by epubBillie
Norsca... He would return as a hero, and fully human. No longer Erik the Were. Erik the man.
Inside his shirt he could feel the slim form of the model star boat, warm against his skin. A toy for his son one day...
Life stretched ahead of him like a sunlit room.
"Yes," he told Bjorn. "Quite a story."
THE IGNORANT ARMIES
by Jack Yeovil
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
- Matthew Arnold, "Dover Beach"
Settling Tsarina down, he saw the frozen blood around her hooves. The last blacksmith's nails had gone too deep. The horse's ankles weren't good, and the last three weeks' ride had been hard on her. She'd barely been worth the price they'd paid for her when she was fresh. Now, she was a dependent. And they couldn't use dependents.
"There, Tsarina, there," he said, smoothing the horse's mane, feeling her fragile warmth through thick hair. Her flesh wouldn't be warm much longer. Not through another snow, another skirmish, or another day's ride. As always, Vukotich had been right. When they had bargained successfully with the trader months ago, Johann had suggested calling the pair Tsar and Tsarina in honour of the ruling house of Kislev. The Iron Man, face unreadable under his scars, had snorted and said, "Johann, you don't give a name to something you may have to eat."
Vukotich had been in the Northern Forests of Kislev before, as a mercenary in the service of Tsar Radii Bokha, subduing an insubordinate boyar, fending off minor incursions from the Wastes. He had known what he was talking about. This wasn't the Old World, this was a cruel country. You could see it in the faces of the people, in the iron-hard ground and the slate-coloured sky. In the forests, you could see it in the gallows-trees and the looted graves. Everything had been hacked and scarred into misery. In the hostelries, the songs had been brutal or gloomy, the food was like spiced leather, and all the jokes referred to filthy practices involving the livestock.
In the dusk, Johann saw Vukotich, a spiky shadow in furs, emerging from the trees with an armload of firewood. Stripped of the ice-threaded bark, the wood would burn smokily, but it would burn the night through. Vukotich dumped his load in the centre of the dark brown circle from which he had cleared the snow. What little light was left in the sky had to fight its way down through four-hundred foot trees. They should have made camp an hour ago to be relatively secure by nightfall, but they had been pushing on, Tsarina had been limping, and - just maybe, without consciously working at it - they had wanted to be a temptation to Cicatrice's tail-draggers. Sigmar knows, Johann thought, it would be sweet to be done with this business.
The horse whinnied, and Johann felt her hot breath on his wrist. He loosened a drawstring, and pulled off his glove, making a fist against the cold. Then he stroked the horse again, twining his fingers in her mane. The beast knew, he could tell. He could see the panic in her clouded eye, but she was too tired, too resigned, to fight back. Tsarina would welcome death. Vukotich stood over man and horse, his hand on his knifehilt.
"Do you want me to do it?"
"No," said Johann, drawing one of his own knives - a hunter's pride, one edge honed to razor sharpness, the other serrated like a joiner's saw. "I named her, I'll finish her..."
He breathed into Tsarina's nostrils, soothing the horse with his naked left hand, his gauntleted right bringing up the knife. He looked into her eyes, and felt - imagined he felt? - the animal willing him to be swift. He got a good grip, and drove into Tsarina's neck, puncturing the major artery. He sawed through muscle and gristle to make sure the job was well done, and then shuffled back on his knees to avoid the spray. He felt the frozen earth through his padded knee-protectors. His britches would be speckled with Tsarina's red tomorrow. The horse kicked, and emptied fast, the spirit flown forever. Johann made silent prayer to Taal, the God of Nature and Wild Places, one of the few gods he bothered to appease these days. He stood up, and brushed bloody snow from his clothes.
Vukotich knelt, and put his hand in the flow of blood as one might put one's hand in a mountain stream. Johann had seen him do the like before. It was some superstition of his native land. He knew what the man would say now, "innocent blood". It was like a little prayer. One of Vukotich's sayings was "never underestimate the power of innocent blood". If pressed, the old soldier would invoke the blessed name of Sigmar, and trace the sign of the hammer in the dust. Johann shied away from magic - he had had some bad experiences - but all knew of Sigmar's harsh benevolence. If there were miracles to be had, only he could be even half-counted upon. But Sigmar's mercy, Sigmar's hammer and Sigmar's muttered name had done nothing for the horse. She was still now. Tsarina was gone, and they had meat for two weeks' journey in this forest.
Vukotich wiped his hand clean, flexed the fingers as if invigorated, and produced his flint. Johann turned, and saw his companion had constructed a simple pyramid fire, building a tent of logs over a nest of twigs. Dry grass was hard to come by here, but Vukotich could root out mosses and combustible fungi to start a blaze. Vukotich struck his flint, the fire took, and Johann smelled the fresh smell of woodsmoke. His eyes watered as a cloud of smoke wrapped his head, but he kept his place. Best to ignore the discomfort. The smoke column passed, twisting around to reach for the other man. It was an infallible rule of the fire, that it would have to smoke in someone's face.
"So it's horse tonight?" asked Vukotich.
"Yes, we'll have to cure the meat tomorrow if we're to carry on."
"Is there any question of that?"
"No," Johann said, as he always had.
"You wouldn't lose any honour if you were to return to your estates. They must have gone to ruin since we left. I'll continue the tracking. I'm too old to change. But you needn't keep up with it. You could make a life for yourself. You're the Baron now."
He had heard the speech before, and many variations on it, almost from the beginning. Never had he seriously considered returning to his ruined home, and never - Johann thought - had Vukotich expected him to. It was part of the game they played, master and servant, pupil and tutor, man of iron and man of meat. In some circumstances, Johann knew, meat breaks less easily than iron.
"Very well."
Johann set to butchering the horse. It was one of the many skills he wouldn't have acquired had he been a better shot at a sixteen. If his shaft hadn't missed the deer and pierced Wolf's shoulder... If Cicatrice's band hadn't chosen to lay waste to the von Mecklenberg estate... If the old Baron had employed more men like Vukotich, and less like Schunzel, his then-steward... If...
But young Johann had been fumble-fingered with a longbow, Cicatrice had realized too well the weakness of the Empire's outlying fiefdoms, and Schunzel had fussed more over wall-hangings and Bretonnian chefs than battlements and men-at-arms. And now, when he would ordinarily have been currying favour for his family at Karl-Franz's court in Altdorf, Baron Johann von Mecklenberg was gutting a nag in a clearing dangerously near the frozen top of the world. The Arts of a Nobleman. If he were ever to write a book, that's the title he would want to use.
Together, they pulled strips off the carcass and hung them on a longsword supported over the fire by two cleft branches. It was black from many previous services, stained by dried-in grease, and could never be used in a polite engagement. Throughout his education, Johann had been taught that weapons were the jewels of a nobleman, and should be treated as a master musician would his instrument, a sorcerer his spells and spices, or a courtesan her face and figure. Now, he knew a sword was a tool for keeping you alive, and that meant filling your insides far more often than it did exposing someone else's.
"You saw the tracks today?" asked Vukotich.
"Four, more-or-less human, travelling slowly, left behind for us."
Vukotich nodded. Johann sensed his teacher's rough pride in him, but knew the old man would never admit it. The schooling was over, this was life...
"They'll turn soon. If not tonight, then the next night. Two of them are weak. They've been on foot from three days into the forest. The skaven is lamed. Pus in his bootprints. If he lives, he'll lose a foot to the gangrene. They'll all be tired. They'll want to get it over with while they still have an advantage."
"We're on foot too, now."
"Yes, but they don't know that." In the firelight, Vukotich's face was a dancing mass of red and black shadows. "Two of them will be broken, given this duty because Cicatrice wants to get rid of them. But since the Middle Mountains, he will have stopped underestimating us. He lost enough raiders in that pass to make him think us more than a nuisance. So, two of them will be good. One of them will be a Champion, or something very like. It'll be altered. Twisted, but not crippled. It's something big, something enhanced. Something they think will take care of us."
His eyes shone with flame. "I'll watch first."
Johann was aware of the aching in his back, his legs, the cold that had settled into his bones when they crossed the snowline and would never - he dreaded - depart. How much more would Vukotich, with his many past wounds, with the increasing weight of his years, feel the aches and the chills? The Iron Man never complained, never flagged, but that didn't mean he had no feeling, no pain. Johann had seen him when he felt unobserved, seen him sag in his saddle, or massage his much-broken left arm. After all, the man couldn't go on forever. Then what?
What of Cicatrice? What of Wolf?
They ate, chewing the tough meat slowly, and Vukotich mulled some spiced wine. Warm inside at least, Johann climbed into his bedroll in his clothes, pulling the furs about him. He slept with his knife in his hand, and dreamed...
The Baron of Sudenland had two sons, Johann and Wolf. They were fine boys, and would be fine young men. Johann, the older by three years, would be Baron after his father, and an Elector of the Empire. He would be a warrior, a diplomat and a scholar. Wolf, who would be his regent when the business of the Empire took him to Altdorf, would be Johann's strong right hand. He would be a jurist, a master huntsman and an engineer. Joachim, the old Baron, was proud to have two such sons, who would, upon his death, preserve his lands and bear his responsibilities. And the people of the Barony were pleased they would not have to live under the whims and woes of petty tyrants, as did so many others throughout the Empire. The old Baron was much loved, and his sons would do him honour. New words were made up for old songs, celebrating each achievement of the growing boys.
The old Baron engaged many tutors for his sons; tutors in history and geography, in the sciences, in the ways of the gods, in etiquette and the finer accomplishments, in music and literature, in the skills of war and the demands of peace, even in the rudiments of magic. Among these was a warrior who had served throughout the Old World and beyond. The survivor of numberless campaigns, he never talked of his origins, his upbringing, even of his native land, and he had but one name. Vukotich. The Baron had first met Vukotich on the field of combat, during a border dispute with an unruly neighbour, and had personally captured the mercenary. Neither man spoke of it, but after the battle, Vukotich put aside his profession and swore allegiance only to the House of von Mecklenberg.
The Baron had many homes, many estates, many castles. One summer, he and his retinue chose to spend time in an isolated stronghold at the edge of the Barony. There, in the greenwood, his sons would learn how to hunt game, and win their trophies. This Joachim had done when he was a youth, and this his sons would now do. With pride, the old Baron watched from the towers of his castle as Vukotich took his sons off into the woods, accompanied by Corin the Fletcher, his arms master. Whatever Johann and Wolf killed would grace the Baron's table that evening.
Wolf was a born huntsman, and was blooded his first day in the woods, bringing down a quail with a single quarrel. He soon became proficient with the longbow, the crossbow, the throwing lance, and all manner of traps and snares. Wolf, it was said partly in jest, was well-named, for he could stalk any beast of the forest. From birds, he progressed to boar and elk. He was equal to them all, and it was said that Wolf might be the first von Mecklenberg in generations to bring home a unicorn, a jabberwock or a manticore as trophies of his prowess in the woods. Corin had discovered that Andreas, one of the stable boys, had once been apprenticed to a taxidermist, and soon had the boy assigned to the preparing and mounting of Wolf's trophies. Within a month, there were more than enough to fill his corner of the Great Hall of the von Mecklenbergs.
But Johann found the chase not to his taste. Early, he had developed an interest in the animals of the wood, but he couldn't see them through a hunter's eyes. Shooting at straw targets, he could best his brother with any weapon; but with a living, breathing creature before him, his hand faltered and his eye was off. He was too moved by the magnificence of a full-grown stag to want to see it dead, beheaded and stuffed, with glass eyes and dusty antlers. Everyone understood, which made it much worse for Johann, who was foolish enough to think compassion a womanish weakness. The old Baron, seeing in Wolf his younger self, nevertheless recognized in Johann the makings of a better man than either of the huntsmen could be. To Vukotich, he confided "Wolf's delight in the hunt will make him a good regent, but Johann's instinctive turning-away from killing will make him a great Elector". But Johann tried to overcome his quirk of the mind. He would not give up eating meat, and he believed he could not honourably eat if he could not hunt in good conscience, so he applied himself.
Still, one day, while out with Wolf, Corin and Vukotich, Johann missed a deer he had a clear shot at, and his arrow slipped through the trees, lodging in his brother's shoulder. It was a clean, shallow wound and Corin dressed it quickly, but Vukotich was sufficiently cautious to send the boy back to the castle. Johann had felt bad enough then, but later this incident would come to haunt his nights. If his life had a turning point, that careless shaft was it. Afterwards, nothing was as it was supposed to be.
There had always been outlaws, of course. Always been evil men, always been the altered ones. Especially in the forests. There had been raids and battles and bloodshed. There were many areas of the Empire where the servants of the Law dared not venture. And there had been many campaigns against the dark. But there had never been a Champion of Evil like Cicatrice. So named for the livid red weal scratched across his face by the claw of a daemon in the service of Khorne, Lord of Blood, Cicatrice had come out of the Wastes transformed beyond humanity. With his so-called Chaos Knights, Cicatrice had terrorized the Southlands, unfettered in his bloodlust in victory, eluding capture even in defeat. Emperor Karl-Franz himself had placed 50,000 Gold Crowns upon his head, but - though many had tried, and failed to survive the attempt - none had claimed the reward. The songs of his crimes were dark and dramatic, full of blood and fire, and just barely tainted with fascination. For the people of the Empire, used now to the comforts and pettiness of civilization, Cicatrice was an important figure. He was the outcast, a monster to remind them of the things waiting beyond the circle of light.
Cicatrice had seen a weakness in the summer home of the von Mecklenbergs, and mounted a raid that had shocked the Empire. An Elector murdered, his household put to the sword, his castle razed to the ground, his child - and the children of his retinue - stolen away. Never had there been such an atrocity, and rarely since did the other Electors travel anywhere remote without a force of men capable of besting a small army. Hitherto, stealth, poison and treachery had been the favoured weapons of the Night. Cicatrice had changed that. Truly, he was a Chaos Champion, and even the warlords of the Empire credited him as a brilliant strategist. If only because he was still alive and at the head of his Knights twenty years after his first raids, Cicatrice was unique among the servants of evil.
In his dreams, Johann kept being pulled back to that burning castle. He saw his father again, hanging in pieces from trees twenty feet apart. He saw poor, fat, silly Schunzel, the fires in his face and belly still alight. He saw Vukotich, in a rage he had never shown
before or since, hacking at a wounded Beastman, screaming questions for which there would be no answers. Then there were the slaughtered horses, the violated servant girls, the unidentifiable corpses. Absurdly, he remembered the tennis lawns - not a scrap of green among the red - with its pile of eyeless heads. A skaven had been left behind, a rat-faced mutant he found among the carcasses of his tutors, sawing off fingers for rings. For the first time, Johann had killed without effort. He had never since hesitated to kill, higher race or beast. He had learned his last lesson.
There was another Elector now, a cousin who called himself Baron, and claimed that Johann had given up his rights to the title by deserting the remnants of the House of von Mecklenberg and setting off on his travels. Johann would not have argued with him. The business of Empire had to continue, and he had other business.
Even with his shoulder wounded, Wolf would have fought.
But he was not among the dead. He was among the missing. At thirteen years of age, he would have interested Cicatrice.
That had been ten years, and inconceivable miles, ago. They had followed Cicatrice's band in ragged circles around the Empire; up through the Grey Mountains to the borders of Bretonnia, surviving ambushes on the waterfront of Marienburg, then through the Wasteland into the Drak Wald Forest - where Johann and Vukotich had been enslaved for a spell by a mad dwarf with a magic mine - and up through the Middle Mountains - where they had fought off a concerted attack, and lost Corin the Fletcher to a goat-headed monstrosity - into the Forest of Shadows. Then, down into the Great Forest and east through Stirland towards the World's Edge Mountains where the powers of darkness are paramount, and where they struggled against phantoms that were sent against their minds by powerful enchanters. The seasons came and went, and the slow progress continued. Johann knew they had been close more times than he could count, but always something had intervened. He had forgotten how many ravaged settlements they had passed through, seeing themselves mirrored in the numb rage of the survivors. Cicatrice's band was unstable, and they had met deserters, cast-offs or defeated would-be champions. Vukotich had more scars now, and Johann wasn't the youth he had been. Back and forth, up and down, the wandering had progressed across the land, constantly at the edges of the Old World, constantly at the extremes of experience. Johann had seen horrors beyond the imagining of his tutors, had learned not to concern himself with the caprices of the gods, and had survived so far. He had given up expecting to see each day's dawn, he had almost given up expecting to see Wolf at the end of it.
