THE OBERWALD RIPPER Laurie Goulding An air of unease had hung in the taproom that evening, and the locals spoke in hushed, reticent tones as they supped from their tankards. The inn was renowned for its fine brew, but the prevailing topic of conversation at the bar and the low wooden tables was rather more grim – word had apparently spread of the town’s troubles, and the usual crowd of tired and thirsty travellers was thin on the ground as a result. Those that had turned out were none too jovial, either. Through the haze of pipe smoke and the dark little windows that opened out onto the main street, Felix had watched the lamplighters at work as he nursed his ale. They had hurried along in the fading evening light, glancing frantically left and right into the gloom as they went. Each had been accompanied by a similarly skittish watchman, who would regularly implore them to work faster while brandishing his sword and barking on about a curfew every time someone crossed their path. As darkness had fallen, Felix had wandered back to the bar to have his tankard refilled. These people were terrified. That much was clear. He could see it in their gaunt, haggard expressions and in the way their gazes would dart towards the door every time a stranger entered. Cold food sat untouched upon grubby platters. Trembling fingers toyed with prayer beads. As an outsider, Felix had felt their suspicious eyes upon him from the moment he stepped over the threshold. It was, therefore, no surprise when the inevitable confrontation came. ‘Who are you to say what’s best for this town?’ demanded a burly labourer, slamming his drink down upon the bar with a splash of spilled ale. ‘You come wandering in ’ere, just like the rest of ’em, full of your own opinions and trying to tell us how to deal with things.’ A few other locals, variously seated at tables or leaning against the bar, murmured in agreement. Tension had been growing in Oberwald as more and more of the day’s traders had moved on rather than remain after dark. For a market community dependent upon out-of-town custom, news of the horror still at large had cut deep into their earnings of late. The innkeeper, a rotund little man in a grubby apron, tried to placate the irate labourer. ‘Now then, Till – I’m sure the gentleman didn’t mean anything by it. Let’s let him finish his drink in peace.’ Felix narrowed his eyes. He sized up Till, and his potential allies: the bearded man clutching a bottle by the hearth, and the thin, reedy fellow sat on a stool with a poorly concealed knife in his breeches. Till gritted his teeth and glared, ignoring the innkeeper entirely. ‘Don’t you think we ’aven’t tried to catch him? You think your fancy Reikland soldiers would do any better?’ He jabbed a finger at the unfortunate middle-aged merchant he was accosting, and the man winced. Felix, sat in a high-backed pew by the window, set down his tankard as the labourer continued. His hand strayed to the hilt of Karaghul beneath his cloak almost without thought, though he found Till’s words intriguing. ‘They say the Ripper’s got eyes that burn with an ungodly fire. They say he’s quick as lightning, and half as kind. If he ain’t a daemon given flesh, then he’s sold his soul to something wicked…’ His reedy friend rose from his stool. ‘Aye, they say you can see right through him,’ he chimed in. ‘And he flies!’ added someone else. Silence had fallen over the inn. The merchant adjusted his coat, and made a small gesture to the well-dressed young woman standing behind him. ‘I… I’m very sorry to have offended you,’ he said in a thick Reikland accent. ‘Please, mein herr, I see that your tankard is almost empty. Let me buy you another ale.’ Till snorted, but his mood seemed to soften and he grunted in agreement. As the subdued atmosphere of the taproom returned, Felix caught the gaze of the young woman. She smiled at him and nodded, clearly having noticed him preparing to step in on their behalf. He returned the gesture and picked up his tankard once more. Felix was glad that Gotrek had been elsewhere. The presence of a belligerent, one-eyed dwarf with a fiery mohawk could well have turned the minor altercation into a full-on brawl, and that sort of attention was exactly what they needed to avoid. Rather than join him at the inn, the dour old Slayer had stomped off into the town in search of a gambling den, or ‘somewhere a dwarf might get a flagon of proper ale, manling’. Though sometimes tiresome, Gotrek’s demeanour often gave Felix pause to consider their surroundings more carefully. It was unlikely that a town the size of Oberwald would offer anything that Gotrek would particularly enjoy – in spite of its market trade, it was somewhat parochial and rather unremarkable. But ‘unremarkable’ was good, as far as Felix was concerned. Unremarkable meant that he and Gotrek could disappear with a minimum of effort and notice. Given the events of the past few weeks, that was the best they could hope for. More to the point, it was a convenient layover and a welcome break from making camp in the sparse pinewoods, or on the bare hillsides beyond. Felix just hoped that Gotrek would remember to keep himself covered up. It was hard to remain inconspicuous when one of the pair was so… remarkable. They had spent a whole evening by the campfire in stony silence a few nights before, when Felix had dared to suggest that the proud, honourable and fearless Slayer might consider wearing a disguise while gallivanting around in public. Not that it would do much good anyway, really – he was still unmistakable as a heavily set dwarf, even in a hooded cloak. He drained the last of his ale, resolving to speak to the innkeeper about lodgings for the night. Just as he was about to make for the bar one final time, the young woman appeared over him, two foaming tankards in hand. ‘It seems my father has set the locals all aflutter, hasn’t he?’ she said, smiling but sounding slightly awkward nonetheless. Felix rose, but before he could speak she thrust one of the tankards at him. ‘I’m sure you would have come to my rescue, had they given us any trouble. I’m Sabine, by the way.’ ‘I’m–’ he began, but caught himself. His mind raced. ‘I’m Max. Max Schreiber. Pleased to meet you, Sabine.’ The two of them sat at his little table, and drank long into the night. Though her manner was initially coy, Sabine’s intentions were obvious enough to a seasoned bohemian like Felix. Nonetheless, he found something endearing about the girlish naivete with which she tried to keep him engaged in trivial conversation while plying him with yet more ale. Her occasional excited outbursts about poetry and all their other supposedly shared interests drew disapproving looks from the locals, but they left the pair of outsiders well alone. She was not long past twenty, and though her father’s work held little interest for her she had abandoned her studies of the arts and travelled out with his entourage on business across the province. When Felix told her of his father’s own enterprise – being careful to mention no names – and his role as the family’s black sheep, she had practically squealed with delight and confessed that she too yearned to run away and follow her own dreams. Felix had smiled politely, though inside he felt some annoyance at her immature posturing. Still, he saw a reflection of his own youth in the girl’s innocence. As she had eagerly recounted tales of her non-adventures, most of which seemed to culminate in the consumption of wine or ale with her collegiate friends, his thoughts wandered back to the days when he too had lived only for such things, and he studied her as she spoke. Maybe it was the ale, but she did look… unconventionally attractive in the firelight. The curve of her cheek, and the flash of rebellion in her eyes; the tumble of blonde hair that she would periodically brush from her face… He had recoiled slightly when she ran her hand gently over his forearm in mid-conversation, but he caught himself and relented to her touch. After so long on the road with Gotrek, it soothed his ego to know that he still looked presentable enough to attract any female company at all. Besides, when he tried to blink away the pleasant, drunken haze, he realised just how close she had edged towards him along the pew. It’d be rude to push her away now, he thought. She had been buying the drinks all night, after all. When Sabine’s father eventually made to retire up to his rooms, he stopped and regarded Felix coldly. ‘Sabine, liebchen. Time for us to leave.’ ‘Oh, father, I can’t go yet,’ she protested, pouting almost theatrically. ‘I’ve still got a half-tankard left.’ Felix snorted into his own drink. Sabine nudged him in the ribs. ‘Besides, this is Max. He’s a poet from Altdorf. He’s just about to show me some of his best verses.’ Making a valiant attempt to appear sober, Felix stood. He still had enough sense to keep his sword concealed beneath his cloak. ‘Max Schreiber,’ he said, offering a hand to the merchant. ‘Your daughter speaks very highly of you, sir.’ Sabine discreetly pinched his behind, making him flinch. Her father looked down at Felix’s proffered hand, then rolled his eyes and strode towards the door, sighing as he went. ‘By Sigmar, what have I done to deserve such a daughter? Just be ready to leave in the morning, Sabine. We must be in Lindeshof by noon.’ Felix stood swaying for a few moments. He glanced blearily around the taproom and saw that most of the others had already left. How long had the two of them been drinking? Where the hell had Gotrek gotten t– Sabine pulled him down onto the seat and planted a long, cloying kiss on his lips. He guessed that she had probably meant it to be passionate, though all he could focus on was the fact that the room suddenly appeared to be spinning. Oberwald ale, he thought. Stronger than it seems. She gazed at him for slightly longer than was comfortable, and then bit her lip coyly before dragging him back to his feet. ‘Come on, you,’ she said. ‘Come and try out some of your fine words on me.’ Gotrek clutched his cards tightly in his thick, stubby fingers, squinting at them in the candlelight. He ground his teeth and tried to remember what he had played on the previous hand. Numbers and suits blurred together in his mind, and he rubbed at his forehead in frustration. A gleek is three of kind, and the mournival four… They had already vied the ruff, whatever that meant, and he had lost a handful of crowns to the dealer because apparently they had turned over a ‘tiddy’ on the trump draw. Gotrek would have been happy to pass each round and watch the others play until he got a better handle on the rules, but as the all-too-helpful backseat gamblers sat nearby kept pointing out, there was no point in passing in the same round as the opening vie. ‘Well then, Mast’r Dwarf – it’s your bid,’ said the dealer, eyeing Gotrek over the top of his thin eyeglasses. ‘The sun’ll be up, ere we finish. And I don’t know about you two, but I’d rather spend my winnings and be bedded down afore dawn.’ He grinned and patted the small pile of coins on the table in front of him, a pile that Gotrek noted contained a fair contribution from his own pocket. The third player, a scrawny, bearded manling with fast eyes, twitched nervously and sipped from a small tin cup at his elbow before impatiently drumming his fingers on the edge of the table. Gotrek returned his attention to his cards. He could feel every pair of eyes in the room upon him, and in all honesty he had no idea what he was doing. He was familiar with most of the games played in taverns and inns across the Empire, but this one – Gleek? Gleich? – was new to him, and it seemed to be infuriatingly complicated. Felix was the one with a head for things like that: trivial, calculating affairs that were as much to do with posturing as they were to do with adding up numbers and such. Well then, he thought, may as well forget the rules and play the players instead. He sniffed productively, and slid all nine of his remaining crowns across the table, fixing the dealer with his one good eye. ‘It’s to you, then. I’m cleaned out.’ The bid was high, much higher than the ante. High enough, he hoped, to make them all think twice before proceeding. The man let out a short laugh, but withered under the dwarf’s iron glare after only a moment. His own gaze flickered to the other player, and then off to somewhere behind Gotrek. He shifted in his seat. Ran his fingers over the edges of his cards. Coughed once, then cleared his throat rather more affectedly. There it was. Gotrek narrowed his eye. The dealer had glanced back to the same point, just behind him. His demeanour then seemed to change noticeably. ‘In that case, Mast’r Dwarf,’ he grinned slyly, ‘I’m afraid that’s that. I’ll see your bid and let’s name those pairs, though I reckon you can’t beat this hand. With respect.’ Gotrek didn’t even wait for him to count out the coins. He simply laid his cards down and planted a meaty fist into the man’s nose. Bone cracked, and blood splattered onto the pile of gold. The man made a shocked sound – not quite a yelp and yet more than a gasp – as he sprawled backwards with the force of the blow, his boots whacking up into the underside of the table, sending the cards and coins flying as it flipped over. Before this had truly registered with the other patrons of the den, Gotrek whirled around from his stool and grabbed the nearest one by the collar of his rough tunic. There was a chance that it might not have been the dealer’s unseen card-reading accomplice, but that didn’t really matter – with a throaty, wordless shout, Gotrek heaved and laid him out cold with a solid headbutt. Pandemonium erupted. Other brawls broke out at the tables and shadowed booths where other games had been going on, and accusations of cheating were bandied back and forth between the punches. Although Oberwald was home to several dubiously regulated gambling dens such as this, the watch would only turn a blind eye for as long as the activity remained quiet, and a fracas which spilled onto the streets or got too out of hand would likely bring them running. Felix had been going on about keeping a low profile for weeks, since the recent unpleasantness that had forced the pair of them onto the road north; Gotrek knew that he should probably teach these cheating swine a lesson and recover his gold quickly, before heading off into the night. He shot his hand out to seize the third player from their game – the scrawny manling with the fast eyes – but his fingers closed on empty air. He turned his head to see that, indeed, the man was gone. His seat was empty. Gotrek’s confusion lasted only a single heartbeat before someone broke a cheap wooden cudgel over the back of his head. He let out another wordless roar and launched himself at the new assailant in a whirl of fists, tattoos and fiery orange hair. Off to his left, he saw a knife flash in the gloom and an agonised shriek cut through the din. As was to be expected in a room full of cut-throats, things had turned nasty very quickly. Already, many of the more savvy brawlers were scuttling for the low arched doorway which led back up to the street, leaving only a few bewildered out-of-towners and those locals who looked like they could afford to buy their way out of trouble regardless. With a renewed sense of urgency, Gotrek sent another manling reeling to the floor with a blow to the temple, and then rounded on the injured dealer who was still thrashing about on his back amidst the debris from their upended table. Clutching his shattered nose, the man was choking back blood and half-blind with pain, scrabbling about for his broken eyeglass frames. Gotrek noted that no one seemed to have come to his aid. He pulled the manling up by the front of his leather jerkin and, ignoring his pitiful protestations, gave him a gentle slap on the forehead to get his full attention. ‘So you want to cheat me, eh?’ he growled. ‘Want to steal my hard-earned gold, you misbegotten little thief?’ He hauled him up close and stared hard into his eyes. ‘You’re lucky – I’m supposed to be behaving myself tonight.’ He let his words sink in for a moment before dropping the weakly struggling man to the floor once more, and scooping up as many of the fallen gold pieces as he could stuff into his belt. It was more than he’d had when he entered the den, but he considered that to be the price this daft human would pay for a lesson in honesty. ‘You just watch yourself, thief,’ he continued, yanking his pack and bedroll from under the bench against the wall. ‘I may come back for another game.’ Chuckling to himself, Gotrek hopped up the stone steps to street level and into the first paling light of dawn. It was still a good few hours until sunrise, and there would be plenty of time yet to seek out Felix at the inn. A small group of stragglers from the gambling den darted away into the night as the unmistakable whistles of the watch echoed in the distance, and Gotrek ducked through the arch of a nearby building to avoid them all. Aye, a good few hours still. For the most part, the buildings in this part of town were in the half-timbered style, with high gabled roofs of grey and red shingles, and ornamental finials that spoke of a quiet, self-congratulatory smugness among the more permanent residents. It was shoddy human worksmanship, true enough, but it suggested that this was where the money was. If he could find another den, he might indeed have enough time to try his hand at a new game, and maybe win a few more crowns for the pot. It was the cold that Felix noticed first. He was shivering, and lying on damp cobblestones – they pressed painfully into his hip and shoulder, and his face felt bruised. He had slept rough under the stars plenty of times before, but something here was strangely amiss. Only when he attempted to pull his cloak tighter did the nausea hit him. Felix gagged. His head was pounding. He let out a long moan, full of all the remorse of the inebriate who cannot yet recall the night before but who knows that even merely in its telling it would most likely break him all over again. Rolling slowly and delicately onto his front, he tried to take deep, cleansing breaths of the chill morning air as the world spun unforgivingly around him. Who was making all that commotion? Blowing whistles and shouting, at this damned hour! Oh sweet, merciful Shallya! Deliver me from this wretchedness! He drew his knees up and buried his face in his hands, almost sobbing at the pain behind his eyes. His hair hung wet and sticky against his clammy forehead, and he had the taste of bile and rancid ale in his throat. He gagged again. Angry voices echoed in the alleyway around him. An alarming number of angry voices. Felix wanted to open his eyes, but he was certain that the effort would cause his brain to explode inside his skull. When he finally did open them, the outcome was far worse. Sabine lay before him on the cobblestones, in a wide pool of rain-watered blood. Her face was contorted, and her innards hung through a wide slash across her belly, which seemed to have almost cleaved her in two. Felix’s sword lay nearby. As the watchmen came for him, their pitiless hands yanking him up from the ground, he was suddenly, horribly aware that his own hands and face were also smeared with Sabine’s blood. He vomited copiously over the man who restrained his left arm, earning Felix a blow to the stomach that felled him instantly. Gasping and choking in the gutter, he saw that a horrified mob was being held back by the local watch commander at the entrance to the alley, and that they were crying out for vengeance. It’s the Ripper! They’ve caught the Ripper! Felix’s head hung at a maddening angle, and his vision swam. He needed time to think, just a few moments to– Gotrek. Felix caught sight of his dwarf companion’s grizzled face in the crowd, and his heart leapt. The Slayer was cowled in a dark hood, his single eye wide and his jaw set in a stern manner; most surprisingly to Felix, the dwarf’s expression was somewhere between anger and bitter disappointment. The sight was unnerving. They had been so careful, tried so hard to remain inconspicuous… Gotrek met his gaze, but said nothing. Solemnly he shook his head and slipped away into the baying throng. Felix cried out in horror and anguish. One of the watchmen gripped him by his bloody hair, and bashed his face into the pavement. As consciousness deserted him, away in the shadows Felix fancied he saw a lone figure: a skulking wraith of a man with piercing eyes. Watching. Gotrek stomped his way through the oncoming rabble; word was spreading fast, and in response more and more of the people of Oberwald were heading out onto the streets from their early morning duties. They were clearly agitated, although it seemed to be more fear than excitement that was gripping them. Stupid manling. Stupid, stupid manling. There had been a good deal of talk about a ‘ripper’ while they had been in the town, but Gotrek had simply assumed it was a harmless local legend or just another name that the humans had given to some wandering beast of Chaos. Who knows, he thought. It didn’t really matter now, anyway. Felix had been stupid. Careless. You don’t cavort with taproom floozies when the whole district is on edge and looking for a scapegoat. Always thinking with his tallywhacker, that one. Up ahead, a young lad in a grocer’s apron had hauled himself up onto the low roof of a stone outbuilding and was pointing down to the corner where the cobbled alleyway met the main thoroughfare. ‘He’s there! They’ve caught him! They’re going to string him up!’ Gotrek sagged at the words. Hysterical shouts echoed from the half-timbered frontages which lined the street, and some of the bolder citizens began to jostle and run towards the apparent spectacle. He noted with grim inevitability that some of them were armed – an assortment of hand tools, pitchforks and kitchen knives gripped in trembling, white-knuckled hands. There was a strange feeling in the air, an unusual dynamic to this crowd. This was not the usual lynch-mob, thirsty for blood; it was almost as if they were more afraid of this local terror now that they thought him cornered, more so than when he had supposedly stalked among them… Fear was unfamiliar to Gotrek, and even humans themselves were a puzzle at times. He cast his gaze about as the people hurried by. A watchman with a hand firmly on the hilt of his sword. A housemaid, her face streaked with tears. Two youths in fine clothing. A blacksmith with a forge hammer and a curiously haunted expression, followed by his gloved apprentice. The dwarf slowed, and turned back to see the burgeoning crowd at the mouth of the alley. Most of these people didn’t have vengeance on their minds, nor likely did they mean Felix any harm. Not directly, anyway. They simply couldn’t believe that their Ripper had been caught. They just had to see it with their own eyes, to witness him being dragged away in chains. They needed to finally banish the horror that had haunted them for so long, to restore their faith in the men who were supposedly employed to keep them safe at night. They needed to know that it was all over. Somewhere further up the street, someone – most likely one of the watch trying to maintain order – fired a pistol skywards. The report rang down the street, and unfortunately had quite the opposite effect on the crowd. Screams filled the air, and then panicked cries as the thoroughfare was suddenly turned into a stampede. ‘It’s the Ripper! The daemon is loose again! Run for your lives!’ Gotrek groaned and shouldered the blacksmith aside as the lumbering brute almost ran him down, but even the doughty Slayer couldn’t weather the press of frantic bodies that surged around him. Being sure to keep a tight grip on his pack and the familiar weight of his axe strapped beneath it, he allowed himself to be swept along with the crowd. Though he could barely think over the bleating and yammering and breathless prayers of the fleeing townspeople, Gotrek knew that he couldn’t just abandon his lanky companion to the hangman’s noose. First and foremost, young Felix had been locked up for a crime that – Gotrek hoped – he hadn’t committed. Secondly, if the watch held Felix for long enough, they might realise just who he actually was… and then, of course, they’d soon come looking for the mohawked Slayer too. There were plenty of things that the pair of them had done which would land them both in any gaol in the Empire, no question. Finally, Gotrek realised, since Felix wasn’t this notorious murderer that the people had figured him to be, it meant that someone – or something – else was. The Oberwald Ripper was still at large. Time passed for Felix in a roiling, nauseous haze. He was unsure where the throbbing pain of his injuries ended, and the dull ache of his hangover began. He found that he couldn’t turn his head without the sensation that he was whirling down some hellish chasm to an unspecified but particularly unpleasant end. It was like those things. You know. The dwarf machines. With the spinning blade things on top… He whimpered before retching onto the floor. Gyrocopters. That was it. It was like being attacked by gyrocopters every time he closed his eyes. Gyrocopters flying in a gale. With drunken pilots. The watchmen had taken his cloak, taken his mail shirt and his sword. They had even taken his boots and his belt and clapped him in rusty manacles and leg-irons, although it was a mystery as to what kind of escape they thought he might attempt in his current condition. Misery. He coughed and heaved again, and snorted out a clot of black blood. He lay curled on a bare wooden bench, his face towards a rough-hewn stone wall that was slick with moisture and covered in blooms of lichen. The sound of dripping water in the cell was constant, like the ticking of some bizarre timepiece. Faintly, he was aware of thunder rumbling in the distance, and when he managed to turn his head far enough, he saw rain beating down upon the sill of the small, barred window set high up in the wall. The only mercy that he felt was the cold draught that blew in through that opening. Though it might normally have wracked his body with chills, for now it was refreshing and he drew in long, deep breaths of it to steady himself before daring to move again. ‘You look unwell, friend.’ Felix started at the sound of the voice, started so hard that he almost fell off the bench and into the various puddles of his own making. His eyes slid in and out of focus as he peered into the shadows for the anonymous speaker, though the effort sent new jabs of pain lancing through his skull. His stomach tightened with the effort, but he managed to stifle another dry retch. ‘Who… who’s there?’ he managed at length, only to be met with a thin trickle of laughter. In the far corner of the gaol was an empty bench, and heaped against the wall was a bundle of rags and detritus. Where the floor dipped in the middle, a pool of silty water had collected from the dripping ceiling, and looked to be at least a few inches deep. The heavy wooden door to the cell was bound with great iron hinges and bolts, and a battered little tin bowl containing a few mouldy crusts lay beside it. But of the phantom speaker, there was no sign. Felix gripped the edge of his bench tightly and tried to muster the strength to rise, but footsteps and angry words echoed in the space outside the cell, and underneath the heavy door he saw the suggestion of candlelight moving beyond. With an iron rumble to rival the thunder outside, the bolts were pulled back and the door swung outwards to reveal several watchmen armed with spears, and the swarthy old watch commander in his brocaded coat, holding a lantern aloft. They entered cautiously, almost like a battlefield phalanx approaching him as they would a dragon or greater daemon, spears levelled. ‘This is him,’ spat the commander. ‘This is the cold-blooded bastard we found in the alley.’ He gestured at Felix, before spitefully kicking up a spray of the silty water in his direction. One of the spearmen jabbed at Felix, driving him from the bench and onto the filthy floor with a piteous cry. Felix covered his eyes against the light of the lantern, and tried to ward off the spears of his captors and plead his innocence, the chains of his heavy manacles trailing on the stone flags. ‘N-no, you’ve got the wrong man! I didn’t do anything…’ The closest spearman, a potato-faced thug with one milky eye, leered in closer. ‘Shut yer mouth, devil, or I’ll cut out yer filthy tongue!’ Recoiling into the corner, Felix tried to think quickly. It was clear that they thought him to be this fiendish Ripper who had apparently plagued the town for so long. Of course, he could hardly blame them – here was an unknown outsider who could not have given a good account of himself even if he had been telling the truth. The watch commander turned and spoke to someone standing in the passageway beyond the cell. ‘Is this the one, Herr Lieferen? Is this the man you saw?’ Felix almost didn’t dare to look. Dishevelled, grief-stricken, with his eyes reddened and his hands trembling, Sabine’s father stooped in through the doorway and let his gaze fall upon Felix. It was a mournful gaze stung with tears and rage. ‘That’s him, that’s the poet! He’s to blame!’ he shrieked, wiping his eyes with the cuff of his fine shirt. ‘He killed my Sabine!’ The watch commander laid a hand on the sobbing merchant’s shoulder, causing him to flinch slightly, and ushered him back into the passageway. ‘Thank you, mein herr. We’ll see to him from here. This Ripper’s a crafty one, eluded us for a long time. We even thought of calling on the Witch Hunters – there were many as said he weren’t a man, but a ghoul or a daemon, or a vampire…’ Felix’s heart missed a beat. The commander turned back and looked down at him with a sneer. ‘But he bleeds good enough, and I don’t see him flying up out of that little window any time soon. He’ll swing from the gallows before nightfall, you have my word.’ The watchmen began to back out of the cell, leaving Felix cowering and shivering in the corner. The commander swung his boot at the pile of rags near the far bench, eliciting a yelp of pain from it. ‘And you, how are you liking it in here? This must be a dream come true for you, eh? You simple-minded little pervert.’ To Felix’s surprise, the bundle unfurled into the form of a man – an emaciated, grimy vagrant in a tattered coat and cap. The man trembled and pawed beseechingly at the commander as he withdrew. ‘Please, your honour, I beg you,’ he bawled, ‘don’t leave me alone in here with him! He’s dangerous, he’ll kill me and take my soul for a plaything!’ He prostrated himself before the commander, splashing at the edge of the silty puddle and fawning over his grimy boots. ‘I saw him – when you were outside and couldn’t have known – he was licking the blood off his hands, and laughing! Oh, Sigmar preserve me, you can’t leave me in here with the Ripper!’ One of the other watchmen hauled him up by the scruff of his neck and sent him tumbling back into the corner. The commander blew out his lantern and reached for the ring of keys at his belt. ‘I ought to hang you alongside him. Be thankful you didn’t do nothing wrong, other than upset the common, decent folk.’ The heavy door slammed shut, and the bolts were racked back into place. The muffled sound of grim laughter and of spear hafts on the stone floor faded into the distance, leaving only Felix’s ragged breathing and the rainstorm outside the tiny window, and the endless drip-drip-drip of the vaulted ceiling. Felix blinked in the sudden darkness, trying to locate the vagrant again. The man had fallen curiously silent, in spite of his desperate outburst in front of the watchmen. With a sudden sharp intake of breath, Felix saw him. He was sat slightly closer than Felix had expected, calm and cross-legged on the edge of the pool which still rippled from his little display moments earlier. He seemed bigger, somehow rangier than before – Felix supposed this was because he had initially mistaken him for a pile of gaol-cell rubbish. In the gloom, he saw the man’s shoulders rise and fall in slow, measured breaths, but not a sound did he make compared to Felix’s own laboured gasps. Most unsettling of all were his eyes. His face was cloaked in shadow, but his beady little eyes peered out quite visibly. Unblinking. Felix pulled his manacled limbs up, edging back onto his bench in spite of his pounding head and the dizziness which threatened to pitch him to the floor without warning. The man’s eyes never left him all the while. ‘Well then, friend,’ came his cold voice once more. ‘This is quite a turn-up, is it not?’ A new sickness spread in Felix’s gut – it was not the ongoing legacy of his ale binge, nor was it at the prospect of his impending execution. It was not because Gotrek had abandoned him to the watch, nor because that poor girl lay dead or because he couldn’t even remember rightly how or when it had happened. This new sickness was at the thought of having to spend his last hours locked up with this sinister figure whose predatory gaze never faltered, and whose breath did not seem to fog in the cold air of their gaol. And no matter how sick Felix felt, he knew that he did not want to turn his back upon this monster for even a moment. As thick as thieves, so the saying went. It was true throughout all the cities of men, in the Empire and beyond; in Gotrek’s experience, criminals tended to prefer the company of their own kind. Professional assassins, hired thugs, rogues, smugglers and footpads – they were all cut from the same cloth, and whatever twisted code of honour they followed, you could always count on them to cover for their fellows. At least until their interests conflicted. And once you had a hold over one, you could find out more about another. Like this Ripper character, perhaps? The problem was that Gotrek was never sure where the trail began, in these sorts of situations. That had always been Felix’s strong suit. The dwarf himself just wasn’t cut out for sleuthing. Too much faffing around, like in those card games. That, of course, had given Gotrek his flash of inspiration. There was a criminal type that he knew he could lean on, without fear of reprisal from the watch or whatever limited seedy underworld there was in this backwoods burg. He cast a quick look about him, and then rapped hard on the door at the bottom of the stone steps just off the market square. Rain beat down upon his woollen hood. No response. He kicked the bottom of the door three times with his boot, rocking it in its frame. There came a scuffling from within, and the peephole set into the wood flipped open to reveal a bloodshot eye. After a moment, the eye settled on the diminutive Slayer, and widened in alarm. The peephole snapped shut again. ‘Go away!’ came a hoarse voice. ‘We’re closed, by order of the watch.’ Gotrek laughed pointedly. ‘Ha! I find that hard to believe.’ Hushed voices spoke quickly behind the door, followed by the faint creak of floorboards further in. ‘Believe what you like. You ain’t coming in. You just ’bout wrecked the place last night, with your shenanigans. New house policy – no dwarfs allowed.’ ‘You’ve not to worry, manling. I’m not looking for another game.’ Gotrek dropped his voice to a stage whisper as a market cart trundled past on the muddy street above, and opened his pack to reveal the blade of his axe. ‘Now you let me in, quick as you like, or I’ll smash this door to splinters and–’ His words were cut short by a crash in the alleyway at the side of the den, and he lumbered up the steps to block the obvious escape route. Sure enough, he found the bruised and battered dealer from the previous night, picking himself up from a heap of tumbled crates just outside the building’s side door. Gotrek barrelled into the man without hesitation, and with a fearsome growl he drew his axe from the pack and let his hood fall to reveal his flattened mohawk. The battered man whimpered and screeched, producing gold crowns and sundry trinkets from his pockets and thrusting them at the Slayer in desperation. ‘Be still, you fool,’ Gotrek hissed, all too aware that their scuffle might attract attention from the people on the street behind them. ‘I’m not interested in your money. Back inside.’ He pulled the door shut behind them, and knocked the man’s legs out from under him with the flat of his axe. Although they were in a backroom which smelled suspiciously bad anyway, Gotrek realised that the man had just pissed himself in fear. ‘You filthy little thief! Is this how you want to meet your death? On your knees, with soggy pantaloons. What kind of an end is that, eh?’ The man gabbled incoherently, and began to weep from his puffy black eyes. Gotrek made a theatrical show of lowering his weapon. ‘All right, all right. I’ll give you one last chance, thief. You can walk – or waddle – out of here alive, if you tell me more about this “Ripper” of yours.’ Sniffing and trembling uncontrollably, the man gingerly wiped his swollen nose and nodded frantically. ‘The R-Ripper, yes! They c-caught him this m-morning. The watch caught him.’ Gotrek leaned in, almost conspiratorially, and clucked his tongue. ‘See now, thief, I don’t think they did.’ The man frowned. ‘I don’t know w-what you mean,’ he said. ‘I think they got the wrong man, see? I mean, you tell me what you know about this Ripper. You ever seen him?’ ‘No sir, Mast’r Dwarf! F-few have. Fewer still who’ve lived long enough to–’ ‘Anyone you know?’ The man paused, still sobbing softly. ‘One fellow, maybe. He talked about the Ripper often enough. Talked about how his eyes blazed colder than a winter frost, and about how he could outrun the fastest horse on the forest roads, when he had a mind to.’ ‘Who told you this?’ Gotrek demanded. ‘I don’t know his name – he sometimes comes in to try his hand at the tables though. Thin fellow, always nervous. Wears a cloth cap.’ The scrawny manling with the fast eyes. ‘He was here last night, was he not?’ said Gotrek. ‘Aye, that he was, though he didn’t stick around long after the… trouble began, Mast’r Dwarf. With respect.’ Slippery fellow, thought Gotrek. Too fast for me, and that’s saying something. ‘So, thief, where would the watchmen have taken this Ripper they’ve caught?’ ‘Most likely to the gaol to await his execution, if any gaol will hold him. You know the town gibbet?’ ‘I saw it. In front of the gallows in the market square.’ ‘The cells are in the stone building at the eastern facing. You won’t miss them.’ Gotrek shouldered his axe, and tossed a grubby rag into the man’s face. ‘There you go, thief. Clean yourself up.’ Cautiously, Felix took a handful of water from the puddle and splashed it over his bare neck, never taking his eyes off the shadowy figure sat in front of him. ‘I know you,’ he said. ‘I saw you in the alleyway when the watch came.’ A spread of teeth emerged into a wicked grin in the gloom. ‘Indeed you did, friend, though I saw you and the girl a good while before that.’ Felix pointed at him in the most intimidatory manner he could. ‘For a start, you can stop calling me “friend”. You don’t even know me, and on balance I have to say that most of the people I call my friends don’t smell half as foul as you. Damned vagrant.’ The vagrant laughed his thin little laugh again. Felix ignored it. ‘Secondly, if you saw me there with Sabine then you know that I never touched her. I’m to be executed for something I didn’t do, and if you were half the “friend” you pretend to be, you’d tell that to the watchmen and clear my name.’ He sank back onto the bench, and waved dismissively. ‘But for whatever reason, you’ve decided to incriminate me further. I’m not sure what you hope to gain from that, but I’ll thank you to leave me alone. “Friend”.’ A tense moment passed between them, and Felix managed to match the vagrant’s unblinking stare. He noticed that the smile had vanished. ‘Ungrateful,’ the vagrant hissed. ‘What?’ ‘I’m giving you the gift of infamy. Your name will live on for generations – Max Schreiber, the legendary Ripper of Oberwald. You never even had to kill a single one of those… immoral citizens, and yet you will take all of the glory.’ ‘But how–’ ‘Oh, she did squirm so, your little lady. She was quite taken with you. Even after you passed out, I don’t think she even noticed me until I was already upon her.’ Felix’s stomach lurched. He tried to mask his horror. ‘And I must say, Herr Schreiber–’ the Ripper grinned again, ‘–your name is most apt for a poet. Is it a pen name, perchance?’ He chuckled, before snapping back to a humourless deadpan. ‘What, then, would your real name be, I wonder…’ Felix sprang to his feet, holding his manacled fists out before him, but the Ripper was lightning-fast and already stooped in a low crouch in the silty puddle. For what seemed an eternity, they stood facing one another in that dark gaol cell. ‘You stay away from me, do you hear?’ Felix gasped, his hair hanging limply in his bloodied face. He looked to the heavy door, and raised his voice. ‘Guard! Guard! He’s the Ripper! The filthy, stinking–’ Two heavy thuds on the wood. The milky-eyed watchman’s voice echoed in the passageway beyond. ‘Quiet in there, you murderin’ wretch.’ Now that he stood in the half-light from the small window, Felix could see the Ripper’s features more clearly: a gaunt, thin face with a straggly beard, cap pulled low over his brow. His gaze was just as intense as it had been, almost hypnotic, like that of an adder or viper. When he spoke again, his words sent chills down Felix’s spine. ‘Have you any idea how pitiful your gallows accusations will seem? How mad they will make you sound?’ ‘Do not speak to me of madness,’ Felix spat. ‘You’ve stalked this provincial little town for months, and for what? You are deluded if you think anyone outside of Oberwald will ever hear of your exploits.’ The Ripper started forwards suddenly, his hands outstretched like grasping claws, but he held back. Nonetheless, Felix flinched and stumbled in his leg-irons – his opponent had the advantage of complete mobility, and he clearly intended to make the most of it. ‘Months?’ the Ripper sneered, his eyes narrow. ‘Try years. And what makes you think Oberwald is the only town to have enjoyed my particular attentions?’ He gestured widely. ‘In my time, I travelled throughout the Empire and the Border Princes, and further still. You have the air of the traveller about you too, “Herr Schreiber”. I wonder if you have also seen the things that I have seen.’ Felix shrugged, hoping to stall him. ‘Pray tell, what would that be?’ ‘I have seen the worst in mankind. I have seen men rut like the beasts of the Drakwald, or wage war like the greenskins and dwarfs up in the mountains.’ He raised a hand, and closed it slowly into a fist. ‘But worst of all, I have seen the slow eradication of our innocence, even out here in the rural provinces. Take this town – no more than a crossroads between the local villages, and then later a market settlement. Traders, farmers; honest folk living by the toil of their own hand. ‘But then it grows. Money to be made, you see. The landowners and innkeepers creep in, start to make a killing by renting out their yards and frontages to the travelling vendors. How do you think these fine roads and buildings are maintained?’ The Ripper’s eyes had glazed somewhat, and he stared into the middle distance, no doubt imagining some apocalyptic end to his ranting monologue. ‘But the population is transient – market is only a few days each week, so they begin to specialise in their offer. Aside from food and lodging, the more wealthy visitor might even find himself with amenable female company for an evening… and suddenly there are whores and disease on every corner! ‘And all the while, there are still those who cannot afford even the most basic comforts. They are forced to huddle in the streets by night, bedding down in muddy straw bales or sleeping beneath their empty market wagons and shivering in the bitter wind. They die out there, while the rich continue to grow fat by their roaring hearths.’ Absently, he adjusted his coat against some dimly remembered chill. ‘It speaks of a base inequality. It is the soulless values of the big cities like Altdorf and Talabheim cast in microcosm. Without something to fear, without a beast at their door, men become greedy. I will give them all something to fear.’ Felix merely laughed. ‘I tell you what – you are mad.’ The Ripper’s eyes snapped back to him, fixing him with their cold, predatory glare once more. Still, he let Felix continue. ‘You say you’ve travelled the Old World, and yet you say that men have nothing to fear, out here in the provinces? You guess rightly – I’ve wandered these lands long enough to find nothing but bloodthirsty beasts and unspeakable horrors under every mountain and upon every plain.’ He pointed at the Ripper, who twitched nervously. ‘You’re not some saviour of men. You’re just a murderous lunatic.’ ‘Wrong,’ he replied in a heartbeat. ‘You’re the murderer, remember? You’ll swing from the gibbet before the day is out, and I’ll be set free.’ He laughed again. ‘I’m just the vagrant caught skulking at the scene of your latest murder. Aside from offending the sensibilities of the townsfolk with my morbid curiosity, I am apparently innocent.’ Felix could stand it no longer. He bellowed and lunged at the Ripper, but the sinister figure flashed out of his path and sent him careening into the opposite bench. As Felix fell, his leg-irons yanked free from their rusted mounting on the wall and the chains splashed loosely into the pool of silty water. The Ripper stood over him, partially silhouetted against the light from the window and yet with his pale eyes still noticeably visible beneath the brim of his cap. As Felix rolled onto his back and tried to stand, with a flick of the wrist his tormentor produced a long, serrated knife from beneath his coat. ‘Stay down, friend. You don’t want to taste this steel.’ Before Felix could formulate a suitably witty riposte, an unmistakable voice came down through the bars of the high window. ‘Manling? What’s going on in there?’ He let out an involuntary gasp of joy. The Ripper turned to look up at the tiny opening, but Felix yelled past him. ‘Gotrek? Gotrek! It’s the Ripper! He’s in here with me!’ As Felix began to tug the rusted remains of the leg-irons from his ankles, the Ripper looked slowly back towards him, confusion clear in his eyes. ‘Gotrek… the dwarfen Slayer…?’ he whispered. Finally free, Felix leapt back to his feet, though his wrists were still manacled. The Ripper drew back into a vicious stance, his knife held out between them. ‘Felix Jaeger.’ Famous for all the wrong reasons, Felix lamented. He wound the chains of his manacles around his fists in readiness for combat. Much to his surprise, the Ripper lunged for the heavy wooden door and began to beat upon it with the hilt of his knife. ‘Guard, raise the alarm! Send for the State Troops! He’s a wanted man!’ In an effort to silence him, Felix dived onto his back and the two of them crashed to the slick stone floor. With the wind knocked from his lungs, Felix couldn’t quite summon the strength to force his manacles over the Ripper’s head and around his neck, and so he grasped at his throat instead. The flesh felt clammy and cold. Letting his cap fall to the floor, the Ripper threw Felix aside as though he were a child, and stabbed down cruelly with his knife. The blade sliced through Felix’s sodden undershirt and grazed his ribs. Felix let out a cry of pain, and punched the Ripper squarely in the jaw with a chain-wrapped fist. The blow knocked the fiend insensible, and the knife skittered from his grasp and into the murky puddle, out of sight. Felix hauled him up by the front of his coat, and sent him crashing into the nearest bench. The frame gave way and shattered into damp kindling, but the Ripper was on his feet before Felix could recover. His eyes burned pale in the gloom as he grabbed Felix by the hair and plunged him face-first into the pool. Felix gasped a lungful of the cold, brackish water, but his already bruised forehead struck the submerged flagstones and knocked the fight clean out of him. Icy hands on the back of his neck ground his face into the gritty stone, pinning his manacled arms beneath him. He tasted his own blood, fresh in the water. Darkness began to creep in at the edges of his vision. He felt his heartbeat slowing, in the cold clutches of death. Somewhere in the distance he heard the whistles of the watchmen… Too late. The Ripper had him now. It was a strangely calming realisation. Soon, he thought. It will all be over soon. Deep cold, like the bleakest Kislev winter. From out of the shadows of a thousand haunted nights, he recalled her face. She was beckoning Felix into the embrace of whatever lay beyond this life, and he longed to go to her… A pinprick of pain pierced the numbness of his hands in the water. His fingers closed around a blade. Not yet. Not dead yet. With every last ounce of strength he could summon, he kicked and pushed himself clear of the pool, and rolled around with the knife thrust out in both hands. The Ripper gasped as Felix plunged it between his ribs, into his heart. Felix choked and spluttered and heaved the silty water from his lungs, even as the Ripper convulsed and fell forwards on top of him. The dead weight pinned Felix on his back in the puddle with the spreading warmth of his foe’s lifeblood soaking into his shirt, and he let his head sink to the stone flags in exhaustion. Seconds later, the door to the cell burst inwards, torn from its hinges by the lifeless body of the milky-eyed watchman. Gotrek appeared in the vacant doorway, his tattooed muscles rippling as he dusted off his hands. ‘Oh, by my ancestors, manling,’ he barked. ‘You look terrible. Let’s get out of here.’ As they fled towards the low stone walls which marked the edge of Oberwald and the beginnings of the pine-wooded wilderness beyond, Gotrek steadied Felix as he wheezed and limped through the mud. In the fading light of early evening, the town’s alarum bell was ringing, although exactly whom the terrified citizens hoped to summon was a mystery. ‘You know… what they’ll say… don’t you?’ Felix panted, refastening his sword belt. ‘They’ll tell their grandchildren… that the Ripper… escaped from the gallows.’ Gotrek frowned. The Oberwald Ripper – a folk-devil in the making, Felix thought. He hoped against hope that his old friend Max Schreiber, the real Max Schreiber, would never stray this far into the provinces, or at least that he would have the good sense not to go by that particular name. ‘So what was he?’ Gotrek asked. ‘Chaos cultist? A sorcerer collecting souls for his daemon-magic?’ Felix laughed. They clambered over a fence and into a field of dead grass. ‘What’s funny?’ said the dwarf. ‘Was he a degenerate mutant, then? A beastman sympathiser? No, wait – a druchii agent, masquerading as a human!’ ‘No, sadly not,’ replied Felix, shaking his head. ‘I’m sorry to disappoint you, but it seems that he was just a man.’ ‘But what about all this stuff he’s supposed to have done? He can jump forty feet over a house, and shoot lightning from his fingertips, from what I heard…’ Felix thought of Sabine for a moment. Poor, poor Sabine. ‘People need monsters,’ he shrugged, ‘and even when they’re lucky enough not to have any, they create their own... or they become them.’ Gotrek sneered. ‘Ha! Your kind are a strange bunch, manling.’