by ich du
'But it was not comfort the baron found, but darkest treachery. The fort had been betrayed. While the viscount had toasted the peace and prosperity of both their realms, mercenaries in his employ had taken over the fort, sneaking past its defences by means of an escape tunnel whose location had been told to them. They had put the baron's garrison to the sword, then had awaited the baron's coming. As the baron's party reached the keep, the mercenaries sprung their ambush. First they dropped the portcullis, cutting the baron's forces in half. Then their archers opened fire, both on the men within the keep's courtyard and those without.
Surprised, their reflexes and wits dulled by the excesses of the wedding feast, the baron's company were easy prey. Only three of his horsemen escaped the ambush, riding off to alert the castle and summon aid.'
'One of these men was my father. Mortally wounded by one of the viscount's archers, he reached the castle nevertheless. He told of the treacherous ambush, and of what he had seen through the keep's gate ere he had ridden off, the loyal seneschal Albrecht Yorck with his sword at the throat of the man he had professed to serve. He said these things, before his wound finished him, another victim of the viscount's plotting and Yorck's betrayal.'
Zelten clenched his own fist as he recalled these memories and Brunner could imagine the man's knuckles whitening beneath his gloves. 'I took up my father's sword and marched out with the soldiers who had remained at the castle. We thought that if we could reinforce the keep that held the pass, we might yet force the viscount to undo his villainy. But the wily Bretonnian had been swifter. His men had not removed themselves very far from the site of the wedding feast and were much closer to the mouth of the pass than we. Worse, the viscount's traitor had been at work on the fort's garrison. Fully half of the men were in his pay, and the faithless curs wasted no time in murdering their still-loyal comrades when Yorck gave the order. We found the pass held against us, and the viscount's knights ready to take full advantage of a foe tired from having marched since dawn. If ten men escaped the ensuing slaughter, then Morr was cheated his due. It is to my shame that I was among those who did not die that day.'
'The only shame in this world is spending your life on a useless cause,' the bounty hunter interrupted, his voice chill and grim. 'You and the other men at the castle should have taken service with one of the neighbouring barons rather than spending your lives needlessly on a fallen lord.'
The mercenary captain took to his feet, bristling with outrage. 'Indeed yours is an honourless breed!' he snapped. 'I should have taken service with the likes of them? That princely scum? They were as much traitors to the baron as that vermin Yorck! Each one of them had been bought off by de Chegney, told that they might partition the holdings of the von Drakenburgs in exchange for their complacency. Had they stood against him, the viscount would never have dared to move so boldly and treacherously. Instead, they had stood aside and allowed the viscount to overthrow their fellow noble lord, hiding behind the marriage of de Chegney's son to the baron's only child as a moral excuse to not interfere. I've served many masters since making my way south, since taking up the profession of the sell-sword, but never have I served men so vile!'
Brunner smiled at the mercenary. 'Cling to your high ground while you may.' he said. 'Go on thinking there is some honour to be found in this dirty world we live in. You should have learned from the story you've told me. Trust is a fatal flaw for a man to have, and loyalty is just as foolish a notion to nurture in your heart. No man, no cause is worth dying for.' The bounty hunter patted the sword at his side with a leather-covered hand. 'This is the only friend you can count on.' He stared hard at the mercenary, his eyes like chips of ice behind the visor of his helm. 'If your baron had understood that, he wouldn't be dead now.' Brunner rose from his crouch and strode away. Zelten and those around him watched the hardened killer walk toward the far end of the encampment, near where his animals were tethered. The bounty hunter removed a blanket from one of the bundles he had earlier taken from the packhorse. Casting the blanket to the ground, the bounty hunter settled himself for the night.
'That sort of man makes even my blood turn sour,' commented Schtafel, the wiry marksman who had been caught flanking the bounty hunter. He was one of Zelten's best men, and had been with Zelten throughout the long march south through the Empire. For all of that, he knew little about the man. Whatever secrets were in his past, Schtafel kept to himself. Truth be told, Zelten had been quietly impressed that the bounty hunter had noticed Schtafel's stealthy approach. He'd seen the crossbowman sneak up on even orcs and beastmen without the monsters noticing.
'I'll second that,' shuddered a tall mercenary, his face framed by the close-fitting cheek-guards of his Tilean-style barbute helm. 'I've drunk with ogres that were better company.'
Zelten considered his fellow mercenaries for a moment, then rose from his camp chair. 'If that Chaos warband is still about, you'll be glad to number him with us,' he stated. 'That caravan we passed today was twice our size. If fortune betrays us and we run afoul of those marauders, you'll be glad of every sword.' So saying, Zelten departed, to seek his own bed. Schtafel watched his captain go.
'The captain can think what he likes,' the marksman confided to his companions. 'But I'll feel better the further I am from that bastard.'
II
BEHIND THE THICK stone walls of Remas, among the clustered warehouses, tenements, inns, taverns, shops, palazzos, temples and barracks, innumerable shadowy, hidden places existed, forlorn refuges for thieves, murderers and men guilty of still darker crimes. In one of these secret places, a single candle burned, its flame dancing in the pitch black all around it.
A figure moved within the tiny circle of light cast by the lone candle. Soft hands, their fingers long and thin, worked within the light, moving with an almost inhuman grace. The hands performed long sweeps above the floor, with each movement allowing a trickle of dark powder to fall upon the rough stones. As the hands continued to weave their invisible, intangible pattern, the trickle of dust described the movements upon the stones. By degrees, the shape of an octagon began to form. When the shape had become firmly established, when the last trace of the powder had fallen from the cupped fists of the hands, the figure drew away from the light. The crinkle of rustling cloth sounded within the dark, secret place as the shadow rummaged about in the blackness. Soon the opening and closing of some box with a ponderous wooden lid added to the rustle of the garments. Then the hands appeared once more in the flickering candlelight.
Now the hands did not hold something so insubstantial as powder. The left was closed about the hilt of a wavy-bladed copper dagger, the blade defaced by a gruesome skull totem set close to the guard of the knife. The other was closed about something even more unsettling: a tiny, struggling grey-furred form. It might have been a field mouse once, before corruption had settled into its flesh and bone. Now it was a disgusting thing, two scaly heads squirming against the fingers that held it, a long tail bearing suckers like an octopus curling about the wrist of the hand. The mutant thing had no voice and continued its struggles in silence. Those struggles ceased entirely when the copper dagger slashed through both its throats in one swift motion.
The dead aberration spilled its corrupt sapphire-hued blood into the centre of the octagon. Instantly the steaming blue liquid began to disperse, running in straight lines to each point of the octagon. Where bare stone had been before, now a crude arrow had formed. The blood of the slain mutant began to glow, shifting colours as it grew in brilliance, fading from red to green then to blue once more.
Steam began to rise from the unnatural blood, forming into a cloud of weirdly glowing smoke. As the smoke changed colours, a hazy image began to form within it, a small caravan encampment somewhere in the wilderness of Tilea's countryside. The conjurer could see that the wagons had been formed into a barricade to protect the wagon masters, their beasts and their wares from the night. Mercenary soldiers patrolled the perimeter of the camp, wary eyes studying the dark
for any sign of danger. Yes, there was danger here. The caravan was destined for Remas. There was a man in the camp who could prove dangerous if he were to reach the city, dangerous to the magic-maker's schemes. He should have dealt with him before, but had always hesitated to do so. Now there would be no more doubt, and no more delay.
A pale hand swiped at the swirling smoke. The image faded, the smoke bubbled like boiling soup as it congealed to show a new scene, the shape of an immense armoured warrior, slumped against a rotting log. The magic-maker's head nodded as the image took form, pleased by what had been revealed. From the darkness, soft words whispered. The warrior stirred slightly as the words intruded upon his dreams. The magic-maker spoke again, the words becoming more forceful. The armoured warrior shook his head, the grotesque insect-like helm shaking as the conjurer's words consumed and supplanted his dreams. The words stopped flowing and the caster smiled once more. All that had been needed to be done this night had been accomplished.
The pale hands moved within the yellow glimmer of the candle once more. This time they moved only twice above the octagon and the glowing cloud hovering above it. Then the left hand dropped a silver coin into the centre of the octagon. Instantly, the mist vanished, as though it had never been. A terrible chill filled the dark chamber, blowing out the feeble candle. It was the icy cold of unclean, fathomless reaches, of places beyond the confines of time and substance, the chill of ancient and inhuman evil. The conjurer paid the chill no notice, for many times had he felt its touch. He relit the candle, and bore it away as he made his way through the silent, benighted passages that led away from this secret, profane place.
THE CARAVAN DECAMPED in the small hours before dawn. By first light the wagons were once more under way, their mercenary guards walking alongside. Ahead of the wagons, the few mounted members of the mercenary band rode ahead of the column.
Beside them rode Brunner, though his inclusion in the marching order had drawn a number of complaints from some of the mercenaries, chiefly the crossbowman Schtafel, but the protests had been overruled by Zelten. Again, the captain pointed out to his men that they would appreciate every sword if they were set upon by raiders. However, the captain's words were not enough to keep suspicious eyes from glaring at the bounty hunter, nor nervous fingers from staying close to the hilts of knives and swords.
Zelten rode beside Brunner, as much to forestall any impetuous act on the part of one of his men as to assure his soldiers that he was keeping a watchful eye on the bounty hunter. For his part, Brunner seemed to pay no notice to the quiet hostility around him, his keen eyes scanning the stands of trees, patches of thick brush and piles of boulders that dotted the landscape.
'You expect trouble?' the mercenary asked, trying to follow the direction of the bounty hunter's ever shifting gaze.
'I always expect trouble,' Brunner replied, not looking at Zelten. 'It's what keeps me alive.'
Zelten smiled, clearly having expected such a response from the hired killer. 'We made a thorough search of the site of the massacre. One of my men used to be a game warden on the estates of Count Capritti of Luccini. He reckons there were about fifty in the warband that hit the other caravan.'
Brunner nodded his head, eyes still scanning the trees. Zelten noticed that the bounty hunter's hand lay upon the grip of his pistol, gloved fingers slowly drumming on the polished wooden frame of the gun. 'That sounds about right. It would take at least that many to hit a caravan of that size and prevent anyone from escaping.'
'Fifty,' Zelten said, as if considering the number. 'We have about that many among us.' The mercenary snorted a humourless laugh. 'Of course, that includes the labourers and wagon masters. Our actual fighting strength is nearer to thirty-five.' Zelten laughed again. 'Of course, a few of my men are worth more than most I've fought beside. Horst, for instance, is worth five men on his own.'
'That might count for something,' Brunner replied, his voice grim, 'if we were worried about fighting men. But what destroyed that other caravan long ago abandoned any right to call themselves human.'
'I've fought the servants of the Dark Gods before,' Zelten commented, his tone somewhat defensive. 'I know all too well what to expect from their kind.'
Brunner faced the mercenary for the first time. 'I've dealt with their kind as well, often enough to know one thing. Where Chaos has extended its hand, you can never know what to expect.'
IT WAS AN hour after sunrise when they saw the raiders. The keen eyes of the bounty hunter noticed them just as the foremost of Zelten's riders did, the swarthy former game warden Guglielmo. The Tilean turned around in his saddle shouting a warning to the rest of the column. The mercenaries began hastily readying themselves for conflict, breaking into small groups of four: three men armed with spears or swords providing support and protection for a fourth man armed with either a crossbow or a long-barrelled black powder weapon. The wagons tried to manoeuvre themselves into a defensive wedge behind the groupings of mercenaries, but it was taking the wagoners time to force their animals to obey, despite the orders and curses being shouted by the merchant Emiliano Tacca.
Ahead of the column, at the top of a small rise, a cluster of armed shapes could be seen, numbering at least a score. They had been hidden from view until the caravan had rounded the last rock pile, yet they were still far enough away for Zelten's marksmen to knock down their numbers before the raiders would be able to reach the formation. Or perhaps not, the bounty hunter reconsidered as he noticed the nature of their foes. Most of them wore armour, and lots of it, though Brunner knew from experience that even the thickest armour was no proof against a bullet, nor certain protection from a close-fired crossbow bolt. And he suspected, these were no normal men, but vile followers of corruption and pestilence. Their flesh would be bloated, puffy with disease and corruption. Followers of the plague god were almost immune to pain, even more so than orcs and their ilk. Their necrotic flesh was largely eaten away by disease, there was little left of them that could be injured or hurt. The fire of Zelten's marksmen would have to be very good, for only a kill-shot would bring one of these degenerates down.
'Prepare to repel attackers!' Zelten called out in strong, harsh tones. The mercenary captain brandished his sword overhead, waving it like a standard. 'Let's make them regret taking on Zelten's Dragons!' The officer's words were greeted with whooping war cries from his men. The other horsemen readied their own weapons, forming a line before the infantry. Zelten gave orders to the other cavalry to stand their ground until the raiders had come halfway across the gap between them. The idea was to give the marksmen as much time as possible to whittle down the numbers of their attackers. Then the cavalry would strike the weakened enemy, holding them back for the marksmen to gain still a few more opportunistic shots before their enemies could reach the small infantry formations.
Brunner watched as the armoured warriors upon the rise began to advance, setting up a fierce howl of devotion to their profane god. The keen eyes of the bounty hunter studied the ranks of the hideous Chaos warriors.
'I count thirty-two,' the bounty hunter observed.
Zelten nodded his head as the first volley of fire struck the armoured raiders. Four of the warriors were hit, one of them dropping his halberd as a bullet exploded his unarmoured shoulder, another falling with a bolt through his neck. The other two just shrugged off the attack; whether the bolts had failed to penetrate their armour or whether they had simply failed to hit a vital area, it was impossible to say. The crippled warrior tossed his heavy shield aside and retrieved his weapon from the ground, gripping it in his other hand.
'They seem to be taking their own time about getting over here too,' commented Zelten. The mercenary shouted at one of the other horsemen. 'They're baiting us!' he told the horseman, the same old veteran who had produced the flask the previous evening. 'Leave Horst here with me and take the rest of the horse to the rear. Be ready for an ambush!'
The veteran saluted with a sharp, precise gesture more befitting one o
f the Empire's knightly orders than some ragtag Tilean mercenary company. The old warrior barked orders to the other horsemen and at once they were racing to the rear of the column. Left behind, the bear-like Horst swung his heavy flail back and forth beside his horse, clearly eager to crack an enemy's skull with the brutal weapon. Zelten watched them go, then turned his attention forward. He was slightly surprised to notice that the bounty hunter was still at his side.
'Not joining the rearguard?' he asked. Brunner continued to watch the plague warriors advance as another volley struck their ranks. Once again, only one of the armoured warriors fell, though this time the other warriors struck seemed to notice their injuries a bit more. The marksmen had learned where to place their shots after the first barrage.
'I think the real action is going to be up here,' Brunner commented, drawing his pistol. 'Even if your bearded bear is worth five men, I think you'll need me here.'
'You don't think the rest of them are planning an ambush?' Zelten asked, a worried note in his voice. There were any number of reasons why the number of their enemies was so low. The rest of the warband might be watching another part of the road, lying in reserve, or perhaps they had simply overestimated how many of them there could be. However, the deliberate hesitance of the raiders' advance could only be evidence of some subterfuge.
'Oh, they are going to spring something on us,' Brunner commented as a third salvo struck the plague warriors, this time felling two of the diseased madmen. 'But this is where the main assault is going to be.' Brunner nodded his head toward the slowly advancing ranks of armoured reavers. 'I suspect these are his good troops. The ambush is a double-bluff to draw your best troops elsewhere. The real attack is going to be here.'