C. Werner - Dead Winter

The door slowly opened. Rutger van Hal stood in the entryway, his hair rumpled, deep circles under his eyes. Always a robust, virile man, Rutger had become almost as pale as his priestly brother. He mumbled an apology to Frederick, then started to close the door. The priest jabbed his staff against the portal, holding it in place.

‘Do not think you can keep me out,’ Frederick snarled. He slapped the palm of his hand against the cross. ‘Not because of that.’

Hardness flared into Rutger’s tired eyes. ‘One of us has to live,’ he growled. The priest pushed his way past the merchant, shaking the snow from his shoulders as he stepped inside the house.

‘Yes,’ Frederick agreed. ‘One of us has to live.’ His sharp eyes fixed upon Rutger. ‘ You are the one.’ He raised his hand to stifle the protest he saw forming on his brother’s lips. ‘My place is here, Rudi. I have read much. I know more than just how to put people in the ground and consign their spirits to Morr’s keeping. Whatever help I can give you, it is yours. Do not worry about me. Every day I am exposed to the plague. If I was fated to die by the Black Plague, it would have taken me by now.’ The last statement was made with a twinge of anguish. The plague had wreaked havoc through Bylorhof’s temple of Morr. All of the under-priests and two of the templars had fallen victim to the plague. The other survivors had cast off their robes and fled the town, leaving Frederick as the sole custodian of the temple.

‘If it was me…’ Rutger began, then stopped himself before he could say more. ‘I’m sorry, Frederick, but Aysha doesn’t want you here.’ He started to pull the open door wider. The priest’s staff cracked against the portal, slamming it closed.

‘Is she sick?’ Frederick demanded. There was a harshness in his voice that hadn’t been there for years, a harshness that surprised even himself. Aysha had made her choice long ago. That question was settled. He had no right to worry over the woman who was now his sister-in-law.

‘No,’ Rutger answered, his voice a hollow gasp, his eyes shining with dread. ‘It’s Johan.’

Frederick’s heart went cold when he heard the name of his nephew spoken in such a tone. However confused his feelings towards Aysha, he knew he had the right to love his nephew. ‘Where is he?’ the priest asked. He didn’t wait for an answer. The moment Rutger raised his eyes and stared at the ceiling, Frederick was marching towards the stairs.

‘You can’t go up there!’ Rutger yelled, hurrying after the priest. ‘Aysha doesn’t want you…’

Frederick rounded on his brother, transfixing him with an icy stare. ‘She made that clear in Marienburg,’ he said. ‘This isn’t about her, or me. This is about Johan and saving his life.’ The priest stormed through the little parlour, brushing past the porcelain and ivory the van Hals had preserved from their Westerland home. He started to mount the steps leading to the upper floor, but stopped when he found someone descending the stairs.

It was a ghoulish figure that met Frederick’s uplifted gaze, a plump-bodied man with scrawny limbs, his mismatched frame draped in a wax-coated cloak. The man’s face was hidden behind a wooden mask, its face pulled forwards to form a bird-like beak. Narrow green eyes squinted from behind the mask’s glass lenses.

The priest had never met this grotesque creature, but he knew him just the same. After their ineffectual courting of heathen gods had failed, the people of Bylorhof had turned to a new foolishness to save themselves from the plague. They had sent to Wurtbad for a plague doktor, one of the so-called physicians who specialised in treating the Black Plague’s victims and combating the spread of the disease. In response to their frantic call, Dr. Bruno Havemann had descended upon the town like a human vulture.

‘We are all interested in saving the boy’s life,’ Havemann’s muffled voice declared. ‘But the Black Plague needs more than prayers to defeat it.’ The plague doktor gestured with the copper-headed rod he held in his gloved hand, indicating the priest’s staff. ‘In Wurtbad and Altdorf, even the priestesses of Shallya have been unequal to the task. I fear that if the Goddess of Mercy cannot help, then what aid can we expect from the Lord of Death?’ Havemann shook his head, the beak of the mask bobbing up and down as he did so, sending the aroma of vinegar and cloves wafting about the stairway. He shifted his gaze to Rutger. ‘No, we must look to science to defend ourselves from this scourge. You did right, Herr van Hal, when you summoned me. The boy is very sick, but with proper care, it is my conviction that he may be saved.’

Rutger’s tired eyes lit up when he heard Havemann’s words. He rushed past Frederick, running to embrace the physician who had restored hope for his son. The doktor cringed from the merchant’s outstretched arms, fending him off with the point of his rod. Recalling the plague doktor’s abhorrence of physical contact, an abashed Rutger kept his distance.

‘What must we do?’ he asked in a sheepish voice.

The sight of his brother meekly deferring to Havemann brought Frederick’s blood to a boil. Angrily he slammed the butt of his staff against the steps. ‘Rudi! You’re not going to listen to this charlatan!’

The crow-faced mask shifted its stare back onto the priest. ‘Science can save the boy,’ Havemann stated. ‘Can you say the same of your god?’ The plague doktor returned his attention to Rutger. ‘I will need to prepare certain elixirs which must be given to rebalance the humours in Johan’s body. The plague is caused by black spiders, their poison is what brings the disease. It will be necessary to bleed the boy and drain the poison from his veins.’

The plague doktor paused, his shoulders sagging as a deep sigh left his body. ‘All of this will be time-consuming and expensive,’ Havemann apologised.

Rutger’s hand fell to the money pouch on his belt. The merchant didn’t count the coins he withdrew, but simply held them out to the physician. Frederick noted with bitter amusement that Havemann wasn’t so reluctant to touch his brother’s hand now that there was money in it.

‘The boy is resting now,’ Havemann said, his gloved hand closing about Rutger’s silver. The plague doktor rolled his wrist in a subtle effort to gauge how much he had been given. ‘Frau van Hal is with him. He should be given some broth when he wakes, but absolutely no meat. It might attract more spiders.’

Rutger climbed past Havemann, running through the upper hall to his son’s room, forgetting entirely the two men he left behind. Frederick couldn’t see the triumphant smile on Havemann’s face as the plague doktor continued his descent, but he knew it was there just the same. As he neared the bottom of the stairs, Havemann stared into Frederick’s face, waiting for the priest to step aside.

‘Take your money and forsake this imposture,’ Frederick warned.

‘You sound like all priests,’ Havemann sneered. ‘It doesn’t matter what god you serve, all of you resent progress and science. You allow faith to stand in the way of reason.’

‘Faith can move mountains,’ Frederick countered. The plague doktor’s eyes narrowed with anger. Using his rod, he shoved the priest out of his way.

‘How is faith at curing plague?’ Havemann asked as he stalked from the home.

Frederick turned to watch the doktor’s retreat. ‘Harm my family,’ he said, his voice a hollow whisper, ‘and you will find out what a man’s faith can do.’

Skavenblight

Kaldezeit, 1111

Megalithic in its proportions, the Abattoir was a relic of the dim past. Constructed from gigantic columns of limestone, the structure existed as a series of towering arcades piled one atop the other, circling around a central arena. In the time before the Thirteenth Hour, the structure had been at the heart of the human civilisation which once ruled over this land and had built the great city from whose ruins the decayed splendour of Skavenblight had arisen. The amphitheatre had been designed to seat tens of thousands of spectators, a testament to the power and expanse of its human builders.