02 - Taint of Evil Read Online Free

from his hand.
    He lay for what seemed like an eternity, face down in the dust, his mind
grappling to find answers to this impossible reversal of fortune. The only
response came in the shape of a leather boot, weather-beaten and crusted with
the filth of long journeying. The booted foot flipped Carl Durer over onto his
back as easily as though he were a baby.
    He was now looking directly into the eyes of the man bearing down upon him:
the man now carrying his sword, the man who now held his life in the balance.
The dark eyes radiated a terrible strength and a harsh indifference quite unlike
Carl’s own cruel greed.
    “Get up.” The voice, when at last the man spoke, was cold and distant, like
an echo from a far country. Carl Durer struggled to his knees. He was powerless
to resist the command, powerless to stop the tremors taking hold of his body. He
knew how it would go now. He was an old hand at this. Except that now it was he
who would do the begging-He looked up into the man’s face, meeting the other’s
dark unyielding eyes. Still the other man seemed to look straight through him,
as though his gaze was fixed upon another world. Blood oozed steadily from a
weeping gash across the man’s left hand, but he seemed immune or indifferent to
the pain. He’s insane, Durer guessed, but maybe I can talk him round.
    “Listen,” he began, cursing himself for his faltering voice, “let’s call it
quits, eh? No hard feelings. We’d be a good team, you and me. We could clean up
round these parts, easy.”
    He knelt, hand held out, waiting for a response. When it came there was no
anger, no thirst for vengeance colouring the other man’s voice. Carl heard only
the flat tones of the executioner, words tinged with the faintest disgust.
    “You are nothing,” the stranger said. “You are weak.”
    As the stranger drew his sword arm back, Carl Durer was granted one final
sight of the amulet fastened upon his arm, the prize that he had promised to
himself above all else. The polished gold sparkled in the air, as though filled
with unnatural energy. For a moment Carl was filled with a sick longing, a
half-glimpsed knowledge of the power the amulet could grant him, a power which
would never now be his.
    He saw a second, last, glimmering as the sword passed through the air. Carl
followed its shimmering arc, his body held fast by a horrified wonder. He
watched the movement whilst he could, then screwed his eyes shut. He knew he had
been granted his final sight of this world.
     
    The bounty hunter had watched the destruction of Durer’s gang with growing
incredulity, a disbelieving spectator at a grotesque carnival of death. He had
been edging closer to the scene of the battle, keeping well hidden beneath the
cover of the trees. By the time Carl Durer spat out his last, blood-flecked
breath, Lothar Koenig and the killer were no more than twenty feet apart.
    Looking on from the safety of the trees, Lothar had first thanked Sigmar for
what was surely divine intervention. The stranger had proved to be far more than
a distraction; without Lothar lifting a finger he was doing his work for him,
whittling away the odds separating the bounty hunter from his prize. But it was
clear that Durer was not going to survive, Lothar Koenig wouldn’t be taking the
bandit back to Talabheim alive. He felt a rush of something like grief stab
through him as he realised Carl Durer’s value would be halved by virtue of his
imminent death.
    A voice inside Lothar urged him to intervene, step into claim what remained
of the bandit leader, alive or dead. The traveller could have no quarrel with
that. He had only been protecting himself from a murderous assault. Would he not be happy to see Durer led away, a prisoner, to face his retribution? But he
held back whilst the slaughter reached its bloody conclusion, sensing that he
was witnessing something abnormal, a display of berserk beauty from a cold,
mesmerising force. He