“He seems to have taught you well,” Felix said.
“Aye,” she said. “He was a good man.”
Felix paused at the past tense. “He’s… he’s dead, then?” asked Felix.
“Aye,” said Kat, her voice suddenly dull. “They all are.”
Felix’s eyes widened. “All of them?”
Kat sighed. “Flensburg was destroyed by beastmen, another great herd. There were just too many.”
“How terrible,” said Felix. “Was this during the invasion?”
Kat shook her head. “No. Long ago. I was seventeen. I was already part of the duke’s rangers by then, and was out on a long patrol when it happened.” She hung her head. “I should have been there.”
Felix opened his mouth, about to say something trite like, “There was nothing you could have done” then closed it again. No one was ever really comforted by that. “I’m sorry,” he said instead.
She shrugged. “After that I quit the rangers and went out on my own.”
“Why?” asked Felix.
“The rangers are good at what they do,” said Kat. “But they have their duties. They must visit such-and-such a town once a month, and that town and then the next town. They must keep the roads clear and report bandits and catch outlaws. I only wanted to hunt beastmen.” She bared her teeth. “So many times I would find a hoof print trail and want to follow it to the beasts’ camp, but the patrol had to move on and I couldn’t.”
She looked up at Felix. “I wanted to be able to track them wherever they went, whether on the duke’s land or not, and for however long it took. I was sure that was the only way to really get rid of them. You couldn’t just kill a hunting party here and a warband there, you needed to find their secret places, where they lived, and bred, and destroy them utterly with fire and sword!”
Felix blinked, unnerved at her sudden fury. “Er, yes,” he said.
“The first herd I tracked down was the one which had killed Papa and Mama and my brothers. I lived in the woods for months while I followed them. Never went near a town or a road until finally I found the camp and worked out a way that an army could surround it so that none of them could escape. Then I went to Magnusdorf, which was the nearest castle, and showed the lord my maps.” She glowered at a memory. “He laughed at me. He didn’t believe me. He didn’t think a little girl could have found such a place.”
“Well,” said Felix carefully. “You can’t really blame him for that. You’re a bit of an exception to the rule.”
Kat sniffed, dismissive. “So I snuck back to the camp and cut off the head of a gor, then brought it back to him.”
“A gor?” Felix asked, confused.
“A beastman,” she said. “The big ones, with the heads and legs of beasts, are called gors. The smaller, more human ones, are called ungors.”
Felix nodded. “All these years fighting them and I didn’t know. Sorry. Go on. You brought the head of one of the beasts back to the lord of Magnusdorf?”
“Aye.” She grinned, showing a lot of teeth. “He listened to me then.” Her eyes grew dreamy and faraway, as if she were talking about attending a dance. “His men wiped out the herd entirely. Their herdstone was crushed to dust.”
Felix swallowed. Kat was as driven as a slayer. It was a bit intimidating. “So, uh, you’ve been tracking beastmen ever since?” he asked.
Kat nodded. “Until Archaon’s invasion. Then I thought it would be better if I helped the soldiers.” She straightened proudly. “I was a scout for Count von Raukov from Wolfenburg all the way to Middenheim, spying on the hordes, scouring the woods during the retreat, bringing the army information on enemy positions.” She laughed. “There were times when I was so close to the Kurgan that I could have patted them on the head, but they never found me.”
Felix shook his head. The girl didn’t seem to know any fear at all — at least while she was in the woods.
She frowned again. “I will go back to hunting beasts soon, but right now there are still too many people in the Drakwald who shouldn’t be here — all these refugees and soldiers trying to get home. I will guide them until they are gone, then I will return to my true purpose.”
Felix swallowed, suddenly emotional, his depression at the sorry state of mankind lightening. Here was the counter to the greed and the corruption that had sickened him in Bauholz — the selflessness of a girl whose only thought was to help people return home and make the world a safer place. “You are doing great work, Kat,” he said at last.
She blushed and tucked her nose down into her scarf. “I am doing what I can.”
After they had walked a little while in silence, Felix spoke again. “Is Bauholz your home now, then?” he asked. “Do you live with Doktor Vinck?”
She shook her head. “I haven’t lived in a town since… since Flensburg was destroyed,” she said. “I go to Bauholz and to other towns for supplies, but I live here.” She waved a hand around at the forest. “This is my home.”
And welcome to it, thought Felix, staring around uneasily at the thick wall of trees on either side of the path.
“Doktor Vinck sewed me up a few years ago when a beastman gored me with its horns,” she continued. “I would have died without his help, so I always try to look after him, and Bauholz.” She snorted bitterly, a great cloud of steam rising before her face. “I wish I had dealt with Ludeker as I deal with the beasts.” She spat. “I should have, but Herr Doktor said there are laws, and that the law should deal with him.” She looked back at the Slayer with a sly smile. “I’m glad Gotrek thought otherwise.”
For five days Felix, Gotrek, Kat and Ortwin continued north and west through the deep forest, marching at a slow but steady pace. Their rate of travel was helped because the path they were on was the route by which supplies and reinforcements were brought to Fort Stangenschloss, and was therefore relatively clear and well maintained. Had they been travelling in any other direction, they might have measured their day’s travel in yards rather than miles, for the forest to either side of the path was an almost impenetrable undergrowth of brambles and intertwined tree roots.
Ease of travel, however, was countered by the fact that such a well-marked path was a target, watched by those who would prey upon those who used it. This had been why Kat had wanted to join the supply train that was to have left Bauholz two days after their arrival. A well-manned, well-guarded convoy would be a less attractive target than four travellers on foot. Twice in those five days she had asked them to wait, then disappeared into the woods in order to investigate further along the trail. The first time it had been bandits, waiting in the brush at a place where the path dipped down to go through a swift stream. The second time it had been mutants, hiding in overhanging trees for the unwary.
Both times, Gotrek had wanted to go fight the ambushers, and Ortwin had concurred, and both times it had fallen to Kat and Felix to discourage them. Felix reminded them that Sir Teobalt had charged them with finding the lost templars, not to fight random villains on the road. Kat had reminded them that Doktor Vinck was days behind them and the fort days ahead of them, and that even if they were victorious they would undoubtedly incur wounds that they might die from before they reached help.
Gotrek and Ortwin had reluctantly bowed to this combination of duty and cold logic, and had allowed Kat to lead them into the woods and around the ambushes, and they had escaped undetected.
At night, they made camp just off the path, hidden from it by a screen of brush. Kat always stopped before the sun went down, so that by the time it got dark their fire would have died down and the pulsing embers could warm them without bright flames giving away their position. As Felix, Gotrek and Ortwin made up their bedrolls and gathered firewood, Kat would vanish into the trees and return a half-hour later with rabbits or pheasants or a fox, each shot neatly through the skull with a steel-tipped arrow. These she would skin and gut with practiced precision and cook over the fire. They never went hungry.
On the night of the second d
ay, the falling snow grew heavier, and they woke up the next morning with their bedrolls covered in two inches of dry powder, but with blue skies overhead. This distressed Kat, and not because it would slow them — the build-up was hardly enough to cover Felix’s boots.
“We will leave tracks that will be easy to follow,” she said. “It would be better if the snow continued, so it would cover them again.”
Later that day, they came to a place where the forest had been burned and saw signs that some great battle had occurred in the midst of the charred trees. Under the thin cover of snow, the ground was burned black, and ash-covered bones and dented, soot-blackened armour littered it like broken teeth.
Felix, Gotrek and Ortwin stared at the devastation.
“What happened here?” asked Ortwin, stunned.
Kat spat. “This was the path of the army of Styrkaar, one of Archaon’s lieutenants. They say there were more than five thousand in his train.” She indicated the burned area with a sweep of her arm. “Men from Stangenschloss met them here. They waited in ambush — archers and spearmen and men-at-arms. They wanted to strike and retreat into the woods, then continue to harry the marauders’ line as they moved west.” She shook her head sadly. “But Styrkaar had things of Chaos with him, whispery things that could move through the woods like wind, dogs with skin like red scales, flying things. The men’s first attack was their last. They could not retreat far enough or fast enough. They were hunted down and killed like vermin. Only a few made it back to Stangenschloss to tell the tale.”
Felix shivered as he pictured desperate men scrambling through the thick wood, running from silent, loping shadows.
“But their deaths were not in vain,” Kat continued as they started across the ugly burn. “Their attack killed many of Styrkaar’s champions, and slowed his advance, giving Middenheim and the forts further east more time to prepare.”
Gotrek cursed and kicked the distorted skull of a dead Kurgan. “Another worthy doom missed,” he muttered as it bounced across the snow. “Damned weak-willed Kurgan. They couldn’t have held on another two months.”
For the rest of the day the Slayer was in a foul mood, cursing under his breath and speaking to no one.
Just after noon on the fourth day, they found the remains of a much more recent fight.
Kat, as usual, was scouting far out in front, and saw it first. Felix saw her go on guard, crouching and drawing her axes from her belt, then creep forwards steadily around a bend in the path.
“On guard, manling,” said Gotrek, and pulled his axe from his back.
Felix and Ortwin drew too, and they all moved quickly ahead, staring and listening all around them. As they came around the bend they saw what Kat had found.
She stood looking down at the ground beside a twisted line of smashed wagons, some of which had been tipped on their sides, all of them missing their horses and the supplies they had carried. As Felix got closer he saw that there were bodies lying by the carts, each covered in a thin white blanket of snow. Broken spears and bent swords littered the ground, and arrows stuck from the surrounding trees. But Kat was looking at none of it, only staring at a body at her feet — a middle-aged man in the colours of Averland.
“You know him?” asked Felix, approaching her.
“He was my friend,” she said, nodding listlessly. “Sergeant Neff. He was a quartermaster for Stangenschloss. They left Bauholz a few days before you arrived.”
Sergeant Neff’s left arm lay a few feet from the rest of him, and both he and it had been partially eaten by some forest predator. His face hadn’t been touched, however, and looked up at Felix from under a cap of snow with an accusatory stare.
“I’m sorry,” said Felix.
Kat shrugged. “It’s what happens in the Drakwald,” she said. But as she turned away, Felix could see tears glittering on her cheeks.
“Did beastmen do this?” asked Ortwin, looking angrily around at the white-cloaked carnage.
“Kurgan,” said Gotrek. He held up a horned helmet that had a sword cut through it.
Felix swallowed and looked around at the woods at the mention of the northmen. Even in the middle of the day the shadows beneath the trees were impenetrable, and they might hide anything. He shivered as he imagined the mad red eyes of crazed barbarians staring at him from their depths. It took an effort of will to turn away from the trees and return his attention to the wagons.
As he walked around them, he counted seven bodies. It didn’t seem enough. “How many men guard these convoys?” he asked.
“Twenty, and two ostlers for each wagon,” said Kat.
“Then where are they?” asked Felix.
“Taken,” said Kat. “For slaves.”
“Your friend was lucky, then,” said Gotrek.
Kat shuddered. “Aye.”
“Do we go after them?” asked Ortwin.
Kat shook her head. “This happened before it snowed, three days ago. They could be fifty miles from here, and the snow will have covered their trail.” She sighed and turned north again. “I only hope someone got away to warn the fort.”
“Shouldn’t we at least bury them?” asked Ortwin, as Kat started away from them. “It goes against Morr’s law to leave them here for the wolves.”
Kat turned on him, eyes dark. “There is no time for things like that here. The ground is too frozen to dig, and we have too far to go.”
Ortwin looked for a moment like he was going to protest again, but then finally joined Gotrek and Felix as they followed the heavily bundled little figure north again.
The rest of the day passed without incident, and they made camp as usual just a few paces off the trail, collecting firewood and starting a fire as the light of the day began to turn from gold to red. A little while later, Kat brought them two squirrels, a rabbit and a pigeon, and set to cleaning and skinning them.
“Another day to Stangenschloss,” she said as she flensed the fur from the rabbit with quick, deft strokes of her hunting knife. She was always careful with these, because she sold the pelts of every one she ate. “I wish I wasn’t bringing bad news.”
“Another day still?” asked Ortwin. He looked around at the encroaching forest. “I would have thought we’d have been in the Chaos Wastes by now.”
“That’s because you’ve never left Altdorf,” said Felix with a smile.
“That’s not true!” said Ortwin. “I went to Carroburg once.”
Felix chuckled at that, but just then Gotrek rose from his seat and held up a hand.
“Quiet,” he said.
Everyone froze and looked around. Felix strained his ears. At first he heard nothing but the usual sounds of the forest — the crackling of the fire, the wind in the branches, the cries of wild animals in the distance. But then he heard it — a clash of steel, very faint, then another, and then an angry cry.
“Fighting,” said Ortwin.
“North and east,” said Kat. “Deeper in the woods.”
“Shut up!” growled Gotrek.
They listened again. More clashes and clangs, then a howl of pain and a hoarse roar of triumph.
Gotrek pulled his axe off his back and turned in the direction of the sounds. “That was a dwarf,” he said.
“Follow me,” said Kat drawing her bow and diving into the woods.
Gotrek and Ortwin were right behind her. Felix snatched a burning branch from the fire for a torch, then hurried after them.
Running through the untamed forest was nothing like walking along the trail. The ground was a lumpy tangle of roots, creepers and dead branches that caught their feet and tripped them constantly. Thick undergrowth grew shoulder-high in places, but Kat led them unerringly around the worst of it, and they never had to stop or turn back. Still, thorns and nettles caught at them like claws and branches whipped their faces. The light of Felix’s makeshift torch was almost more disorientating than it was helpful, for its bobbing, flickering light caused the shadows to dance, making it seem that the trees were looming out a
t them and jumping in their way.
Creatures of the night skittered away from them, screeching and yipping. An owl shot up in front of Felix, wings battering him as it tried to get away — and behind the crashing and thudding of their passage, still the ring and roar of distant battle.
Kat danced through it all without a misstep, as if she had run this exact path a thousand times and knew every inch of it by heart. The others were not so nimble. Ortwin put a foot wrong and staggered to the side, slamming into a tree. He recovered and hurried on, weaving slightly. Felix jolted down into a hidden hollow, snapping his teeth shut and putting his foot into freezing mud. Gotrek hacked through the underbrush with his axe, clearing away great masses of black vines and leafless shrubs and shouldering on implacably.
Seconds later they could see an orange glow ahead, segmented by the vertical black bars of trees — a fire. They pounded on, and with each tree they passed, the light got brighter and the noise of battle louder, until, after dodging around the trunk of an ancient oak, Felix could see naked flames and surging shadows in a clearing up ahead, and make out individual voices in the torrent of sound.
“Stay together, curse you!” bawled an Empire voice. “Hold your line!”
“Down here, you painted ape!” rasped a dwarf voice.
Kat paused at the edge of the clearing, laying an arrow to the string of her bow. Gotrek, Felix and Ortwin stopped around her, readying their weapons and catching their breath as they stared at the mad battle before them.
On the far side of a huge fire, a dozen or so Empire spearmen stood in a curving line before a clump of towering Kurgan marauders, who drove them back towards the trees with swipes from massive swords and axes. On the near side of the fire, two dwarf slayers fought back to back in the centre of four more Chaos warriors. To one side, horses bucked and screamed against their tethers and chained prisoners huddled together, the fire reflecting in their terrified eyes as they watched the fight. The ground was littered with the corpses of both men and marauders, all horribly mutilated.
“On, on,” said Ortwin, between gasps. “Before another man falls.”
[Gotrek & Felix 11] - Shamanslayer Page 9