The Power of Love
I
"McAber!",
Count Bloodclot shouted. "Get your worthless butt
over here"
Morbius McAber came shuffling rapidly, with a slightly
distracted look on his face.
"You called, great leader", he said. "What
can I do for you at this early hour?"
"Get your zombies working properly", the count
growled, he seemed to be in a foul mood. More foul than
usual that is Morbius thought. "I brought some of
them along today and when we run across some Sigmarites
they didn't hit them. They tried to hug them. One even
tried to give a nun some flowers!" The count was
almost fuming.
"Yes?" McAber said puzzled. "Where they
pretty? The nuns I mean." He looked expectantly at
the perturbed vampire.
"Where Olga among them?" A fortnight ago
Bloodclot and his warband had clashed with some of the
warlike nuns, McAber had been quite taken with a sister.
He thought she was a sister superior and that her name
was Olga. One of the other sisters had seemed to call her
that. Morbius remembered the grace and strength she had
shown when smashing two of his zombies with her hammer,
the supple flick of her hand when she actually landed a
blow with her whip on his employer.
"McAber! Listen to me", Bloodclots slap threw
Morbius across the room. "Quit your dreaming and get
your act together." The three direwolves and seven
zombies in the room did not react to the commotion. Only
the two ghouls and Arnold the dreg flinched from the
wrath of the vampire.
"Why would you want a nun?" the count hissed,
"And more to the point what would she want with an
ugly, pathetic mortal like you?" The count did have
a point McAber thought, he was tall and skinny. Pale and
looked pretty much like a skeleton. What woman would want
a man like that, he mused while picking himself up from
the dusty floor.
"Now I on the other hand" the vampire said
maliciously, "What woman could resist me?" He
focused his coldly burning eyes on the unfortunate
necromancer. He did not notice the slight tensioning of
dead muscles in the zombies that matched the clenching of
McAbers jaw.
"Maybe I should seek her out?" the count said,
tilting his head slightly, awaiting Morbius reaction.
"No!" exclaimed McAber, "I will not let
that happen!" He took a step towards the vampire,
his hand closing around the hilt of his sword. With
blinding speed Bloodclot closed the remanding distance,
clamped his hand around McAbers throat and lifted him
into the air. His cold fury was now fully evident. The
ghouls and the dreg watched expectantly, maybe there
would be killing, and for the ghouls fresh meat.
"How do you propose to stop me!" the count
hissed through clenched, sharp teeth. He contemptuously
threw Morbius to the floor, where he lay gritting his
teeth. "I will find her, suck her dry and make her
mine" the count spat "She will live for ever as
a reminder of your insubordination". The vampire
turned his back on the bruised necromancer "I will
be back shortly" he said and started to leave the
room.
"No you won't" McAber whispered with a fury the
count had never heard before. The vampire turned around
to shut up the stubborn human when the room exploded into
action. Bloodclot had been to occupied to notice that all
the zombies and direwolves had got on their feet while he
was disciplining the human. Now they all attacked at
once, instilled by McAbers anger. Even the counts inhuman
speed and strength could not save him now. None the less
he managed to destroy four of the zombies and two of the
direwolves before they tore him into small pieces.
The ghouls feasted on the corpses. Arnold asked
"What now?" and looked unhappily at McAber.
McAber put the finishing touches on a zombie he deemed
salvageable and reanimated it.
"Take this zombie" he said to Arnold, "and
find yourself another vampire to work for." He
straightened up, "You are a good dreg Arnold. You'll
do fine."
"But what are you going to do?" asked Arnold.
"I have a date." McAber smiled, his face
looking even more like a skull. "With a certain
Sister Superior." He started walking away from the
perplexed Arnold, trailed by a direwolf and three
zombies.
"How will you woo her?" Arnold called.
"I will show her" McAber called back "what
the 'romance' in 'necromancer' stands for!"
II
McAber sat in an
abandoned building, it had at least three rooms with
roofs on the second floor, and McAber used one of these
overlooking the street. It was now about a week since his
falling out with his former employer and he felt stuck.
He had been keeping a low profile finding just enough
wyrdstone to pay for food and drink. He had also been
able to raise another direwolf and two zombies, so he
felt fairly secure with two direwolves and three zombies
guarding the ground floor and two more zombies as backup
in the room with him. Suddenly her saw some movement at
the big building at the end of the street, the gates
opened and a group of people clad in white emerged.
Morbius moved slightly back into the building not to be
spotted and expectantly raised his lookingglass. It had
cost him a pretty penny, but it was worth it. Now he
could observe the inhabitants of the building without
risking to be exposed himself. He focused the
lookingglass on the group of women that was now standing
outside the closing gates. He sighed, she was not among
them this time, so he put away the tubular contraption he
had been looking through. Still he had not solved his
problem, how would he approach the beautiful sister
superior Olga, nun of the Sisters of Sigmar? He had been
following her every chance he got, but had not found a
way introduce himself properly. A nagging feeling that
her fellow sisters would take offence to him had often
kept him back, and of course the risk that Olga herself
would reject him. He had had so little time to study
women, magic had taken most of his time, now he felt
quite befuddled. What to do? He needed some help.
Some days later McAber stood in the shadows not far from
the entrance to an establishment called 'The Twisted
Goat'. He had been spending some time here now and it was
most educational. The most interesting kind of people
passed through those doors. He even occasionally saw
skaven skulking around the alleyways around the tavern,
or maybe it was just one skaven. It was hard be sure, the
creature was so quick and hard to spot. Anyway, the
goings on were mildly fascinating and had actually given
him some ideas. He might get even better ideas if he went
inside, but he was unsure if he would be allowed to
enter, and he was pretty sure he would have to leave his
zombies outside. This worried him, people might steal
them or break them if he left them unsupervised. Ah,
well, time to try some of his ideas. Women seemed to like
flowers.
III
Olga was unfocused and
the novice managed to hit her with the training hammer.
That brought her back to the training yard at the
Sigmarite Sisters' temple. Olga quickly recovered from
the blow, feinted with her own hammer and then trapped
the left leg of the novice with her whip and pulled. If
it had been her steelwhip the leg probably would have
been broken, now the novice just fell flat on her back,
having the air knocked out of her.
"Watch both weapons" Olga said, "Even
though the hammer might be more dangerous in close
combat, the whip is far from useless. And very hard to
parry. Remember that! End of lesson." Olga helped
the novice pack up, she smiled to herself when she saw
the novice running of to her friends and heard her
whispering to them "Did you see? I actually hit
her!".
"Yes" Olga thought, "She actually hit
me." Olga did not get hit very often, especially not
in training, so she was slightly worried. But there had
been strange things going on lately.
It had started about three weeks ago. Olga had felt like
someone was watching her when she was outside the temple.
At first she did not think much of it, things were
watching you all the time in Mordheim. But this seemed
more persistent somehow. It did not seem malign though
and nothing special happened the first few days, and
although she thought she sometimes saw shadows following
her in parallel alleys nothing attacked. The other
members of her warband also seemed to be aware of
something. Some time later they where ambushed by a band
of witchhunters, loudly accusing them of being demons and
heretics. Olga's warband was taken by surprise and two of
them went down hit by pistol bullets. Olga herself had
spotted one of the cowardly shooters was about to charge
him, when out of nowhere something big brown and snarling
hit her - a wardog. The beast closed its jaws around her
right arm and managed to pull her down thanks to its
momentum. Since the hound had a grip on her arm with the
hammer she was in trouble, it was constantly jerking and
pulling in her arm and while laying on the ground she
could not use her whip efficiently. Desperately she
reached for her dagger, but the wound in her arm was
bleeding profusely and the pain from the consistent
pulling was starting make her dizzy. Then, out of the
corner of her eye she saw another canine form coming at
her at tremendous speed. This dog was even larger, it was
black and massive. When she saw its unearthly glowing red
eyes she realised, it was no dog, it was a direwolf. Then
it hit. Luckily for Olga the wardog must have sensed
something because it let go of her arm just before the
wolf smashed into it, else the arm would probably been
ripped right of. Now the dog let go and tried to turn to
meet this new threat, but too late. The wolfs sharp teeth
dug deep into the dogs throat and Olga heard a wet sound
when the wolf just kept going with a large chunk of
dog-throat in its mouth. Olga fiercely rolled over and
gripped her wounded arm, trying to keep a grip on her
holy hammer, which would be her only chance if the wolf
came back. But the direwolf just kept on going and
disappeared into the shadows, it never even looked at
her. Then she passed out.
When Olga woke up her Matriarch, Hildegard, was looking
down at her. Obviously Olga's arm had been healed by the
Matriarch, but she was still feeling slightly weak. Three
other sisters also seemed to have been hurt so they all
hurried back to their sanctum. On the way back Olga
noticed that all the others seemed quieter than usual,
and they seemed to be casting puzzled glances at her when
they thought she did not see. As soon as she had her
wound checked and bandage changed she went to bed.
Since then the other Sister Superiors and Matriarchs had
been acting strangely towards her, ands since she had
spent most of her time inside the walls this was getting
more and more on her nerves. Luckily the novices and the
ordinary Sisters did not treat her any different so Olga
busied herself with training and teaching them the use of
weapons. Then just the other day she had been called
before the counsel of Matriarchs that ran the temple.
"You are Olga Abanorf, Sister Superior Of the
Sisters of Sigmar are you not?" Said Hildegard
formally.
"I am Olga Abanorf, Sister Superior Of the Sisters
of Sigmar" answered Olga, following the ancient rite
of the Sisters. There were some other formal phrases
before the questioning could start in earnest.
"As you might know" Hildegard said, more kindly
now, "There has been some strange things going on
lately. Strange even for Mordheim. And they seem to focus
around you Olga. What do you know about it?"
"Not much." Olga answered earnestly, and then
went on to relate what little she knew. Some one appeared
to be watching her, and a direwolf seemed to have saved
her.
"Yes." Alma, another of the Matriarchs said,
"But there is more, as we will now tell you"
The Matriarchs took turns at relating what had
transpired, Hildegard started.
"When Hanna found you after the witchhunter's attack
a tall, pale man dressed in black stood over you with a
direwolf at his side. Hanna says that she first thought
that he was a vampire due to his pallor, but when he
heard her approaching he faced her. She was readying her
sling when he discovered her, but when he saw she was a
Sister, at least that's what we suppose, he sheathed his
sword, smiled and ran away followed by the wolf. Because
of his smile Hanna could say he's not a vampire."
Hildegard went on to relate how one of the other sister
had seen one of the witchhunters being hit from behind of
something that could have been a zombie. Another of the
Matriarchs said that there were some rumours about in
Mordheim that some witchhunters now claimed to have seen
with their own eyes how the Sisters of Sigmar had allied
themselves with vampires and demons.
Apparently the strangeness did not stop there however.
The day after the witchhunter incident the sisters had
been interviewing some hired swords for possible
employment. These rough characters had been queuing
outside the gates when the ogre among them had been hit
by an arrow. This had upset him slightly and before he
had calmed down he had squished a halfling cook and
thrown an elven ranger through a nearby wall. When
examined, the arrow, stuck in the ogres back, was
revealed had a small note wrapped around it. It said, in
a neat handwriting: "I sincerely hope that Sister
Olga is recovering." It was singed "M". A
half an hour later another arrow smacked into the gates,
this time missing everybody outside. Also this arrow hat
a note on it: "Sorry for the inconvenience. I am not
as proficient with a bow as I wish I was. /M". Over
the next few days three more 'get well' notes arrived in
the same manner. The Matriarchs and Sisters Superiors had
managed to keep this quiet, while trying to figure out
what was going on. They had kept an eye on Olga to see if
she had any contact with anybody that she should not, but
she did not. They were still debating what to do when the
next thing happened, just two days ago. This was the
event that made them decide to take Olga in for
questioning.
In broad daylight a zombie had came shuffling down the
street towards the gate. It had been shuffling with a
strange dignity, in one hand holding a white flag, and in
the other a fairly large box. The Sisters guarding the
gate had at once called for the Matriarch on duty. Due to
the happenings going before they did not attack the
zombie on sight, but allowed it to approach. It stopped
some fifteen yards from the gate, slowly put the box on
the ground and then turned around and shambled
deliberately back in among the ruins. The Sisters waited
for while, then the sent out an Augur and a Matriarch to
examine the mysterious box. The reached the conclusion
that it was not a magical trap, a hired dwarf said it
seemed not to be booby-trapped, so they brought it in.
"This is the box." Hildegard said, and put a
wooden box on the table before Olga, "It is for you,
so you may open it. It is completely safe."
Olga hesitated for an instant, then she lifted the lid
from the box. When she did that the sides of the box fell
outwards and revealed a white polished skull, seeming to
grin happily at her. In the top of the skull was a hole
into which someone has put ten, jet black, roses. One of
the roses had a small note attached to it. It read:
"To Olga
Olga, your skin is so fair
Your beauty beyond compare
Purer than polished bone
But my heart feels like a stone
These walls keep us apart
But you have stolen my heart
To be with you would be bliss
Perhaps to steal a kiss
With these flowers I hope to woo
And show how much I love you
With Love,
Morbius McAber"
Olga sat down.
IV
"We have done some
research" Hildegard said, "He seems to have
been working for a certain Count Bloodclot until some
weeks ago. It was thought that the Counts warband was
wiped out and only a dreg survived, but evidently McAber
also survived. Why he has not taken over the Counts
warband is a mystery."
"He is obviously an evil and deranged man" Alma
said, "As all practitioners of the black arts he
always searches for new ways to corrupt mortal
flesh."
Olga had never really liked Alma, "Deranged?"
she thought "Because he sends me flowers and
poems?" Out loud she said: "So saving my life,
and helping my sisters was just some kind of trick?"
"We don't really know" Hildegard said
thoughtfully, "So far we do not have very much
information about him. There might be some grand scheme
behind these peculiar antics. We can't rule out the
possibility that it some evil plan to undermine the
Sisters credibility."
"Or he might simply be besotted with her" said
Sirgi, the romantic of the Matriarchs.
"Preposterous!" sputtered Alma, "Besotted
with her, indeed."
Olga was, as a Sister, not supposed to care about her
beauty, but the remark still stung. She knew that she was
not the prettiest woman in the convent, and usually she
did not think much of it. She was tall, strong and new
how to use her weapons, which was more important. Still
it galled her that Alma found it 'preposterous' that
someone would find her attractive. Many Sisters had
admirers among the warriors that came to Mordheim,
sending them different kinds of presents to show their
affection. Looking at the flower arrangement she thought
it was, if not pretty, at least ecstatically pleasing in
a macabre kind of way.
"Actually this Morbius McAber" Hildegards words
brought Olga back from her wandering thoughts, "It
appears that he was uncharacteristically unambitious for
a necromancer. From what we have learned thus far, he
mostly worked on improving the process for reanimation,
especially concerning direwolves. It is said that his
direwolves were quicker and stronger than most. But we
will dig deeper into this."
"As for now we think that you are in no immediate
danger" said Sirgi, "But we judge it best you
stay within the convent for the time being. We don't want
you to be accosted by a lovesick necromancer out in
Mordheim, where we are less well equipped to protect
you." Sirgi smiled warmly. Alma mumbled something
sourly and the questioning was over.
Now Olga was standing on the battlement, looking out over
the square in front of the convent's gates. As usual the
was quite a number of people there. A Middenheim warband
had even put up some tents in one corner. They were
practising with their hammers, and good-naturedly
challenging each other. Some even tried to get the nuns
interested in training with them. Most of the nuns
watching were young novices, clearly impressed by these
rugged and powerful men.
"Fancy seeing you here" Hanna said to Olga,
"I thought already knew all the tricks there are
with a hammer. Because you can't be watching the men, can
you?"
"No." Olga answered, "I just wanted some
air and space."
"But they are good, some of them" said Hanna,
"And handsome in a rough kind of way." She
nodded towards a broad warrior with a wildly grown beard
and long hair. He was obviously wielding a two-handed
hammer, and none of his comrades had accepted his
challenges. Unfortunately he had noticed Hanna's nod in
his direction. With the wolfpelt resting over his broad
shoulders flapping gently around his legs, he approached
the wall-section where the two nuns stood.
"Ah! I see even nuns can appreciate a real
man." he boomed, "Come down here girls, and
I'll show you a thing or two." He smiled broadly,
showing strong but brown teeth.
"No thanks" said Olga "I've heard that
Middenheim lice can jump pretty far, and since you seem
to be overcrowded by them I will not come near you."
The mans face darkened when some of his mates laughed.
"She's got you figured Borag, you fleabag you"
one of them hollered.
"I wouldn't want her anyway, not even with a bag
over her head" said the man and turned around,
"Her family must have made her a nun 'cause the
couldn't marry her to anybody, and now she's too old and
ugly to be of any use except to scare men away from the
pretty nuns." He threw a glance at Hanna, who
actually blushed slightly. Olga also felt herself
blushing, but it was from anger. Before she could think
of any thing to say she heard a voice.
"That was not very polite." It was a tall,
hooded figure that emerged from the shadows of a ruin to
the left of the Middenheim camp.
"I would advice you to apologise to the lady"
the dark form continued in a dark, soft voice,
"Since all the things you said is untrue, and what
she said was unnecessarily kind, I think you should take
your words back."
"So!" laughed Borag, and faced the cloaked man,
"I take that as a challenge. If you beat me, I'll
take my remarks about the wench back. Not that there is
much chance of that" Borag menacingly hefted his
hammer.
"How barbaric" sighed the other man. "How
ever, since it is probably the only way you can see the
error of your ways I accept." McAber removed his
hood and took another step out in the street.
The square became very quiet.
"A necromancer!" said Borag, "Kill
him!" Some of the other men seemed to be preparing
to charge Mcaber, when he calmly raised his hand.
"Just to point out a matter of protocol" he
said, "A formal challenge has been duly accepted.
And would that alone not suffice to keep you from slaying
me out of hand, maybe my friends here can persuade you to
think otherwise." At his words a large direwolf
stepped up beside him, and other shapes moved in the dark
behind him. Borag looked uneasily at the direwolf. He had
seen other of its kind before, but this beast was bigger
and yet seemed more compact than the ones he had seen
before. Furthermore it appeared like there was some kind
of intelligence in those red glowing eyes that looked
like they focused on his wolfcloak.
"Yes!" Borags captain said, much to the massive
warriors chagrin, "You are right. The rules of
challenging must be adhered to, as much as I'd like to
make an exception for the likes of you. But at any hint
of magic, your life will be forfeit."
"Of course" McAber smiled and pulled out his
sword with his right hand and gripping his mace with his
left. "I Hope you let me leave as soon as I am
finished with our large friend here."
"I will" said the captain, and nodded to Borag,
"If you can still walk that is. Begin!"
As could be expected Borag charged at once, swinging his
huge hammer in a vicious arc towards McAbers upper body.
Just in time Morbius managed to deflect the blow with his
sword, but the force still brought him slightly of
balance so he could not retaliate with his mace. Borag
tried to press his advantage and started another swing
with his hammer. This time McAber managed to side-step
the blow completely, striking out with both sword and
mace. McAber had misjudged the resilience of the wolfskin
worn by the Middenheimer and the sword did not do any
damage. Also the mace seemed to bounce of the massive
Borag. After this the large man got more cautious and
struck more controlled blows. Many times McAber barely
managed to avoid these hammer strokes, sometimes by using
his sword, sometimes by moving. The problem was that his
own blows did not seem to affect Borag, the man was not
even tiring. The constant moving was taking its toll on
McAber though, he realised he had to do something
quickly, not to be beaten into a pulp. Then Borag's
hammer hit McAber's right arm, the blow was a glancing
hit, but it sent the sword flying. Smelling the victory
Borag raised the hammer for a final crushing blow. McAber
desperately poked at Borag's face with his mace, it
hardly hit, but surprised the large warrior enough let
McAber dance out of the descending hammers way. While
Borag was trying to bring around his hammer for a new
blow, McAber whirled round, gripped his mace with both
hands and managed to land a solid blow in the back of
Borags head. Borag did not go down but staggered, so
McAber hit him again. This time the double-handed blow
landed on the side of Borags head, and with a dull thud
Borag fell to the ground.
After Borag sourly had apologised to Olga, McAber had
smiled at the pleased nun and limped away into the
shadows. Borag was muttering something about getting hold
of that pesky necromancer and wringing his scrawny neck,
but in all most of the people seemed happy with the turn
of events.
Written by McAber (Mats
Carlsson).
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