THREE

The Leper of Grunhafen

 

 

“When the ravages of age and disease take their toll, when harvests are blighted and famine threatens, that is when desperate men—men without hope—make supplication to the Grandfather to stay his scabrous hand. And it is from that moment that they are damned.”

 

—A Treatise Upon the Nature
of the Fell Powers,

by Brother-Scrivener Schreiber

 

It had been a week now since Gerhart Brennend had escaped the destruction of the tower-observatory of Kozma Himmlisch, and he was still walking through the highlands of Ostland under a permanently dark, overcast sky. There was little difference between day and night, so heavily smothered by cloud was the vast expanse of sky. And still it rained.

He was cold, wet, tired and hungry as he had never been before. He looked dishevelled and unwell, the lack of proper food and shelter taking their toll on him.

Since his battle with the astromancer Gerhart had not seen hide or hair of another human soul. The marshes of Ostland were as wild and untamed a place as any within the broad boundaries of the Empire. Herds of beastmen and goblin tribes lurked within the feral depths of the Forest of Shadows, as they did within the bramble-strangled, twisted heart of the more notorious Drakwald to the south.

The treacherous passes of the mountains were a sanctuary for human renegades and the followers of proscribed cults, as well as trolls, giants and worse. Gerhart had discovered this for himself at Keulerdorf. Then there were the raids of the Norse to contend with, marauding orcs and even, on occasion, bloodthirsty forays made by Kislevite bandits.

Of course, lying so close to the north-eastern border of the Empire, the Elector Counts of Ostland had fought alongside the hard-bitten warriors of the frozen tundra land of Kislev in their mutual cause to prevent the forces of Chaos rampaging south. However, if the astromancer’s speculations were accurate, it would seem that soon the whole of the Old World would be playing host to an invasion the likes of which had not been seen in five hundred years. All the armies of Ostland and Kislev would have difficulty containing it, let alone holding it back.

The Emperor on his throne in Altdorf, or the Elector Count of Ostland, Valmir von Raukov, bearer of one of the Runefang blades of legend, secure within his castle in the grand principality’s capital of Wolfenburg, might claim that these lands were civilised. But both men, “heroes in their own right”, had fought long and hard in defence of these northern lands.

Civilisation only really existed in these lands as a concept. Certainly armies could be mustered from among the vassal subjects of the Empire’s many states and cities to repel invaders and quash rebellions. Trade took place between the different regions on a fairly regular basis, with losses expected in these wild and dangerous times. Barges carried cargoes along the river ways of the Empire to the great free port of Marienburg and beyond to the chivalrous lands of Bretonnia and the city-states of Tilea as far as the coast of dusty Araby. The cities of the Empire were renowned as great centres of learning, where the secrets of alchemy and magic were plumbed alongside new advances in metallurgy, munitions and steam-locomotion.

Yet despite all of these great achievements the truth of the matter was that much of the countryside beyond the patrolled highways and the ancient cities was actually a dangerous wilderness of brooding, unruly forests, craggy, wind-scoured uplands and desolate moors divided by rushing rivers. People hid inside their cities, towns and villages, protected by thick stone walls and tall stockades, or in their castles, and the majority never ventured further than a few miles from their homes in their lifetime.

But the time was coming when perhaps not even such fastnesses of ancient strength would be safe from the storm rising in the north.

It was only now, as Gerhart descended from the highlands that eventually rose up to meet the Middle Mountains behind him to the west that Gerhart saw more regular signs of human habitation once again.

In truth Gerhart had encountered some already on his travels, signs that in remote places these lands had once been inhabited. Ancient barrow-mounds and weather worn stone circles, uncorrupted by the sigils of Dark Gods or their followers, the shells of abandoned farmsteads reclaimed by nature and turf covered mounds that suggested that once a settlement had stood here.

At least these abandoned habitations had provided him with some respite from the incessant rain and a place to sleep. He had spent one night in the shelter of a decrepit windmill and another under the roof of a vacant shepherd’s hovel, listening to the deluge pounding against the rotting thatch above his head.

The rest of the time he had had to make do sheltering between the towering boulders on hilltops or crawling into shallow caves, having checked that there was nothing else living there first. Then, alone and undisturbed, the wizard had focussed his mind. He saw the winds of magic as their breezes danced over the rain-drenched land, reaching out to capture a strand of fiery power, the essence of Aqshy. It had been enough to start a small fire with which to warm himself, heat through some provisions and dry out his soaking clothes.

In the light of the fire, Gerhart had been able to go through the random notes he had taken from Kozma’s observatory. He wanted to make sense of the astromancer’s urgent scribblings. He was aware that the jottings were the ramblings of an unsound mind, but they kept coming back to the same conclusion. It had taken Gerhart some time but thanks to information he had gleaned himself before encountering Kozma Himmlisch, he had gradually been able to work out the gist of the astromancer’s observations.

Using his arcane telescope, the celestial wizard had spent months observing the flow of the winds of magic, and the heavens over the lands that lay to the extreme north. Kozma Himmlisch had suspected a rise in the power of Chaos, as the expanse of land covered by the warping Shadow increased, like a beach being swallowed by the high tide.

This ebb and flow of dark power, just like the waxing and waning of the moons, was not unusual. Those who knew about such things realised that it happened every year with the passing of the seasons. But those same people, would also have realised, as Gerhart had, that this current swelling of the Shadow was unprecedented in recent history. At best it would pass slowly. At worst it might swallow the entire world.

To Gerhart, this all seemed the conjecture of an unsound mind, but of one thing he was certain, that this rise of power in the north, like a storm of Chaos building on the borders of the lands of men, could threaten the whole Empire.

So he was now striding north himself, walking the highways and the byways of Ostland, using his oak staff to aid him. For, even if he ended up having to face all the multitudinous hordes of the north alone, he had to do what he could to atone for his sins.

Ahead of him lay the sentinel city of Wolfenburg and no doubt the greatest challenge he had faced in all his forty-five years of life, if Kozma’s ramblings were to be believed.

The pieces of parchment that bore Kozma Himmlisch’s forbidding divinations were stowed inside his robes, crumpled and water-stained, even though Gerhart had done his best to keep them dry. After all, they were the only proof he had of what he had seen and what he now furiously believed.

As the turf squelched underfoot, Gerhart guessed he had covered a fair bit of ground since leaving the burning tower behind. The leather of his boots was stained and discoloured from the perpetual wet and splashing mud. With only a hint of the sun behind a slight lightening of the constant grey cloud cover, Gerhart could nevertheless see that the track he was on showed signs of greater use and was descending steadily towards a wooded valley.

And then he glimpsed the smoke rising through the mist and rain, still some miles ahead of him at the limit of his vision in this miserable weather. But before he reached the source of the smoke, Gerhart came upon the first of the deserted villages.

 

The stillness was unsettling. The only sounds Gerhart was aware of, as he cautiously made his way towards the crossroads around which a few stone, timber and thatch buildings were clustered, were those that he himself made or those of the remorseless wind and rain. An air of death hung over the village like a burial shroud. There were no signs of life at all, human or otherwise. But then that was hardly surprising given the apparent fate of the settlement.

On every hovel door Gerhart could see a cross, daubed in thick red paint. This was a common practice in the northern lands of the Empire when dire circumstances struck. Some of these same doors, along with windows and any other entrance to the buildings had been boarded up and nailed shut from the outside.

It was a sign that spoke of a long and lingering death. It spoke of plague.

Wherever a cross had been painted, it told a tragic tale of entire families being boarded up inside their homes, abandoned by their neighbours. Even if only one family member succumbed to the sickness, every last inhabitant of the house would be trapped inside with the plague victim, condemned to infection and inevitable death, either from the illness, starvation, or at their own hands—trying to save themselves from the suffering that was sure to follow.

People who had once regarded each other as friends were now shut away. Friendships were forgotten, familial ties severed, and kind-hearted neighbours became compassionless pragmatists as they consigned those infected to a terrible fate.

For there was no room for compassion when it came to the plague. It simply had to be contained. A small hamlet or village already infected could hardly hope to survive at all if the spread of the disease was not caught in time. So the villagers put themselves into self-imposed quarantine and prayed to whatever beneficent god might be listening to save them in their most desperate hour.

Should they not do so, and one of the roving bands of Sigmarite Templars discover them, then their fate was assured; they faced death by sword and fire, possibly following a painful and unnecessary inquisition.

How had it begun, Gerhart wondered? A polluted water supply? A hex cast upon these poor common folk? An illness borne by rats, possibly even the product of the foul machinations of the rat-kin?

And how had it been spread? By an infected cargo brought by wagon to the village? A passing peddler? Intentionally by those corrupted of mind, as well as body, by the disease to serve the blasphemous powers ranged against mankind?

How long had it been since this anonymous village had succumbed to the plague, its name dying along with the last person to ever know it?

Gerhart did not break open any of the doors to discover what lay within. He already knew what he would find and, besides, he had probably seen worse fighting alongside the armies of Empire. There was nothing he could do for the people who had lived here except purge the place with purifying fire.

Concentrating his mind, Gerhart reached out and called the winds of magic to him. The tip of his staff sparked then burst into flames. He walked round the village, igniting the thatches of the forsaken homes, turning them into fiery sepulchres. Despite the endless rain, the wizard found the thatches to be dry under the eaves and there the fires took.

Gerhart left the hamlet with the buildings behind him ablaze. Thick grey smoke swelled from their thatches, and tall flames licked up the walls, consuming everything in their insatiable hunger.

At the next settlement, less than half a league away the story was the same. The same miasma of death hung over the stockaded village, the same red crosses daubed on the walls and doors, silence instead of birdsong. There were no signs of life at all. Once again he could do no more than put the place to the torch. With the power of Chaos building on the northern borders of the Empire, he had to cauterise the canker of evil growing within it.

So it continued. One hamlet after another, entire villages were wiped out, and lone farmsteads stood as silent as the grave. Forges, tanneries and even shrines, smeared with the same condemning crosses, all went up in smoke, purged with the same cleansing fire.

Had all of these settlements succumbed to the plague? There were no obvious signs that anything had been wrong in many of them. Gerhart had heard tales of whole villages being condemned to an untimely death by paranoia alone. If one man came down with a blood-fever or severe bout of stomach cramps, paranoia would do the rest, more often than not fuelled by religious fanatics and over enthusiastic witch hunters.

Days later, as he left another settlement to its fate amongst the flames, Gerhart turned and looked back at the path he had followed through the forest. Behind him black smoke rose from settlements he had put to the torch. It hung over the treetops in a pall, making it seem like Morr’s own raven of death had descended from the shadowy, unreal realm beyond the veil to gather the souls released at last by the funeral pyres.

It soon transpired that Gerhart was not the only one seeking to purge the plague from the land. Two days later he encountered the doom-mongers of Sigmar.

 

Having spent the previous night sleeping in the shelter of an ancient beech, a fair few miles from the last forester’s hut he had put to the torch, Gerhart now found himself on a path that wound around the side of a hill covered with sycamores before dropping down into a shallow valley between four low hills. The village that lay nestled in the hollow was already partially obscured by the dirty grey smoke coiling from the bonfires smouldering all around it.

Through the smoky billows that drifted between the trunks of the trees Gerhart could see that a river meandered through the stockaded settlement. It wound through two wicker water gates, and a number of barges were moored at a jetty on the northern bank of the watercourse inside the village.

The wizard sniffed sharply, catching the acrid smell of burning on the breeze that drifted across the valley and rode over the rolling contours of the hills. It was said by doctors and those who made the study of the human body that smell was the most evocative of all the senses. Certainly that was how it affected Gerhart now. The scent of the bonfires made his heart race and he felt the warm glow of the esoteric wind of Aqshy pass through him. He could see the red vapours of the ethereal wind at the edge of his vision, following the path of the smoke through the trees.

But something else was carried to him on the wind, something that affected the wizard almost as strongly as the scent of burning: the cries, screams and prayers of desperate people, suffused with the shouts and invocations of their attackers.

Gerhart quickened his pace down the hillside.

Once he reached the outskirts of the village, he could see figures moving through the obscuring smoke. They were shadowy and indistinct, and although he could not make out the appearance of individuals he could read quite clearly what was going on by their desperate movements. Many were running in panic, others following on their heels with what appeared to be more measured steps.

Gerhart realised that the panicked villagers were being herded into the centre of the village to where another fire, larger than the others, was blazing.

The smoke drifting from the other conflagrations had at first hidden this fire from him. As another cloud of smoke drifted clear of the village Gerhart saw that part of the stockade enclosing the buildings had been uprooted to fuel the fire, along with the wood and straw pillaged from a ruined barn.

Gerhart guessed that the smaller bonfires burning on the outskirts of the village had been lit to purify the air of the invisible, malignant contagion that was the plague. But this much larger conflagration, burning at its heart, had a much more sinister purpose, he was sure.

Suddenly a woman ran across the space between two houses, her hair and torn dress flapping around her. She was pursued by a man wearing a monk-like habit who was waving a spike ended flail over his head.

Gerhart passed under a signpost, a plaque of wood hanging by chains creaking in the slight breeze. He looked up and read the name recorded there in faded and peeled paint, in an angular gothic hand: Grunhafen.

 

With no one on guard at the southern gate leading into Grunhafen, Gerhart was able to walk into the village unhindered. He could hear the buzzing of flies in the air. Figures ran towards him out of the coiling smoke, gaunt faces distorted by screams, streaming with tears of terror, or hidden by deep hoods and sinister leather masks. Then they were gone again, swallowed up by the thick bonfire smoke.

One robed thickset man charged at him bellowing, but came to an abrupt halt as Gerhart swung his staff sharply into his stomach. As the fanatic collapsed, winded, onto his knees, Gerhart saw quite clearly the angular embroidered “S” on the front of his robes. It was the same with the others among the pursuers. They were zealots; men of Sigmar.

“What is going on here?” the fire mage muttered.

Ignoring the cat and mouse games of the villagers and their aggressors, Gerhart strode into the all-enveloping acrid clouds, making his way towards the centre of the village. It was there, he was certain, that his questions would be answered.

The darker grey shapes of gable-ends loomed at him out of the murk, increasing the sense of claustrophobia that the choking smoke had already laid over the place. Then the shadowy ghosts of the streets disappeared and Gerhart was standing in the middle of the village, the heat from the bonfire prickling his face.

It was not as hot as he might have expected, for standing around the blaze was a cordon of zealots. Gerhart took them all in with a disapproving glance. Some wore hooded habits, whilst others wore the clothes of commoners. Some had shaved their heads, as was the way of many who joined the priesthood of Sigmar, but others had allowed their hair and beards to grow into thick, unkempt manes.

They all sported some kind of symbol or icon of the Heldenhammer. And they all had the haunted look of desperate men—men who had suffered such hardship and tragedy in their lives that they now had nothing to live for but their faith and the persecution of the sinful.

They were all armed, and one matted-hair individual was using the knotted whip he was carrying on himself. He beat his back repeatedly over first one shoulder and then the other, his unintelligible mutterings punctuated by sharp intakes of breath or impulsive gasps of pain.

“Flagellants and fanatics,” Gerhart growled. “Madmen all.”

“Who is this sinner?” a voice, loud and clear as a cannon shot, demanded over the crackling of the bonfire.

Gerhart turned to see a dishevelled, rag-robed figure pointing at him. The flesh of the man’s outstretched arm was scabrous and coloured a sickly green-grey. He had obviously once been dressed the same way as the other flagellants, in a tunic embroidered with the golden twin-tailed comet of Sigmar, but his habit was now torn and stained, looking more like a burial shroud.

The speaker was surrounded by four hulking figures that, although dressed like holy men, had the build and stance of bodyguards.

Despite being a whole head shorter than the hulking Sigmarites surrounding him, the man had an air of authority that distinguished him as their leader.

Close to the man, Gerhart gagged on the sickly sweet smell of decay. Was this because he was at the heart of another damned settlement that had fallen prey to the plague or was the smell coming from the bandage-bound figure in front of him, he wondered?

The wizard could not see the man’s face. Under the pulled up hood of the habit the zealots’ leader wore a shaped leather mask, stained almost black, which gave him a leering, almost daemonic, expression. Stuffed into a cracked leather belt at his waist was a scourging whip, its several knotted lengths of leather embedded with cruel barbs and spikes.

The wizard did not bother to hide his revulsion.

When the leader of the zealots spoke again, Gerhart was certain that the gagging stench was emanating from the diseased man.

“I say again, what sinner is this who would interrupt our holy work? Why has he not been judged? Seize him!”

“I too could ask who you are,” Gerhart retaliated. “What are you doing here, and what are you doing to these people?”

Suddenly Gerhart found him surrounded by half a dozen Sigmarite zealots, some of them abandoning their position at the fire, others emerging out of the coiling ash-flecked smoke.

He brought his staff up before him in both hands but the fanatics were on him, batting aside the wizard’s oaken rod with swipes of iron-banded maces. Gerhart received two sharp blows from the haft-end of a pole arm. Something blunt and heavy smacked into his ribs from behind. Startled, and gasping for breath, he felt rough hands grab him.

Gerhart could feel Aqshy’s energies surging into him, drawn at first by the bonfires, visible to his mage-sight as coruscating ribbons of scarlet energy and fluctuating crimson light. But it was a source of power that he was unable to tap, his arms were being held firmly at his sides, and his staff had been wrested from his grip by one of the zealot thugs. Another man scrabbled at Gerhart’s scabbarded sword and, after some struggling, managed to pull it free.

Without his weapons and so his powers of sorcery, Gerhart had nothing left but his temper.

“Do you not know who I am?”

“Why, should I?” the leader sneered.

“I am a renowned wizard of the Bright college of magic in Altdorf!” Gerhart declared, pulling himself up to his full height.

“Ah, so you are one of those who would bring ruin to our great nation by consorting with the powers of darkness!” It was not a question; the man had already made his judgement. “All those who play with fire end up getting burned,” he said, half-turning to the raging bonfire behind him.

What was the man talking about, Gerhart asked himself? He was talking and behaving like a fanatica follower of Sigmar, but his physical appearance was enough to make any rational man suspect the monk was not all he proclaimed to be.

How could the man be so unaware of his own condition, unless it was not only his body that had been corrupted but his mind as well?

“Curse you for a damned fool!” Gerhart growled. “Do you believe you are doing Sigmar’s work here?”

“Have you not seen the signs?” the leader wailed. “The End Times are upon us! The servants of Chaos are at large in the world and if the light of Sigmar’s truth is to shine through the darkness we must light the way with the burning bodies of his enemies!”

Gerhart considered the evil signs he had already seen abroad in the land, the two-headed foal at the isolated farm in Stosten, the still-born spider-legged baby in Avenhoff, the rain of fish in Vlatch, the leering green-tinged face of the second moon as it traversed the sky, and now the sickness afflicting the very Sigmarite zealots who would rid Ostland of the plague.

Maybe this truly was the beginning of the prophesied End Times?

A sharply raised eyebrow was the only indication Gerhart made that he considered there to be anything amiss, the rest of his face an inscrutable mask.

There was a definite miasma of disease and decay in the air. A zealot shoved a moaning villager past him. Although Gerhart was no physician, the so-called plague victim appeared to have little obviously wrong with him. The warrior priest wondered if the same held true for the other people the zealots were rounding up and throwing into the flames of the growing funeral pyre?

By contrast to the villagers, these fanatical Sigmarites had definitely contracted the disease at some stage, possibly whilst carrying out their holy work. Fat, hairy bluebottles buzzed around the holy men, whose skin was blistered with buboes and weeping ulcers. Their faces—those that he could see were drawn and gaunt, with great coal rings around sunken, red-rimmed eyes. And these signs of sickness were no greater than around the rag-shrouded, flagellant monk himself.

Outnumbered and alone, Gerhart knew that he had to save himself and get out of this village before he too became caught up in this madness. And he had to do so now.

“You have been in contact with the diseased. Could it be that you too have succumbed to this vile sickness?” Gerhart challenged the monk.

“No!” the leader yelled, clearly unaware of his own corrupted condition. “We are carrying out holy work, the sacred mission given to us by Sigmar himself in a vision of glory.”

“And what is that mission?”

“Can you not see?” the Sigmarites’ leader said, indicating a huddle of terrified villagers being held by yet more of his sinister followers. “These creatures are the servants of Nurgle!” Gerhart felt his stomach lurch at hearing the plague god’s true name. “They bear the stigmata of the Lord of Decay’s chosen ones. While they live to spread their master’s filth and corruption, the carrion lord grows fat and bloated on the souls of the innocent and his dark power swells in the world, like a cadaver swelling with corpse gases.”

Gerhart couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Everything he had seen in Grunhafen suggested that it was the villagers who were the innocent ones and the Sigmarite host, blind to the truth, who had been corrupted by the Lord of Decay.

Look at them, thought the wizard. Look how unhealthy they all are!

As if to affirm Gerhart’s observations, one of the zealots broke into a hacking cough.

“How dare you make such accusations? Enough of this! It is you who are the evil ones! And it is you who must be judged!”

At that, Gerhart stamped down hard on the foot of one of the zealots holding him. In shock and pain the man let go of him and took a limping hop backwards. With one arm free, Gerhart took a swing at the second of his captors. His fist punched into the brute’s sternum causing the man to stagger back winded. Gerhart pulled himself free of the man’s weakened grip and snatched his staff back.

In two bounds Gerhart was on the leader. Even though the thought of getting closer to the diseased zealot filled him with revulsion it had to be done. Desperate times made men do desperate things.

As the monk raised his ulcerated hands to fend off the wizard, Gerhart swung his staff upwards, skilfully connecting with the man’s leather mask and knocking it from his face.

As the Sigmarites closed on Gerhart to defend their master again he shouted, “Look at your leader! Look at what he truly is!”

So full of authority was the wizard’s voice that the closest zealots turned their eyes upon the ruin of their leader’s face. The man’s cheeks and forehead were ravaged and hollow with pockmarks. He had no nose left, just a gaping hole in the front of his face through which rotting bone and cartilage could be seen. His lips were fleshless and drawn, and as the leper screamed, Gerhart saw that the man’s gums were bleeding and pulled back from brown, cracked teeth. On the man’s right temple, three large, weeping buboes, were clumped together, green-yellow pus oozing from them and crusting on his veiny skin.

Gerhart could hear no gasps of revulsion or horror from the fanatics. Surely such a sight would drive zealots to either slay their master or abandon him as their leader?

“Are you all mad? Look at your master!” the wizard exclaimed again.

Still no one moved.

Still screaming hysterically, the leper was scrabbling in the dirt to recover his mask.

Gerhart was amazed. In spite of everything, part of the leper’s ruined mind must have realised that his appearance was abhorrent and had to be hidden from view. But still his devoted followers could not see the corruption before their very eyes.

Gerhart was suddenly aware that the buzzing of the flies had increased in intensity, as if the insects had become enraged. Then they were swarming at him in a great black cloud.

Picturing the flame burning within his mind and observing the flow of magic around the blazing pyre with his wizard-sight, Gerhart reached out with his mind and pulled a snaking tendril of orange-red energy from the air.

A cone of fire burst from the outstretched fingertips of his right hand as he thrust it towards the furious swarm. The roar of the flames drowned the buzzing of the flies as Gerhart’s spell immolated their tiny black bodies.

Then the plague-bearing doom-mongers ran at him, armed with all manner of weapons, from pitchforks and worn blades to pole-arms and even the whips they used to mortify their own flesh.

Gerhart’s hands began to make signs of conjuration as if he could draw on the hot, dry wind of Aqshy into himself. Surrounded by the fires of Grunhafen, and suffused with the power of the four primal elements, Gerhart could barely contain the energies welling up inside him like magma bubbling up within the heart of a volcano.

This was nothing like the struggle he had faced atop the Tower of Heaven, battling the astromancer Kozma Himmlisch. Now the spells came easily to him, with little need to truly focus his mind. He raised his hands once more and thrust them towards the approaching circle of zealots.

He had been on the verge of losing his temper and now that he was freed of their clutches he was able to release his pent-up rage in an eruption of flame. The spell burst from his hands with an animalistic roar. It was as if the flames were alive, raging and hungry like some feral beast.

Half a dozen Sigmarites fell back screaming as their heavy robes caught fire. Two of the men who had managed to retain their senses flung themselves to the ground and rolled over and over to put out the flames. Gerhart was aware of a wild-haired flagellant smacking at flames in his beard with burning hands; his high-pitched screams cut through the air in an agonised wail.

Gerhart turned his furious gaze on the man still holding his sword. To the terrified Sigmarite it seemed that the wizard’s eyes were aflame. Gerhart didn’t need to give the man another demonstration of his power. The zealot cast the sword before him, turned tail and fled.

Armed with his sword, staff and spells, Gerhart could now launch himself fully against the plague-corrupted zealots. But the wizard was still aware of the huge numbers of fanatics he had to face alone. He would never be able to defeat them all, he had to decide whether to make a stand or try to escape.

And then, as if in answer to an unspoken prayer, he heard pounding hooves and gruff shouts from the other side of the village square. Keeping the fanatics closest to him at bay with another blast of fiery magic, Gerhart looked through the white hot flames to see six black-clad figures riding into the thick of the diseased Sigmarites and cutting them down with bloodied swords.

Chaos and confusion reigned. The leper was screaming orders to his devotees exhorting them to kill those who would stop them from completing their holy work. Villagers ran screaming from their captors as the Sigmarites fought back against the new arrivals. Some braver individuals tried to cut down the wizard.

It was clear who the leader of the warband was: a man, tall in the saddle, wearing a high broad-brimmed black hat and holding a silver flintlock pistol. Gerhart had encountered his like before.

The man rode towards him, taking aim. For a moment doubt flickered through Gerhart’s mind and the flame in his mind’s eye sputtered. He clearly heard the report of the pistol firing and saw the puff of blue smoke wreath its muzzle. A split second later he heard a choked cry behind him. He turned to see a Sigmarite, chain-flail above his head, fall backwards into the fire, with a ragged red hole in his throat.

Gerhart felt he should offer some words of thanks when he heard the horseman say, “Caught in the act.”

Before he could turn again something heavy connected with the back of his head and Gerhart’s world exploded into darkness.

 

Before the sorcerer could slump unconscious from the coshing he had been dealt by the butt of his pistol, Gottfried Verdammen slung an arm under his shoulders and pulled him up onto the back of his panting steed. The horse barely slowed as he did so.

Having recovered after the warband’s surprise attack, the crazed zealots were now running at the witch hunter and his henchmen, slashing at their steeds as well as the riders. Verdammen’s men rained hacking blows down on the plague monks in an attempt to keep them at bay.

“We are done here!” Verdammen shouted to his party. “We have what we came for. Ride on!”

Kicking his heels into his mount’s flanks, Verdammen urged his stallion forward. As he did so the animal reared up and crushed the bald, blistered head of a Sigmarite heretic under its iron-shod hooves.

As he moved off to freedom and safety, with his prisoner slung across the back of his horse, Verdammen heard a sickening roar—the sound of something large, angry and hungry.

The horrific noise was soon joined by the appalled cries of those who had been left behind. Verdammen didn’t know what was happening and didn’t intend to find out. With another shout of encouragement to his steed he galloped out of the doomed village, with his warband, leaving the people of Grunhafen and their insane accusers to their late. He had business elsewhere.