[Gotrek & Felix 11] - Shamanslayer

by Nathan Long - (ebook by Undead)

  The old knight looked at him, almost disappointed, then after a reluctant pause, picked up the sword and thrust it out. “Take it, then, and sit. I will tell you my tale.”

  Felix bowed, then took the sword and began strapping it around his waist. He was embarrassed at how comforted he was to have it again.

  When he was finished, he and Gotrek sat down across the table from the knight, while his squire remained standing at attendance behind him.

  “My name,” said the knight, as Gotrek signalled the serving girl, “is Sir Teobalt von Dreschler, templar and librarian of the Order of the Fiery Heart, and, I fear, its last living representative.”

  Young Ortwin coughed at this and Teobalt sighed and corrected himself. “With the exception, of course, of my squire, Ortwin Wielhaber, who is the last novitiate of the order.”

  The serving girl brought steins for Gotrek and Felix. Felix’s stomach churned at the smell and he pushed his across to Sir Teobalt.

  The old knight nodded his thanks, took a sip, then continued. “When Archaon’s invasion began,” he said, “it was decided that, because of my advanced age, I should stay behind and maintain the chapter house while the others went north with the Emperor to do battle. Ortwin remained to assist me. Since then we have waited for our brothers’ return, but they have not come home, and I have begun to fear that they will not.”

  “I’m sorry to hear it,” said Felix politely.

  Sir Teobalt waved that away. “If they died in battle, fighting bravely for their Emperor and their homeland, then they will have achieved all that a knight may wish. I do not grieve them. I envy them.”

  Gotrek grunted approvingly at this.

  “Still,” said Teobalt, “it is my duty to learn what became of them and to recover, if possible, the regalia of the order. We have had word from others who returned that, while many of my brothers fell at the siege of Middenheim, the order as a whole survived to begin the march back to Altdorf in the train of Karl Franz. The last anyone heard of them came to us more than a month ago. They had answered the plea of some peasants from a town near the abandoned fort of Stangenschloss to help defend their village against a herd of beastmen.”

  Teobalt took another sip and continued. “I know not the name of the town, or whether my brothers succeeded in its defence, but we must find it and learn their fate. We shall make our way to Stangenschloss and enquire of them along the way.”

  “What is the regalia of the order?” asked Felix.

  Teobalt looked about to answer, then smiled slyly and looked at Ortwin. “Squire, prove that you have been diligent in your studies. What is the regalia of the Order of the Fiery Heart?”

  Ortwin snapped to attention and coughed nervously. “The regalia of the Order of the Fiery Heart consists of two pieces,” he began in a high, clear voice, “the Banner of Baldemar, made from the cloak of the mighty warrior who founded the order, and bearing the device of a heart surrounded by a halo of flames, and the Sword of Righteous Flame, wielded first by Baron Konrad von Zechlin at the gates of Kislev during the Great War against Chaos. It is said that the blade of the sword bursts into flames in the presence of the unrighteous.”

  Teobalt nodded. “Very good, boy. Very good. You have learned well.” He turned to Gotrek and Felix. “If my brothers yet live, then time is of the essence. I would therefore start on the morrow at dawn, if that is not too early for you,” he said, giving them a sharp look.

  Gotrek grunted. “We’ll be ready.”

  Felix would have liked another full night’s sleep to recover from last night’s excesses, but he knew it would never happen. No matter how much he drank, Gotrek would be up and ready to march before the cock crowed if there was any prospect of danger and doom in the offing.

  “Aye,” he sighed. “We’ll be ready.”

  THREE

  It took three days’ travel on the riverboat Magnus the Pious before Ortwin, the young squire, got up the courage to speak to Felix.

  For some reason, Felix had pictured Sir Teobalt making the entire journey from Altdorf to Fort Stangenschloss dressed in full armour and astride his mighty warhorse. It suited his image of Teobalt as a mad old knight, clanking off on adventures far past his prime, but the reality was much more mundane. The old knight travelled by cart, with all his armour and lances and instruments of war piled on the back under canvas, and his warhorse hitched to the tailgate along with Ortwin’s pony, and in the interests of speed, they didn’t even take to the road until they were halfway to their destination. Using funds from the coffers of the Order of the Fiery Heart, Sir Teobalt paid for passage on the Magnus the Pious up the Talabec from Altdorf to the town of Ahlenhof. Fort Stangenschloss was apparently due north from there, deep within the woods near the head of the Zufuhr river, a tributary of the Talabec that passed by the town.

  For the first three days of the voyage, Felix noticed young Ortwin peering at him whenever he thought he wasn’t looking. He was always peeking out from behind the mast when Felix was walking the deck, or goggling at him from the door when he was sitting in the common area. It was unnerving. When Ortwin was with Sir Teobalt he kept his eyes to himself, but as soon as they were apart, Ortwin was stalking Felix again. The boy’s stare was like an owl’s, wide and intense, but whenever Felix turned towards him to ask him what he wanted, he flew off like a frightened sparrow.

  Felix didn’t understand what the boy wanted. Did he hate Felix for holding Karaghul for so long? Did he suspect he was going to betray his master and run off with it without completing his end of the bargain? Had Sir Teobalt told him to keep an eye on him? If so, he was being less than subtle about it.

  Finally, on the third day, as Felix was updating his journal in the common room with a hot brandy to keep out the chill of the day, he noticed the squire hovering nearby, his skullcap in his hands. Felix sighed and looked up, ready for another scurrying retreat, but wonder of wonders, Ortwin didn’t dart for the long grass this time, but only swallowed and stood on one foot.

  “Yes, Ortwin?” Felix said. “You want to speak to me?”

  “If… if it’s not too much trouble, m’lord,” Ortwin stammered.

  “Not at all,” said Felix dryly. “I was only writing. And it isn’t m’lord. I’m a merchant’s son.”

  “Well, sir,” said Ortwin, swallowing again. “I… I just wanted to say that… that you are my hero, Herr Jaeger! I have read every book you have published. Sir Teobalt frowns on books that aren’t about Sigmar or the knightly virtues, but I think they’re wonderful!”

  Felix stared, surprised. It wasn’t what he had expected to hear. “Er, thank you,” he said at last. “I’m glad you liked them.” He felt a bit uncomfortable with the praise, but it felt good too. His chest swelled. Someone liked his work! He hadn’t had a favourable review since his poetry days.

  “Uh, can you tell me, sir,” the boy continued, nervously. “Can you tell me how you chose to become an adventurer?”

  Felix frowned. “You did read the books, yes?”

  “Oh, yes!” said the squire. “Many times!”

  “Then you know that it wasn’t precisely a choice. I swore to follow the Slayer, but… I didn’t really know what I was letting myself in for.”

  Ortwin laughed as if Felix had told a joke. “You see,” he said, stuttering a little, “I intend to become an adventurer too. When I have become a full knight of the order, I am going to go to the ends of the earth, seeking out ancient evils and destroying them, just like you.”

  Felix’s face fell. Was the boy a complete idiot? He sighed, then closed his journal and looked him right in the eye. “Listen to me, Ortwin. I think you’ve got the wrong idea from the books. I have had a lot of exciting adventures, it’s true.” Terrifying, near-death experiences, he thought to himself. “But there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t regret making that vow. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t wish that I had chosen the path of warm beds and regular meals, of a wife and children and a proper job. The bo
oks…” He waved a hand, wishing he had read more of them. He still had no idea what was in most of them. “It’s not that I don’t enjoy it sometimes. I do. But quite a lot of the time, I don’t. I… I don’t put everything in the books. I leave out the bits about starving for days, sometimes weeks, at a time, and the bits about getting soaking wet and catching horrible colds.”

  “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 farther. 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 I 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 pass them was to risk madness. It made Felix uneasy to see them.

  The way was narrow and hemmed in by trees, and at very meeting, Sir Teobalt had to pull his cart to the side 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 were 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 heard 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.