Goetz blinked and looked at Lothar. The forester shifted uncomfortably. Then, he lunged forward, stabbing a finger into Hoffman’s polished breastplate. ‘And if you tight-fisted city-rats bothered to pay us for spilling our blood to keep you safe–’
‘Not doing a good job of that lately,’ one of the nearby militiamen barked. A forester turned and drove a fist across the speaker’s jaw, dropping him like a bag of rocks. Another trooper came to his comrade’s aid and several foresters drifted out of the trees, faces set.
Hoffman’s knuckles were white on his sword-hilt. ‘Admit it! You’ve been leading us in circles! What is it? Trying to give your comrades time to get away?’ he bellowed in his best parade-ground voice. ‘I bet they didn’t even come into the Drakwald! Just more stories, like your witch-marks and hoof-prints!’ Behind him, crossbows were hastily readied by the militiamen as several foresters surreptitiously readied their bows.
‘Comrades?’ Lothar roared. ‘You think we’d have any dealings with witches or beastmen?’
‘You knew an awful lot about those marks–’ Hoffman began. Lothar growled and snatched his hatchet out of his belt even as Hoffman made to pull his sword.
‘Enough!’ Goetz shouted, even as he silently winced at the way his voice cracked. He drew his sword and planted it in the ground, point-first. ‘Enough.’
All eyes turned towards him. He took a breath and thought of building bridges, even if they were only metaphorical. ‘We are all on the same side here. We are all servants of the Empire, all soldiers in the Emperor’s service.’ He let his gaze sweep across the gathered men. ‘If any of you wish it to be otherwise, you may leave. Otherwise you will stop this foolishness.’
Lothar lowered his hatchet and stepped back. ‘I’ll not serve with this man. Not a moment longer,’ he grunted, gesturing to Hoffman. ‘We are loyal soldiers, but we cannot do our job with these plodders following us!’
‘Perhaps there’s another way of going about this,’ Goetz said, raising a hand and stretching it between them before Hoffman could reply. ‘We could set up a permanent camp and let your foresters find our opponents… drive them towards us perhaps? Or failing that, find them and report back to us?’
Lothar scrubbed his chin. ‘Could work.’
Goetz nodded. ‘We’ll set up here then.’ The forester grunted and then headed back into the woods without a backwards glance.
‘Nicely done,’ Hoffman said, after a moment.
‘Yes,’ Goetz said. He looked around at the trees, feeling slightly repulsed. He had never felt that way about a forest before. He was sweating beneath his armour, despite the oncoming chill of night. The sun was setting, and shadows were bunching thickly beneath the trees. ‘Would you have killed him?’ he said, after a moment.
‘Better to ask him whether he would have killed me, I think,’ Hoffman replied grudgingly. ‘The foresters aren’t to be trusted, Sir Hector. They are thieves, poachers and worse.’
‘Then why sanction them?’
‘Set a thief to catch a thief,’ Hoffman said, shrugging. ‘This wouldn’t be the first time that a group of them has decided to go over the fence.’ Around them, the militia began setting up a temporary camp, moving with practiced precision.
‘You believe this is the case now?’ Goetz said softly.
Hoffman looked at him. ‘I know that Lothar and his men have never respected Imperial authority. And I know that Lothar himself used to rob coaches on the Emperor’s Road.’
Goetz shook his head. ‘I didn’t know that.’
‘There are a lot of things you don’t know, sir,’ Hoffman said, turning away. ‘Get those defensive hedges up!’ he shouted as two of his men unrolled a length of flat leather pierced with wooden stakes that pointed outward. The hedge hung at chest height around the circumference of the camp, and was nearly invisible to the eye of anyone creeping up on them. That was the thought anyway. Goetz examined the hedges with an engineer’s eye, finding the design to be brutally simplistic. He had no doubts as to their effectiveness, however.
‘Steichen! Get a fire going!’ Hoffman continued, jabbing a finger at the man in question. He turned to Goetz. ‘A few minutes, and we’ll be ready for whatever troubles those damnable foresters are bringing down on our heads. Whenever they do so. If they do so.’
‘Yes.’ Goetz looked around. ‘Perhaps you were right, Captain. Perhaps we shouldn’t have attempted this.’ He sighed. ‘I’ll be honest with you… I’m a bit new to this sort of thing.’
Hoffman smiled and his features softened. ‘You’re doing fine, Sir Hector. Even that ill-mannered brute Lothar believes so, I’d wager. And, if I might be frank, better a commander who fears he knows nothing than one who thinks he knows everything.’ Hoffman sighed. ‘Not what I would have picked for a first duty though, I must say.’
‘We of the Order go where we are needed, Captain.’
‘True enough, sir. True enough.’ Hoffman sniffed. ‘And now we’re needed here.’
For a moment, Goetz wondered whether or not that was true. Then, he wondered whether that was what the future held for him now that he had won his spurs. Was this merely the first out of an unending series of duties, going from horror to horror, upholding the honour of the Order of the Blazing Sun until, at last, he met an enemy that he could not beat? He pushed aside that grim thought and tried to concentrate on his surroundings. ‘Go where needed, do what must be done,’ he said to himself.
The night wore on, and the sound seemed to grow with it, rising in tempo. Mixed in with the vast beat was the deep thudding of distant drums. Goetz paced the line like a tiger in a cage, his nerves screaming warnings that his brain fought to ignore. He heard the men on picket duty snap at one another in irritation, and Hoffman’s mood grew fouler.
It was the drums that were doing it. Why hadn’t Lothar returned yet? Surely it was easy enough to find where the noise was emanating from. Goetz busied himself with his sword, swiping a whetstone across the length of the blade.
As he honed the edge of his sword, he wondered why the men – no, the creatures – they were pursuing had even come into Talabecland. A matter of chance? Or something else?
What if Hoffman was right? The whetstone skittered to a stop. Goetz closed his eyes. What if the creatures had come because they were invited? Invited by the very men he had sent out to find them?
The scream, when it came, was brief. Goetz shot to his feet. A sentry staggered back into the defensive line, clutching at the thin shape that protruded from his throat. Before Goetz’s horrified eyes, he collapsed over the line, gurgling.
A moment later, arrows cut the air with a steady rattle-hiss, piercing the gloom of the trees. Men fell screaming, and Goetz spun, his sword flashing as it split an arrow into splinters. Another struck his pauldron, rocking him.
‘That devil Lothar has betrayed us!’ Hoffman howled as men sprouted feathered shafts and died. Goetz swung around, trying to spot their attackers. It didn’t make sense! Was Hoffman right?
A militiaman screamed as one of his fellows put a crossbow bolt into his back by accident. Halberds flashed as men turned on one another, trapped as they were by their own defensive perimeter. Goetz watched in shock as his men began to tear one another apart. Shaking himself, he turned, only to come face to face with a demon’s mask.
The soldier shrieked like a bird of prey and lunged for the knight, driving a dagger towards his face. Goetz reacted on instinct, swatting the blade aside with the flat of his sword and then slashing the edge across the man’s belly as he stumbled, off-balance.
‘No! Sigmar’s Oath, no!’ he said, as the militiaman fell, his shrieks becoming animal whines of pain. He writhed on the ground, trying to hold his belly together and spat vile oaths at Goetz, each one striking him like the blow of a hammer. Pale and shaken, he stumbled back, unable to look at the dying man.
‘Traitors,’ Goetz murmured. He had heard the stories and the whispered rumours, but he’d never expected to face it himself. Lotha
r had been right. He’d been right all along. Goetz looked for Hoffman. He had to get the men under control. To retreat. They could come back later, with more men. He caught sight of Hoffman, defending himself from a screaming militiaman. Goetz swung past him and drove his blade into the man’s shoulder, dropping him.
‘Hoffman! We need to–’ he began. The sword danced across the buckles of his breastplate, scoring the armour and driving a spike of pain into his side. Goetz’s arm swung down, trapping the blade. He jerked forward, ripping the weapon out of its owner’s hands and turned, letting it fall. His eye widened. ‘Captain?’ he said.
Otto Hoffman didn’t answer, instead lunging for the knight, his fist cracking against the latter’s breastplate. Goetz staggered. Another blow caused him to stumble back. Hoffman snatched up his sword and then came again, lunging smoothly. Goetz parried the blow, stunned by the inhuman strength the militia commander displayed.
‘Hoffman! Captain! What are you doing?’
‘Fool,’ Hoffman grunted, baring his teeth. ‘You walked right into it, didn’t you?’
Goetz didn’t bother to reply. Instead he lashed out with a foot and kicked the man in the knee. Hoffman wobbled, and Goetz brought his sword down on the man’s neck. Blood spurted, and Hoffman squealed. His sword licked out as he clamped a hand onto the gouting wound. Goetz jerked back as the sword-point carved a line across his throat-guard. The sword in the militia commander’s hand darted out again and again, snake-swift. Goetz parried desperately as Hoffman shuffled in pursuit.
‘Die,’ Hoffman gurgled.
‘You first,’ someone called out. A bow string twanged and Hoffman froze as an arrow sprouted from between his eyes. He croaked, the sword falling from his fingers. Then he toppled. Goetz leaned on his sword, breathing heavily.
‘Lothar?’ he said, blinking sweat out of his eyes.
‘I never liked him much,’ the forester said, stalking out of the trees. ‘Now I know why.’ He paused to spit on Hoffman’s body, then looked at Goetz. ‘You fought well, sir knight.’
‘What – what–’
‘We ambushed the ambushers. Came up behind them and cut their throats,’ Lothar said, jerking a thumb across his throat. He gestured to Hoffman. ‘Didn’t expect that, though.’
‘Expect what?’
‘This,’ Lothar said, dropping to his haunches and grabbing Hoffman’s head. He pulled the dead man’s gorget aside and exposed the eerily familiar brand on his flesh. He bared his teeth in a vicious grin. ‘It was a trap.’
‘For who?’ Goetz said.
‘You. Us. Anybody.’ Lothar let Hoffman’s body flop back down and stood. ‘Looks like about half of them were in on it with Hoffman. Likely intended to capture or kill the other half. And you.’
‘Why?’
‘Something’s going on out here, in the deep woods. Hear the drums?’
‘Yes,’ Goetz said absently, staring down out the body.
‘Happens sometimes, when the moons are up and fat. Drums deep in the trees, and hoof-marks in the loam.’ Lothar spat. ‘Didn’t realise it until I saw them back at the mill. Only one reason the twisted folk take ours…’
‘Sacrifices,’ Goetz said. ‘Sigmar’s Hammer. He said something about a celebration.’ He looked at Lothar. ‘Where are they?’
‘Waiting for these to join them,’ Lothar said, kicking the body. ‘And for them in the forest who set off the ambush.’ He shook his head. ‘Wondered why them in the city were slow about going for help.’
Goetz grimaced. ‘They’re in the town. A cult… Myrmidia preserve them.’
‘Not many, likely. Volgen isn’t that big. Those here in the forest worry me more,’ the forester said. ‘Those and them they took.’ He looked at Goetz. ‘What are your orders, sir knight?’
Goetz hesitated. Of the thirty men in the militia, only eight or so remained standing. And they looked as out of sorts as he felt. Confused, wounded and on the verge of running for safety. This wasn’t their land, and the temptation to leave was likely great. He licked his lips. ‘If we headed back,’ he said, not quite asking.
‘Then whatever them drums mean will be done and over, and them as sounding them will be gone.’
Goetz closed his eyes. The faces of the dead swam up out of his memories to meet him. He thought of the people they’d been unable to save, and the one they had, though likely too late for her own mind. His eyes opened. ‘We go where we are needed and we do what we must.’
Lothar nodded brusquely. He shouted orders to his men as Goetz faced the remaining members of the militia. They watched him warily. ‘You can’t make us do this,’ one said. ‘You can’t.’
‘Twenty-four men stand better odds than sixteen,’ Goetz said. He used his sword to prod a body. ‘They led you into a slaughter. Would you have others suffer the same fate?’ he said gently. He touched the comet on his cuirass. ‘We go where we are needed,’ he said, trying to capture the hochmeister’s cadence.
None of them looked at him. He sighed. ‘I’m going. Come with us or not.’ He started towards the foresters. He did not turn around when he heard the militiamen fall in behind him.
They moved swiftly through the forest, following the pounding sound. It rose and fell, and the ache in Goetz’s head grew. It was spiritually painful, like a soreness in his soul. It pulsed like a blister or a bad tooth, growing worse the closer they got to wherever they were going.
He had fallen into a rhythm when Lothar suddenly broke it with a hard jerk on his arm. ‘Stop!’ the forester hissed. He made a sharp motion and the men sank to the ground. He pulled Goetz with him as he crawled forward through the heavy brush towards a strange, flickering brightness that seemed to seep between the trees.
Below them, at the bottom of a slope, beasts danced beneath the dark pines, pawing the soil around a crackling fire and braying out abominable hymns. Mingled amongst the brute forms of the beasts were the smaller shapes of men and women. All were naked, save for unpleasant sigils daubed onto their flesh by means of primitive dyes and paints.
The shriek of crude pipes slithered beneath the trees, their rhythms carrying the gathered throng into berserk ecstasy as the dance sped up. The flames curled higher, turning an unhealthy hue, casting a weird light over the proceedings as man and beast engaged in unholy practices. As vile as it was, however, Goetz couldn’t look away from the foul spectacle, no matter how much he might wish to.
What drew his eye, however, was something infinitely worse than the dancers. Something fouler even than the worst thing he could have expected.
‘Taal,’ Lothar whispered, his voice hoarse and his eyes wide. ‘What is it?’
‘Something that doesn’t belong here,’ Goetz said, running his fingers across the double-tailed comet embossed on his breastplate. And it was. A vast scar in the earth near the bonfire, it was like a scab of blackened dirt. Whatever it was, it had pushed aside trees and rocks in its haste to reach the surface and now it sat like a pustule ready to burst. There was a stink about it, worse than anything Goetz had smelled before, even in a greenskin camp. And from its pearly surface came the aching hum that had plagued them all since they’d entered the forest.
As he and the forester watched, a burly creature with a leprous stag’s head shoved a squalling man into the milky surface of the foul bubble. He sank in with a shriek, his struggles seemingly pulling him deeper. A moan arose from the huddled group of victims, and snarling beastmen reached in among them to find the next sacrifice.
Lothar half-rose, a curse on his lips. Goetz grabbed his arm. ‘No. Get your men into position.’ Lothar stared at him incredulously. Goetz licked his lips and looked back at the fire. It seemed to play tricks on his eyes, showing him first this many gathered around it, then fewer. He tasted bile in the back of his throat. He spat and continued. ‘There are too many of them. More than twice our number. Your foresters will soften them up. How quickly can your men get into position?’ he asked.
‘Quick enough,’ Lothar said. He patt
ed his bow. ‘What will you do?’
‘A quick charge might be enough to scatter them. At least long enough for us to save the prisoners.’
‘If it’s not?’
Goetz swallowed. ‘Then run. As fast and as far as you can.’
Lothar nodded and clapped a hand to Goetz’s shoulder. Then he crawled back towards his men. Goetz waited, listening to the dim crackle of the fire and trying to ignore the throb of the thing in the clearing. He did not look at it, or dwell upon it.
He knew little of the things of Chaos, but he knew enough. It would have to be fire. That was the only way to be sure.
Behind him, he heard the trill of a bird. Seconds later, the air was heavy with the hiss of arrows and crossbow bolts. Down below, things screamed in pain. With a shout, Goetz rose to his feet and charged down the slope.
He met a thin creature coming the opposite way, its goatish face twisted in an almost comic expression of shock. Goetz didn’t stop, instead letting his sword take the thing in the neck. Its head flopped free as he landed in the clearing. For a moment, he stood alone as the shock of the sudden barrage of arrows wore off. From behind him, he heard a shout of ‘Talabecland!’ and then he heard nothing but the clash of steel.
The battle was a confused mess of darting shapes and screaming voices. Goetz blundered towards the fire, sweeping his sword out with instinctive skill. He lopped off an offending sword-hand and kicked something with too many limbs away. As screaming faces drew too close, the arrows of the foresters swept them aside.
Goetz ducked and grabbed up a burning brand from the bonfire and turned towards the pestilent mass. It had to be fire. He charged forward, swinging the brand in preparation to throw it.
Something struck him across the back, nearly knocking him back into the fire and slapping the air from his lungs. Flat on his belly, Goetz tried to breathe. He coughed as a raw, animal scent invaded the confines of his helmet. His eyes opened, and he looked up into a face out of nightmare.
The beastman was an ugly thing, all muscle and fang and claw. Piecemeal armoured plates strung together with twine and less savoury things clung to its bulky frame, less protection than decoration. Stag-horns curled up from its flat skull and back in on themselves. Dark eyes glared balefully at him from beneath heavy brows, and snaggle teeth snapped together in a deer’s mouth, its foul breath misting in the cold air as it grunted querulously. Using his sword as a crutch, Goetz levered himself to his knees and stifled a groan. His body felt like a bag of broken sticks.
Hammer and Bolter Year One Page 78