“No schnapps,” Markus said, turning to face Theodo. “Wine and beer only, general’s orders.” He swung his head back around to the pot, indulging in the smell of the simmering meat. “Shallya’s mercy, but I’m going to miss that smell.”
Theodo licked his lips, a thrill of suspicion racing through him. “Why… Why captain, you are welcome at my table any time.” He hurried to fetch an extra plate and knife from a wooden box lashed against the side of the oversized cart that acted as his kitchen.
“I’m afraid I don’t have the time,” Markus said regretfully. “I have to get the men ready. The count wants us to deploy to Bergdorf.”
Theodo set the wooden plate back in its box. “Well, perhaps when we get to Bergdorf then. If you can arrange a bit of beef or mutton, I’ll get something special whipped up for you.”
Captain Markus smiled sadly. “You’re not going to Bergdorf.”
Theodo’s eyes narrowed, a lump growing in his throat. “What?”
“New orders,” Markus answered. It seemed to Theodo that the smile wasn’t quite so sad now. “You’re leaving with Baron von Rabwald. He’s leading a small detachment into Solland to muster more troops or something.”
The halfling felt his gorge rise. Solland was nothing but a diseased expanse of mangy villages, goblin-ridden woods and stinking marshes. The roads were nothing but dirt paths littered with sharp rocks, the streams toad-infested sludge. There wasn’t a decent eatery or tavern within a thousand miles of the Solland, much less anything resembling proper food. Crows and rabbits were the best he could expect, and maybe the odd potato, if some bandit didn’t brain him first.
“The general wants me to leave with von Rabwald?” Theodo asked.
“Certainly,” Markus said, and there was no mistaking the grin on his face for anything resembling sympathy. “Can’t have a baron living off hard tack and salted pork after all. You’ll go along to ensure his lordship is accommodated in the manner he is accustomed to.”
“This is some kind of sick jest, isn’t it?”
“No,” Markus said, his face pulling up into a sneer. “This comes straight from the general. Of course, I have to admit, I might have given him the idea. I don’t like my men being cheated by some fat little camp follower. I don’t like them being smashed up by that animal of yours.” The captain stabbed his finger at Theodo’s chest. “I don’t like you. So here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to pack up all of your crap, you’re going to hitch that brute up to your cart and you’re going to follow Baron von Rabwald out of Koeblitz. If you get any silly ideas about, I don’t know, maybe heading north instead of south, it will be my very unpleasant duty to have the boys from Kreutzhofen practise their marksmanship.”
Captain Markus turned around, pausing to take one last whiff of the steam rising from the pot. Theodo watched the officer march off, all the colour slowly draining from his face. He was still standing there, frozen in shock and horror when Ghrum lumbered back from whatever dark corner he’d been gorging himself in. Theodo spun around, balling his fists in impotent fury. He kicked a hairy foot against the side of the pot, singeing his toes and splashing the stew.
“Come on!” he snapped at the gawking ogre. “We’re leaving with Baron von Rabwald! Help me get the cart loaded up!”
Ghrum watched the small cook as he scurried around the cart, tossing pots and pans into the back, heedless in his anger of the disordered clatter. The ogre scratched his head, and then turned his eyes to the spilled stew.
“You gonna eat any of that?” Ghrum’s voice boomed. He decided his friend wasn’t interested, when a copper bowl came sailing from behind the cart and glanced off his leg. Taking no further notice of the halfling’s distemper, the ogre leaned over and retrieved the muddy meat from the ground. In quick order, it vanished down his gaping maw. Ghrum smacked his lips noisily and dug a finger into his teeth to free trapped bits of gristle.
“Too much sand,” he muttered as he considered the taste.
Another bowl came flying at him from the other side of the cart.
CHAPTER FIVE
Baron von Rabwald’s small expedition headed east from Koeblitz before turning, seeking to avoid a chance encounter with Zahaak’s legion. Only when they were a day’s ride past the town of Rötenbach did they feel safe enough to turn south. If Zahaak had reached this far, then the town could not have failed to know about it.
Ernst considered them a curious assemblage, and he wondered if the hinterlands of Wissenland had ever seen their like. Marshal Eugen, honouring his oaths and his order’s obsession with the lost runefang, had mustered his remaining knights and insisted on accompanying what he considered a great and noble quest. He rode at the head of the column, the sun gleaming from the reddened steel of their armour. Ernst was pleased to have them. He had seen them fight in the battle against Zahaak and knew that he could ask for no more fearless warriors. That the once mighty Order of the Southern Sword had faded to a mere handful of knights still seemed unreal to him. He could see that forlorn, bitter knowledge stamped in the faces of the knights, from old Eugen to Gustav, the youngest of them to escape the swords of Zahaak’s monsters. Ernst thought of all the faded glories of Solland and wondered if this last remembrance of those glories was destined to fade away too.
The soldiers drawn from the army by General Hock were a disparate group. While many were from Kreutzhofen, there was a smattering of troops from Grunwald and Beroun as well. It was not difficult to pick out the men from the infantry regiments from those that had been drawn from the Kreutzhofen Spears. They sat ill upon their horses, uneasy as they urged them into a canter, horrified by the prospect of a fast trot. Still, these were men who had done their part in the battle. Ernst was certain they would acquit themselves well if there was more fighting to be done. Their commander was one Sergeant Ottmar Geyer, one of the few under-officers who had been left among the Kreutzhofen Spears. Ernst found him to be a firm and capable leader, keeping his ad hoc regiment in line and ensuring that discipline did not suffer in the unusual conditions.
Skanir the dwarf was more uncomfortable than any of the infantrymen, perched in the saddle of a dappled mule that had an unsavoury penchant for biting anyone who got too close to it. Dwarfs were notorious for their surly, gruff manners, and days in the saddle did nothing to improve Skanir’s disposition. He kept to himself, smoking his pipe and carefully nursing the keg of thick dwarf beer he had brought with him. After breaking the nose of a soldier who had tried to steal a drink from the iron-banded barrel, Skanir had earned the cautious respect of Ottmar’s men, especially after Skanir promised to brain the next would-be beer runner with his hammer. According to Skanir, the keg represented the only decent drink until they reached the Black Mountains. If it was unwise to come between a dwarf and his gold, it was doubly mad to come between a dwarf and his beer.
Bringing up the rear of the column were the supply wagon and the bulky wooden cart employed by Theodo Hobshollow as a sort of mobile kitchen. While a pair of doughty oxen pulled the wagon, Theodo’s cart was drawn by the huge ogre who accompanied him. Ghrum’s enormous strides and monstrous endurance allowed him to keep easy pace with the horses. It was the nervous agitation the ogre evoked in the animals that had compelled Ernst to position the cook and his cart at the rear of the column, a position Theodo loudly protested. The halfling was worried that being at the back of the column would invite the ambitions of every brigand in the province. The baron hardly agreed with Theodo’s assessment. It was his experience that very few bandits had the nerve to tackle an ogre, much less one with two dozen mounted soldiers and knights within shouting distance.
Perhaps it was the company he would be keeping at the back that was really the source of Theodo’s agitation. If the horses were uneasy around the ogre, they positively hated the Crone of Morr and her companion, a Black Guardsman named Kant. Ernst could sympathise with the animals; there was a sinister, morbid atmosphere about the pair. Even he could feel it, like the echo of
childhood fears, a clamminess that made the skin crawl. It was drastically more pronounced around the crone than it was her protector, so much so that Ernst wondered how the temple had ever managed to train a horse to carry her. Witchcraft and sorcery were things no man liked to think upon, but the aura of wrongness about the crone was something older, more primal. It was the unsettling feeling of an open grave, a foreboding of death and mortality. Ernst understood the reasons for the augur’s inclusion in his expedition, but it took every bit of restraint not to order her back to Koeblitz just the same.
At the head of the column, well ahead in fact, rode Ekdahl, a bowman from the depths of Solland, hand-picked by General Hock to accompany them. According to Hock, there was no better scout or archer to be had in Count Eberfeld’s army. So far, the man had displayed a cool professionalism that impressed Ernst, but there hadn’t been any real cause to test his talents. That would come later, when they crossed the Sol and were in the backlands of the province, places where even a good goat path would seem like a gift from the gods.
Ernst hoped that they were paying attention, Taal and Rhya and even grim old Morr. It was a long way to the Black Mountains, and a long way back. He prayed that the gods would speed their way. He prayed that they would give the count the time he needed, but, most of all, he prayed that all of this wasn’t some mad fool’s venture.
A week out from Koeblitz, the expedition made camp in the rocky hill country overlooking the forgotten remnant of the ancient road that had once connected Bergdorf to the dwarf stronghold of Karag Dar. The stronghold was gone now, its caravans of copper and iron barely a memory. Bergdorf’s fortunes had faded with those of the dwarfs and the road that had brought prosperity to the town became nothing more than a scar on the landscape. A useful scar, however, according to Ekdahl. The going would be easier along the old road and eventually it would emerge from the hill country and connect with byways of a more recent vintage, which they could use to get to the river and its many settlements.
Baron von Rabwald dismounted from his saddle with a grunt and a sigh. Kessler hastened to assist the nobleman, but the baron waved him away with a curt gesture.
“I’ve covered more ground in the last week than I have in the last year,” Ernst commented, “but I don’t care how raw my backside is, I can still climb off my own damn horse.”
The effect was somewhat spoiled when his boot stubbornly refused to come free of the stirrup. Kessler kept his face rigid, but Ernst could see the amused light in his eyes.
“Not a word,” he scowled, finally freeing his foot. Standing on solid ground again, the baron stretched his body, trying to work the kinks out. Around them, the rest of the men were busy setting up camp. Three of the knights were nibbing down their horses, tending to their animals and those of their comrades before helping to construct their pavilion. The genuine cavalry among Ottmar’s men did the same, knowing that the care of their mounts was more important than their own comfort. The infantry, however, had no such discipline. Several were already pitching tents and digging fire pits, a few others were leading their horses out to pasture, saddles still on their backs. They did not get far before Ottmar’s curses had them quickly removing the saddles and fetching water for their steeds.
Ottmar turned away from the scolded soldiers and strode towards the baron and his enforcer. He was a broad-shouldered man, his face leathery from years of marching under the sun. A battered suit of chain peered from the rents in his tabard and there was a long scratch along the side of his kettlehelm where the blade of a skeleton had nearly ended his career. He snapped a quick salute before addressing the nobleman. “Your lordship, I’ll have some of the men prepare your quarters.” It was an elaborate way to describe a long canvas tent, but the sergeant was careful about maintaining every courtesy in his dealings with the baron. “If your lordship has a preference as to situation, I shall have the men start on it right away.”
Ernst nodded in appreciation. “Anywhere that’s not too close to the latrine and well away from the ogre. I’m afraid he snores.” The remark managed to bring a grin to the sergeant’s face. The baron only half noticed, however. He was looking past Ottmar, to where the crone and her guardian were standing. The templar had already started assembling the wooden framework of the augur’s tent. “Well away from them, too,” he added.
Ottmar followed the baron’s gesture, grimacing as he saw the two figures cloaked in black. “Aye, your lordship. They give me the shudders. I don’t think simple decency keeps that templar sleeping outside on the ground. Even one of Morr’s black knights isn’t able to stand being close to that hag for too long.”
“Afraid of a woman, sergeant?” Kessler joked. There was no levity in Ottmar’s face when he replied.
“You would be too. Carlinda ain’t a normal kind of woman.”
“So she does have a name then?” Ernst mused.
“Keep calling her ‘crone’, your lordship,” Ottmar advised. “It suits her better.”
“You sound as though you know something about the witch,” Kessler observed.
Ottmar was slow to reply. When he did, it was in a hushed tone, as though he were afraid his words might carry across the camp to the crone’s ears. “She comes from a village not far from my own,” he confessed, “though it was a black day when such as her was born. She were brought up natural enough, father a decent farmer from down near Litztbach. It was when she was married off that she took a turn.
“Her husband was a farmer named Greber. Not long after they was married, she was with child, but in the winter when the time came for the babe to be born it came out of her stone dead, cord wrapped about its head like a noose. That was the start of it. Greber’s farm had been one of the best in Litzbach, but his fields began to struggle, always giving him a late harvest. His wife became withdrawn, which was just as well since folks didn’t care to be around her either.
“Greber didn’t see any of it though. He just thought he’d had a turn of bad luck that would soon enough burn itself out. When his wife was with child again, well, he thought things had turned around, but they hadn’t. They were getting worse. Second child came out like the first, cord strangling it while it was still inside her. Things really got bad for Greber then. His crops were failing and what little lived was too sickly looking to feed a hog. His livestock started dying off too.
“Pig-headed man, Greber. Everybody told him that his troubles had started with his wife giving birth to a corpse, so he figured the only way to break that hex was for her to have a live one. By this time folks could hardly stand to be in the same room as his wife. Just the thought of touching her was enough to sober the worst tosspot in the village. Looking at her was like looking at a vulture. There wasn’t a man in Litzbach still thought of her as a woman. Even so, stubborn Greber bought the strongest ale that Anton the tavern keeper had to sell and went home to try again.
“Third time was just like the first two. Dead, with a noose around its neck. All the animals on Greber’s farm died that night and the fields turned so desolate they weren’t fit to grow rocks. Greber took one look at that little dead thing and just up and left. They found him the next morning swinging from the tree he hung himself from.
“By this time the midwife wouldn’t have anything to do with Carlinda, so Greber had to have a priest from the temple of Morr attend her. That’s the only thing that kept folks from burning her as a witch, there and then. The priest told them she’d been marked as the bride of Morr and that all the tragedy Greber had suffered was Morr’s way of telling him his wife belonged to the temple, not to him. Good people of Litzbach weren’t about to argue with a priest, and when he said he was going to take her away the attitude of most folks was that Morr was welcome to her.”
Ernst was silent. He wasn’t sure what he had expected to hear, but it certainly hadn’t been the ugly account Ottmar had related. So that was how Morr went about choosing his augurs. If he’d been uneasy about having the witch in his camp, her history certainly
hadn’t reassured him.
“Max,” the baron said, turning back to his horse and unstrapping the saddle. “See if Theodo has anything edible prepared. If he doesn’t, ask him to whip something up.” Ernst paused as a thought came to him. “Speed over taste this time. I’d rather not be eating supper for breakfast.”
Kessler prowled through the camp, making his way towards Theodo’s cart. He could see the hulking ogre helping the halfling pull a motley array of pots and pans down, arranging them in some semblance of order on the grass. Theodo already had a small fire smouldering under a big iron cauldron. The faint smell of mutton suggested itself to the swordsman as he approached.
Across from the cook, the templar was fitting the heavy black cloth of the crone’s tent to its wooden supports. Kessler glanced across at the activity. The crone was still seated on her horse, her face hidden beneath her hood. She looked like a patch of night that the sun had neglected to clear away, a sombre intrusion into the wholesome light of day. Kessler wondered if she truly possessed the awful powers attributed to her. It wouldn’t be the first time priests had used mummery to make a prophetess out of some old half-witted hag.
Kessler was so intent on his study of the crone that he barely noted Skanir’s arrival in the camp. The dwarf was growling oaths into his beard, glaring murder at the animal he dragged after him. The ill-tempered mule had thrown him about an hour before they had reached the campsite and stubbornly refused to allow him to remount. There was a malicious humour in the mule’s eyes as Skanir forced it into the camp.
The animal’s wicked temper crumbled into fright when Ghrum suddenly stood upright as he finished arranging Theodo’s pots. Perhaps the brute had failed to smell the ogre, or perhaps it was simply too stupid to connect the smell to the creature until Ghrum rose up. Whatever the case, it set up a braying protest, jerking hard on the reins clenched in Skanir’s hand. Now it was the dwarf’s turn to be dragged, as the mule retreated from Ghrum, its hooves flailing in crazed kicks.
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