Contents

Cover

The Perfect Assassin – Extract

A Black Library Publication

eBook license

The Perfect Assassin

By Gary Kloster

‘Murder.’

Maleneth Witchblade slid the whetstone along her dagger, making a point of not looking up. She’d noticed the woman enter the tavern, wrapped in fine clothes and gaudy jewellery, with five guards surrounding her like wolfhounds. This woman wanted to be seen, and heard. She’d stopped in front of Maleneth and waited for every other soul in the Broken Beam to fall silent, watching, before she dropped that one word.

It was a lovely, dramatic opening, spoiled only by the resounding belch that came from the other side of the room, where Gotrek Gurnisson had just finished another beer. Maleneth finally raised her eyes in time to see the lady’s mouth tighten at the sound, and wasn’t sure if she wanted to laugh or throw her knife at her crude companion. Instead, she did what she usually did, and ignored him.

‘Is that a personal request?’ Maleneth spoke softly, but in the tavern’s hush the words carried. The guards slapped their hands to the hilts of their swords. Maleneth spun her dagger through her fingers, the dim lights of the tavern dancing along the steel’s razor edge. Would any one of them even notice her blade tearing through their throat before they were all bleeding out on the tavern’s filthy floor? Trapped too long in this place, she itched to find out.

‘Two Lords of Losten,’ the woman said, ignoring her guards and the dancing blade in Maleneth’s hand. ‘Cut down in the last two nights. How long have you been in our city?’

The woman paused to look Maleneth up and down, taking in her dark leather armour, the hilts of the dozen daggers strapped to her.

‘Assassin?’

‘Long enough.’ The dagger stopped in Maleneth’s hand. She’d no idea who this woman was, or who these dead lords were. Barely recognised Losten as the name of this rude collection of broken buildings that could hardly be called a city. But she didn’t care. Maleneth was bored and frustrated, and if she picked this fight… maybe they’d get kicked out of this damned place.

‘It wasn’t her.’ The deep voice rolled across the room.

The woman shifted to stare across the tavern to the duardin who spoke. He was a hideous lump of tattoos and scar tissue, a mass of muscle and malice and hair. There was a metal rune embedded in his chest, shining, and Gotrek’s eyes caught that light and burned like coals.

‘She’s been here. With me.’

The cool poise of Maleneth’s disdain cracked, and she glared at Gotrek. When did he ever try to stop a fight? But he met her eyes, his lips twisting into a self-satisfied smirk, and she wanted to add to the collection of scars that marked his thick hide. The Slayer had a low cunning which kept catching Maleneth by surprise. He knew she was hoping to get them run out of here, and was thwarting it.

Because there was beer.

Maleneth looked away from him, and the woman did the same. Gotrek’s elemental brutality obviously discomforted her, and she clearly preferred the polished, deadly grace of Maleneth’s menace. Without exchanging a word, they both decided to pretend Gotrek didn’t exist.

‘I’ve killed no lords. Lately.’ Maleneth slipped her dagger back into its sheath. ‘And if I’d done so here, you would have never found me, which I think you know.’

‘What I know is that someone is stalking the lords of this city. If that’s not you…’ The lady frowned. ‘Someone else is playing a vicious and foolish game.’

‘So what do you want?’

‘Not to die.’ The lady pulled back the heavy cape she wore, ward against the chill fog that hung over this place. A heavy necklace hung beneath, a gold chain holding a gleaming green stone. ‘I am Talm, a Lord of Losten, and I am being hunted in my own city – I suspect by someone who refuses to leave the past properly dead and buried. Keep his blade away from me and I’ll see you well rewarded.’

‘Protection is not what I’m trained for.’

‘Then kill him before he kills me!’ Talm snapped, and in her anger Maleneth could hear her fear. ‘I’ll pay you even more for this false Shadow Lord’s life!’

Maleneth stared at her, considering. The tavern was still quiet, everyone else listening in, until Gotrek bellowed, ‘Another beer! Another!’ Everyone except Maleneth jumped. She just heaved a silent sigh.

‘I’ll consider it,’ she said, after the echoes of Gotrek’s shout had faded.

Shadow Lord. Maleneth had no idea what Talm meant by that, but finding out sounded more interesting than staying here.

Losten was dark – not that any place in Ulgu was ever really light. But this city held its shadows close beneath a blanket of dark fog and was somewhat hidden from the forces of Chaos and death that ravaged the realms.

Maleneth stood outside the tavern, quiet in the gloom that was broken only by the lanterns hanging beside the Broken Beam’s door. Around her the crumbling, grey-stoned buildings answered with their own silence. Losten may have been sheltered by fog and darkness, but the city was still dying slowly, choking on its own shadows.

‘The Shadow Lords… they’re dead, Lady Witchblade.’ The man who owned the Broken Beam stood behind her, wrapped in misery. ‘Dead and gone. That’s all I can say about them. All I dare say.’

Through the door of the tavern behind him came a bellow. ‘Another!’

The tavern keeper winced. ‘He’s still drinking. Still. He never sleeps. He never stops. He’ll ruin me!’

‘Do you think he cares?’ Maleneth asked coldly. ‘Do you think I care?’ The man shook his head, the desperation in his eyes turning to hopelessness. ‘You did this to yourself. Now go get him his drink.’

Maleneth stalked away, leaving the man to his fate. To Gotrek. He’d brought this doom upon himself, running that rigged contest. Defeat the Broken Beam’s champion at arm wrestling, and win all the beer you can drink! The champion had been an ogor, enchanted to look like a scrawny peasant. A way for the tavern keeper to cheat more valuables from the abandoned souls trapped in this city. Until Gotrek came.

The duardin was only half the height of an ogor, but he was almost as wide, and with the promise of free beer he’d almost torn that monster’s arm off. Then he’d settled in and started drinking, slow and steady, slower than Maleneth had ever seen him drink before. It’d taken her a bit to realise what he was doing. Stretching the beer out, going slow, so that his monstrous constitution would keep him from passing out. Gotrek had decided to drain this place, to spite the cheat who owned it… and because he wanted all the beer.

He was welcome to it all, beer and spite, Maleneth didn’t care. Except now she was trapped here with him, waiting for him to finish.

Maleneth walked over the rough cobblestones, swift and silent, another shadow between slumped buildings, until the street ended and she could see the ones she stalked. Talm and her guards were walking across the wide square that the street opened into, surrounded by the murky nimbus of dim light cast by the lantern they carried.

The square was otherwise empty. Beside Maleneth were buildings that might have been inns, regal facades of stone now rough with black moss, the windows dark as dead eyes. The right side of the square held a great pile of arches, towers and tall, narrow buildings linked into each other at odd angles, like broken teeth shoved up from the ground. They’d been told that was the Lords’ Palace when they’d first come here, the place where the rulers of Losten met. For such a noble name and purpose, the place looked almost abandoned, half the towers slumped into ruin, many of the once graceful arches cracked or broken. Light only burned in a few scattered windows.

On the left side of the square was a lone building ringed by a park of dead grass and skeletal trees. Not as large as the palace, but of a similar style, tall and narrow, it was the only building in Losten that didn’t seem half-falling-down. The Aethaneaum, the reason Gotrek had dragged her to this benighted city. A place where information could be bought, and the Slayer had wanted information. Killing gods was not as easy as Gotrek had hoped.

Insane. Gotrek was insane, and Maleneth had tied her fate to his. Daughter of Khaine, sworn servant of the god of murder, an assassin who’d joined with the Order of Azyr after killing her mistress, whose poisoned blades had committed the slaying sacrament across almost every realm, and now here she was with a crazed, drunken duardin. Why?

Because after all they’d been through, the Slayer had earned her respect.

Fool.

The word whispered through her mind. The voice of her dead mistress, the witch-aelf who’d taught her so much… but who she’d never respected.

What is respect from a failure?

‘I’m not…’ Maleneth hissed, then stopped, her hand clenched on the amulet that hung around her neck, the one that held the vial of her murdered mistress’ blood. She hated when that bitter voice provoked her, but the dead woman’s words stung. She couldn’t kill Gotrek when she first met him. And now… she wouldn’t. Dropping her hand from the amulet, she slipped silently out into the square, following that distant torch bobbing through the mist.

She wouldn’t kill that tattooed lump of muscle no matter how annoying he was being. But despite her pledge to watch over the master rune the duardin had hammered into his stinking flesh, damn her if she was going to spend another moment in that gods-cursed tavern. Gotrek could have his beer, and have the head of the tavern keeper if the man finally cracked and tried to knife him in the back. Maleneth would have… whatever entertainment she could wring from this dying city.

At the far side of the square, the lantern vanished. Maleneth moved faster, soft boots gliding over the stones, until she reached the place she’d last seen it. A narrow street opened off the square, running between the Lords’ Palace and the ruins of a great old house that dominated this last side of the square, and down it she could see Talm moving in her dim circle of light. Maleneth paused beside the abandoned house, keeping a careful distance. The ruin was a pile of stone almost as large as the Lords’ Palace, similarly built but even more decayed. Its towers were broken, arches collapsed, buildings abandoned. A sigil of a skull, jaw gaping, with tendrils of something spilling out of its empty eye sockets and fleshless mouth, was carved on its crumbling wall. She considered it a moment, but then from the street ahead there was a sound.

Maleneth crouched, blades already in both hands. Talm had stopped in the middle of the street, and her guards were ranged in a circle around her, swords drawn.

‘If you see something, slay it,’ ordered Talm. ‘Nothing good moves out here tonight!’

Truth, Maleneth thought, stalking closer, trying to see what had startled the guards. But her eyes found nothing. The cobblestones were empty except for Talm and her guards, and the shadows that stretched away from their lantern. Then one of those shadows moved.

It twisted, bulging up from the cobblestones like a black shroud, then broke, shattered like black glass but without a sound. A man surged through those spinning pieces of darkness, a sword in his hand, short and curved. He slashed it across the throat of the woman whose shadow he’d broken out of, and the guard dropped, clutching her throat, but her fingers couldn’t stop the blood pouring out. The man from the shadow turned from her, and drove his sword into the belly of the next guard.

The struck man shrieked and jerked back, trying to pull away from the blade that already transfixed him, and only helped his killer jerk the sword free. Blood splattered across the cobblestones, and the killer fell with it. He vanished into the shadow of the man he’d just stabbed, diving into the darkness as if it were a pool of deep water.

The other guards shouted, Talm belted orders, and Maleneth crouched, blades ready, fascinated. Watching the shadows, she saw another bulge and rise, saw the killer drive through it to bury his blade in the kidneys of another guard, then vanish again. The two guards left said nothing, but they both reached the same decision at once. They ran, tearing down the street and vanishing into the dark.

Talm flung the lantern after them, cursing, and it shattered against the cobblestones, oil whooshing up in a bright blaze that stretched the lord’s shadow up the street. That long shadow shifted, bulged, broke, and the killer stepped free again. Moving slow this time, deliberate. Maleneth could see he was a young man dressed in black, his features pale beneath long, dark hair. His blade was plain steel, and the only hint of colour to him was the necklace he wore, a chain of gold loops holding a pendant of some purple stone. There was a black shadow on that stone, but it was too distant for Maleneth to see well.

‘You know me,’ the man hissed. ‘Now, name me.’

‘No,’ Talm said. She had drawn a knife from somewhere, short and jewelled and useless, but her eyes blazed with fury.

‘Name me,’ the killer said again, his blade rising.

‘You’re dead. Your whole dark house. Dead!’ Lady Talm spat, and she rushed forward. She moved faster than Maleneth would have guessed in all that finery, surprisingly fast. Her flashing little knife would have caught the shadow killer in the chest if a piece of darkness hadn’t flickered up from the ground and blocked the blade.

The man snarled and swung his sword hard, the blade cutting across Talm’s throat. Blood arced out, splashing across him, and Talm crumpled to the stones, her eyes already empty.

‘Shadows never die,’ the man growled, wiping the woman’s blood from his face with one sleeve. He stomped down with his boot on the jewel the woman wore, cracking it against the cobblestones. Then he turned, took a step and was gone, disappearing into the shadows.

Maleneth waited, silent, blades ready, but he didn’t come back. When the broken lantern’s flames had guttered out on the cobblestones, she moved forward and stood over the dead woman.

‘Your request begins to interest me, Lady Talm,’ she said to the body. ‘I will seek out this Shadow Lord for you, false or not, and see about his heart.’ She bent over, hands busy, collecting what she needed. Done, she reached out and closed the woman’s staring eyes.

‘You may thank me from whatever hell you find yourself in.’

Click here to buy The Perfect Assassin.

A Black Library Publication

This eBook edition published in 2021 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Johan Grenier.

The Perfect Assassin © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2021. The Perfect Assassin, GW, Games Workshop, Black Library, Warhammer, Warhammer Age of Sigmar, Stormcast Eternals, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles, locations, weapons, characters, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are either ® or TM, and/or © Games Workshop Limited, variably registered around the world.
All Rights Reserved.

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-1-80026-506-6

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

See Black Library on the internet at
blacklibrary.com

Find out more about Games Workshop’s world of Warhammer and the Warhammer 40,000 universe at
games-workshop.com

eBook license

This license is made between:

Games Workshop Limited t/a Black Library, Willow Road, Lenton, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, United Kingdom (“Black Library”); and

the purchaser of a Black Library e-book product (“You/you/Your/your”)

(jointly, “the parties”)

These are the terms and conditions that apply when you purchase a Black Library e-book (“e-book”). The parties agree that in consideration of the fee paid by you, Black Library grants you a license to use the e-book on the following terms:

* 1. Black Library grants to you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, royalty-free license to use the e-book in the following ways:

o 1.1 to store the e-book on any number of electronic devices and/or storage media (including, by way of example only, personal computers, e-book readers, mobile phones, portable hard drives, USB flash drives, CDs or DVDs) which are personally owned by you;

o 1.2 to access the e-book using an appropriate electronic device and/or through any appropriate storage media.

* 2. For the avoidance of doubt, you are ONLY licensed to use the e-book as described in paragraph 1 above. You may NOT use or store the e-book in any other way. If you do, Black Library shall be entitled to terminate this license.

* 3. Further to the general restriction at paragraph 2, Black Library shall be entitled to terminate this license in the event that you use or store the e-book (or any part of it) in any way not expressly licensed. This includes (but is by no means limited to) the following circumstances:

o 3.1 you provide the e-book to any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.2 you make the e-book available on bit-torrent sites, or are otherwise complicit in ‘seeding’ or sharing the e-book with any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.3 you print and distribute hard copies of the e-book to any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.4 you attempt to reverse engineer, bypass, alter, amend, remove or otherwise make any change to any copy protection technology which may be applied to the e-book.

* 4. By purchasing an e-book, you agree for the purposes of the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 that Black Library may commence the service (of provision of the e-book to you) prior to your ordinary cancellation period coming to an end, and that by purchasing an e-book, your cancellation rights shall end immediately upon receipt of the e-book.

* 5. You acknowledge that all copyright, trademark and other intellectual property rights in the e-book are, shall remain, the sole property of Black Library.

* 6. On termination of this license, howsoever effected, you shall immediately and permanently delete all copies of the e-book from your computers and storage media, and shall destroy all hard copies of the e-book which you have derived from the e-book.

* 7. Black Library shall be entitled to amend these terms and conditions from time to time by written notice to you.

* 8. These terms and conditions shall be governed by English law, and shall be subject only to the jurisdiction of the Courts in England and Wales.

* 9. If any part of this license is illegal, or becomes illegal as a result of any change in the law, then that part shall be deleted, and replaced with wording that is as close to the original meaning as possible without being illegal.

* 10. Any failure by Black Library to exercise its rights under this license for whatever reason shall not be in any way deemed to be a waiver of its rights, and in particular, Black Library reserves the right at all times to terminate this license in the event that you breach clause 2 or clause 3.