THE DOORWAY BETWEEN

Rjurik Davidson

 

 

“I want them dead and my property returned to me.” Baron von Kleist leaned forward as he spoke, the light throwing shadows across his thin face. He was a tall, gaunt man fast approaching middle age, clean shaven, his black hair slicked back like a raven’s wing. And although he wore a simple cloak, secured over his shoulder with a plain clasp, he had the air of nobility about him. Perhaps this was due to the very simplicity of his attire, for true nobles have no need to dress flamboyantly, to show off with frills and lace. Only the new nobility needed to prove their credentials with gaudiness and show.

Or at least, that’s what Frantz Heidel thought as he sized up the man opposite him. The witch hunter leaned back against his chair and glanced around the inn. Logs crackled in an open fireplace, yellow flames lazily throwing out heat. A few old-timers leaned up against the bar, heads drooping forwards as if they were gaining weight by the minute. In the opposite corner, a group of young men sat and laughed, their faces ruddy from cheap wine. The innkeeper’s daughter served them, making her way from behind the bar, through a wave of suggestive comments, to the young men’s table. Bechafen, Heidel thought to himself, could be any town in the Empire.

Heidel dressed plainly himself, his clothes a series of simply-cut browns and greens, perfect for the wilderness. His face mirrored his attire, brown straggling hair falling around his ears, lines etched into his skin, thin lips. The only remarkable feature were his eyes, deep and dark. It was as if behind them whole vistas of passion and zealotry were concealed. Only the pupils allowed a glimpse, as if through a keyhole into a blazing room. He turned back to regard the nobleman.

“The destruction of evil, that is the task I’ve set myself. It is my vow to seek out this cancer that grows daily in the world. And when I find it…” Heidel let his voice trail off.

“A noble cause, undoubtedly.” The baron smiled slightly. “I understand you burned a man just three days ago. Tell me, have you ever destroyed an innocent by mistake?”

“Never.”

“And how can you be sure?” The baron’s eyes were alive with the challenge.

“Witchcraft, sorcery and other forms of corruption are revealed by the stench that wafts before them. Evil betrays itself at every turn. Those who are sensitive feel its presence—I know I am in darkness when I cannot see,” Heidel said rather distractedly. He leaned forward, his voice gaining conviction. “The innocent have nothing to fear, for they walk in the light. But the guilty will reveal themselves, and they should tremble because only the gods and light and truth can cleanse the world of the foul existence of corruption.”

The baron seemed satisfied with Heidel’s reply and leaned back, sipping his dark red wine. A moment later he placed the glass back onto the table. “So this job is suited to you? You can track down this evil band and—how do you put it?—cleanse them. The Dark Warrior has the heirloom, no doubt. When you have cleansed this foul brood and retrieved it, you will return it to me. Seven hundred crowns for its safe return. You can find me here when you return.”

“Tell me, baron, when this band attacked your wagon, how did they know to take the heirloom?” Heidel poured himself another small measure of wine from the ceramic carafe.

“I brought all my valuables with me when I chose to settle here, in Bechafen. They took us by surprise on the road and my men fled, the cowardly fools, leaving the follower of Darkness and his band to take what they wanted. Naturally I am somewhat embarrassed, so I trust that your task will be kept private.” The baron covered one thin hand with the other, as if to show what he meant.

“And what does this heirloom look like?”

“It is a pendant, silver, set with a blue gem. It is beautiful like a clear sky above the ice-stilled Reik in winter. When caught in the light it throws a thousand tiny sparks of silver into the air, and the blue becomes as deep and rich as the oncoming night.”

“A beautiful object.” Heidel smiled, picturing the gem in his head with its changing blues and its flashing silver reflections.

“My most precious,” the baron said earnestly.

“You must be quite concerned.”

“I am sick with worry that I might never see this precious thing again.” Then the baron shook his head from side to side, as if in disbelief that the pendant could ever have been stolen.

“Well fear not, your lordship. I shall return your heirloom to you, and in doing so, give these foul obscenities their just desserts: an eternal sleep in a long, cold grave.” Heidel’s voice was firm, solid, emphatic. “I will need to find a guide of course, someone who knows the land—”

“Ah, I have already thought of that,” the baron interrupted with a wave of his hand. “I know just the man. He’s a tracker, familiar with these parts. Karl Sassen. I shall send him word to meet you here at the inn.”

“Well, if this Sassen is able to do the job, then we should be able to leave tomorrow.” The witch hunter raised his glass high. “To success in our mission,” he said.

“To success,” von Kleist echoed, smiling broadly.

 

The tracker, Sassen, arrived mid-morning. Heidel was reading The Confessions of Andreus Sinder, a book full of the most personal and incisive perceptions into the nature of evil and darkness when there was a sharp rat-tat-tat on the door. He placed the heavy volume aside almost reluctantly and admitted him.

Sassen was a little man, sprightly like a small animal. His body seemed perpetually tense, as if he might need to spring from danger at any moment. Heidel couldn’t help but think he looked like a weasel, a view accentuated by his long nose and soft, thin, facial hair.

“Come in,” Heidel invited and Sassen followed him into the room. Heidel sat down but he was disconcerted when the tracker, instead of doing likewise, began to walk around, stopping only to inspect Heidel’s possessions.

“A nice long-coat,” Sassen said in a soft high voice, more gentle and articulate than one would expect from a tracker. He rubbed the fur of the lapel between thumb and forefinger.

Heidel agreed uncertainly, unsure of what to make of the little man.

Sassen touched the hilt of the dagger on the small table by the side of the bed, but Heidel, getting increasingly annoyed, noticed that the tracker had cocked his head and that his eyes were on The Confessions of Andreus Sinder.

“When do we start?” The tracker turned and, for the first time since entering the room, looked Heidel straight in the eye.

Heidel, by this time, was struggling to contain his anger. The tracker had no manners. How dare he wander into Heidel’s room and begin to peruse at his leisure! Heidel bit his tongue and struggled for a moment before responding. “You realise the danger of the task?”

The little man scrunched his face up. “I’m not a warrior.”

“It is our joint task to recover the baron’s heirloom, so together we must do whatever is necessary. If that means you fight, then so be it. I will not complain about having to help with the tracking.”

Sassen looked confused for a moment, as if there was something faulty in Heidel’s logic, then nodded in agreement. “Very well,” he said before sitting down on the bed and picking up the heavy tome which lay there. “This book,” the tracker said. “I have heard of Andreus Sinder.”

“You are an educated man?” Heidel was both impressed and curious.

“Oh, not really,” Sassen said with a self-deprecating smile. “I’ve learned to read a little: just a word here and there.”

For the first time Heidel warmed to the man with the rodent’s face. Humbleness had always been a virtue to Heidel.

Sassen continued: “I heard that Sinder was something of a sinner in his youth. Corrupted, they say, before he understood the true nature of evil.”

“But he renounced the darkness,” Heidel countered instantly, “and believed that his knowledge could be used the better to combat it.”

Sassen smiled momentarily, revealing sharp white teeth. “Could that be true? That a man could turn his back on darkness, when once he revelled in it?”

“It appears to be the case,” Heidel admitted.

“Then you have entertained the thought, Herr Heidel, that you might benefit from delving into forbidden arts and unhealthy practices?” Sassen smiled and his leathery face was cunning and mischievous.

Heidel’s eyes flashed dangerously. “There are some,” he noted, “who say that they would never consider such a possibility. They argue that one can never be sure of one’s resilience, that only the strongest can return to the light after tasting such sweet and poisoned fruit.”

Sassen stood and began to pace, intensely interested in the discussion. “And you agree with this position?”

“No,” Heidel stated resolutely.

“There is surely no alternative.” The tracker seemed pleased. Evidently he believed he had cornered Heidel. “Only such a position can be held if you wish to avoid experimenting with the Darkness yourself, and yet see some value in the Confessions. Otherwise what would your approach to Sinder be?”

“I would have killed him.” Heidel’s voice was steady, adamant.

“Even—”

Heidel finished Sassen’s question: “Even after he had confessed the error of his ways.”

Sassen stared fixedly, as if in disbelief, his small mouth open, revealing the small, sharp teeth. Heidel himself sat quite still, feeling almost guilty to have crushed what little intellectual argument the tracker had mustered—but knowing without question that he would have done just what he had declared.

 

Later, after the pair had worked out a basic plan for the task ahead, Sassen left to organise the supplies: saddle-bags, his sword, blankets, food, and so on. Heidel, too, readied himself. He put on his old brown leather coat, hiding the chainmail he had donned for the battle that was surely to come. On his head he placed a black, broad-brimmed hat, weather-beaten and stained with sweat. He attached his sword to his waist and checked the long bow and quiver that he would carry on the saddle of his grey mare.

Was it true, Heidel wondered, that he would have killed Andreus Sinder, the author of one of the most erudite tracts on the nature of evil, a text filled with piecing insights into the darkness in all its manifestations? Almost without realising it, he picked up the Confessions from where it lay on the table. He turned the cover over in his hands, feeling its weight. He rubbed his fingers across its cover. The leather was soft and supple. Instinctively he opened to the first page where the manuscript began. He read the first lines:

Only by my participation in these unnatural events did I understand the true gravity of these horrors. Only then did I know the need to burn twisted evil with the bright flame of the sword.

Heidel placed the book down, lost in thought.

 

Heidel met Sassen by the gates of Bechafen in the early afternoon as the sun was just beginning to break through the lumbering clouds overhead.

From Bechafen they rode out on the road that ultimately led to Talabec, passing through a series of small hamlets surrounded by green rolling fields. Their path ran south, though later it would turn gradually west. Cattle and sheep stood lazily about, munching on the grass and occasionally turning their soft dull eyes towards the two men and their horses as they rode by. Beyond the cows stood fields of wheat and barley, turning gold in the late summer. A farmer steering a cart carrying grain passed in the opposite direction; when he saw Heidel he bowed his head and would not look at him. Then a merchant train carrying barrels and furs clanked by, its heavily armed outriders giving them hard, silent stares.

Finally a couple of young nobles on dashing black horses galloped across the fields and crossed the road in front of them without greeting, disappearing into the distance in pursuit of some unseen prey. After that they were alone on the worn path which meandered through the tree-dotted scrubland. Slowly, inexorably, the road turned westwards.

As they rode Heidel felt distinctly happy. At last, he told himself, on the trail of evil again.

“Lord Sigmar,” he prayed under his breath, “protect me on this journey. Let me return safely, the scalps of my enemies in my hand.” He never knew if the gods heard his prayers, but praying always seemed a wise idea. For if they did hear, perhaps they would deign to look over him.

As if trying to fill the silence, Sassen began to tell Heidel about his life, though the witch hunter would have been quite happy not to hear it. The little man had lived in the country hereabouts for many years and had spent time hunting and clearing the land. Once, though, he had sailed the seas with a group of Norsemen, raiding unprotected towns, pillaging fat merchant ships. But since then, he assured Heidel, he had decided to work permanently around Bechafen. Heidel was not sure whether to believe the tracker. Sailing with Norsemen? Sigmar keep him, he thought; let the little man have his fantasies.

“The baron told me that the attack on his goods occurred some ten miles from Bechafen,” Sassen continued. “He says the band of brigands headed east into the forest, towards the mountains.”

“How did he discover that?”

“After the attack he and his men returned to the carts, only to find them plundered. A fresh trail led off into the woods.”

Heidel nodded silently and disappeared back into his own thoughts as they rode on.

The scattered vegetation around the road slowly transformed into forest: first a copse of trees here; then a slightly larger copse there, then they came quicker and faster until there was only a wall of thick greenery. Heidel was most comfortable in the wilderness. There was something about its simplicity. Danger was swift and direct: wild beasts searching for food; the descent of the winter snows; the surge of the stormy sea. Heidel’s worries were equally simple: finding a camp-site out of the weather; keeping warm and dry; saving enough provisions for the journey. Evil was stark, clear, easy to locate; creatures of darkness wandering the woods, raiding small villages, or hiding in the mountains. Heidel’s task was simple: to find them, and to eliminate them.

Cities were another story. Affluence made Heidel uneasy. The machinations and intrigues of the courts, great glittering balls with ladies hiding their pockmarks under white paint and rouge, lords and princes wallowing in a sordid world of whores and white powders. Nothing was simple, everything was veiled and obscured. People spoke and acted according to complex codes and signs that had to be interpreted. A friendly greeting could conceal a serious insult. Your best friend could be your worst enemy. Simplicity and directness were seen as colloquial and quaint. Danger came in all sorts of guises, all manner of forms. He could never move in that society. They brought malevolence upon themselves. He could not, he would not, protect them. Better to leave that to witch hunters like Immanuel Mendelsohn.

Heidel leaned over and spat on the ground at the thought of the man.

Mendelsohn, a self-proclaimed witch hunter, was a nobleman by birth. He had grown up amongst the lords and the ladies—and the whores. He could move with ease in high society: with his frilled silk shirts, his brown curly locks, his floppy hats and pointed leather boots. And, for all this, Mendelsohn was not above suspicion. After all, it is a short step from silk shirts to other pleasures of the flesh. First came the finery, then the women and the illicit substances. Then came corruption, sure as night followed day. No, Heidel did not like him or his kind. Heidel did not like the aristocrat’s search for fame, his love of publicity, his attempt to turn everything into a drama. Mendelsohn gave witch hunters a bad name and it would not surprise Heidel if one day he would have to go after the noble himself. That stray thought brought an ironic smile to his lips.

Heidel shook his head and banished Mendelsohn from his thoughts. He recognised that such thoughts had a habit of turning him distinctly surly. He looked around at the forest. The trees seemed to be getting thicker, more twisted, the underbrush more prickly and uninviting. Sassen rode beside him in silence, tracker’s eyes now intent on finding the trail of the quarry.

Maybe four hours after they left Bechafen, Sassen suddenly called a halt. He reined in his horse and leaped down to the road. He crept, head down along the edge of the forest. It appeared to Heidel as if the little man was actually sniffing for the trail. Then the tracker looked up suddenly and stated: “Here it is.”

Heidel dismounted too and walked over to him. On the ground were a series of scuffled tracks leading into the forest. Without Sassen he would have ridden straight past it.

The way into the forest was marked by several broken branches and the tracks, still distinct after two days without rain, leading into the darkness. Once into the trees it would be hard going. Branches hung low like outstretched arms barring the way; roots twisted like tentacles from the ground, threatening to trip them.

“Do you know this area well?” Heidel asked the tracker.

“Fairly well. It’s all pretty much like this, I’m afraid. But that means it will hamper the band as much as us. We’ll have to walk, anyway.”

Sassen wrinkled his eyes, an annoying habit that Heidel had noticed; the little man always squinted when he spoke.

“It doesn’t look like we’ll be able to travel at night,” Heidel said. He looked to the sky, as if night was about to fall then and there. But it was still deep and blue with clumpy white clouds rolling slowly overhead.

“Unlikely,” Sassen agreed. “We’ll just have to make the best of the day.”

“Fine. Then we had better begin.”

 

For four days they pushed through the forest, the gnarled branches of the trees blocking them and their horses, thorns and bushes scratching against their legs, drawing blood wherever the skin was exposed. In no time Heidel’s hands were covered in a delicate latticework of dried blood. The days were dark as the sun was shut out by the canopy overhead. But if the days were dark, the nights were blacker still. Even the shadowy forms of the trees disappeared into the night.

Every day passed the same. They awoke at first light and departed as quickly as possible. During the day they pushed on as hard as they could for, according to the baron, the bandits would have two days’ start on them. If Heidel and Sassen pressed on with this pace they could catch them within a week at most, less if the band had made more permanent camp somewhere. When they caught them, surprise would be the key. Heidel would stand no chance against a united group; he would have to pick them off one by one.

On the morning of the fourth day since entering the forest, Sassen stopped and inspected the tracks, an action that had become increasingly regular. “They are less than a day away from us.” He peered up at Heidel and squinted.

Ahead of them they could see twenty feet at the most. At any moment they might stumble upon the prey. That could mean death or worse. In these close confines, the hunters would become the hunted, and the black warrior’s horde would surely crush them. Often Heidel heard rustling close to them in the forest or fluttering amongst the branches above, but whatever it was remained unsighted. He assumed they were just the movements of birds and animals, but they made him jittery anyway.

Perhaps to ease his tension Sassen kept trying to strike up a conversation, trying to get Heidel to tell of his exploits as a witch hunter.

“How many have you put to death?” he asked one time.

Heidel glared at him.

“You are grim, Herr Heidel.”

“Better to say nothing at all, than to say nothing using many words.” The witch hunter spoke plainly.

Undeterred, Sassen continued: “I hear you burnt a man only last month. What for?”

“He was in league with corruption.” Heidel practically spat the sentence out, the words so filled with revulsion and disdain.

“What did he do?” Sassen inquired timidly.

“When I arrived in this particular village many were falling ill. It was like a plague.” Heidel’s voice rose in intensity as he spoke, passion beginning to creep into his account. “At first I could not discern the cause of this illness. I studied the victims and found that they had great red swellings beneath the skin. Under the armpits, on the neck, between the legs. As a test I punctured one of the victim’s swellings, and from the wound squirmed a writhing mass of worm-like creatures, all purple and yellow and bulbous. Alas, the victim died. Later I tried to cleanse a victim by applying fire to his swellings. But the strain was too much on his body.”

Heidel glanced at Sassen, who looked on with a mix of disgust and excitement.

“Continue, continue,” the tracker said, pulling his thin beard with his fingers and licking his lips.

“I realised that the only victims were men, and so turned to the origins of the illness: if I could determine the cause then perhaps I could save these poor people. It took me but a day to find the truth. I interviewed the men and found that those who fell ill first had something in common. All were suitors of a woman, a particular woman. Searching her house I found nothing. But I was undeterred. I pressed the woman for the names of all who courted her. Under duress she produced a list, and all on that list were ill… all save one, the keeper of the inn. I found in that man’s cellar a cauldron full of writhing, squirming larvae. These he would feed to the men when they were drunk, placing them in their ale. Somehow they would eat their way through the flesh and the insides. And so he was burnt at the stake that very night.”

“But why, why did he do it?”

“He called it an act of love. He loved her, but she did not return his feelings. As a result he hated her other lovers and decided to kill them. But as he acted out his drama he lost his mind. His hatred for these particular men turned into a hatred of all men. Soon it would have become a hatred of all the world and everything within it. That way is the path to darkness.”

After he finished there was silence for a moment, and then Sassen burst into a high fit of uncontrollable laughter.

“You think it funny?” Heidel’s eyes flashed and his hand moved unconsciously to his sword.

“No, no, of course not.” Sassen suddenly looked worried and did not ask any more questions of Heidel.

 

* * *

 

Around noon on the fourth day, the trail they had been following suddenly met a path, wide enough for two carts, leading away to left and right. Once it must have been well used, but now was overgrown, with the trees threatening to close in once more. Sassen handed his horse’s reins to Heidel and bent down to examine the tracks.

“They passed to the left,” he said, “but there are other tracks here, that come from the right. Someone on a horse. It looks like he dismounted, for there are new footprints. Here, see?” Sassen pointed to the new tracks. “Perhaps he met the group here and has joined them.”

Heidel peered down. There was a small group of hoof-prints, one over the other, as if the horse was made to wait for some time. Next to them were the fresh prints of a boot.

“They are soft-soled,” Sassen noted. “See how faint the tracks are.”

“Well, with only one horse they can’t have gone far. If we mount here we may catch them today. How old are these tracks?” Heidel peered down at the tracks himself.

“Perhaps half a day.” Sassen squinted in the direction that the tracks led, as if he might yet see the band travelling away from them.

“Then we shall ride slowly—and tonight we shall come upon them in a hail of fire and light.” Heidel’s eyes flashed at Sassen. The tracker smiled grimly and looked away.

They rode throughout the rest of that day and, as it became dark, Heidel turned to Sassen: “You must set up camp here. We do not know how far away the band is, but we must take no chances. I shall walk ahead and begin the work, using my bow. I’ll be back before morning. Do not light a fire, for I want you here when I return. Otherwise…” Heidel had nothing more to say, so he nodded, dismounted, took his bow and quiver, and began the walk.

Sassen left the path behind him for a clearing, the two horses in tow. “Good luck,” he called out to the witch hunter, who did not acknowledge him.

 

The new path was wide and above him he could see the stars. It was a relief to feel the open air again and to feel the fresh wind. “Sigmar,” he prayed under his breath, may the forest be kind to me tonight. “And Ulric, god of battle, to you I pray also: together may we come down upon these abominations and cleanse them with blood and steel.”

And his heart began to sing, as it always did before he went into battle. For something stirred in him before he killed. It was as if his soul was suddenly in harmony with the world, as if there was some secret melody, some logic, which things and events travelled along. Truth, that was what it was. When a foe squirmed upon his sword—that was truth. When the light in a mutant’s eyes dimmed slowly, and then faded to black.

The road opened out into a large clearing. He found them there, camping around a small fire. Already they were drunk or intoxicated, and he smiled silently. Baron von Kleist had been right: these were evil things that needed cleansing. Darkness undermines itself, he thought.

There were seven of them. Six things: neither men nor beasts but something in between, twisted and vile. And the warrior, dull in his black and heavy armour, his face hidden by a great helmet. Some nameless black meat was charring on a spit above the fire. Bottles of liquid lay strewn amongst the creatures, who rolled around on the ground amongst the dirt and their own filth. Only the warrior sat calmly on an overturned log, contemplative and evil.

When three of the corrupted men-things began to make their way from the clearing down a slope away to the right of him, Heidel seized his chance and followed them. He crept as quietly as possible, a shadow in the darkness, yet cursing under his breath as he heard the twigs breaking beneath his feet. But the creatures didn’t hear him, for they were crashing down the slope carelessly. After a minute they came to a small stream flowing gently, the sound of water over rocks floating through the air. All three dipped waterskins into the water, splashing their filth into the clear stream, and turned to carry them up the hill.

It was then that Heidel struck. His first arrow hit the leading beast-man in the neck, piercing its soft fur and sending blood gushing through its bear-mouth.

Pandemonium broke loose. In a whirr of motion a second arrow whisked through the air, another close behind. Two hits and a thing with tentacles fell groaning. A last beastman hissed like a gigantic snake; something heavy crashed into it from behind, screaming and lashing out. Then Heidel retreated back into the darkness. An excellent initial foray; three creatures dead.

Praise be to Sigmar. Blessings upon the name of Ulric.

 

When he arrived back at the clearing where he had left the tracker, he found Sassen sitting silently between the horses. It was still dark and the chill bit at his face. Sassen was shivering despite being wrapped in a blanket.

“A fine night, Sassen. In the darkness I struck against malevolence, and Sigmar was on our side.” Heidel spoke fast, breathlessly recounting the night’s events. “We must ride before dawn. The sun will soon rise and we must catch them again before they have a chance to move or find us unawares. The darkness will give us cover.”

The crisp air was motionless as they rode. Before long the eastern sky began to lighten. Finally, as they came close to the quarry’s camp, the sky had turned gold and red and pink, but the sun was still hiding behind the tree-line.

Heidel glanced at Sassen and wondered if the tracker would be of any use in the fight. The little man had a short sword at his side, but until now it had only been used to hack at bushes and branches. It had not yet tasted blood, unless the stories of sailing with Norsemen were true. Perhaps this would be the morning of its baptism.

When Heidel judged that they were close to the camp, he hissed for them to halt, and they tied their horses to a tree.

“Let’s hope that they have not heard us,” he whispered to Sassen. “Are you ready for this?”

The tracker looked at the ground, then to the sky, and finally nodded briefly, pursing his lips. The fear emanated from him like a scent.

Heidel’s mood had changed since his joyous return from his initial foray. Perhaps he could feel Sassen’s fear, and somehow he had taken it as his own: an uncomfortable, dissolute, emotion. He felt a terrible sense of foreboding. And though he prayed to Sigmar and Ulric once more, his heart refused to lighten. Instead it was weighed down, leaden. For a moment Heidel felt the inevitability of defeat. How could he face that dark warrior, that faceless, soulless thing—all darkness and metal, terrible and sublime? The warrior had seemed just another man in the night. But as the sky became light, its image in his head to grow in stature; it was as if the very light was eaten by evil, which turned the warrior into something else entirely. Now he was ten feet tall, his armour hardened, impenetrable.

Heidel shook himself. “Fool,” he muttered under his breath. But despite his reassurances he still felt the sands of uncertainty shift beneath his feet.

They crept along the side of the track and before long came to the camp. Heidel was almost surprised that the creatures were still there. Three corrupted mutants sat in a circle facing outwards, in their hands jagged and vicious blades. There was a chicken-man. Behind him crouched something with what Heidel first took to be a shield on his back, before he realised that it was a shell that has grown from the man’s flesh. And finally there was another, a truly foul, corrupt thing which made Heidel rage with fury and sick with revulsion when he a saw it. Where its head should have been there was merely a gaping mouth dripping ooze and slime, pink and putrescent.

The warrior was nowhere to be seen.

“Sassen,” he said, “the time has come to mete out justice.”

They began.

 

How beautiful, Heidel thought, as his arrows arched their way across the clearing in the still, crisp dawn air: rising ever so slightly in their flight, and then dropping subtlety, before plunging into flesh and blood. For a moment he forgot the combat, and was content simply to watch the arrows sail, their beauty as they fulfilled their purpose, to fly and to strike.

Then the serenity of the arrows was broken and everything became violence and death. The chicken-man suddenly began hopping uncontrollably, thrusting himself into the air, surprisingly high. The manic leaping was disturbing to watch, the body pulling tight, thrusting repeatedly against the ground. The corrupt body, thrusting and twisting, twisting and thrusting, blood spraying under incredible pressure; the last actions of a doomed creature in agony. So much blood.

Heidel’s next arrow struck the second monstrosity, piercing its shell, forcing it to thrash and grasp aimlessly at the shaft protruding from its back.

The witch hunter charged, his sword in hand, Sassen scurrying alongside him, howling at the top of his voice. Heidel quickly lost sight of the tracker as the third creature came at him. He realised with disgust that its body was covered with gaping, slavering, teeth-filled orifices. Its arms were tough and wiry, and the witch hunter knew that if it clutched him those mouths would suck his life. There would be no escape from its clutches.

“You are doomed, spawn!” he cried as he thrust his sword forward, driving it into the creature’s belly. It slid along his blade, up to the hilt, yet there was life in it still. It grasped at him, and held him in its wiry arms, pulling him closer, ever closer still. The strength of its arms was immense, and he felt the mouths as they bit into his flesh.

“Sigmar!” he screamed, and tried to push himself away. But it held him fast.

Desperately he twisted his sword and dragged it upwards, and he felt warm blood and entrails on his hands. There was a terrible bird-screech wail. The fiend’s grasp weakened. It slid to the ground.

Heidel staggered back, sword hanging loosely in his hand, sweat and blood dripping over his eyes. He was vaguely aware of Sassen fighting something on the other side of the clearing. Weakly he spun around—and something huge and black loomed before him.

The warrior was seven feet tall, a great battle-axe in its mailed fist. Heidel felt dwarfed by it, as if he stood before something from another age, something eternal. For a moment he was motionless, paralysed by awe. He realised that this would be the moment of his death. From behind his opponent the sun had risen all red and gold. Its rays gleamed off the black armour and blinded him. The only thing he could see was the silver pendant, set with a brilliant blue gem, hanging tantalisingly around the warrior’s neck.

Then a mailed fist struck him in the face, throwing him backwards. Heidel scrambled desperately to the side as the great battle-axe plunged into the earth. He felt the rush of air as it flew past him. Heidel swung his sword sideways and felt it clatter off armour. A deep laughter followed, a laughter so unnatural and mocking that it filled Heidel with rage. The rage became strength and he leaped to his feet and jumped backwards. The axe whirled close to his belly, threatening to gut him.

“Laugh now! But you will die screaming!” Heidel screamed.

But only laughter was returned.

Side-stepping to the right, Heidel lashed out, aiming at the elbow where only the black plates separated revealing only chainmail. He connected, and felt the sword bite, before stumbling sideways and backwards away from the lethal axe whirling towards him. As he stumbled his foot clipped something—a stone, a root—and his balance shifted, his leg remained stationary, yet his body lurched forward. Desperately he tried to pull his foot forward. Finally he succeeded, in time for his knee to brace his fall.

The warrior was now behind him, unsighted. The terribly notion seized him that something huge and sharp would plunge into his back or cleave his skull. He threw himself to the side and heard a great roar, felt the rush of air on his cheek as if it was a spring breeze.

With great effort he leaped back onto his feet, twisted his body, arcing his sword in one great circular motion. There was a clang as the blow struck his opponent’s chest, denting his breastplate and forcing the monstrosity back a step. Glancing around, Heidel noticed the slim figure of Sassen duelling lithely with a beastman, sword flashing time and time again.

Heidel raised his hand to wipe the sweat from his forehead eyes. Soon it would blind him. He lashed out at the colossus as it advanced once more, and again found himself dodging the deadly axe. The witch hunter struck and struck again, and each time the same pattern repeated itself. He thrusting and slashing, his sword glancing off the black armour. The warrior heaving his great axe and plunging it into the thin air: air in which only an instant before Heidel had stood.

Heidel had struck well, denting the armour, drawing blood from between the plates where only chainmail protected the fiend. Yet he knew he stood no chance. One blow from the axe would fell him. Then it would be over. His blows were too small, too weak. Perhaps they drew some strength from the warrior, but Heidel was tiring faster.

Then the inevitable happened: Heidel fell backwards over a corpse. Sweat dripped down into his eyes so everything became a blur. Above him the huge black-armoured warrior stood. Behind the monster, the sun shone with a surreal beauty and the immense, ancient axe glinted cruelly. Heidel knew he was dead. There would be no escape.

A sudden explosion, and it was like time slowed to a crawl. A massive dent appearing in the side of the warrior’s helmet. Another explosion: the dent pushed further in, and a thousand tiny holes appeared, as if someone had thrust needles repeatedly through the metal. The warrior backed away, suddenly staggering, blood and streams of yellow filth dribbling from beneath the vast helmet. The huge body fell like the edge of a cliff into the sea; foul steam and dust was thrown into the air with a gigantic crash. The dust seemed to hover in the air for a second and then was whisked away from the enormous body by a sudden gust of wind.

Heidel sat and stared, his ears ringing, sweat dribbling into his eyes. Through the ringing came a startling voice.

“Just in time, hey? You know, Heidel, old man, you really should pick better odds.”

Heidel turned his head. There stood a fop: dressed in a frilled silk shirt, a floppy soft hat on top of hair curled into ringlets, a tiny perfectly trimmed moustache, and wearing soft, pointed leather boots. The man held two smoking pistols in his hands.

“Mendelsohn,” Heidel said flatly.

 

Sassen had taken care of the shell-creature and was now busy piling the bodies together. Heidel was relieved that the tracker had not been killed in the fight. He had lost track of the little man for most of it, but apparently Sassen could handle his sword after all, and though a trickle of drying blood ran down his left arm, he was not badly injured.

“Only a scratch,” the little man had said quietly when Heidel asked about it. The tracker seemed distracted, as if something was on his mind. Heidel assumed it was the result of the combat. He had seen many men shaken after a battle; some were so distraught they were speechless, wept like children, or moaned worse than the wounded.

They were determined to burn the foul bodies. Mendelsohn and Heidel began collecting wood and building the fire up into a pyre.

“You must have passed me in the night,” Mendelsohn grinned. “I must say, I’m a bit upset that you only left the warrior for me.”

“Have no fear, Mendelsohn. The Empire is crawling with corruption. You should know that, from the circles you move in,” Heidel snapped.

Mendelsohn smiled for a reply and picked up a fallen log, swathed with damp and rotting bark. “Damn this, it’ll ruin my shirt.” He held the log away from his body but bits still fell onto the silk cuffs.

“I’ll go and fetch the horses,” Sassen called out from the clearing. He had finished piling the bodies together as best he could and seemed anxious to be away from this place of death and corruption. Heidel nodded in agreement and the tracker disappeared off down the path.

When they had built the fire high enough, Heidel began to throw on the corpses, cringing as he touched their diseased bodies. He was in turmoil. Mendelsohn, the aristocratic dandy, had saved his life. Had the flamboyant fop not arrived, he would now most certainly be dead. But Heidel felt humiliated, bested, and could not bring himself to show gratitude. He had known Mendelsohn some years, long enough to realise that the paths they walked were different ones. He did not entirely approve of that which the noble had taken. Begrudgingly he turned to the other man.

“You arrived at an important time. Thank you, Mendelsohn.”

Mendelsohn raised his head and gave him a brilliant, handsome smile. “You make it sound like we had a merchant’s meeting. ‘You arrived at an important time…’—otherwise I would never have sold the silver spoons!” A moment passed. “Oh, call me Immanuel. ‘Mendelsohn’ sounds so formal.”

Heidel struggled for a moment with his manners, then said: “And you, you can call me Frantz… I suppose.” A moment later, “So the baron, he hired you too?”

“The baron?”

“Baron von Kleist? He set me upon this task.”

“I know of no Baron von Kleist.”

Heidel stopped for a moment, thinking. “The baron hired me to recover an heirloom, a most precious thing, that these foul beasts stole. They attacked the caravan which he was taking to Bechafen.”

Mendelsohn looked concerned for a moment and pulled on his small moustache with his fingers. “This band attacked no caravan. I followed them from Bechafen myself, all the way. Never let them stray far from my sight the whole journey. Where is this von Kleist from?”

“From Altdorf or somesuch. He was moving here to escape the pressures of the capital.”

Mendelsohn pulled harder on his moustache. “I know most of the nobles in Altdorf, but I have never heard of a Baron von Kleist. What was this heirloom of which he spoke?”

Heidel walked to the massive armoured corpse of the dark warrior. The thick metal plates which covered the body were impressive. Great strength would be needed to carry such weight. Even now the enormity of the body and the armour were frightening, as if the Warrior might suddenly leap once more into life.

Heidel was also struck by the stench that emanated from the corpse, flies buzzed and disappeared into the cracks between the plates. He shuddered, imagining what was beneath the armour. The flies preferred what was hidden beneath the plates to the bloody mass that had been the warrior’s head.

“A pendant, spectacular. It was around the neck of this—” Heidel began, then stopped. There was nothing: the pendant was not there. He looked up at the noble.

“Gone?” Mendelsohn raised his eyebrows inquiringly.

Heidel nodded and turned slowly.

“Sassen.”

 

It took them half a day to find trace of Sassen’s flight. They rode two in line, Heidel sat behind Mendelsohn, clinging as lightly to the man’s back as he could. At twilight they came across Sassen’s roan, dead by the side of the path.

“He took my grey mare,” Heidel said impassively.

“Aye, and this poor beast looks a little grey itself.” Mendelsohn smiled brilliantly.

Heidel could not understand this incessant cheerfulness. “Immanuel, how in this world of darkness, do you remain so—”

“Happy?”

“Yes.”

“It’s not happiness, it’s…” One of his slender hands described a little circle as he thought of the right word. “It’s a sense of humour.” Heidel thought about that for a moment.

“A sense of humour is one of the ways to fight the darkness, Frantz. If the world is a duality, caught between light and dark, day and night, good and evil, then we understand humour as the opposite of… Damn, I can’t think what it’s an opposite of right now but…” Mendelsohn threw his arms in the air. “It’s a good opposite anyway.” He laughed to himself.

“Immanuel?” Heidel said seriously.

“Yes.”

“You’re a very strange man.”

 

They rested for a while as the sun went down, ate some dried fruit, salted pork and bread, and let the horse graze. They had reached the point at which Heidel and Sassen had broken through the forest and reached the wider path. To the north lay the thin track along which they had followed the evil band. To the east the wider path continued, the way Mendelsohn had ridden. Both led to the Talabec-Bechafen road.

“Did you follow me all the way?” Mendelsohn asked.

“No, we cut through the forest from the north. It looks like Sassen is returning that way. Perhaps he thinks it will be quicker.”

“Well, if we follow the wretch directly he will stay much the same distance ahead of us. If we return to Bechafen on the trail that I took, we will cover more distance but will be able to ride. It’s a risk, but it means we have a chance of cutting him off. If however, he reaches Bechafen before us, I fear we will have lost him.”

For three days they rode and it was like a nightmare broken only when they stopped to eat or sleep at night. But sleep was hard to find. To his great irritation, Heidel would doze off only momentarily before being jolted awake. As he lay half-asleep he felt the constant motion of the horse beneath him, as if he was still riding. At other times he felt the roots and rocks digging into his back, every knot and twist. So he spent most of his time in a strange twilight world of insufferable insomnia.

When sleep finally took him, he dreamed strange dreams: of riding the same horse as a cloaked figure. He was too afraid to talk to the man, for he knew that something was not quite right. Once, in the dream, he touched the figure on the shoulder, and the man turned. The face was for a moment caught in the shadows. But as the wan moonlight touched the face Heidel screamed: for it was a corpse, cadaverous and rotten, and curling down from its shrivelled scalp was a cascade of perfect brown ringlets. It had touched its cheeks with rouge, in a gesture monstrous and sickening, and on its face was a grin of yellow, decaying teeth.

“Humour,” it said to him, “humour is the opposite of…” And those words echoed in frightful ways. But no matter how he tried, Heidel could not get off the horse.

 

On the fourth day they reached the road, and there they bought fresh horses from a passing merchant for a thousand crowns. More, thought Heidel, than he had been offered for this task. They enquired and found that a small, weaselly man, riding a grey mare, had passed within the hour.

They caught their first distant glimpse of Sassen as he entered Bechafen—the tracker riding slowly towards the town’s great wooden gates.

“My poor mare,” Heidel muttered, noticing the beast’s head drooping with fatigue.

The sun was going down behind them, the chill in the air starting to bite. They followed Sassen’s route through the gates, past the two guardsmen who looked indifferently on all those who entered the town. They trailed Sassen as inconspicuously as they could, trying to keep groups of people between them. They were fortunate that there were many on the streets: labourers heading for their favourite tavern, street vendors packing up their goods for the day, farmers driving their carts towards the gates and the hamlets surrounding Bechafen. In any case, Sassen did not check behind him; he did not seem mindful of pursuit, as far as they could tell.

As the two witch hunters made their way through the busy streets, they kept as far behind as they could, and at times feared that they had lost the tracker. But just as they were losing heart, peering desperately into the distance, one of them would notice Sassen heading away down a side street, or just turning a corner in the distance. On and on he went, leading them across the centre of the town, and finally they entered the wealthier quarters, trotting past great rows of town houses, hidden from the road by high walls.

Sassen entered the grounds of a decrepit and decaying building, its eaves cracked and splintered, tiles missing from its roof, a garden overgrown with weeds and grasses. The tracker tied the exhausted horse to a dying tree and disappeared around the side of the house.

“Do we enter now, or rest and return later, refreshed?” Mendelsohn asked.

Heidel noticed that Mendelsohn’s handsome face was weary and lined; his eyelids looked leaden, weighed down.

“We could rest now and return later,” Heidel replied. “If we do we will be able to deal more easily with whatever evil we find. However I fear to tarry, for evil left alone can prosper and grow.” He paused wearily and squinted. “I say we enter now, and administer the cure for whatever corruption we may find.”

Mendelsohn nodded his head emphatically. “Let us finish this business. Later we may rest.”

They tied their horses to the front gate and walked into the front garden of the house. Mendelsohn loaded his pistols while Heidel looked around, sword drawn.

“There must be a back way in,” Heidel whispered.

They crept around the building, daring a peek through the side windows. The place seemed empty; no furniture cluttered the rooms, no fire warmed the air.

The back door, peeling paint clinging to its wooden panes, swung loosely on its hinges. Beyond they could see an empty corridor leading into a shadowy room. As they entered, it occurred to Heidel that the place seemed even more decaying from the inside. The floors were covered with grime and dust, and thick, matted cobwebs hung low from the ceiling. For a moment he felt that he had entered something dead, as if he stood in the dry entrails of something that had once moved and lived. Colour had once adorned these walls; people had once laughed in these rooms and hallways.

They searched the ground floor, and found nothing. Upwards they ventured, but all the rooms were empty.

“It seems we must enter the cellar,” Mendelsohn ventured. “Though the prospect displeases me.”

The stairs led down into the deepest darkness. Into the very bowels of this dead creature, thought Heidel. He pushed the idea from his mind, for it unnerved him. He was not usually quite so morbid.

Eventually they reached the floor of a dry and empty room. A burning torch hung on the wall facing them, holding back the darkness. Heidel strode across and took it. To his left a narrow tunnel, chiselled through the rock, descended into yet deeper darkness.

“I do not like this, Immanuel,” Heidel whispered.

“Me neither. Yet I fear the solution to which we seek lies deeper down this tunnel. We are left with but one option. Light the way for me.” Mendelsohn walked through the tunnel opening.

Heidel followed, holding torch in one hand, blade in the other. To himself he began to pray: “Ulric, watch over me. Sigmar, guide me.”

The tunnel descended slowly for a hundred paces or so, then levelled out. The floors were smooth as if worn by years of use, but the narrow walls and the roof overhead were craggy. Many times Heidel or Mendelsohn clipped outcrops of rock with their shoulders, arms or knees. The air down here was feud and foul. Moisture, cold and clammy, clung to the walls and dripped down from the roof, while small puddles splashed underfoot. The two witch hunters could not see very far ahead of or behind them, and the unseen weight of the earth overhead enclosed them. Heidel was in gloomy spirits and Mendelsohn said nothing. Though remaining level, the tunnel wound now left, now right, and before long Heidel had lost all sense of the direction in which they moved. With every step the sense of utter foreboding grew in him.

The stale odour of the still air seemed to increase with each step. With nowhere to go, no fresh air cleansing the tunnel, the smell accumulated into a gagging, noxious, stench that began to sicken Heidel. It brought to mind worms wriggling in dead meat—warming slowly in the sun. Nausea washed over the witch hunter in waves until finally he could bear it no longer and exploded into a fit of coughing.

The noise echoed weirdly down the tunnel. Mendelsohn jumped at the sudden break in the silence and turned. For a confused moment, Heidel’s fears leapt from his unconscious: as Mendelsohn had turned, he had imagined his face to be emaciated and cadaverous, a rotting skull, just like the face in his dreams. He gasped and his heart leapt in his chest. But as soon as he had started, he realised that it was no so. Mendelsohn was just himself.

“What will the ladies of the court think of me now?” Mendelsohn smiled his handsome smile, trying to brush the smell from him with fluttering shakes of his hands. “I shall have to buy myself some expensive Bretonnian perfume to rid myself of this foetid odour.”

Heidel could not help himself and broke into a shy smile. He did not mention his nightmarish vision, however, and Mendelsohn’s words did little to allay Heidel’s fears. The pair began walking again and after twenty paces or so the dread had returned. All was the same as before: the stench, the darkness, the water, the loss of a sense of direction. Then just when Heidel felt like suggesting they turn back, a dim light beckoned before them.

 

Heidel and Mendelsohn crept forwards until they could peak into the chamber beyond. It was a cavern, smooth walled and dry, perhaps two hundred feet long and just as wide. The towering roof disappeared into the darkness above. It must have been a mausoleum of some sort, or perhaps a part of the Bechafen catacombs. Desiccated corpses lay on great stone slabs; bones littered the floor, jutting up at odd angles, in a veritable sea of human remains. Hundreds of narrow holes were cut into the walls, from which more bones protruded. From everything rose the stench of death and decay.

In the middle of the room stood a stone contraption, somewhat like an arch, maybe ten feet high, beneath which stood Sassen. The little man looked up towards the top of the archway, stepped back, turned on his heels and walked out of Heidel’s sight. To the witch hunter, the tracker had never seemed so like a weasel, with his pointy, pinched little face, his furry little beard, his beady eyes squinting.

From somewhere out of sight, a familiar voice rose to break the deathly stillness, and echoed down the tunnel. “Come in, Heidel, I’ve been expecting you. And bring your friend.” It finished with a burst of uncontrollable laughter.

All hope of surprise was gone, if they ever had it, and Heidel felt bitter defeat. Wearily he and Mendelsohn stumbled through into the shadowy mausoleum, arms limply hanging by their sides.

“You’ve come to witness my triumph, of course. Welcome, Herr Heidel, to the Bechafen catacombs.” Baron von Kleist stepped into the flickering torchlight towards the arch. A few paces behind him, Sassen loitered more shyly. Swathed in a black robe, the baron appeared tall and thin to Heidel, much like a cadaver himself. The torches that lit the mausoleum threw great shadows over his body. His skin seemed to be pulled too tightly over his head, and his eyes and mouth seemed to disappear into gaping blackness. His face seemed transformed into a skull. The baron laughed again.

“Witness my work: from here Bechafen shall fall! Here I shall open the doorway between life and death. I will conquer death, vanquish nature, and these pitiful bones will rise once more!” The baron turned slowly around in a circle and raised his arms up in triumph. He was looking at all the bones and corpses as if they were all the riches of the world; as if, instead of lifeless, rotting bodies, they were gems inlaid with silver and gold.

Heidel’s face twisted in fury. “This is blasphemy, infernal sorcerer! And for that you will pay! Sigmar damn you!”

“Why such harsh words, witch hunter? In condemning me you are only damning yourself. It was you, after all, who was responsible for the return of the key to that doorway between.” The baron dangled the pendant before him, taunting the witch hunter. “My so-called ‘guards’ ran away with it. So I turned to an employee of an entirely different kind. I thank you for its safe return.”

Von Kleist gave a mocking half-bow. Behind the baron, Sassen gave a strange little high pitched laugh. Heidel gripped the hilt of his sword in anger. He yearned to swoop upon the little man and repay him for his betrayal. Heidel could feel Mendelsohn tense and tremble in fury beside him.

“You have been corrupted, necromancer, and for that you will be sent screaming to the abyss,” Mendelsohn stated simply, as if he was passing sentence. For a moment the baron was taken aback by the confidence in the witch hunter’s voice.

But then von Kleist smiled. “And what of this?” he asked as he reached up and implanted the brilliant blue gem of the pendant into the top of the stone archway. A harsh light arced from the gem, sulphur-bright, searing away the shadows of the cavern. A rank smell, as if of burning metal, filled the stale air. Slowly the entire floor seemed to move; the sea of bones swelled into waves. A jaundiced murmuring rose discordantly on the air—and the bones began to move!

Heidel felt unhinged, delirious at the sight, as ages-dead bones ordered themselves: as thighs re-attached themselves to hips, as jaws began chatter, as mottled arms and withered skulls rejoined their bodies. The cavern echoed with the hideous scraping of bones as they slid, as if sentient, in search of the right joint, the correct aperture, with which to connect. The horrendous reek of death choked the air as the entire collection of corpses and body parts shifted and roiled around each other. To Heidel it seemed a hallucination, yet he knew its awful reality. This was no time for dreaming; they must act, or they would die here.

The witch hunters moved with lightning speed. They leaped high and scrambled over moving skeletons, slashing out with their rapiers at claws which tried to grasp them. Heidel kicked at cadaverous hands, pushed himself further forward using skulls as hand-holds, ribs as footholds. He struggled to balance himself on the shifting sea of bones beneath his feet, which seemed to lurch ten feet one way, then ten feet another. He felt nails begin scratch at him, jaws bite. More than once he felt sharp pain and his blood flow.

Heidel heard two explosions in swift succession, and watched Sassen fall howling, his face ghastly white, two holes blasted in his chest. He glanced around wildly, but could not see Mendelsohn. The witch hunter had only moments before he would be drowned in a sea of gnashing corpses. Desperately he tried to reach the baron, slashing frantically as he tried to carve a path through the shifting bones.

Baron von Kleist was prepared. Beneath his breath he muttered something arcane and guttural. From his suddenly outstretched hand a ball of livid red flame shot towards Heidel, who ducked uselessly as searing fire wrapped itself around his body. Someone screamed agonisingly, a wail which rose and rose until Heidel wished that whoever it was would stop. Then, as it finally died out, the witch hunter realised that he, Heidel, had been the one screaming. He raised his head to see another fireball speeding from the baron’s hand. The fire embraced him again; his agonised wail broke unbidden from him once more. As the pain died he saw, from the corner of his eye, Mendelsohn, who had scrambled rapidly over the rising bones and reached the arch. The other witch hunter stood behind the baron, arm raised with a stone in hand.

No, Heidel screamed inside, mouth barely able to form the words. Mendelsohn! You’re facing the wrong way…

Mendelsohn faced not towards the baron, but towards the arch. The stone came down, with all the force that Mendelsohn could muster in his body—directly onto the blue gem of the pendant set into the arch. A third vast fireball exploded around the hellish cavern, but this time the fire did not touch Heidel. This fire was white and searing, and it flowed from the gem in the archway like a river of flame. Flame that engulfed Mendelsohn and tossed the baron aside with its force.

Around Heidel the bones shuddered, as if in memory of agonising pain. Then they collapsed like puppets with their strings severed.

With renewed vigour, Heidel leaped forward and landed before the baron, who was struggling onto his hands and knees amidst the scorched cadavers. Heidel kicked out and von Kleist was flung backwards. The baron scrabbled, belly exposed, hands desperately searching for purchase on the carpet of bones. The witch hunter thrust downwards, feeling the sword pierce vital organs, slip between bones.

A look of shock crossed the baron’s face. “No!” he howled. “This cannot be!”

“Know this, necromancer!” Heidel cried. “I am a witch hunter. I will seek out evil wherever it raises its misshapen head, and I will wipe its pestilence from this world. You are leprous and corrupt. Return to the abyss from whence you came.”

When his words finished, the baron was dead.

Heidel rushed over to Mendelsohn’s side, but was too late. In destroying the pendant, the flamboyant witch hunter had destroyed himself.

 

Heidel did not stay long. He muttered a few words under his breath, a prayer of sorts:

“What is it to be a witch hunter?

To toil endlessly against the dark.

What then will be our reward?

We ask for none and none is received.

When can ever we stop?

When the cold grave eternal calls us to rest.”

Heidel stood and turned to leave. But he stopped himself, bent down and picked up a metal object from the floor. It was an ornately carved pistol, the silver a little blackened with soot. He turned it over in his hand. It was heavy, yet fit well in his palm.

Well weighted, he said to himself. I think I will learn to use this, he said. Yes, I think I will. Then he placed it beneath his belt.

I might not buy a silk shirt though.

In his head he heard Mendelsohn’s voice. Humour is one of the ways to fight the darkness, it said.

Heidel smiled briefly and began the long walk back to the surface of the town.