Free Necromancer by Jonathan Green - (ebook by Undead)

even though the Corpse Taker seemed to have
decided to leave the populace alone for the time being. The rain was welcome,
however, as it sluiced the slurry out of the streets that had collected in even
greater quantities during the three days given over to the Mitterfruhl festival.
But Dieter Heydrich had been virtually unaware of any of it.
    Following his dire experience at the hands of the witch
hunter Brother-Captain Krieger, Dieter had thrown himself into his studies even
more than he had done before. He also spent even longer hours in the guild
library and then continued with his note-taking late into the night in his
garret room, spurning Erich’s offers of an evening’s relaxing entertainment away
from his studies. It was as if he was determined to prove that any ability he
might have was purely down to diligent labour and nothing more sinister than
that. What did it matter that he was a son of a priest of Morr? He had been
brought up in a gods-fearing household and he knew full well the difference
between right and wrong. He was certainly no bodysnatcher or, Morr forbid, a
necromancer!
    But that did not change the fact that Dieter had acquired a
sinister new nickname, given him by the other students, that of the daemon’s
apprentice. Professor Theodrus had also taken pains to distance himself from
Dieter. Although Theodrus had initially stood by his star pupil, incensed that
Krieger should demonstrate such a flagrant disregard for the establishment of
the physicians’ guild, which itself held great power and influence within the
town, now that the matter was resolved, for the time being at least, the guild
master had decided that to protect his interests he had needed to loosen the
bonds between himself and his apprentice.
    There had been long-held distrust between the Templar Order
of Sigmar and the physicians’ guild. The templars held an almost psychotic
hatred for magic users and spell casters—seeing the miracles their own warrior
priests performed as exactly that, the divine intervention of the Heldenhammer
himself—and considered the potion-brewing physicians as little better than
conjurers or alchemists themselves.
    So when Leopold offered him the opportunity to visit the
Temple of Shallya, only a little further into the town from the guild, Dieter
jumped at the chance to further his studies in another setting, no matter how
brief that change might be. Here was a chance to prove that he was dedicated to
the healing arts rather than a practitioner of the black arts, and at the same
time practise his skills on live patients, rather than merely helping the
licensed guild members prepare treatments that the qualified physicians would
ultimately administer themselves, or simply cleaning up after them in their
filthy laboratories.
     
    The infirmary was a surprisingly large, open space that
seemed to swallow up the echoes of the footsteps on the flags and absorb the
muffled moans of the patients. It had been arranged inside a long hall, the
cross-beamed roof the height of a two-storey building. Simple pallet beds lined
the whitewashed walls, some separated from the others by wooden screens. The
priestesses of Shallya glided between the beds in their dove grey and white
gowns with a gold-embroidered heart over the left breast, each woman wearing a
wimple that kept her hair hidden and out of the way.
    The women ranged in age from young girls, barely out of
adolescence, admitted to the temple as novices, to plump old dames, many of whom
were widows who had come to the order late in life, after their duties to family
were done, as a way of making the last years of their life mean something.
    But they all had a calm demeanour about them and a ready
smile for those poor souls in their care.
    Standing before the two apprentices was Sister Marilda, a
tall woman whose age Dieter found it hard to determine. Her face was handsome
enough and she held herself with delicate poise and