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Head Hunting

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HEAD HUNTING

An Angelika Fleischer story by Robin D. Laws

The sound of screaming crows drew Angelika Fleischer onward and downward, deeper into the ravine. Where the birds fed, she would find her quarry. She threaded her way through mossy trees, their trunks riddled with rot. Pounding rain had given way to half-hearted drizzle; on dying branches, the water formed itself into heavy drops. Angelika, thin of limb, high of cheekbone, sharp of jaw, reached up to push a grasping branch out of her way. Her hair was a damp, dark mop. She wore black leggings under a soiled grey tunic, which was too long for her, and tied at her waist so its tails became a skirt. High boots, worn but sound, hugged her calves. An old brown jacket clung to her back, its scarred and cracking leather stretched tightly between her shoulders’ sharp blades.

The branch she’d moved snapped back to smack the forehead of the young man struggling to follow her. Franziskus cried out in protest, wiping rainwater from his fine and noble features. He wore the sad vestiges of a junior officer’s uniform from rustic Stirland’s armies but his once-fine coat had lost much of its golden threading; several roughly-patched holes, as well as the dark remnants of well-scrubbed bloodstains, marred its green fabric. His face was handsome but still slightly round and boyish, and his blondish hair, once impeccably groomed, now dangled long and lank from his large, aristocratic head. The rain had plastered a curling ringlet to the middle of his brow.

Angelika paid no heed to the young man’s voiceless protests. She’d warned him not to come. He’d make a nuisance of himself when she got where she was going. He was, at least, smart enough not to complain aloud to her. She ducked under another damp branch, sending it flying incidentally backwards. This time she heard no wet thwack of branch making impact; Franziskus was getting better at dodging.

The cawing grew louder. Behind her, Franziskus slipped, his boot twisting and sliding along rain-slicked grass. Angelika twisted his way, raising a finger to her lips. Franziskus grabbed onto a young tree’s thin trunk and arrested his slide.

‘Stay here,’ she hissed, turning from him and advancing into a skiff of fog. Carrion birds, perched on logs and branches, eyed her jealously.

No need for fear, she thought; the spoils I seek are not the same as yours. She looked down and there was a dead hand under her foot. She lifted it to survey the entire, mud-spattered body. It was human. Its face stared up, still shocked at what had befallen it. She could tell from the ragtag uniform that the man had been a mercenary. Angelika crouched down to make sure that the only movements around her were those of the crows. Satisfied, she rose to examine the other bodies. They, too, appeared to be dogs of war. This boded well. Though their clothing was shabby, sell-swords such as these were the likeliest to have gold hidden in their boots or gems glinting in their teeth.

She beckoned Franziskus to join her, though she didn’t care if he took her up on the invitation. He’d made his self-righteous aversion to her livelihood more than evident in the weeks since she’d rescued him, lying like one of these corpses, on a field of battle a little further down the throat of the Blackfire Pass. He stepped fastidiously toward her. Abruptly, a crow rose from a dark, wet rock and flapped its wings at the young man’s face.

‘Sigmar’s eyes!’ he cried, taking in vain the name of his Imperial deity. He defended himself from the bird with windmilling arms. Having made its territorial point, the crow circled in victory and lighted again deeper into the stand of corpses. It found an eyeball that the others had missed, plucked it from its socket, and let it roll down the length of its beak and into its gullet.

Franziskus stood beside Angelika and shuddered. He shook his head with the theatrical sorrow of a novice priest. ‘Nothing good will come of this consort with the dead.’

‘I beg to differ,’ Angelika replied, squatting over the first body she’d found. She pulled on the dead man’s right boot. It held to its master’s leg with a miser’s tightness. Angelika strained. She fell into the mud, on her behind. Boot in hand, she looked up at Franziskus, to catch him mocking her. But no, he was too great a stick in the mud for that; his expression was merely pained. She scrabbled up onto her haunches and over to the foot she’d exposed. Sure enough, there was booty there: a large ring, made of incised silver, with a trio of red gems mounted in it encircled the mercenary’s big toe. There was still plenty of play between ring and toe; it must have originally been forged for some thick-fingered dwarf she decided. It slipped easily off and into the leather pouch that hung on Angelika’s bony hip. ‘We’ve found ourselves a rich haul today. You can see who these men are.’

‘Mercenaries. The pass crawls with them. They fight to honour neither god nor empire, but merely to line their greasy purses.’

‘Which, for our purposes, is a fine and splendid thing. Men who fight for money often die with money on them.’ She felt the first corpse for a purse, coming up with a muck-encrusted pouch. She withdrew from it four Imperial schillings, and a few coins from far-off Tilea. ‘We’ll dine well on the final fruits of this one’s martial labours.’

Franziskus wrinkled his finely-sculpted nose. ‘I won’t sup on dead man’s coin.’

‘Suit yourself,’ Angelika said, ‘but I don’t notice you doing anything much to secure your next meal. Perhaps this is something you should give some thought to. Forgive me for noticing, but your purse grows steadily leaner.’

‘I am here not to profit from the slain, but to discharge my debt to you, by extending you my protection.’

Scanning the ground for the next body, she laughed a breathy laugh. ‘Would I be rid of you if I told you that your protection is a hindrance, and that your debt exists only in your imaginings? If you mean to make me regret the foolish lapse that made me rescue you from those orcs, I can tell you: you’ve succeeded.’

He stiffened to attention, as if observed by some distant field marshal. ‘I appreciate your effort to release me, but honour demands that I do my duty.’

They heard a noise, and silenced themselves. Though it reverberated across the rocky ravine and through the darkened trees, the nature of the low thwocking sound was immediately recognizable to both of them: it was that of a heavy blade hitting flesh and cracking into bone. An axe, perhaps.

Angelika held a hand out to Franziskus, urging quiet. She pointed ahead, showing him she meant to investigate. Franziskus opened his mouth to argue, but the chill in her expression stopped his words. Shamefaced, he regarded his boots. A dead man’s crow-pecked face returned his gaze, eyeless and reproving. Franziskus shifted his position and looked up into the sky instead, where grey clouds mixed with white ones.

Angelika was gone for what seemed like an age. Then Franziskus heard whistling. He knew the tune: it was a children’s skipping song. He crouched behind a boulder. The whistling grew louder until eventually a tall figure stepped through the fog. It was a man, wearing monkish robes, frayed at the hem. He swung an axe in his right hand and held the end of a large sack, slung over his shoulder, in his left. A long woollen scarf hung around his neck, like a stole. Crude shoes protected his feet. His head was long and narrow: its slightly pointed crown was naked, but a fringe of wiry chestnut hair ran around the back and covered his ears. Creases of veiny skin lay under beady, deep-set eyes. His upper lip protruded at the middle, driven outwards by a pair of oversized incisors. His demeanour was one of bland contentedness.

Unusually for a person one might meet on the slopes of the Blackfire Pass, his face was washed clean, though his hands were spattered in muck, and dark droplets of blood speckled the lower portions of his robe. The head of his axe was bloody, too.

Franziskus sank lower behind the rock, drawing his short blade from its scabbard. He would wait until the man approached, then leap up and, surprising him, get his dagger in past the reach of his axe. If the man was fool enough to resist, Franziskus would–

He heard rushing footsteps and then Angelika’s voice: ‘Drop the axe!’ she said. Franziskus rose, to see Angelika standing behind the man, her knife at his back. The man’s eyes rolled up to the heavens, and he wobbled; for a moment, Franziskus thought the fellow might faint. He held both of his arms out to his side and dropped both the weapon and the sack. It fell heavily into the mud.

‘If you want to make yourself useful,’ Angelika called out to Franziskus, ‘then come here and help me keep watch on this person.’

Franziskus moved toward them, picking his fastidious way through the corpses. As a unit, the crows retreated to the surrounding trees. They cawed their annoyance at him for disturbing their meal.

Finally the man spoke, sputtering out his words: ‘I am not a person who requires to be kept watch upon. Rather, it seems to me that it is you who are the brigands and bandits here.’

‘Identify yourself,’ she said, jabbing him in the back. She used her thumb, but he jumped as if she’d stabbed him.

‘It is Victor Schreber, the noted doctor of philosophy, whom you impertinently manhandle.’

Angelika looked to Franziskus. ‘Have you heard of this man?’

Franziskus shrugged. ‘My tutors pressed many books of philosophy into my arms, but your name is unknown to me, sir.’

‘You are an individual of quality, then? In that case, I demand immediate release.’ Schreber stepped toward Franziskus, but Angelika stopped him short, grabbing him by the collar of his robe. He made an undignified choking noise.

‘Unfortunately for you, the individual of quality isn’t the one with the blade at your back. What’s in the bag?’

Schreber pointed his long nose to the clouds and sniffed. ‘I merely collect samples for my scientific researches. Though of surpassing value to me, its contents are worthless to the non-specialist. See for yourself.’

‘Franziskus...’ Angelika ordered, indicating the bag with a shake of her head. Reluctantly, he made his way to it. He opened it up and immediately closed it, his face flushing with green revulsion. He gasped for air.

‘What is it?’ she asked him.

‘Heads,’ he said, eyes watering. ‘Human heads.’

‘Of course, human!’ Schreber exclaimed. ‘Why, the science of phrenology is at present in its barest infancy. We have barely scratched the surface of human physiognomy. It is much too early to even begin to contemplate the skulls of dwarfs, elves or halflings! Strict rigours must be observed!’

He had turned toward her, without permission, but Angelika shrugged. He was well on the way to proving himself a harmless fool. ‘So you collect these heads as scientific specimens?’ she clarified.

‘Indeed, indeed!’

‘A ghastly and unwholesome practice!’ Franziskus said, fists tight.

Schreber’s eyes swept from Angelika to Franziskus and back again, as if evaluating which of his captors posed the greater threat. ‘But good sir, it is vitally important to understand the mysteries of the human organism. By studying anatomy, we can one day perhaps cure deadly maladies. Or, by good breeding, wipe out idiocy and the propensity toward mutation.’

Franziskus crossed his arms. ‘It is obscene and against the ways of Sigmar.’

‘I don’t know, Franziskus,’ Angelika said. ‘It strikes me as no more useless than any other form of scholarship.’

‘More than that!’ Schreber said, stooping down to pick up the bag. He rustled around in it, pulling out a bloodied globe of flesh. Franziskus recoiled; Angelika succeeded in maintaining her composure. ‘This, for example,’ Schreber continued, ‘represents a find of the rarest order. It is a Type Nine, with a notably prominent mandibular archway. Do you know what that means?’

‘Humour us with an explanation.’

‘A person of this type is known to be of a poetic bent, devoted more to feeling than to reason, and with tendencies towards pessimism and melancholy.’

‘Especially now.’

The scholar ignored her jape. He reached into the bag for another sample. She held her palm out to stop him.

‘You needn’t trouble yourself any further, Dr. Schreber. The subtleties of your lecture are no doubt lost on us.’

He stammered, directing his attention once more to the sharp point of Angelika’s dagger. ‘Ah, then. You will see, then, that I offer neither threat to you, nor competition to your looting efforts. It is specimens I seek, not coins or baubles.’

Angelika looked meaningfully at his pouch, which was fat.

‘Ah yes. It is true, though, that I have picked up the occasional item of value, which lay on the ground in plain sight, in order to fund my researches, which can be expensive.’ His lips were flecked with spittle. ‘Sometimes, you see, I have call to commission the collection of certain specimens which are known to me, but which require the – I see that I bore you, however. You wish me to hand over to you the contents of my purse, is that not it?’ He handed it to her.

She threw it back at him. It hit him in the chest and bounced to the muck at his feet.

‘What makes you think I’m some kind of common thief?’ she demanded.

He gestured at the corpses all around them.

‘Those aren’t living victims, are they? I may take from those who no longer need their earthly goods, but I’m no back-alley robber!’

Franziskus chuckled but realized too late that she truly meant it, that this distinction was no joke to her. She narrowed her eyes and glared at him. He felt his face burning.

‘Then I am free to go?’ Schreber asked her, bowing experimentally to pick up the purse and the head bag.

‘Leave the axe. I think I believe your words, but in these parts, trust can be a costly thing.’

‘I quite understand,’ said Schreber, bending low, exposing his teeth in a courtier’s smile. He picked up his dropped items. He turned to go, then stopped. ‘But wait,’ he said. ‘Now that I know you both not to be miscreants, but honest scavengers, a thought occurs.’

Angelika planted a foot on a large stone and crossed her arms. ‘Let me guess. You’re thinking of a specimen you’d like us to procure for you.’

Schreber bobbed his head up and down. ‘Indeed, indeed. North of here, in the mouth of the pass, lies a village – a trading post, really – named Verldorf. Its people are redoubtable, surviving as they do in this terrible place without paying homage to elector count or border prince. Yet the anxieties of their precarious existence have clouded their judgment, so that they sometimes mistake friends for scoundrels.’

‘You’ve been there, I take it, and secured a hostile welcome for yourself?’

Schreber’s nods became slow and pensive. ‘Aye. It was most distressing. They thought me some kind of ghoul.’

‘A shocking error.’

This time the doctor’s thick eyebrows twitched, as if on the verge of detecting irony. ‘Indeed. I merely sought to relieve them of a burden, and at a generous price. Yet their hostility was such that I was forced to depart with haste, lest I submit myself to bodily harm.’

Franziskus put his hand on his dagger’s hilt. ‘You wished to loot their graveyard, for the heads of their relations?’

‘No, no, not relatives – Potocki! Recently they caught and executed the dread and notorious murderer of that name, who for many years preyed upon the posts and fortresses hereabouts.’

Angelika had heard the name before; the locals associated it with a succession of crimes, from brigandage to child murder. No one person could have committed them all. ‘You’re sure it was Potocki?’

Schreber placed a thoughtful hand on the side of his face. ‘To be truthful, no. But this is immaterial – I seek his head, not in vengeance for his misdeeds, but because he exhibits the most pronounced triple occipital ridge I have ever had the pleasure to lay eyes upon. I simply must add it to my collection. They have no further use for it, and I will pay you two hundred schillings if you bring it to my cottage, inside the walls of the Castello del Dimenticato.’ Angelika knew the Castello; it was a fortress town to the south, lorded over by one of the self-styled border princes.

‘A tempting sum,’ said Angelika, turning so she couldn’t see Franziskus, who was pleadingly shaking his head. ‘Why so high?’

The scholar tugged at his collar. ‘As I said, the villagers are a surly lot and no doubt they will seek to thwart you. Potocki’s corpse dangles in a cage, across from the village tavern. The best course is to sneak in at night, open the cage, and remove the head. Naturally this involves risk – hence the generosity of my offer.’

Franziskus took a haughty pace in his direction. ‘We are not grave robbers!’

Angelika stopped him, the back of her hand against his chest. She asked Schreber: ‘You can direct us to Verldorf?’

The philosopher led them over a rise, where he’d tied a mule to a spindly beech tree. It was laden with packs; he rummaged in one until he found a quill, an inkpot, and a scrap of parchment. He scratched out a clumsy map to Verldorf, with the Castello del Dimenticato marked on it for reference. Their destination appeared to lie about eight leagues to the north, meaning a day’s travel through the valley, two days if they kept to the forested shelter of the ravine on either side. Then it would take another half-day to reach Schreber’s place and lay hands on his gold.

‘Anything else we need to know?’ Angelika asked him.

‘The salient facts have been well covered.’

She walked away, waving farewell in the stiff-armed manner of a countess. ‘Then go home and prepare your schillings, doctor of philosophy.’

‘But wait,’ Schreber said, loping after them. He cradled something in his hands. Angelika stopped; he handed her an iron box, with a hinged lid. She opened it; it was lined with velvet.

‘We deal with no ordinary cranium,’ Schreber puffed, out of breath. ‘Not like the common ones I gather here, which I bang together in my carrying sack. Potocki’s skull has already been mistreated, and may be in fragile condition. Transport it in this, to ensure that it arrives intact. Be warned: a shattered skull earns you no pay.’ He took the liberty of wagging a finger at Angelika, but halted himself in mid-gesture when he saw her reaction. He turned and proceeded quickly back to his mule, muttering inaudible goodbyes. They stood and watched as he clambered up on the mule and guided it down to the valley.

‘We aren’t even sure,’ said Franziskus, pushing damp hair out of his face, ‘that he’ll reach the Castello alive.’

‘Maybe not,’ said Angelika, ‘but he seems to know his way around. And for two hundred schillings, I’ll risk the waste of a day or two.’ She handed the iron box to him. Its heft surprised him; he nearly dropped it. ‘You have room in your pack for this,’ she said, ‘don’t you?’

Attitude stoic, he slipped his pack from his shoulders. ‘And why such a cumbersome container?’

‘You heard him: he wants the head in one piece.’

‘Then why this?’ He opened the box to show her: resting on its velvet lining was a key and a padlock.

Verldorf smelled of sheep dung and burning wood. The place consisted of cottages, a stable and a tavern. The buildings were made of mud-daub, with sagging, thatched roofs. Bleating livestock filled large corrals; animals warranted more space than people in this part of the world. A wooden palisade, its pointed timbers grey and deteriorating, served as the village’s main defence. Its gate was flimsy and its gateman drunken.

In the event of a serious assault, the place would be pounded to matchsticks. The locals, it was clear, relied on the fact that the orc armies rarely got this far up into the pass. And when they did, Angelika surmised, they’d be too eager to smash through the Imperial borderlands to bother with this blemish of a settlement. The gateman hadn’t even challenged them on their way in.

As the scholar had suggested, Potocki was not hard to find. A cage swung from a freshly built gibbet in the irregular expanse of muddy ground that played the role of village square. Inside, propped standing against the cage’s bars, stood a mangled corpse. Its head lolled off to one side. Its lower leg was bent in two. The body’s entire surface was blackened by fire. Angelika looked around, and, seeing no one, stepped closer to the cage. One of Potocki’s hands was crushed to an unrecognisable pulp. His downturned face was frozen into a hostile grimace; lips, burned away, bared long and yellowy teeth.

Franziskus cleared his throat: a man had appeared on the porch of a shop across the way. From a rickety awning hung a painted sign, depicting a sheep’s head and a flagon. This would be the tavern; the man wore an apron and a worried look, and had to be its proprietor. He had bushy eyebrows and a swaddle of fat around his chin, though the rest of him seemed lean enough. Angelika made her examination of Potocki less conspicuous.

‘Welcome to our poor, benighted village,’ the barkeep said. His voice was soft; his speech, halting. ‘My name is Ralf. We offer only poor shelter, but this is, after all, the Blackfire Pass, and I hope you will find my bunks better than none.’

‘Greetings, Ralf,’ said Angelika. ‘It is refreshing to find an innkeep who does not over-praise his amenities.’

The taverner’s anxious demeanour did not lift. ‘Travellers in this part of the world can be quick to seek violent remedy, so I have found it prudent to prepare my guests for disappointment. Please, step inside, and relieve yourself of the weight of your packs.’

Angelika and Franziskus clomped up onto Ralf’s wooden porch, which creaked loudly under them. Angelika adopted her blandest posture and hiked a thumb back at the caged corpse. ‘Your display there – the impression it creates is unwelcoming.’

Ralf beckoned them into the tavern’s darkness. He spoke in a lowered tone. ‘It is an accursed thing. Do not speak of it.’

Angelika remained in the doorway. She watched Ralf’s eyes flutter nervously over her shoulder, to the gibbet. ‘But, Ralf, it’s hard to concentrate on anything else.’

He put his hand on her elbow and gently guided her inside. He slid shut a canvas curtain, erasing the cage from view. ‘I do not speak colourfully. We are forced to labour under its curse, but if you pay it no mind, it can have no hold on you. I know it is difficult, with such a thing, but I urge you to dampen all curiosity, leave early tomorrow, and expunge it utterly from all your thoughts.’ He clapped his hands together. ‘We have no private rooms, I am afraid, just a small sleeping hall with cots. It is unsuitable to a person of the tender sex, madam, but there is no better choice.’ He gestured to the room’s few tables, only one of which was occupied, by a woman who lay snoring on it, head in hands. ‘Tonight we have gravy soup, and ale.’

Later, as they finished the meagre meal Ralf served them, the tavern filled with locals, eager for the soup. Angelika eavesdropped but heard no mention of Potocki, just talk of sheep and troop movements. More Imperial forces were said to be venturing into the pass, to disperse the massing orcs down south. Franziskus’s pallor deepened; he’d been part of that campaign, but had since made no effort to return to his superiors for reassignment. Angelika was tempted to tweak him on the subject, but couldn’t summon up the required cruelty. With a turn of her head, she informed him that she was heading into the bunk room. They were tired from the trail, and a few hours of sleep would better prepare them for their robbery.

Angelika’s eyes opened. She rose from her stinking cot. Franziskus was already sitting up on the edge of his. She peered into the long, dark room to see if any other guests had joined them. She stood and checked each bed; there was no one. The village was quiet. All they heard were croaking frogs. She crept out to the open archway that led back to the tavern room. A gaunt villager, lightly wheezing, slept in a sitting position, propped up near the exit. Angelika winced. She retreated into the bunk hall, motioning Franziskus over to a small window mounted about a yard off the floor. It was shuttered. Gently, she tested it. It wouldn’t open. She peered through the crack between the shutters; they had been tied tightly shut, from the outside, by a cord of some kind.

‘Hold both of them, so they don’t rattle in the frame,’ she told Franziskus, her mouth close to his ear. She drew her knife from her boot and sawed at the cord. It was tough and springy, like leather. Angelika heard a faint sound, of metal hitting metal, and stopped. ‘There’s something dangling from the cord.’ She thought for a moment, shrugged, and started up again. ‘When I nod my head, open both shutters, quick as you can. But keep hold of them, so they don’t slam into the wall.’

She kept sawing; finally the cord snapped through. Franziskus opened the shutters and Angelika shot her hand out and caught the cord. She held it in her outstretched hand. Suspended from it were half a dozen pieces of scrap iron, tied on with short lengths of twine. Franziskus looked puzzled. She craned her head out of the window, pointing to the ground below. A sheet of tin, pounded flat, waited beneath. Franziskus nodded his comprehension: it was a makeshift alarm, intended to send a clattering noise echoing around the town if any of Ralf’s guests chose to exit through the window.

‘Making sure we don’t sneak off without paying?’ he asked her.

‘We paid in advance,’ she noted.

Angelika crawled headfirst through the window, eyes alert for additional traps. She hit the ground palms-first and rolled to a soft landing. She got to her feet, reached out for Franziskus, and helped him wiggle through. They stepped lightly across the muddy square to the gibbet. The wind had picked up, and hissed its cold way through Verldorf’s thatched cottages.

Angelika put her hands behind her back and stood thinking of the best way to get the head out of the cage. A large padlock hung from the cage bottom, keeping its hinged door securely in place. She was no lockpick, so it would remain shut. But the bars of the cage were widely spaced: if she could get the head off the corpse’s shoulders, she could then probably work it through the bars and be off with it. She inspected the gibbet, pulling on its central post to test it for give. Stony concrete had been poured around it; it was not a pretty job, but the gibbet would take her weight, which was nothing compared to that of the iron cage.

‘Boost me up,’ she told Franziskus. She handed him her blade. He got down on one knee for her, and she used him as her step-stool. She wrapped slim hands around the bars of the cage, right behind the body’s head. The gibbet gave off a wooden groan as it swung on its chain and Franziskus steadied it with his shoulder. Hanging one-handed from the cage, Angelika reached out for her knife; Franziskus moved to place it in her palm.

Then Potocki’s corpse jolted into action. It lunged at Angelika, clawing at her throat with its one intact hand. Franziskus dropped the dagger; he dove to the ground to recover it. Angelika let go of the cage, but the creature seized her jacket and yanked on it, sending her head pitching into the metal bars. She got her elbow between her face and the cage, cushioning the blow. With jagged fingernails, the undead beast raked at her arm. He tore open the fabric of her jacket. He seized it; she struggled free. The cage swung violently, clipping a kneeling Franziskus on the back and sending him sprawling into the mud. Angelika hung from the cage like a marionette; she got her free arm out of its jacket sleeve, and now worked to wrench herself out of the one the monster held. She jerked and twisted as the creature snapped at her with its teeth. Finally she dropped free, crashing to the ground.

She sat there, looking up at the beast, grateful at least that it wasn’t screaming. Maybe she could get her jacket away from it and sneak back into the bunk room, so none of the villagers would know. Or perhaps they should just clear out, and forget their two hundred schillings. One thing was certain: if she did get the head, her price was going up. Schreber should have warned her. She could have been killed. The creature opened its mouth wide, and Angelika saw why it couldn’t alert the locals – they’d cut its tongue out.

It hurled itself against the bars, rattling the chain that held cage to gibbet. The sound echoed. Villagers poured from their huts, armed with crooks and hayforks. Franziskus leapt up, but Angelika stayed seated on the cold dirt. The Verldorfers pointed the tines of their forks at her throat and chest, or stood ready to bash her with their crooks. They surrounded Franziskus, too; he held his hands out beside him, far from the scabbards of his dagger and rapier.

Angelika shook her head. She blinked. ‘Where am I? What has happened?’ She hoped Franziskus was clever enough to follow suit.

A gaunt woman with dusky skin thrust the blunt end of a pole at her; she might be considered beautiful, were she equipped with a few more teeth. ‘You know where you are, harlot! It is Verldorf, and you do the Dark Gods’ work!’

Angelika rubbed her forehead. ‘Verldorf – why, yes, I begin to remember...’ The villagers looked to one another for guidance; a few stepped back. Angelika smelled guilty consciences. Even the toothless woman moved a pace to the rear. ‘I slept, in there!’ Angelika cried, pointing at the open shutters, which provided punctuation by banging in the wind. ‘Then I thought I dreamed–’ She regarded Potocki, who was still, but had shifted position. ‘Yes, this thing, this beast, it is alive! It beckoned to me!’

Without warning, she sprang up, seizing Ralf the innkeeper by the tunic and sticking her blade to his throat. ‘Why did you not warn me of this foul thing’s sorcery? It stole into my dreams and lured me nearly to my death!’ The others sidled back, making a wide ring around her. Off to the side, she noted that Franziskus stood with eyes shut and head down.

‘I beg pardon, madam!’ Ralf cried, struggling to kneel, though her tight hold on his shirt brought him short. He clasped his hands in supplication. ‘We should have warned you, it is true! Forgive us – we are afraid to speak its name, or even think of it. It haunts us; we are cursed!’

‘Tell me of this thing, and I’ll decide if forgiveness is warranted.’

‘For decades it has stalked us! We cannot kill it! First, it sent minions: cripples, gypsies, madmen! They waylaid our shepherds, put hands on our children. One by one, we slew them. Then the beast itself came. It could leap over a house or break a man’s neck with its empty hands! It ambushed our headmen; it set us against one another. Sometimes it even stole our blood, to drink!’

A few of the onlookers joined together to underscore Ralf’s words with a rising wail of lamentation; it prickled the fine hairs on the back of Angelika’s neck. She released him.

Ralf shook his head. ‘Many times he came, and many times we fought him. We pierced him with sharpened stakes, and he dug himself up from the grave we made him. We burned his flesh, yet still he walked. We drowned him. We broke his bones. He casts spells on us if we lapse in diligence, and fail to keep his tongue trimmed down. The only safe place for him is in that cage. And now we see that, even with his tongue out, he can still creep into the minds of unprepared strangers. Please absolve us of our ignorant crime of omission!’

Franziskus caught her gaze; he was cocking an eyebrow at her.

‘Very well,’ Angelika said. ‘In the face of such implacable evil, your error is understandable. What was it that first brought Potocki’s wrath on you?’

‘Our grandfathers could tell you, perhaps. Some say one of our ancestors offended him. Others claim he came here in search of an ancient text, abandoned here by a mysterious traveller. Which we did not have, because one of us had foolishly burned it, as kindling.’ He stooped to pick up a stone, which he pitched at the cage; it went between the bars but missed Potocki. Through the creature’s jagged teeth, a hiss escaped.

In an exaggerated gesture, Angelika craned her neck to gaze into the lightless sky. ‘We would leave immediately, but night travel is too dangerous. We’ll retire to your bunks for now, though I doubt either of us will sleep.’

‘Shall we stay up and stand guard?’

‘Please don’t; though I’ve accepted your apology, my anger toward you has not entirely subsided.’

Ralf nodded. He spotted the metal alarm for the shutter doors, lying near the cage. While seeming to look the other way, Angelika watched him pick it up.

Angelika and Franziskus headed into the bunk room again; Ralf and his fellow villagers formed an escort. Once inside, she stationed herself beside the window. She listened as Ralf, back outside the building, replaced the shutter’s alarm device.

‘You’ve made me an accomplice in dark deception,’ Franziskus said.

‘That’s the sort of thing that happens when you decide to follow a person like me.’

She sat and waited until snores reverberated between the hovels of Verldorf. She reached out to cut the alarm cord. Again, Franziskus opened the shutters and she caught the bits of metal. She slid out of the window. He followed. She crept to the cage. From her pouch, she withdrew a large key, which she’d liberated from Ralf’s pocket as she’d held him at knifepoint. She slid it into the lock at the bottom of Potocki’s cage, turned it and swung the cage door open. She stood her ground and bared her teeth. Potocki leapt out at her. She sidestepped. Potocki hit the dirt where she’d been, landing on his face. She dove onto his back. Franziskus jumped to seize his kicking legs. She grabbed the corpse’s matted hair and pushed his head into the mud. He bucked powerfully.

Angelika took her knife and placed it on the back of Potocki’s neck. She leapt up, then fell, so that her entire weight pressed on the blade. She opened a gash in Potocki’s neck that went clear to the bone and kept hacking; there was no blood, and the dried flesh came off in chunks. Franziskus fell back as Potocki kicked him in the chest. The head came off. Verldorfers streamed forth from their doorways. Angelika seized the head by the hair and jumped to her feet. The villagers roared angrily. Franziskus gasped as Potocki’s legs scissored around his chest. Angelika grabbed his collar and hauled him upright.

A rock, thrown by the toothless woman, sailed past her head. She and Franziskus turned and ran. Potocki pushed himself up and sent his headless form charging at the loudest sound, the howling of the people of Verldorf. They shrieked. They pounded the undead creature with their clubs. Angelika did not look back.

The head, held by its hair, snapped at her. ‘The box!’ she said. Franziskus wrestled it out of his pack. He held it open as Angelika dropped Potocki’s head into it. He slammed it shut. The head rattled and bumped inside it. ‘A good thing the box is well-lined,’ she said.

Skulls lined the walls of Schreber’s cottage. Some sat on shelves, but most were simply stacked in precariously vertical piles. The skulls of halflings, or children, which were the smallest, formed the top rows of each stack. The philosopher’s axe leaned casually against the pile nearest the doorway.

Schreber leaned against a short cabinet of polished teak; he had positioned himself so that it shielded him from Angelika and Franziskus, who faced him. Angelika held the iron box.

Angelika sniffed the air, taking in the delicious aroma of roasting meat. ‘Preparing a feast of welcome for us, Schreber?’

‘Ah,’ he said, looking furtively at the open entranceway to his back room, ‘that smell is in fact my cooker, where I remove the flesh from my fresher finds.’

‘Ah,’ said Angelika. ‘Then that leaves us only with the exchange of our merchandise for your two hundred schillings.’

Schreber reached into a drawer. ‘What kind of miscreant do you take me for? To do business with common grave robbers?’ He pulled out a pistol.

‘I was afraid you might say that.’ Angelika had removed the lock from the iron box. She opened the lid. The head sprang out of the box, at Schreber. His eyes widened. Jaws snapping, the head sailed in a vigorous arc across the room. Its teeth clamped onto the front of Schreber’s throat. Bright red blood spattered chalky skulls. Schreber fell, disappearing behind the cabinet. His screams ceased, replaced by the squishing of flesh gnawed by ancient teeth.

Angelika and Franziskus ran to the front doorway. They stepped outside the cottage, slamming the heavy wooden door shut, bracing it with their backs. The flailing noises they heard from inside continued for a surprisingly long time.

Schreber’s home stood in a neglected corner of the walled town. The few passers-by they could see were some distance away, in a busier square, where marketers sold gruel and skewered beef from canvas stalls. There was no one to ask them why they leaned so desperately on the scholar’s front door.

The thrashing sounds subsided.

‘We can’t risk its getting out and harming the townspeople,’ Franziskus said.

‘We can’t take the chance of abandoning a possible two hundred schillings!’ Angelika replied.

They nodded and burst back through the door. Once inside, Franziskus seized the handle of Schreber’s axe. They couldn’t see Potocki. They could see the legs and torso of Schreber’s lifeless body.

‘Here, Potocki...’ Angelika said. ‘Here, boy...’

The head came bowling out from behind a set of shelves. It barrelled at her feet, across a worn carpet. She leapt aside and ducked down, rolling the rug up over the skull. She kept at it, until the thing was trapped and unable to move. With the axe handle, Franziskus pounded the lump in the carpet. He kept hitting at it until the rug seemed to trap nothing more than a shapeless mush. Gingerly, Angelika unrolled it. Indeed, Franziskus had thumped Potocki’s skull to the consistency of porridge. The paste was grey, with a few flecks of pink rippled through it. Franziskus spotted a few pieces of still-solid bone in it. He smacked those as well, until they were as gluey as the rest.

‘Enough,’ said Angelika. She stepped over to the cabinet, bracing herself against it to roll Schreber’s body out of the way, giving her the clearance she needed to open its lower drawers. She started with the top and rifled through it. From the last drawer, she withdrew a purse. It was the one he’d flaunted back at the ravine. She opened it and turned it upside down. Rocks poured out. ‘The occasional item of value, my foot,’ she said. She gave his remains a dispirited kick. ‘I suspect it’ll be of little use, but we should search the rest of the place.’

Angelika pawed through all the drawers she could find. She checked under Schreber’s bed and inside his mattress, leaving his sleeping quarters strewn with stuffing. She cleared his shelves, opening each of his books to see if it had been hollowed out. Franziskus sorted through the philosopher’s cups and bowls, but she thought his inspection less than thorough and went through them herself. She opened the lid of Schreber’s cookpot, and grimaced. She even looked inside some of the skulls.

She took the pistol and put it in her belt. ‘This is the only portable thing of value here.’

Franziskus stood, hands on knees, peering down at the glob of paste that had been Potocki’s head. ‘Look at this,’ he said.

She looked. She could see nothing.

‘See? It has moved. It has travelled several inches, toward the doorway, in just the time you’ve been searching.’

Angelika nodded. She had to agree; the crushed skull had inched ahead.

‘Where does it think it’s going?’ Franziskus asked.

She straightened, got her bearings, and performed a quick calculation. ‘Verldorf,’ Angelika Fleischer said. ‘It intends to reunite with the rest of him. And, my guess is it will – in about a hundred and twenty-five years.’

She stepped over it and left the cottage, doing nothing further to impede its progress.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Robin D. Laws

Robin D. Laws is an acclaimed designer of games. He has also worked on computer and collectable card games and is currently a columnist for Dragon magazine.

A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

Published in 2003 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd 2012., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK

Cover illustration by Karl Kopinski

© Games Workshop Limited 2003, 2012. All rights reserved.

Black Library, the Black Library logo, Games Workshop, the Games Workshop logo and all associated marks, names, characters, illustrations and images from the Warhammer universe are either ®, TM and/or © Games Workshop Ltd 2012, variably registered in the UK and other countries around the world. All rights reserved.

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-0-85787-622-5

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This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.