C. Werner - Dead Winter

Walther could feel the veins pounding in his forehead. The professor had been prattling on like this for the better part of an hour, straying into subjects beyond either his ability or his desire to follow. ‘That is all well, my lord, but about the rat…’

‘Such a creature is impossible,’ Kleinheistkamp said, tapping the wooden counter by way of emphasis. Bremer decided to take it as an appeal for the stein to be refilled. ‘A rat as large as you describe would be crushed under its own weight! It wouldn’t be able to move, much less launch itself at a grown man and bite out his throat!’

‘I’ve hunted rats all my life,’ Walther growled back. He held his hand out so that the professor could see the scars. ‘I know what a rat bite looks like.’

Kleinheistkamp smiled and shook his head. ‘I know you think you know what you saw,’ he explained, his voice adopting the condescending tolerance of a parent teaching a child. ‘But I’m afraid you just don’t have the understanding to make a judgement of that sort. Isn’t it more likely that the vigilantes were right? Somebody cut the fellow’s throat and your imagination did the rest. You are so accustomed to seeing the violent handiwork of vermin that you unconsciously made a similar creature responsible for the tanner’s murder.’ The old man took a long pull from the stein and rose from his chair. ‘I grant that the mob was impetuous blaming plague victims, but I guarantee that a human malefactor was responsible. Robbery, not monstrosity, was behind the tanner’s death.’

Chuckling under his breath, Lord Kleinheistkamp tottered off. Walther felt his stomach turn as he watched the pompous old man leave. The professor had marked his last chance to get somebody at the Universitat to listen to his story. Entertaining the scholars while they smugly dismissed what he had seen with his own eyes had cost the rat-catcher the better part of twelve schillings. He would be weeks recouping the loss.

Bremer reached out to clear away Kleinheistkamp’s mug. The taverneer squinted at the stein as he lifted it. ‘His lordship left a bit,’ he said, turning towards Walther and offering the mug to him.

‘Drink it yourself,’ Walther hissed, clenching his fist in frustration. Bremer shrugged and downed the rest of the professor’s drink.

‘They’re fools,’ Walther snarled. ‘Blind idiots who won’t believe anything unless it’s written down in one of their precious books! They wouldn’t accept this monster as real unless it crawled up and bit them in-’

‘Then why keep bothering about them?’ Zena demanded. There was colour in her cheeks, a tremble of anger on her lip. She knew as well as Walther how much he had gambled on the scholars. The loss of money was one thing, but the loss of hope was something she knew the rat-catcher couldn’t afford. ‘The Universitat aren’t the only ones who would want to buy such a beast.’

Walther stood, glaring at Zena, all the pain of his dashed dreams rising to his tongue. ‘Who else would buy the thing? Ostmann? At a penny a pound?’

Zena glared back at the rat-catcher, her own anger rising. It wasn’t just Walther who was depending upon a windfall from the monster. Against her best judgement, she cared about him. His defeat was her defeat. And she wasn’t going to allow that to happen.

‘Why not sell it to Emil?’ she asked, pointing a finger at Bremer behind the bar. The bearded taverneer backed away, a frightened look on his face.

‘You two fight all you want, but leave me out of it,’ Bremer said.

Zena wasn’t going to let her employer make such a gracious retreat. ‘You’re always saying you want something novel to drum up more business,’ Zena told him in an accusing tone. ‘What could be more perfect than this? A genuine monster for people to come in and gawp at!’

Bremer rolled his eyes. ‘I was talking about dancing girls, not giant vermin. Who’d feel like eating staring at a huge rat mounted over the hearth?’

‘I thought the idea was to sell drinks,’ Walther countered, warming to Zena’s idea. ‘Just thinking about this giant makes me want a jack or two to steady my nerves.’

The taverneer came forwards, resting his elbows on the counter, one hand scratching his beard. ‘There’s something to be said for that,’ he conceded. ‘A man would want a drink after looking at something like that.’ A hard glint came into his eyes and he stood back, turning his gaze from Walther to Zena and back again. ‘I’m not making any promises, understand. But if Walther can get this monster, I’ll have it stuffed and stood up right here on the bar. If it brings in any business, I’ll split the profit seventy-five twenty-five.’

‘Fifty fifty,’ Walther objected. ‘Remember, I’m the one actually going down there to get the thing.’

Bremer spit into his palm. ‘Done!’ he exclaimed, offering his hand to the rat-catcher. Walther spit into his own hand and clasped the taverneer’s, sealing the deal in the old Wissenland way. Zena withdrew hastily to the kitchen, leaving the two partners to discuss the details of their agreement.

‘Herr Schill,’ Hugo’s quite voice broke into the discussion. The rat-catcher turned to see his apprentice sitting by the fire. He’d managed to get all three of the terriers to stand up on their hind legs and wave their forepaws at him like street beggars. Walther felt annoyed by the interruption, much more so because it seemed Hugo wanted to show off a trick an addle-witted child could have taught the most moronic mongrel.

Hugo, however, had a different reason for interrupting his master. Gesturing at the begging terriers, he said something that sent cold fingers closing around Walther’s heart.

‘If we’re going after this giant,’ Hugo said, ‘won’t we need bigger dogs?’

Middenheim

Kaldezeit, 1111

The mountain wind whipped snow against the walls of Middenheim. A layer of ice and frost caked the jagged cliffs, transforming the entire Ulricsberg into a frozen pillar, the lights of the city shining from the heights like a phantom aurora.

The guards patrolling the benighted battlements huddled in their fur cloaks, cradling the skins of ale that were their best protection against the cold. The gibbous face of Morrslieb smirked down at them from the blackened sky, casting its sickly glow over the city. The moon’s cleaner, more wholesome brother Mannslieb was in retreat, slinking towards the horizon, abandoning the field to the eerie gleam of its ill-favoured companion.

Dozens of sentries patrolled the walls of Middenheim, each tasked with a different section of the battlements. It was dreary, thankless work, especially in the dead of night with a snow flurry sweeping the mountain. Not one of the soldiers didn’t wish himself warm in bed, a bottle of Reikhoch in his hand and a buxom tavern girl at his side.

Such visions, however, did little to cheer the men tasked with guarding the sleeping city. They tried to console themselves by considering everything that could jeopardise their comrades who were enjoying the taverns and bawdy houses of Middenheim’s Westgate district. There were the cutpurses and pickpockets, always waiting for an opportunity to steal from a soldier too deep in his cups. There was the menace of drunken dwarfs, ever ready to take umbrage at the slightest remark and with the brawn to back up their short tempers. And there was the more recent menace, the whispers that a few of the district’s denizens had come down with the plague.

For most of the soldiers patrolling the walls, rumours of the plague were disconcerting, but they placed no especial importance upon them. For the two soldiers whose patrol consisted of the stretch of wall between the west and south gates bordering the Sudgarten, such stories were much more. Other guards quieted their fears by telling themselves Graf Gunthar’s decree made it impossible for the plague to reach the top of the Ulricsberg. These men knew otherwise.