Marks of Chaos Page 3

  He threw himself sideways and down. There was a twang and things hurtled past his head. Someone went “Uh!” and someone else went “Ah,” and he didn’t know if either of them had a Tilean accent.

  He looked up. The assassin was still standing by the window. His expression was startled, because Johansen’s throwing-dagger was sticking out of his stomach. He began to lift the crossbow.

  Grenner scrambled to his feet, grabbing a piece of chair. Why wasn’t Johansen following through?

  “Drop it,” he warned.

  “Grenner,” Johansen said quietly from behind him, “that’s a two-shot bow.”

  The Tilean smiled. Blood was beginning to show on the clothes round his stomach-wound. He gestured with the crossbow towards a corner of the room. Grenner let his eyes flick over there, then as the Tilean’s followed he hurled the chair-leg at him with all his might.

  The assassin tried to duck. The piece of wood glanced off his head and smashed through the window-pane. Broken glass cascaded out into the street. It didn’t seem to bother him. He moved across the room but the crossbow didn’t waver. Grenner watched as his hand tightened on the trigger.

  Suddenly the world was too bright. It reminded Grenner of something he’d seen once before and would never forget. “Down!” he screamed and hit the floor again, his hands over his face.

  The room went to awful white and heat and sound, squeezing everything else out of existence. It lasted an eternity, then suddenly it was done. Grenner lay where he was for a second, then looked up.

  The Tilean had taken the main force of the blast. His corpse was still on fire. The room around it was destroyed, the walls cracked and cratered, the windows blown out, the curtains ablaze. The crossbow was ashes and burnt metal.

  Grenner stood slowly, checking himself. His hair and face were singed, his hands red raw. His clothes were ruined; even the leather was cracked.

  “I bloody hate magic,” he said to no one in particular.

  “Grenner?” came Johansen’s voice, weakly. Grenner turned. His partner lay at the top of the stairs, thrown there by the explosion. A crossbow bolt was sticking out of his chest. His blackened clothes were soaked with his blood.

  As they passed the landing of the second floor, heading down, Johansen said, “Let’s work through what happened.”

  Grenner grunted. “I’ve got a better idea. You work through what happened, I’ll concentrate on getting you to a physician.”

  “That works too.”

  “Don’t take your finger out of the wound.”

  “Right.” Johansen felt light-headed, as if part of him wasn’t there. Shock and blood-loss, he thought. Shock and blood-loss. Stay with it. He didn’t take his finger out of the wound.

  He wasn’t doing a good job of walking. Grenner was doing most of it for him, and Johansen was leaning on his shoulder, an arm round his neck, moving his feet when the moment felt right.

  Shock and blood-loss. Stay with it.

  “Someone chucked magic at us,” he said. “Not the Tilean. Do this logically. We burst in. We don’t take him by surprise but that’s our fault. I knife him, and get hit.”

  “My throw breaks the window. And-”

  “Someone who’s watching the building realizes their assassin has been caught, and killed him before he could talk,” Johansen said.

  “So the employer is or knows a spellcaster.”

  “It’s not much to go on.”

  “Enough for Hoffmann,” Grenner said.

  “Not Hoffmann,” Johansen said. A cough shook through him, and seemed to jar a thought loose in his mind. “The Untersuchung.”

  “The what?” Grenner asked.

  “The Untersuchung. They’re part of the Reiksguard, an undercover group like the Palisades. They find cults and conspiracies in the army and the court.”

  “Witch hunters?”

  “No.” Johansen could barely speak. “Not all cults… are Chaos cults. But the Untersuchung know about magic and they track sorcerers. They’re odd, very secretive… but efficient.” He felt himself slipping. Grenner paused to hoist him back onto his shoulder. They started moving again, out onto the sunlit street.

  A crowd was milling outside the building, looking up at the top storey. It was on fire. The temple bells were still sounding. They seemed a very long way away. Everything did.

  “Look, Karl,” said Grenner, “I am taking you to a doctor. I am not taking you to question some bunch of nutty army agents while you’re bleeding from a hole in your front.”

  “You’re right,” Johansen said. The bright sky swam in front of him, and his sight was full of gaps. “You’re going to visit them alone.”

  Across the courtyard of the Reiksguard stables, just out of sight of the main gate, an anonymous door stood in a plain brick wall. Grenner pushed it and it swung open, unfastened, as Johansen had said it would. He thought for a second about Johansen, seeing his friend’s clothes matted with blood, then stepped into the dark passage beyond.

  Ten feet along was a flight of stairs, and at the top another door. He rapped on its hard wood, five knocks. There was a sound of something sliding open and a voice said, “The sun is in the seventh house.”

  “I’m a Palisades officer and this is an emergency,” Grenner said.

  “That’s not the password,” the voice said, “but it’ll do.” Bolts slid back and the inner door opened to reveal a long narrow room lit by slit windows and candles. Men and women in everyday clothes sat at cramped desks piled with books and documents. Shelves lined the walls. A man in his early twenties, dressed in black Sigmarite robes, stood by the door. Behind him, an older man in a leather coat looked up from his desk.

  “You realise this is highly irregular, don’t you?” he said. “Any meetings between our two organisations are supposed to be approved in writing by superior officers, at least two days in advance. Some tedious quill pusher will earn a promotion by asking awkward questions if we give him a chance. So we’ve never met, this didn’t happen, and you’re not here. Agreed?”

  “Agreed.”

  “Good. Let’s get to business.” The man stood. He was in his late thirties, greying at the temples, but he still had a soldier’s build and scars. “Lieutenant Gottfried Braubach, and the fellow who looks like he’s in mourning is Andreas Reisefertig.”

  “Dirk Grenner.” They shook hands.

  Braubach sat down, gesturing at another chair. “How can we help?”

  Grenner sat. “I and my partner were fireballed a quarter-hour ago, trying to arrest a man who was about to shoot the Elector Count of Middenland,” he said “The crossbowman was killed. I’m told you can help us identify who threw the spell.”

  Braubach looked down at his desk. “No, sorry,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Sorry, we can’t help you.”

  Grenner stared at him. “Because you don’t know anything, or because you’re not going to tell me?”

  Braubach sat back in his chair and steepled his fingers. “Look,” he said, “I realise you’re in a hurry, but you should have gone through the proper channels. How do I know you are who you say you are? You could be anyone, with a thousand unhealthy reasons for asking that question. Get your superior… who is your superior?”

  “General Hoffmann.”

  “Get him to approve the exchange and we’ll talk. Until then it’s always nice to make new friends and maybe we can have a drink some evening, but right now you’re wasting your time and ours.”

  Grenner took a deep breath, held it and let it out slowly. He restrained an urge to punch Braubach in the face. “You don’t care about a lunatic who’s tried to kill an Elector twice today?”

  “We would, except you just told us he’s dead. And why would the person who killed the assassin kill the Elector too? Actually,” Braubach’s brow furrowed, and he leaned forward, “I can think of several reasons. Look, I don’t want to seem unfriendly but I can’t let you tread on our toes, and we have big toes. Andreas can
help you with some neutral information about magic, but that’s all. Now, please excuse me.”

  He rose, walked to the rear of the long office and disappeared through a door. Reisefertig watched him go, then turned and leaned against the desk. Grenner half-expected him to apologise, or to say something about his superior, but the man’s face was a cold mask, betraying nothing. He looked down at Grenner.

  “Let’s start with the spell,” he said. “You said it was a ball of fire?”

  “Yes. I was attacked six years ago by a drunk from the College of the Bright Order so I recognise the signs.”

  “Which were?”

  “Sudden brightness before the explosion, and a slight smell of gunpowder.”

  “And the dead assassin?”

  “Burnt to a crust. Room completely destroyed.”

  Reisefertig stroked his earlobe between finger and thumb. There was something in his gaze that Grenner found uncomfortable. “Probably not a fire ball spell then, but something like it. Fire balls are too obvious for city-use: people notice the smaller ball of fire that the wizard throws in the casting. My guess would be a blasting spell, more devastating and more subtle to cast. It only works at less than a hundred paces. Does that fit?”

  “The caster could have been in the building opposite. Or even in the street. Either would have line-of-sight.”

  “Yes. Blast requires some spell mastery, so it’s not some novice or student. But it’s general battle-magic, and quite well known. That could mean anyone. Political insurgents, foreign agents, even those Kislevite insurrectionists we hear are running around…”

  “Or an Imperial wizard who’s gone renegade?”

  Reisefertig said nothing.

  “It’s an obvious possibility,” Grenner said, “but you left it off the list. Let’s not play twenty questions. I’ll tell you what I think. Someone tipped off the assassin about the Elector’s route, both times. That means someone in his entourage or his household is trying to get him killed.”

  “Yes,” said Reisefertig. He steepled his fingers, just like Braubach had. “An interesting scenario.”

  “Can you tell me if you know of anyone in the Grand Duke’s court who has links to a spellcaster?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I can’t tell you if we know.”

  “Damn it! I’m trying to protect an Elector!” Grenner exploded, on his feet, gesticulating.

  “Haven’t you realised we might be doing the same thing?” Braubach said quietly from behind him. “We have our missions and agendas too, and letting Electors die is not high among them. Please accept that we cannot give you the information you want. Go back to your general. He may have learned something while you were away.”

  Grenner glared at him, but there was a look in Braubach’s eyes that made him realise a retort would be pointless. He left without a word.

  Hoffman sat in front of the bare table in his office. He held his brow with one hand and his eyes were closed in deep thought. A wide beam of mid-afternoon sun fell through the window onto the wood floor in front of him, leaving him in shadow.

  There was a knock at the door and someone said, “Message, sir.”

  “Come in.” Hoffmann stood as the messenger entered, holding out his hand for the thin strip of parchment the man carried. “What’s the news on Johansen?”

  “He’s conscious, sir. The physician is with him now, applying leeches.”

  “Let me know as soon as they’re done.” Hoffmann unrolled the parchment and moved into the sunlight to read its thin, spidery writing. He grunted with dissatisfaction.

  “Any answer, sir?”

  “No. No, they already know the answer,” Hoffmann said. The sunlight caught the strands of white in his dark brown hair and smoothed over some of the creases on his tired face. “When Grenner gets back, tell him I want to see him. Immediately.”

  The messenger bowed and left. Hoffmann sat back down, placed the parchment on the table and read it again. He was reading it for the fifth time when Grenner knocked and entered without waiting for a reply.

  “Sir, I need to talk to you about the Untersuchung.”

  “That’s why I need to see you.” Grenner looked worried, and Hoffmann waved a hand at him. “Don’t fret. I’m not going to give you an arse-kicking about talking to other agencies without proper authorisation. I’ve been thinking.”

  “So have I, sir.”

  “Oh yes? Any conclusions?”

  “Some, no thanks to the Untersuchung. Our mystery mage knew the assassin’s location this afternoon, and was watching it. I think that Tilean connection is an attempt to implicate Duke Siegfried, the Grand Duke’s brother. So we’re looking for someone close to the Grand Duke, who wants him and his successor removed. And the Untersuchung were acting like they had something to hide; they clammed up the moment I mentioned Middenland.”

  “Hm.” Hoffmann looked amused. “Well. Let’s go and see Johansen.” They left the office and walked down the stairs to the medical wing on the second floor.

  “Thanks to you,” Hoffmann said, “the Untersuchung now know pretty much everything we do about this business. Had it occurred to you that they might be involved?”

  “Involved?” Grenner looked aghast.

  “Not like that, they’re not behind it. But as you suspect they have been running surveillance on members of the Grand Duke’s court.”

  “I thought that might be why they wouldn’t give me any information.”

  “Of course they wouldn’t. They don’t know you from Sigmar. But while you were revealing our secrets, Lieutenant Braubach sent the information you requested to me on a carrier-pigeon.” Hoffmann held up the piece of parchment. “Along with conditions about how we can use it. Here we are.”

  Johansen lay in the only occupied bed in the room. He was stripped to the waist, and pale bandages encased his ribs. His skin looked sallow and slack. He looked up at the sound of the opening door, and smiled weakly.

  “No grapes?” he said.

  “Only sour ones,” Grenner said.

  “The Untersuchung been helpful?”

  Grenner scowled.

  “They’ve given us the name of the sorcerer,” Hoffmann said. He sat on the corner of the bed, studying the faces of his agents. “Emilie Trautt, a former student at the Imperial College of Bright Magic. Failed to renew her oath of allegiance to the Emperor four years ago and disappeared. Resurfaced fifteen months ago with the name Sara Koch, working for Lord Udo, the Grand Duke’s son, as an advisor. Some say they’re lovers.”

  Johansen coughed weakly. “Oh great. The son’s trying to take out his father.”

  “And frame his uncle for it,” Grenner added. “Which would make him number one in the line of succession.”

  “It gets worse,” Hoffmann said. He held up the parchment. “Sara Koch is off-limits. We can’t touch her.”

  “You’re joking,” Grenner said disbelievingly.

  “I wish I was. The Untersuchung think she can lead them to a sect of renegade wizards somewhere in Middenland. We are not to contact her, harm her, arrest her, or let her discover that she is being watched.”

  “Are we sure they’ll try again? They’ve lost their assassin.” Johansen said.

  “They didn’t lose the assassin, they removed him themselves. They must have a back-up plan.”

  “That’s not the only problem,” Johansen said. He tried to pull himself up into a sitting position, and winced. “We still don’t have anything solid against Lord Udo.”

  “We don’t even know if we’ve got the right man,” Grenner said. “Sigmar’s teeth! It’s our job to defend these people, and they’re busy trying to kill each other.”

  “Defend them,” Hoffmann said. “Yes. And the best form of defence is?”

  “Attack,” the two agents said together.

  “Exactly. We have to draw our suspects out; we have to make them prove their guilt—or innocence. And we have to do it fast: they meet w
ith the Emperor in less than four bells.” Hoffmann got to his feet and looked down at Johansen. “Karl, what did the physician say?”

  “I’ll be back on my feet in four days, fit for active duty in ten.”

  “Mollycoddling nonsense. Be in uniform in fifteen minutes. You two have an appointment with Lord Udo.”

  The hallway was ornate and ostentatious, decorated to impress. Thick Araby carpets covered the oak floor. Suits of armour from different eras stood along its length, with trophies from long-past battles fixed to the wall between them: an elf general’s helmet; a dwarf axe encrusted with runes; the moth-eaten head of an orc warboss, stuffed and mounted. Johansen looked at it.

  “It looks as happy to be here as I am,” he whispered.

  “Shut it,” said Grenner.

  Johansen shut it. They’d been standing for almost five minutes and his whole chest ached like he’d been slugged by a club. The blood he had lost made him feel tired and slow. The dark serge fabric of his uniform felt coarse against his skin and tight across the shoulders, where he’d put on weight or muscle since the jacket was made. Fighting in these clothes would be hard. All in all, there were many things about this situation that made him uncomfortable.

  A footman appeared and ushered them into a larger room, decorated with the same opulence but more taste. In its centre a well-built man in rich robes sat at a table, the shredded carcass of a roast cormorant before him. He was slicing a pomegranate with studied attention, the red flesh of the fruit lying in moist chunks on a silver plate. Johansen and Grenner bowed. It was ten seconds before he spoke.

  “I was expecting General Hoffmann to come. Why has he not?”

  Grenner cleared his throat. “My lord, he sends apologies, but he is overseeing the security for this evening’s dinner.”

  Lord Udo snorted. “As excuses go, it’ll do. But I’m not impressed with your work. Very unprofessional. An assassin killed before he could be arrested, someone casting magic in the streets, and one of my father’s favourite hunters is dead. Who’s behind it?”