The Vulture Lord, page 27
He looked at Neophron, the boy leaning all his weight onto his good leg, his eyes heavy with fatigue. He knew he was going to die. But would it be willingly, or with a curse on his lips?
Zothar nodded to his Hekatoi. The call went up, passed from the agora to the Grand Avenue, to the scrubland outside the city. After a moment’s pause the catapult arms of the Crawlers began to stretch and throw, their dread payload soaring over the ruins of Lament to strike the roof of the palace. They did not stop until it was no more than a pile of smoking rubble.
‘Kneel,’ Zothar said to his son.
The boy shook his head. When he spoke, his voice was thick, as if he struggled to emerge from a cloying sleep.
‘I will stand to meet this. I will die on my feet, not on my knees.’
Zothar drew his sword. He held it against the boy’s neck, and it was as if a touch of ice flowed along the length of the blade to chill his bones. He had not felt anything for a thousand years, but there was a dread in him now that he could not bear. It took every last exertion of his will to tamp it down.
‘Did you kill Se’bak?’ Zothar said.
‘Yes. If I regret anything, it is that. He was always kind to me, and yet I could not risk him telling the truth of my soul’s provenance while Lament still stood.’
‘And did he tell you this truth before he died?’
‘No,’ Neophron said. ‘I did not wish to hear it. I already know the truth.’
He looked at Zothar with those bold green eyes. There was no fear in them. There was only pity, and something like love.
‘And what is that truth?’ Zothar asked in a whisper, so that none but them could hear it. ‘That you were… that you are Neophron, the First Prince of Athrabis?’
He willed it to be so. With every fibre of what remained of his soul, he wanted this to be the truth his son had guarded from him.
‘No,’ the boy said. ‘That I am Lycus, son of Cleon and Astraea. And that I will die not as the First Prince of Athrabis, but as the last man of Lament.’
Zothar nodded. The blade faltered in his hand. He saw again the moment that seemed to last forever in his memory, of a hand slipping on the edge of the stone, a young man falling backwards into the open air. Falling, falling for eternity…
And then he swung the sword.
Phaetor came to him as they prepared to leave.
‘My liege,’ he said. ‘The bones of… Shall they be incorporated into you, as is the custom?’
‘No,’ Zothar said. He gained his saddle. ‘Lament is dead, its customs with it. Raze it all to the ground.’
Phaetor bowed and slipped away. Zothar spurred his steed. He did not look back at what was behind him now. Ahead was only the desert, and Athrabis, and all the lands beyond the Obsidian Coast yet to be conquered.
‘The wake is over,’ he said.
Epilogue
She didn’t like the pictures on the walls. There was something sinister about them, especially that shadow with the ravenous grin. It made her shiver. She recognised Neophron falling from the Tower. She felt afraid and made the sign of the comet against her chest as her mistress had taught her.
The boy played with his pebbles in the flickering torchlight. He looked up at her with those bold blue eyes and grinned. She smiled back, but then she felt afraid again. The cave was dank and silent around her, cold and dry and miserable. She could hear the boom and clatter from the city, and she pretended to herself that it was just the waves smacking against the shore at the base of the cliffs. That’s what she said to Arius when he asked, anyway. No use frightening the boy, although he was as bold as his father and not easily scared.
Kalista sat on the dry ground and hugged her knees. She was an old woman, and she wasn’t used to this. She thought of her mistress and of Selene, the priestess. One small childish part of herself hoped they were safe, but the older, more cynical part, that had given three of her own children to the Tower when they didn’t live past their first birthdays, knew that they were not. No one in Lament was safe now.
She drowsed and slept awhile on the stone floor and the boy slept too. When she woke, she fed him from the stores at the back of the cave. She realised that she couldn’t hear that boom and clatter any more and so she crawled carefully to the mouth of the cave, out onto the little shelf of rock before it, and peered across at the city.
She felt she wanted to cry. She didn’t though. She had to be strong for the boy.
‘Arius,’ she called as she crawled back into the cave. ‘Gather your things, it’s time to go.’
‘Are we going to see Mother now?’ the boy said, but Kalista shook her head.
‘I’m sorry, my love, but we won’t see her again. She had to go.’ She gathered the boy into her arms and held him close. ‘She had to go somewhere, to keep you safe.’
‘Where?’
The boy seemed unperturbed. He was of an age when any explanation, no matter how strange, can make sense purely because it’s the only one you’ve got.
‘She’s with Sigmar now,’ Kalista said. She kissed him on the forehead. She tucked the hammer pendant under his shirt and helped him pack his bag.
The boy’s father had carved steps into the side of the bluff, on the sea-facing side, and although it was a slippery and dangerous climb, it was easy enough to get down to the beach. The boat was tied there, more stores packed under an oilskin sheet. The sail was unfurled, and the boat reared up against the waves as if eager to go.
Sail, the priestess had said. Sail as far south as you can go, and then keep sailing. Sail until the Obsidian Coast is no more than a memory that wakes you in the night, and, troubled, you turn over and push it from you mind. And Sigmar watch over you every moment of your journey, until my son is safe.
Kalista felt the tears coming again, but she remembered those words and held them close. She remembered Sigmar and she felt strong.
Arius clambered aboard the boat and Kalista pushed it off, and then the sail was buckling in the breeze and carrying them away from the shore. She held the rudder, so they cut to the south. The boy turned to her and laughed as the salt spray kicked up around them.
Strange, Kalista thought. For a moment there, in the wan morning light, his eyes had looked almost green.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Richard Strachan is a writer and editor who lives with his partner and two children in Edinburgh, UK. Despite his best efforts, both children stubbornly refuse to be interested in tabletop wargaming. His first story for Black Library, ‘The Widow Tide’, appeared in the Warhammer Horror anthology Maledictions, and he has since written ‘Blood of the Flayer’, ‘Tesserae’, the Warcry Catacombs novel Blood of the Everchosen and the Age of Sigmar novel The End of Enlightenment.
An extract from Cursed City.
Though the shutters were barred, and the doors bolted, the Black Ship was more alive in the long hours of the night than it had been during the dreary grey day. The tavern was ablaze with the light of whale-oil lamps and its common room rumbled with the clamour of a hundred raucous conversations, people huddling together in the warmth that was absent in the cold streets. Flagons of ale, steins of beer, bottles of pungent vodka and glasses of dark wine were carried to patrons throughout the building’s three levels, borne upon wide copper trays by the buxom, strong-armed beer maidens employed by Effrim Karzah, the establishment’s roguish proprietor. Notes of music crawled through the rooms as a rotund performer worked a hurdy-gurdy and bellowed salacious sea shanties.
A long casketwood bar dominated one side of the common room. Patrons flocked to the counter, loudly shouting for more drink. Whalers with salt-encrusted slickers would brush shoulders with crookbacked lobstermen, their fingers and hands scarred from the claws of their catch. Stokers who worked the immense try pots to render blubber into oil sought to cool their hot work with cold ales. Drovers and stevedores propped their boots on the copper rail that ran along the base of the bar and swapped lies about the day’s custom. Among those seeking to retreat from their labours mixed those whose vocation catered to such relaxation. Gamblers and panderers, sellers of wares and seekers of services all ventured to the counter to engage those gathered there.
Only at one spot was the bar not crowded. Towards the back of the common room, for a radius of a dozen feet, there was an open space. Within that space only two people stood. The two men had been there for some time now, yet none of the carousing inmates of the tavern intruded on their privacy. From the guarded looks that sometimes were directed their way, it wasn’t courtesy that provoked such distance, but fear.
One was tall with a light complexion and locks of fair hair spilling out from beneath his wide-brimmed hat. His features had a rugged handsomeness about them, with a hawkish nose and piercing blue eyes. A long coat encompassed his figure, but around the waist it was bound by a wide belt from which hung a rakish sword and a big horse pistol. It was not the open display of weapons that so unsettled the occupants of the Black Ship, however. Hanging about the man’s neck was a pendant, a little silver talisman cast in a symbol long taboo in Ulfenkarn. The hammer of Sigmar. To openly display veneration of the God-King in the city was to invite swift and terrible destruction. Had night not already fallen, were the doors not already barred, there were many who would have slunk back to their slovenly hovels. As things stood, they tried their best to keep apart from the stranger. When doom came for him, nobody wanted to share in it.
Except perhaps the man who was with him. He was thin with short black hair and a trim moustache beneath his knife-sharp nose. Though he wore clothes that were rich by the standards of Ulfenkarn, his skin had the grey pallor of those who toiled away in the mushroom plantations beneath the streets. His eyes looked as though they were caught in a perpetual scowl, disdainfully appraising everything and everyone they gazed on. From his haughty demeanour and sinister appearance, there were many in the Black Ship who marked him as an agent of Ulfenkarn’s rulers, one who’d been promised the Blood Kiss by his masters. Why a spy for the vampires was sharing a drink with a Sigmarite was a mystery none felt inclined to explore.
Gustaf Voss pushed back the brim of his hat so he could better see the bottles arrayed on the rack behind the bar. ‘They’ve a nice vintage from Carstinia there,’ he commented to his companion. ‘That is if you don’t think it would be too strong for you?’
The other man gave him a stern look. ‘That’s an old Belvegrodian fable, you know. That they don’t drink wine.’ He frowned at his glass and tapped a finger against its stem. ‘I don’t like drinking in public. It dulls the senses and you never know what might be watching, waiting to exploit the first hint of weakness. If you’re going to have libations, it’s better to indulge when you’re alone.’
Gustaf cast his eyes at the empty space around them. ‘We’re as good as alone right now, Vladrik,’ he said.
‘All it takes is wealth to be popular in places like this,’ he replied. ‘Though I don’t know if there’s enough money to make them friendly while you’re wearing that.’ He gestured to the hammer around Gustaf’s neck.
Gustaf took a pull from his beer stein and wiped away the residue of foam from his mouth. ‘There was a saying, something along the lines of “Let them hate as long as they also fear.” That wisdom has served me well until now.’ He gave Vladrik a more serious look. ‘If I make myself conspicuous then the man I’m looking for might find me, instead of making me find him.’
‘Or you might draw attention from those you don’t want to see,’ Vladrik cautioned. ‘I’ve told you I’ll find Jelsen Darrock for you.’
‘It’s been two weeks that I’ve been hearing that,’ Gustaf said. ‘You haven’t given me any results.’
Vladrik swallowed some of his wine and dabbed a monogrammed handkerchief against his lips. ‘Better than anyone, you should know that those who serve the Order of Azyr can be very hard to find when they want to be. I think Darrock has been keeping himself under cover right now. He’s been busy. Only two days ago someone broken into Count Vorkov’s coffin and put a stake through his heart. Aqshian fyrewood. Very rare. Very dangerous. The kind of thing even a vampire doesn’t recover from.’
Vladrik leaned closer and laid his hand on Gustaf’s arm.
‘That’s one thing I’m still unsure of. Did the Order of Azyr send you to Ulfenkarn to help Darrock or to stop him? You’ve never told me which.’
‘No, I didn’t,’ Gustaf said. ‘If you expect an answer, find Darrock for me.’
Gustaf spun around suddenly, one hand dropping to the big horse pistol on his belt. Someone had entered the circle of privacy that surrounded them. A haggard stevedore, the quality of his tunic and the polish of his boots indicating him to be a mark above the labourers who crowded behind him, marched towards the shunned pair. He threw back his head and gave Gustaf a sneering study.
‘You make sport of us, do you, outlander?’ He gestured at the talisman hanging from Gustaf’s neck. ‘Even a fool fresh off the boat knows better than to wear that openly. So, if you aren’t a fool, you must be an idiot.’
Drink slurred the man’s words, but Gustaf wasn’t one to allow even a tipsy antagonist to challenge him.
‘Where I come from, men are still men. They don’t hide their faith and cower in the shadows like vermin. They don’t bow and scrape to the monsters that prey on them.’
The stevedore’s face turned red. His hands curled into fists at his sides.
‘He’s got a gun, Loew,’ one of the other labourers warned.
Gustaf fixed his steely gaze on Loew. ‘I don’t need gun or sword to settle accounts with cowards,’ he said, moving his hands away from the weapons hanging from his belt. For a moment, the tableau held, the two men glaring into one another’s eyes, each ready for his foe to make the first move.
Loud pounding against the Black Ship’s door interrupted the brewing fight. Silence descended on the tavern. Most of the patrons turned to look towards the barred entrance while others retreated into the nearest shadow. From outside, an imperious voice demanded entry.
‘The Volkshaufen,’ Vladrik hissed. He quickly bolted what was left of his wine.
‘Maybe,’ Gustaf said. It was rare for the watchmen to be abroad at night. Ulfenkarn had other guards who patrolled the city when the sun set… but not the sort to ask admittance.
‘Make yourself scarce until we know who it is,’ Gustaf told Vladrik. He didn’t watch his companion withdraw and climb the back stairs to the Black Ship’s upper floor. His attention was fixed on the barred door and whoever was demanding entry.
Perched on a stool near the entrance was a short, scrawny creature with long ears and scabby green skin. The grot looked across the room to where Karzah sat at one of the gambling tables. The Black Ship’s proprietor nodded reluctantly. The grot jabbed the hulking brute that stood beside it with a sharp stick. The square-jawed orruk roused itself from its fungus-addled lethargy and drew back the bar on the door. Karzah preferred to use the greenskins as his establishment’s first line of defence because their blood wasn’t appetising to the things that prowled the city.
Instead of the Volkshaufen, it was a trio of men in finely cut sealskin coats who sauntered past the orruk. Gustaf noticed the mirror discreetly placed on the ceiling above the door. All three men were reflected in it, but that meant nothing. If one of them was a vampire and was aware of the mirror’s presence, he could project an image into the glass and thereby conceal his nature.
Of course, in Ulfenkarn, a vampire had little reason to hide what he was. At least from people who weren’t Jelsen Darrock. Or Gustaf Voss.
‘Looks like it’s already too late to teach you anything,’ Loew told Gustaf, a trace of regret in his voice. ‘May the soil rest easy on your grave,’ he added, withdrawing back among the labourers. They retreated while the three men walked straight towards Gustaf.
‘Now there’s a peculiar sight,’ one of the men quipped as he approached. He turned his ferret-face and glanced about the tavern. ‘It seems no one wants to drink with you. Don’t you have any friends?’ The question brought a cruel laugh from one of his associates, a bull-necked ruffian who looked more like a shaved bear than anything human.
‘No company is better than poor company,’ Gustaf replied. He raised his beer stein and took a quick drink.
Ferret looked at his associates. ‘Bravado,’ he said. ‘I like that. I tell you what, I don’t like to see someone drink alone.’ He walked to the counter and snapped his fingers at one of the barkeepers. ‘Bring me ale,’ he demanded.
While Ferret waited for his flagon, the men with him circled around Gustaf. Bear took position to his left while the other, a nasty specimen Gustaf decided to think of as ‘Cur’, sidled towards his right.
‘We’ll have a drink and then we’ll leave,’ Ferret said, a sneer on his face as he regarded Gustaf. ‘No smart words for me now?’ He glanced at his associates. ‘Notice how the banter falls off when they feel the noose get tight?’
Bear laughed at the remark. Cur just closed his fingers around the grip of his sword.
‘To your health, as long as it holds out,’ Ferret toasted Gustaf, raising his flagon.
