by Warhammer
He glanced down at the girl. Her soot-covered face was serious. ‘What did you say?’
‘I said, ‘I wish I was brave like you’.’
He laughed at that. Something about her openness and transparent desire to be liked touched him. ‘I’m not brave.’
‘Yes you are. Fighting those beasts was brave – like something a hero in a tale would do.’
He tried to picture himself as a hero from one of the sagas he had been fond of as a youth, a Sigmar or an Oswald. Somehow he couldn’t quite manage it. He knew himself too well. Those men had been god-like, flawless. In fact Sigmar had become a god, the patron deity of the Empire he had founded. People like that never knew fear or doubt or venality.
‘I was scared. I was only trying to stay alive. I’m not brave – Gotrek is.’
She shook her head emphatically. ‘Yes, he is – but so are you. You were scared and fought anyway. I think that’s why you’re brave.’
She was completely serious. Felix was amused and not a little flattered. ‘No one’s ever accused me of that before.’
She turned and pouted, thinking he was making fun of her. ‘Well I think you are, anyway. It doesn’t matter what no one says.’
He stood a little taller and pulled his ragged cloak tight. Strange – he had become used to seeing Gotrek as the hero of an epic tale, the one he was supposed to write on the Slayer’s death. He had never imagined himself as a part of that tale before. He had always pictured himself more as an invisible observer, a chronicler of the dwarf’s exploits, unmentioned in the text. Maybe the child had a point. Maybe he should devote some space to his own adventures as well.
The Saga of Gotrek and Felix. No – My Travels with Gotrek. By Herr Felix Jaeger. He could picture it as a leather-bound book, printed in immaculate Gothic script on one of his father’s printing presses. It would be written in Reikspiel of course, a popular work. Classical was too stuffy, the language of scholars and lawyers and priests. Maybe it would be read all across the Known World. He might become as famous as Detlef Sierck or the great Tarradasch himself.
He would put in all their various adventures. The destruction of the coven on Geheimnisnacht; their skirmishes with wolf riders in the land of the Border Princes. All the events leading up to the destruction of Fort von Diehl. Their ventures into the dark beneath the world. Their battles with the Horned Man and their journey through the plague pits below Altdorf.
He tried to imagine how he would portray himself in the story – of course he would be brave, loyal, modest. Reality began to intrude on his daydream almost immediately. Brave? Maybe. He had faced some scary situations without dishonour. Loyal? If he stuck with the Slayer until the end he would certainly be that. Modest? Unlikely, since how modest was it to include oneself in the saga of someone else’s adventures? Perhaps it wasn’t such a good idea after all. He would just have to wait and see.
‘If you’re not a hero and Gotrek is, why do you travel with him?’
‘Why do you ask such difficult questions, little one?’ Felix asked, hoping the Slayer couldn’t hear. Gotrek had wandered far ahead across the glade, wrapped up in his own dour thoughts.
It was a difficult question, Felix decided. Why did he follow the Slayer? The simple answer was because he was sworn to. He had taken an oath that drunken night after the Slayer had pulled him out from underneath the hooves of the Emperor’s cavalry. He was honour-bound to keep his promise. He owed the dwarf a debt for saving his life.
In the beginning he had thought that was why he had stuck by Gotrek, but now he had another theory. The dwarf had presented him with the perfect excuse to adventure, to see far places and dark things. Things that interested and excited him. He could have stayed at home and become a boring merchant like his older brother, Otto. He had never wanted that, had always rebelled against it. The Slayer’s quest had provided him with a reason to leave Altdorf. One that he had used to rationalise his own wish to go anyway. Since then he had lived an extraordinary life, one not so very different from that of the hero of a saga. He no longer knew what he would do if he ceased to travel with Gotrek. He couldn’t imagine going back to his old life.
‘I’m damned if I know,’ Felix said eventually.
The arrow hit the tree trunk beside Gotrek and stayed there, quivering. The Slayer glared around, sniffing the air and peering into the long grass. Had the beasts caught up with them again? Why had they not just shot them?
Felix looked at the black feathers attached to the shaft. It couldn’t be beastmen, he thought. It didn’t look like their type of weapon. Kat hadn’t mentioned seeing any of them armed with bows. His skin crawled with the threat of danger. He strained his senses to hear any sound. All he could hear was the wind in the branches, the singing of birds and the sound of the distant river.
‘That was a warning shot,’ said a voice, coarse and untutored. ‘Don’t come any closer.’
Downwind, Felix thought, the archer is downwind. Very professional. The same thought undoubtedly occurred to Gotrek as he glared at where the words had come from.
‘I’ll give you a warning shot all right. Come out and face my axe,’ he said. ‘Are you warriors or weaklings?’
‘Doesn’t sound like a beastman,’ another voice said, off to the left. It sounded hearty. There was a hint of mirth so great that it could not be kept in check, no matter how serious the situation.
‘Who can tell – these are strange times. Certainly doesn’t look like a man.’ This from a woman somewhere behind them. Felix turned to look but could see nothing. The area between his shoulder blades crawled. He expected an arrow to plant itself between them at any moment.
Gotrek’s voice was full of wrath. ‘Are you implying that I could be of your weak race? I’ll make you eat those words, human. I’m a bloody dwarf!’
‘Perhaps you should restrain yourself until we can see our ambushers,’ Felix whispered, then he shouted: ‘Forgive my friend. He is a great enemy of the Ruinous Powers and takes insult easily. We are not beastmen or mutants, as you can undoubtedly see. We are simple swords for hire, en route to Nuln and work. We mean no harm to you, whoever you are.’
‘He’s fair spoken an’ that’s for sure,’ the first voice said. ‘Hold your fire, lads. Until I give the word.’
‘Could be he’s a sorcerer – they’re said to be educated men,’ the woman’s voice said. ‘Maybe the child’s his familiar.’
‘Nah, that’s Kat from the Kleindorf Inn. She’s served me often enough. I’d know that hair anywhere.’ The jovial voice sounded thoughtful for a moment. ‘Maybe they’ve kidnapped her. I hear there’s a good market for virgin sacrifices in Nuln.’
Felix thought that things could easily turn very nasty here. These people sounded scared and suspicious, and it wouldn’t take much to convince them to fill him full of arrows and question the child later. He wracked his brains looking for a way out. He hoped Gotrek could restrain his natural inclination to go diving headlong into trouble or they might both be finished.
‘Is that you, Herr Messner?’ Kat said suddenly.
Sigmar bless you child, thought Felix. Keep them talking. Every word spoken increases the human contact, makes it harder for them to think of us as faceless foes.
‘Don’t kill them. They protected me from the beasts. They’re not warlocks or Chaos-lovers.’ She looked up at Felix with bright eyes. ‘It’s Herr Messner, one of the old Duke’s rangers. He used to sing me songs and tell me jokes when he came to the inn. He’s a nice man.’
That nice man is probably only a few seconds from putting an arrow between my eyes, thought Felix. ‘Kat’s right. We did kill beasts. We may have to kill many more. They destroyed Kleindorf – they may be on the march right now. They’re led by a warrior of Khorne.’
A large paunchy man emerged from the woods to Felix’s right. He was garbed in leathers and a mottled cloak of green and brown. Felix was surprised. He must have looked at the man several times and never known he was there. He had a bow i
n one big hand but he did not point it at either Gotrek or Felix. His movements were uncannily quiet for such a big man.
He stopped ten paces from the side of the trail and stared at them as if measuring them. His face was battered and his grey hair thinning. His nose looked broken and flattened. He had cauliflower ears like an ageing prize-fighter. His eyes were as grey and cold as steel.
‘Nah – you don’t look like hellspawn an’ that’s for sure. But if you’re not you’ve certainly picked a fine time to go wandering in the woods – what with every warped soul from here to Kislev on the move.’
‘Then why are you here?’ Gotrek asked. His face was dark, his anger barely held in check.
‘Not that I have to answer your questions, mind, but it’s my job. Me an’ the lads keep an eye on things in these woods for the old Duke. An’ I can tell you just now I don’t like what I’ve been seein’.’
He rubbed his nose with his knuckles and stood staring at them. Felix tried to gauge the man. He sounded like a peasant but there was a keenness to his eye and a humour to his lazy drawl that suggested a clever man cunningly concealed. He looked slow to anger but Felix guessed that, once aroused, he would be a formidable foe. In his quiet way he was frightening. The way he stood casually facing the Slayer suggested one who was sure of his authority. Felix had seen his sort before – trusted retainers who had their lord’s confidence and who often dispensed instant justice on their holdings.
‘We are not your enemies,’ Felix said. ‘We are just passing on the Emperor’s road. We want no trouble.’
The man laughed as if Felix had said something amusing. ‘Then you’re in the wrong place, lad. Something’s got the old beastmen stirred up like I ain’t seen them in a score of years. They’ve left a trail of destruction from wood to mountain an’ from what you’re saying they’ve done for Kleindorf as well. Pity – I always liked the place. What of Klein an’ his soldiers? Surely they must have done somethin’.’
‘Died,’ Gotrek said and laughed caustically. The forester looked at him. Anger was in his eyes.
‘Nah – there was the castle. That’s been there nigh on six hundred years. Beasts never attack fortifications. Don’t have the strategy. It’s what’s kept us alive in these cursed lands.’
‘It’s true. What Gotrek says is true,’ Kat said. She sounded like she was about to cry.
‘I’d watch out for the next village if I were you,’ Gotrek said, then added sardonically, ‘for sure.’
Messner turned and shouted into the forest: ‘Rolf – head west an’ see what you can see. Freda – round up the rest of the lads an’ meet us in Flensburg. I’ll take our friends there. Looks like things are about to turn nasty.’
The others didn’t respond. Felix didn’t even hear a rustle of the bushes but he sensed that their watchers were gone. He shivered. He had been standing so close to death and never even seen its deliverers. He felt his dislike for the woods returning; he preferred a place where a man could see danger approaching.
Messner gestured for them to follow him. ‘Come on. You can tell me what you know along the way. By the time we get to Flensburg I want to know exactly what happened.’
An old man sat cross-legged on a rush mat near the door of a blockhouse, smoking a long curved pipe. He and a young boy were playing draughts with pebbles on a board scratched in the earth. He looked up from his game and eyed Felix with the finely honed suspicion of the woodsman for the stranger, before blowing out several lines of smoke rings into the air. Messner waved to him, a kind of curt salute, and the old man returned it with a convoluted gesture of his left hand. Was he warding off the evil eye, Felix wondered, or communicating in some sign language?
He studied the little town with interest, paying special attention to the burly men carrying large two-handed axes. Their faces were covered with multicoloured scar-tattoos. Their eyes were narrow and watchful. They stomped through the muddy streets in high fur-trimmed boots with all the arrogant assurance of a Middenheim Templar. Sometimes they paused to exchange gossip with the fat fur-hatted traders or to leer at a pretty nut-brown girl carrying pails from the river to the drinking water barrels.
A pot-bellied man shouted Messner over to inspect a pile of furs spread out on wicker mats in front of him. They were obviously the pick of some trapper’s haul. Messner shook his head in a friendly manner and strolled on. He stopped only to let laughing barefoot children chase a pig in front of him.
They passed a smokehouse in front of which hung great hams and half carcasses of boar. The smoky smell of the meat made Felix’s mouth water. Chickens hung by their necks from thongs attached to the eaves. Felix was reminded uncomfortably of the men hanging from the gibbet outside Kleindorf and he looked away again.
Messner wandered over to the house of a scribe and after a brief consultation took a brush and ink and inscribed something on a tiny piece of paper. Then they marched over to a coop outside one of the blockhouses in which were six fat grey pigeons. Messner rolled the paper up and put it in a steel ring. Then he reached into the coop and took out one of the birds. He ringed it, released it and watched with some satisfaction as it fluttered skyward.
‘Well, duty done an’ the old Duke warned,’ he said. ‘Maybe Flensburg will be safe yet.’
Felix thought it might be; it was certainly defensible enough and there must be nearly seven hundred people here. Flensburg lay near the bend of the river, and resembled a great logging camp more than a village or town. It was walled on two sides with a ditch and a wooden palisade. The curve of the river protected the other two sides. From jetties, rafts and great piles of lumber were poled out into the stream to drift to the-gods-knew-what market – probably Nuln eventually, Felix thought.
As they approached, they had seen dozens of the square wooden blockhouses within the thick wooden walls, each built like a miniature fort, with their stout log walls and their flat turf ceilings. The place spoke of the functional; he imagined some of the buildings were storehouses and trading posts. One had a crude hammer shape made from two logs stuck onto the roof – a temple to Sigmar.
Once through the heavy fortified gate, he had seen that the people of Flensburg were like their town: dour, spare, functional. Most of the men were garbed in fur; they were sullen, hard-faced and hard-eyed. They looked at the strangers warily. Their watchfulness seemed inbred. Most carried heavy woodsman’s axes. Some, the ones garbed in functional ranger’s clothing, carried bows. The women wore gayer colours, thick multi-layered skirts, padded jerkins; their hair was wrapped in red spotted scarves. Matrons marched down the muddy streets carrying baskets of produce, trailed by processions of children like mother ducks leading a line of young.
The people here near the southern border of the woods were shorter than the citizens of the Empire’s cities. Their hair was predominantly sandy-brown and their complexions darker and more tanned. Felix knew that they had a reputation as a gloomy, god-fearing folk, superstitious, poor and ill-educated. Looking at these people he could believe it, but he knew that his city-bred prejudices told only half the story.
He had not been prepared for their pride and fearlessness. He had expected something like the downtrodden serfs of a noble’s estate. He had found people who looked him fearlessly in the eye and stood tall and straight in the frightening shadows of the great forest. He had thought Messner exceptional but he could see he was typical of his folk. Felix had expected serfs and found freemen, and for some reason that pleased him.
Gotrek looked at the walls and the blockhouses, and turned to Messner. ‘Best call your people and tell them what to expect. It won’t be good.’
Felix stared out from the watchtower across the cleared area surrounding the village towards the woods beyond. Now that he was out of their shadow, the trees seemed threatening again: giant, alien, alive, their gloom giving shelter to something inimical. He watched the last stragglers of the day filter in through the gates. Beside him, Messner kept watch with his cold grey eyes.
&n
bsp; ‘Things look bad an’ that’s for sure,’ he said.
‘I would have thought you often had to deal with the beasts, living in these woods.’
‘Right enough we fight them and the outcasts and other things every now and again. But it’s always been skirmishes. They steal a child, we kill a few. They raid for pigs, we hunt them down. Sometimes we have to send to the old Duke for troops an’ mount an expedition when the raids get too fierce. Ain’t seen nothin’ like this before though. Somethin’s got them stirred up bad an’ that’s for sure.’
‘Could it be this woman, this champion?’
‘Seems more than likely. You hear about them in the old stories – the Dark Ones, the champions of Chaos – but you never expect to come across them.’
‘There have been times when I’ve thought that those old stories contain much truth,’ Felix said. ‘I’ve seen a few strange things in my travels. I’m not so quick to doubt these days.’
‘That’s right true, Herr Jaeger. An’ I’m glad to hear an educated man like yourself admit as such. I’ve seen a few strange things myself in these woods. An’ there’s many an old tale of me da’s I don’t doubt either. They say there’s a Black Altar in those woods somewhere. A thing dedicated to the Dark Ones where humans are sacrificed. They say beastmen and other… things… worship there.’
They lapsed into uneasy silence. Felix felt gloom settle over him. All this talk of the Dark Ones had unsettled him and left him deeply uneasy. He glanced out once more into the clearing.
The women and children had stopped working in the fields and were returning to the safety of the walls, their baskets full of potatoes and turnips. Felix knew that they would take them to the storehouses. The village was preparing itself for a siege. The other women, who had been gathering nuts and herbs in the wood, had returned hours ago when the great warning horn was blown.
The foresters and woodsmen were within, checking the water barrels were full, whittling stakes and attaching the metal heads to spears. From behind him he could hear the continuous whizz and thunk of arrows impacting on targets as the archery practice continued.