Had he stayed on at his father's w ealthy castle-estate, no more than three days ride from w here he now was, then the Enchantress would have come to claim him sooner or later. Such w as the w ay of things in Bretonnia. In this land, those born with the gift - ' fey-touched' as the Bretonnians would say - w ere regarded with outright fear and suspicion. The Enchantress scoured the countryside for children with the w itch-sight, for those w ho had the gift of premonition and who could instinctively tap into the breath of the gods that flow ed down from the north. These children she gathered to her, taking them from their families who attempted to forget that they had ever been born. Perhaps one girl in every hundred taken w ould return a decade or more later as a handmaiden of the Lady, one of her damsels, schooled in the mystical arts; boys that w ere taken w ere never seen again.
Even as a child he had heard a myriad of possible fates for these sons of Bretonnia stolen from their families. Some said that they w ere abandoned in the middle of the dark w ildwoods of the realms, left to fend for themselves against the beasts that dw elled there. Some even said that that w as what beastmen w ere - the boy-children abandoned by the Enchantress and altered by her magic. Others said that they were spirited aw ay to the Lady's fair isle, there to live in perpetual states of childhood, doomed never to grow up, and to serve forever as pageboys and servants. Some even w hispered that it was the sacrifice of these children that kept the seasons turning, and that if the practise were ever to cease, that Bretonnia w ould become entrapped in an eternal, never-ending winter.
Such w ould have been his fate. In a society raised to abhor those w ith his talents, he had no place. His parents hated and feared him, and even as a toddler he had come to despise them for it, taking pleasure in making them feel awkward w hen guests paid visits, antagonising them whenever he could.
In the w itching hours of one mid-autumn night, he had been w oken by his elderly caretaker, and hurried from his father's castle. Scared, and not knowing what was happening, he remained silent as he was led down the empty w inding streets tow ards the harbour. A boat w as w aiting for them. Terrified and shivering he had somehow fallen asleep.
When he had aw oken it was just before daw n and land was only a vague, misty shape on the horizon. Wide eyed and pale, he'd been given food and water, and the old man tried to calm him. The Enchantress was coming, he'd said. Doubtless his parents w ould have been relieved to have had him taken off their hands, but this old man, fearful of w hat w ould become of his young charge, had taken it upon himself to save the boy. The old fool.
It had been the w ill of the gods that the Norscans found him.
Bjarki licked his lips, tasting the blood upon them, rich and metallic. He was in his correct, allotted place, doing what it was the gods wished of him.
The w oman who w ould bear his jarl a son w as nothing more than a tool, he saw that now - a lure to bring the Skaelings to these lands. She was important - if it w ere not for her, his jarl w ould not have been tempted to attack the southlanders - but he w as under no illusions about her real value. How ever, his lord would have no reason to keep his w arriors here in Bretonnia if any harm came to her, and so he w ould protect her w ith his life.
She w as close; he could almost taste the breath of the gods upon her.
Bjarki turned tow ards the minor Skaeling chieftain, Kveldulf. The man w as a born horseman. He w as aw kward when moving on his own two feet - his legs were bow -
legged and too short for his broad body - but in the saddle there were few Skaelings w ho could match him.
'Hurry,' he urged the chieftain. 'She is close - less than an hour ahead of us.'
The horseman nodded his head, making his beard, braided with tiny skulls, shiver like the charms Skaeling women used to protect their young from w ind-borne daemons.
With a barked command he passed the w ord, and the twenty horsemen picked up their pace.
CHLOD WAS PISSING up against a tree when the marauders rode into camp.
Hurriedly, he finished his business and dropped to the ground. He swore to himself.
Why did these things always seem to happen when he was relieving himself?
There was a score of them, brutal looking savages dressed in outlandish furs and leathers, their heads covered in horned helmets. They were big men, and their arms and faces w ere covered in warpaint and tattoos. Many sported beards of blond hair, and they rode upon unarmoured, stocky horses. These were sturdier beasts than the w arhorses of the nobility, smaller and more compact, w ith shaggier coats. Severed heads and hands hung from their saddles, and vile symbols had been daubed and branded into their flanks.
Chlod pressed low against the ground, his eyes w ide and fearful as he peered around the thick roots of the tree at the intruders. It w as still an hour or tw o before daw n, and had the urge to urinate not come upon him, he w ould undoubtedly have still been fast asleep.
The marauders stood motionless amongst the trees as they surveyed the camp. Chlod didn't know if he had been seen, but he dared not move for fear of draw ing attention to himself.
As it w as, the attention of the riders appeared to be focused upon the w itch w ho stood to meet them.
One of the riders, a short, wiry figure w ith unruly dark hair and a massive cloak of spiked fur over his shoulders, dropped to the ground, stepping tow ards the witch, speaking the same language that Chlod had heard the witch talking earlier in the night. She answered him in the same language, and he gestured questioningly tow ards the sleeping pilgrims.
Hearing voices, one of them w oke up and yaw ned. That yaw n turned into a startled squeal as she saw the horsemen.
The w itch shrugged her shoulders and the wiry one smiled, before swinging tow ards the pilgrims.
Chlod shrank back further betw een the roots of the tree as he saw the savage figure slide a handaxe from his belt, keeping his body betw een it and the pilgrims, so that they could not yet see it. The others w ere awake now, and they stared around them w ith wide eyes, visibly shaking. One of them cried out for Reolus to save them, but no avenging paladin of light appeared. Another waved a slipper that the Grail Knight had once w orn at the horsemen, perhaps hoping that they w ere nothing more than apparitions and that by brandishing the holy artefact w ould banish them. It didn't.
The fur-cloaked individual slammed his handaxe into the neck of the slipper-wielder, w ho fell clutching at the w ound, blood fountaining from betw een his fingers. Two of the pilgrims made a run for it, but these the horsemen struck down. An axe spun end over end and struck one of them in the back, and another of the marauders stood in the saddle and hurled a javelin that took the other pilgrim in the neck.
She fell no more than ten yards from Chlod's position, and for a moment he stared into her eyes as she looked right at him. The tip of the javelin, along with two feet of its length, was protruding from her throat and blood bubbled around it as she died, one hand reaching out for Chlod, w ho shrank back.
A horseman thundered across the clearing and ripped the javelin loose, and Chlod felt certain that he had been seen. He closed his eyes, but opened one a moment later w hen the fatal blow did not fall. The horseman had turned away from him, and looking past him, Chlod saw the last of his pilgrim companions butchered, head caved in by the w iry one's axe.
One of the horsemen moved forward, and the head of his steed lowered tow ards a bloodied body. The pony bit into the pilgrim's arm, tearing off a strip of flesh that it gulped dow n greedily, and Chlod felt his gorge rise as the other steeds stepped forw ard to graze on the corpses.
The axe-w ielding savage spun suddenly, turning his gaze in Chlod's direction, eyes narrow ing. It w as clear that he could not see him in the gloom, but perhaps he sensed him there. Blood and brain matter dripped from his axe head, and he took a step in Chlod's direction.
A w ord from the w itch halted him, and he spat a reply in her direction. He threw a quick, venomous glance in Chlod's general direction, and then swung away w ith some reluctance. A hor
se w as made available for the witch, and though the beast shied aw ay from her, whinnying in fear, a barked w ord from the w iry man made it freeze. She climbed up into the saddle of the beast, w hose ears were flat against its head and eyes w ere wide in panic.
Without a backw ards glance, the witch rode aw ay from the camp, accompanied by her new found companions, leaving the bloodied corpses of the pilgrims in her wake.
Chlod lay motionless, petrified into immobility, as he listened to the sound of horses'
hooves moving into the distance. He lay there long after the sound of the horses had faded. Not until the first w eak rays of the early w inter dawn turned night into day did he dare shift his position.
Shivering uncontrollably, he shuffled forward and began to rifle through the pockets and pouches of his dead comrades. He took w hat little foodstuffs and coin they had, and almost as an afterthought, he stripped them of all the artefacts of devotion.
Though the holy items had done little to protect them from the axes of the marauders, Chlod judged that he had little to lose by carrying them, and if perchance there w as any remnant of sacred pow er within them, then he figured he might magnify their protection by bearing them all.
Half an hour later Chlod w andered out of the treeline, his pockets bulging. He wore a dented knightly helmet on his head, one that had been worn and discarded by Reolus a decade earlier, and a breastplate upon his chest that had been shorn almost completely in half by the dreaded cockatrice of Yoravale. He'd discarded his trusty spiked club, and now wore a sw ord on his hip, one once wielded by Reolus, though it had been tossed aside after its blade had been shattered tw o feet from its tip by a river troll at the Bridge of Tears. His malformed, hunchbacked body w as w rapped in scraps of material from Reolus's personal standard, and he was beginning to feel good, upbeat even. Once again, he'd survived against the odds and come out, if not smelling of roses, at least better off than he had been an hour earlier.
A smug smile w as smeared across his uneven face as he walked out onto the fields beyond the tree line.
In the distance he saw a w agon, loaded with produce, making its way along a pitted roadw ay.
Snow began to fall, but even that could do nothing to lessen Chlod's buoyant mood.
Breaking into an aw kward, loping jog, Chlod headed for the distant w agon.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE BRETONNIAN ARMY was gathering strength as it moved northward. Each day, hundreds more knights and their respective entourages joined the march, answering the Duke of Lyonesse's call to w ar. Word was received that already Duke Adalhard had already engaged the Norscan vanguard on the fields of northern Lyonesse, fighting them to a standstill, but that w hile he was engaged, a far larger force had sw ung to the north-w est, riding unopposed inland into hillier country.
From the reports of the yeomen outriders, it w as understood that the Norscans had landed w ithout w arning some three days ride north of Castle Lyonesse and struck sw iftly inland, burning everything in its path. The force was said to number in the tens of thousands.
It had pained Calard to leave Baron Montcadas behind. The grizzled, tough old fighter had been treated as best he could, and the field surgeons had been confident that he w ould recover w ell from the wound he had suffered in the chest, barring complications arising from infections. However, there had been nothing that could be done for the baron's eye. The splinter of lance that had embedded itself there had damaged it beyond repair. Having already lost his left eye in battle against the beastmen six months earlier, the baron w as now blind, condemned to live out the rest of his life in darkness. Worse, it ensured that he was unable to fight for his duke and king, for w hat good w as a blind knight in battle? How could he fulfil his sworn duty if he could not even defend himself, let alone the lands bequeathed to him by his lord?
Montcadas had put on a brave face, but Calard had seen through his bluster, recognising that he was fighting back a terrible black despair. In the care of the young Lady Josephine, and escorted by a cadre of retainers, he would even now be making his w ay back to Bastonne. Calard's young cousin Orlando had wanted to ride w ith them to w ar, and had sulked when he had been told in no uncertain terms that he w ould be riding back to Bastonne w ith the baron and Josephine. Calard had asked that they come visit him at Garamont upon his return and had fared them w ell, feeling a deep sense of pity for the baron.
Calard had seen the knight kill orcs and beastmen by the dozen. He'd seen him bash the brains out of tw isted monstrosities twice his size, and seen him shrug off injuries that w ould have slain a lesser man. And yet, for all his resilience all it had taken was a random freak accident in a tourney to lay him low . The field surgeon had said he'd been lucky - had the splinter sunk an extra half inch it would have pierced the brain.
In the baron's place, Calard w ondered if he might have preferred that it had.
Word had been received that a Bretonnian army w as moving in support from Couronne, dispatched at the king's behest, and it was said that it already crossed the Sannez and w as pushing into the ancestral lands of L'Anguille. There, it was due to link w ith a substantial, if sluggishly marshalled army of that dukedom, and from there they w ould turn southward in the hope of halting the Norscans' progress inland.
There had been bad blood betw een Lyonesse and L'Anguille of late, border disputes and a rekindling of a long dormant feud, and it w as said that this was the reason for Duke Taubert of L'Anguille's lack of urgency in coming to the aid of his neighbour.
Apparently, he had raised a considerable army, but w as holding it back, w aiting to see if the Norscans turned tow ards his ow n lands. In the meantime, it seemed he was content to let them ravage the lands of his rival. Only when the force sent from Couronne entered his realm did he make any pretence of aiding Lyonesse.
The Norscans' goal remained unclear. Had they been just a raiding force intent on loot and slaughter, then doubtless they w ould have stuck close to the shore, for there w ere many settlements and towns dotted all along the north-west coastline. They might have sailed eastward tow ards the city of L'Anguille itself, with its famed lighthouse built long before the rise of the Bretonni, or sailed southward tow ards the bountiful lands of Bordeleaux, Aquitaine and Brionne.
Calard and his companions had left the tourney fields two and a half days ago, and ridden hard through the lands of Lyonesse. It w as a fecund landscape, though more open than Bastonne, and almost oppressively flat. It was markedly colder here than it w as in his homeland too, and cutting w inds whipped across the fields from the distant coast.
Pulling fur-lined cloaks around them tightly to combat the ceaseless winds, utterly ignorant of the discomfort of the freezing Garamont men-at-arms struggling to keep up the relentless pace, the brothers allowed the drudgery and boredom of the ride to w ash over them. It w as too cold and the wind too loud for them to pass the time in conversation, and each was left alone with his thoughts.
Only at night, as they clustered around campfires, drinking wine and feasting on succulent venison and boar did they sw ap stories and boasts w ith the other knights w ith whom they travelled. Calard, his brother noted, drank only sparingly, and was mixing water w ith his wine.
Several of the Lyonessian knights had fought the Norscans before, and the brothers listened to their tales intently, seeking to learn all that they could of the foes they w ould be facing w ithin days. It seemed that the sight of their dreaded longships appearing in the night to raid and burn w as not uncommon along the Lyonesse coasts. From these w arriors they learnt that the Norse were depraved, bloodthirsty barbarians that had sold their souls to Dark Pow ers, towering brutes of men, savage and fearless in battle. It w as said that they had no concept of honour and were nothing more than merciless butchers, neither giving nor expecting mercy on the field of battle. It w as also said that they murdered their own children, the ones deemed too small or w eak to uphold the honour of the tribe, and that their lives were ones of constant struggle and w arfare
, against both rivals and the harsh landscape of Norsca itself, filled as it w as with mutated, predatory beasts, never-ending winters and months on end of absolute darkness.
They heard tales of berserkers more animal than man, who foamed at the mouth and felt no pain as they hurled themselves at their foe, and of shaggy beasts that came dow n from the frozen mountainous lands of the barbarians to join battle. They heard tell of dark sorcerers w ho called down the curses of their bloodthirsty gods, and of daemons of blood and fire that stalked alongside the Norscans, flames billowing from their maw s and their blades smoking with infernal runes.
What made them w orse in Calard's mind was that they were, or at least had once been, men. These were not near-mindless, savage creatures like greenskins, whose nature it w as to fight and kill, nor were they feral beasts of the forest w hose base, uncontrollable urges and innate jealousy forced them to seek out humans to kill. No, these w ere men, thinking, rational men, who had chosen willingly to w alk a path into damnation. They revelled in it.
Calard shuddered to think of how far they had allowed themselves to fall.
He w as riding alongside his brother in silence, with his cousins Tassilo, Baldemund and Huebald nearby. Horizontal sleet slashed at them, and they were braced against biting w ind, lost in their own misery. The other knights that paid fealty to Garamont rode behind them, and Calard's men-at-arms, bone-w eary and half-frozen, marched and stumbled alongside, heads bow ed. These peasants, bedecked in tabards of blue and red, bearing heavy polearms and shields freshly painted with Calard's dragon heraldry, w ere forced to stomp through the snowy, long grass alongside the road, w hich was occupied by the knights of the army.
One of the peasants stumbled, clearly exhausted. The man had w rapped a threadbare strip of cloth around his lower face in an attempt to keep w arm, but he had no gloves, and he w as shivering uncontrollably. He lurched into the roadway in front of Bertelis's steed, tripping over his broad-headed polearm, and the younger Garamont noble w as forced to drag his steed's head to the side, pulling the destrier out of the w ay to avoid a collision. As he passed the man, Bertelis kicked him in the side of his pot helmet, knocking him to the ground.
Warhammer - Knight of the Realm Page 10
