Castle of Blood, page 7
‘Klueger can help,’ Magda said, her voice low, as though she were afraid to hear the desperation bound to her words. ‘If only they would get word to him, Klueger could help.’
Bernger eased Magda back down the hallway. She helped him pick up Abarahm when they reached the unconscious aelf. ‘Who is Klueger?’ he asked as they started after the others. ‘How can he help?’
Magda only answered the first question. Perhaps even she was afraid to answer the second.
‘Klueger is a member of the Order of Azyr,’ she said. ‘A witch hunter.’
Chapter IV
Roald decided that the parlour just off the main hallway was suitable enough for the affair at hand. He recalled it from previous visits to Mhurghast. The room was spacious, pleasantly appointed with expensive oak panels on the walls and thick rugs on the floors. More importantly, it had a hearth.
The baron had need of that hearth right now.
The guests filed into the parlour, bearing Goswin along with them. Roald pointed to one of the heavy chairs, and the major-domo was forced down into the seat. Then he motioned to Bruno and indicated that he should start a fire.
‘You will save us all a lot of time and unpleasantness if you just tell us what we want to know,’ Roald said as he paced between Goswin and the hearth. ‘Right now you perhaps think you won’t say anything, but I assure you that you will.’
Notker shook his head, a look of anguish on his face. ‘Surely there is another way,’ he pleaded.
‘Don’t fret over this rat,’ Hartmann snarled, pointing to the major-domo. ‘Any moment, that thing could possess one of our children! Burn him down to the bone, but make him talk!’
Sigune stifled a scream and drew her children close to her. ‘Sigmar preserve us!’
For the first time, Goswin seemed to appreciate the grisly import of the fire Bruno was stoking. Colour fled from his visage and sweat began to bead across his brow. He glanced around, his eyes imploring the others in the room. Even the servants who had followed them into the parlour displayed little sympathy for the major-domo.
‘If he can tell us anything about Count Wulfsige’s plot, then we need to hear it,’ Inge stated. ‘It’s not a question of only our survival, but that of our children as well,’ she added, looking over at Magda.
‘It is my family that moves me to be ruthless,’ Roald explained, gesturing to Hiltrude and Liebgarde. ‘For myself, I might take a risk, but I will take no chances with those most dear to me.’ From the corner of his eye he watched his wife and daughter. Of course, Liebgarde was impressed with his show of concern, the spoiled idiot, but there was no change in emotion from the baroness.
‘Can we trust anything revealed by torture?’ Bernger asked. Abarahm was sprawled across a divan, and the youth was standing over the aelf as though seeking to do penance for knocking him senseless.
‘The witch hunters trust it enough,’ Lothar pointed out. Then a cynical smile appeared. ‘Of course, a man will say most anything if he thinks it will stop the pain.’
Goswin swung around and nodded emphatically at the alchemist. ‘I’ll tell you whatever you want to know! There’s no need to do… anything.’
Roald picked an iron poker from the rack beside the hearth and thrust it into the flames. ‘Make me believe you,’ he said. ‘Convince me that I won’t need to put this against your hide.’ He tapped the end of the poker with his finger, his eyes fixed upon Goswin’s.
Hiltrude opened the interrogation. ‘Those men in the courtyard – you brought them?’
Goswin nodded. ‘I was carrying out the count’s command. He said I was to inform the Sigmarite priests that a daemon had been set loose in Mhurghast, that it was trying to find a body to act as its host.’ He looked across the guests, searching for anyone who would show him sympathy. ‘I was to tell them that the daemon would go amok in the streets of Ravensbach if it escaped the castle.’
‘But that’s not why Count Wulfsige conjured it,’ Magda interrupted. ‘He claimed it was called up for revenge. Revenge against all of us.’
Roald stormed over to Goswin’s chair, towering over the man. ‘Well, how do you explain that? Were you privy to what the count was planning?’
‘I only know what I was told to tell the priests,’ Goswin said. ‘I don’t know what else–’
‘That’d be a lie,’ Alrik snorted. He jabbed his thumb at the major-domo. ‘It was you who spouted that rigmarole when you were showin’ everybody where to sit.’ He nodded at Lothar. ‘That smacked of wizardry, accordin’ to those who know a bit about such things.’
‘Make him talk before the daemon comes,’ Hartmann demanded, his eyes darting to his children. ‘Have him tell us how to stop it!’
Roald ignored the merchant and leaned close to Goswin. ‘Lies?’ he hissed venomously into his ear. ‘Do you really think you are in a position to deceive me? The question of how much I have to hurt you really depends on how much I believe you. But perhaps you would rather start over?’
‘Yes! Yes, I admit it. Count Wulfsige told me exactly what to say when I brought each of you to the table.’ Goswin’s voice rose to a ragged squeal. ‘I didn’t know there was importance… I didn’t know what he was planning…’
Notker walked to the major-domo, his son following close behind him. The former priest glared at Goswin. ‘You had to know,’ he said. ‘You have served the count long enough to know the significance of that hellish rune on those plates!’
Goswin cringed back in the chair, but only for a moment. A crafty look crept into his eyes. ‘Perhaps I do know what you’re saying,’ he said. He looked around at the other guests and then back to Notker. ‘Would you like me to tell everyone how? As you say, I have been in Mhurghast a very long time.’
Roald drove his fist into Goswin’s face and knocked the major-domo back. ‘Damn your plotting, you cur!’ The baron wiped his bruised knuckles on the fabric of the chair. ‘You’ll talk to me! You’ll tell me what I want to know!’
‘Make him talk fast,’ Hartmann whined.
Roald glanced over at the frantic merchant, then at the rest of the guests. The last thing any of them needed was Hartmann’s reminders about the doom hanging over them. ‘Talk,’ he demanded, raising his fist to strike Goswin again.
‘Yes, your lordship,’ Goswin said as he wiped blood from his bruised mouth. He gestured at Notker. ‘The count… He brought Volkeuhn back after he’d been discharged from Mhurghast fifteen years ago. I escorted him around the castle. I led him… No, he led me, to places that had been–’
Notker started to grab at Goswin. Roald intervened and held the former priest back. Despite his age, Notker was intent on getting hold of the major-domo. ‘Help me,’ Roald snapped at the other guests. ‘The old fool has gone mad!’ Bruno and Bernger hurried to aid the baron. Each took hold of an arm and dragged the cleric back. Reiner lunged at the two men who had seized his father. Bernger sent him stumbling away with a punch to the nose.
‘Talk,’ Roald ordered Goswin. He pointed at the enraged Notker. ‘Talk or I’ll let the priest loose.’
Goswin nodded. ‘I’ll tell. Notker came here to remove the protective wards, the seals that were left by the Stormcasts when the old von Koeterbergs helped them take the fortress from the barbarians.’
‘Of course,’ Lothar said. ‘Sigmar’s crusaders would ensure that any lingering traces of Chaos could do no harm. The right wards would have sanctified Mhurghast, inoculated the castle, as it were, against corruption.’ He directed a withering look at Notker. ‘To remove such protection would be necessary to summon a daemon. It would need a priest – or a man who had been a priest – to effectively commit such blasphemy.’
Notker stopped struggling against his captors. He hung his head in shame. ‘I didn’t know why the count wanted the wards removed. It was fifteen years ago and I was desperate for money. The count paid me well.’
‘You knew it could only be for some malignant purpose that someone would ask for such a thing,’ Roald said. ‘A priest above anyone else would know this!’
‘I thought…’ Notker looked over to where Reiner stood with his hand across his face and blood streaming from his nose. ‘I thought the count was trying to use magic to speak with his son’s spirit. After the way I’d failed Hagen, I felt obligated to do what I could. Even if it was blasphemous.’
A scream drowned out whatever else Notker might have said. Roald turned to Inge. She screamed again and pointed a quivering hand towards Reiner. ‘His eyes! His eyes!’
In their shock, Bruno and Bernger relaxed their grip on Notker. The old priest broke away from them and rushed to Reiner. He pulled the shielding hand away from his son’s face. Then he backed away in stark terror.
‘Sigmar’s mercy,’ Roald swore as he looked upon Reiner’s face. The man’s nose was a gory mess from Bernger’s punch, but it wasn’t half as terrible as the eyes. The baron could well understand Inge’s scream. The eyes had turned completely crimson. No pupil or iris, just two pools of blood.
‘The daemon.’ Ottokar backed away from Reiner and grabbed Magda with his good arm, pulling her along with him as he retreated across the room. ‘The daemon’s inside him.’
Reiner’s expression became one of utter horror. He clutched at his face, trying to feel the disfiguration that had provoked such fear. A tremor rushed through him, every muscle in his body writhing in the same instant. Somehow he remained standing as the seizure passed. His face was contorted in an agony of terror. A horrible groan slobbered up from his throat when he tried to speak, a sound that had no kinship to anything human.
‘Get him,’ Roald ordered. The baron made no move to act upon his own command. Bruno and Bernger started towards Reiner while two of the valets came at him from behind.
‘No! It’s not me! It’s not me!’ Reiner shouted in a voice that seemed to claw its way up from some echoing pit. He fled before the advancing Walkenhorsts. In his retreat he collided with one of the valets. A slap from Reiner sent the servant flying as though he’d been kicked by a gargant. He slammed into the parlour wall and slid to the floor, his skull fractured by the impact. A ghastly sob of horror rippled from Reiner’s mouth as he looked down in shock at the dead man.
‘Don’t let him get away!’ Roald thundered. It was already too late. Only the servants stood between Reiner and the hallway. After what had happened to the valet, none of them dared stand in Reiner’s path. They scrambled to step aside as the possessed man hurtled past them and into the castle’s dark corridors.
‘After him!’ Roald pulled Goswin out of the chair and pushed him towards the door. He swept his gaze across the other guests. ‘We can’t let him get away!’
Hartmann shook his head and sank down onto a divan. ‘I’m not going to chase after that thing.’ He nodded at the trembling Notker. ‘It’s his problem. If his son is possessed, the daemon will come looking for him, not me.’
Bruno glared at the merchant. ‘You’d sit aside and let that happen? Let his own son come back to kill him?’
‘Right now the daemon is weak,’ Lothar said. ‘It has not completely taken over its host. It is vulnerable.’
‘On your feet,’ Roald ordered. ‘We have to get Reiner before he can–’
Inge cried out and rushed over to the baron. ‘You can’t kill him! You mustn’t!’ Her eyes were imploring Roald. When she found no sympathy there, she looked to Hiltrude for support. ‘Don’t you understand? If you kill Reiner the daemon will seek out another host! Another of our children!’
‘She’s right,’ Lothar said. ‘If we kill the host, only the host dies. The daemon will prevail.’
Alrik slammed his fist into his palm. ‘Then we just catch him. Catch him and lock him up so the daemon can’t get out.’
Roald nodded in agreement. ‘Find Reiner and catch him,’ he told the rest. ‘Under no circumstances must he be harmed.’
‘We can search a larger area if we split up,’ Thilo suggested.
‘The servants know the castle better than any of us,’ Bernger said, pointing to them. They were just inside the parlour now, talking in lowered voices with Goswin. The menials seemed uncertain whether to stay or withdraw into the corridor.
‘You there,’ Roald snapped at them. ‘Your lives are in jeopardy as much as ours are. Help us find Reiner and we may be able to get that mob to let us leave Mhurghast.’ He felt his temper fray when his speech was met with sullen stares. ‘It wasn’t a request,’ he said. Roald began splitting the servants and the guests into small hunting parties, each charged with a different section of the castle.
‘Someone should stay with the aelf,’ Hartmann suggested, pointing at the still senseless Abarahm.
‘My wife can look after him,’ Lothar said. He motioned to the listless Saskia and guided her over to the aelf. She sat beside him with detached indifference, barely glancing at her charge.
‘There is another problem,’ Lothar told Roald. He indicated Notker, who was almost as listless as the alchemist’s wife.
‘He may as well stay here,’ Roald said. ‘He is no good to anyone this way.’
‘You’d be wrong there.’ Alrik pulled at his long beard as he continued. ‘Seems to me that whoever takes the priest along stands a good chance of findin’ his son.’
Alrik laid his hand on Notker’s shoulder and guided him to join the group the duardin was leading. ‘You see, the rest of you will just be lookin’ for the daemon. But us… With the priest along… well, while we’re lookin’ for it, it’ll be lookin’ for us.’
The halls of Mhurghast felt as though they were closing in around Magda, tightening around her like the coil of a noose. The servants were lighting each lamp and candle they passed as their group navigated the dark corridors, but illumination did little to offset the gloom. The dark iron walls sucked all the warmth from the light, leaving it as chill as grave-wisps flickering over a cemetery.
Magda berated herself for her morbid imaginings. The situation was dire enough without populating the castle with phantoms. Her fingers tightened around the old falchion she’d removed from a display in one of the hallways. It was a heavy, clumsy sword compared to the weapons her father made, but there was something reassuring in its solidity. The daemon Count Wulfsige had summoned might be a fiend of blackest Chaos, but Reiner was flesh and blood. He could be killed, if it came to that.
She could see her father up ahead, following close behind the footman and maid who were guiding their group through the castle. Ottokar had thrown aside the rich coat he’d worn to dinner and had shifted the scabbard of his sword around so that he could draw it more easily with his left hand. On those occasions when he kept away from the bottle, the swordsmith was blindingly fast. This was such an occasion. She couldn’t remember ever seeing him with such intense focus, such steely determination in his eyes.
Magda started forwards to join her father, but the soft touch of Inge’s hand on her shoulder held her back. ‘Leave him,’ her mother said. ‘He wants to find Reiner first, so that if anything happens we’ll have time to get away.’
‘He has to know I wouldn’t leave him,’ Magda said. She gestured back to the rest of their group. Hartmann already looked ready to bolt, with or without his family. It was evident from the way the Senfs carried the weapons they’d taken from the suits of armour in the hall that none of them knew how or cared to use them. ‘Somebody has to help.’
A sad smile appeared on Inge’s face. ‘I think he’s depending on me to make you leave.’ She leaned on the spear she’d armed herself with. ‘There isn’t much trust between us. All of that went away a very long time ago.’
‘Was it when you were with Bruno Walkenhorst?’ Magda asked, thinking of the accusation the count had made.
Colour rushed into Inge’s cheeks, anger flaring in her eyes. For a moment it seemed she wasn’t going to answer. But then an air of defeat settled over her. No, not defeat, but something Magda had thought Inge incapable of. Regret.
Inge sighed. ‘Bruno was long before I met your father,’ she said. ‘I was dazzled by him, his dashing swagger, his boldness and bravery. I met him through Hagen. They were friends, you see. Good friends.’ She scowled and shook her head. ‘The count was wrong. Bruno did not come between me and his son. Hagen did. He started to change, became obsessed with rebuilding the von Koeterberg fortune. He was trying to measure up, to prove himself to Count Wulfsige. He began to gamble, and then to take out loans to cover his losses. As his debts mounted, he sought to ease the turmoil in his mind. That’s when Lothar Krebs and his vile potions must have taken hold of him. The man I had known, the Hagen who had courted me, started to vanish, replaced by this weak, miserable stranger I didn’t know. So I sought comfort elsewhere. There was already a connection between myself and Bruno.
‘It didn’t last. Hagen discovered us. There was a fight between him and Bruno, a fight that Bruno won.’ Tears appeared in Inge’s eyes as she recalled that long-ago scene. ‘There was such a look on Hagen’s face when Bruno knocked the sword from his hand. It was a look of ultimate loss, an expression that did not simply welcome death, but demanded it! He called on Bruno to kill him. I can still hear his terrible words. “You have taken all that is valuable to me. Now take what I have no use for.” Bruno refused and did his best to explain, but Hagen would hear none of it. The next day we learned he was dead. Even then we knew the count’s story was a lie. That Hagen had taken his own life. That knowledge killed the love between us. In less than a fortnight we had gone our separate ways.’
‘Does Father know?’ Magda asked.
Inge shrugged. ‘I suspect he does. Perhaps not all the details, but enough to be close to the truth.’ There was an appeal in her gaze when she looked at Magda, begging her to understand. ‘After Bruno… and Hagen… I wasn’t so demure as I had been. Ottokar was simply another man of the moment, of no special…’
