“Do you have a better suggestion?” Wilcreitz asked, having walked over in time to hear Alaric’s last statement. Dietz could tell that the short witch hunter was spoiling for a fight. He tried to catch Alaric’s eye so he could warn him, but Alaric wasn’t looking.
“Misdirection, first of all,” he answered calmly. “Give them something else to watch, someplace else, and you’re more likely to make it across the killing field alive.” He frowned. “They’re up against the mountains, you said?” Lankdorf nodded. “Send a few men up there and drop rocks on them,” Alaric suggested. “That will keep them busy.”
Dietz couldn’t help grinning as both Wilcreitz and Jarl stared. Lankdorf and Kleiber looked surprised, but not as stunned. They’d both travelled with him and Alaric for long enough to know that Alaric’s dashing appearance and flighty scholarly demeanour hid a sharp mind and years of strategic training.
“Second, obfuscation,” Alaric continued, either oblivious to the looks or simply ignoring them. “There’s no cover from the rifles, so make your own. Smoke would be best, so light a fire and use the smoke to confuse their aim. Cut some tree limbs and wave them in front of you as you charge, anything to make it harder for them to shoot you.”
“A ballista would be excellent,” Alaric added, more to himself. “That’d distract them, all right, but building it, getting all the tolerances right…”
“Sigmar has blessed us indeed,” Kleiber announced, rising to his feet and stepping around the fire to clap a startled Alaric on the shoulder. “He sent us to your rescue, and now you will come to ours. These suggestions will allow us to reach the ruins safely, and from there we can deal with the beastmen without hindrance.” He turned to Wilcreitz. “Tell the men to gather branches and leaves along the way, for the fires, the greener the better, and send two men, whichever are best at climbing, to see about scaling the cliff above the ruins and sending a rockfall down upon them.”
Wilcreitz nodded and strode off at once.
“Not bad,” Dietz complimented Alaric. “Not bad at all.”
His friend grinned back. “Well, it’s better than ‘Run forward really fast’, anyway.”
An hour later they were approaching the ruins.
“Not much farther,” Dietz whispered to Alaric. They were right behind Lankdorf and Kleiber, with Wilcreitz after them and the mercenaries ranged out behind him. “Once we round this bend we should be able to see it.”
“Why are you whispering?” Alaric asked in a more normal tone of voice. “If the beastmen have such superlative hearing that they can make out a conversation from this distance, don’t you think they’d have already heard the approach of two dozen men?”
Dietz chose to ignore that, in part because something had distracted him. “Do you smell that?” he asked, lifting his head to sample the air.
“Smell what?”
“That.” Dietz sniffed again. Yes, there was definitely something there. It smelled like… “Smoke!”
“Smoke?” Alaric squinted up at the sky, and Dietz did the same. After a few seconds, he picked out a haze just ahead of them and to the left, away from the mountainside.
“There!” Lankdorf and Kleiber had seen it as well, and without a word the four of them nodded and started forward again. They rounded the bend, and there was the clearing ahead of them and the ruins along its far side, just as Dietz had seen them yesterday.
The clearing was different, however. It was muddled and indistinct, because it was filled with dark smoke billowing from somewhere ahead of them and along the forest’s edge.
“It seems someone else had the same idea,” Alaric said softly, peering into the haze. “The question is, who?”
Dietz stared, trying to see through the smoke. After a minute, he noticed movement, and tried to track it. It was a dark shape, looking roughly human and human-sized, but moving like a shadow, fast and smooth and slippery. After a few seconds, and seeing a second shadow, and then a third and a fourth, he realised why the motion looked so familiar.
“Elves,” he told Alaric and the others. “There are elves in the smoke.”
“Elves?” Alaric stared, not at the shadows, but at the ruins, which were still visible, if difficult to see in any detail. “Why would they care about—” A breeze blew a few curls of smoke aside, granting him a clear glimpse of the ruins, and he stopped mid-sentence, staring as if he had been frozen. “It can’t be!”
“What?” Dietz asked. He had a feeling that whatever his employer had just seen or realised was important.
“Those ruins are elven,” Alaric answered. “They have to be.”
“Of course they do,” Dietz replied. Lankdorf and Kleiber were clearly confused. Meanwhile, they were beginning to hear other sounds in front of them: grunts, shrieks and shouts, and the thud of metal and stone striking flesh and leather. The elves and the beastmen had found one another, and the battle had begun.
“Why elven?” Lankdorf asked.
Alaric slipped automatically into lecture mode. “Long, long ago, the elves were allied with the dwarfs. They wanted places where they could meet their allies, and so they built settlements around the edges of the mountains.” Alaric was still fixated on the ruins, barely remembering to blink. “But then came the wars between the elves and the dwarfs, and many of these settlements were destroyed or abandoned. This must be the remains of one such place. Imagine how old it must be—thousands and thousands of years!”
Dietz recognised that look. He’d seen it all too often, and had cursed it every single time. “It’s held by beastmen with guns,” he said, but his friend was too caught up dreaming of exploration to hear him.
“Whatever its history, it’s good for us,” Lankdorf pointed out. “You said we needed a distraction and some cover.” He gestured towards the smoke, and the shadows within it. They could hear the sound of rifle fire as well, though it did not sound close. “I’d say we’ve got both.”
“I agree,” Kleiber said, drawing his sword with one hand and his pistol with the other. “This is a sign. It is time to attack.” He glanced back behind them, to the rest of their party. “Wilcreitz, release the men. Everyone is to charge the ruins with all possible speed.” He paused. “Select eight men,” he told his subordinate, “and find the rifles. Reclaim them if possible, but destroy them if you must. Do it now!”
Wilcreitz nodded. “Yes.” He rattled off eight names. “You, come with me,” he told the eight men. “The rest of you, kill any beastman you see.” He nodded at Kleiber, who nodded back. “Weapons at the ready. Charge!”
The mercenaries obeyed with a dull rumble of excitement. Drawing and raising their weapons, they broke into a run, charging into the smoke and on through it, heading straight for the ruins beyond.
“Oh, this can’t be good,” Dietz muttered, but he hefted his mace, the one he had brought back from the Border Princes, and drew a long knife with his other hand. Glouste, recognising the signs of impending battle, disappeared down the front of his jacket. “Ready?” he asked Alaric.
“Hm? Oh, absolutely. I just hope we can stop them from damaging the buildings.” Alaric drew his rapier and leapt into the smoke, only then turning back to Dietz. “You coming?”
Dietz didn’t bother to answer. He simply gripped his mace and his knife more tightly, and followed his friend onto the hazy battlefield.
They were perhaps halfway across the clearing when the beastmen struck.
The throaty roar was the only warning Dietz had, before the creature emerged from the haze with its arm already raised to strike. Dietz barely managed to block the blow with his mace. He stabbed in with his knife, but the blade bounced off the beastman’s thick hide, and Dietz skipped back a step, giving himself a little room.
The beastman leapt after him, both arms lashing out to tear Dietz’s flesh, but Dietz was ready for the creature. He struck hard at one arm with his mace, feeling as much as hearing the bones shatter from the blow. He jabbed with his knife again, merely as a distraction, th
en struck the beastman a solid blow on the cheek with the mace. The creature rocked back on its heels, bellowing in pain, and then shook it off and charged Dietz again. Its movements were more sluggish this time, and Dietz easily avoided its attack, striking it again, this time across the back of the neck as it lunged past. The beastman toppled to the ground and did not get back up, giving Dietz a chance to tighten his grip upon his weapons and glance around.
He wished he hadn’t. More beastmen had emerged among the smoke, and they were battling both Kleiber’s mercenaries and the elves. It was complete confusion, and that made it far too easy for people to make mistakes. Friends wound up slaughtering one another in situations like this, only to realise, as they died, what had happened to confuse them. Dietz didn’t want that to happen to him, so he tried to surround himself with close friends, ones he knew he could trust no matter what happened.
His first and most trusted ally was always Alaric. Dietz turned to speak with the nobleman, and frowned.
“Alaric?”
He couldn’t see the younger man anywhere. Dietz glanced around and spotted Lankdorf, not far away.
“Lankdorf,” he called, striding towards the tracker, and arriving in time to smash his mace into an unwary beastman’s skull from behind. “Have you seen Alaric?” Dietz asked over the crumpling foe.
“Alaric? No, not since we entered this mess,” Lankdorf replied. “Why, you think he’s in trouble?”
“I think he is trouble,” Dietz replied, “but that’s not why I’m worried. The last time he and I got parted by fog, he… well, let’s just say it was not a good experience for him.” Another beastman lunged at him, but Dietz sidestepped the blow and brought his mace crashing down on the beastman’s arm, crushing it. The beast howled in pain and rage, and Dietz leaned in and slit the thing’s throat with the knife in his other hand. He stepped over the twitching body.
“He can’t have gone far,” Lankdorf said, stabbing his sword through a beastman’s eye, and then tugging it free so he could slash open the creature’s chest. “We’re working our way towards the ruins, and that’s most likely where he went. We’ll find him in there somewhere.”
Dietz nodded, and ducked a vicious axe sweep from a short beastman with a massive chest and shoulders, kicking the creature away from him. Before he could close the distance again, the beastman reeled and fell, three long arrows in its back. Dietz glanced around, but couldn’t even find the archer. He knew he needed to concentrate on the battle if he hoped to survive, but he was still worried about Alaric. He remembered when several of their party had been captured in the Howling Hills, and what had befallen the soldiers before they could form a rescue. The thought made him shudder.
Damn it, Alaric, he thought, facing off against two more beastmen who emerged from the smoke like bestial apparitions. You’d better not have done anything stupid.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Ow,” Alaric muttered, blinking away the darkness that had swept in upon him. “What in Sigmar’s name happened to me?” His hands went to his head, seeking to massage away the sharp pain that throbbed behind his eyes, but were restrained somehow. He glanced down and saw thick ropes tied around them, inexpertly, but securely.
Ah yes, now he remembered.
He’d been with Dietz and the others as they stepped into the clearing. The smoke had quickly hidden them from view, and as there hadn’t seemed any pressing danger, Alaric had been staring at the ruins. He was desperate to investigate them, but despite Dietz’s claims, he knew better than to approach a beastman infested site without protection. Still, getting closer couldn’t hurt, and perhaps he could make out what he was sure were friezes carved along the outer walls.
Alaric had been making his way cautiously towards the ruins when a section of the smoke haze before him turned suddenly darker as something stepped into his path. He barely had time to react, raising his rapier in defence, but the apparition knocked his weapon aside and then… and then everything went black.
“Not my best decision, perhaps,” Alaric admitted quietly to himself as he raised his head—carefully, so as not to exacerbate the pain—and looked around.
He was in a small stone chamber, and he quickly realised he must be inside the ruins. It was dim; tiny trickles of light seeping in from damage to the roof above, and he squinted to make out details. The walls bore faint patterns upon them, and here and there he saw flecks of paint. They must have been fully painted and decorated at one time, but little of that embellishment had survived the long centuries. The walls were made of solid, however, and the floor was still smoothly fitted flagstones, with a delicate leaf mosaic etched into and around them. There were no windows or doors, and Alaric puzzled over what sort of room this had been, and how it had been used. Whatever its original purpose, it made an admirable prison cell.
He was surprised to find himself a captive. He knew that beastmen tended to eat their fallen foes. He’d seen them do that to several of the soldiers from Middenheim, back in the Howling Hills, and he wasn’t anxious to be on the menu. The fact that they’d taken him relatively unharmed, and tied him up and tossed him in here suggested they did not mean to tear him limb from limb and devour his raw flesh, for which he was eternally grateful.
What did they want, then?
Alaric paced, musing and trying to distract himself by studying the chamber’s details. The rope around his wrists actually rose above him, apparently tied near the ceiling somehow, which allowed him free movement within the room. His captors had taken his rapier, of course, but had left the rest of his gear intact, which meant he still had his notebook, if only he could reach it.
He heard a scraping sound. It came from above, and as Alaric glanced up, he saw the entire ceiling shift, and then slide to one side. Light streamed in, almost blinding him. Of course! This was not a room at all. It was a well or cistern of some sort, carved into the ground. No wonder there were no windows or doors. A large shape blocked much of the light, and Alaric felt a sharp tug on his wrists. Then they were hauled up over his head, and higher still, as the figure up above literally pulled him out of the well. The pain to arms and shoulders was immense, and when he was finally yanked over the lip of the well and dropped onto the floor beyond—in another small chamber apparently built over the well, this time with a single door in one wall—Alaric collapsed. Then he looked up at his captor.
The newcomer was a beastman, larger and more powerful than any Alaric had seen before. It had thick matted fur and heavily scaled skin, the legs of a goat, and heavy bull-like features, topped by a pair of massive horns that protruded from its temples. It growled at Alaric, the other end of the rope still wrapped around its large clawed hands, and what little hope he had left, rapidly faded. The creature had obviously been sent to collect him from his makeshift prison. That meant, whatever they were planning to do to him, they were going to do now.
Alaric thought furiously, even as the beastman jerked on the rope and gestured for him to get to his feet. He had to escape somehow, but how? He had no weapons, no money—not that beastmen cared about money—and no tools. He couldn’t even negotiate, because he couldn’t understand a thing they were saying. Beastmen spoke some sort of foul Chaos tongue.
Perhaps, he thought, there was a way he could understand them anyway.
He shut his left eye and concentrated on his right, and for the first time, Alaric actively tried to call up the horrible Chaos vision that had been plaguing him for months. He remembered all the visions, the terrible images, the faint reddish tint to everything. He willed the vision to return, and it did.
The creature before him changed. His hands, which reached towards Alaric, expanded into massive paws, thick curving talons emerging from each stubby finger. Coarse black hair, tightly matted, covered his entire body, which had grown in girth if not in height, but Alaric could see that the fur actually contained thousands of tiny barbs that caught at the creature’s flesh whenever it moved, causing rivulets of blood to constantly gush al
l over his body. The beastman’s nose expanded to fill much of its face, and its eyes were small, and glowed with malevolence. Its body was outlined in a deep red that flickered and oozed around it, as if blood had spurted forth and then clung to it like a halo. Alaric knew that was the Chaos taint that infused and surrounded the creature, but the knowledge did nothing to make the scene less terrifying.
Then he saw something else, a dark shape coiled within the massive beastman, a tendril of black and deepest red that writhed and twisted as he watched. It resembled a snake, though one formed from smoke and blood, and fire and darkness. In its elongated jaws, between its many fangs, it held a battered crown.
Alaric somehow knew what he was seeing. This was the beastman… no, the beastlord’s hatred and rage. Its leadership had been stripped away, and that gnawed at it.
Before he could do anything, the massive beastman grabbed his bound wrists and yanked him forward, pulling Alaric from the small room as fast as his stumbling feet could carry him. Alaric hurried to keep up. He was absolutely certain that if he fell, the creature would not stop or slow down, and he would be dragged to their final destination. Far better to keep his footing and hope he could find a way to escape whatever fate they had planned for him.
The room opened onto a wide paved path, although it seemed almost like an interior hall because of the buildings lining both sides and the balconies and walkways overhead. Other beastmen moved past here and there, and Alaric heard the clangs and thuds, and cries and shouts of heated battle nearby. The fighting continued, then. Good. That meant Dietz, Lankdorf and the others might still be alive.
As they walked, Alaric struggled to study the structures he was hauled past, his curiosity keeping his fear in check. The elves had evidently wrought well, and these buildings were surprisingly well preserved considering their age, although, as with the well, any paint had long since peeled away. They passed several gaping doorways, and he guessed that the original doors had been wood instead of stone, and had succumbed to nature centuries past.
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