The only answer from the prisoner was a miserable cough, the closest he could manage to a laugh. Fellgiebel ignored the gesture and resumed his pacing. ‘We shall forget the Reiksknecht, then. Tell me about the rat you captured. Why were the professors so interested in it? What did they tell you about it?’
Again, Walther tried to laugh. This line of questioning had been going on for a fortnight, always made with the same note of urgency. Even more than his denial of knowing Aldinger or the Reiksknecht, his insistence that he knew nothing special about the giant rat seemed to infuriate Fellgiebel. The captain wouldn’t believe Walther’s story that the professors hadn’t been particularly interested in the rat but more in the humiliation the existence of such a creature could deal to their reputations as scholars and their theories about the structure of life. As for any special information they had imparted to him, every one of the scholars had insisted the thing was an impossibility, later trying to justify their stance by claiming the giant Walther had caught was simply a one-time freak.
‘I grow tired of asking this,’ Fellgiebel said, coming to a halt and fixing Walther with his reptilian stare. ‘What do you know? What plans did you make with Aldinger? Who else is involved?’ The captain watched Walther closely, looking for any sign that his prisoner would speak. Walther just stared up at him with that mixture of fright and abhorrence with which the sane regard the mad.
‘Very well,’ Fellgiebel said. ‘I did warn you this would be the last time.’ The captain strode across the cell, not towards the door but to the bare wall at the end of the room. ‘I had hoped to spare you this. You do not believe it now, but I have been trying to help you.’ The coldness ebbed from the captain’s eyes, replaced by a quivering terror. His gloved hand reached out to the corner of the wall, his fingers brushing against the stone. His entire body trembling, Fellgiebel hesitated. Swiftly he wrenched his hand away from the wall and turned upon Walther.
‘Tell me, before it is too late!’ the captain demanded. ‘Hanging, the rack, whatever the Hundertschaft can do to you is nothing compared to what awaits if you don’t speak!’ Fellgiebel tugged away one of his gloves. Walther recoiled in loathing as he saw the captain’s hand. It was lean and hairy, covered in bony nodules, more like the paw of some hideous beast than the hand of a man. Despite the evidence of his own eyes, it took a moment for Walther to appreciate the hideous truth. The captain of the Freiberg Hundertschaft was a mutant!
‘They are not pretty, are they?’ Fellgiebel asked. ‘I was… contaminated helping the inquisitors of Verena cull mutants from the sewers. I couldn’t tell anyone about my… condition or I would have been burned.’ He cast a fearful look at the blank wall at the back of the cell. ‘But someone learned just the same. The price for silence was service.’ The captain’s lean face became flush with desperation. ‘Speak, Walther! Believe me when I tell you there are worse things than death in this world!’
The rat-catcher leaned forwards, forcing his eyes to meet those of his captor. ‘Do you want the truth, or just what you want to hear?’
Fellgiebel snarled in frustration, turning away and dragging the glove back over his hand. ‘On your head be it!’ he cried, stalking back towards the wall. ‘The gods have mercy on you,’ he said as he pressed his finger against a hidden catch. The wall shuddered as it pivoted inwards, retreating into yawning blackness. A foul, noxious reek wafted into the cell, an evil animalistic smell that caused every hair on Walther’s body to stand on end. Painfully, the rat-catcher started to drag himself away from the secret passage.
Fellgiebel walked away, turning his back to the tunnel. A mad giggle bubbled from his lips, only a supreme effort of will forcing it back down. When the captain was composed, he cast a final, pitying look at Walther. ‘Forgive me,’ he whispered.
Walther didn’t hear Fellgiebel. His attention was riveted to the tunnel and what was transpiring in those black depths. Beady red eyes gleamed from the darkness, and with them came a furtive rustling and chittering that was monstrously familiar to the rat-catcher. His body trembled as eyes and sounds drew closer, as shadowy figures emerged from the tunnel. He screamed as the flickering light revealed rodent-shapes with clutching paws and glistening fangs. He was still screaming when hand-like paws seized him and dragged him into the tunnel.
Fellgiebel kept his back turned, not watching as his secret masters dragged Walther away. He felt his heart sicken, his stomach roil with disgust. If there had been another way — but his masters were impatient and he had been left without a choice. No man deserved what he had done to Walther. No man deserved to become the captive of the skaven.
The sound of the hidden door sliding shut told Fellgiebel when it was all over. Only then did he turn around, making a careful inspection of the cell to ensure that no trace of the skaven had been left behind. The disappearance of Walther Schill would barely raise an eyebrow. Many peasants who succumbed to torture vanished. Without a body, the nobles had a hard time claiming their compensations.
An insane giggle returned to Fellgiebel’s lips as he started to leave the cell. It was some time before he was able to compose himself, to slip back into the emotionless personality of the cruel watch captain and subdue the terrified agent of the underfolk.
‘The rats caught the rat-catcher,’ Fellgiebel laughed. There was no amusement in the laughter, only the emptiness of a man who was a traitor to his own race.
Altdorf
Vorhexen, 1111
The Palace Guard slid from Erich’s blade, clutching at the crimson stain spreading across his golden livery. The knight pushed his dying victim aside, bounding forwards to confront a second soldier who had Mihail Kretzulescu pinned against the wall. The guard swung about in alarm as he caught the sound of Erich’s approach, but before he could bring his halberd around, the knight’s sword was slashing across the man’s eyes. The blinded wreck collapsed to the floor, shrieking in agony.
Erich helped Kretzulescu out from the little niche the Sylvanian had hidden himself in. The palatine’s shoulder was deeply gashed, his black tunic damp with blood. ‘I’m afraid I’m not much use in a fight,’ he apologised. ‘It’s a different thing fighting a man than it is hunting ghouls in the marshes.’
‘At least you stood your ground,’ Erich reassured him. ‘That is all one man can demand of another.’
The sounds of conflict gradually faded away, replaced by the moans of the wounded and the dying. Erich looked down the marble-walled gallery, feeling a twinge of sadness when he saw the lush tapestries hanging on the walls befouled with blood. The sudden appearance of the rebels in the very heart of the Palace had caught the defenders unawares, putting the element of surprise firmly on their side. He knew they couldn’t count on that advantage much longer. Already servants must be carrying word of their presence. Numbers were still on the side of the Palace Guard. If the rebels were to have any chance in achieving their purpose, they had to find Emperor Boris before an overwhelming force could be marshalled against them.
To that end, Prince Sigdan had split their force the moment they gained the Palace. One group, led by the prince, had headed upwards to search the apartments of the Emperor’s private residence. Another party headed by Duke Konrad had turned to the lower floors, where the audience chambers, reception halls and more functionary chambers of the Palace were situated.
Erich had been put in charge of a group of twenty men and sent to investigate the middle levels of the Palace, the trophy rooms and show rooms, the libraries and conservatories. The indecent extravagances of Boris Goldgather had sickened the knight at every turn. He’d discovered chambers that had been emptied so that stacks of expensive stained glass might be heaped inside, layers of dust caked about their silver frames indicating the neglect to which they had fallen. Rooms stocked with camel-skin divans and alabaster vases imported from Araby, artworks from Tilea, wondrous mechanical automata from the dwarf kingdoms, all of these had suffered similar abandonment. Erich even discovered a room filled with teakwood boxes containing little painted tiles and recalled the scandal surrounding the Emperor’s extravagant purchase of a famous Estalian fresco and the king’s ransom he had paid out to have the fresco painstakingly dismantled and transported across half the Old World. That had been nearly a decade ago and the Emperor had made no effort to reassemble the fresco. It seemed once the thrill of acquisition was gone, he took no further interest in the treasures he squandered the Empire’s wealth upon.