'Lankdorf. You clever bastard!' Dietz's shout cut across the small clearing, and the tracker turned, surprise and then shock followed by pleasure flickering across his solid features. He turned and stepped forward, clasping Dietz's hand as the taller man reached him.
'Dietz, Alaric.' Merkel Lankdorf shook hands with both of them, and then laughed as Glouste stuck her head out of Dietz's jacket and burbled at him, 'and Glouste, as well. Don't bite me this time, eh? This is a surprise, an' not a bad one at that.'
'For us as well,' Alaric replied. 'How did you get here, of all places? And with these men, of all people?' He gestured behind him, but Kleiber's curiosity had brought him forward as well.
'I take it you know each other?' the witch hunter asked, his tone neutral, but his eyes alight with questions.
"We do indeed,' Alaric replied. 'Herr Lankdorf was our... guide in the Border Princes not long ago, and was instrumental in the success of our mission, a similar mission to the one upon which we met you,' he added.
Kleiber's eyes widened as he understood the reference.
'I would hear more of this mission,' the witch hunter announced, glancing at the three of them. 'It seems Sigmar has demanded much of you since our own experiences together.'
'Let's find some place to set up camp, a way from here,' Alaric suggested, 'and we'll be happy to tell you about it.'
'And to ask a few questions of our own,' Dietz added, poking Lankdorf with one finger, 'such as why you
disappeared and how you made it out alive, and found yourself in Herr Kleiber's employ.'
Lankdorf nodded. 'I'd hear what befell you once we parted' the bounty hunter-turned-tracker agreed, 'but I'll second the notion that these trees are not the best shelter for us. The elves left no tracks, which means they could be anywhere. Clearly they know this spot well, though, and I wouldn't feel comfortable knowing they might leap upon us at any moment.'
Kleiber nodded. 'Wilcreitz, we shall set up camp in that small clearing we noticed along the way' he called to his second, 'and, once we have eaten, we will hear each other's tales.'
'Dinner and entertainment' Dietz murmured to Alaric as they gathered their meagre gear and followed the others, Lankdorf beside them. 'I can't wait.'
Lankdorf grinned at them, more relaxed than he had been the last time Alaric had seen him, back in the Border Princes. 'At least the ale is good' he told them. 'For a man who abstains from most pleasures, Herr Kleiber has shown a strong appreciation for those few remaining, including food and drink.'
'It looks like our time together had a positive effect' Dietz said to Alaric.
Alaric smiled. 'I'll drink to that.'
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
'Myrmidia's spear,' Lankdorf whispered some time later. 'Trouble does seem to follow you, doesn't it?'
They had made camp under a rocky overhang that rose up within the forest, with several boulders shielding them from any archery, and several of the mercenaries standing guard. Kleiber had travelled well-stocked, and Dietz had taken advantage of the witch hunter's stores to prepare a decent meal for them all.
Once they had eaten, he and Alaric took turns relating what had happened to them since they'd last seen Lankdorf in Vitrolle, back in the Border Princes. Dietz noticed that Alaric had been deliberately vague about the trail they'd followed from Middenheim and he had followed suit. If Lankdorf alone had been their audience, they might have been less reticent. Kleiber was still a witch hunter, and any possibility of taint or corruption could set him off, and Wilcreitz was clearly as fanatical, if not more.
'The mask is another relic, then?' Kleiber asked them, stroking his chin, 'and you fear the beastmen have taken it as an object of worship?'
'Worship I can live with,' Alaric replied. 'I'm more concerned they might find a way to use it, just as the cultists used the statues we sought.' Kleiber nodded, and Dietz suppressed a shudder at the memory of that chamber beneath Middenheim, and the ceremony they had almost failed to interrupt.
'Convenient that you keep uncovering such items,' Wilcreitz commented, his broad face twisted into a sneer. 'It's almost as if you were seeking them out.' At the start of their recounting, they had found themselves having to explain why they had been in the Border Princes at all, and so they had given the two witch hunters an abbreviated account of their adventures in that land.
'It is more as if they are seeking us, actually,' Alaric replied calmly. 'Perhaps because they know we are a danger to them.' The short witch hunter harrumphed, but made no other reply.
'You may be correct,' Kleiber commented, staring absently into the flames. 'You are most certainly a danger to such tainted relics, the both of you. These artefacts may seek to neutralise you, so you can no longer interfere with their master's dark plans.'
'Wonderful,' Dietz muttered, tossing a twig into the fire and watching it pop and shrivel.
'Indeed, this may be part of Sigmar's divine plan,' Kleiber continued, his eyes alight with zeal. 'Perhaps he has chosen the two of you to carry out his great work, by assigning you the holy task to destroy all such tainted objects! Certainly your efforts during our time together must have been blessed by Sigmar, for you to have survived and even succeeded against such overwhelming odds.'
Dietz shook his head, trying to head off that line of thought. As a child, he'd hated it when his father had told
him to do something with no explanation and no reason. He hadn't grown to like it any more now. If Sigmar had a mission for them, he should tell them somehow, rather than letting then wander around blindly and happen across such items apparently at random.
Dietz glanced up and saw Lankdorf, sitting not far away, tossing a small rock back and forth between his hands. 'What happened to you?' he asked the former bounty hunter, desperate for a way to change the subject.
What do you mean?' Lankdorf asked, glancing over at Dietz, but not pausing in his game of catch.
'Last we saw you was in Vitrolle,' Alaric pointed out. 'We were trying to escape that battle and you suddenly got a strange look on your face and leapt down into the crowd. Then you were gone.'
'We waited two days,' Dietz added. 'Figured if you were alive you'd show up by then.' He studied Lankdorfs face. 'You never did.'
'I got... distracted.' The tracker stared at the fire, his face hard.
'That's hardly an explanation,' Alaric protested. 'Come now, we told you what befell us. It is your turn, Lankdorf.'
'I am curious as well,' Kleiber stated. 'I know what you have done since I hired you in Altdorf, but I know little of your life before that. Tell us, if you please.' The witch hunter's face was impossible to read, but his tone suggested this was more than merely a request.
The former bounty hunter glanced around the fire. The mercenaries were all on watch or asleep, or cleaning their gear. None of them seemed to want to spend any more lime with the witch hunters than necessary, which Dietz didn't find surprising. He'd encountered the Sigmarites often enough in the past to know that, while they could pay well, they were usually harsh taskmasters, and had an unpleasant tendency to find heresy even among their employees. When working for one, it was wise to do the
job, keep quiet, and stay out of the way as much as possible. Lankdorf would probably be doing the same, if it weren't for Dietz and Alaric's presence, and for the fact that Kleiber was clearly more relaxed around them. As a result, the bounty hunter-tumed-tracker found he was alone with only Dietz, Alaric, and the two witch hunters.
Finally he nodded. 'It's only fair.' He frowned. 'More than fair, actually. Truth be told, what I've done concerns you as well,' he said, looking at Alaric and Dietz, and then over at the witch hunters, his expression grim, 'and may involve us all.'
Alaric smiled. 'You set the stage well,' he told their friend. 'You have our complete attention.' Dietz nodded, as did Kleiber. Wilcreitz only glowered.
Lankdorf straightened up, his hands still as he apparently organised his thoughts. Then, watching the flames dance rather than
looking at any of them, he began his tale.
'We were in Vitrolle,' he explained slowly, 'trying to get out alive. Then I saw someone I... recognised.'
'A cultist?' Dietz asked. He had expected his friend's terse nod, but not the fierce expression that flickered across his face, a mixture of grief, rage, and hatred.
'They slaughtered my parents,' Lankdorf answered shortly, his tone blank, his features anything but. 'It was... a long time ago.'
'Why would these cultists harm your family?' Alaric asked softly. 'Weren't they herbalists?' At first Dietz wasn't even sure Lankdorf had heard the question, but the tracker answered after a moment.
Yes,' Lankdorf said quietly, 'simple herbalists. They lived to help others, to heal wounds and ease pain. They were well- liked, well-respected, and well-known.' He shook his head. That's what got them killed. The Jade Sceptre cultists came to their shop one day. They wanted drugs, but not for their
health; they wanted ways to heighten sensation, to make even the smallest cut deliver true agony, ways to keep someone alive past all normal endurance, not without the pain, but in spite of it. My parents refused. They said it would be a bas- tardisation of everything they believed in.' Dietz saw his friend's hands tighten where they rested on his knees. 'So the cultists killed them. They raided their small shop, took everything they thought might be useful, and burned the rest.'
'You weren't there.' It wasn't really a question.
'No.' Lankdorf squeezed his eyes shut and set his jaw. 'I was in the army at the time, serving our elector count. I didn't find out what had happened until I finished my service and returned home. Our neighbours had already buried my parents, of course, along with a friend who had heard the argument, tried to intervene, and been killed for his trouble. The others told me about what had happened, and even described the cultists as best they could.' He gritted his teeth. 'I had been trained as a tracker, but weeks had passed and any trail they'd left was long gone.' He shook his head. 'I could have signed onto the army again, but I couldn't bring myself to stay even that close after what had happened. I left the Empire altogether, fleeing to the Border Princes to escape anything that might remind me of my old life, and of my family. I hired out as a tracker, and then as a bounty hunter.'
Then you captured us,' Alaric said.
'Yes. I also saw how dangerous that gauntlet was, and how it needed to be stopped.' Lankdorf shrugged and looked slightly embarrassed. 'I had only been thinking of myself, all those years. My parents would have been disappointed. Helping you seemed like the right thing to do, for many reasons.'
'It was,' Dietz assured him. 'We wouldn't have survived without you.'
Lankdorf nodded, acknowledging the truth of that, and Dietz thought he saw Kleiber and even Wilcreitz look at the former bounty hunter with more respect.
'Once I heard the Jade Sceptre was involved, I couldn't have turned away,' Lankdorf admitted, sounding almost guilty. 'After that it became a matter of revenge, along with everything else.'
'When you disappeared,' Alaric said suddenly, 'you looked as if you had just seen someone, and then you threw yourself into the battle.'
The tracker's expression hardened. 'My parents' friends had seen the cultists who paid them that fatal visit. They described them to me. All the cultists had the same mark, a deep furrow carved into their left cheek and somehow dyed or stained a brilliant green. It was distinctive enough for me to recognise the mark if I ever saw it, and I did, that day, after we escaped the temple. He was a tall man, broadly built, with a shock of white hair and a strong nose bent at the end, and a chin too wide and square for his face. The mark was prominent on his cheek. When 1 saw him I just... I snapped. I leapt on him like a wild animal and clubbed him down with my crossbow. Then I put a bolt through his mouth, pinning him to the ground, and left him there to be trampled by the warriors still fighting all around us.'
'Sigmar smiled upon you,' Kleiber assured him, his voice husky. 'He granted you a chance to avenge your parents' unjust murder.'
'Maybe so,' Lankdorf agreed, his eyes bright. 'His hand may have been guiding me, and to more than just revenge. After the cultist died, I thought I'd find you two again, and we'd all leave together,' he said, glancing over at Dietz and Alaric again, and then looking away quickly. 'Travelling with the pair of you made me homesick. It had been years since I'd left, and I thought I'd like to see the Empire again.' He paused, lost in his memories.
'You didn't find us, though,' Alaric prompted after a moment. 'Something stopped you?'
Yes' the tracker agreed, 'something.' His face tightened again. 'Or rather, someone.' He took a deep breath. 'I spotted another cultist, a little way away. He was hard not to notice: short, solidly built, and immensely hairy, with thick orange hair that bristled like a boar's, despite copious oil. The strangest things, though, were his hands. He was a brute in every aspect, more like an animal wearing clothes than a real man, but his hands... his hands were long, slender, and delicate, almost like a woman's, and utterly hairless, completely smooth.'
'And he had the same mark on his cheek,' Dietz offered, knowing he was right even before Lankdorf s nod.
'Yes. There was no mistaking it. He wasn't fighting, though. He was crouching by the temple, next to what had been the staircase we'd used, but had crumbled into a pile of rubble. He seemed to be talking. Then he reached for something, clasped it to him, rose to his feet, and started running, hunched over and clearly trying to avoid the battle. I took off after him.'
The others were all leaning forward, eager to hear what happened next, even Wilcreitz. Lankdorf seemed to realise that, and showed a certain leaning towards the theatrical as he also leaned in, letting the firelight play across his face as his voice dropped to a whisper. This was far and away the most Dietz had ever seen the former bounty hunter speak at once, but he could tell Lankdorf was just as caught up in the tale as the rest of them.
'I chased him, but he was too quick for me. A pair of Levrellian's men blocked my path, and by the time I had cut down the one and tripped the other, the cultist was almost out of sight. I ran, heedless of my own safety, ignoring everything but the need to catch up with him.' He paused. 'That is probably why Fatandira's mounted warrior was able to run me down.'
Someone gasped. Dietz thought it was Alaric, though he wasn't sure. None of them could tear their gaze from the tracker's face.
'I heard his horse at the last second,' Lankdorf continued, 'and managed to twist to one side. One hoof clipped me in the side, and another caught me in the temple, sending me sprawling. That probably saved my life. It knocked me out of the rider's reach, and before he could adjust his course several cultists crashed into him, tiying to swarm him and pull him from his steed. He fought them off and lost interest in me completely.' Lankdorf shrugged. 'It took me several minutes to catch my breath and get my head to stop spinning. Then I pulled myself back to my feet. I was near a hole in the wall, caused by the ballistae, no doubt, and pulled myself through it and back out of the town. Then I finally remembered what I had been doing before I was attacked, and I looked around, but the cultist was long gone.'
'And you couldn't track him?' That outburst came from Wilcreitz, surprisingly enough. 'You are a tracker, aren't you?'
Lankdorf shook his head, not at all insulted. 'I am,' he said proudly. 'My father taught me to read the tracks and trails of animals when we would gather herbs in the woods, and the army taught me to apply those skills to men as well as beasts, but there were hundreds, maybe even thousands, of people there. The ground was a mess. No one could track through that. I did look, of course, but there was nothing.' He gave them a tight grin. 'So I backtracked. I returned to the rubble where I'd first spotted him, and found another cultist pinned half-beneath it.'
'That's who he was talking to?' Alaric asked.
'It was.' Lankdorf s smile turned nasty. 'I asked him a few questions, before ending his suffering. He was most forthcoming. He told me the other cultist was heading fo
r a small town called Heinzkit, back here in the Empire.' He took a deep breath. 'So I followed him.'
Dietz desperately wanted to ask if Lankdorf had caught the man, and was sure the other listeners were equally
curious, but he waited, knowing that his friend would tell them in his own time.
'He had a decent head start,' Lankdorf explained quietly, 'and that kick to my side slowed me down some. I knew where he was going, though, and probably knew the Border Princes better than he did, so I figured I could shorten his lead. I thought he was simply going to some bolthole he knew, perhaps some hideout the cult had established, and I would take him when he went to ground.'
The tracker paused again, and Dietz stopped to consider the enormity of his friend's determination. To have chased the man from one country into the next! But then he thought about how he would feel if someone had murdered his parents, or his sister, and he knew he would have done the same. No distance would be far enough for the killer to run from him.
'I caught up with him in Heinzkit,' Lankdorf was saying, 'and there he stopped. I thought at first the town might be a cultist stronghold, so I scouted it before going in, but it seemed placid enough. The people there were farmers and labourers, and I could not figure out why this man thought he could take shelter there, unless it was simply because the town was so small and unassuming that no one else would ever bother to visit it.' He straightened. 'Except that someone else had.'
'There was another visitor?' Alaric asked. 'Besides you, you mean?'
'Yes, besides me,' Lankdorf replied. 'I had not even shown my face in town, but I saw a man walking, and something about him struck me as strange, so I stayed hidden and watched. He was tall, this man, and dressed oddly, in long robes over dark clothes. He wasn't fancy enough to be of the lade Sceptre, but I suspect he was also a follower of the Dark Powers.' Out of the corner of his eye, Dietz saw Kleiber's jaw tighten, and Wilcreitz's too.
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