by Warhammer
‘Yes,’ she whispered, and raised her head and looked into his eyes, her lips parting. ‘Today is all there is.’
Felix lowered his mouth to hers, closing his eyes. He could feel her breath on his lips. He could feel her straining upwards.
‘Easy, Machtig!’ said Sir Teobalt’s voice.
Felix and Kat jerked apart guiltily and looked up. The old templar was pulling Machtig around the back of the wagon and trying to dismount while the horse skittered sideways. He smiled at them. ‘Wilful beast. He has been too long without a bit in his mouth.’
Felix and Kat untangled themselves as Sir Teobalt let himself down and tied the warhorse to the tailgate, then climbed up into the wagon between them. ‘I am too weary after the day’s events to remind him of his training,’ he said, unbuckling his breastplate. ‘No matter. I will have plenty of opportunity in the days ahead.’
‘No doubt,’ said Felix, cursing the knight inwardly. Today might be all there was, but if Sir Teobalt was going to make himself a fixture, Felix and Kat would still have to wait until tomorrow.
The old templar looked from him to Kat and back with an odd expression on his gaunt face, then removed his breastplate and set it on the floor of the cart. ‘Sigmar watch you whilst you rest, friends,’ he said, then laid back on the breastplate like it was a pillow, folded his hands across his chest and closed his eyes.
Felix sighed and gave Kat an exasperated look. She smirked back at him across Sir Teobalt’s body and stifled a laugh, then shrugged.
‘Well, goodnight, Felix,’ she said. ‘Pleasant dreams.’
‘I doubt it,’ growled Felix, then flopped down and pulled his cloak tighter around his shoulders as the old knight began to snore.
Felix dozed on and off, but unsurprisingly, he did not truly sleep. The bumping of the wagon and Teobalt’s snoring, and Felix’s frustrated thoughts of what might have been had the damned interfering old buzzard not been there didn’t allow it. Towards morning, a particularly hard jolt woke him from a dream of Kat skinning out of her furs and stretching naked beside him, to find Sir Teobalt looking at him with thoughtful eyes.
Felix blinked at him sleepily. He was a jarring sight after his thoughts of Kat.
The templar kept staring.
‘Are… are you well, Sir Teobalt?’ Felix mumbled, as politely as he could manage.
‘I have done you a disservice, Herr Jaeger,’ he said after a long hesitation.
You certainly have, thought Felix, but all he said was, ‘Have you?’
‘I would have spoken of it earlier, but…’ The templar looked over his shoulder at Kat. ‘It is a private matter between us.’
‘I’m not sure what you mean,’ said Felix.
‘You know of what I speak, Herr Jaeger.’ Teobalt sighed and lowered his eyes. ‘I could not allow myself to believe you when you told me of Ortwin’s fate and the fate of my fellow templars. I… I see now that you told the truth.’
‘It was a hard thing to believe,’ said Felix.
‘Aye.’ The templar’s brow furrowed. ‘It pains me to think that such good men fell so far from the true faith that they could be twisted like this.’
Felix paused. Teobalt still didn’t seem to understand. He was still looking to place blame. ‘Forgive me, sir,’ he said finally. ‘But I’m not sure it is a matter of falling from faith. I think perhaps the shaman’s power is just too strong. I wonder if even an arch lector could resist it.’
‘You say this to hearten me,’ said the templar. ‘To allow me to think better of my brothers.’
‘I say it because I believe it,’ said Felix. ‘I have seen the power of the stone. Lord Ilgner was a good man. He had fought the hordes and the herds with all his heart, and yet he changed with the rest.’
‘Perhaps you are right,’ said Teobalt, still not looking up.
He sank into a long silence, and Felix began to drift off again, thinking that the conversation was finished.
Then just as his head began dropping to his chest, the knight spoke again.
‘You are an honourable man, Herr Jaeger,’ he said.
Felix raised his eyes again and blinked. ‘I am?’
‘Aye,’ said Sir Teobalt. ‘You have done what I asked of you. You have discovered the fate of the templars of the Order of the Fiery Heart and, though you knew that I would not care to hear it, you told me the truth of that fate.’
Felix opened his mouth to speak, but the templar held up a hand.
‘There still remains the task of recovering the regalia of the order, but I wonder if it is not lost forever. Or perhaps we will find it when we find the beastmen again. I know not.’ He sat up, hissing and grimacing at his stiffness. ‘Nevertheless, you have been true to your promise, and you do not deserve the punishment I meted out to you.’
He reached down and picked up Karaghul, which he had laid beside him as he slept, then held it out to Felix. ‘Your sword, Herr Jaeger,’ he said. ‘And whether we find the regalia or not, you may carry it, as I had promised. You have already earned it.’
Felix’s eyes moved from Teobalt’s face to the sword and back. He almost didn’t dare to reach for it, for fear it would be some kind of strange joke and the templar would pull it back. It was not a joke, and when Felix held out his hands, Teobalt laid the sword in them and inclined his head.
‘Wear it with honour, Herr Jaeger,’ he said. ‘As I know you have until now.’
‘Thank you, Sir Teobalt,’ said Felix, shaking as he laid the sword at his side and ran a fond hand along its hilt. ‘I will not disappoint you. I promise.’
When Felix next awoke, it was to dwarfen cursing.
He sat up, groaning and stiff, and looked around as Kat and Sir Teobalt yawned and grumbled beside him. It was the dark grey of dawn, and a heavy mist swirled about the wagon. Nevertheless, he could see why Gotrek and Rodi were cursing.
They all climbed down stiffly from the wagon and looked around as they shook out their arms and legs. They were in the middle of the logging camp they had stopped at on their way north with Reidle the merchant, but the camp wasn’t there any more. It had been levelled – the walls, the tents, the short docks that had once stuck out into the river like stubby thumbs, all crushed and shaken down by the hooves of ten thousand beastmen. The rafts and stacks of logs were gone – either taken by the beastmen or fallen into the river and washed away. For as far as the eye could see in every direction the muddy snow was covered by their heavy black prints. It looked like a parchment written over and over with letters by some mad author who couldn’t stop his hand.
‘They’ve been and gone,’ said Kat, staring around bleakly.
‘Aye, and only hours ago, by the smell of it,’ said Rodi, spitting.
‘Snorri thinks they could have waited,’ said Snorri.
‘There’s our boat,’ grunted Gotrek, nodding down the river.
Felix followed his gaze. Through the mist he could see a little riverboat sunk to its gunwales in the water just south of the timber camp. It had crashed into a big rock that rose from the side of the stream and shattered its prow. He wondered if the timber men had tried to escape in it, or if the beasts had made some ham-fisted attempt to pilot it. Whatever the case, it was beyond repair.
‘Get back on the wagon,’ said Gotrek. ‘We won’t be sailing.’
‘Thank Grungni for that,’ said Rodi with a shiver. ‘Boats are for elves.’
SIXTEEN
The trail of the herd was one of destruction and desolation. The road that paralleled the river was churned into a soup of mud and snow and the dung of ten thousand beastmen, and littered with abandoned wagons, mutilated corpses and half-eaten carcasses. The village of Leer was a shattered ghost town, its walls knocked flat and its buildings torn down, and entirely empty. There were a few corpses, but too few. Felix hoped they had fled into the woods, but he doubted it. More likely they had become the latest victims of the stone’s mutating magic and had joined the herd, adding another few hundred to the shama
n’s endless train of followers.
He dreaded what would happen when the beastmen reached more civilised areas. He didn’t see how anything could stop them, and as the wagon neared Ahlenhof after several days of hard, hurried travel, Felix feared the worst.
But when they came around the bend in the river and saw the town on the opposite bank, it appeared untouched. As they got closer, they saw why. The bridge that had spanned the Zufuhr had been demolished. Only the jagged stumps of the stone piers stuck up out of the water, all the rest had collapsed.
Hunching against the downpour of a cold, heavy rain, teams of labourers were hard at work fishing giant blocks of granite out of the freezing water and winching them up the banks to where foremen and engineers surveyed the damage on a promontory turned to a muddy hill by a million gouging hoof prints. A long line of carts and wagons and carriages that had come up the river road from Altdorf was stopped at the fallen span, and the drivers and passengers were milling about in the pouring rain, complaining to guardsmen from Ahlenhof and arguing amongst each other.
‘What happened here?’ Felix asked a young guard as they pulled up near the other wagons. ‘Did the herd tear the bridge down?’
The guard shook his head. ‘No,’ he said wearily. ‘The city did, for protection.’ He pointed to the line of stopped traffic. ‘If you want to cross to Ahlenhof, you’ll have to go to the end of the queue. We’ve set up a ferry. Move along please.’ It sounded like he’d been saying the same thing all day.
‘We shall cross to Ahlenhof immediately, guardsman,’ said Sir Teobalt, stepping down from the back of the wagon and limping forwards with his head high. ‘I have news of greatest import for your mayor and for Emil von Kotzebue, your baron, concerning the herd.’
The guard blinked at the templar as if he’d sprouted from the ground, then bowed reflexively. ‘Sorry, m’lord,’ he said. ‘Next ferry won’t come for an hour.’
Teobalt pointed down to the bank of the river, where a long boat with eight oars was pulled up on the mud. ‘Then I will take that,’ he said.
The guard looked down at the boat, then hesitated. ‘Er, I’ll ask my captain.’
‘At once, please,’ said Teobalt.
Felix smiled as the guard scurried off. He didn’t have much use for the noble classes as a rule, but they were handy to have around when one wanted to get things done in a hurry.
‘Damned shame, isn’t it?’ said a halfling pushing a pie cart, nodding at the bridge. ‘But it was the only way. Mined the pilings and blew it to pieces, they did. Fancy a hot pie?’
‘Snorri doesn’t want a pie,’ said Snorri. ‘Snorri wants a beer. He hasn’t had a drink in a week.’
‘Ah, you’ll be wanting to speak to my darling wife then,’ said the pie-seller. ‘Hoy, Esme! These gentlemen would like a drink!’
A halfling woman further down the line waved to him and turned a wheelbarrow around, in the bed of which was an enormous barrel of ale. Gotrek, Rodi and Snorri licked their lips.
‘And we was lucky,’ said the halfling, leaning against his cart as he waited for his wife. ‘For if the beasts had truly wanted the town, blowing up the bridge wouldn’t have stopped them.’
‘Why not?’ asked Gotrek.
The halfling snorted. ‘Well, they crossed the Talabec didn’t they? Just jumped in and swam.’
Felix turned and looked at the wide, rushing river, more than a half-mile across here where the Zufuhr joined it. ‘They swam the Talabec?’ he said, unbelieving.
‘Aye,’ said the halfling. ‘Or most of them did at any rate. Went across in a big clump, all clinging to each other, like. A lot of them still drowned. Hundreds, I hear. Swept away. Still, enough made it ashore to wipe Brasthof off the map. Trod it flat and kept on south like they was following a star.’ He shivered. ‘They say Brasthof’s not there no more. Just… gone.’
Felix grimaced at the thought, but before he could ask the halfling any more questions, the guard returned with his captain, a round-faced, round-bodied fellow with a pointed beard and a nervous smile.
‘Ah, m’lord,’ he said, bowing to Sir Teobalt. ‘Nesselbaum says you want to borrow our boat.’
‘I wish to report to your mayor and your lord something of grave import concerning the beastman herd.’
‘Thank you, m’lord,’ said the captain. ‘But a messenger was sent to Baron von Kotzebue yesterday, informing him of their passage.’
‘It is not of their passage that I wish to inform him,’ said Sir Teobalt, going a bit red in the face. ‘He must hear of the threat the monsters pose, and of the danger involved in facing them. Is the baron on his way?’
‘Er, no, m’lord,’ said the captain. ‘The mayor sent another messenger after the first telling him it wasn’t necessary.’
‘What?’ The templar’s eyes blazed. ‘For what reason, in Sigmar’s name?’
‘Well, m’lord,’ said the captain, shrinking back uneasily. ‘They swam the river into Talabecland late last night. So they were no longer a threat to us.’
Felix stared, alarmed, as the veins bulged in Sir Teobalt’s forehead and neck. He was afraid the old templar’s heart was going to explode with fury.
‘No longer a threat!’ bellowed Sir Teobalt. ‘Listen to me, you small-minded provincial buffoon. Has the late war taught you nothing? The Empire is strong only when it stands together! Had Middenland helped Ostland from the first, the invaders would have been stopped before they began!’ He tugged off his riding gloves angrily, and Felix was afraid he was going to slap the fat captain with them, but after a moment he collected himself and took a deep breath.
‘The leader of the beasts,’ he said, speaking as one would speak to a small child, ‘means to unleash a magic upon the Empire that will turn half of its citizens into beastmen and set them raging upon their neighbours. The spell will not stop at provincial borders. It will not respect the boundaries of any lord’s land. It will touch anyone living under the shadow of the Empire’s forests, be they in Talabecland, Reikland, Hochland, Middenland or anywhere else. Do you understand me?’
The captain’s mouth opened and closed several times, but nothing came out.
‘Now,’ said the templar, ‘you shall give this message to your mayor and tell him that he will send a third rider after the first two, and respectfully request Baron von Kotzebue come to the aid of his Talabecland neighbours before he and all his vassals start sprouting horns and hooves.’
‘Ah… aye, m’lord,’ said the captain, bowing convulsively. ‘Right away, m’lord. But…’ he hesitated, afraid to provoke the old knight’s wrath any further.
‘But?’ said Teobalt, dangerously.
‘But a military force must have permission from the ruling lord before entering his lands, m’lord. Baron von Kotzebue commands four thousand men. Talabecland would see it as an invasion. An invitation would have to be sent, and the baron surely wouldn’t move his army before he had it.’
Sir Teobalt fought to control his temper. ‘Then your messenger shall tell the baron that you have such an invitation already.’
‘You ask us to lie to the baron?’ said the captain, white as a sheet.
‘It will not be a lie,’ said the old knight. ‘For you will this moment transport me and my companions across the river to Talabecland, so that I may speak to the lord there and procure the invitation you require.’
The captain hesitated, practically vibrating with fear at being the instrument that would carry a falsehood to his liege, but finally he bowed to Sir Teobalt. ‘Very good, m’lord,’ he said. ‘I will find the oarsmen and have the boat prepared for you momentarily.’ And with that he scurried off towards the riverbank, shouting for his subordinates.
Sir Teobalt let out a long sigh and sagged against the wagon, exhausted from his anger.
Rodi chuckled. ‘That was telling him,’ he said.
‘Aye,’ said Gotrek.
Felix put a hand on the knight’s shoulder. ‘Are you all right, sir?’
‘
I am fine, thank you, Herr Jaeger,’ said Teobalt. ‘I only hope I did some good. The message may yet fall foul of fools.’
Felix nodded and looked around. The halfling and his wife – who had come up during Teobalt’s tirade – were staring open-mouthed at them all.
‘Pardon, your worships,’ said the pie-seller. ‘Was all that true that you said just now? About everybody turning into beasts and killing each other?’
Felix hesitated and looked at the others. He could see the same thought in all their eyes. If this news were to spread there would be a terrible panic, and the halfling couple were just the ones to spread it, taking food, drink and gossip up and down the line of wagons, which would then travel to the ends of the Empire. It was a recipe for riot and rampage.
Gotrek fixed Felix with his single eye and gave him an almost imperceptible shake of the head.
‘Nah. Not a word of it,’ said Felix. ‘Just something to get old Kotzebue moving a little faster.’ He leaned in with what he hoped was a conspiratorial smile. ‘Though don’t tell the captain that. It’ll spoil everything.’
The halfling and his wife grinned with relief.
‘Not a word, squire,’ said the little man. ‘I know when to keep mum.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ said Felix, and then just to seal the deal, ‘A pie and a pint all around while we wait for our boat.’
‘It would be our pleasure, sir,’ said the halfling.
The mayor of Esselfurt, the village almost directly across the Talabec from Ahlenhof, listened patiently as Sir Teobalt explained it all again. He was a big man, with a barrel chest, a booming voice and a chain of office around his neck that probably weighed more than Karaghul.
Felix almost dozed off in the middle of it. Esselfurt’s council hall was warmed by a roaring fire, and he was basking in it. The crossing of the Talabec in a small boat had not been a pleasant experience. The battering wind had cuffed water off the waves and sprayed it in their faces. Felix, Kat and Sir Teobalt had hunched under their cloaks in the back of the boat, cold, wet and miserable, while Gotrek, Snorri and Rodi spent their time leaning over the side, giving their recently consumed pie and beer to the waves.
