by Dan Abnett
‘What are you doing here?’ Gilead stood beside them now.
‘Mourning,’ Nithrom replied, without looking up.
Gilead sat down on the millstones next to Nithrom.
‘No… here. In this human nest, mixing with them.’
‘The same as you.’
‘We have no purpose. No reason to be here. No cause, no drive, no…’ Fithvael’s voice trailed away.
‘Then not like you,’ Nithrom said. ‘I have a cause. I am here to purchase supplies, collect resources. To collect a few more good swords, if I can.’
He looked round at Fithvael, a smile - sad still, but a smile never the less - forming on his mouth. ‘Perhaps the gods brought me here, and you too. Perhaps it is right that our paths cross, no matter the pain that meeting brings.’
‘Why?’ Gilead asked from the other side of the veteran elf warrior. ‘What cause is it that holds you?’
AT DAWN, NITHROM led them down to a livery next door to the Temple of Sigmar. The ostler was just opening the shutters and unlocking the bolts. Early sunlight shafted into the livery barn.
There were three wagons lined up inside, fully packed. Sacks of grain, bolts of white linen, bundles of freshly fletched arrows and a three dozen unstrung longbows, a box of spearheads, two boxes of iron tacks, twenty flasks of lamp oil and twenty more of rubbing alcohol, a drum of pitch, a sack of padlocks, three coils of hemp-rope, five newly struck swords and thirty brand-new daggers, jars of salted figs and olives in oil, ropes of seasoned sausage, sheets of jerk-beef and dried fish, three cases of wine, two kegs of ale… More besides. Boxes, sacks, bundles.
‘You’re planning a small war?’ joked Fithvael, taking in the amount and nature of the supplies.
‘That is precisely what he is doing,’ Gilead said sourly.
Nithrom looked round at them both and nodded to Fithvael sadly.
‘A small war…’ he murmured.
Gilead glanced across at Fithvael. His eyes were hooded and dark.
‘We are departing now. Farewell, Nithrom.’
‘Gilead-‘ Fithvael began.
‘Now, friend Fithvael. Your old sparring companion has run mad and we are not staying to be drawn into his lunacy.’
‘Do me one favour, son of Lothain,’ Nithrom said. ‘Stay until the others get here. Then make up your mind.’
‘Others?’
‘They are to meet me here. They will be along. Do me that kindness, at least.’
Gilead flapped his scarlet cloak with a curse and sat down on a straw bale.
IT WAS EARLY still, with the mounting sun barely peering through fidgeting clouds, as the first of them arrived. The day was going to be warm, but there was a dawn chill yet in the marrow of the town, and beads of dew winked on every outdoor surface.
A human lad appeared in the livery doorway, framed by the light. He was short and slender, almost delicate, with soft white skin not thus far troubled by a barber’s blade. He wore a dark green surcoat and black leggings under a set of oily grey plate mail that had clearly belonged to a father or uncle with a much larger frame. And the broadsword in its sling on his back seemed to weigh him down. His hair was short, fingercut and blond. Fithvael thought him noble looking, for a human. He was reminded of poor Lyonen, the gods rest his soul. There was a fragile grace to him, more reminiscent of an elf than a crude, clumsy human. His eyes were wide and the colour of buffed copper.
‘Erill,’ Nithrom greeted him, gladly.
‘I’m early,’ the youth said. His voice was musical, sweet and unbroken, though he tried for gruffness. ‘No one’s here.’ He seemed to deliberately ignore Fithvael and the brooding Gilead.
‘I am here,’ said Nithrom with a smile and an open-armed gesture that took in the barn. ‘Welcome. I’m happy to see you.’
Master Erill seemed pleased by that, and entered the place, sitting down on a mounting block near the wagons, dropping his heavy sword and bulging pack as he did so.
‘This is Erill,’ Nithrom said plainly. Fithvael exchanged courteous nods with the shy youth. Gilead made no move at all.
A quarter-hour passed, and then a voice spoke from the back of the barn.
‘A good turnout, I see.’
They all looked round. Erill got up in a hurry, and Fithvael also rose at the sight of the newcomer Nithrom crossed to greet.
He had come in through the back shutter of the barn, as if he did not trust the thoroughfares of the town, even at this early hour. A lean human, with great power in his long limbs, dressed in tightly bound leather armour and a hauberk of studded hide. His hair was the colour of sun-bleached barley, and he carried his sword, shield and helmet on his back.
‘Vintze!’ Nithrom said. ‘Ever the stealthy one.’
They shook hands. The newcomer cast his hard blue gaze around the stable, eyeing Gilead and Fithvael. He seemed to ignore the lad.
‘Who’s this?’ he asked. There was a twang of the Reik about his accent.
‘Companions of mine,’ Nithrom replied briefly.
‘Elves,’ Vintze said, as if he was sniffing a scent from the air. ‘Figures. Still don’t trust them… no offence, lord.’
Nithrom grinned. ‘None taken. I still do not trust thieves. So that makes us even.’
Vintze put down his pack. ‘No one else here yet? Madoc? The Norseman? That Bretonnian fool?’
‘They will come.’
‘Still sleeping off a hard night in the taverns, I’ll wager,’ Erill said, trying to sound masculine and cynical in the world-weary way that humans found so appealing.
Vintze continued to ignore him. The Reiklander walked over and flopped down in a pile of sacking. ‘Wake me when we’re ready to go.’
Another thirty minutes passed, and shadows flickered in the growing sunlight outside the stable door. Two riders reined up and dismounted. They entered the barn; short, burly men from the provinces of the Empire, dressed in heavy plate the colour of brass with tabards of black and white. On their shields was the red bull of Ostland. When they raised their visors, in unison, Fithvael saw near-identical, square-cut faces.
‘Dolph, Brom. Welcome.’
The Ostlanders greeted Nithrom with nods, and set about bringing their horses into the shade and refilling their waterskins. They moved in the strange, mirrored way only twin brothers could manage. Fithvael saw that for the first time, Gilead seemed vaguely attentive. He watched the twins, as if remembering.
The Carroburger appeared a few minutes later. Tall and dark-haired, with a cropped goatee and a cruel face, he simply strode into the barn and threw his basket helm and huge two-handed sword into the back of one of the wagons along with his leather pack. He wore the slashed and puffed sleeves and leggings - dark red in colour - of a Carroburg man-at-arms, and his black breastplate was polished like a mirror.
‘Master Cloden,’ Nithrom nodded.
The Carroburg greatsword nodded back and went to sit on his own in the corner of the barn. By now, the twin warriors from Ostland were playing at cards with Erill. Vintze was apparently sleeping. Gilead still sat like a statue near the doorway.
‘When are you going to explain the-‘ Fithvael began.
‘When I am ready,’ Nithrom answered.
A trumpet sounded outside the livery, a fanfare more noisy than tuneful. Everyone stirred and even Vintze seemed to wake up.
The Bretonnian knight, mounted on his huge white charger, seemed to fill the doorway, his chrome armour glinting in the sun and his helmet’s great feather-plume a livid red. By his side, a sullen, balding squire on a palfrey rasped the fanfare again through a sadly buckled cornet.
‘His most magnificent and lauded self, the victorious warrior Le Claux! Welcome him, you fine people…’ The squire’s declaration tailed off wearily.
Le Claux, huge in his gleaming armour, seemed to have trouble dismounting, and the squire had to slide off his squat mount quickly to assist. The knight clanked into the barn as if nothing untoward had happened and grasped Nithrom’s
extended hand eagerly. He raised his visor, cursed as the heavy thing snapped shut again, and raised it once more. Fithvael saw a handsome, well-boned face that looked tired and bloated.
‘My dear Nithrom! I stand ready to ride with you to the mouth of hell and back, for glory’s sake! For this, I propose a hearty toast!’
Le Claux produced a wineskin from his harness and squirted a serious measure into his open mouth. They he strode across to the gathering of the others, and offered the skin around. Vintze, sitting up on the sacking, was the only one who accepted it.
The squire stepped forward and whispered to Nithrom. ‘Don’t even begin to ask how I got him here this early. And for everyone’s sake, don’t give him anything sharp.’
‘The Lady will honour your duty, Gaude,’ smiled Nithrom.
Gaude, the squire, suggested something fruity the Lady might do instead and turned away.
‘Who, by all that’s sacred, are these miserable nobodies?’ Gilead asked Fithvael darkly.
A Kislevite warrior-woman called Bruda was next to arrive. She slammed in through the stable doors, dressed in a knee-length chain shin and high boots, her mane of red hair flowing behind her. She was as tall as any of the men present, and nearly as broad and muscled. Her curved sabre bounced against her hip in its sheath. Fithvael knew that humans had generally a larger build than elves, but he had never seen a female of this stature. She seemed huge, like a goddess walking the land. She stank of sweat and almost knocked Erill flat with a slap to his shoulders. Le Claux offered her the wineskin and she drained it with a rumbling laugh and a hefty belch. Then she set about testing the give of the new bows by bending them against her instep by hand. Biceps like grapefruit swelled as she twisted the sprung wood down. One snapped.
‘Not wery good, Nithrom!’ she bawled, her voice clouded by her thick, northern accent. ‘Wery poor! I think we have trouble if we use these, yes.’
‘They’ll do, Bruda,’ Nithrom said calmly. ‘And I know you’ll only carve your own from the local wood when we get there.’
‘Here he comes!’ interrupted Vintze.
A big, black-bearded monster stumbled in through the stable doors. He was the most massive human Fithvael had ever seen, dressed in a dirty bearskin and blue-black disc-mail and lugging his weapons and full-face helm behind him. An old, deep blade-wound dented the left cheek of his rugged face, half hidden by his beard. At last Bruda wasn’t the largest in the company. The newcomer was clearly intoxicated and belched freely, leaning on the terrified Erill for support. He clamped his tarnished helmet with its fierce, snarling mouth over his face and barked, ‘Let’s get on with it, shall us?’
He was a Norseman. His axe was huge and he dropped it several times. His name was Hargen Hardradasson, but he preferred Harg.
Madoc, the last of them, rode up just before midday. Blond-haired and powerful, he wore the wolf-pelt of Ulric over his armour. An old warhammer was looped in the thongs on one side of his saddle.
Madoc made no apologies for keeping them waiting. He simply greeted them in the clipped, surly accent of Middenheim. There was something cynical in his bearing, Fithvael thought, more cynical even than the sneering Vintze or the disdainful Cloden.
As the party assembled and made ready to leave, hitching pack animals to the forks of the wagons, Nithrom crossed to Gilead.
‘Do you see now?’
‘I have waited as you asked. I see who has arrived.’
‘And?’
‘If you intend to fight a war, even a small war, with them, you’re going to lose.’
‘That is well said. Why do you think I asked you to stay? Why do you think I need you?’
THE PARTY LEFT Vinsbrugge in the first hour of the afternoon, as the bells of the old temple chimed a single peal. The air was hot and flat and bright, and the sky was cornflower blue and without blemish.
Nine riders on horses, three wagons drawn by packhorse teams, with spare steeds running from the backs of the carts. The lad Erill, the squire Gaude and the beast-like Norseman Harg drove the wagons. The streets weren’t busy, and they made their way to the south bridge without provoking much attention from the townsfolk.
Fithvael was the last to leave. He lingered for a moment in the doorway of the livery.
‘I am going to go with them,’ he said. ‘I want to go.’
‘You will die and we shall never find Niobe nor our people,’ growled Gilead. He stood in the shade of the emptied bam, a dim form like a ghost.
‘Maybe. But I would rather die with a purpose than ride on towards the empty doom we’re heading for. Nithrom needs us.’
Gilead scowled. ‘That’s not what Nithrom needs…’
Fithvael turned away. He knew the tone, the black mood it signalled. He had weathered those moods once too often.
‘Then you should suit yourself, Gilead.’
‘I will.’
Fithvael pulled himself into the saddle, and cast a final look back. ‘Come with us.’
Silence answered him.
‘Then fare well, Gilead Lothain.’
The veteran elf turned his steed’s head and cantered away after the others.
NITHROM, ASTRIDE A lean, black horse, was riding at the tail of the party, waiting for Fithvael to catch up.
‘I am sorry,’ said Fithvael.
‘Don’t be, Fithvael te tuin. ‘You cannot set his destiny for him. Gilead has his own path to tread.’
They fell into pace alongside one another. Up ahead, Le Claux was trying to get the others singing a round. When no one took up the offer, he sang it himself anyway, attempting to do all the overlapping parts with one voice. Bruda and Harg barracked him loudly and some of the others laughed.
‘Yet I feel guilty, Nithrom. It is almost as if I were abandoning him. After all we have been through together.’
‘That is understandable. But he cannot set your destiny for you either. He is a stubborn soul, and melancholy. You’ve given him the best years of your life, Fithvael. But you haven’t changed him. Perhaps it is best now you go your own way.’
They were thumping over the boards of the south bridge now. Scintillating damselflies purred among the nodding bulrushes below the rail.
‘Maybe…’ Nithrom ventured. ‘Maybe you are also feeling sad because you know he’s right.’
‘What?’ Fithvael seemed startled.
‘He sees this as a fool’s errand, that I’m leading this company into a battle it cannot win. Maybe you know he is right, hating the fact that your loyalty to our old friendship is making you leave him to ride to your doom.’
Fithvael frowned. ‘I… I don’t think so.’ A long pause. ‘Are we really riding to our deaths?’
Nithrom laughed. ‘I don’t think so… or I wouldn’t be doing so. But many might think the odds are against us.’
Fithvael shook his head. ‘I’m with you in this, Nithrom te tuin. It feels like the right thing to do.’
Nithrom nodded and smiled. ‘Maybe I was just testing you,’ he said.
Fithvael chuckled. He took a final look back down the trackway, past the wooden bridge, into the outskirts of the mill town.
He did not see what he was longing with all his heart to see: a lone rider coming after them.
ONCE THE COMPANY had assembled at the livery, Nithrom had briefly outlined the nature of the venture, though the matter was already known to most of the recruits. They were to ride south and offer protection for a small settlement called Maltane, which every year was raided by Tilean mercenary companies heading home after the fighting season. Most years, Maltane had bought the raiders off with produce, supplies and gold. But this year the harvest had been poor and the town coffers were low. They had nothing to pay off the Tilean dog-soldiers with.
So they had decided to use the little gold they had to hire mercenaries to defend the settlement. Nithrom, selling his sword thereabouts, had undertaken the venture, and travelled north to recruit willing swordsmen. The company and its meagre supplies were the best
he could do.
‘Barely a dozen warriors against a mercenary company?’ Gilead had murmured after hearing Nithrom out. He said nothing more, but shook his head sadly.
‘Have you no courage, wood-thing?’ Vintze had asked curtly, rising from his sacking bed.
‘As much as you, I am sure. However, I clearly have more brains.’
For a dreadful moment, Fithvael had thought a fight might ensue. But Vintze had simply flopped back onto his sacks, muttering, ‘We don’t need him, Nithrom.’
Others - Harg and the Kislevite goddess - had also simply nodded. They all seemed too weary to Fithvael, as if they would only draw their blades and their anger out if there were money in it.
Le Claux, however, had swaggered to his feet, his armour clanking. ‘Braggart! Wretch!’ he declaimed at the disinterested Gilead. ‘Take back the insult you have laid upon this fair company, or I will smite thee!’
Everyone, even Fithvael, had been unable to resist laughing at the Bretonnian’s courtly-phrased challenge. Le Claux faltered at their laughter.
‘Sit down and shut up,’ Gaude had said cruelly and Le Claux had sat back down with a metallic clatter.
But there was animosity still. Fithvael had seen it then. The dark Middenheimer, Madoc, and the Carroburger had both gazed at Gilead with undisguised contempt. Clearly neither wanted to make a fight out of it either - their mercenary nature was as world-fatigued as the others - but Gilead’s insult had rankled.
NOW THEY WERE on the track, rising up through harvested fields of golden corn stalks and dry earth. A sheath of deep, green woods awaited them at the top of the slope. White butterflies flickered around them, and across the wildflowers in the hedge-ditches.
‘How big is this place, this Maltane?’ Fithvael asked.
‘Small - a millhouse, a tavern, a temple, fifty families. Three hundred people at most.’
‘Defended?’
‘They have an outer ditch around the general settlement, and an inner fenced mound upon which the temple stands.’
‘Is there a well in the temple enclosure?’
