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David Bishop

A murder in Marienburg

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.

CHAPTER ONE

Arullen Silvermoon always knew he was fated to die in Marienburg, but not like this: being stalked by ravening creatures through the dark, dank catacombs beneath Suiddock, every attempt at escape or evasion tracked and checked with effortless ease, all hope extinguished as the creeping shadows drew ever closer. The tall, willowy elf could smell nothing but their foetid, foul stench, the rancorous pungency choking his delicate nostrils and violating his lungs. In all his days Arullen had breathed only two kinds of air-the sandalwood and jasmine scented halls of his warm, welcoming abode in the Sith Rionnasc’namishathir, and the brisk, briny breezes of sea air that gusted across the city’s elf quarter.

Now he gagged on the odour of raw effluent and rotting, rancid decay-the stench of men, bitter as the metallic taste of adrenaline at the back of his throat. A greasy yellow mist choked the air in these stone tunnels, so acrid it burnt his eyes. When the vicious aroma became too much, Arullen clamped a hand across his face, pinching his nostrils shut between thumb and forefinger, forcing himself to breathe solely through his mouth. If he had to die down here, let it be in battle, taking some of his unseen enemy with him. There was some honour in that at least. There was no honour to be had in choking to death on the fumes of a city’s excreta. He staggered on, the thigh-deep waters sapping the strength from his legs.

Arullen emerged from one tunnel into a circular chamber. Five more tunnels radiated off this space, like the spokes of a wooden cart. The elf looked up, more in hope than expectation of seeing the sky overhead. Instead there was a canopy of bones and tattered scraps of skin, the edges ragged from who knew what. Arullen peered at the collation of horrors. The bones were all shapes and sizes-some so small they must be from children or halflings, others torn from the skeletons of animals or sea creatures.