‘Why not sell it to Emil?’ she asked, pointing a finger at Bremer behind the bar. The bearded taverneer backed away, a frightened look on his face.
‘You two fight all you want, but leave me out of it,’ Bremer said.
Zena wasn’t going to let her employer make such a gracious retreat. ‘You’re always saying you want something novel to drum up more business,’ Zena told him in an accusing tone. ‘What could be more perfect than this? A genuine monster for people to come in and gawp at!’
Bremer rolled his eyes. ‘I was talking about dancing girls, not giant vermin. Who’d feel like eating staring at a huge rat mounted over the hearth?’
‘I thought the idea was to sell drinks,’ Walther countered, warming to Zena’s idea. ‘Just thinking about this giant makes me want a jack or two to steady my nerves.’
The taverneer came forwards, resting his elbows on the counter, one hand scratching his beard. ‘There’s something to be said for that,’ he conceded. ‘A man would want a drink after looking at something like that.’ A hard glint came into his eyes and he stood back, turning his gaze from Walther to Zena and back again. ‘I’m not making any promises, understand. But if Walther can get this monster, I’ll have it stuffed and stood up right here on the bar. If it brings in any business, I’ll split the profit seventy-five twenty-five.’
‘Fifty fifty,’ Walther objected. ‘Remember, I’m the one actually going down there to get the thing.’
Bremer spit into his palm. ‘Done!’ he exclaimed, offering his hand to the rat-catcher. Walther spit into his own hand and clasped the taverneer’s, sealing the deal in the old Wissenland way. Zena withdrew hastily to the kitchen, leaving the two partners to discuss the details of their agreement.
‘Herr Schill,’ Hugo’s quite voice broke into the discussion. The rat-catcher turned to see his apprentice sitting by the fire. He’d managed to get all three of the terriers to stand up on their hind legs and wave their forepaws at him like street beggars. Walther felt annoyed by the interruption, much more so because it seemed Hugo wanted to show off a trick an addle-witted child could have taught the most moronic mongrel.
Hugo, however, had a different reason for interrupting his master. Gesturing at the begging terriers, he said something that sent cold fingers closing around Walther’s heart.
‘If we’re going after this giant,’ Hugo said, ‘won’t we need bigger dogs?’
Middenheim
Kaldezeit, 1111
The mountain wind whipped snow against the walls of Middenheim. A layer of ice and frost caked the jagged cliffs, transforming the entire Ulricsberg into a frozen pillar, the lights of the city shining from the heights like a phantom aurora.
The guards patrolling the benighted battlements huddled in their fur cloaks, cradling the skins of ale that were their best protection against the cold. The gibbous face of Morrslieb smirked down at them from the blackened sky, casting its sickly glow over the city. The moon’s cleaner, more wholesome brother Mannslieb was in retreat, slinking towards the horizon, abandoning the field to the eerie gleam of its ill-favoured companion.
Dozens of sentries patrolled the walls of Middenheim, each tasked with a different section of the battlements. It was dreary, thankless work, especially in the dead of night with a snow flurry sweeping the mountain. Not one of the soldiers didn’t wish himself warm in bed, a bottle of Reikhoch in his hand and a buxom tavern girl at his side.
Such visions, however, did little to cheer the men tasked with guarding the sleeping city. They tried to console themselves by considering everything that could jeopardise their comrades who were enjoying the taverns and bawdy houses of Middenheim’s Westgate district. There were the cutpurses and pickpockets, always waiting for an opportunity to steal from a soldier too deep in his cups. There was the menace of drunken dwarfs, ever ready to take umbrage at the slightest remark and with the brawn to back up their short tempers. And there was the more recent menace, the whispers that a few of the district’s denizens had come down with the plague.
For most of the soldiers patrolling the walls, rumours of the plague were disconcerting, but they placed no especial importance upon them. For the two soldiers whose patrol consisted of the stretch of wall between the west and south gates bordering the Sudgarten, such stories were much more. Other guards quieted their fears by telling themselves Graf Gunthar’s decree made it impossible for the plague to reach the top of the Ulricsberg. These men knew otherwise.
‘Halt and be recognised!’ one of the soldiers challenged as a shape lurched out of the darkness. His halberd trembled in his hand.
‘A friend,’ an oily voice coughed. From the gloom, a heavy-set man emerged into the moonlight, his body bundled in a thick bearskin cloak, his head concealed beneath the folds of a fur-lined hood.
The challenging soldier relaxed when he recognised his clandestine benefactor, Oskar Neumann. He withdrew his menacing halberd, leaning the weapon against the ground. Anxiously he grasped Neumann’s gloved hand. The clink of silver rewarded the brief contact.
The other sentry came forwards, likewise accepting a small leather purse from Neumann. A sour expression crossed the guard’s face as he juggled the purse in his hand. ‘It feels a little light,’ he complained.
‘It is the same as it has always been, Herr Schutze,’ Neumann’s greasy voice bubbled.
A malicious curl came to Schutze’s lip. ‘Yeah, but the risks aren’t exactly what they were before.’ Again he juggled the purse in his hand. ‘About double what they were when we agreed to this.’
Neumann shook his hooded head. ‘You want more money?’
Schutze stared into the dark shadow where the man’s face was hidden. ‘The captain has been asking questions. People say there’s plague down in the slums. People are wondering how it could get there.’
‘I thought you were doing this out of a sense of compassion,’ Neumann sighed. ‘I thought you were doing this to help those poor souls down in Warrenburg. I thought the money was just a secondary concern.’
Schutze laughed. ‘You thought wrong, Oskar. It’s all about the money. Don’t tell me you aren’t making a nice bit of silver off these people you’re smuggling up here. If you don’t want to lose out, just start asking more from your “poor souls” down there.’
Neumann shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘I ask nothing from those I help except their discretion. My motives are purely altruistic. By helping these people, I am doing only what my faith demands.’ A tinge of sorrow crept into his croaky voice. ‘If, however, you are only interested in money, then you shall have it.’
Schutze smiled as another pouch of silver appeared in Neumann’s left hand. As he reached out to take the money, however, he didn’t notice the man’s other hand. Before he could understand what was happening, a slender dagger punched into his side, sinking between the joins of his armour just under his armpit and stabbing deep into his heart. The soldier gasped once, then crumpled to the ground.
‘You aren’t going to give me trouble, Herr Brasche?’ Neumann asked, the bloodied dagger still in his hand. ‘I should hope that our arrangement can continue, despite this unpleasantness. Greedy men are a liability. They are… indiscreet.’
Brasche forced his eyes away from his comrade’s lifeless body. There was no mistaking the threat in Neumann’s oily voice. Even if he wanted to, he knew it would do no good to oppose the smuggler. With Schutze gone, he was alone now, while Neumann had an entire gang lurking somewhere nearby in the darkness.
‘What will we do?’ Brasche asked.
Neumann bent his burly body downwards, lifting Schutze’s body off the ground as though the armoured soldier weighed no more than a child. ‘When we are finished here, we will pitch Herr Schutze over the side. By morning, the snow will have buried him. You will report to your officers that he abandoned his post during the night.’ The smuggler chuckled, taking the pouch of silver he had used to lure the soldier to his death and tucking it into the dead man’s boot. ‘Even if they find him, they will think he slipped and fell.’