02 - Taint of Evil Read Online Free Page A

held back, yet he knew that he could not delay
indefinitely. If he could not have Durer alive, then he must have him dead. His
body, delivered intact for a bounty of eighty crowns. That was the deal, and he
knew his grieving yet fastidious patron would brook no other arrangement.
    Wait, Lothar told himself. Wait until the other man has climbed back into the
saddle. Give him time to be on his way. He has no business with you. But now he
was moving forward through the trees, moving from shadow into the stark light
cast by the watching moons. Moving towards confrontation with the all-conquering
warrior. Later he would say to himself that it was determination that drove him
on. Who was to say that the madman would not butcher Durer’s dead body, every
frenzied blow from his sword devaluing what was righty his—Lothar Koenig’s—property. He had not come so far to be denied his rightful bounty.
    But, even as the other man turned, almost casually, at the sound of his
footsteps upon the stony path, Lothar knew that it was greed that had brought
him to this moment of recklessness. Greed, and the knowledge of what certain
people—the right people—might pay to possess a creature such as this, a
killing machine the match of any mercenary Lothar had ever seen.
    A thousand possibilities were tumbling through Lothar Koenig’s mind as the
two men came face to face. To the value of Carl Durer’s corpse he now added a
sum at least double that for the bounty he might earn, if he could but take the
warrior captive. Could he take the man alive? Of course he could. He was Lothar
Koenig. Not just a bounty hunter. He was the bounty hunter. The best. He
would find a way. He always did.
    Then Lothar looked into the eyes of the other man, and, in that moment, all
of his imaginings crumbled away. It was he, not the other man, who was mad. Mad to ever think he would have a chance
of pulling this off.
    Lothar Koenig’s hand moved towards the hilt of his sword, then dropped away.
Almost by instinct he raised both arms in a gesture of conciliation and
contrition.
    “I’m sorry,” he said, aware of how stupid his words now sounded. “I mean you
no harm. That man—” he pointed towards the bloodied carcass that was all that
remained of Carl Durer. “I need the body, that’s all. Just the body.”
    The traveller glanced briefly in the direction of Durer’s body, then turned
towards Lothar Koenig. His face was unshaven, weathered by what looked like many
weeks upon the road, but his eyes burned bright with a hungry fire. Lothar saw
in that face neither good nor evil, only power. Unassailable power. The stranger
gazed at him without favour or pity, and his features formed into something that
might have been a smile. There was a moment of stillness as the stranger paused,
as though listening to a distant sound, a voice that spoke to him alone. Then he
raised his sword, and polished the blade slowly against the fabric of his tunic.
Lothar saw the burnished gold of the amulet, but it was what lay beneath that
held him transfixed. In the shadows the man’s arm had appeared almost black
covered with a vivid bruise. But now he saw that it was no bruise. Almost the
entire length of the man’s lower arm was covered in some kind of tattoo, a
tableau of runes and images etched upon the killer’s skin.
    As the killer raised his sword, the images began to move, suddenly animated
with a life of their own. Figures came together in combat the dark hues of the
tattoo suddenly flushing blood red. With a sudden shock of recognition, Lothar
realised he was watching a re-enactment of the battle with the bandits, and the
death of Carl Durer.
    Lothar Koenig took a step back and looked around for any aid or refuge
amongst his surroundings. Finding none, he sought a last, desperate comfort from
his thoughts. We all have to die, he reminded himself again. We all have to die
sometime.
    But, in the final moment of truth, he found that