'Death Death Death!'

The militiaman came out of the station and his shiny breastplate made a fine target. Stones put dents in it and the lieutenant staggered. Harald pulled him out of the way and tossed him into the crowd.

It was like a game. Once you were part of the crowd, you weren't the enemy any more. Harald heard the lieutenant shouting, 'Death to the watch!' with the worst of them.

He fought against the thinning stream of watchmen and petty criminals, and got back into the station. Almost everyone else was out. There were fires everywhere now, steadily growing. A wall collapsed and a ground-cloud of dust swept around his shins.

'Death to everyone!'

Rosanna came up from the jail area. 'All the cells are empty now,' she said.

'Get out,' he said. 'I'll find Dickon and follow you. We're closing down this station. It was a shithole anyway'

Dickon staggered into the passage. One sleeve was on fire, but he couldn't make his hand work to smother it. He rubbed against a wall but the flames persisted.

Harald ripped the captain's jacket off and threw it away. Dickon looked offended.

'Good coat, that,' he said. 'Briechs Brothers of Schwarzwasserstrasse.'

Like a child, Dickon allowed himself to be led out of the station.

As the three of them came out of the station, the roof fell in and a cloud of hot air, smoke, dust and cinders exploded through the doors behind them, pushing them down the stairs.

The crowd was retreating now. A few watchmen were down in the street, being thoroughly kicked. Harald saw one of the officers who had been struggling into civilian gear standing shoulder to shoulder with the mob, putting the boot in to his former sergeant.

'Death to the tyrants!'

The whole quarter was in flames.

He looked around for Rosanna and saw her struggling. Two militiamen and a Fish wearing the insignia of the Revolutionist Movement were fighting over her like dogs arguing over a scrap of meat.

They all wanted death for someone-or-other, he had gathered that much.

Harald thumped one militiaman and pulled Rosanna out of the melee. The revolutionary raised a club, but caught the look in Harald's eyes and backed off.

'Filthy Harald,' he muttered, panic growing, 'Filthy Harald is back!'

The revolutionistwhom Harald could not remember ever having metturned and ran, spreading the news.

Harald felt a kind of exhilaration in the man's instinctive fear. The urge to shout was contagious.

The mob was breaking and retreating. 'I'm back,' he shouted at them. 'Filthy Harald is back!'

The fog was still thick, but the fires made it easier to see things. The crowd was swarming away from the burning station, flowing like a tide of molten lead, streaming into side-streets.

There were cloaks and coats underfoot. People had ventured out wrapped up for the fog and found themselves next to the bonfires. There would be chills and fevers when the blazes died.

Rosanna was saying something. 'There isn't one Beast they're all Beasts'

The rioting had passed on to some new battlefield. It would hit the Street of a Hundred Taverns in force next. Later, it would run and either sweep across the river to the palace or head north towards the University. Maybe it would split in two. Maybe it was not that localized. It could be happening like this all over the city.

Luitpoldstrasse was empty now and a terrible quiet fell. Harald heard the crackle of burning buildings and the low groaning of people in pain. There was blood in his mouth. He spat it out.

Thommy was lying face down and bloodied. He might have been alive. Dickon was sitting cross-legged in the street, trying on a succession of cast-off garments to replace his Briechs Brothers coat. He was a broken man, which at least saved Harald the bother of breaking him.

The fog was agitated, still swirling to fill in the spaces so recently occupied by the mob.

He turned to Rosanna.

She was standing stiff, arms by her sides, as if fighting a sudden paralysis. The vein in her forehead was pulsing and her eyes were wide.

He reached out to shake her, but stopped himself before he touched her. He didn't want to break her contact, whatever it was.

'What can you see?' he asked.

Her lips moved and she croaked a word. He couldn't understand.

'What is it?'

Despite the fires, it was a cold night. Harald felt a chill.

Rosanna croaked again, clearer this time. 'Near,' she said, 'near.'

VIII.

There had been some rowdiness out on the street, but nothing the Templars couldn't handle. He had charged Cleric-Captain Hoven with keeping order and knew he could depend on the man to be a true servant of Sigmar.

As his coach trundled through the checkpoints, Mikael Hasselstein was deeply troubled.

He had not heard from Yelle all day. His nerves were drawn as tight as bowstrings.

At the Matthias II, the green velvet carpet was laid down in the street. There were footmen with torches to light the way through the fog to the inn.

Hasselstein hurried across the pavement and through the doors. The Matthias II was empty of its usual patrons, being staffed only by footmen and waiters in the livery of the Bretonnian ambassador. It had been redecorated in the colours of Bretonnia for the occasion and a buffet was laid out against one wall.

'Lector,' said de la Rougierre, bowing low, 'welcome'

Hasselstein was polite to the silly little dwarf and presented his ring of office to be kissed.

'You are the first of my guests. The company tonight will be most distinguished. Can I interest you in a Bretonnian vintage?'

'No, I think not well, maybe, yes.'

The ambassador grinned broadly and snapped his stubby fingers. A servant girl in a tight bodice decanted a full goblet of sparkling Vin de Couronne.

The drink might relax him a little.

The girl flounced off and Hasselstein noticed just how close the cut of her uniform was. He suspected that the buffoon dwarf had had a hand in the design of the outfits worn by his female servants.

Leos von Liebewitz might be the best duellist in the Empire, but Etienne de la Rougierre could lay claim, in another sense, to being the most prominent swordsman.

He thought of his mistress and her moods. She was as unpredictable as an Altdorf fog and as dangerously deep. Tonight, he must confirm his position with Yelle, or risk madness.

Of course, de la Rougierre must have some diplomatic scheme or other to propose, and he should pay attention to that as well.

The next to arrive was the future Emperor Luitpold, attended by two huge guardsmen in full armour.

'Rough night,' he said. 'Half the city is on fire.'

The young man was still a child in many ways and prone to exaggeration.

'Really, highness?' Hasselstein said, politely. 'You surprise me.'

'It's the fog,' the young man said. 'It always makes people funny in the head.'

'The fog, yes.'

He was thinking of Yelle, of her lips, her eyes, the delicate softness of her 'Fog.'

The serving girl gave the Prince a drink and he thanked her. She nearly swooned, obviously smitten with the young man, for his stature as future Emperor if not for his ordinary good looks. For his part, Luitpold was equally obviously staggered by her, especially when she leaned forward to fill his goblet. The palace maids certainly didn't look like that.

'You know,' the heir to the Empire said, 'I could have sworn I saw something in the corner of the room something small, with bright eyes'

De la Rougierre was offended. 'Highness, that is impossible. I had all the rats caught and killed this afternoon'

and they would be gracing the table this evening, if Hasselstein's prejudices about Bretonnian cuisine were to be confirmed.

'I have ensured that this establishment is fit for the most highborn and courtly of guests'

The dwarf winked, his grin taking on a lascivious tone.

'if, however, graced with a manner of entertainment one would not find at the stuffier court sort of affair.'

De la Rougierre was practically dancing a jig. He would be more fitted to the position of jester than ambassador. It really was time the Emperor protested to King Charles about the little idiot.

'I've secured the services of a variety of entertainers the like of whom one rarely sees. They appeal, I hope, to the more sophisticated tastes, to the more liberated palate'

Hasselstein thought he knew what the dwarf meant and was a little annoyed. He had Yelle to think of and did not want to be distracted by some cheap Bretonnian peepshow.

Another carriage arrived outside, and Hals and Hergard von Tasseninck were admitted. The Grand Prince had a handkerchief clapped to his forehead and was bleeding into it.

'Someone threw a rock at father,' said Hergard.

Hasselstein's goblet was empty and he decided he would like a refill.

This had the makings of a very tiresome evening.

'Near'

Rosanna felt like a tiny fish in the presence of a whale. The creature they hunted was nearby and hungry.

The contact had come out of nowhere and latched onto her brain. She wondered if the Beast had been among the crowd in Luitpoldstrasse. She could have looked into the murderer's eyes and only now be feeling the effects.

The presence was overwhelming, freezing her to the spot. Her bowels wanted to let go, but she fought to control her body.

Kleindeinst stood back, concerned.

There was violence around him too. He had killed a man this afternoon and she couldn't look at him without feeling it. Over and over in her head, Joost Rademakers's throat crunched under his fist.

Then, she was free.

Gasping, she said, 'He's near. Very near'

'Where?'

She tried to scry a direction, turning in a circle.

'That way,' she pointed. It was the direction the crowd had taken.

'Towards the Street of a Hundred Taverns?'

'Yes.'

She imagined the Beast loping along among the crowds, unseen by them, inflamed by their savagery. He would have had a taste of blood by now.

'Captain Kleindeinst,' she said.

'Yes?'

She remembered the dark heart of the thing that had touched her mind. It had been like a concentrated cloud of blackness, with spears of silver lightning inside it.

'The Beast is getting ready to kill again.'

IX.