Marks of Chaos

by James Wallis

  “You know the ways that these people operate better than I do,” Huss said. “When I feel I shouldn’t be trusting you, I remember that.”

  “Do you not trust me often?” Karl asked.

  “I trust few men often,” Huss said, “and nobody all the time. Priests of Sigmar put their faith in Sigmar, and nobody else.”

  “Even Sigmar has let you down from time to time,” Karl said.

  Huss cocked a dark eyebrow. Karl noticed for the first time that there were grey hairs in it alongside the black.

  “You think so?” Huss said. “You do not believe that all that has happened in the last few months is part of a grand scheme, a road that leads us onwards into history and glory, to restore Sigmar to the throne of the Empire? You do not feel the hand of destiny tugging at your collar, leading you to your role within this drama?”

  “I do,” Karl said, “but I am less sure than you about who is pulling on my reins.”

  “And you question me when I say I don’t trust you,” Huss said. “But you’re right, you don’t need to go anywhere. All the preparations are in place. You and Gottschalk will lead the crusade through the city, and the pikemen will follow immediately after the two of you, blocking their view, so the rest of the crusaders won’t guess it’s not my bald pate they’re following.” He tapped the top of Karl’s head. “You look good, bald. Though a tip: rub two drops of oil over your scalp in the morning. Makes it glisten and helps sweat run off it. And don’t stand in the sun too long.”

  “Will we have sun?”

  “Brother Dominic says we will, and he should know.”

  A silence. The rotund priest’s chanting rose to fill it.

  “What word from the city?” Karl asked.

  “None.”

  “None? No reports of troops outside the gates, or of preparations for our arrival? No word from Holger, the witch hunter?”

  “No reports. We’ve spoken to a few travellers, but…”

  “Did you not send any men ahead to see if we’re walking into a trap? No scouts? No advance guard?” Karl felt the rising note in his own voice, but did not try to still it. Hadn’t they had this discussion once before?

  “No.” Huss’ voice was calm. “We are the Crusade of the Risen Sigmar. We have come too far to turn around now. Whether there are traps or troops waiting for us, tomorrow we enter Altdorf.” Karl was about to speak, to interject, to protest, but Huss held up a finger to silence him. “And,” he said, “it is not what Sigmar would do.”

  “Sigmar?”

  “Yes. Sigmar the warrior-king would not scout ahead. He would march into battle and take the foe as he found them.”

  “Are you sure that’s what Sigmar would do?” Karl said. “Have you asked him?”

  “What?”

  “Have you asked Valten what he thinks?”

  “I… No.”

  Karl leaned in towards the priest. “I thought you found him so he could lead the forces of righteousness against the Empire’s enemies,” he said, and his voice was cold and hard. “When did you plan to let him start?”

  Huss went. In a few minutes he came back to the room and indicated that Karl should come downstairs. Karl did, entering the wide front parlour of the inn with its tables and stools. The crusade’s presence seemed to have frightened off the inn’s regular trade but had not replaced it with fresh bodies to fill the rooms: the crusaders had either joined Huss’ procession penniless, or the savings they had brought had been reduced to nothing over the past months.

  Huss sat at a window-seat, angled so he could watch the comings and goings on the street outside through the lead-diamond panes. On one side of him Valten sat, sprawled, one leg up on a stool and the other stretched out in front of him, a large tankard half-filled with ale lolling in his hand. A pretty serving-girl watched him from the other side of the room, ready to dart across with her ale-jug and a comment, a joke or a sly smile.

  On the other side of Huss sat Brother Martinus. For a few seconds he did not recognise Karl. When he did his body tensed, poised to get up, but he did not move from his seat. Nor did he acknowledge Karl’s arrival with a nod or a greeting. Valten, on the other hand, came awkwardly to his feet, extending a hand. Karl took it and shook it. The young man had a powerful grip and a smile that would have been winning if his teeth had been a better colour.

  “Valten, this is Magnusson, otherwise known as Karl Hoche,” Huss said. “He’s the man who unmasked the servants of Chaos at the camp the other day.”

  Valten nodded. “Grateful,” he said. “I don’t remember much of it, though that dark-haired one, she promised a good deal, I do recall. I’m sorry the one I punched died.”

  “He did, did he?” Karl looked at Huss.

  “He had a little help. Trying to get answers out of a man with a broken jaw takes skills we didn’t have,” the priest said.

  Karl paused. Huss was able to torture a prisoner for information without qualms, but baulked at sending scouts ahead? There was much he did not know about the man, he realised, and at this stage of the plan that worried him. “Did you ask him yet?” he said.

  “You do it,” Huss said.

  Karl turned to face the young man before him. “Valten,” he said, “I need your advice. Do you think we should send men forward, to the walls of Altdorf, to see what preparations the city has made for our arrival tomorrow?”

  Valten considered, swigged ale and considered some more. “Aye,” he said. “They know we’re coming so we don’t risk being discovered. They may capture our men so make sure to send men who don’t know anything. Eyes, not brains. But aye, send someone. Two would be better.”

  Karl nodded. Huss looked uncomfortable. Martinus was suddenly on his feet. “I’ll go,” he said.

  “Martinus, no,” Huss said.

  “Yes. I know what to look for, I know how to appraise troop numbers and judge defences. I was six years a knight for the Elector of Stirland, remember. I was at the Battle of Wissendorf.” Karl hadn’t known that, and the news took him aback. Martinus did not seem like a soldier. He hid his past well.

  “It’s too dangerous. You know the plan for tomorrow,” Huss said.

  “Yes,” Martinus said, glaring at his leader, “but I am a warrior-priest of Sigmar and I would rather die than see my enemies succeed.”

  “Let him go,” Valten said.

  Huss glanced at Karl, a trace of blame in the shape of his eyes, and exhaled. “Very well,” he said. “Take two men, people you can trust. No weapons or horses. It’s five miles, a straight road and there’ll be a moon tonight. If you leave now, you should be back by midnight.”

  Valten nodded an agreement, and a moment later Karl followed suit, slowly, regretting his idea of asking Valten’s opinion. Neither he nor Huss had got the answer they had wanted, and something at the base of his spine made him sense that the answer they had got was not the best solution either.

  Martinus did not return by midnight, nor by dawn. As the preparations were made for the crusade to leave Gluckshalt, Karl watched Huss as he spoke to his followers and his assistants, giving instruction, advice and words of comfort where they were needed. He had tried to open the subject of Martinus over breakfast but Huss had waved it away without a word, and had stood and left the table, his food untouched.

  Had Martinus been intercepted, arrested, even killed? Had he, who had been with the crusade since its earliest days, deserted just as it was about to achieve its goal? Many had deserted, Karl knew: the faithful who had expected more from Sigmar reborn than a blacksmith’s son with a Reikland burr in his voice when he chose to speak, which wasn’t often. But it wasn’t that. It wasn’t any of those things.

  Huss was afraid that Martinus had turned traitor, had arrived at Altdorf and gone to the authorities to report every detail of their plans. And when Karl realised it, he was afraid too. Partly for the implications for what lay ahead that day, and partly because the thought was obviously distracting Huss from the job of leadership. He had a lo
t to do before the crusade got underway, and he was not dealing well with the idea that he might have been betrayed.

  All this Karl deduced, watching Huss from under the loose hood of a priest’s cloak, following a discreet distance behind the leader as he made his way from tent to tent and campfire to campfire. Off in the huddle of houses and buildings that made up Gluckshalt, a hundred yards away, the locals were beginning to come out into the fields. A few hung back, wanting to bring their livestock back onto the common land where the crusade had camped. Although the day was warm and the early sun was burning off the shreds of clouds overhead to reveal a pale blue sky, the damp ground had been churned up overnight by hundreds of feet. There would be little grazing here for the rest of the season.

  Huss had located Gottschalk and was speaking to him. Gottschalk nodded and shouted an order, and the pikemen began to walk towards the road, forming into ranks as they did. The other crusaders slowly stowed the last of their gear, shouldered their packs and followed suit. Huss stood and watched. It was safe to approach him: there was nobody around to overhear the conversation, so Karl approached him.

  “Aren’t you going to speak to them?” he said.

  “What for?” Huss said without turning. “We’ve already had morning prayers, and we need to be moving.”

  “Rouse their spirits, steel them for what lies ahead. The city’s only five miles and we’re not due there till noon. You can spare a few minutes. You must speak to them.”

  “Three things,” Huss said. “First, the city guard are expecting us around noon. We will be there an hour early, so that if they have any surprises waiting, we get there first. Second, these are not soldiers, they’re priests, monks, holy men. They’re not disciplined, they’re apprehensive enough about entering Altdorf, and the one thing I’m not going to do is give them a reason to be more nervous and liable to panic. And third, while I am grateful for the services you have rendered, and the planning you have put into this, remember always that I am in charge of this crusade and this day’s work, I escort the man who is Sigmar, and you are here only on my sufferance. Never tell me what I should or should not do. Never.”

  He turned to look at Karl and Karl looked away, unable to meet the tall man’s eyes. He had presumed too much. But it was clear that if Huss was worried that his forces might be apprehensive about entering Altdorf, the man himself was weighed down with pressure. The months on the road had taken their toll. Karl had seen the first signs of the stress Huss was feeling in that darkened hut in Rottfurt, and this matter with Martinus had been the last in a long sequence of heavy blows. Karl hoped he would not crack with the strain. Without him, the crusade would disintegrate.

  The walls of Altdorf were higher and more forbidding than Karl remembered. No forces were arrayed outside to meet the crusaders, but they were somewhere: nobody brought a force of two thousand men to the gates of the Empire’s capital without some kind of reception being prepared. Huss had thought to take the city by surprise, but Altdorf had had two and a half thousand years to prepare for that sort of thing.

  The city gates, however, were open: both inner and outer sets. The usual armed guards were standing outside them. The road ahead seemed clear, though a few people were leaving the city, on horseback or on foot, and then immediately turning off the main road to give the crusaders a wide berth. Karl scanned the crenellation of the city walls, looking for bowmen or assassins, but there was no sign of any unusual movement. He knew they were being observed, but their watchers were keeping a low profile.

  The day was hot, and under the heavy wool of his hooded cloak Karl felt sweat trickling down over his naked scalp. The metal armour he wore under his robes was heavy after a five-mile march, and he let it weigh him down, making him stoop a little: at this moment the less recognisable he was the better. Beside him, Huss grunted and shouldered his warhammer. Next to him walked Brother Dominic, Valten and Gottschalk, who was wearing wore a hood similar to Karl’s. From behind them came the steady beat of the marching feet of the pikemen: slightly irregular, not up to the standard of real soldiers, but better than they had been when Karl had trained them. Behind the pikemen came the body of the crusade, then the coach in which Oswald, sat, still weak from his wounds. The Hammers of Sigmar brought up the rear.

  Conversation had been slow when they started out, and had dropped quickly. Now they walked, five men, followed by thousands with every step and thought, and Karl was pressed with the increasing worry that they did not know what they were doing. They knew where they were going, but they did not know what they would do when they got there.

  Huss was silent, tense, his eyes firmly ahead, a figure of solid determination in his distinctive suit of armour, the metal band he wore around his bald head glinting with sunlight and sweat. Dominic’s eyes were on Huss, and occasionally on Karl, and he seemed to want to say something but never did. Gottschalk’s face was covered by his hood but from the way he mopped his brow and the tension in his pose, Karl could tell he was not enjoying the moment and not looking forward to the rest of the morning.

  The only person who seemed to be comfortable, or at least at peace, was Valten. He strode ahead, glancing around him with curiosity and interest but not fear, carrying his warhammer one-handed. He could have been a woodsman setting out into the forest for a day’s work, not approaching the gates of the capital city of the Empire. They had exchanged few words along the way, but Karl already felt himself in quiet awe of this man, still in his teens, who exuded such quiet confidence and self-assurance; not arrogance, just faith in his own abilities. Was he truly Sigmar? Perhaps or perhaps not, but he was born to be a leader of men, and that was what the crusade needed now. To say nothing of the Empire.

  They were less than a hundred yards from the gate now. Perhaps Huss’ tactic of arriving early had worked. Karl stared ahead, trying to make out if there was a crowd or an army waiting for them on the other side. There were figures, but he couldn’t tell how many or whether they were in uniform. The inner gates were part closed. That could be hiding anything, but it could also work for them.

  They walked into the shadow of the wall, towards the darkness of the archway through the fifteen feet of stonework that separated Altdorf from the world it governed. The four guards moved into the road, crossing their halberds to block their way. Huss glanced at Gottschalk, who turned to face his men, held up a hand and barked an order. Karl could hear the pikemen come to a halt behind them.

  The guards did not move or speak. Beneath their helmets, their eyes were guarded and wary.

  “Let us pass,” Huss said. “We have an audience with the Emperor.”

  There was no movement. The barrier they presented looked to be only symbolic, but Karl knew that if the crusaders made a single hostile move, Altdorf’s defences would be alerted and they would be lucky to get twenty feet beyond the gate. Breaking through was not an option. And Huss, for all his skill at arguing theological topics and points of doctrine, was not a great negotiator.

  Then a figure slipped through the gap between the inner doors and walked up behind the guards. Karl recognised the uniform before he recognised the man.

  “Let them pass,” said Anders Holger.

  The guard sergeant turned. “Sorry sir, I have orders.”

  “Overruled by this.” Holger handed him a letter. “They are to pass. Orders of the Grand Theogonist.”

  The guard glanced at the words, and at the heavy seal, then motioned to his men and they withdrew. Karl and the other four stepped forward into the archway. Karl pulled back the hood of his cloak, undid its ties and pulled it off, exposing the battered armour he wore underneath. He passed the cloak to Huss, who passed him the breastplate he had been wearing, with its distinctive insignia and markings. He began to strap it on.

  “Anders,” he said. “What news?”

  “Good for the crusade,” Holger said, “but bad for you.”

  “What?”

  “The meeting is rearranged. The Emperor and the Grand Th
eogonist will be waiting in the Grand Theogonist’s palace. Do you know the way?”

  Valten shook his head. Huss looked up, his fingers still busy with the fastenings of Karl’s robe.

  “No,” he said.

  “Then I’ll come with you. Now, Karl.” Holger turned to him. “A man came to the chapter-house last night, asking to see Brother Karin. He claimed to be one of Huss’ lieutenants.”

  “Slim, pale, bushy eyebrows and hairy hands, named Martinus Delberz?” Huss asked.

  “The same. He told us that you would be taking Huss’ place for the march through the city, and if the witch hunters wished to capture you and discredit the crusade in one move, that would be the moment. The forces are already in place. You will be taken in Gendarmenmarkt.”

  The world around him froze and crumbled. Karl stood alone at its centre, unable to move, unable to digest the words. He stared into Holger’s solemn face and saw his own death, imminent and inevitable, written there. Dimly he was aware of Huss’ voice saying, “Martinus? Martinus gave up the plan?” and Dominic saying, “Can we rearrange it? Can someone else go?” and Valten, with a voice like the click of a door locking, saying, “No, there is no time and nobody else. Each man has his part. Without Karl we are all lost.” But he didn’t move. Something burned in his brain.

  “What time did Martinus come to you?” he asked Holger.

  “Around midnight. A few minutes before. I remember the bells ringing as he spoke to Brother Karin.”

  “But he left Gluckshalt in mid-evening. He would have been in Altdorf at least an hour before midnight.” Huss said.

  “The witch hunters were his second destination. He went to see someone else first,” Karl said. “Anders, did he mention anyone else? His old regiment?”

  “No,” Holger said. “He said he had just arrived.”

  “Then who?” Huss asked.

  Karl turned to him. “Luthor, when Emilie and her colleagues came to the crusade, did you speak to them first? Or did Martinus bring them into the camp?”