by Warhammer
Now all was warmth and peace and the smell of wet wool drying by the fire – that is until Teobalt finished his tale and the mayor pounded the table he stood behind with a meaty fist, snapping Felix out of his nap.
‘By Sigmar, Sir Teobalt,’ he said. ‘That’s bad. A bad business. And Esselfurt stands behind you in your effort to defeat this terrible threat to our beloved Empire.’
‘I thank you, Mayor Dindorf,’ said the templar, relieved. ‘Then you will send to your lord, and ask him to bring troops to face the herd before Hexensnacht?’
‘Word was sent last night when the beasts crossed the Talabec, m’lord,’ said Mayor Dindorf. ‘And I will send messengers with this new information. But, er…’
‘Is there a difficulty?’ asked Sir Teobalt dangerously, as Dindorf faltered.
‘Well, you see,’ said the mayor, ‘I’m not sure who will come. Or how soon.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said the templar, his face clouding. ‘Who would come but your lord?’
The mayor scratched the back of his head. ‘Well, it’s like this, m’lord. Count Feuerbach, the Elector of Talabecland is our liege here, but he hasn’t returned from the fighting in the north. It is rumoured he might be dead. Most of the lords who would answer in his place are away in Talabheim, petitioning Countess Krieglitz-Untern to be his successor.’
‘So you have sent to them there?’ Sir Teobalt’s shoulders sagged. ‘Talabheim is days away. They will never return in time.’
‘Word has also been sent to their castles, my lord,’ said the mayor. ‘But, well, there is no one at them but their sons and wives. I don’t know who of them will answer.’
The templar sighed. ‘Is there no one who can raise an army quickly?’ he asked. ‘We face the end of all things.’
‘There is the Temple of Leopold in Priestlicheim,’ said Mayor Dindorf, ‘which trains warrior-priests. And the Monastery of the Tower of Vigilance further south. They’re said to be a martial order, but they don’t come out of the cloister much.’
Sir Teobalt nodded, though Felix could see that he was downhearted. ‘Then I beg you, mayor, to send to them as well, and muster what militia you can from your people. Tell them to come to Brasthof. We will follow the herd’s trail from there.’
‘Aye, my lord,’ said the mayor. ‘I will do what I can.’
Felix wondered unhappily how much that might be.
Sir Teobalt was torn between depression and fury as they made their way west along the south bank of the Talabec towards Brasthof in the driving rain, and it pained Felix to see it.
‘Sigmar, I am sickened,’ said the old knight, his eyes dull as he rode along on the horse that he had commandeered from Mayor Dindorf. He’d had to leave Machtig behind in Ahlenhof – the warhorse had been too big for the boat. ‘These puffed-up popinjays fight over the holdings of Count Feuerbach like so many thieves, while the Empire is being lost behind their backs.’ He sighed. ‘Perhaps we deserve our fate. Though we have pushed back the hordes from the north there is still much wickedness abroad in the land. Perhaps it is right to wipe the slate clean and start again.’
Felix was more inclined to put it down to bad luck and human nature, but he didn’t want to further upset the old templar with argument, so he said nothing.
As the pie-seller had said, there were huge shoals of dead beastmen floating in the river and washed up on the muddy banks all along the road to the village – Felix couldn’t even have begun to count how many, but it was hundreds, not dozens – all bloated and grey from being long in the water, and stinking to the gushing clouds.
In Brasthof, however, there were no bodies. The town was Stangenschloss and Leer and the timber camp all over again – shattered and empty except for a few looters, with the same unnerving lack of corpses they had seen before – proof that there had been no slaughter, just the terrible magic of the stone, replacing those who had drowned with the changed.
It had been a small town – bigger than Bauholz, smaller than Leer – but like Leer it had been sorely damaged by the herd’s passage. It looked as if the beastmen, frustrated because the stone’s transformative power left them with no enemies to fight, had taken out their rage on the buildings instead. Little flattened cottages lay with their thatched roofs on top of them like scratchy blankets, stables and smithies torn apart, shops set on fire. Gaping holes had been smashed in the front of the one tavern. The few survivors sat among the ruins, weeping and calling out to loved ones who were no longer there, and likely no longer human.
The temple of Sigmar seemed to have seen special attention from the beasts. It had been daubed with faeces and all its symbols torn down and smashed. In front of it, Felix saw a corpse in the robes of a priest. Up close they could see that the man had died halfway through changing into a beastman. It looked as if he had stabbed himself in the neck to stop the transformation.
As they made their way around the piles of rubble, Gotrek stopped and held up a hand. Felix and the others paused, listening. From behind the temple came the clank and rattle of armour and heavy steps. Felix and Sir Teobalt drew their swords. Kat pulled her bow from her back. The Slayers readied their weapons.
Then, around the corner crept four halberdiers in breastplates, morions and mustard-coloured uniforms slashed with burgundy. They stopped when they saw Teobalt’s party and went on guard.
‘Who are you?’ asked the one in front. ‘Scavengers?’
Sir Teobalt nudged his horse forwards a step. ‘I am Sir Teobalt von Dreschler, templar of the Order of the Fiery Heart. I and my companions seek the doom of the beastmen.’
The men relaxed when they heard Teobalt speak, and the first one bowed. ‘Soldiers of Lord Giselbert von Volgen, m’lord. You have know-ledge of these beasts?’
‘We have been following them for weeks,’ said Teobalt.
‘Then you had better speak to our master.’
The soldiers led them out the other side of the village to a windmill around which about a hundred mustard-uniformed soldiers stood at ease while a hard-faced, beardless young lord in a suit of fluted plate armour sat upon a barded warhorse and spoke to a huddled collection of villagers who stood beside him. The lord had a handful of other knights with him, and they hemmed in the villagers on all sides. A tall, powerfully built captain of halberdiers held the reins of the lord’s horse.
Felix was heartened to see so many uniformed men. It wasn’t an army, but after the excuses and disappointments at Ahlenhof and Esselfurt, to find a band of fighting men of any size on the trail of the beastmen was a welcome surprise.
‘Damn it, Thiessen,’ the square-jawed young lord was saying as Felix and the others approached. ‘Make them stop blubbing and talk sense. I don’t understand a word they’re saying.’
‘Aye, lord,’ said the big captain, then turned to the villagers. ‘Come now,’ he said kindly. ‘We won’t get it straight if you keep weeping. Take a breath and tell it again.’
‘They changed, I tell you!’ wailed a woman dressed only in a muddied shift. ‘Before my eyes they changed. My husband, my son, my… my beautiful little Minna. Horns and hooves and teeth! They… they turned on me. My Minna bit me!’ She burst out in fresh tears.
‘It is true, my lord,’ said an older man in torn clothes that had once been of fashionable cut. ‘The whole town became beasts. Blue lightning flashed and they changed, then attacked all they had loved.’
The young lord stared down at the man, a flat look on his cold face. He turned to his knights, obviously annoyed. ‘It must be nonsense,’ he said. ‘They are lying. It’s not possible.’
‘It is possible, my lord,’ said Sir Teobalt, as the soldiers led them close. ‘And they do not lie. I have seen the evidence of it with my own eyes.’
The young lord looked up at him with angry eyes as his knights turned their heads to stare. ‘Who interrupts?’
Seeing him full-on at last, Felix guessed he might be twenty-two, and with the look of a young man with something to prove.
The soldier who had brought Teobalt and the rest saluted. ‘My lord, this is Sir Teobalt von Dreschler, a templar, and his companions. They have been on the trail of the beasts for weeks.’ He turned to Teobalt and bowed. ‘My master, sir. Lord Giselbert von Volgen, heir to these lands.’
Von Volgen’s face relaxed somewhat when he heard Sir Teobalt’s title, and he inclined his head respectfully. ‘Well met, templar,’ he said. ‘So this madness they speak of is true?’
‘It is, my lord,’ said Sir Teobalt. ‘And there is worse.’
And so the old knight began to tell it all again, to fresh horror and shock, but before he had got very far, more of von Volgen’s soldiers ran towards the windmill from the town.
‘My lord,’ called one. ‘A column approaches! Fifty men!’
The soldiers by the mill straightened and looked to their weapons.
Von Volgen wheeled around. ‘Who is it?’ he barked. ‘Friend or foe?’
‘It is your cousin, my lord,’ said the soldier. ‘Lord Oktaf Plaschke-Miesner, come from Zeder.’
Von Volgen’s face twisted into a cold sneer. ‘Foe then,’ he said.
As those by the windmill watched, a double file of knights rode out of the village with a column of spearmen at their back. Leading them was an exquisite vision in red, black and gold. He rode a midnight horse with gold trappings, and was dressed head to foot in red garments of the finest quality, over which he wore a gleaming golden breastplate that looked like it belonged on the wall of a prince’s dining hall rather than upon the torso of a fighting soldier. His red doublet and puffed velvet breeches were slashed with cloth of gold, and he wore a yellow feather in a broad black hat.
When he saw von Volgen, he spurred his horse to the mill, his eyes flashing.
‘What is this, cousin!’ he cried, drawing up. ‘Have you forgotten what side of Priestlicheim Brasthof lies on?’ His voice was high and clear and matched his overly refined features and long blond hair perfectly. If he hadn’t been horribly plagued with spots, he would have been as beautiful as a girl. Felix guessed him to be seventeen – possibly sixteen.
Von Volgen looked the youth up and down contemptuously. ‘I do not ride for the house of Volgen, Oktaf,’ he said, ‘but for Count Feuerbach. I do my duty.’
‘It is your duty to invade my lands?’ said Plaschke-Miesner.
‘It is my duty, as it is yours, to protect the lands of our liege,’ said von Volgen. ‘Had you been doing your duty, I would not be here.’
‘Am I not here?’ said Plaschke-Miesner, putting a beringed hand to his breastplate.
‘Aye,’ said von Volgen. ‘An hour after me, when Zeder is half as far as Volgen. But then,’ he added with a sneer, ‘you weren’t coming from Zeder, were you? How long is the ride from Suderberg, cousin?’
Plaschke-Miesner snarled and drew his sword at that, crying, ‘Longer, it seems, than the one from Count Feuerbach’s grave!’
‘You dare, you dog?’
Von Volgen’s blade sang from its scabbard as, all around them, knights and soldiers from both sides rushed forwards shouting, ‘My lords! My lords!’ and Felix’s head spun with all the names.
He felt like he’d come in during the middle of a performance.
SEVENTEEN
Felix, Kat, Teobalt and the Slayers stepped back as horses reared and soldiers and knights called out for calm. Von Volgen and Plaschke-Miesner were having none of it.
‘Leave off, curse you,’ called Plaschke-Miesner, waving his men back with a gold-hilted sword. ‘He insults me on my own lands! I will have his blood.’
‘Away,’ roared von Volgen. ‘I will not have my loyalty questioned!’
Suddenly Sir Teobalt pushed forwards, his face red with fury. ‘My lords, there is no time for this! The threat of the beastmen–’
‘Stay back, templar,’ said von Volgen. ‘This is a matter of honour.’
‘It is indeed a matter of honour!’ cried Teobalt. ‘And you both dishonour your Empire and your names by–’
A sidestepping horse knocked him back. Felix and Kat jumped to catch him before he hit the cobblestones.
‘Are you all right, Sir Teobalt?’ asked Felix.
‘Insolent little fighting cocks,’ rasped the templar. He could hardly catch his breath.
Felix and Kat helped him away from the whirlwind that swept around the two nobles. Gotrek was growling under his breath as they passed him.
‘Do you deny that you have come from Middenland, then?’ called von Volgen, trying to control his plunging horse. ‘Do you deny that you mean to marry a von Kotzebue and give your lands to the Middenlanders?’
‘Love knows no borders, cousin,’ shouted Plaschke-Miesner in return. ‘Do you deny that your father is fitting himself for Feuerbach’s mantle before it is certain that he is dead?’
‘We only protect his lands in his absence,’ said von Volgen. ‘As we have for generations!’
‘Liar,’ shrilled Plaschke-Miesner, swiping wildly at von Volgen.
‘Traitor!’ bellowed von Volgen, slashing back.
‘Enough!’ roared Gotrek and, shoving forwards through the press of horses and men, he raised his axe then slammed it down between the two lords’ horses with such force that it shook the ground and buried itself up to the heel in the hard-packed earth.
‘If you want to tear each other to pieces,’ said the Slayer into the sudden silence, ‘wait until Witching Night, when you can do it with horns and hooves. Now stop this manling foolishness and listen to the templar or I’ll give you a real fight!’
The knights and soldiers erupted in outrage at this.
‘Kill the dwarf!’ cried one. ‘He threatens our lord!’
‘Arrest them all!’ said another.
‘You shall hang for this, villain!’ said a third.
‘Come and try it,’ growled the Slayer, pulling his axe from the earth in a spray of pebbles.
‘And try me as well,’ said Rodi, standing at Gotrek’s shoulder.
‘And Snorri too,’ said Snorri.
Felix groaned. The Slayers were going to end up killing the people they needed most. He stepped forwards, raising his arms and his voice.
‘Friends! Don’t do this! We must all save our strength to fight the beastmen.’
‘Stand aside, vagabond,’ said the burly captain. ‘Our lords have been threatened.’
‘Your lands are threatened!’ cried Felix, feeling some of Sir Teobalt’s righteous rage infecting him. ‘The beastmen will take everything! Your homes, your families, your souls! Don’t you understand? If you do not put aside your differences and unite now, you will have nothing left to fight over! We will all become beastmen! There will be no Middenland, no Talabecland, no lands for you to inherit – just one great forest where beasts who were once men fight each other over rocks and dirt and scraps of meat.’
The knights and soldiers started to shout him down, but both von Volgen and Plaschke-Miesner waved for silence.
‘No Talabecland?’ said von Volgen. ‘There will always be a Talabecland.’
‘And what do you mean, “we will all become beasts”?’ said Plaschke-Miesner.
Sir Teobalt stepped forwards again. ‘The beast-shaman who leads this mighty herd goes south to perform a vile ceremony that is meant to turn all men who dwell within the shadows of the Empire’s forests into beastmen. If he succeeds, all of the north will be affected, from Middenland to Ostermark, and you can be sure that great herd of changed men will not stay in the forests. They will come south, into Wissenland, Averland and the Reik. No part of the Empire will be untouched.’
The two lords and their retinues stared, dumbstruck. Someone at the back giggled.
‘But… but surely it’s impossible,’ said von Volgen.
‘Aye!’ said Plaschke-Miesner. ‘A fairy tale. No beast of the forest ever had such power. This “shaman” of yours won’t succeed.’
Sir Teobalt nodded gravely. ‘Perhaps not. But will you allow him to try?’ He swung
his arm to encompass the ruins of Brasthof. ‘Think wisely, my lords. For this is what awaits all of the Empire if he succeeds.’
The two lords hesitated upon their horses for a long moment, alternately looking around at the devastation and glaring at each other.
Finally von Volgen snorted and swung off his horse. ‘Thiessen, find a hovel in this wreckage that still has some furniture and make it fit for company.’ He turned to a knight. ‘Albrecht, be so kind as to invite our cousin Oktaf to join me with his advisors for a discussion of the situation.’
Plaschke-Miesner rolled his eyes and turned to one of his knights. ‘Creuzfeldt,’ he said. ‘Please inform our cousin’s emissary that we accept his invitation and will be delighted to attend.’ He shot a look at Teobalt. ‘And ask the templar and his odd sorts if they will join us as well, since they seem to know so much of the matter.’
Felix and Teobalt and Kat let out long-held breaths. The Slayers just grunted.
As they settled down on some nearby steps to wait for a meeting place to be prepared, Felix saw an old man in long dirty grey robes watching everything from the far side of the market square, but more particularly watching Gotrek.
Felix was about to say something to the Slayer, but just then the old man seemed to feel him watching and turned. For the briefest second, Felix felt their eyes meet, and he was jolted by the intensity of his stare. Then the man ducked back around the corner and the feeling faded.
Half an hour later everyone gathered around a long table in the tavern with the demolished front, von Volgen and four of his knights sitting on one side, Plaschke-Miesner and four of his knights sitting on the other, Gotrek, Felix and Sir Teobalt taking up the ends. Kat, Rodi and Snorri had declined to be there so that they could scavenge for food. Felix wished he had gone with them. Picking his way through unstable buildings searching for week-old meat would have been infinitely preferable to listening to the two young lords snipe at each other and protest every suggestion just for the sake of protesting.