He was smoking a pipe, and there was an almost full goblet of wine on the table in front of him. Konrad nodded in recognition and was about to turn towards the barrels at the other end of the room, but Taungar gestured for him to join him.

  “Girl!” he bellowed, as though he were drilling a parade.

  Konrad sat down opposite the sergeant, and a few seconds later a young girl weaved her way through the crush. She was holding a tray of full beer tankards, which she could hardly lift, and she set it down on the table.

  She could only have been about twelve years old, her hair was almost white, and there was something about her which reminded Konrad of a person he had tried not to remember. Placing one of the tankards in front of Konrad, her soft brown eyes noticed him watching her and she smiled at him. Taungar paid, and she picked up the tray again and moved off.

  Her smile was identical to Krysten’s: warm and honest but also mischievous.

  Krysten who Konrad had almost loved. Krysten who he abandoned when he had left the mine in search of a lost dwarf temple. Krysten who had been captured by the swarms of degenerate northern invaders when the mining camp was overrun and totally annihilated. Krysten who must have been dead by now. Krysten who he hoped had died quickly and painlessly. Krysten who, he now realized, he had loved.

  Konrad raised his beer stein and swallowed half the contents in a single gulp.

  Taungar had been watching him, and now he said, “Do you want to tell me what happened?”

  Konrad shrugged.

  “You don’t have to, but maybe I can help.”

  Konrad looked at him. Taungar was a veteran of many campaigns; he had survived much more than Konrad could ever know: he had served throughout the Empire, he had fought and conquered every type of adversary, human and otherwise. Konrad looked around, at all the people in the inn, some of whom were within hearing distance.

  “The best place to talk secretly is where there is plenty of noise,” said Taungar. “The best place to be unnoticed is where there are many people. So…?”

  Konrad drank more of his beer. “Chaos,” he said quietly, and Taungar nodded wisely.

  It was a word that many used but few understood, and even Konrad was uncertain of its true meaning. For the majority of the population, the foul power of Chaos was completely unknown. They went about their daily affairs never suspecting its existence, never knowing the effect that it had upon their lives and how it influenced the world in which they lived.

  “It’s here,” Konrad added, “in Altdorf.”

  Taungar sucked on his pipe and blew smoke from between his teeth. “I know,” he said.

  “How long have you known? Since Praag?”

  “Before, and I recognized the malign forces that were controlling the siege. I almost died. I’m like you, I’m a warrior. We both live on the edge of death. I was part of the relief army, and I came within a moment of dying. Sometimes I imagine that I did die, that I have been a ghost ever since.” Taungar smiled at the idea and took a sip of his wine. “Growing older makes us more conscious of our mortality, Konrad. When I was younger, I took so many risks, fought without a care for my own existence.” He took another sip from his goblet, then set it down.

  “I know about Chaos,” he continued. “About twenty years ago, I was one of those who went into Castle Drachenfels to clear up the mess. I’d enlisted in the Imperial guard to fight for the Emperor—this was in the days of Luitpold—to defend him and the Empire. I was young and innocent, but I grew out of both. All my ideas about the world were turned upside down when we rode into the Grey Mountains and discovered the impossible creatures that lived in the fortress of the Great Enchanter. We tortured them, hung them, burned them, but we couldn’t wipe them from our memories. They were more than monstrous, more than bestial, more than evil. They were the exact opposite of everything human. They were corrupted by Chaos.”

  “And they are here in Altdorf,” said Konrad, “plotting against the Emperor.”

  “There are always plots against the Emperor,” said Taungar, very calmly.

  “The skaven are going to replace him with a double.”

  “He can’t be any worse than Karl-Franz.”

  Konrad stared at Taungar in astonishment. This was not the reaction he had expected from a member of the Imperial guard. He had only mentioned Gaxar’s conspiracy because he needed Taungar’s assistance, and that assistance would have little to do with protecting Karl-Franz; but by focusing on this aspect, he had believed that Taungar would help him. What he needed was someone who knew Altdorf, someone who would know how to locate the hidden passages beneath the city.

  “What has the Emperor ever done for me?” asked Taungar, noticing Konrad’s bewildered expression. “I have loyally served the Empire for a quarter of a century, but I am still only a sergeant. The cobalt plume is all I shall ever wear because I was not born into the right family. It took me a long time to realize, Konrad, but the only person to serve is yourself. I owe allegiance to no one but myself. Whatever I do in the future, it will only be in my own best interests.”

  “But… what if the Empire is engulfed by the legions of Chaos… if we all become slaves of darkness?”

  “We are all slaves without knowing it. Is one master worse than another?”

  “We can’t allow the triumph of Chaos!”

  “That’s all a myth spread by our rulers to make us obey them. We live in fear while they live in luxury.”

  “What about Praag? That was no myth. You said you almost died! And what about all the foul creatures that you slew at Castle Drachenfels?”

  “Fighting for a so-called just cause has given me nothing but pain and torment. Why should I care what happens to the Emperor or the Empire? While I still live, and whatever happens, more than half my life is already over, I want the best for me.”

  Taungar’s words resonated in Konrad’s mind, because they were so similar to his own recent thoughts. His priority was to rescue Elyssa, and he wondered what price he was prepared to pay for her safety. If it were a case of the Emperor’s life for the girl’s, then there was no question but that he would choose Elyssa. It seemed almost like heresy to admit it, but there would be another Emperor after Karl-Franz, someone else to act as a symbolic head of the Empire. There was, however, only one Elyssa.

  Such thoughts were no mere speculation. Gaxar had been plotting against the Emperor—and Elyssa had been in the same subterranean chamber as the grey seer.

  “I’m telling you this,” Taungar continued, “because I don’t want you to waste as much of your life as I have mine.”

  Konrad shook his head. “No, no. We must be able to do both, to fight against Chaos and to further our own aims. The two are not opposite ambitions.”

  “You don’t understand. You are so like me, Konrad, so like the way I was.” Taungar stared intently at Konrad as he spoke, and he gripped both the younger man’s wrists with his hands. “You must let me prove to you what I am saying. Once you have seen the evidence, you will be convinced.”

  This was not what Konrad had expected, and he realized he would get no help from Taungar. He was alone—as always. There was only one person who knew of Elyssa or cared about her, and that was himself. Whatever must be done, he was the only one who could and would make the attempt.

  Konrad shook his hands free and stood up. “I’m going back,” he said.

  “It would be best if you came with me,” said Taungar. There was no need for him to add any more. Konrad was aware that the sergeant knew he must have been involved in yesterday’s prison break, and that he could betray Konrad if he chose.

  Reaching for his tankard and draining it, Konrad knew that he had little choice. He was unarmed, but if necessary he was confident that he could take care of Taungar; but another death would only add to his difficulties.

  “The gentleman we shall visit also happens to be on good terms with Matthias, who is the advisor to the Grand Theogonist,” said Taungar. “If you wish, you can tell him your story about this impostor, and it will be passed on through the usual channels. That is the only way to get a hearing, because who would believe a trooper or even a sergeant in the Imperial guard?”

  He took a final sip of his wine, then stood up, and Konrad could at last make out the design on his gold tiepin: it showed two naked women embracing one another. Taungar smiled and added, “But I think we will be able to persuade you that your true interests lie elsewhere. Shall we go?”

  They made their way through the crowd. Taungar went first, and he looked around to make sure that Konrad was following. As he did so, he collided with the blonde girl carrying the tray. She slipped and the tray fell from her hands, the pewter tankards spilling their contents over the floor. There was silence in the taproom for a moment, as people glanced around, and then the conversations, the laughter, the disagreements continued.

  Taungar swore and wiped at the drops of ale which had splattered across his trousers, then stepped around the girl, who was kneeling on the ground and picking up the empty tankards.

  Konrad stopped and looked down at the girl. Now it was not Krysten who he was reminded of, but himself. He remembered all the years he had worked in Brandenheimer’s tavern, when he had been no more than a slave, when he had been beaten and kicked for every little thing that went wrong—and even when things did not go wrong.

  “Trudi!” shouted a stocky, balding man who hurried from the other end of the inn. “Now what have you done?”

  He was the landlord, and Konrad knew that the girl would be in for a thrashing. He stepped forward. Tonight it would be the landlord’s turn for a beating.

  “I’m sorry, Herr Runze,” she said.

  “So am I,” said the man. “Ah well, it was only the slops. This lot can’t tell the difference by this time of night.”

  Runze turned and headed back the way he had come, and Konrad unclenched his fists. Trudi glanced up at him and she smiled once more, and for a moment she looked exactly like Krysten—the hair, the face, the eyes, the expression.

  Konrad glanced away, then followed Taungar out of the door and into the night.

  Konrad wondered if he should simply slip away from Taungar and quit the Imperial guard, but realized that would leave him in a worse situation than ever. If he did not return to the palace, he would have no base from which to operate. He would be unable to remain in the city because he would be hunted down by the Imperial guard as a deserter. He would have nowhere to go, no contacts, no money, no weapons, and without any of these his chances of ever finding Elyssa became more remote.

  The fact that Taungar was not a loyal member of the guard might prove to be to Konrad’s advantage. From the way the sergeant had spoken, he must have been engaged in some form of criminal activity. That was surely what he meant when he had claimed that from now on he would only be acting in his own best interests. Altdorf was a port, so perhaps he was involved with smuggling. Imperial duties on certain kinds of imported goods were very high, and fortunes could be made by those able to supply such luxuries at reduced prices. And members of a smuggling gang were more likely to know about the secret subterranean city beneath Altdorf than the Imperial guard.

  Taungar must be taking him to meet his other employer, the head of the illicit organization for which he worked. It would make sense that such a man would know the adviser to the Grand Theogonist of the Cult of Sigmar, because the most wealthy and influential people frequently had far less respect for the law than the lower orders. Konrad remembered how Litzenreich had said that laws were made by such people for their own benefit. Konrad was inclined to agree. Even should prominent citizens happen to be discovered breaking the law, at worst they would be judged by their equals and punished in the most lenient fashion. Not so a member of the more numerous, less prosperous part of society. No matter how minor their transgression, they would be dealt with very severely—probably painfully, and possibly even fatally.

  As a member of the Imperial guard, Konrad’s pay was very little, and he would receive none of it until he had served for a month. Whatever happened, he doubted he would still be in Altdorf by then, and he was not averse to earning a few crowns now. The mercenaries on the northern frontier were always dreaming of ways to earn their fortunes. Even Wolf had not been immune to such financial ambition, with his expedition to discover ancient dwarf gold and gems in a lost temple in the mountains of Kislev. Wolf and Konrad and Anvila had indeed found such a forgotten temple, but there had been no buried hoard of priceless treasure—only a horde of cave-dwelling goblins.

  It was over five years since Elyssa had been taken prisoner. Konrad tried not to consider the horrendous ordeals she must inevitably have endured during that time. Now that he knew she was still alive, all his senses told him not to waste a moment in finding and releasing her. But when he considered the position logically, he realized that compared to all the tortures that the girl had already suffered, an extra few days could make very little difference.

  The only problem might be that Skullface had left the city since last night, taking his captive with him. If so, Konrad was already too late. Otherwise, during the coming days, he would have time to think more clearly of what he should do and make his plans accordingly. If he did succeed in tracking down the creature he had named Skullface, how could he kill such a being, one that could pull an arrow from its heart and show not a trace of a wound…?

  He remembered the preternaturally thin figure, apparently the only human who had taken part in the massacre and destruction of Konrad’s village. So human, yet so alien. When he had drawn the black arrow from his bloodless chest, he had examined the crest before snapping the shaft. It was as if he had recognized the gold crest. Wolf, too, seemed to know the design when he had seen it on Konrad’s quiver.

  Konrad yawned as he walked by Taungar’s side through the city. He had not slept properly since the night before last and he felt exhausted. He was not as fit as he had been on the frontier, his strength having being sapped during his weeks of capture by Kastring’s band of raiders, and then his vitality had been almost drained by the bronze armour in which he had been imprisoned. It was less than two weeks since he had arrived in Altdorf, and while he had been in the guard he had done his best to rebuild his muscles and restore his stamina.

  The wounds he had suffered during the underground battle with the pygmy beast creatures had been superficial, only bites and scratches. Such apparently innocuous injuries could often prove the most dangerous, however. The saliva from an enemy’s bite might be venomous, a lethal poison which could kill very slowly and extremely painfully. But the teeth and talons of the flesh-eaters Konrad had defeated last night seemed to have borne no such deadly toxins; the injuries to his right arm and hand were well on their way towards healing. Early during his time in Kislev, Konrad had almost lost that arm as a result of a severe wound which had started to turn gangrenous. The limb had been saved by an elf with magical healing skills, and ever since then Konrad’s right arm had recovered from its wounds faster than the rest of his body.

  Elyssa, too, had possessed latent powers of healing. She had soothed the wounds he had suffered when slaying the beastman which attacked her. Perhaps, somehow, it was her own magical talents which had kept her alive when the village had been overrun by the feral forces of Chaos.

  Konrad did not like being in towns and cities, the way they were so enclosed. Altdorf’s fortifications seemed to be there to keep its inhabitants inside, not to exclude enemies. He felt that almost anyone he encountered could be an enemy, and there Was no way of telling who. Out on the frontier it was easy to distinguish one’s foe; not so in a city. There were no beastmen, at least not on the surface, there were only humans—but humans were the most treacherous, most deadly adversaries of all.

  Because of its wealth, Altdorf had more than its share of thieves and robbers. The main streets were wide, kept lit throughout the night, and regularly patrolled, but Konrad kept listening for the sound of footsteps on the cobbles behind them. Any villains who fancied their chances would get far more than they could have expected if they tried to attack him and Taungar, although it would take a gang of footpads to attempt an assault on two men who were so obviously fit and so obviously sober. But criminals did not necessarily have much sense, and Konrad kept glancing all around and keeping wide of every alley that they passed on their journey. They remained within the northern sector of the city, making for the mercantile area, and at last their destination came in sight.

  The house stood at the top of a hill some two hundred yards from the city boundary, lying behind its own white walls, which were a replica of those of the city. There was also a moat and a drawbridge, although the moat lay inside the walls, and the bridge was only crossed once access had been gained through the heavy wooden gate. Taungar had made their presence there known by using the heavy iron knocker, which was fashioned in the shape of Sigmar’s legendary warhammer, Ghal-maraz.

  A slim boy, perhaps fifteen or sixteen years old, immediately opened the door, bowing low to admit them. He was clad all in white—slippers, tight breeches, loose tunic, a round cap—and he led the way to a building in the centre of the walled garden. The grounds were lit by a series of lanterns, all of them in the pattern of the fabled double-tailed comet which had lit the night sky above the Old World at the time of Sigmar’s birth. Twin beams of light shone from each of the lamps, illuminating the impressive gardens.

  There were several fountains, and at their centres were various grotesque replicas of dying orcs and goblins. Water sprayed from different parts of these statues, in imitation of geysers of blood spurting from terrible wounds. They were evidently representations of the goblinoid swarms who had fallen victim to Sigmar’s vengeful hammer at the battle of Black Fire Pass. The fountains fed a number of streams which meandered through the grounds, and these were crossed by bridges each of which was a miniature of one of Altdorf’s six bridges.

 

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