by Warhammer
‘No, that’s in,’ said Ortwin, smiling.
‘Fine,’ said Felix. ‘What I am trying to say is that it is not a romantic thing to be an adventurer. You are going to have a dangerous enough life as it is, being a member of a knightly order, but you will at least have a home to go to, and a whole company of comrades to watch your back, and some sort of pension set aside for when you get old. An adventurer has none of that. It is a lonely life, uncomfortable, wounding to the body, the mind and the spirit, and more dangerous than you could ever imagine. It is not a thing that any sane man would wish for himself. The adventurers I have known, man, elf and dwarf, were driven, desperate people, either running from something terrible, or chasing something impossible. They were not adventuring for the fun of it, or for some noble purpose, but because life had left them no other option. And they were all, without exception, stark, raving mad. Do you understand what I’m saying?’
‘Oh, yes, sir,’ said the boy, with the same gleam in his eye he had had when he had first admitted his love for the books. ‘Thank you. That is very good advice, sir. I will be sure to keep it in mind.’ He looked over his shoulder, then smiled again. ‘I have to go tend to Sir Teobalt’s corns now. I won’t keep you from your writing any further. Thank you, Herr Jaeger. It was an honour to meet you.’
He hurried off with a spring in his step. It was quite clear to Felix that not a single word of what he had said had penetrated the young squire’s thick skull. He moaned. How many young idiots were reading his books and making plans to go a-roving? He could just picture Ortwin’s snow-covered corpse curled up in his bedroll somewhere in the Worlds Edge Mountains with a goblin spear through his spine, his first adventure over before it had begun. If he died, and all the other idiots with him, was Felix responsible? Would he have set them on the road to a quick death?
The idea of recalling and burning all the copies of the books rose up in his head. He didn’t want any more deaths on his conscience. But it would be impossible to get all the books back, and would it really be his fault if some fool ran off after reading his stories? After all, some people – perhaps most people – just laughed at the books. Who was to say that the Ortwins of the world would not have sought adventure anyway? Felix had certainly not read stirring tales of derring-do when he was young. He had read romantic poetry and great philosophical dissertations, and yet here he was, vowing eternal vengeance on vile ratmen, and following a mad old knight into the woods in dead of winter on a wild goose chase after a sword and an old cloak. So perhaps one thing had nothing to do with the other.
They disembarked in the bustling trading town of Ahlenhof four days later and asked about for a boat to take them up the Zufuhr as far as it was possible to go, but there seemed to be no boats to be had, though Teobalt offered double the normal rate.
‘I’m sorry, sir,’ said the fifth boatman they approached, ‘but we are all commandeered. Stangenschloss has been regarrisoned, and is getting in supplies for the winter. Their quartermasters have rented every northbound boat along the Zufuhr for themselves, and the refugees take every southbound one. I wait now for oat fodder bound for the fort and daren’t let my boat to any other.’
‘Stangenschloss regarrisoned?’ said Teobalt, his ears perking up. ‘Have you heard aught of the Knights of the Fiery Heart there? Or of who garrisons it?’
‘No, m’lord,’ said the boatman. ‘I have not heard that name, or who commands there.’
And so, with similar answers everywhere they asked, and Sir Teobalt impatient to be started, they put their packs in the cart and began to make their way north by the rutted and muddy forest road that paralleled the little river instead.
With winter coming on, almost no one was going north, but many were coming south. Huddled refugees bundled in rags against the cold, trains of Shallyan hospital wagons, carrying the wounded and diseased down from the northern battlefields, soldiers from every province of the Empire, limping home after fighting all summer and autumn. Some were boisterous and prideful, for the Empire had won a great victory, and they sang jaunty marching songs and bragged amongst themselves about their kills and their conquests, but more were gaunt, sick, maimed or shattered in their minds, for the victory had come at a great cost, and against an enemy so strange and terrible that even to defeat them was to risk madness. It made Felix uneasy to see them.
The way was narrow and hemmed in by trees, and at every meeting, Sir Teobalt had to pull his cart to the side to let the southbound travellers pass. Sometimes they were met by jocularities – ‘Off to fight at Middenheim, grandfather? You’re a little late,’ and, ‘He may be old, but his lance is still hard! Just ask his squire!’
Just as often, however, they were met by warnings – ‘Turn back, my lord. There is snow and ice north of Leer,’ and, ‘Beware the beasts! They ate half our party at Trenkenkraag,’ and, ‘Come back in the spring. Whatever you seek won’t be found this winter. You will find only death.’
Sir Teobalt paid no attention to either jests or advice, just set his face in a look of dour disapproval and waited for whomever it might be to pass. Gotrek also made no comment, mostly because after one look at his crest and massive physique, no one was foolish enough to toss any jibes his way.
On the afternoon of the first day they came across a troop of Reikland archers surrounding a plump merchant and his four guards, who perched atop their ale wagon like cats treed by a pack of dogs. The archers were all clamouring to be given a drink, and some were trying to pull down kegs from the back as the guards shouted and banged at their fingers with cudgels.
‘It’s all spoken for, friends!’ cried the merchant, wide-eyed with fear. ‘I can’t sell you any! I’m sorry!’
‘Then give us some!’ cried one of the archers. ‘Do you want the boys who saved your sorry hide from the Kurgan to go thirsty?’
‘Ungrateful lout,’ said another. ‘Fat while we’re starving!’
‘Only one barrel!’ shouted several others.
Felix didn’t like to see such bullying, but he might have passed by without interfering, as he could also see the archers’ point of view, but Sir Teobalt, however, was incensed.
‘Sergeant! Control your men!’ he bellowed as he stood up on the buckboard of their cart.
The sergeant, who had been harrying the merchant just as strongly as his men, turned, sneering, but when he saw that he was addressing a nobleman he paused, then gave a hesitant salute.
‘Sorry, m’lord,’ he said. ‘But the men are sore thirsty, and long on the road.’
‘That is no excuse to rob an innocent merchant on the high road. By Sigmar, did you not go north to protect the people of our dear land? You might as well be Kurgan yourselves! Be off with you!’
Some of the archers growled under their breath at this, and none of them moved from the ale wagon.
The sergeant looked nervously from Teobalt to the archers and back. ‘M’lord, I don’t think they’ll listen to me. They’ll have my head if they don’t have beer.’
Gotrek drew his axe and stood beside the templar. ‘And I’ll have their heads if they do!’ he roared.
The sergeant’s eyes bulged, and his men looked around and stared.
‘Who wants a drink, then?’ snarled Gotrek, slapping the haft of the axe against his palm.
The sergeant looked doleful, but finally sighed and turned to his men. ‘All right then, lads. Let’s away and leave this honest merchant to his journey. We was only teasing anyway.’
A chorus of ‘aye’ and ‘s’right’ and ‘only a bit of fun’ followed this, and the archers formed up reluctantly behind the sergeant and began again to head south.
Teobalt regarded them disdainfully from under his shaggy white brows as they marched by. ‘For shame,’ he said. ‘That soldiers of Karl Franz’s Empire must be turned from evil by threat of violence. I despair for the modern age.’
The archers hung their heads as they passed under that penetrating gaze, but as they marched away, Felix thought he hear
d one of them say, ‘Stick it in yer ear, m’lord.’
When they had gone, Teobalt turned to Gotrek and inclined his head. ‘My thanks, Herr dwarf. But for your timely interjection, things might have gone very differently.’
Gotrek shrugged. ‘Forget it.’
Just then the merchant jumped down from his cart and hurried over to them, his eyes bright. ‘My lord! My friends! Herr dwarf! Thank you! How can I ever repay you? I was in desperate danger of losing my stock and perhaps my life. Had you not come along, all would have been taken.’
‘Do not trouble yourself, my good man,’ said Teobalt. ‘It is only what any man of the Empire would do, when faced with such injustice.’
‘Not so, m’lord,’ said the merchant. ‘There are many who would have helped the soldiers against me and shared in the spoils.’ He clasped Teobalt’s boot upon the buckboard. ‘I beg you, m’lord. If we travel the same road, might we not travel it together? This was not the first such trouble, and I fear it may not be the last, but with your presence, I may get my beer all the way to Bauholz in safety.’
‘If Bauholz lies on the path to Fort Stangenschloss, then you are welcome to join our train,’ said Sir Teobalt.
‘It does, m’lord,’ said the merchant eagerly. ‘It is the town closest to it. The fort is just five days or so north of it, through the woods. And I thank you for your kindness.’
Sir Teobalt waved that aside and they got underway again, Teobalt’s cart in the lead and the ale wagon following close behind.
As he walked beside the cart, Felix leaned in towards Gotrek, who sat beside the old knight. ‘I’ve never seen you take such an interest in defending the common man when there wasn’t a monster or daemon involved,’ he said.
‘It wasn’t the common man I was defending,’ said Gotrek, licking his lips. ‘It was his beer.’
‘Ah,’ said Felix, and they travelled on.
North of the little village of Leer, the road became no more than a track, with the trees drawn in closer on either side, making even high noon dark and full of shadows. Sir Teobalt ordered Ortwin to don his armour and helmet and to keep his sword at the ready. With the squire’s help he did the same himself, strapping on his cuirass and vambraces and setting his helmet beside him on the buckboard. The merchant and his guards belted their leather jacks tighter underneath their woollen cloaks and heavy scarves. Felix followed their example, shrugging into his ringmail and loosening Karaghul in its scabbard, then tugging his old red cloak close around his shoulders. Gotrek had no armour to don, but he held his axe across his knees, not on his back.
At the same time it began to grow colder, with a few dry flakes of snow drifting down through the interwoven firs above them, and the thick mud of the track freezing into lumpy ridges and making it hard going for the carts. There were many times when they were obliged to get out and push, or lift their wheels out of some deep depression.
This was no problem with Teobalt’s cart, which was almost empty, but the ale wagon was another matter, and the merchant, whose name was Dider Reidle, had many opportunities to thank Gotrek for his strength and Felix for his assistance; and that first night north of Leer, when they made camp, rewarded them all by broaching a cask of his precious cargo as they sat down to their dinner around the fire, and filling their cups and jacks.
Gotrek pronounced it ‘not bad,’ which was high praise coming from a dwarf.
Felix saluted the merchant. ‘Thank you, Herr Reidle,’ he said. ‘It’s very good.’
Reidle bowed his head. ‘Thank you, sir. Without you I would have none to share.’
‘I don’t understand why you made the journey if it is so dangerous,’ said Felix. ‘Can the profit be so great that it’s worth the risk?’
Reidle sighed. ‘Well, had I been able to take the river, there would have been little risk, but all the boats are spoken for, and since I had already been partly paid for the shipment I felt I must try, dangerous though it may be.’
‘Is Bauholz so large that it needs all this beer?’ asked Sir Teobalt.
‘Only recently, m’lord,’ said Reidle. ‘It was a tiny little village by all accounts, but since the war it has become a booming place. It is the last good port on the Zufuhr, and so has got a lot of traffic lately, with soldiers going one way, and refugees going the other. Before they had no inn, and only Taal’s bower for a tavern. Now they have three inns, and beer and sausages for sale in every shack and tent that can hold two people.’
Sir Teobalt made a face. ‘It sounds like a place of sin and depravity.’
‘Oh aye,’ said Reidle with a smile. ‘But good for business.’
For four more days they continued north into the woods towards Bauholz, and with every step Felix felt like he was pushing deeper into some web that he would not be able to walk out of again. He could not shake the feeling that the forest was watching them – that unseen presences were waiting for them to let down their guard so that they might pounce. He never saw anything, or heard anything more than birdcalls and the yelp of foxes or the bay of distant wolves, but always there was the same tingling between his shoulder blades that felt like hungry eyes upon him.
They spent their third night at a lumber camp on the banks of Zufuhr, little more than a few tents and stacks of trimmed tree trunks inside a temporary wooden palisade. The wood cutters knew Reidle from previous trips and welcomed him warmly, particularly after he rolled the broached barrel off the back of his cart and invited them all to share.
‘Well worth it,’ he whispered to Felix as they were sitting down to eat a hearty venison stew in the camp’s mess tent, ‘for the security of sleeping inside walls.’
Though he knew the safety of the camp was largely an illusion, Felix was inclined to agree. The feeling of being watched had diminished as soon as they had entered the palisade, and his shoulders had relaxed for the first time since they had left Leer.
‘And with luck we’ll be in Bauholz and journey’s end before dark tomorrow,’ Reidle continued. ‘As long as the weather holds.’
It was too bad Bauholz was only the beginning of his journey, thought Felix. Sigmar only knew where Sir Teobalt’s search for the missing templars would lead them. He had a sudden fantasy of finding them all waiting for them at the gates of Bauholz, healthy and happy and ready for Teobalt to lead them home. He chuckled at the foolishness of the vision. It was never that easy.
Never.
The next morning, as they shared a breakfast of river trout, porridge and beer with the camp foreman, Felix watched with interest as the wood cutters laid dozens of tree trunks side by side on the bank of the river, then lashed them together with sturdy ropes.
By the time they’d finished eating and hitched the horses again to the wagons, these log rafts had been pushed out onto the water, and as Felix and Gotrek and the rest rode out of the compound and turned north towards Bauholz, they had begun drifting south down the river towards Ahlenhof, each carrying two men armed with long hook-tipped poles who stood at the forward corners.
They’re going the right way, thought Felix, as the flotilla vanished around a bend in the river, and the feeling of being watched settled between his shoulderblades once again, just as strongly as before.
By late afternoon it was clear that, though the weather had held, in all other ways, Reidle’s luck had failed him. With the light of the sun turning from red to purple, they were still hours away from Bauholz and trying, for the fifth time that day, to rock the ale cart out of a deep frozen rut.
They were having little success.
Gotrek was under the wagon, muddy to the knees and lifting with his back pressed against the bottom of the bed, while Felix and Reidle hauled at the spokes of the back wheels and the rest pushed at the tail. Squire Ortwin held the leads of the carthorses while Sir Teobalt directed the whole operation from the side.
‘Ortwin,’ cried the old knight. ‘On my mark, lead them forwards while the rest push. Ready? Heave!’
Felix heaved at the wagon a
long with Gotrek and the others, his feet slipping in the icy muck. It rolled forwards almost to the lip of the rut, then slid back again like it had the last seven times.
‘Better,’ called Teobalt encouragingly. ‘Once more and we shall have it. Ready?’
Felix wiped mud from his eye and put his shoulder to the wagon again with the others, but just as Sir Teobalt was raising his hand to call ‘heave,’ one of the horses whickered and backed nervously in its traces while the other neighed and plunged ahead.
The wagon jolted forwards. Gotrek was knocked flat as the axle clipped his back and the others staggered and fell. Felix slipped too, banging his shoulder against the wheel and landing in the mud.
He jumped up cursing and rubbing his shoulder as Ortwin tried to calm the horses. ‘Damn this cart!’ he said. ‘Damn these horses! We should take the damned barrels off and roll them to Bauholz!’ He kicked the wagon wheel. ‘I’ve had enough of this–’
‘Quiet, manling,’ said Gotrek, crawling out from under the wagon. He picked up his axe and looked around at the surrounding woods.
Felix stopped and listened as well, though it was hard to hear anything over the worried whickering of the wagon’s horses. Their distress seemed to have spread to the other animals as well. Sir Teobalt’s carthorses were throwing their heads and rolling their eyes, while Ortwin’s pony was pulling at its lead. Only Sir Teobalt’s charger remained calm, though its ears turned alertly.
Reidle’s guards drew their swords, their heads on swivels.
‘What is it?’ whispered Reidle. ‘Bandits?’
‘Wolves?’ asked one of his guards.
‘Worse,’ said Gotrek.
Sir Teobalt clapped on his helmet and took up his shield, then motioned them all to get between the two wagons. ‘Face out from the centre. They may come from any side.’
They gathered behind Sir Teobalt’s cart, which was in front of the ale wagon, and turned to either side, weapons at the ready. Teobalt began praying and Ortwin and Reidle’s guards picked it up. ‘Lord Sigmar grant us your strength in this our hour of need. Let us smite our enemies like your hammer. Let us push back the powers of darkness.’