C. Werner - Dead Winter

Fellgiebel looked the surprised rat-catcher over. The captain’s face was lean and hungry, his eyes close-set and with all the charm of a snake about them. One of his gloved hands caressed the pommel of the sword sheathed at his side, the other gripped a bundle of fresh posies, a safeguard against the plague. He shook the flowers in Walther’s direction.

‘You must be the charlatan himself,’ Fellgiebel said, his voice like an audible sneer. ‘I charge you to confess to these people the imposture you have committed so that they might return to their homes and turn their minds to more righteous pursuits.’ The captain’s eyes gleamed with malice. ‘You will accommodate me,’ he stated. A pair of men wearing leather jacks and the dagged black and yellow sleeves of the Hundertschaft came stalking forwards from their posts at either side of the tavern’s entrance. Each of the men had a fat-bladed halberd in his hand.

The rat-catcher’s anger faltered for a moment. Then the thought of how close he had come to dying, of Hugo and the man’s suffering, poured fire back into his veins. Standing his ground, Walther glared back at Fellgiebel. ‘I’m the man who killed that monster and had it stuffed, if that’s what you mean.’

Fellgiebel blinked in shock. In this place, in this district, his reputation did not fail to precede him. Nobody stood up to him. They knew what would happen if they did. The captain’s eyes became even colder and more reptilian. ‘I think I heard you say it’s fake.’ He turned and cast his gaze across the crowd. ‘I think they heard you say so too. Why don’t you say it again so everybody can agree?’ His thin lips pursed into a menacing grin. ‘Say it while you still can.’

The two watchmen came marching towards Walther, their weapons lowered. A single gesture from Fellgiebel and they would use those weapons. Not to kill, Fellgiebel wasn’t so crude as that. All of his men were quite good at using their halberds to maim and cripple. One living wreck of a man was worth more as an example to others than a dozen graves in the garden of Morr.

‘He said it’s real and he killed it.’ The words were spoken with a gruff Reikland accent. Walther was no less surprised than Fellgiebel when a big blond-haired man stepped out from the crowd and slapped down the halberd of the nearest watchman with the bared sword in his hand.

‘That was a mistake!’ Fellgiebel hissed. The captain started to pull his own sword when the sound of steel scraping against leather sounded from all across the room. The big Reiklander, it seemed, had quite a few friends.

‘Was it?’ the Reiklander demanded. ‘I think it is you who’ve made the mistake. That rat looks pretty real to me.’

‘Stitched together from scraps,’ Fellgiebel snarled back. ‘I can get witnesses who will testify to that.’

Walther’s anger swelled as he heard the captain speak. He could well imagine how Fellgiebel would get such testimony. The Reiklander clearly didn’t have any idea what he was getting himself into, but Walther was going to put a stop to it. This was his fight and he wasn’t going to let anyone fight it for him.

‘Fake!’ Walther shouted, slapping the cudgel hard against his palm. ‘Stitched together from scraps!’ He marched past Fellgiebel and to the oak stand. His arm trembling with fury, he raised the cudgel and brought it slamming down against the stuffed monster. The verminous fur tore beneath the blow, the bits of copper flying loose and clattering across the tavern. The bleached skull of the rodent crashed to the floor, bouncing once and landing so its fanged grin faced the watch captain.

‘Tell me who made that for me!’ Walther yelled.

Fellgiebel stared at the rat skull, colour rushing into his cheeks. Angrily, he turned away, whipping his cloak over his shoulder. As he stalked towards the door, a chorus of jeers and taunts followed him out.

Walther frowned as he considered the damage his anger had caused. The damage to the monster was one thing, but the humiliation of a man like Fellgiebel was another.

‘It does me good to see that cur walk out of here with his tail between his legs.’ The speaker was the big Reiklander. There was a beerstein in his hand. Walther was grateful when the man offered it to him.

‘You shouldn’t have interfered,’ Walther said. ‘It was my fight.’

‘You looked like you needed the help,’ the Reiklander said. His jaw clenched tight as he stared after the departed Fellgiebel. ‘Besides, I didn’t like his arrogant tone. It reminded me too much of the Kaiserjaeger back in Altdorf.’

Walther nodded his understanding. Even in Nuln, news of the Bread Massacre and the Kaiserjaeger’s role in the slaughter had spread. The rat-catcher looked at the Reiklander with a new appreciation. Maybe he had been one of Engel’s Marchers. He might even know Meisel. He certainly had the look of a dienstmann about him.

‘Walther Schill,’ the rat-catcher introduced himself, laughing as he watched Bremer come racing from the kitchen to scoop up the rat skull before anyone could step on it.

‘Heinrich Aldinger,’ the Reiklander said, extending his hand. The smile faded from his face as he turned his eyes once more to the door. ‘I worry that perhaps I did you no favour just now. That seems like the sort of man who will bear a grudge.’ He sighed, a note of bitterness in his voice. ‘That is the trouble with being a soldier. You are taught to fight and ignore the consequences.’

‘Let me worry about the consequences,’ Walther said, trying to force some levity into his tone. It wouldn’t do to upset Aldinger. The man had meant well and, as the rat-catcher had said before, Fellgiebel was his fight.

However uneven that fight might be.

Skavenblight

Ulriczeit, 1111

Poxmaster Puskab Foulfur stared down at the quivering ratman, indifferent to the creature’s agonies. Using a long brass rod, the plague priest poked and prodded the skinny skaven, lifting his arms and turning his head. A satisfied hiss rushed past Puskab’s rotten fangs. Ugly black buboes clustered about the skavenslave’s throat and armpits, syrupy treacle oozing from the swollen sores. The slave’s breathing came in ragged, uneven gasps, flecks of blood staining his nostrils and whiskers.

‘Good-good,’ the plague priest pronounced. He withdrew the brass rod he had thrust into the slave’s cage. Stalking over to one of the flaming braziers which flanked the entrance to the laboratory, Puskab thrust the end of the instrument into the fire. He held it there until the tip glowed and any trace of disease had been purged.

‘The Horned One favours me,’ Puskab declared. ‘New-better fleas. Carry-bring plague fast-quick!’

The skaven assisting Puskab in his diabolical labours glanced anxiously at one another. Somewhere beneath their protective leather cloaks, glands tightened and the reek of fear-musk oozed into the air. They had been warned by Wormlord Blight what their fate would be if Puskab’s experiments were to fail, but now they wondered if perhaps success wasn’t even more terrifying.

Puskab scowled at the frightened ratmen. Unbelievers! Hedonistic little heathens! To be infected by one of the Horned One’s holy plagues was a fate to be embraced joyously! Only in the fevered fires of disease could the soul of a skaven be judged! The inferior were destroyed, the superior emerged stronger than before, endowed with something of the Horned One’s divinity and ferocity.

The plague priest stalked past his trembling assistants, peering at them with his rheumy eyes. Soon there would be only two kinds of ratmen in the world. The true believers and their slaves. Clan Verms would help to bring about that change. Willing or unwilling, they were now instruments of the Horned One’s design.