A murder in Marienburg w-1 Read online

  A murder in Marienburg

  ( Warhammer:Marienburg - 1 )

  David Bishop

  David Bishop

  A murder in Marienburg

  This is a dark age, a bloody age, an age of daemons and of sorcery. It is an age of battle and death, and of the world’s ending. Amidst all of the fire, flame and fury it is a time, too, of mighty heroes, of bold deeds and great courage. At the heart of the Old World sprawls the Empire, the largest and most powerful of the human realms. Known for its engineers, sorcerers, traders and soldiers, it is a land of great mountains, mighty rivers, dark forests and vast cities. And from his throne in Altdorf reigns the Emperor Karl-Franz, sacred descendant of the founder of these lands, Sigmar, and wielder of his magical warhammer. But these are far from civilised times. Across the length and breadth of the Old World, from the knightly palaces of Bretonnia to ice-bound Kislev in the far north, come rumblings of war. In the towering World’s Edge Mountains, the orc tribes are gathering for another assault. Bandits and renegades harry the wild southern lands of the Border Princes. There are rumours of rat-things, the skaven, emerging from the sewers and swamps across the land. And from the northern wildernesses there is the ever-present threat of Chaos, of daemons and beastmen corrupted by the foul powers of the Dark Gods. As the time of battle draws ever near, the Empire needs heroes like never before.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Arullen Silvermoon always knew he was fated to die in Marienburg, but not like this: being stalked by ravening creatures through the dark, dank catacombs beneath Suiddock, every attempt at escape or evasion tracked and checked with effortless ease, all hope extinguished as the creeping shadows drew ever closer. The tall, willowy elf could smell nothing but their foetid, foul stench, the rancorous pungency choking his delicate nostrils and violating his lungs. In all his days Arullen had breathed only two kinds of air-the sandalwood and jasmine scented halls of his warm, welcoming abode in the Sith Rionnasc’namishathir, and the brisk, briny breezes of sea air that gusted across the city’s elf quarter.

  Now he gagged on the odour of raw effluent and rotting, rancid decay-the stench of men, bitter as the metallic taste of adrenaline at the back of his throat. A greasy yellow mist choked the air in these stone tunnels, so acrid it burnt his eyes. When the vicious aroma became too much, Arullen clamped a hand across his face, pinching his nostrils shut between thumb and forefinger, forcing himself to breathe solely through his mouth. If he had to die down here, let it be in battle, taking some of his unseen enemy with him. There was some honour in that at least. There was no honour to be had in choking to death on the fumes of a city’s excreta. He staggered on, the thigh-deep waters sapping the strength from his legs.

  Arullen emerged from one tunnel into a circular chamber. Five more tunnels radiated off this space, like the spokes of a wooden cart. The elf looked up, more in hope than expectation of seeing the sky overhead. Instead there was a canopy of bones and tattered scraps of skin, the edges ragged from who knew what. Arullen peered at the collation of horrors. The bones were all shapes and sizes-some so small they must be from children or halflings, others torn from the skeletons of animals or sea creatures.

  Most had been picked clean, no flesh left on them. A few had been broken and the marrow extracted from inside. A sickly green light bathed the terrifying tableau. Arullen realised the illumination was born of a thousand tiny glows, each moving and shifting across the underside of the canopy. Light worms, feeding on the last remnants of flesh and blood, using the nutrients to warm their glowing forms.

  Suddenly an unholy, inhuman cry rent the vile air, a nasal bellow of hatred and hunger. It echoed around Arullen, bouncing back and forth along the circular tunnels. The elf’s fingers tightened round the hilt of his dagger. His other weapons had been torn from his grasp in that first, terrible battle after he had stumbled into the creatures’ lair. Six of them had fallen in a brief, flailing skirmish, four struck down by arrows while the other two had their heads cleaved by his long blade. What Arullen wouldn’t give to have those weapons still in his possession. With them to hand he might have survived this night, turned adversity into triumph. Instead he found himself running through the shadows, searching only for the chance to see moonlight again. Let that fall upon his face and courage would surely return, reborn by his lunar namesake, but the crescent moon had not yet risen. As echoes faded away, Arullen offered up a prayer asking for salvation, however unlikely it might be. At least don’t let my death be in vain, he added.

  The answer was swift and merciless. When the echoes of that inhuman cry fell silent at last, they were replaced by the skittering of nail on stone, and the sounds of approach coming from ahead and behind. Arullen realised the unholy bellow was a summoning. They had found him and now they were closing in for the kill. The young elf looked at the dagger clutched in his hand. The blade was still clean, untouched by blood of any kind-but not for much longer.

  “I can lead you to salvation,” a hoarse voice hissed from the darkness.

  Arullen spun round, blade drawn back, ready to deliver a killing blow. His eyes searched the dark tunnels around him but saw nothing in the inky blackness. “Who spoke? Show yourself!”

  “I spoke,” the voice replied. Arullen turned to see a shuffling figure emerge from the shadows. It had the shape of a man, but its features were warped and twisted. Whatever other horrors tormented the creature’s body remained hidden behind a damp, black shroud. “I offer salvation. Will you accept it?”

  “Can you get me out of here safely?” Arullen asked, keeping his dagger raised and ready to strike.

  “Accept salvation and you shall never know pain or fear again.”

  The skittering sound was getting louder, the hunters ever closer. Arullen struggled to discern which of the tunnels the noise was coming from, but the walls and rising waters created echo upon echo. He closed his eyes and concentrated, tilting his head down to single out the source. His senses reached out into the darkness, probing and pawing at the black. No, the monsters were not coming from a single direction-they were coming from all of them. He was trapped, surrounded by the advancing horde. When he opened his eyes once more, the mysterious stranger was still waiting for an answer. “Well?”

  “I accept salvation,” Arullen replied. What choice did he have? He was as good as dancing with Isha now, but perhaps there was still some hope.

  The stranger’s face contorted, ruptured lips twisted into a chilling resemblance of a smile. “That is good. Follow me and all will be well for you. You have my word on it.” The hunched figure shuffled away into the nearest tunnel entrance, heading directly towards where the skittering sound was loudest.

  “You can’t go that way,” the elf hissed. “That’s where-”

  The stranger paused, not bothering to look back. “Follow me now, or you shall surely die.” Kurt Schnell had few illusions about what was used to make the sausages served in the Seagull and Spittoon. Two previous owners of the tavern were serving time on Rijker’s Isle for their culinary crimes. Well, that wasn’t strictly accurate, Kurt reminded himself-both men had admitted charges of murder. The fact they chose to turn choice cuts of their victims into stuffing for sausages had added a grisly notoriety to the menu at the Seagull and Spittoon. The new owner, an impish Bretonnian called Jacques Pottage with an overbearing fondness for garlic, garlic and more garlic, had to withstand weekly inspections of his kitchens to make certain lightning did not strike thrice. But that didn’t stop him building a lucrative trade from specialising in exotically named, spiced and priced links of offal forced into animal gut casings.

  As watch sergeant for the eastern end of Goudberg, Kurt was tasked with carrying out these weekly inspections. Once sa
tisfied with the results, he was routinely offered his choice of mains from the menu for free. He always insisted on paying, all too mindful of the slippery slope that started with taking the occasional backhander. His men had grumbled about being forbidden to accept such gratuities at first, but soon learned to live with it or move on to other, less honest postings. As a consequence, this part of Goudberg enjoyed one of the lowest crime rates in Marienburg.

  The fact there was little worth stealing in Goudberg didn’t hurt either, but Kurt had long since learned to take his triumphs where he could get them. Life had a habit of kicking you in the jewels when you least expected, so it was better to enjoy success when it was available. He smiled as the tavern’s buxom serving wench approached, her ample dйcolletage drawing admiring glances from all the other men in the Seagull and Spittoon.

  “So, Inga, what’s the special of the day?” Kurt asked. “Dumplings, by any chance?”

  The blonde woman blushed and giggled, shaking her head at his comment. “You shouldn’t ask such things, Sergeant Schnell,” she replied, placing a tankard of foaming ale in front of him on the rough-hewn wooden table. “It will only get you in trouble at your new station.”

  “My new station?” Kurt forced himself to nod, as if he knew what she was talking about. The promotion he had been pushing for the last six months had finally been approved, it seemed. But, as always in Marienburg, gossip moved far faster than bureaucracy. If you wanted to know what was happening on the narrow streets and numerous canals of this city, make for the nearest tavern and open your ears-that was what Kurt’s first sergeant had once told him. It was as true now as it had been then, if not more so. “You’re quite right, Inga. I’ll have to watch my back where I’m going.” He waited, but the well-rounded woman merely nodded her agreement, offering no more clues to what she knew. Kurt sighed and took off his black cap, the headgear that gave the Watch its nickname. “So, what is the special of the day-cormorant and coriander? Marsh-pig and mustard cress? Rat and radish?”

  Inga shook her head, grinning playfully. “Meat and turnip sausage surprise.”

  “What meat?” Kurt wondered, but held up a hand to stop her saying the inevitable reply. “Don’t tell me-it’s a surprise, right?”

  “How did you guess?” Inga asked sulkily, having been denied her fun for the night.

  “I’ve been inspecting the kitchen,” he said. “Trust me, there are no surprises on your menu.” Kurt squinted to see through the tavern’s obligatory pall of pipe smoke so he could read the choices crudely chalked up on a stone wall behind the bar. “I’ll have the… garlic and garamond.”

  “Garlic and gammon,” Inga corrected him.

  “Even better,” Kurt agreed.

  “Chipped, mashed or boiled vegetables?”

  “Mashed.”

  “And for dessert?”

  Kurt shook his head. “Last time I ate here I was peppering the privy for three days afterwards. Let’s see if I can stomach the sausages first, before getting courageous enough to order a second course.”

  “Very wise,” she said. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.” The serving wench sashayed to the kitchen, pausing to slap the face of a halfling that tried to look up her soot-smeared skirt.

  Kurt sipped his ale, savouring the belligerent flavours of hops and honey while his eyes scanned the other drinkers. Most were familiar faces: stevedores from Suiddock who made enough from their daily toil on the docks to live on a less violent and dangerous isle of Marienburg; weary travelling merchants tired from a hard day traipsing up and down the city’s narrow, tortuous alleys and passageways; a cluster of half-cut halflings looking to cause trouble with anyone who caught their eyes; and a solitary figure in the far corner, draped in a dark cloak with the hood up to hide their features, using the shadows as a disguise. That one needed watching, Kurt had little doubt about it. He’d been in more than his share of bar brawls and fought on far too many blood-soaked battlefields not to recognise trouble when he saw it. Kurt let his spare hand slide nonchalantly across to the heavy club secured by a leather strap at his waist. The threat of violence hung in the air, vicious and angry, like a thunderstorm rolling in from the sea. The only question was whether he’d get the chance to eat his meal before something ignited the festering rage in the tavern. The stranger led Arullen through a bewildering maze of tunnels and passages, some so narrow the elf was forced to turn sideways before edging himself into the claustrophobically-tight gaps. Each forward step in the foetid, deepening waters was harder than the last. The tide must be coming in, Arullen realised- I’ve been underground so long I’ve lost track of time. Meanwhile, the sound of skittering grew louder as those hunting the elf got closer. Their stench got stronger too, funnelling ahead of them like the spray from a mighty wave. Finally, the noise and the rancid odour were too much for Arullen. He turned back to face the oncoming horde, his dagger held tautly in a clenched fist.

  Arullen could see movement in the dark, shapes racing ever closer, tiny glimpses of their faces chilling the blood in his veins. “They’re coming,” he hissed to the stranger. “It’s too late, they’re coming!”

  Then he was wrenched sideways, his skull smashing against the corner of a stone passageway. Grasping fingers pulled him into a gap so narrow, it tore the fabric of his tunic both front and back. Still the stranger’s hands pawed at Arullen, ripping his garments, jagged fingernails slicing at skin, piercing flesh and scraping across bone. The elf looked at his hands and realised the dagger was gone. He was without any weapon to claim the enemy before it claimed him. It was over, Arullen thought.

  A torrent of hunters surged past the end of the passageway, racing forwards down the tunnel in which the elf had been standing mere moments before. On and on the wave of ravenous creatures went, dozens upon dozens of them, whispering to each other in some hideous, guttural tongue of their own devising, rage glinting across their black, pitiless eyes. Arullen listened as they passed, counting the horde. More than a hundred of them had passed before the surge slowed. A hundred more passed in the minute that followed. Finally, the last of them went on its way, limping as it staggered by, the weakest of the pack.

  Arullen held his breath as it went by, willing himself to be silent as the grave. Only when the skittering had become inaudible did he open his eyes. “This way to salvation,” the stranger said. “Come, they will realise their mistake soon and return. We don’t have long to reach safety.” Arullen let his guide drag him further along the passageway, its walls getting ever closer to each other. Just when it felt he could go no further, the passageway abruptly opened out into another underground chamber-and this one had a tiny, barred window set into its roof, allowing a glimpse of the night sky. The elf looked up and felt the sickle moon bathe his face with its reflected glory.

  “Thank you,” Arullen said, turning to look at his saviour.

  The stranger held up the elf’s lost dagger. “Mine?”

  “Yours,” Arullen agreed, “if you get me out of here alive.”

  The stranger’s face fell. “Mine!” It stabbed the dagger deep into Arullen’s abdomen before twisting the blade inside the wound. The stranger ripped the weapon back out of the elf’s body and licked the blade clean, a trickle of blood escaping his suppurating tongue, dripping onto his shroud.

  Arullen sank to one knee, his hands trying to hold the wound closed without success. The stranger slashed at those hands, slicing them open and forcing them away from the gaping, jagged hole. Arullen slumped backwards against the slime-covered wall, his breath coming in quick gasps. The stranger moved closer and dipped knotted fingers into the wound, squirming them around inside the flaps of skin, bathing them in the elf’s blood. When the hands came away, they left with a sucking sound and something tumbled out with them, splashing in the water as it fell from Arullen’s body.

  He watched disbelievingly as the stranger raised his bloody hands and offered the crimson digits to the moonlight, accompanied by a hysterical voice babbling an incant
ation, words jumbled into each other, without meaning or sense. The stranger stopped and listened, as if expecting the sickle moon to reply. Apparently satisfied, he shuffled over to a stone column that ran the height of the chamber. The stranger slapped his bloody hands on the column repeatedly, like so much meat on a butcher’s slab, again accompanied by the nonsensical ranting. When the stranger took his hands away, Arullen could have sworn he saw blood being absorbed into the stone structure, as if it were drinking the crimson smearings.

  “I was monarch of this place once,” the stranger muttered. “This was my realm, my domain-until the madness claimed me, the anarchy brought revolution to my flesh and my soul.”

  “King of the catacombs, were you?” Arullen gasped, trying to keep the bitterness from his voice. “Sovereign of the sewers, lord of the longdrops?”

  “Not down here, foolish elf.” A misshapen finger jabbed towards the moon beyond the metal bars high overhead. “Up there! That was my world, my place-my home.”

  Finding previously unknown reserves of strength, Arullen hurled himself across the chamber. He shoved the stranger down into the soup of sewage and seawater, forcing their pustule-pocked face beneath the surface, savouring the thrashing of the other’s limbs. “You’ve killed me,” the elf snarled. “Now it’s my turn!” He held the stranger down for what felt like forever, waiting until long after the thrashing had stopped. Finally, he staggered backwards, panting and breathless, all too aware of his own life seeping away from the wound at his waist. A wave of dizziness overtook him and Arullen stretched out an arm to the wall for support, his bloody hand resting against the stone column.

  It sucked at his skin like an infant at a nipple, guzzling the blood from his palms, hungry for more. The wounded, dying elf managed to tear his arm away, cursing his own forgetfulness. Whatever horror was beyond that column, he had no wish to feed it further. Arullen’s only thought now was of finding the surface, warning others about what he had witnessed down here in this watery torment. He glanced about and chose an archway leading off into darkness. Going back the way he’d come through the narrow passageway was no longer a choice. That path had been hard enough when he was unhurt, but he would certainly die now if he attempted to retrace his steps. Arullen did not savour the prospect of spending eternity with his bones wedged between the walls, until they were finally washed out to sea. “Archway it is,” the elf winced and staggered in that direction. “I’m only going to ask this once,” Kurt announced, making sure he projected his authoritative voice so it reached all those still conscious inside the Seagull and Spittoon. “Who tossed the first halfling?” The brawl had been inevitable. Unfortunately, it broke out just as Inga was bringing Kurt his meat and turnip sausage surprise. The serving wench was giving the watch sergeant her best come-to-bed smile, but she often did that on Aubentag. Her husband was usually away from home on the second day of the week making deliveries to the inmates and warders out on Rijker’s Isle. That left his wife alone-and Inga was notorious for liking a warm bed. Kurt had carefully avoided her advances in the past and certainly had no intention of succumbing to her wanton charms tonight. All he wanted was something to eat, perhaps another tankard of ale and a quiet night’s rest in his own bed-without Inga for company.