“Eat up,” invited Volker. “No sense in it going to waste.”
Brand took the meat, devoured a strip off the blade, and walked on.
“Just we four then,” Lenkmann said optimistically after a few more seconds.
No one answered him.
The small stream babbled along with the placid night sounds of the forest. With the taint of the beastmen scoured from its boughs, at least the small tract of trees within sight of Hobsklein, the sinister pall that had lingered there had gone. In its place was life; good, wholesome, natural creation.
Varveiter liked listening to the nocturnal movements of the Reikland. It brought a small measure of peace, especially in a land that saw so little. If the coming war was as bad as he suspected it would be, he would likely not experience peace for some time after. He made the most of it and drank in the atmosphere of the night.
He’d come to the stream deliberately, picking out a secluded spot safe from prying eyes. After the fight with Keller, he’d only loosely strapped his breastplate back up. Now, by the water’s edge, he shrugged it off his body. Fresh spikes of agony, worse than those he’d felt at the fireside, clawed at him. The injury he’d feigned in front of Keller hadn’t been feigned at all, it was the outward strength he’d been lying about.
Next came the leg, and here Varveiter was afraid to even look. Easing himself into the stream, feet first once he’d struggled off his boots, he allowed the cool water to numb his thigh before he rolled up his hose. Varveiter hissed with pain as he did, forced to keep his tongue behind a cage of his own teeth lest he cry out. An ugly, black bruise showed itself as he peeled the garment back. There was some crimson too, where the blood vessels had burst painfully below the surface of his skin. Feeling daggers of fire with every step, Varveiter shuffled a little deeper and bent down as far as he could to splash the bruised leg. It was scant relief, but it was something.
When he was done, he clawed his way back out of the stream—he couldn’t remember how—redressed and collapsed on the bank next to his discarded armour.
“Siegen?”
Varveiter was only semi-conscious. He’d slipped into a sort of fugue state, his body’s reaction to the pain. Shadowed images of green trees and golden fields of corn filled his mind. Wood smoke carried on the breeze and somewhere a woman was singing.
“Siegen?”
Her voice was like warm fires on a cold day and cooling wind in the summer heat. She lifted him with her siren-like song. The sun was streaming through her auburn hair, and in his vision it blazed with the flames of her passion and spirit.
“Siegen?”
A hand was shaking him, it felt firm but tender. Varveiter opened his eyes and saw Brand looking down on him.
“Sigmar’s arse!” he swore, and would have flinched had he been able.
“I brought some meat,” said Brand, offering the last strip of guinea fowl he’d taken from Volker’s plate.
“Thank you, lad,” Varveiter said, pushing himself up into a seated position.
“Are you all right, Siegen?” Brand asked when he saw the discomfort in the old soldier’s face.
“Fine, lad. You just disturbed a pleasant dream, that’s all.”
“I don’t dream,” said Brand flatly. The coldness returned to his eyes like hard steel. “As long as you’re all right,” he added, before heading off deeper into the night.
Varveiter watched him go and thought again of the enigma that was Brand. Whenever encamped, he would often wander out into the dark and only return again come morning. No one ever asked him about it. Karlich didn’t care enough to bother, and Varveiter thought a man’s business was a man’s business and the others were too scared.
Still, it did perplex him.
As rested as he could be, Varveiter was pulling on his boots when he got his second visitor of the evening. When he heard the crunch of grass nearby, he thought of Keller at first and went to grab his dirk.
“As bad as that, was it?”
Varveiter realised it was Karlich and he moved his hand away again. “Sir?”
“Don’t play coy with me, you sly goat,” said Karlich, as he stepped into view. “And don’t call me ‘sir’. You’ll make me feel as old as you are.”
The burn scar on the left side of the sergeant’s face looked livid in the moonlight, and he’d taken off his hat and helm to reveal the shaven scalp beneath it. Karlich still wore his breastplate, though, and had a long dagger strapped to his left leg.
“A lesson was needed, is all,” Varveiter explained, getting to his feet and stretching out the fresh aches.
“Long as that’s all it was.” Karlich cracked his knuckles. He wore leather gloves. In all the years under his command, Varveiter could never remember seeing the sergeant without them. “Keller’s a whoreson bastard,” he went on, “but he’s our bastard and I like to keep him on a tight leash. Last thing I need is you stirring the hornet’s nest.”
“It won’t happen again, si—Karlich.”
“Good, now share some of that meat with me. I’m bloody starving.”
“Volker left a place for you by the fire,” Varveiter returned, passing a piece of now cold guinea fowl to his sergeant.
“Needed some time by myself,” said Karlich. His gaze was on the distant village of Hobsklein. The stream ran right up to its stockade walls. As they’d been talking, a Taalite priest had emerged from behind the gates, ushering out a small group of villagers bringing barrels of ale, sacks of grain for the horses and raw vegetables. One youth even dragged a sow by a rope, such was the Hobskleiner’s gratitude at ridding their patch of forest of beastmen. They’d obviously waited until all the tents were pitched, the men settled and sentries posted before coming out. They probably wanted to be sure all of the beastmen were dead, too.
“I feel old,” Varveiter confessed out of nowhere.
“Eh? What are you talking about? You’re a warhorse, Siegen, proud and strong.” Karlich clapped him on the back.
“Am I? I don’t feel it. It’s like my muscles are ropes that have been stretched too tautly and left to sag. And the bruises linger, and the blood. I can’t remember the last time I didn’t go through a day without tasting blood in my mouth.”
“You’re just tired,” Karlich replied. “We all are. It was a hard fight in the forest. In any case, I need you to help me keep the rest in line,” he laughed, though it failed to convey much mirth.
Varveiter faced him, a terrible sadness coming over his face.
“If I could no longer soldier, Karlich, I don’t know what else I would do.” His voice cracked a little with emotion.
“You’ve many good years left in you, yet, warhorse,” Karlich said, doing well to hide the lie in his words. “Go back to camp and get some sleep,” he ordered. “I’ll be along in a while. We march at first light.”
Varveiter nodded, before saluting his sergeant and heading back to camp.
When he was alone, Karlich looked back at the procession of villagers. He’d seen another figure abroad in the night, but moving away from him and towards the village itself. He rode an armoured steed and wore a black, wide-brimmed hat. As he stooped to address the village priest, the figure’s coal-dark cloak drooped downwards, revealing a studded hauberk the colour of burnt umber and a brace of pistols cinched at his belt. An icon hung from his neck, too. It was of a silver hammer, the sigil of Sigmar and the holy seal of his templars, the witch hunters.
Karlich’s eyes shadowed as he saw him. Rubbing his gloved hands reflexively, he shivered at first, before a hot line of anger came to quash his fear.
CHAPTER THREE
THE EMPEROR’S NEW COURT
Along the River Reik, near the Bogenhafen road,
7 miles from Altdorf
They stuck to the banks of the Reik, keeping the river in sight at all times and watching the boats, skiffs and trawlers as they plied the waterways in packs. It was a light evening, but the mood was heavy. The prince wore a severe expression, as impenet
rable as a mask, and rode his steed intently. The other riders with him, plate-armoured Griffonkorps whose own faces were hidden behind shining war helms, were as cold and impassive as statues. It was not their lot to question or to challenge; they obeyed, protected without pause. It was the job of others to probe the prince’s mind.
“We could have taken a river barge, you know,” said Ledner. He rasped when he spoke, an old neck wound covered by a Reikland-red scarf affecting his voice. Riding at the front of the retinue with the prince, Ledner was able to turn and look at his patron directly.
Prince Wilhelm, the third Wilhelm after his father and grandfather, glanced askance at his captain.
“And be caught behind Dieter’s gilded barges from Nuln? I think not.”
The captain looked again at the mighty river. Even this late, the Reik was thronged with waterborne traffic, bearing the many trappings and fineries of their glorious Emperor Dieter IV. The “Golden Emperor” some called him, on account of his gilded palace in the capital at Nuln. Perhaps “Yellow Emperor” would have been more apt given the current state of affairs.
“War brews in the east and Black Fire is broken through, and what does he do?” continued Wilhelm. “He moves his court farther west to Altdorf.” The prince knew he spoke out of turn to discuss his lord Emperor so disparagingly and in open company, but he was exasperated at Dieter’s reaction. Lines of barely restrained anger marred his handsome features, a noble bearing born of pure Reikland stock. He wore his gilded breastplate with its lion rampant proudly. The colours of his state, the red and white of the Reikmark, were entwined in his elegant riding tunic and leggings. Even his black, leather boots carried an eagle icon. It represented Myrmidia, patron deity of the art of war and one Reiklanders held in great reverence, second only to their progenitor, Sigmar.
As he rode with greater impatience, his crimson cloak billowed behind him. Ledner found it hard to keep up.
“Altdorf will still be there if we tarry a little, my prince.”
Ledner wore a breastplate, too, but it was unlike those worn by the rest of Wilhelm’s charges. He was no Griffonkorps, no warrior-knight. Ostensibly, Ledner’s rank was that of captain, but his influence and importance to the prince went much deeper than that.
“It’s not Altdorf that concerns me,” returned the prince, casting a weary eye on the vessels ferrying chests, barrels and even servants down the wide, black ribbon of the Reik. “It’s what my cousin is doing to the rest of the Empire.”
Prince Wilhelm spurred his horse to a gallop. Over the next rise, the great city of Altdorf loomed. It had been some time since he’d last entered the capital. At least that’s how it felt to him. When news had drifted west that a huge army of greenskins had broken through Black Fire Pass and were invading the Empire, bound for its heartlands, two things happened almost simultaneously: Emperor Dieter moved his court west, away from the battles; and Wilhelm relocated his princely lodgings east to the town of Kemperbad, where he could keep a better eye on Reikland’s border. Given all of his letters and petitions had fallen on deaf ears, and his messengers had been ousted back to Kemperbad, Wilhelm had had little choice but to return. It was hardly a chore. Altdorf was a city he loved dearly, warts and all. The only thing that might mar his homecoming was the man who sat upon its palatial throne.
Late into the evening, the smoke from tavern fires and smiths still plumed into the night air, settling over the city in a grubby pall. Towers reached up like clawing fingers, trying to scratch out the moon. Tenements and warehouses, revealed on the higher contoured islands above the wall, squatted on top of one another. In the distance, the shadow of one of the Colleges of Magic could be seen. Eldritch lightning crackled in the clouds around its borders, evidence of the wizards and magisters at work within its clandestine halls. Rising proudly above the squalor of the lower, lesser districts was the University of Altdorf, a seat of learning and enlightenment like no other in the entire Old World. There were other landmarks, too: the recently commissioned Imperial Zoo, the austere and forbidding Temple of Sigmar and the many marvellous bridges fashioned by the School of Engineers at Nuln, spanning the numerous waterways flowing through Altdorf from a confluence of the Talabec and the Reik upon which the city sat. Wilhelm felt its presence as surely as his own thumb or finger.
“First city of the Empire…” he breathed reverently as the shadow cast by a white wall passed over them, “with a Stirlander sullying your glorious throne.” Reikland was in his blood in more ways than one.
The walls were high, watch lanterns lit, crossbowmen patrolled Altdorf’s ramparts and a great gate bearing the icon of a griffon barred passage into the aspect of the city that Wilhelm and his entourage now approached.
“Welcome home, my prince,” uttered Ledner as the gates parted with a cry from one of the watchmen. The Prince of Reikland’s banner was upraised for all to see, his knights a formidable talisman of his heritage and identity.
“Aye, let us see what kind of a welcome Dieter has for us.”
Galloping under the great triumphal arch, Wilhelm led the way up the Reikland road, north to the palace where the Emperor had made his court. He didn’t slow, not for the peddlers, or the ranks of soldiers marching three abreast—for Dieter had moved troops as well as trappings to the city—not even for the nobles as they entered the Rich Quarter and closed on the palace. Griffonkorps bellowed for the way to be cleared, a preceptor lifting his face mask to shout through his long, curled moustaches. There was no time to waste, no time at all.
The audience chamber was filled with tension. Wilhelm felt it emanating between the Lord Protector of Stirland and the Count of Talabecland in particular. The antipathy of these two closely bordered states was well known. Their enmity stretched back to the Time of Three Emperors, before Magnus the Pious had united the land and the Empire was engaged in a bitter power struggle that led to bloody civil war. Some wounds went deeper than a blade cut or an arrow gouge; they lingered through time and hereditary, passing on to scions and then their sons in a destructive, feuding circle. Neder von Krieglitz of Stirland and Hans Feuerbach of Talabecland epitomised this.
Strange that the Emperor Dieter, also a son of Stirland, did not regard Feuerbach sourly. Perhaps this was the reason why Krieglitz, Dieter’s cousin, was similarly disaffected towards his provincial lord and Emperor, though he would never voice it in open company. Such were the vagaries and conundrums of Imperial politics.
By contrast, Markus Todbringer, Count of Middenland, remained stoically silent as he stood in the ostentatiously appointed room. It had once been Wilhelm’s audience chamber, but the prince didn’t remember the gilding and ornamentation lavished on it. Portraits of the Emperor bedecked the walls of the long hall, and there were additional tapestries, statues and other artistic luxuries on show. He suspected that Dieter was making himself at home. There were chairs, finely upholstered and opulently decorated, but no one sat. Stately ritual demanded that they wait for their potentate and sit only after he was first seated. The Emperor, though, had kept them standing for longer than was reasonable.
Tempers were beginning to fray.
“Wissenland hides behind his towers and fortifications. What other explanation is there for his absence?” said the Lord Protector of Stirland. Though not an elected official, in the same way as the counts, he watched over Stirland in the Emperor’s stead, whose business kept him in the capital and now Altdorf. “No surprise, really,” he continued. “It would be just like Pfeifraucher to shut the gate to his province. He has the mountains at his back after all, and need only defend one open border.”
“Not like us at Stirland. We face foes in every direction.”
“You whine like a maiden, Krieglitz,” sneered Feuerbach, the Count of Talabecland. “Show some stomach like your ancestors.”
Feuerbach referred to Martin von Krieglitz, Neder’s grandfather, who had famously slain the undead fiend Mannfred von Carstein and ended the so-called Vampire Wars that had plagued Stir
land in particular for generations.
“You speak of stomach, yet it was your antecedents that declared Ottilia Empress despite our own claimant’s Imperially sanctioned ascension to the throne. That is the calibre of Talabecland.”
Feuerbach laughed derisorily.
“Over a thousand years passes and still the backward-looking folk of the Stir cannot let old grievances go. No wonder you’re all mentally-stunted peasants.”
“We have long memories,” growled Krieglitz. “And I’ll see you on the duelling field for insulting my people.”
“With what? Your pitchfork and hoe?”
Krieglitz went for his runefang, one of the twelve dwarf-forged blades given unto Sigmar and his barbarian chieftains.
“Nobles,” Wilhelm’s voice broke in, “hold your anger for the foe banging on our gates. Old rivalries mean nothing compared to the greenskin horde from the east.” He scowled at both men. “And act like your station, not like tavern brawlers drunk on ale and bravado.”
Chastened, Krieglitz let it go. He muttered something in Feuerbach’s direction but the count either ignored it or didn’t hear.
Feuerbach looked about to send a final parting shot to end the debate on when the huge double doors at the back of the audience hall opened and Emperor Dieter stepped through.
The doors were thick oak, inlaid with silver filigree that depicted a griffon rampant on either smoothly carved face. They were lacquered black and reflected the refulgent gleam of the Emperor’s own finery. Dieter wore a long velvet gown, traced with gold and studded with amber. A thick cloak sat upon the already voluminous gown, again velvet but of a darker, less verdant green. Upon his brow, he carried a crown. This too was encrusted with jewels. The rings on his fingers clacked as he drummed them idly against the hilt of an ornamental dagger at his waist. His boots were deerskin, pale and pristine in the glow of the lamps ensconced on the walls. Dieter walked between the pools of light they cast in a processional fashion, his lackeys and fawners in tow like a clutch of parasitic birds, flapping this way and that, eager for a crumb of the Emperor’s attention.
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