Inferno! Volume 5, page 6
‘My notes are ruined, you cursed oaf!’ the merchant snapped.
‘A hundred pardons, sire. Deepest ’pologies!’ Mallon hiccupped for good measure. ‘Allow me to buy you another mead,’ he slurred, already slipping backwards, as if to the barkeep. Mallon was more concerned with the door.
‘Mead? I should have you flayed, man! You’ve cost me weeks of arithmetic!’
‘Allow me to make it up to you,’ Mallon said, and flicked him a silver coin for his troubles, one from the aelf’s own purse, no less.
It was a mistake, Mallon realised before the silver had even landed in the merchant’s palm. All his patience had been for nought. He knew it the moment he turned, and heard the two words all larcenous souls fear the most:
‘Stop, thief!’ came the shriek.
All eyes turned. Conversations died. Even the baron’s niece finally shut her trap. Mallon was already counting the worrying number of people standing between him and the door.
The aelf waved his accusatory finger about as if he were fencing. ‘That man has stolen from me! This coin he tried to distract me with is mine. See my mark on the coin’s face? Thief, I say!’ He held up the coin for all to see, and the distinct rune chiselled into its silver.
Hands immediately fell upon Mallon’s shoulders, holding him tightly despite his struggles. He felt their grip tighten as fingers rooted through his pockets, and quickly revealed the stolen purse. Mallon flashed a winning smile as the aelf retrieved it.
‘Let me explain–’
‘To the chopping block with him!’ some drunkard crowed, drawing cheers from all around.
Mallon’s charm withered in an instant. ‘The block? Wait, no! There’s been a mistake!’ He received a fist in his gut for his excuses and was dragged towards the door. There was nothing quite like the prospect of swift and bloody justice to liven up an evening.
‘Fetch Baron Kurch’s men!’ came the cries.
Mallon watched in horror as the door yawned wide ahead. Before he was carried over the threshold, a booming voice cut through the eager chatter of the mob and brought them all to a halt.
‘STOP!’
Craning his neck, Mallon saw the bearded knight from the corner come wading through the crowd. A wiry woman followed in his wake, a head taller than him, and so battle-scarred and weathered she looked like old pieces of hide all stitched together.
‘There you are!’ announced the knight in a deep baritone, looking down at Mallon. ‘He is our companion.’
Mallon nodded eagerly for anyone watching, trying to cover his sigh of relief. He had never seen the knight nor the scrawny woman in his life, but he was immensely pleased they were the charitable type.
‘We will pay the damages,’ the man continued, ‘if there are any damages now that the property has been returned.’ He threw a sharp look at the merchant, whose fist was still raised in the air.
‘It is the indignity of it all,’ said the aelf. ‘He is a thief, after all. A criminal must be punished!’
Amongst the jeers of agreement, the knight tutted admonishingly. ‘He was cursed by a hedge-witch. Made strange in the head and damned with greed. He is not a criminal, he is sick! Does he deserve to be taken to the block for that?’
‘He ruined my notebook. All my work…’ stammered the aelf.
With a grunt, the knight produced a fingernail-sized piece of what looked like torope gold from a pocket and tossed it to the merchant. It drew a muted gasp from the onlookers. The Black Marsh Barony was famed for its torope, farmed from the colossal turtles that roamed the vast marshes. Mallon would have been impressed if it hadn’t meant he was now deeply in the man’s debt. At least there would be no beheading tonight, and for that he was grateful.
‘All has been forgiven?’ the knight asked.
The aelf picked at the gold nugget with a sharp fingernail for a moment before nodding and retreating to his seat. Mallon shrugged his way out of the tight grip of the mob. They left him be, though they seemed far from happy about it. They had been cheated of their entertainment. Mallon couldn’t help but smile.
‘Come… Lothar.’ The knight beckoned to him. Mallon thought of the door behind him, still open. He had run from debts before, but this man looked the type that would hunt him to the edges of Ghur. Instead, Mallon followed cautiously behind his saviours, trying to ignore the narrowed looks and hushed accusations from the dispersing mob.
While the man and woman retook their seats amidst the tight group, Mallon stayed standing, meeting each of their gazes. The woman had a young lad by her side, a dead-eyed boy with a shaven head. The beak-like noses they shared told Mallon they were mother and son. Two men sat opposite: one hooded and smiling awkwardly, the other, balding and heavy-set, looking bored and half-asleep. Between them sat the duardin with his beetroot face, and the brute of a knight who had saved him.
Mallon flashed a grin. ‘Well, thank you kindly for interjecting there. Very kind of you. It’s not often you find such charity in this realm. I shan’t bother you any further, I really must be going, so thank you ag–’
‘Malefitz,’ the knight said.
Before Mallon could make sense of the word, a pair of sharp, iridescent purple ears appeared above the table, followed by two glittering eyes and a hooked yellow beak that snapped menacingly. A low growl made the feathers at the gryph-hound’s neck shake. Mallon’s legs did the same.
The knight ruffled the beast’s ears. He still played the friend for now, but Mallon saw the hardness in his gaze. ‘Malefitz here doesn’t take kindly to rudeness. We did you a favour, didn’t we? Least you could do is sit down with us.’
Mallon realised there was nothing charitable about this man. As with ur-gold or realmstones, there was a currency in favours, and like anything with value, they could make or break a man.
With a sigh, Mallon sat, much to the duardin’s apparent dislike.
‘Should’ve just left him to have his head chopped off, Ulriker,’ he said gruffly, his stern mouth only barely visible between his thick, rust-coloured beard. ‘We don’t need anybody else for this job, especially not some grubby tavern brigand from the backside of nowhere.’
‘You sure about that, Durbrord?’ Ulriker snapped. ‘Didn’t we all start out nowhere?’
The duardin fell silent.
Mallon spoke up, playing tough to hide his nerves. ‘I’m no common brigand. And the grubbiness is intentional. You’re one to talk, duardin. You’ve brought half the marsh in with you, I see.’
A tense moment passed, ended only by the bored-looking man snorting with laughter. Durbrord crossed his arms, and Ulriker’s glaring expression broke into an ivory smile.
‘Sharp tongue on this one.’
‘Speaking of brigands, who are you lot?’
‘Sharp wit, too, I see. We’re mercenaries by trade, lad, and you might be just what we need.’
‘Need for what?’
Ulriker leaned over the table. His fellows did the same, heads bowed. Mallon half-expected them to begin praying. ‘I’m sure a thief like you is aware that the realms are strewn with old trinkets lost throughout the Ages,’ said the knight. ‘Some are treasures that only dreams are made of.’
‘Or nightmares. Others treasures are dangerous. Objects of Chaos,’ Durbrord added.
‘Valuable in either case, especially when delivered into the right hands.’ Ulriker narrowed his eyes. ‘The Stormcast Eternals, for example.’
Durbrord and the others nodded emphatically.
‘And you’ve found one of these treasures, I take it?’ Mallon asked.
‘Not quite,’ said the hooded man with the ever-present yet nervous smile.
‘But I might know somebody who has,’ growled the duardin. ‘Something who has.’
‘If Durbrord’s information is correct–’ Ulriker began, but Durbrord’s spluttering cut him off.
‘Why would I lie, old friend? I’ve still got rat-blood on me!’
Ulriker waved his gauntleted hand dismissively. ‘If Durbrord’s right, then we intend to kidnap him and make him tell us where it is. Then we can go and retrieve it,’ said the knight.
Mallon shrugged. ‘And then what?’
Ulriker snorted. ‘We deliver it to the nearest Stormkeep and claim the reward.’
‘You sound more like rogues and burglars than mercenaries,’ said Mallon, wary.
Ulriker smirked. ‘Not our usual kind of work, true, but if we pull it off, work will be a distant memory. I, for one, am tired of scratching a living on the fringes of the Realm of Beasts. Aren’t you?’
The woman spat on the floorboards, as if the notion disgusted her. ‘I still say we should just kill the bastard,’ she said.
Ulriker clenched a fist. ‘Perhaps we will, Elfrun, but after he has given us what we need. How many times have we been over this?’ His gaze moved around his circle. ‘Each of us has grudges to make peace with.’ His grey eyes found Mallon. ‘Or debts to settle. Unfortunately, none of us are thieves, and that’s why we need one.’
‘He’s clearly not a very good thief, is he? Just got caught red-handed,’ grumbled Durbrord.
Ulriker’s stare was intense, still locked on Mallon.
Mallon raised his chin. ‘First time I ever got caught, I swear.’
‘Then come south with us. If you live through the next few days, your debt will be paid and many times over. You won’t have to worry about robbing aelves in backwater baronies any longer.’
Ulriker had stumbled upon Mallon’s desires. Whether unknowingly or incisively, Mallon didn’t know. Escape. That was all he had ever dreamed of: of making it to the cities. Here was his chance, though not in the form he had expected.
The thief drummed his nimble fingers on the mead-soaked table. He couldn’t abide their stares for long. ‘I don’t really have a choice, do I?’ he asked.
‘No,’ said the knight, wearing his broad smile. ‘You don’t. Not unless you can pay your debt in coin or gold or torope tonight? Then we can call our business concluded. Or you can take your chances with the charming citizens of Kurchak.’
Mallon thought of his hoard, stashed in the wall of his hovel, deeper within town. It barely paid for a quarter of what Ulriker had donated to save his life.
‘I cannot,’ he admitted.
With that, Ulriker clapped his gauntlets on the wood and arose. The rest of the table moved with him. Even Malefitz got to his feet, tongue lolling from his sharp beak. Mallon was left sitting, quite confused as to how the whirlwind of the evening had brought him here. He looked up, feeling miniature.
‘What’s your name, lad?’ the knight asked him.
‘Mallon. Mallon Tein.’
‘Well, Mallon Tein, what’s your answer? Will you come with us or will you visit the block after all?’ Noticing Ulriker was patting the sword at his belt, Mallon hoisted up his hood and got to his feet. There was precious little alternative, after all. This way he could watch, and wait. Patience was Mallon’s virtue. Perhaps he could make it his saviour, too.
‘The word treasure does have a certain appeal,’ he said.
Ulriker chuckled, and as the others moved off, he clapped Mallon so hard on the back he almost pitched the thief onto his face.
‘Then welcome to the Rusted Blades, Mallon Tein. Welcome indeed.’
It took half the night to traverse the bogs of Black Marsh, and Mallon spent it swatting vicious insects from his face and staring at the vast yet faint shadows of the immense turtles in the distance, and the trails of lights that clung to them.
By the time dawn rose upon the barony, the small band had reached solid ground amongst the dark clutches of the pine forests of Askan. Though the trees swayed above them, whispering unknown secrets, they felt no breeze, just the thick, cloying air between the endless tree trunks and knee-high shrubs. Their path wandered, but Durbrord led them true, following some map drawn only in his head. Ulriker seemed content to trust him, and so did the others.
By the time the sunlight rose above the trees, they had broken free of the pines and stood upon the edge of the Vilefang Wastes. There Ulriker called for a halt, and the Rusted Blades broke their fast and slaked their thirst.
Mallon sat upon a rock, digging through the meagre supplies he had snatched from his hovel before they had left town.
The bald man who had been half-asleep at the tavern noticed how empty Mallon’s haversack was, and sighed. ‘Not much of a traveller, hmm?’
Mallon shook his head. ‘I’d always planned on leaving Black Marsh one day, when I had enough of a hoard. Always wanted to seek or steal my fortune in Excelsis. Not so abruptly as this, mind.’
‘Not a fighter either, eh?’
‘What do you mean? I can look after myself.’
‘You ain’t got no weapon.’
Mallon held up a hand, revealing the thin blade of a razor cradled in his palm.
‘Ha! That little slicer?’ The man laughed with abandon, drawing the others’ attention momentarily.
‘It does the job. I’m a thief, not a knight.’
Still chuckling to himself, the man rummaged in his pack until he found a spare knife, and handed it to Mallon.
‘Here. Name’s Lundrich Twice-Killed, by the way.’
Mallon took the knife and poked it through his belt between his pouches. ‘And why do they call you that?’
‘Because I’ve come back from the grave more than once,’ Lundrich said with a wink. Before they could say any more, Ulriker called for them to move on.
In single file, the Rusted Blades left the carpet of pine needles and dead leaves, and put their boots to grit and sand instead. The rolling hills of the Vilefang Wastes were featureless save for the scattered, bleached monoliths that poked from the scarlet sands like the fangs of some gigantic, buried creature. The sun beat down, scorching any bare flesh, and Mallon was glad he had brought a cloak, even though he was sweating tankards beneath it.
‘Where are we headed?’ he asked of Lundrich, who was marching ahead of him.
‘South.’
‘I know that. How far south?’
‘A day’s journey, maybe less. To the Fiend Crags.’
Mallon had heard of that place. Evenings upon evenings spent watching marks in the taverns of Kurchak tended to lead to a lot of eavesdropping. Nothing he had heard of the Fiend Crags was good.
‘But that’s skaven territory…’
Lundrich yawned. ‘Aye, so it is.’
‘Clans Skryre territory,’ growled Elfrun, walking behind them. ‘And they have no idea we’re coming.’
Mallon’s mind might have been young, but it had been honed by tough experience. He put the pieces together. ‘We’re kidnapping a skaven? I expected this to be a simple job, not a suicide mission. You don’t just steal idly from the ratmen.’ Any thieves Mallon knew that had tried had disappeared without a trace.
‘We’re meaner than we look, thie–’
‘Shut it, back there!’ Ulriker barked, interrupting Lundrich’s gloating. ‘By Sigmar! You should be keeping an eye out for grots or great worms, not yammering on!’
‘Aye!’ Lundrich shouted half-heartedly, before yawning. By the vacant look in his eyes, Mallon couldn’t help but wonder if some of the man had been left in the grave.
Afternoon saw the Fiend Crags appear on the horizon: dark and ominous. At first, Mallon thought them distant monoliths, given how jagged they were. As the leagues passed by underfoot, they proved themselves to be dominating towers of rock, surrounded by volcanic black foothills. Before the Crags lay the humongous skeletons of creatures Mallon had never seen or heard the like of. Their sun-bleached ribs would have dwarfed any tower in the Black Marsh Barony, perhaps even rivalled the spires of Izalend, if the rumours Mallon had heard were true. Their skulls still held teeth the length of pine trees, each eye socket the size of a courtyard. He shivered to think of a time when such monsters roamed the Realm of Ghur.
Ulriker called the Blades to a stop on a ridge pockmarked with great craters and pulverised boulders. There they slumped in the sand, staring across the plains of bones. Closer to the Crags, fat streaks of black smoke rose from unseen pits amongst the foothills.
‘The ratmen come to hunt the beasts that roam the plains. For meat, fur and hides, for warbeasts, or just to test their foul weaponry on living creatures,’ Durbrord told the Blades in his gruff tone, looking thankful for a chance to rest his legs.
‘Filthy bastards,’ Elfrun spat. She had a habit of doing that.
Mallon could smell the soot and char of forges on the breeze. With the evening starting to fall, an unholy green glow could be seen amongst the darker crags, sparking amidst the amber light of fires.
‘You lot wait here,’ Ulriker ordered, tightening the straps on his mismatched armour. ‘Durbrord and I will go to the next ridge and scout ahead.’
‘We will?’ asked the duardin.
‘Aye, friend,’ Ulriker replied, standing over him. ‘We’ll see if your suspicions of the Clans Skryre are correct. Come, Malefitz.’ The gryph-hound yowled before it bounded over the ridge.
‘Hmph.’ Durbrord unsheathed a battered axe and held it firmly with two hands. Its blade glowed copper in the light of sunset.
Without another word, they departed, leaving Mallon alone with the others. They worked silently, producing victuals and kindling for a quick fire. A cold was creeping across the wastes, chasing the shadow of night.
‘Adalbero,’ said Elfrun, already cross-legged by the small pile of wood she had built.
The hooded man, who had remained silent since the tavern, knelt by her side. Clenching a fist over the fire, he muttered to himself, sounding curiously irate. With a babbling burst of foreign words, fire sparked in his palm. He pressed it to the kindling and let it burn.
