had a haunted look in their eyes.

Grunwald stared through the crowd of ragged, homeless Ostermarkers, and many
turned away from his gaze, recognising him for what he was and fearing drawing
attention to themselves. He narrowed his eyes, scanning the faces, more out of
habit than any thought of possible threat. They moved through the crowd, passing
crippled, malformed beggars and hastily erected stalls.

Grunwald ignored the begging hands held out towards him, pushing through the
crowd of wretches and cripples. On top of a barrel a near naked flagellant
screamed and ranted of redemption and death as he slowly pushed metal pokers
through his own flesh. Few paid any heed at his crazed words, and dozens of the
spikes already pierced the skin of his forearms, chest and thighs. As they
walked past, the flagellant pointed at Annaliese and began screeching at the top
of his lungs.

“The great comet will come again! From the heavens shall He hurl it, and the
world will be engulfed in darkness and flame! The End Times! These are the End
Times!”

Annaliese’s face was pale, and Grunwald held her by her upper arm, guiding
her away from the ranting madman. Something caught Grunwald’s attention, a cry
from somewhere nearby, and he stalked towards the sound, releasing the girl.

“Get yer blessings! Authentic fetishes of Morr! Icons of the long sleep!”
came the shout, and Grunwald followed it, Annaliese and Eldanair close on his
heels, until they came upon a tiny, rat-like man with long black hair trailing
from his scabrous scalp. He held a long stick hung with all manner of deathly
images and icons: representations of skulls carved with Morr’s sign, miniature
hourglasses filled with sand, dried black roses and other minor fetishes and
phylacteries.

The black haired man fell silent as he saw Grunwald stalking towards him, and
his eyes flicked back and forth, as if seeking an escape route.

“Priest of Morr, are you?” the witch hunter snarled, grabbing a hold of the
man’s shirtfront.

“No, sir,” stammered the man. Grunwald fingered through the man’s items with
one black-gloved hand, his scarred and brutal face hard.

“Any individual who is not a priest of Morr and identified as selling such
items may be seen by some as a purveyor of necromantic curios,” the witch hunter
said, his voice low and deadly. A space developed around them as other citizens
backed away from the scene, and the rat-like man visibly paled, his eyes
widening.

“N… no sir! I am not… I would never,” he stammered.

“One suspected of necromantic practices faces death by burning,” continued
Grunwald. He pulled the staff from the man’s hand violently, and hurled it to
the ground, where he crushed several of the miniature icons beneath his heel,
while the man quivered before him.

“You are not such a man, though are you,” said Grunwald, no question in his
voice. “You are merely an opportunistic wretch, seeking to earn a few coins
through the fear of others. Correct?”

The man nodded his head quickly.

“Show me what you have earned,” said Grunwald. The man looked at him with
wild eyes. “Empty out your pouches,” the witch hunter urged. The man fumbled at
his belt, and emptied the contents of a pouch into one of his hands. Grunwald
cuffed the man suddenly, hard on the back his head, and he fell to his knees.
“All of it,” the witch hunter said with snarl. His hands shaking, the man pulled
a hidden pouch out from beneath his shirt and emptied it upon the ground.
Grunwald pushed the coins around with the toe of one boot, counting. There was
more here than a soldier earned in half a year. He frowned and nodded his head
slowly, his eyebrows raised.

“A good little income,” he said. Then his face hardened once more and he
leant down to stare the terrified man in the face. “I want you to take every
coin here to the surgeon’s tent that has been set up in the town square. Speak
to the headman there, and tell him you wish to make a donation. Tell him you
wish to help see the soldiers who’ll be injured and slain in the battle tomorrow
cared for. The donation is to go towards that—to help the men that will
tomorrow walk out onto the field of battle and die so that the likes of
you
may live. I will check at the surgery myself within the hour, and ensure
that every last one of these coins has been delivered. If it has not, then you
are a dead man. Run away now, little man,” snarled Grunwald, “before I change my
mind and burn you here and now.”

The terrified man scrabbled in dirt, picking up his coins, and fled, his face
drawn and pale. Grunwald turned around, smirking, to find Annaliese glaring at
him.

“What?” he said.

“Was that really necessary?” she said scathingly. Grunwald frowned, not
understanding.

“He was selling fake blessings of the god of death the day before battle. He
was taking money from scared soldiers and citizens, making himself wealthy from
their fear.”

“Did you really need to threaten him so?” she said.

“It would have been well within my writ as witch hunter to see the man dead
for holding items such as these,” he said, indicating toward the fallen staff of
trinkets and protective charms.

“Merciful Udo, that is what they should call you,” said Annaliese, her voice
mocking.

Losing patience, Grunwald swung around and pointed a finger at her. His
brutal face was flushed and angry, making the scars stand out in stark relief
against his ruddy skin.

“Yes, damn you, I
am
merciful,” he said. “More than you know.”

The crowd parted and a pair of flagellating doomsayers drew near them,
whipping themselves with long leather flails that had nails embedded in their
tips. One of them had pushed fishhooks through the skin of his cheeks, and they
wore pages of holy Sigmarite script upon their bare flesh, held in place with
long nails that had been hammered into their bones.

They stared up from their self-mutilation and saw Grunwald and Annaliese. One
of them bared his yellow teeth, and gargled something incoherent, drool and foam
dripping from his lips. The other dropped to his knees and reached for the girl,
grabbing her by her robe, grinning up at her insanely. The witch hunter placed
his boot on the side of the flagellant’s neck and pushed him away, into the
muddy slush of melted snow.

Giving the witch hunter a dark look, Annaliese dropped to her haunches to
help the man back to his feet, ignoring the wet and the mud that stained her
robe.

Grunwald’s face was thunderous as he stared at the girl. She had no idea of
the depths of his mercy.

The witch hunter sighed, and turned away, walking through the crowd as
something attracted his interest. He purchased a strip of cooking meat from a
dirt-covered vendor, the spit roasted animal making his mouth water. It looked
like a dog, but at the moment he didn’t really care, his hunger overcoming any
delicate sensibilities.

As he looked around, his eyes locked onto those of a man in the crowd,
standing no more than ten paces from the witch hunter. The man’s eyes were
different colours—his left was a dark brown but his right was a startling,
brilliant blue.

Grunwald saw this stranger’s face clearly for a second. It was heavily lined,
and the man wore a dark, sour expression. He leant heavily on a tall staff that
seemed to be hung with feathers, and Grunwald felt that time halted for a moment
as he held the gaze of the man.

His years as a witch hunter had taught him to trust his instincts, and he
knew with certainty that something about this man was
wrong.
Grunwald’s
eye twitched, and he reached for one of his pistols.

“Sigmar be praised!” came the shout behind him, and the witch hunter flicked
his gaze around to see the flagellant prostrate himself before Annaliese. By the
time he swung his gaze back around to the mysterious figure in the crowd, he was
gone. He pulled a pistol from its holster and took a step into the crowd,
pushing people out of his way roughly, trying to sight the man.

“Our lord Sigmar with us!” came another shout, and Grunwald was suddenly
fighting against a surge of people moving towards Annaliese, and he swore,
violently knocking people out of his path. But the man that he knew with dread
was an agent of the enemy was long gone, and he turned to witness the commotion.

Grunwald swore again as he saw what was transpiring, and began to move back
towards the girl. The flagellant’s companion stared at the girl with wide eyes.

“Sigmar is with us in this girl! The maiden of Sigmar comes to fight the
enemy!” the fanatic shouted at the top of his lungs, and more people crowded in.
The second flagellant threw himself to the ground beside his companion, and
Annaliese turned around frantically through the press, looking for aid.

“What have you done?” Grunwald said as he closed on her.

“Nothing!” she said quickly. “I helped him to his feet—nothing more!”

“I felt Sigmar’s divinity within her,” said the prostrate flagellant,
grabbing at Grunwald’s boot. “We are blessed by her presence!”

A pair of purple and yellow liveried soldiers stepped forwards and unsheathed
their swords. They dropped to their knees before her, holding their weapons
before them like an offering.

“Give us Sigmar’s blessing, holy maiden!” one of them said. Within moments,
there was a cluster of soldiers crowding around her, and Grunwald swore.

The face of the man in the crowd lingered in his mind. Yes, he was certain of
it—there was an enemy within the Empire camp.

The ground was trampled to muddy slush beneath Grunwald’s feet, and the smell
of meat cooking over fires made his mouth water. He pushed such thoughts from
his mind, and concentrated on not losing sight of the purple and yellow liveried
pageboy as he darted through the bustling crowd of Ostermark soldiers, leading
him towards the impressive, opulent tent in the centre of the army encampment.

The boy, who couldn’t have been more than eleven, had approached him as he
sat warming himself by a fire. He had been lost amongst his own thoughts when he
had appeared, requesting Grunwald’s presence within the command tent of the
Empire army.

“What do they want with me?” he had asked, but the boy had shrugged. Placing
his broad brimmed hat on his shaved head, Grunwald had stood, and let the boy
lead the way.

The tent was large, and a guard of soldiers stood to attention at its
entrance, halberds upright in their hands. Banners of purple and yellow
fluttered, and the boy led the witch hunter past the guards, whose eyes did not
so much as flicker in his direction. A soldier barred their way. The boy nodded
to the guard, and then ran off into the press of soldiers once more.

“Name?” said the soldier.

“Udo Grunwald, witch hunter,” he replied. The guard nodded in response, and
motioning for silence, led him into the tent. The flap was dropped behind him,
and it took a moment for Grunwald’s eyes to adjust to the light within.

Lanterns hung from the poles of the tent, casting their yellow light across
the interior, and Grunwald saw that there were around a dozen soldiers there,
gathered around a table where a map was spread. Karl stood alongside a clearly
more senior member of the Blazing Sun, his ornate helmet held under one arm. The
preceptor inclined his head slightly to the witch hunter.

A middle-aged man dominated the room, his beardless chin cupped in one hand.
A huge ring of gold was worn over the leather of one glove, and his clothes were
of rich purple and yellow silk, though he wore little in the way of adornment
other than the imposing ring.

A sword was strapped at his side, its scabbard beautifully ornate, and its
hilt gold and magnificently inlaid. Grunwald realised this was one of the famed
Runefangs—awesomely powerful magical swords forged by the dwarfs and borne by
the elector counts. It was a potent symbol of their office, and they were
amongst the most treasured objects in all the Empire.

Grunwald stared at the Elector Count of the Ostermark, Wolfram Hertwig. He
had never been so close to such a highly ranked noble.

The other men within the tent were grizzled veterans, clearly the elector’s
most senior aides and military commanders. They talked in low tones, and
Grunwald saw the elector count sigh and shake his head. It looked like the man
had not slept in days.

Looking up, the count saw Grunwald standing in the shadows. His eyes were
strong, and his face clearly bore the mark of nobility, but it was not the soft
features common in upper classes of the southern states—this was a man of war.

“Who is this?” the elector said simply, his voice carrying a hint of the
Ostermark accent slightly harsher than those of other states and some of his
words sounding slightly Kislevite in their pronunciation. Long had the ties
between the Ostermark and Kislev been strong.

“This is the witch hunter you sent for, my lord,” replied the guard at the
witch hunter’s side. “Udo Grunwald.”

“Come forward so I can see you,” ordered the elector count.