by William King
She turned and walked away. Her hair and cloak fluttered in the breeze.
"Pay no attention to the mistress," said Kirsten. "Master Manfred lampooned her in one of his plays. She's always resented it. She's a good woman really."
Felix looked at her, wondering why his heartbeat seemed so loud and his palms so sweaty. He remembered Gotrek's words back in the tavern, and felt his face flush. All right, he admitted, he found Kirsten attractive. What was wrong with that? Maybe the fact that she might not be attracted to him. He looked around, feeling tongue-tied, trying to think of something to say. Nearby, children were playing soldiers.
"How are you?" he asked eventually.
She looked a little shaky. "Fine. I was afraid last night, with the howling of the wolves and the arrows coming down, but now... Well, during the day it all seems so unreal."
Behind them, from the wagon, came the groans of a man in agony. She turned momentarily to look, then hardness passed across her face and settled like a mask.
"It's not nice working with the wounded," Felix said.
She shrugged. "You get used to it."
Felix was chilled to see that expression on the face of a woman her age. It was an expression he had seen on the faces of mercenaries, men whose profession was death. Looking around, he could see children playing near the cart of the wounded. One was firing an imaginary crossbow, another gurgled, clutched his chest and fell over. Felix felt isolated and very far from home. The safe life of poet and scholar he had let back in the Empire seemed to have happened to someone else a long time ago. The laws and their enforcers he had taken for granted had been left behind at the Grey Mountains.
"Life is cheap here, isn't it?" he said. Kirsten looked at him and her face softened. She linked her arm with his.
"Come, let's go where the air is cleaner," she said.
Behind them the shrieks of the playing children mingled with the groans of the dying men.
Felix saw the town as they emerged from the hills. It was late afternoon. To the left, the east, he could see the curve of fast-flowing Thunder River and beyond that the mighty peaks of the World's Edge Mountains. South he could see another range of hills marching bleakly into the distance. They were bare and foreboding and something about them made Felix shudder.
In a valley between the two ranges nestled a small walled town. White shapes that could have been sheep were being herded through the gates. Felix thought he saw some figures moving on the walls. At this distance he could not be sure.
Dieter beckoned for him to approach. "You are fair-spoken," he said. "Ride down and make parlay. Tell the people there that we mean them no harm."
Felix just looked at the tall, gaunt man. What he means, thought Felix, is that I am expendable, just in case the people aren't friendly. Felix considered telling him to go to hell. Dieter must have guessed his thoughts.
"You took the Baron's crown," he said.
It was true, Felix admitted. He also considered taking a hot bath and drinking in a real tavern, sleeping with a roof over his head; all the luxuries that even the most primitive frontier town could offer. The prospect was very tempting.
"Get me a horse," he said. "And a truce banner."
As he clambered up on the skittish war-horse he tried not to think about what suspicious people armed with bows might do to the messenger of a potential enemy.
A crossbow bolt hissed through the air and stuck quivering in the earth in front of the hooves of his steed. Felix struggled to control the animal, as it reared. At times like these he was glad his father had insisted that riding be part of the education of a wealthy young gentleman of means.
"Come no closer, stranger, or, white banner or no, I'll have you filled full of bolts." The voice was coarse but powerful. Its owner was obviously used to giving commands and having them obeyed. Felix wrestled his steed back under control.
"I am the herald of Gottfried von Diehl, Baron of the Vennland Marches. We mean no harm. We seek only shelter from the elements and to renew our supplies."
"Well you can't do that here! Tell your Baron Gottfried that if he's so peaceful he can march on. This is the freistadt of Akendorf and we want no truck with nobles."
Felix studied the man who shouted at him from the gatetower. Beneath a peaked metal cap his face was keen and intelligent. He was flanked by two men whose crossbows were pointed unwaveringly at Felix. Felix felt his mouth go dry and sweat run clammily down his back. He was wearing his mail shirt but he doubted it would be much good against quarrels at such close range.
"Sir, in the name of Sigmar, we seek only common hospitality..."
"Begone, boy, you'll get no hospitality in Akendorf nor in any other town in these lands. Not travelling with twenty armed knights and fifty men-at-arms."
Felix wondered at the quality of scouts the freistadt must have, to know the numbers of their force so exactly. He saw the pattern of things in this land. The Baron's force was too powerful for any local warlord to open his town gates to them. It would be a threat to any ruler's position in these isolated towns. Yet Felix doubted whether the Baron's force was strong enough to take a walled fort against determined resistance.
"We have wounded," he shouted. "Will you at least take them?"
For the first time the man in the tower looked apologetic. "No. You brought those extra mouths here. You can feed them."
"In the name of Shallya, mistress of mercy, you must help them."
"I must do nothing, herald. I rule here, not your Baron. Tell him to follow Thunder River south. Taal knows, there is enough unclaimed land there. Let him clear his own estate or claim one of the abandoned forts."
Felix dispiritedly brought his horse around. He was keenly aware of the weapons pointed at his back.
"Herald!" the lord of Akendorf cried. Felix turned in the saddle to look at him. In the fading light the man's face held a look of concern.
"What?"
"Tell the Baron on no account to enter the hills to the south. Tell him to stay by Thunder River, I would not have it on my conscience that he ventured into the Geistenmund hills unwarned."
Something in the man's tone made the hairs on the back of Felix's neck prickle.
"Those hills are haunted, herald, and no man should dare them, on peril of his immortal soul."
"They will not let us past their gates. It's that simple," Felix concluded, looking round the faces that circled the fire. The Baron gestured for him to sit down with a faint movement of his left hand, then turned his rheumy gaze to Dieter.
"We cannot take Akendorf, at least not without great loss of life. I am no expert on sieges but even I can see that," said the grey-haired man. He leaned forward and put another branch on the fire. Sparks drifted upwards into the cold night air.
"You are saying we must continue on," said the Baron. His voice was weak and reminded Felix of the crackle of dry leaves. Dieter nodded.
"Perhaps we should go west," said Manfred. "Seek out land there. That way we could miss the hills, assuming there is anything there to fear."
"There is," said Hef. Even in the cheery glow of the fire his features looked pale and strained.
"Going west is a foolish idea anyway," said Frau Winter. Felix saw that she was glaring right at Manfred.
"Oh, how so?" he asked.
"Use your brain, boy. The mountains to the east are the haunt of goblins, now that the dwarf realm is sundered. So the best land will be that furthest away from Thunder River, safest from raids. It will be held by the strongest of the local rulers. Any place to the west will be better defended than Akendorf."
"I know my geography," sneered Manfred. He looked around the fire, meeting the gaze of every watcher. "If we continue south we will come to Blood River, where the wolf-riders are thicker than worms in a corpse."
"In every direction lies peril," wheezed the old Baron. He looked straight at Felix and his blue eyes were very piercing. "Do you think that the Lord of Akendorf warned us to keep to the river simply to make u
s a tempting target for any raiding greenskins?"
Felix considered for a moment, weighing his judgement. How could he be expected to tell whether the man had been lying or not on the basis of a few minutes' conversation? Felix was acutely conscious that he would influence the destiny of everyone in the caravan by what he said. For the first time in his life he felt a vague glimmer of the responsibilities of leadership. He took a deep breath.
"The man seemed sincere, Herr Baron."
"He was tellin' the truth," said Hef, tamping some smokeweed into the bowl of his pipe. Felix noted the way the man's fingers played nervously with its stem. Hef leaned forward and pulled a twig from the fire, using it to light his pipe before continuing.
"The Geistenmund hills are an evil place. Folk say that centuries agone sorcerers came out of Bretonnia, necromancers exiled by the Sun King. They found the barrows of the folk who passed here in Elder days and used their spells to raise an army. Came very near to conquering the whole of the Border Princes afore the local lords made alliance with the dwarfs of the mountains and threw them back."
Felix felt a shiver pass up his spine. He fought an urge to look back over his shoulder into the shadows.
"Folk say that the sorcerers and their allies retreated into the barrows. These were sealed with dwarven stonework and powerful runes by the victors."
"But that was centuries ago," said Frau Winter. "Strong though their sorceries were, can they endure?"
"I don't know, mistress. But tomb robbers never return from the Geistenmunds. Some nights unnatural lights can be seen in the hills and when both moons are full the dead lie unquiet in their tombs. They come to take the living so that their blood can renew the life of their dark lords."
"Surely that is nonsense," said Dr Stockhausen. Felix himself was not so sure. The previous year on Geheimnisnacht he had seen terrible things. He pushed the memory back from his mind.
"If we go west we face certain peril and no surety of finding haven," said the Baron, his face made gaunt and angular by the underlight of the fire. "South it is claimed we will find clear land, guarded though it may be by a sorcerous foe. I think we should brave the southward way. It may be clear. We will follow Thunder River."
His voice held no great hope. He sounded like a man who had resigned himself to his fate. Does the Baron court death, wondered Felix? In the atmosphere created by the trapper's dark tale Felix could almost believe it. He made a mental note to find out more about the von Diehl curse. Then he noticed the face of Manfred. The young noble was staring raptly into the fire, a look almost of pleasure on his face.
"I believe I have found the inspiration for a new play," said Manfred von Diehl enthusiastically. "That delightful story the trapper told last night will be its core."
Felix looked at him dubiously. They were walking along the west side of the caravan, keeping between the wagons and the ominous, barren hills.
"It may be more than a simple trapper's tale, Manfred. There is some truth to many old legends."
"Quite so! Quite so! Who should know that better than I? I think I shall call this play Where the Dead Men Walk. Think of it: silver rings clinking on bony fingers, the parchment skins of the restless dead glistening in the witchlight. Imagine a king who lies in state untouched by the worms and who rises every year to seek blood to prolong his shadowy reign."
Looking at those brooding, blasted heights, Felix found it only too easy to imagine such things. Among the four hundred who followed Baron von Diehl only three people dared enter the hills. During the day Dr Stockhausen and Frau Winter would search among the mossy boulders on the rubble-strewn slopes for herbs. Sometimes they would encounter Gotrek Gurnisson if they returned late. The Trollslayer prowled the hillside by night as if daring the powers of darkness to touch him.
"Think," said Manfred in a conspiratorial whisper. "Think of lying sleeping in your bed and hearing the soft pad of approaching feet and no breathing whatsoever except your own... You could lie there listening to your heart pound and know that no heartbeat tolled within the chest of the approaching..."
"Yes," said Felix. "I'm sure it will be an excellent work. You must let me read it when it is complete."
He decided to change the subject, tried to think of one that would appeal to this strange young man. "I was thinking perhaps of writing a poem myself. Could you tell me more of the von Diehl curse?"
Manfred's face froze. His glittering look made Felix shiver, then Manfred shook his head and smiled and became his old affable self.
"There is really little to tell." He giggled slightly. "My grandfather was a very devout man. Always burning witches and mutants to prove it. One Hexensnacht he roasted a pretty maid called Irina Trask. All his subjects came to watch, for she was a beauty. As the flames rose about her she called on the powers of hell to avenge her, to bring death to my grandfather and the wrath of Chaos to his heirs and followers and all their children. The darkness and its children will take you all, she said."
He fell silent and stared gloomily towards the hills. Felix prompted him. "What happened?"
"Shortly thereafter my grandfather was killed, while out hunting, by a pack of beastmen. There was a quarrel amongst his sons. The eldest, Kurt, was heir. My father and his brother rebelled and ousted him. Some folk say that Kurt became a bandit and was killed by a warrior of Chaos. Others claim that he headed north and met a much darker fate.
"My father inherited the Barony and married my mother, Katerina von Wittgenstein." Felix stared at him. The Wittgensteins were a family with a dark reputation, shunned by normal society. Manfred ignored his stare.
"Uncle Gottfried became their warleader. My mother died giving birth to me, and my father disappeared. Gottfried seized power. Since then we have been dogged by ill-luck."
Felix could see a figure approaching downslope. It was Frau Winter. She seemed to be in a great hurry.
"Disappeared?" said Felix distractedly.
"Aye, vanished. It wasn't until much later I found out what had happened to him."
Frau Winter approached. She and Manfred exchanged glares. "Bad news," she said. "I've discovered an opening on the hillside up there. It is barred by runes, but I sense terrible danger lies beyond it."
Something in her tone compelled belief. She swirled on down into the camp. Manfred glared daggers at her back.
Felix looked over at him. "There is no love lost between you two, is there?"
"She hates me, has done ever since Uncle named me heir. She thinks her son should be the next Baron."
Felix raised an eyebrow.
"Oh yes, didn't you know? Dieter is her son. He's my father's bastard offspring."
Moonslight dappled the waters of Thunder River. It gleamed like liquid silver. Old gnarled trees hung over the banks at this point, reminding Felix of waiting trolls. Nervously, he looked about. There was something in the air tonight, he decided; a tension, a feeling that something was not right.
He had to fight to control the sensation that somewhere something evil stirred, hungry for his life, for the lives of all the people of Baron Gottfried's entourage.
"Is there something wrong, Felix? You seem very distracted tonight," said Kirsten.
He looked over to her and smiled, finding pleasure in her presence. Normally he enjoyed their nightly walks by the river but tonight foreboding came between them.
"No. Just tired." He couldn't restrain a glance in the direction of the nearby hills. By the light of the moons the opening looked very like a gaping maw.
"It's this place, isn't it? There's something unnatural about it. I can feel it. It's like when Frau Winter does one of her dangerous spells. The hair on the back of my neck prickles. Only this is much worse."
Felix saw terror surface in her face then disappear again. She looked out over the water. "Something old and evil dwells below those hills, Felix. Something hungry. We could die here."
Felix took her hand. "We're quite safe. We're still by the river."
His vo
ice quivered and his words did not come across reassuringly. He sounded like a scared boy. They were both shaking.
"Everyone in the camp is afraid, except your friend Gotrek. Why is he so fearless?"
Felix laughed quietly. "Gotrek is a Trollslayer, sworn to seek death to atone for some crime. He's an exile from his home, family and friends. He has no place in this world. He is brave because he has nothing to lose. He can only regain his honour by dying honourably."
"Why do you follow him? You seem like a sensible man."
Felix considered his reply carefully. He had never really questioned his motives that closely. Under the gaze of Kirsten's dark eyes it suddenly became important for him to know.
"He saved my life. We pledged blood-loyalty after that. At the time I did not know what the ritual meant but I've stuck to it."
He had given the barest facts, the truth in a sense, but not an explanation. He paused and stroked the old scar on his right cheek. He wanted to be honest.
"I killed a man in a duel. It caused a scandal. I had to give up my life as a student, my father disinherited me. I was full of anger, got into trouble with the law. At the time I met Gotrek I had no goals, I was just drifting. Gotrek's purpose was so strong I just got sucked along behind him. It was easier to follow him than to start a new life. Something about his self-destructive madness appealed to me."
She looked at him questioningly. "It doesn't any more?"
He shook his head. "What about you? What brings you along Thunder River?"
They approached a tumbled tree. Felix gave Kirsten a hand up onto the bole, then jumped up beside her himself. She smoothed the folds of her long peasant skirt, tucked a lock of her hair behind one ear. Felix thought she looked very lovely in the moonslight, with the mist beginning to rise.
"My parents were vassals of Baron Gottfried's, serfs back in Diehlendorf. They indentured me to Frau Winter. They died back in the avalanche, along with my sisters."
"I'm sorry," said Felix. "I didn't know."
She shrugged fatalistically. "There has been so much death along the way. I'm just grateful to be here."