Bloodborn (36 page)

She felt around, hoping to find that the tunnel turned away from the wall, but instead found a jagged edge to the rock. She ran her hand over the rough lip. It was a hole in the wall. She reached through it. Smooth marble. A narrow square tunnel of it. She sighed with relief, then laughed at herself for not guessing what she would find. She had come to another niche. The ghouls had tunnelled from the basement of one crypt to another, and hid both entrances in grave niches. She pulled herself through the hole and, sure enough, at the end of the niche was a cover of brass.

A tremor of uneasiness rippled through her as she pressed against it. Had the ghouls remembered this back door? Had they blocked this exit too? Were the doors of the mausoleum above locked?

The plaque shifted as she pushed, then fell away all at once. With scrabbling hands she caught the edge of it before it smashed to the floor, then lowered it gently and looked around. There was more light here, filtering through a door to her left. She was in a crypt much like the one she had just left, with plaques on three walls and the door in the fourth, leading to a stairway. There were no ghouls, and no flicker of firelight.

Ulrika eeled out of the hole to the floor, then picked herself up and turned back to the tunnel.

‘Holmann!’ she whispered. ‘Come ahead!’

She waited a moment, wondering if he could hear her around the bend in the tunnel, but then came a rustling and thudding from the far end. Relieved, she took her sword from the niche and padded to the stairs, then crept up them.

The mausoleum above the crypt was in this case round, but in all other particulars much like the other one, except in one important detail. The doors were cracked open. A thrill of excitement went through her. She could see the sky between them. Freedom was near.

She tip-toed back down to the crypt and waited at the open niche. After a minute, torchlight illuminated the insides of the tunnel, then Holmann’s face appeared. His eyes were wide and he was sweating, but he relaxed when he saw her, and pressed on.

‘The door is open above,’ she said as she helped him out. ‘We are free. Come.’ She started towards the stairs.

‘Wait,’ he said.

Ulrika turned back to him, impatient. ‘What? I must go. Now!’

‘And I must go with you.’

Ulrika ground her teeth. ‘I told you. I cannot allow that. Were it only the monster we faced, perhaps, but I must protect my mistress, from
all
harm.’

Holmann stepped towards her, brushing the dirt from his knees and long coat. ‘How many gates lie between you and this house in the country? How many miles? Can you fly?’

‘What are you talking about?’ she asked.

He reached up and tapped the brim of his hat. ‘A witch hunter opens all gates,’ he said. ‘And no one will deny him the use of a horse or carriage in the pursuit of his duties. If you want to reach this place swiftly, I am your passport.’

Ulrika paused, considering. She had proved herself able to climb the Altestadt wall, and she might even be able to go over the main city wall, but each passage would take time, and be fraught with danger. And though she was swifter than a human, and had more stamina, she was not swifter than a horse. Holmann was right. It would be an easier journey with him than without him.

She pursed her lips, then nodded. ‘You may come, but on one condition.’

It was his turn to pause. ‘What is it?’

‘You will swear, by Sigmar and your own honour, that you will not harm or attempt to arrest my mistress or any of her companions, tonight or in the future.’

Holmann’s face darkened. ‘I cannot swear to that.’

‘You must,’ said Ulrika. ‘Come, Holmann. Please. Leave them to Schenk. If he finds them guilty, so be it. Only don’t denounce them yourself. That is all I ask.’

‘All you ask,’ said Holmann, ‘is that I renounce my vows and give up being a Templar of Sigmar.’

‘No,’ said Ulrika. ‘Not so much as that. Just… just turn your eyes to other targets – cultists, witches, necromancers, I care not.’

He hesitated, then looked away. ‘I… I cannot. A Templar of Sigmar cannot “turn his eyes” from evil. I am sorry.’

Ulrika sighed. ‘Then I will leave you here, and good luck to you.’ She turned and started for the steps.

She was halfway up them when he called out again.

‘Stop!’

She looked back, fully expecting to find him aiming his pistols at her, but he was not. He stood in the door to the crypt, his head lowered, unable to look at her.

‘I will swear it,’ he said.

She stared at him. ‘Truly?’

‘Aye. These fiends must be destroyed.’

She walked back down to him. ‘Then let me hear it. All of it. And look me in the eye.’

He reluctantly raised his chin and met her gaze. He looked miserable. ‘I swear,’ he said, ‘by Sigmar and my honour, that I will not harm or attempt to arrest your mistress or any of her companions, tonight or in the future.’

She winced at the pain in his voice. Then she gave him a curt military bow. ‘Thank you, Herr Holmann. You honour me with this pledge.’ She turned for the steps. ‘Now hurry, there is no more time to waste.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

THE HAND OF THE TRAITOR

The last ghouls saw Ulrika and Holmann stepping from the second mausoleum and bounded away, shrieking, from where they had sat on the gravestones they had piled in front of the other crypt. Ulrika ignored them and ran with the witch hunter through the hills and valleys of the fog-shrouded graveyard until they came at last to the spike-topped wall. She clambered up this with ease, then gave him a hand and hauled him up as if she was lifting a child. He muttered a curse at this unnatural show of strength, but said nothing out loud, and they hopped down to the street and hurried on.

Holmann knew of an inn just on the far side of the Temple District that kept horses, and when they reached it Ulrika waited outside while he went in and browbeat the landlord into saddling two and giving him the use of them ‘on the business of the temple’ without a fee.

After that their journey proceeded at a much quicker pace. They galloped through the streets of the Aldig quarter to the Neuestadt Gate and were waved through without even having to slow. She thought there might be some trouble as they reached the river and thundered across the great bridge, where four witch hunters still watched the south end, but Holmann waved a hand at them and raised his voice.

‘News for Captain Schenk! Stand clear, brothers!’ he cried, and they parted before him.

They pounded down the Brukestrasse through the Faulestadt to the South Gate, and there had to stop for the first time since they had mounted, for the towering main gates were closed for the night, and one of the small doors at the side had to be opened and the horses led through on foot, but then they were off again, spurring down a wide road between moonlit snow-covered fields.

Despite what lay before her, Ulrika revelled in the ride. The snow had melted from the roads and the dirt was packed and firm – perfect for a gallop. How long had it been since she had raced flat out? Had it been that time with Felix on her father’s lands? That long? It felt marvellous. She gave the horse its head and let it surge away, topping a low rise and then barrelling down the other side in a spray of mud. The land, with its tidy white fields and its knots of bare winter trees, hadn’t the wild austere beauty of the oblast, with its endless vistas and huge skies, but after a week in the hemmed-in labyrinth of Nuln’s narrow streets, it felt as wide as all of Kislev.

After a while, when the horse started to flag a bit, she reined up and looked behind her. Holmann was coming doggedly on a hundred paces back.

She grinned as he caught up. ‘I’m sorry, Templar Holmann. It has been too long.’

He gave her an odd look. ‘You ride well.’

She shrugged. ‘I told you. I am the daughter of a march boyar. I grew up on horses, and fought in my father’s rota. That part was also not a lie.’

He nodded, then looked away, his jaw set. ‘I… I can see that.’

Ulrika frowned. What was troubling him now? Then she remembered how he had looked at her before, on their way to the Temple of Morr the night they had met at the plague house, and how he had all but confessed to finding her attractive. The same fire had shone from his eyes just now, as he watched her ride, and then he had quietly and deliberately ground it out.

She wanted to say something to comfort him, but she refrained. It would only make it worse.

They rode on in silence for a while, but then Holmann spoke up again.

‘How long has it been since you became… what you have become?’ he asked.

Ulrika closed her eyes. She could almost read his thoughts. He was torturing himself with what might have happened had they met before she had been turned. He was thinking, ‘If only I had killed the fiend that seduced her before it found her. If only fate had put me in her path a little sooner.’

‘A hundred years, Herr Holmann,’ she said without meeting his eyes. ‘More than a hundred. Long before you were born.’

The witch hunter nodded sadly, but Ulrika thought he looked slightly more at peace.

As they got closer to the village that was the last crossroads before Mondthaus, Ulrika began to worry more and more about what Gabriella would do if she brought Holmann into her presence. She might have got a pledge out of the witch hunter not to hurt her, but she would never get a pledge out of the countess not to hurt him – not to mention Hermione. All in all, it would be better if he didn’t arrive at the house. If he didn’t, he would not die facing the monster, nor would he fall into the clutches of Gabriella or any of the other Lahmians.

The more she thought about the idea, the better she liked it. It would even have the added benefit of making him hate her, and thereby curing him of his painful attraction to her and set him back on the road to being the staunch enemy of evil and corruption he strove to be. She would be doing him a favour.

Her mind made up, she pulled up sharply and waved at Holmann to stop. He drew up next to her, concerned.

‘What is it?’ he asked.

She edged her horse next to his. ‘I’m sorry, Herr Holmann,’ she said. ‘You won’t be coming.’

Holmann frowned, confused, and in that instant she backhanded him across the face, then shoved him sideways as he reeled. He toppled from his saddle and crashed to the road in a splash of mud. Ulrika leaned forwards and caught his horse’s reins, then spurred her own. The two horses plunged ahead, leaving Holmann sitting up in the middle of the road, a look of almost comic surprise on his spattered face as he receded quickly behind her.

Ulrika turned her gaze away from him and focused on the road ahead, trying to squash down the bubble of guilt that rose up and tightened her chest.

Less than half an hour later, she found the final turning to Mondthaus and angled her horse into it, going at speed. All around, the snow-blanketed farmland rolled away smoothly, but the road she galloped along wound up into a patch of thick pine forest and jutting rocks – an untillable tor in the middle of the fertile plain. The fir trees quickly closed overhead, and the wind, which had had nothing to cry about in the flat-lands, now moaned as it was torn by their branches.

In the thick undergrowth on either side of the narrow path she could occasionally see old stone walls, broken and moss-covered, and once, a stone of one of the old races, eerily illuminated by a stray shaft of moonlight that shot down through the close canopy of the trees.

As she got closer to the summit of the tor, a momentary dizziness came upon her, and she felt suddenly convinced that she was going the wrong way. With a curse and an effort of will she focused her mind and stayed on the path. It was another spell like that which had hid the crypt of the beast, but stronger, and seemingly attuned to her kind.

The urge to turn around grew more urgent as she pressed on, and she had to fight the compulsion to rein in with every stride of her horse. Then, ahead of her, she saw an iron gate set in a high sturdy wall. She pushed on towards it, though it felt like she was fighting a strong tide, then jumped down and reached for the gate.

She couldn’t even touch it. Some black energy flared from the bars as her fingers neared it and pushed them away. It was like a trick with lode stones she had seen an alchemist do once. The harder she pushed against the force, the harder it pushed back at her. Had the beast and the sorcerer already come and locked the door behind them? Was this their magic? Had they killed everyone and occupied the house?