The Witch Takers - C L Werner Read online

  Cautiously the witch hunters dismounted and approached the gore-spattered body. Talorcan threw back the folds of his cloak, drawing sword and pistol from his weapon belt. The blade he bore was smaller and slighter than the one Esselt carried, a weapon made for finesse and speed. The pistol was a silver-barrelled device fitted to a frame of sacred shimmerwood. The charge within was derived from an alchemical powder, the shot itself a ball of silver bathed in the holy unguents of Sigmar’s temple. Talorcan kept his sword held out to one side and aimed the pistol at the body’s head.

  Esselt stepped closer, both hands locked on her weapon. Her strength, the brutal impact of the silver greatsword she carried, the heavy armour she wore under her cloak, drove her to investigate the grisly carcass. Talorcan’s forte was the quickness of his reflexes. Coupled with the reach of his pistol, it made sense for him to provide cover for Esselt.

  The wounds that afflicted the body were almost beyond measure. Esselt could count at least five that should have been mortal blows. The caravan had fought hard, even if their efforts had not been enough to save them. Keeping a wary eye on the body, she kicked it over onto its side. For a moment she watched it, waiting for some kind of reaction. She was about to dismiss the thing as nothing but a corpse when a sanguine glow filled the empty eyes.

  In a heartbeat the thing sprang onto its feet. It rushed at Esselt with outstretched hands. Long talons were emerging from them and the clawed fingers raked across her breastplate, scraping the metal surface.

  The next instant there was a cracking boom as Talorcan fired his pistol into the cadaverous thing. The shot caught the fiend in its shoulder, shattering bone and shredding flesh. A spray of dark blood and gleaming ichor flashed from the wound. The creature swung around, glaring at its new attacker. Its head was distorted beyond the vicious injuries the body had suffered in life. Great black horns were tearing their way up from beneath the scalp. Long yellow fangs pushed up from the jaws.

  Talorcan readied himself for the fiend’s charge, but before it could rush him it was served a violent reminder of the foe it had left behind. In a shining arc of silver, Esselt brought her sword slicing down upon the monster’s neck, all but cleaving its head from its body. Smoke sizzled from the mutilating wound, ichor vaporising as it encountered the blessed residue left behind by the slashing blade. It swung back around, clashing its fangs together as it glared at Esselt. Then it collapsed against the scaly sands, the impact tearing its head free from the flap of skin that held it.

  ‘Receive Sigmar’s judgement, horror of Old Night,’ Esselt recited as she stared down at the desiccated remains. The horns and other daemonic manifestations were rapidly fading into a crusty residue, leaving behind only a mangled corpse.

  ‘A minor daemon of the Blood God,’ Talorcan said as he observed the dissolution. ‘I should think it took possession of this body only after the soul was gone. The flesh was seeped in the energies of Khorne, enough to act as a temporary host. Without the life-force to sustain it, the thing could not have lingered long in Chamon.’

  Esselt shook her head and pointed at the bullet wound in the corpse’s shoulder. ‘It had vitality enough to endure being shot. The one we found outside the village withered as soon as it was struck.’

  ‘And the host bodies we found outside the nomad camps were simply corpses,’ Talorcan expanded. ‘Time is the explanation to that riddle. We were farther back on the trail when we found the others.’

  ‘Then the strength of this possession means we are close,’ Esselt stated. A hard glint came into her eyes; a coldness settled upon her face.

  Talorcan stepped past her and inspected the corpse. ‘It isn’t here,’ he declared. ‘Whatever damn thing was brought up from that tomb, it isn’t here.’

  ‘Someone else has it,’ Esselt said. ‘Like every other time, it found someone else to take it before relinquishing its previous owner.’

  ‘Someone else has it,’ Talorcan agreed. ‘But we can be thankful the evil is dormant now. It lacks even the power to make its new owner cover his tracks.’ He waved his empty pistol at a line of footprints that stretched out across the dunes. Already some of them had been covered by the crawling sands, but enough remained to betray a general direction.

  ‘It is my belief that whatever devilry is within this cursed relic,’ Talorcan said, ‘lies dormant until something serves to provoke it. The robbers outside the cairn can be assumed to have argued over their spoils. In Skra Voln it looked as though the village had started to butcher an old draft-lizard for a feast. At every site there was some sign that violence occurred before the massacre started. The relic must be empowered by the malignity of the Blood God, and once it senses bloodshed, it uses whoever carries it to create even more to sate its hunger.’

  Esselt caught at Talorcan’s arm. ‘How long will it remain dormant? Can we catch the new owner before the evil is aroused?’

  Talorcan placed a rough hand over hers. Wrapping his fingers around her wrist, he drew her close. ‘Sigmar knows we must,’ he said in a sombre whisper. ‘Otherwise the trail will lead us to another massacre.’

  The oasis of Tora Grae was one of dozens scattered across the vast desert of Droost. Shielded from the crawling dunes by great outcroppings of copper-hued rock, Tora Grae offered succour from the blazing sun. Great stands of frond-leafed trees grew around a large pool of dark water. Tough shrubs and hardy desert grass formed an outer layer that ringed the trees, stretching to the very periphery of the rocks.

  Where there was water to be found in the desert, so too would the society of man be found. Built within the outer ring of grass and shrubs, a small village had persisted for many generations. Huts woven from palm-fronds and reinforced with bartered cloth lay clustered together in a confused huddle. Beyond the huts, herds of wiry antelope nuzzled the grass within their fenced enclosures. Huge draft-lizards basked on the tops of rocks, soaking in the warmth of the day until, sated, they crawled into the shadows of their burrows. Demi-gryphs milled about, each animal tethered by a ring fastened to its beak and fixed to a stout wooden post. Dogs and poultry roamed freely through the village, doing their best to avoid the rambunctious children who raced around the huts. The older inhabitants of the village lounged in the shade of the trees. Early morning and early evening were their hours of labour, when they would see to their flocks and gather water from the pool. The middle of the day, with the hot sun blaring down on the world, was a time for rest and repose. Only children and fools bestirred themselves at such an hour.

  Scattered about the rocky outcroppings, sentries maintained a lazy watch upon the desert around Tora Grae. Their main concern was the withering scalestorms that would reach down and rip away at the dunes, driving a blinding wall of shimmering sand across the desert to smother anything in its path. A lesser but still serious worry were the raider bands who prowled the wastes. Their usual prey were the caravans, but sometimes a gang would become large and bold enough to attack a village.

  When one of the sentries spotted movement through the shimmering haze, his first inclination was to dip his fingers into the water jug resting beside him and moisten his eyes. After a few blinks, he looked again. There could be no doubt, there was someone riding through the desert in the very worst of the day. Two riders leading a third animal. The sentry hesitated only long enough to assure himself there weren’t others who had evaded his first sighting, then he scrambled down from his shaded perch and hurried into the village to alert his people.

  As Talorcan and Esselt rode through a winding cut between the coppery rocks and onto the grassy expanse that surrounded Tora Grae, the witch hunters found themselves the centre of attention for hundreds of villagers. All the able-bodied inhabitants of the village were gathered together, hands locked around the hefts of axes and spears, the grips of swords and lizard-goads. Behind them, from the edge of the settlement itself, the very old and very young watched with anxious gazes as the strangers approa
ched.

  Talorcan looked across the assembled villagers, studying them with cold eyes, meeting the mute hostility of their own scrutiny. With a flourish he threw back the white cloak, displaying the weapons holstered on his belt, but more importantly revealing the heavy pectoral that hung across his chest. The surface of the metal plate was adorned in gold, displaying the image of a hammer centred above a pair of crossed lightning bolts. It was the mark of his chapter, the Witch Takers of Azyr.

  Even in so remote a place as Tora Grae, the symbol of the witch hunters was recognised. An instant before and the villagers had been ready to fight these intruders. Now they shrank back, eyes wide with fright.

  ‘Who is headman here?’ Talorcan called out. ‘I would have words with your leader.’

  The crowd was silent. Though they maintained their distance, none of them had lowered their weapons. Esselt shifted around in her saddle, slowly drawing her silver-bladed greatsword. An awed murmur rose from the villagers and they withdrew several paces back, some of them stumbling as they bumped into huts and fences.

  ‘We are the Hunters of Sigmar,’ Esselt declared, letting her words linger in the air. ‘We will speak with your headman,’ she added as she set her sword across the front of her saddle, its bright edge glistening in the sun. ‘Let him come forwards.’

  An old man emerged from the midst of the crowd, his wrinkled brown body wrapped in a yellow burnoose bound about the waist by a heavy lizard-hide belt. The elder’s thin fingers were closed around a wooden hammer icon, and as he came towards the witch hunters, he held the holy image out to them.

  ‘Peace and rest be yours,’ the headman said, bowing low before the riders. ‘I am Morleo, leader of this community. Excuse the antagonism of my people. We did not recognise you for who you are.’ He drew the icon to his lips, kissing it reverently. ‘Tora Grae is dutiful in its faith. The God-King’s shrine is never neglected and I myself lead the morning devotions to Great Sigmar. We embrace and abide by the sacred teachings of His strictures–’

  ‘Into the halls of paradise the serpent of Chaos may slither,’ Talorcan interrupted, warningly. His gaze roved once more across the villagers. ‘We would have private conference with you. Then you will appreciate our purpose here.’ His tone dropped to a low whisper that barely reached the headman’s ears. ‘Then you will understand the danger your people are in.’

  Talorcan and Esselt followed Morleo through his village. The shrine of Sigmar stood some small way from the huts, raised up on a log platform. Only a little larger than the huts themselves, the space within the shrine allowed enough room for a small altar with a stone hammer fastened to the wall behind it. A basin of water rested to one side of the altar while on the other side was an open box with a litter of coloured stones. The blues of lapis lazuli and turquoise clustered with the yellows of amber and the greens of malachite.

  ‘Offerings to Mighty Sigmar,’ Morleo explained when he noticed Esselt staring at the box. ‘My people are not wealthy, but such small treasure as they do find they bring here to render up in gratitude to the God-King.’

  Esselt turned from the box. ‘Has anyone made an offering today?’

  ‘Not that I am aware,’ Morleo said. ‘It is possible someone may have come without my knowing. The shrine is open to all.’ An expression of almost painful regret replaced the worry that had been on his face. ‘Has something been stolen? Do you think one of my people to be a thief?’

  ‘Something has been taken,’ Talorcan said, slowly walking around the shrine, ‘but not from here. A foul relic from an unholy grave.’

  ‘Our problem is twofold,’ Esselt added. ‘We do not know who has it, nor do we know what it is.’

  Morleo scratched at his chin in confusion. ‘If you do not know these things, then how do you know there is anything to look for?’

  ‘A string of massacres that has left red sand almost to your own threshold,’ Esselt growled, smacking her fist into her palm in frustration.

  Talorcan glanced at her and frowned. Arriving too late to stop the slaughters was taking a toll on them both. He wished there was some comfort he could offer Esselt that wouldn’t seem a mere platitude.

  ‘Twenty days,’ Talorcan told the headman. ‘Twenty days we have been on the trail of this horror. It began with the grave of some chief of the Chaos hordes that once threatened the Khanate. Robbers took something from that tomb. Something saturated in the evil and madness of the Dark Gods.’

  Morleo’s face took on a sickly hue. ‘You say that the trail has led you to Tora Grae? That a thief has brought this unclean thing here?’

  ‘Someone has brought it here,’ Talorcan said. ‘The relic has a way of abandoning its owners.’ His eyes were like slivers of steel as he met Morleo’s gaze. ‘It takes possession of them before the end and uses the one who carries it to further its evil.’

  Morleo wrung his hands in despair. ‘It is horrible! Monstrous! If you do not know what this thing looks like, if you do not know who carries it, then how can you find it? I cannot even lead my people away from Tora Grae for, if you are right, we would be taking the curse with us!’

  Esselt stepped beside the old man, grabbing him by the shoulder. ‘You will achieve nothing if you surrender to fear. Keep faith with Sigmar. Know that He has sent us here before this evil could be set loose. If you keep faith, then we will prevail.’

  ‘This is the only settlement near the place we found the body of the last man to carry this obscene relic,’ Talorcan told Morleo. ‘Whoever took it from him, this is where they went. I need to see anyone who was away from the village today. Man, woman or child. We must interrogate and examine them all.’

  Morleo rang the bell that hung outside the shrine, summoning the people of Tora Grae. It took little time for a crowd to gather for most of the villagers had kept nearby, both intrigued and frightened by the headman’s visitors. The elder stood atop the log platform flanked by the two witch hunters as he addressed his people.

  ‘As many of you have heard, our visitors are from Sigmar’s Order of Azyr,’ the old man said. ‘They wish to speak with anyone who was away from Tora Grae today.’ Morleo waited while the hunters and herdsmen who had left the oasis stepped out from the crowd. Some of them, intimidated by the presence of the witch hunters, needed the encouragement of family and neighbours to admit that they had been away.

  Talorcan stepped down from the platform and began speaking with each villager. He watched each of them with a piercing gaze, studying their faces for any trace of duplicity. His questions were simple. Had any of them found a dead man in the desert? Had someone taken something from the body?

  Still upon the platform, Esselt was able to see more of the villagers than Talorcan. The questions he posed to the hunters and herdsmen were heard by those further away. At the very fringe of the group who had left the oasis, one of the hunters showed increasing signs of agitation. He kept looking at Talorcan, then hastily averting his eyes. Sweat beaded his brow and he kept fidgeting, kicking his feet in the dirt.

  Esselt knew guilt when she saw it, and the simple hunter wasn’t crafty enough to hide his. Carrying her sword with her, she dropped down and pushed her way through the crowd. ‘Talorcan,’ she called to her partner. ‘No need for more questions. The one we want is here.’ The hunter’s alarm mounted as the armoured woman strode towards him.

  ‘I think you have something to tell us,’ Esselt said as she closed upon the hunter. She held her greatsword over one shoulder, her stern gaze boring down upon the man.

  ‘I didn’t kill him,’ the hunter sputtered. ‘By the Hammer, he was dead already!’

  Talorcan circled around to one side of the hunter. He threw back the folds of his cloak, keeping his weapons in easy reach. ‘The man you found is of less concern to us than what he was carrying,’ he said, his words quick and sharp. ‘We want what you took from him.’

  ‘He was dead,’ the hun
ter insisted. ‘What good would it have done to just leave something so pretty to be lost in the sand?’

  ‘Fool,’ Esselt snapped. ‘Do you have any idea what you are trifling with? What did you take?’

  Talorcan was studying the hunter closely, but his eyes suddenly shifted from him to the crowd watching them from the village. He saw a woman, lissom and youthful, with an almost frantic expression on her face. He saw something more. Something that was out of place in a simple village like Tora Grae. Around her arm was a bronze armlet adorned with an immense girasol. The red opal was bigger than any he had seen in the courts of Arlk, bigger than the diamond that adorned the khan’s turban.

  ‘Esselt,’ Talorcan hissed. ‘He doesn’t have it. He gave it away!’

  Before Talorcan could move towards the woman wearing the armlet, the hunter dashed ahead of him. ‘Please!’ he cried. ‘Leave her alone. I will get it for you.’

  Reaching the woman, the hunter begged her to hand over the armlet before there was further trouble. She drew back from him, one hand closing protectively around the armband. Seeing her resistance, Esselt and Talorcan drew nearer.

  ‘Stay calm,’ Talorcan said. ‘We only want the relic.’

  The woman either didn’t hear or didn’t believe Talorcan’s words. Her efforts to pull away became more desperate. The hunter tried to soothe his lover’s fright, but his words, too, went ignored. The woman grew more panicked the closer Esselt and Talorcan came towards her. Her attempts to flee only made the hunter more frantic to get the armlet away from her. The other villagers retreated from her vicinity, alarmed by the conflict but more frightened by the attention the witch takers were showing in the woman.

  ‘Get away from her,’ Esselt warned the hunter. ‘The relic is dangerous.’ The greatsword was no longer resting across her shoulder but was clutched tightly in both hands as she took another step towards the woman.