RIDERS OF THE DEAD by Dan Abnett

Author:Dan Abnett
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2011-01-19T00:00:00+00:00

III

On the seventh night, Hinn and the Kurgan came for von Margur. A gale had come up in the darkness outside, and it moaned and whistled around the temple’s stone bulk. The place was suddenly full of strange, cold drafts, and all the torches sputtered and danced.

‘Help me, Karl!’ von Margur cried out as he was led away. He was turning his head to and fro, eyes cast upwards, desperate to see. ‘I am afraid! I am sore afraid!’

‘Sigmar will save you!’ Karl called out, a blasphemy that got him a hard slap from Hinn.

Etzel and Vinnes were called too, and a Reiklander called Brandt.

The captives waited for half an hour, hearing the distant Kurgan cheers above the howl of the wind. Karl went to the temple altar and knelt to pray for von Margur’s soul. He dismissed the desecration that the Kurgan had heaped upon the altar, and steadfastly ignored their iron coffer and its flickering eye. He also cared little that the altar and temple had originally been dedicated to a Kislevite god whose worship and tenets he didn’t know. All that mattered was that it was a sacred place, all the better for Sigmar to hear him.

The iron coffer gazed at him, nevertheless, as he did his devotions.

Then the Kurgan brought von Margur back. He was walking unassisted, as if he knew the way. He didn’t knock into anything but simply shambled confidently back through the main hall of the temple and took a seat on the floor next to Karl. His hands were bloody.

‘It isn’t easy,’ he said, ‘is it?’

‘No,’ said Karl. He had no idea how the blind knight had survived for one moment.

Von Margur gazed blankly into space.

‘I suppose it will get easier,’ he said at last, and curled over on the rugs and matting like a child.

‘What did they make you do, sir?’ Karl asked.

But von Margur had fallen asleep.

Then Vinnes returned. He had been cut on the leg and the hip, and he was shaking and sobbing. The Kurgan washed his wounds with vinegar and left him. Vinnes refused to come anywhere near von Margur.

Karl went over to him.

‘What happened?’ he asked, offering the Carroburger a waterskin.

‘They made me kill Brandt,’ Vinnes sniffed. ‘Gods alive, they made me gut him! He was no swordsman. He didn’t stand a chance against me, but he fought like a bastard and gave me these.’ Vinnes ruefully indicated his wounds.

‘They’re flesh cuts. You’ll heal,’ said Karl.

‘I don’t want to heal,’ muttered Vinnes plaintively.

‘What about von Margur? Did you see?’

Vinnes nodded.

‘Dammit! And?’

‘He slew Etzel.’

‘No!’

‘I watched it, Vollen. They were head to head, with a pair of daggers, each of them. In the square out there. Von Margur didn’t even know which way to point. He kept calling out for you to help him. The bastards were jeering. Etzel – Sigmar! He didn’t want to fight with him. Not a blind man. Not a bloody blind man…’

Vinnes looked round at Karl. He had managed to smear blood from his leg wound across his face.

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