Virtue's Reward
Darius Hinks


	'In the city of his sisters he will return to us on wings of fire.'


	- The Cantos of Maccadamnus. Verse CXXVI


	'What was that?' said Frederick with a sniff, plucking a thick clot of blood from his nose.
	'What?'
	'I thought I heard something.'
	He leant unsteadily on the shattered doorframe, still weak from the fight, and looked up and down the street. Like most of the city, it had seen better days. The colourful stalls of Hauptmarkt Strasse's famous market were long gone. All that remained were a few pitiful-looking shreds of awning hanging from the blackened timbers.
	'I can't hear nuthin',' Otto replied from within, straining and huffing as he tried to shift the corpse.
	'Leave that for a minute, you idiot. I heard something.' He squinted, trying to see through the perpetual gloom, but his head was still spinning from the blow that had shattered his nasal bone and the darkness seemed sickeningly animated. 'Sigmar,' he muttered under his breath, 'Who am I kidding? If there is anything out there, I'd rather not know.' He lowered his lantern with a shudder. 'Probably nothing,' he called out, but the tremor in his voice betrayed him and, as he stepped back into the theatre, Otto eyed him suspiciously.
	The impressive bulk of the creature still lay sprawled across the stage with a stream of blood flowing slowly from its monstrous head.
	'Haven't you moved it yet?'
	'Maybe if you helped,' gasped Otto as he attempted to turn the body over with a broken rafter.
	Frederick ignored the request and shook his head slowly. 'Have you looked at the thing? Where else could spawn such a horror? Is it man... or beast?' He knelt to examine it closer. The massive, pockmarked body was vaguely human in shape, but the grotesque head was almost completely bovine. Gnarled horns twisted from beneath its matted scalp and where its feet should have been there were two huge, battered hooves. Frederick studied the body for a few moments in silence, then laughed suddenly, kicking a lifeless arm that jutted out from beneath it. 'Reinhard may have been a worthless layabout, but I've got to give him credit where it's due. I thought we'd met our match, but he showed it. That blow to the head must have killed it. What a catch!'
	Otto turned and grasped him roughly by his jacket, his eyes feverish. 'If we don't go soon we'll be the catch.' He looked around at the ruined theatre. Rows of charred stalls and boxes reared up all around them, reaching out of the darkness like claws towards the vaulted ceiling of the amphitheatre. The heat of the cataclysm had warped the furniture into a tableau of sinister shapes and Otto had the unnerving feeling that not all of the seats were empty. 'We need to take what we came for and get out of here, before...' he paused to scratch nervously at his scalp, 'well, before anything happens.'
	'All right, all right,' Frederick replied in a soothing voice, patting Otto gently on the shoulder, 'let's shift this brute then.' They grasped the monster by its broad shoulders. 'On the count of three: one, two, three.' There was an exhalation of stale breath as they rolled the beast off the flattened remains of their former partner. 
	'That,' said Frederick, stooping down beside the creature's face, 'is beautiful.'
	Otto knelt down beside him with a sigh of pleasure and clapped his hands together like a child.
	Hanging around the thing's neck was a stone - about the size of a plum, and glowing faintly with an inner fire. Frederick's eyes widened as he stretched a trembling hand out towards it. 'After weeks of crawling around this stinking nightmare of a city, we finally have it. A piece of weirdstone. Can you believe it Otto?' Then his hand froze, and his voice dropped to a whisper. 'You must have heard it that time,' he said, looking back towards the door.
	Otto didn't reply, but nodded his head slowly, and as he followed Frederick out onto the street the colour was draining from his face.
	'There,' Frederick said with a note of panic in his voice, 'what's that?' As they watched with growing horror, a shadow across the street elongated, split into three and moved slowly towards them.
	They readied their weapons and Otto stepped nervously back towards the theatre. 'What is it?'
	As the shadows moved nearer, they gradually solidified until the men saw that they were actually three hooded women - draped with chains and spikes - but women nonetheless. 'Thank Sigmar,' said Frederick, exhaling with relief and lowering his sword. He began to laugh. 'Now what have we found?'
	'Absolution,' replied the woman nearest to him, and slammed a two-handed warhammer into his face.
	Frederick's head snapped backwards with a click, and he dropped heavily to the ground.
	Otto stood, frozen with shook, then howled with pain as a steel whip licked across his face. His eyes ran down his cheeks like tears and an agonising blackness engulfed him.
	'I'll pray for you,' said a soft voice in his ear, as a quick blade at his throat finally released him from the City of the Damned.
	'Gutless worms,' said novice sister Wolff, spitting on one of the dead mercenaries. 'I won't pray for them.'
	Von Stahl looked over at the young girl. Beneath her hood, her pale aristocratic features could just be seen, and as she rifled through the corpse's pockets her face was twisted in a sneer of disdain.
	'They barely seem worth the effort,' - Wolff gave up her search with a sigh - 'and they don't have so much as a speck of weirdstone on them.'
	'You didn't seem to think them so gutless a minute ago,' said von Stahl quietly.
	'What do you mean by that?' replied Wolff.
	The third woman - novice sister Elsbeth Faust - stifled a laugh.
	'Well, you seemed happy for me and Elsbeth to waste our energies on them, but I couldn't seem to spot you when the fighting started.'
	'Fight? I'd hardly call that a fight.' Wolff's eyes were wide with emotion as she stepped towards von Stahl. 'If you want to waste yourself on such worthless prey as this' - she spat on the corpses again - 'then go ahead, but I haven't forgotten why we're here. There is the small matter of a trial to be considered.' Her face was now almost purple. 'Anyway, how dare you accuse me of cowardice? Remember your place, wastrel.'
	Von Stahl winced at the nickname. Few dared to use it since she'd reached adulthood, but it still had the power to hurt. 'I'm not accusing you,' she snapped, wiping the mercenary's teeth from her warhammer, 'and I haven't forgotten the trial. Didn't you listen to their conversation? They've found something' - she gestured over towards the ruined grandeur of the theatre - 'over in the Magdeburg Playhouse.'
	Stepping into the theatre was like stepping into a fractured mirror of the past. Broken marionettes lay scattered across the stage and faded, peeling faces smiled sadly down from the shattered balconies.
	'I came here as a child,' said Elsbeth as they picked their way through the wreckage, 'to hear Giotto Vasari. It was beautiful. I remember-'
	Von Stahl silenced her with a wave of the hand. They carried no torches and the darkness was almost complete, but she thought she could see movement on the stage. As they crept silently through the shadows, each taking a different path through the stalls, von Stahl noticed Wolff nervously lagging behind again and frowned. Is she ready for this, she wondered?
	The dusty boards creaked loudly as they stepped out onto the stage, and von Stahl winced at the noise. Then she stooped to examine something. Sprawled before the broken footlights lay the corpse of a man. 'Look,' she said, 'he seems to have been crushed somehow.' Wolff and Faust crouched next to her. 'It's as though a great weight has fallen on him.' She prodded his chest with a grimace. 'His bones have been completely destroyed.' 
	'It's another Marienburger,' whispered Wolff, noting the man's flamboyant outfit. 'More gold than sense, the lot of 'em.'
	Von Stahl raised her eyebrows.
	'What?' replied Wolff, raising her voice a little and blushing again, 'a blood-tie to Lady Magritte doesn't lower me to the level of these dandies.'
	Von Stahl ignored the petulant tone in her voice, and simply put a finger to her mouth. 'Look,' she whispered and gestured to the area of stage next to the body. 'Something was there. The dust has been disturbed. And all that blood didn't come from our friend here.'
	With a growing sense of unease they rose to their feet - as they all saw a trail of blood that led towards the back of the stage. Wolff tightened her gromril armour and stepped closer to Elsbeth.
	'What did the dandies find, I wonder?' said von Stahl, throwing back her hood and straining to see through the dark.
	Wolff's voice sounded uneven as she pointed towards the curtains. 'Is that... what is that?' In front of the tattered velvet, there was an area of darkness even more intense than the surrounding gloom - a tower of shadow that seemed too solid to be a mere play of the light. For a few seconds no one spoke, as they tried to discern the outline of the large shape.
	Slowly, as her eyes grew accustomed to the pitch dark, von Stahl made out a monstrous face, glowering down at them. 'Sigmar preserve us, it's-'
	Before she could finish, the stage exploded as a huge beast stepped forward and ripped the floorboards from beneath their feet - hurling the three novices in different directions and sending von Stahl's hammer flying from her fingers.
	Von Stahl landed heavily in the pit, momentarily winded and powerless as the creature lunged towards her. It was fifteen feet tall, covered with matted greasy fur and bore a look of such malevolence that she found it impossible to meet its blazing red eyes.
	'Wolff,' she gasped, 'wait,' but the terrified girl didn't even look back as she fled from the building. Von Stahl's heart sank as she realised that she and Elsbeth would have to face the creature alone. She rolled to one side as a hoof the size of a small cart crashed down beside her.
	Still incapable of breathing, she staggered away through the tiered stalls, trying to gain herself a few seconds to catch her breath.
	To her surprise, the beast didn't follow, but instead gave out a deafening roar of frustration and grasped desperately at its throat. Elsbeth had climbed up the shreds of curtain and leapt down onto its back, from where she was now proceeding to throttle it with her steel whip.
	As the monster careered back and forth, howling with rage at its inability to free itself from Elsbeth's grip, von Stahl searched desperately amongst the seats for her hammer. It was nowhere to be found and as Elsbeth's cries for assistance grew more desperate, she realised she would have to find another weapon. She grabbed an ornamental sword from the wall and tested its blade. She cursed - it was nothing but a rusty prop.
	'Blessed Sigmar, help,' cried Elsbeth as the maddened beast span around the theatre, smashing furiously against the already unstable walls.
	Von Stahl had no choice. She could hear the frame of the building groaning each time the beast slammed against it - the whole structure sounded like it was about to come down. Clutching the blunt weapon she rushed to help.
	By the time she reached it, the creature was in such a frenzy of rage and asphyxiation that she was afraid she wouldn't be able to get its attention. Its bestial face had taken on a deep purple hue as Elsbeth's whip bit deeply into its thick neck. A mixture of spittle and blood ran freely from its gaping jaws. After being repeatedly slammed against the walls of the theatre, Elsbeth looked like a broken doll hanging from beneath the beast's filthy mane.
	Von Stahl cried out to the monster from across the stage, waving her pitiful weapon defiantly at it. It whirled around and rooted her to the spot with a withering stare. With a bellow of rage, it threw its massive frame towards her and von Stahl screamed back in defiance and terror.
	As she had hoped, it never reached her. In its anger, it overlooked the hole it had torn through the floorboards and crashed through the stage - skewering itself on the jagged planks with a thunderous howl.
	An even greater fury now consumed it. It had sunk waist-deep into the floor and one of the planks was deeply embedded beneath its ribs, pinning it to the spot. However much it howled and thrashed about it couldn't free itself, and every twist increased the flow of blood from its torso.
	Von Stahl dropped weakly to her knees and watched the monster's fury as it gradually ripped itself to pieces on the jagged planks. Soon, the whole stage was slick with blood and with each lunge its struggles grew weaker. Finally, with a gurgled bark of rage, it fell forward onto its chin and lay still.
	Silence descended on the theatre, and for a few moments von Stahl lay motionless on the stage, her eyes closed. Then she sat bolt upright. 'Elsbeth,' she said in a hoarse voice. 'Are you there?'
	'I think so,' came a weak reply from out of the darkness, 'although maybe not for much longer.'
	Von Stahl climbed to her feet, and trod carefully up to the dead creature. Its chest was still, but just to be sure she took her blunt blade, and with all her strength, thrust it deep into the thing's throat. 'Nothing,' she whispered. 'Dead.' Only then, as she was about to walk away, did she notice the stone around its neck. 'Oh, Sigmar. Weirdstone... and the size of my fist.'
	A weak cough reminded her of Elsbeth.
	'We've done it,' she cried, rushing to her fellow novice. 'We've got a piece of the stone. One of us at least has passed the trial.'
	'Not me,' said Elsbeth, grinning through bloody teeth. 'I think this is my last performance.'
	Von Stahl saw with a jolt that the girl was dying. Her face was almost white from blood-loss, and her body was as twisted and broken as the marionettes that lay around her.
	'Elsbeth,' said von Stahl, taking her hand. She tried to think of something to say but the words caught in her throat, and she simply hung her head.
	'You have a piece of the stone,' said Elsbeth, after a few moments, trying to smile through the pain. 'You've passed the test - they'll let you back into the abbey, and you'll be ordained as a fully-fledged sister. This is a good day, Virtue. You'll be a novice no more.'
	For a few moments von Stahl was unable to speak. Her fellow sisters were her only family and to watch Elsbeth slipping away before her eyes was almost more than she could bear. 'I can't return without Wolff,' she said eventually, hardly aware of what she was saying but desperate to break the awful silence. 'I must try and find her. Maybe together we can find a second shard and both pass the trial.'
	Elsbeth grabbed von Stahl firmly by the arms and pulled her close. 'Leave her,' she hissed. 'She's no good! Take the stone and return without her.'
	'I can't.'
	'You must!' Elsbeth groaned and dropped back to the floor. 'She should never have been inducted into the order. Matriarch Ebner was just too scared to offend Lady Magritte, otherwise Wolff wouldn't even be a novice.'
	'But I can't just desert her. I can't just leave her out here - alone in the city.'
	'Take the stone back to the abbey and leave her to her fate. It's all she deserves. Don't die a novice like me just to save her worthless hide.'
	'But what of my vows - how can I just desert a fellow sister? I know what she is, but she's still a member of our order. I can't just-'
	'She betrayed us! If she had stayed to fight-' Elsbeth's voice caught with emotion. 'Well... who knows, but she's not worth a single drop of your blood.' She dug her fingers deep into von Stahl's arm. 'Promise me you won't go after her.'
	Von Stahl shook her head sadly, but could think of nothing else to say and a short while later, Elsbeth passed away. She prepared the body according to the rituals of her order and laid it out on a makeshift pyre of scenery and curtains. As flames lit up the stage of the Magdeburg Playhouse for the last time, she snapped the stone from around the creature's neck and dropped it carefully into a small pouch around her own neck. Then, with a final bow to the blazing pyre, she took Elsbeth's whip and slipped out into the darkness.
	Novice sister Wolff grimaced as she crept along the crumbling rooftops. However much she tried, it was impossible to ignore the thick, slightly sweet smell of death. She pulled her hood tighter around her face in an attempt to block out the stench, but Mordheim's acrid stink had a way of seeping into your skin. She paused, sensing movement in the streets below, and crouched low on the shattered lintel of a long gone window to listen. She picked out a sound, so faint that she thought she had imagined it, but gradually growing louder. It was a kind of undulating wail, drifting up towards her. Music maybe, she thought, or was it screaming? As the minutes passed, she realised that it wasn't one sound but many, emanating from several different directions. With growing horror, she realised that a symphony of howls and moans was floating towards her out of the dark. She shifted her position slightly and, using her steel whip as leverage, she leant out from the ruined window frame to peer down into the streets below. 
	The sight that greeted her turned her stomach. As a novice she had ventured into the city before, but only in the company of a matriarch, and never far from the safety of the sisters' fortress abbey. Until now, she had largely been spared the full horror of Mordheim's inhabitants, but here they were in all their awful glory. A tightly-packed crowd was shuffling towards her and to Wolff's amazement it seemed to be some kind of grotesque carnival. The light of hundreds of torches punctuated the narrow, winding streets, and a cacophony of drums, bells and whistles echoed discordantly across the plazas and gardens. 'What are they?' she whispered as her pulse quickened with fear. The figures marching towards her were torn from a lunatic's worst nightmare: she saw men whose faces were in their bellies; men with the bodies of animals; women with serpents for limbs; people whose pulsating viscera lay outside their skins; every possible perversion and permutation of human flesh was crawling and sliding slowly towards her. 'Blessed Sigmar, save me,' she said, feeling hot tears forming in her eyes. 'Save me from the damned.'
	She climbed back through the broken window into the remains of a small chapel. 'What am I to do?' she said, collapsing to the floor and curling into a foetal position. 'How can I pass the trial now? Without a piece of weirdstone I can never become a sister,' - a sickening thrill of adrenaline rushed through her - 'and I can never return to the abbey.' Great sobs began to shake her body. 'Oh, why did von Stahl have to take us into that cursed theatre? She has killed me. She has killed us all.' 
	She might have lain there, weeping quietly, until the horde of lost souls finally discovered her, but to her dismay she realised that the approaching crowd was not her only problem. Sounds were coming from just below her, within the chapel.
	She pressed her ear to the floor to listen. A pompous heavily-accented voice was talking: '-to the west?' it said. 'What do you expect to find that way? The rat-things came from the quayside, you oaf. Are you really so keen to be more intimately acquainted with them?'
	'We need to go somewhere,' replied another voice. 'If we reach the river we might find a merchant's barge and head south - past the sisters' rock and out through the South Gate.'
	'Ah, that delightful waterway, the Stir. What a haven of peace and tranquillity that will be. Maybe we could stop for lunch somewhere - perhaps with that wonderfully fragrant family we met in the cemetery, or those quaint creatures we discovered in the Executioner's Square. Remember, the ones who seemed so interested in our stone?'
	At the word 'stone', Wolff's eyes widened.
	'Listen,' cried the increasingly desperate voice. 'That mob will be here any minute.' Wollf realised that he was right, the hideous chorus was growing louder. It could only be a few streets away. 'If we don't move now, we're dead anyway. What choice do we have?'
	A note of resignation now filled the first voice. 'What possessed me to follow you into this festering pit of a city?' 
	'But it was your idea, sire. I was just-'
	There was a loud crack, followed by a whimper of pain. 'Now,' said the pompous voice, 'take me to this blessed river, and kindly refrain from speaking. If I could have even a few moments' respite from your whinging, I might even survive this absurd expedition.' 
	Wolff heard the sound of equipment being hastily packed and felt a sudden panic. Using all the skills she had developed during her training, she crawled silently across the chapel's dusty attic and peered carefully down through a hole in the floorboards.
	Fortunately, the men had their backs to her. In fact, they were already climbing out through a crumbling window and down onto the street. As she watched them, Wolff could easily identify which figure belonged to which voice. One was a tall, distinguished-looking foreigner, wearing a suit of polished plate armour, a brightly-plumed helmet and a shield bearing a colourful chalice motif. How has he survived more than a day, she thought incredulously, in such a gaudy and noisy outfit?
	The other figure seemed little more than a human carthorse. He was squat, ugly, dressed in filthy rags, and laden with dozens of bags and weapons - including, she noted with bemusement, a jousting lance.
	As the men dropped from sight, Wolff lowered herself cautiously down into the room they had just vacated. She rushed to the broken window just in time to see the gaily-plumed knight and his servant disappear up an alleyway. She hopped out onto the street, and sped after them. That feathered ponce can't survive much longer dressed like that, she thought, and the fat one wouldn't put up much of a fight. If there was some way of separating the two, it would be a simple task to get the stone from the servant.
	Images of a triumphant return to the abbey suddenly filled Wolff's thoughts. Then the sound of the approaching mob interrupted her thoughts and, with a nervous glance over her shoulder, she picked up her pace.
	Virtue sped through the dark narrow streets, all sense of caution abandoned as she raced across the gloomy squares and scrambled noisily over the crumbling ruins. The novice did not go unnoticed. As she passed beneath the crooked townhouses, indistinct figures peered down at her through filthy windows, while others shuffled awkwardly from doorways in slow pursuit.
	'Where are you, girl?' she gasped, finally coming to a stop outside a large fenced garden. Her training had led her this far - a footprint here and a piece of robe there had been enough to signpost Wolff's route, but now she was at a loss. 'Where are you heading?' Shaking her head in frustration she began to clamber up the warped, rusted iron of the garden fence, in the hope a better vantage point might give her some clues.
	She tried to clear her thoughts and imagine what her fellow novice might do. The girl's flight from the theatre had confirmed her cowardice: Elsbeth's accusations had all been true. So what would she do now? She'll head back to the monastery, decided Virtue, but which way? With a final heave, she swung her leg over the top of the fence and looked out across the wretched pall of the city. 'Why has she been heading west?' she asked, as though the ruins themselves might reply. 'Why head further into the merchants' quart...' She laughed grimly. Mordheim looked more shadow than fact, more like a ghost of a city than real bricks and mortar, but deep in the heart of its dark twisted spires and fallen masonry, she glimpsed light: the dull flickering of water, snaking south, back towards the Rock. Back towards home. 'Of course,' she breathed. 'She's headed for the Stir.'
	The clanking of the knight's armour was almost as loud as his booming voice, and it was all too easy to follow the pair through the dark side streets of the merchants' quarter. In just a matter of minutes they had reached the river's edge. 'Ah, here we are... the Stir,' exclaimed the knight, picking his way carefully through the rubble. 'How picturesque.' 
	From her vantage point on the roof of an old tavern, Wolff could see the two men as they stepped out onto the quayside. The broad river that lay before them had once teemed with barges, laden with exotic goods from across the Old World, but now it was a pitiful sight. Most of the wharves had crumbled into the ink-black water, and the warehouses and taverns that lined the water's edge were all empty and dark - shadowy reminders of the city's former glory. Everything she knew about this foul expanse told her that it was not a place to loiter, and she fidgeted nervously as the knight stamped noisily up and down a wharf, complaining loudly to his servant. 
	'Fools,' she hissed, 'don't bring every fiend in the city down on your heads.' As she crept cautiously towards them however, Wolff realised she wasn't exactly sure what she did want them to do. Wasn't she hoping that they would call attention to themselves? If not, how could she get her hands on their stone? Did she dare to face them in open combat? For all his ridiculous posturing, she had a suspicion that the knight would be a fierce opponent. 'Curse you, von Stahl, for putting me in this position', she whispered. Still, at least she was alive - it seemed unlikely that her companions could have escaped from that horror in the Magdeburg Playhouse. 
	As these thoughts played through her head, she barely noticed that she had crept silently out onto the shadowy wharf, and was now only a few feet away from the two men. She stopped with a start, just short of the light of the servant's lamp. 
	'I think we could climb down to the boat,' she heard him say as he leant out over the water. 'There are still a few steps left intact.' 
	The knight dealt his servant a sharp clip to the ear that almost knocked him into the water. 'You think I'm crawling down there like some kind of navvy?' He hammered his fist noisily against the metal of his delicately engraved breastplate. 'This is no bathing suit, Diderot. If I fall into that filth I'll be picking trout out of my teeth for all eternity. Or whatever monster passes for trout in this city.'
	'But, sire, I'll help you down. It's only a few steps and I'll-'
	The knight dealt him another stinging blow to the ear. 'Stop speaking!' 
	The servant looked at his feet and waited in silence as the knight glowered down at his bald pate. 
	'Good,' said the knight after a few moments. 'Now let's get down into this dingy. Take my hand, oaf.'
	The servant leapt to obey, and carefully began to lower the heavily-armoured knight off the edge of the rickety pier. 
	A broad smile spread across Wolff's face as she saw her chance. Drawing a knife from within her robes, she stepped calmly towards the two struggling men. 
	'What are you doing?' cried the knight as his servant suddenly loosed his hand and sent him plummeting towards the water. Diderot's only reply was a dark bubble of blood that rose from his mouth as he fell backwards onto the wharf. 
	'Confound it all,' said the knight as he crashed through the surface of the Stir and sank like a stone towards the riverbed.
	Diderot thrashed around on the rotten wood of the pier, trying to free Wolff's knife from his back. 'Witch,' he gasped, glaring up at her. 'You don't know what you've done! That was Ambrose of Mousillion!' To her amazement he began to crawl towards the edge of the pier, with the blade still embedded in his back. 'He'll be drowned. We must save him!' 
	'Why do you care?' she asked, laughing, 'I've just freed you from a tyrant, and you're cursing me. You should thank me.' She stooped down and yanked her knife from between his shoulder blades. He grew rigid with pain, and then flopped weakly onto the pier. 'Don't die,' she hissed, flipping him over onto his back. 'Tell me where the stone is.'
	The man's eyes were already glazing over, but he managed to focus on her for a second. 'Stone?' he gurgled through a blood-filled mouth. 'What stone?'
	'Don't play the fool. I've been following you. I know you have a stone - the one you almost lost in the Executioner's Square, remember?'
	Recognition crossed his anguished face. 'Oh,' he muttered, 'that's what you want.' 
	'Yes, you moron, give me the stone!'
	The man shook his head defiantly at her for a few seconds, then made a pitiful attempt to throw one of his bags off the pier. It landed just a couple of feet away and Wolff laughed again. She turned away from the dying man and picked it up. As Diderot continued to curse her, she plucked a stone from out of his bag. 'I've done it,' she said, holding up Diderot's lamp to examine her prize closer, 'I've got a piece of...' - she grimaced - 'what's this?' In the light of the lamp, she saw that the stone was a beautiful blood-red ruby. 'What's this?' she exclaimed again, grabbing the servant by his filthy jerkin, but he was dead and the face she was screaming into was already growing cold. She threw him back to the floor with a howl of frustration. 
	'Move, you idiot,' hissed von Stahl as she crept towards the water's edge. 'Don't just stand there, out in the open.'
	She had begun to think her skills as a tracker had led her astray, but there was no mistaking the figure on the pier - it was Wolff. The young novice could clearly be seen ranting and shouting at a corpse. Von Stahl grimaced. With every cry and petulant stamp of the foot, Wolff was drawing unwanted attention to herself. The girl was obviously so consumed by rage that she hadn't noticed the vague, sinister shapes congregating at the foot of the pier.
	'Sweet Sigmar, what are they?' whispered von Stahl as she slipped carefully out from a doorway. It was hard to see clearly in the dark, but whatever the creatures were, they had a lank, unwholesome appearance that chilled her blood. She remembered Elsbeth's last words and paused. Should I just leave? she wondered as she watched the figures crawl towards Wolff. No one would know, she thought, clutching the stone around her neck. I could just leave her and take the weirdstone back to the abbey. Relief washed over her as she turned and began to jog back towards the burnt-out warehouses. She betrayed me first, she thought, so why should I die for her?
	A hideous scream echoed out across the river and brought her to a halt. She looked back to see that the creatures had now stepped out onto the pier and were forming a loose circle around Wolff, who, having finally seen them, was wailing with terror. Von Stahl made the sign of the hammer. She saw now that they were ratmen: foul oversized rodents, dripping with river slime and wielding long, jagged blades. As she looked on in horror, the largest stepped forward and clubbed the screaming Wolff to the ground with the back of his hand. Von Stahl gasped with revulsion as the creatures crowded hungrily around her fellow novice. With a rush of indignation, she realised that she couldn't leave anyone to such an awful fate. She began to run back towards the pier.
	As she ran she called out to the ratmen, trying to gain Wolff a few seconds to escape. As one, they span towards her with their long yellow teeth bared. Their greasy snouts twitched as they sniffed new blood and several began skulking towards her. 
	Wolff had regained her senses though, and while their backs were turned, she smashed Diderot's lamp over the largest of the creatures and then leapt over the edge of the pier. 
	The lamp's oil exploded spectacularly over the rodent's greasy fur and by the time von Stahl had reached the foot of the pier the ratmen were screaming in dismay. The agonies of their leader distracted them completely and by the time they'd remembered von Stahl's presence, three of them had fallen to her steel whip.
	The surviving creatures were in a frenzy of indecision, unsure whether defend themselves against von Stahl, pursue Wolff or help their screaming leader. As they lurched around in confusion, von Stahl's steel whip continued to lash back and forth, knocking one of them to its knees and sending another two flying into the river. 
	A glimmer of hope rose in her mind. There were now only three of the creatures left standing - including the largest, who surely couldn't survive the flames much longer. Then, to her joy, the burning creature leapt from the pier, leaving her with only two remaining opponents. 
	She readied herself for their attacks, but the loss of their leader had unnerved them and as soon as von Stahl raised her whip for another blow, they turned tail and dived headlong into the river.
	She stood for a few moments in dazed incomprehension. The whole fight had only lasted a few seconds and her adrenaline-charged body remained tensed for battle, waiting for another opponent, but none came.
	Another scream echoed across the water.
	Von Stahl looked over the edge of the pier. Down below, in a small boat, lay Wolff. Looming over her, still steaming and smouldering from the fire, was the largest of the ratmen. Large patches of its fur had been scorched away, and the thing was obviously dazed with pain, but its eyes still burned with bloodlust.
	'Virtue,' called the novice, as she tried to fend off the hideous creature, 'for the love of Sigmar, help me.'
	The rat pulled a long, ceremonial dagger from out of its robes and began lunging clumsily at Wolff as she wormed this way and that, trying to avoid the blows.
	Even in its confused state, Wolff couldn't evade the creature for long in so small a space, so von Stahl took the only available option and leapt feet-first from the pier. 
	It was a drop of twelve feet or more and as she landed heavily in the boat, she cried out in pain and fell to her knees. Her left ankle had snapped like an old twig and her foot had folded back at an unnatural angle.
	Her heroics were not completely wasted though. The impact of her landing had rocked the boat so violently that the creature fell sprawling onto its face. Simultaneously the two novices clambered onto its smouldering back and began to rain blows down upon it.
	'Thank Sigmar,' gasped Wolff, as they pummelled the struggling beast. 'I thought you were dead.'
	'Not yet,' replied von Stahl, trying to ignore the wrenching agony in her ankle, 'and we're halfway to passing the trial.'
	Wolff paused, mid-punch. 'What do you mean?'
	Von Stahl smiled and tapped the pouch at her throat. 'The thing in the theatre wore some interesting jewellery.'
	Wolff remained frozen in shock as she tried to take on board the news. 'You mean you have-'
	The creature suddenly rose to its feet and shrugged them off its back, as easily as if they were children.
	Wolff shrieked with fear and began to clamber up the pier's rotten struts. 
	Von Stahl tried to follow, but white-hot pain ripped through her ankle and she fell to her knees once more. Then a terrible whistling noise exploded in her left ear and the world went black. When she came to, she was lying on her side with warm blood rushing from the side of her face where the beast had struck her. She looked up to see him raising his ornate dagger over her head. 
	With her last reserves of strength she rolled out of the way and the dagger plunged harmlessly into the keel of the boat. Then, holding back tears of pain, she clambered to her feet. As the creature struggled to retrieve his blade, she began to climb up the side of the pier. 
	'Quick,' gasped Wolff from above, reaching down to her. 'Give me your hand.'
	With agonising slowness she climbed up the rotten pier. Then, just as she was about to grasp Wolff's hand, she felt a new pain explode in her leg. She looked down to see the foul creature leering with pleasure at the sight of his cruel blade embedded deeply in her calf. She gave an animal howl of pain.
	'Reach for me,' cried Wolff desperately, 'you can still make it.'
	Delirious with pain, von Stahl gave one last lunge for Wolff's hand and finally grasped it.
	Wolff gave a powerful tug and dragged her up until she was almost at the top of the pier.
	Virtue looked into Wolff's face and felt a tide of relief rushing over her. 'Wolff,' she said, 'you've saved us both.'
	'Well,' said Wolff with a crooked smile as she plucked the small pouch from around von Stahl's neck and loosed her hand, 'maybe not both of us, wastrel.'
	'What?' stammered von Stahl in confusion, but Wolff would say no more. She simply stood up, dusted herself down and ran back towards the quayside, leaving von Stahl clinging helplessly to the edge of the pier.
	Pain and despair washed over her and with a sigh of misery she felt her fingers begin to slip from the damp wood.
	Cold, hard fingers pressed painfully into von Stahl's arms and she awoke.
	'Virtue,' whispered a voice. 'It's time'.
	She opened her eyes to see an old woman's careworn face leaning over her. She recognised the kind rheumy eyes and the steel-grey hair, but she couldn't place the woman.
	'Who are you?' she asked croakily.
	The old woman laughed gently, and stroked her hair. 'Who am I, she says! You know who I am, Virtue. Matriarch Margareta Ebner. I practically reared you, child.'
	The name triggered a confused jumble of memories in von Stahl's drowsy mind. A kaleidoscope of violent images filtered through the remnants of her quickly fading dreams and the heavy scent of herbs that filled the room. She looked around in confusion and saw that she was lying in an infirmary. At the foot of the bed there was a small leaded window and beyond it a wide grassy cloister, filled with fountains and fishponds. Hooded figures could be seen, sat alone in quiet contemplation or talking in small groups. She could hardly believe her eyes. It was the Holy Convent. She was home.
	'I was on a trial,' she said, frowning with concentration. 
	The Matriarch nodded encouragingly. 
	'The trial of Ordination. I had to find a piece of weirdstone to become a fully-fledged sister, or-'
	'Or be banished from the order,' said the Matriarch, nodding. 
	Fear quickened von Stahl's pulse as she remembered how miserably she had failed. She saw Elsbeth's pitiful funeral pyre in the Magdeburg Playhouse. She saw Wolff's cruel mocking eyes as she stole the stone from around her neck and left her to die. Then, with a grimace, she remembered falling back into the boat, and struggling desperately with the rat-creature. She buried her face in her hands and groaned. 'How am I here? I failed the test. I have no weirdstone. How is that you have allowed me back into the abbey?'
	The Matriarch was about to reply, but then paused, distracted by the sound of approaching footsteps. 'I think you have your first visitor,' she said.
	The door flew open and, to von Stahl's horror, Wolff burst into the room. Disbelief drained the colour from both girl's faces and each was momentarily at a loss for words. Then, recovering her composure a little, Wolff flew to von Stahl's bedside, dropped to her knees and hugged her tightly. 'Oh, Virtue, can it be true? Have you really returned to us?' 
	Anger welled up in von Stahl, and she struggled to free herself from the girl's grip, but Wolff wouldn't let go. She spoke quickly. 'I thought you had perished at the hands of that foul creature in the theatre. I never dreamt you were still alive.' 
	Disgust and hatred filled von Stahl, but she couldn't manage to interrupt the girl's torrent of false concern. 
	'I have been distraught thinking of you and Elsbeth. If it were not for the comforting words of the High Matriarch, I believe I would have lost my mind with grief.'
	At the words 'High Matriarch', Wolff looked meaningfully at von Stahl, and squeezed her a little tighter.
	The message was clear, and von Stahl's heart sank. To receive words of comfort from the High Matriarch herself was a reminder of Wolff's honoured position within the order. As a blood relative of the sisters' most invaluable patron, Lady Magritte, Wolff had a special place in the High Matriarch's heart, and if a lowly foundling like von Stahl were to accuse her of treachery, the claims would be dismissed out-of-hand as madness... or heresy. 
	Realising the futility of her position, von Stahl gave Wolff no reply and simply slumped back weakly into her pillow.
	Wolff's eyes lit up as she saw that she had been understood. Then, assuming once more an expression of concern, she turned to matriarch Ebner and said. 'But what of the trial? Without a piece of the weirdstone she has failed, and cannot be ordained.' With the ease of a practiced liar she squeezed a few tears from her eyes. 'Which must surely mean that she will be banished from the order and sent back,' she gulped, 'into the city.'
	Von Stahl put a hand to her mouth to stifle a sob. Wolff was right. She had failed, and must now be banished, alone in the City of the Damned. The best she could hope for was a quick death at the hands of whichever of Mordheim's terrible inhabitants found her first. 
	'It seems so cruel,' said Wolff, forcing more tears from her eyes, 'that she has managed to return to us only to be sent away again,' she looked searchingly at Matriarch Ebner, 'but I presume there is no alternative?'
	The old woman looked carefully at Wolff. There was something strange in the girl's manner, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it. 'Well,' she said, ignoring Wolff, and taking von Stahl's hand, 'it seems that Sigmar has his eye on you, Virtue. You must have fought bravely indeed. When sister Schonau plucked you from the river, you were half-gutted. The boat you were drifting in was drenched with blood. Some was yours but luckily there was much more from whatever you had been fighting.' 
	As the Matriarch spoke, images of the fight returned to von Stahl. She remembered how her rage at Wolff's betrayal had given her renewed strength. She had fought furiously with the rat-creature as the small boat drifted slowly south down the Stir. With its blade stuck deep in her leg her opponent had found itself unarmed and after a merciless storm of blows from her steel whip, it had finally dived back into the river, leaving her weak and bleeding in the boat.
	'I remember defeating that... that vermin, but then nothing.' She looked up desperately at the matriarch. 'And I have no stone. I have failed.'
	The old woman rose from her chair, and fetched something from a small table beneath the window. She handed it to von Stahl with a smile. 'When sister Schonau pulled you from the boat, she had to remove this from your leg.' 
	Von Stahl looked at the long sacrificial knife. She remembered with a shudder the leer on the creature's face as it thrust the blade into her leg. Then, a dawning realisation washed over her and she smiled back at the matriarch.
	'What is it?' demanded Wolff, snatching the blade from her. 'Just a knife? What's so special about that?' 
	Von Stahl continued to smile as she pointed towards a small dark stone embedded the blade's hilt. 'Weirdstone,' she said.