3 rotten fruit

  THIS IS A DARK age, a bloody age, an age of daemons

  and of sorcery. It is an age of battle and death, and of the

  world's ending. Amidst all of the fire, flame and fury

  it is a time, too, of mighty heroes, of bold deeds

  and great courage.

  AT THE HEART of the Old World sprawls the Empire, the

  largest and most powerful of the human realms. Known for

  its engineers, sorcerers, traders and soldiers, it is

  a land of great mountains, mighty rivers, dark forests

  and vast cities. And from his throne in Altdorf reigns

  the Emperor Karl-Franz, sacred descendant of the

  founder of these lands, Sigmar, and wielder

  of his magical warhammer.

  BUT THESE ARE far from civilised times. Across the length

  and breadth of the Old World, from the knightly palaces

  of Bretonnia to ice-bound Kislev in the far north, come

  rumblings of war. In the towering World's Edge Mountains,

  the orc tribes are gathering for another assault. Bandits and

  renegades harry the wild southern lands of

  the Border Princes. There are rumours of rat-things, the

  skaven, emerging from the sewers and swamps across the

  land. And from the northern wildernesses there is the

  ever-present threat of Chaos, of daemons and beastmen

  corrupted by the foul powers of the Dark Gods.

  As the time of battle draws ever

  near, the Empire needs heroes

  like never before.

  IT ISN'T OFTEN a man gets to witness his own hanging, but Reiner Hetzau was being given the privilege. He didn't much care for it.

  It was a week after the battle of Nordbergbruche, where Reiner and his companions had helped Count Manfred Valdenheim reclaim his family castle from the Kurgan who had occupied it since the Chaos invasion. This despite the fact that Manfred's younger brother Albrecht had turned on him, attacking him with two thousand troops, all under the spell of the cursed banner, Valnir's Bane, which had turned them into bloodthirsty automatons. If Reiner and his companions hadn't slain Albrecht and destroyed the banner, the day would have been lost. And for this great service to Manfred and the Empire, Reiner and his companions were to hang. At least it was to appear so.

  'Poor damn butcher lambs,' said Giano, the Tilean mercenary, as he peered through the slats of the louvre-windowed coach Reiner shared with his fellow condemned. 'Bet they sorry now they born with our faces, hey?'

  Pavel, the scrawny pikeman, swallowed and blinked his one good eye. 'There but for the grace of Sigmar...'

  Reiner nodded, squinting at the scene outside. The coach sat amidst Manfred's retinue of twenty knights in the square before the Middenheim gaol. A great crowd surrounded them, all looking towards the gallows in the centre - a gallows that could hang five at once. The crowd was in a cheerful mood. There was nothing like a hanging to break up the monotony of rubble clearing and rebuilding that had become the daily life of Middenheim, the site of the final battle of Archaon's aborted invasion. Sellers of pinwheels and sweetmeats wound through the crowds, while on the gallows, five frightened men with passing resemblances to Reiner and his companions were about to dance on air.

  'Why do I feel guilty it isn't us up there?' asked Franka, a dark-haired archer who only Reiner knew was not the boy she pretended to be.

  'Because yer a soft-hearted fool,' said Hals, a bald, jut-bearded pikeman. 'They're villains. They'll be guilty of something.'

  'But not guilty of what they're to hang for,' Franka pressed. 'They're being hanged for looking like us.'

  'They're being hanged because Manfred doesn't want his family name besmirched by his brother's infamy,' said Reiner. He affected Manfred's statesmanlike tones: 'It would not do for the citizenry to believe their betters could be corrupted as Albrecht was.' Reiner snorted. 'I'm sure if Albrecht were someone else's brother, Manfred wouldn't be so concerned with the morale of the citizenry.'

  A drum roll began. The crowd fell silent. Reiner and his companions stared through the narrow louvres.

  On the gallows, Middenheim's chief magistrate read the charges as Manfred and a host of dignitaries looked solemnly on. 'Reiner Hetzau, Hals Kiir, Pavel Voss, Giano Ostini, Franz Shoentag, you are charged with the foul murder of Baron Albrecht Valdenheim; of bewitching his troops by means of heathen sorcery; and causing them to attack his brother, Count Manfred Valdenheim, thereby bringing about the deaths of countless innocent men. For these and sundry other bestial crimes you are to be hanged by the neck until dead. May Sigmar have mercy on your souls.'

  As the hangman pulled sacks over the condemned men's heads, Reiner looked at the man chosen to be his replacement, a debauched-looking villain with a pencil-thin moustache. Reiner wasn't flattered by the comparison.

  Beside him, Franka sobbed. 'He's only a boy.'

  Reiner looked at the lad who had been picked to die for her. It was doubtful he'd seen sixteen summers. He wouldn't see seventeen. His face was frozen in a mask of dumb incomprehension as the bag was tugged down over his head.

  The drums stopped. The trap banged open and the five men dropped and jerked at the end of their ropes until the hangman's apprentices jumped up and hung from their knees to make certain of the deed. The crowd cheered.

  'There's another five deaths on our consciences,' sighed Pavel.

  'Speak for yourself,' said Hals. 'I put 'em square on Manfred. He's the one ordered 'em hung.'

  But the reason he'd hung the impostors instead of us, thought Reiner, was that we were too damned clever for our own good. Manfred had gone to the trouble of all this subterfuge because he had been impressed by the guile Reiner and his companions had demonstrated in their defeat of Albrecht, and wanted to employ it for himself. As he'd told them, winning battles was not the only way the Empire stayed strong. There were less honourable deeds that had to be done to keep the citizenry safe, deeds no true-hearted knight could undertake, deeds only blackhearts could stomach. Reiner and his companions were those 'Blackhearts'.

  Manfred was having them 'executed' so that they would be invisible men - perfect spies who did not exist in the eyes of the world. But because he also feared they might abandon their new duties at their earliest opportunity - a not unreasonable fear - the count had insured their cooperation by magical means.

  'We are just as much hanged men as those poor devils,' said Reiner. 'For the cursed poison Manfred put into our blood is a noose around our necks - and he could drop the trap at any time.'

  Outside they heard Strieger, the captain of Manfred's retinue, call 'Forward!' and the coach lurched into motion. As they rode out of the square Reiner took a last look at the five hooded bodies swaying in the breeze.

  THEY WERE BOUND for Altdorf, where Manfred had a townhouse and where he advised the Emperor on matters of state. The road travelled south from Middenheim through the depths of the Drakwald Forest until it at last crossed the Reik and entered Altdorf. Reiner and the other Blackhearts saw none of it. Locked in the louvred coach, the world passed them by only as light, shadow and sound, the monotonous symphony of creaking wheels, clopping hooves and jingling harnesses lulling them into a state of torpidity. At least they were alone, with no one to overhear them, and this allowed them to plot their escape, however fruitlessly.

  'Why not we kill the mage who know the poison spell?' suggested Giano.

  'Manfred would get another, and have him unleash the poison,' said Reiner.

  'What if we broke the mage's fingers until he removed the poison?' asked Hals.

  'And if he said the spell that killed us instead of the spell that freed us, would you know the difference?' countered Reiner.
<
br />   Pavel folded his arms, 'Alright then, captain. If yer so smart, what do we do? Let us poke holes in your ideas for once.'

  'Well,' said Reiner, leaning back, 'perhaps we could pay a hedge witch to remove the poison.'

  'If we could find one, and that would require a lot of gold,' said Franka. 'Something we are sorely lacking.'

  Reiner nodded. 'True. But fortunes change. While helping Manfred we may find opportunity to help ourselves.'

  'But a hedge witch could cheat us as well,' said Hals. 'He could spout any sort of mumbo jumbo and we wouldn't know if he'd removed the poison until we tried to run and fell dead on the spot.'

  And on and on it went, an endless circle of argument as monotonous as the sound of the wheels rolling below them. Only occasionally would the monotony be broken when Reiner would look up to find Franka's eyes hot upon him.

  She and he had first shared that look after they had killed Albrecht. Since then, each time they locked eyes, visions of Franka's lithe body stripped of her boyish trappings danced through Reiner's head. But even these pleasant dreams led to frustration, for none of the others knew Franka was a woman, so their desire could not be acted upon, and the cycle of lust stirred followed by lust denied became as grinding and dull as everything else.

  THE AGONY CONTINUED for three days, with the Blackhearts only let out of the coach when the company made camp. The coach had become thick with the smell of their unwashed bodies and their conversation had been reduced to ill-tempered grunts, when, late on the afternoon of the third day, the sudden booming of the coach wheels rolling over wood woke them from their stupor.

  All five crowded to the slatted windows. The narrow view told them little more than they were crossing over a drawbridge into the courtyard of a castle. After a moment the coach came to a stop amid hails and responses from Manfred's retinue and the house guards.

  One voice rose above the rest. 'Count Manfred! Well met, my lord.'

  'And you, Groff,' came Manfred's voice. 'I see you survived the troubles.'

  'Barely, my lord. Only barely.'

  The coach door was unlocked and the guard in charge of the Blackhearts' transport, a sour veteran named Klaus, swung it open. 'Fall out, vermin,' he growled. 'And no nonsense. We're staying with quality tonight.'

  'We'll be on our best behaviour,' said Reiner stepping out. 'Lay out my finest suit and ruff, won't you?'

  'That's just the sort of thing I'm talking about,' snarled Klaus.

  He lined them up at attention as Captain Strieger talked over their lodging with the head of Groff's house guard, and Manfred and Groff continued their conversation.

  'We were hit very hard, my lord,' Groff was saying. He was a short, dark-haired man with a flabby, careworn face. 'We held supplies for Baron Hegel's cannon, and somehow the devils got wind of it. Tried for three days to force their way in before Boecher's garrison came up and chased them off, by the grace of Sigmar. But by then three-quarters of my men died, and as you can see...'

  Groff gestured around at his castle, which was in terrible disrepair. Crews of peasants laboured to close up holes in the outer walls that one could have led a company of lancers through, but they were making little progress. The roof of the stables had burned away, and one of the keeps towers had collapsed, and now lay across the courtyard like the corpse of a dragon.

  Groff nodded at the ruined tower. 'Lost my older son when that fell. He was fighting some horror with bones for skin. It called lighting from the sky and...' He swallowed.

  Manfred put a hand on his shoulder. 'At least he died as Sigmar commands us to, fighting corruption.'

  'Aye, he died well,' said Groff sadly. 'But we seem to have bested one evil only to have another spring up. Indeed, I am glad you have graced us with your presence, m'lord, for something's brewing in the forest that I would have you warn Altdorf about.'

  Manfred looked up. 'Remnants of the Chaos horde?'

  Groff shrugged. 'Something in there is carrying off the villagers and driving the woodsmen mad. I'd appreciate you asking Altdorf to send reinforcements. We're in no state to face any-'

  'Right, you lot,' said Klaus at Reiner's side, drawing his attention away from the lords' conversation. 'We've got your lodgings sorted. This way.'

  But before they could follow, there was a clatter of hooves at the gate and everyone turned to face the potential threat. It was a single horseman, a flush-faced youth in black and silver, with fevered excitement in his bright blue eyes.

  'Father!' he cried as he reined his horse to a halt. 'Father, I saw a white stag in the woods just now. It was beautiful. You should hunt it with me.'

  Manfred's knights relaxed. Their hands dropped from their hilts.

  Groff looked embarrassed. 'Udo, pay your respects to Count Valdenheim. My lord, may I introduce my son, Udo.'

  Udo dismounted and bowed distractedly to Manfred. 'My lord count. Forgive me. Welcome to our humble house.' He turned back to his father. 'So, may we have a hunt, father?'

  As Klaus led the Blackhearts away, Reiner looked back to see Lord Groff bowing Count Manfred towards the main door and shooting angry looks at his son. Udo seemed oblivious. He followed his father into the keep with a far-away smile on his too-red lips. It looked like he had been eating cherries.

  THAT EVENING, WHILE Count Manfred and his knights dined with their host in the great hall, Reiner and his companions ate with Klaus and the coachman and Lord Groffs servants in the castles kitchens. It was a much less formal affair than the dinner upstairs, but undoubtedly warmer. Apparently, during the battle for Groff's castle, the horde's weird lightning had set fire to the great hall's roof, and half of it was open to the cold spring night.

  The Blackhearts ate in silence at the long kitchen table, more interested in food than conversation, after their cramped, claustrophobic journey. The servants talked enough for all of them anyway.

  'Hans the baker disappeared last night,' said a serving maid. 'Third this month.'

  The groom snorted. 'Disappeared? Everyone knows where he's gone. Off to join them in the woods.'

  The cook nodded. 'His woman said he woke up from a dead sleep sayin' he heard music, and just ran off.'

  'Yestere'en when I was huntin' coney deep in the woods, I seen Laney, the carpenter's daughter what disappeared the other week,' said a young potboy. He giggled. 'She weren't wearin' no clothes.'

  The head footman laughed. 'You dreamed that, I'm thinking, laddie. As we all have.'

  'Even you, husband?' asked the cook sharply.

  The servants laughed as the head footman blushed. Some of the Blackhearts smiled.

  Reiner was too busy trying to manoeuvre his left foot through the forest of booted legs under the table so that he could lay it beside Franka's. It would be highly embarrassing to lovingly stroke Hal's foot, or Pavel's. Very difficult to explain. At last he was rewarded with a surprised glance from Franka, and then a private smile and a return of pressure from her foot. His heart leapt, then he chuckled. He, who had spent so much of his youth in brothels where the girls stuck their tongues down your throat as a casual greeting, being aroused by such schoolboy flirtation. Ridiculous. Aye, but undeniable as well.

  He glanced around the room, suddenly desperate to discover a way to be alone with Franka that night. They would be back in the coach on the morrow and he had no idea how they would be lodged in Altdorf. Tonight could be their only chance at intimacy - their only chance even to speak privately.

  'Tain't funny, young Grig.' said a burly huntsman to a grinning young footman. 'Those fools are dangerous as well as mad. They'd eat you as soon as look at you. And the wood ain't the same neither. The trees are changing. Honest Drakwald oaks growing thorns and...' he made a face, 'fat purple plums. It ain't natural.'

  'If there's a danger in the forest,' asked Hals, his garrulous nature surfacing, 'why are yer walls still all a jumble?'

  'There's not many left to build 'em, friend.' said the footman. 'The war took so many. The village was nearly deserte
d even before this business in the woods begun. Now-'

  'Even the bandits what used to steal our sheep are leaving.' said the cook. 'And there's those who won't work at Castle Groff because they think it an unlucky house. Hard to build walls when nobody will.'

  'Less of that, foolish woman.' snapped the head footman. 'There's no need to be airing our dirty linen.'

  'I don't say 'tis unlucky.' answered the cook. 'I'm still here, ain't I? It's only what they say in the village. What with the young master dying, and m'lord's lady taken away by fever, and master Udo taking on so queer...'

  'There's nothing wrong with master Udo.' barked a long-faced fellow who hadn't spoken before.

  Reiner looked up at him. He was a long-faced fellow in the garb of a manservant. A lock of prematurely grey hair hung over one eye.

  The man chuckled, trying to smooth over his outburst. 'The boy's moon-eyed over a girl in the village is all.' He winked. 'She wears him out.'

  'He don't go to the village, Stier.' said the groom. 'He goes to the woods.'

  'Don't talk of what you don't know, boy.' Stier snapped. 'I'm his manservant. I think I should know what he does.' He stood, stiff. 'It will be time to serve the port. Come, Burgo.'

  The footman wiped his lips and joined Stier as he unlocked the wine cabinet. They selected a few bottles, and went upstairs.

  Reiner stared at the cabinet. They had left it open. He smiled.

  'YOU LOT ARE lucky they ain't got a full complement of servants,' said Klaus as he herded them into a below-stairs dormitory. 'You'd be sleeping in the stables else.' He turned on Reiner. 'And I'll be right outside the door, you, so no sneaking out windows, no sneaking in serving girls, no gambling with the grooms. We're on our best behaviour. Understand?'

  Reiner looked suddenly contrite. 'Actually, sergeant, if I might have a word alone, I have a confession to make.'

  Klaus sighed and beckoned him into the hall, then closed the door behind them. 'What is it now, Hetzau?'

  Reiner slipped a bottle of wine from under his jacket. 'Well...'

  'What's this?' asked Klaus suspiciously. 'You trying to bribe me?'