“No, they’d probably have killed everyone,” Alaric agreed, turning his gaze to Dotternbach at last. “Instead they went around this village, which means they were more concerned about getting past unnoticed than about indulging any bloodlust or hunger.” He frowned. “I’d have expected such caution from men, but not from beasts.”
“It might be men we’re after,” Dietz suggested, stopping before the largest building, a square wooden structure that leaned to one side and had holes filled with tar. Heavy benches and a few low, crude tables were scattered before it. A stout man was standing in the open doorway as they approached and, at Dietz’s nod, disappeared within, returning a moment later with two heavy clay mugs. Dietz accepted them, passing one to Alaric, and handed the man a brass penny. Apparently that was sufficient, because he disappeared back inside without a word. “Could have taken it from the beastmen at some point,” he continued once they were alone again, settling onto the nearest bench. He took a wary sip from the mug, but while earthy the ale was thick and fresh, and surprisingly good.
“That’s true,” Alaric replied, sitting across from him and tasting his own ale. “You saw those beastman tracks outside Nuln, but we’ve only been paralleling them since, not actually following in their footsteps. So the beastmen could have handed the mask off to men, either voluntarily or under duress.” He shook his head. “We’ve no way of knowing until we see fresh tracks.”
Dietz nodded, and took a healthy swallow of his ale. “We’ll need food,” he told Alaric, scooping Glouste out of the way when the over-curious tree fox emerged from his jacket to sniff at the mug. She chirped her annoyance at being deprived, but settled down, and began burbling happily when Dietz scratched her head.
“I doubt there’s much to spare here,” Dietz continued, looking at the other buildings. Most of the villagers had grown bored with watching them, and had disappeared back indoors, or returned to whatever tasks they had been handling before the boat had arrived. “We should buy whatever we can. No telling how long it’ll be before we find another town.” He frowned. “Best to get out of here before nightfall, though,” he decided. “I don’t like the way that man was eyeing your gear.”
Alaric nodded. “Agreed.” He finished off his ale and set the mug back on the table with a heavy thunk. “I’ll go see what there is to be had, shall I?”
Dietz sighed and swallowed the last of his ale before rising to his feet. “No, I’ll go,” he answered. “You’d wind up trading our last coin for a single mouldy turnip.” He thrust out a hand. Alaric wordlessly placed his coin purse in it, and Dietz extracted another penny, which he placed on the table. Glouste took the opportunity to skitter up his arm and onto her usual perch across his shoulders and around his neck.
“Have another ale and some food if they have it, and stay out of trouble,” Dietz instructed his employer. “That means don’t talk to anyone.”
Alaric grinned in reply. “I think I can handle that.” As Dietz turned away he realised that his friend hadn’t even pretended to get up. He’d known perfectly well that Dietz would never let him handle the bargaining.
“Damn,” Dietz muttered to Glouste. “I’ve been had yet again.” His pet chittered as if agreeing with him.
Dietz had been right in thinking Dotternbach wouldn’t have much to offer, but he’d managed. He’d bought what he could and traded for other things, swapping extra rope and flint for food, ignoring fresher fare for dried goods that would last them longer. True, they might not taste as good, but he was more concerned about survival than flavour. He had also learned of a hunting trail that led from the village into the foothills, right to the feet of the Grey Mountains, and of the creatures that sometimes stalked it, destroying traps, devouring prey, and even slaughtering the unwary. Alaric was where he’d left him, and soon they were walking through the village and beyond. They found the trail easily enough. Whatever hunters used it had made no effort at concealment, and Dietz was able to follow their footprints up to a worn dirt path that wound its way into the hills. Alaric confirmed that their quarry had also gone this way, after another of those distant looks and a faint shudder. Dietz decided that was good enough for him, especially when he saw a mark on the ground that was both familiar and clearly not human.
“Beastmen, all right,” he said after studying the prints. “A few days old, maybe.”
“Anyone with them?” Alaric asked, staring at the ground as if hoping it would speak to him in any of the dozen languages he understood.
“I can’t tell,” Dietz was forced to admit. “Plenty of bootprints, but they’re all mixed in. Can’t say if they’re from before, after, or during.”
Alaric nodded. “It doesn’t matter, really,” he mentioned as they resumed their trek. The trail was wide enough for them to walk abreast easily. “As long as we’re following the mask, I don’t care who has it.”
Until we reach them and try to take it back, Dietz thought grimly. Then I suspect it’ll matter a great deal.
The trail took them through the hills and into the base of the mountains, changing from worn dirt to rough stone. At times it formed a channel carved or chipped through the peaks, at other times a mere ledge running over a crevice, but it continued clearly on, and so they followed it. Dietz didn’t much care for mountains, never had except for Middenheim, which was different, but as in the Border Princes he found that walking a path between cliffs was far better than trying to scale them. They still had a few nervous moments, negotiating a narrow outcropping over a deep gap, or walking the channel as it wrapped around a peak for a time, leaving them exposed and glancing down at the ground far below. There were wild beasts as well, and once a pair of rangy, half-starved goblins, who thought the travellers might make suitable food. Alaric’s rapier and Dietz’s knives quickly dissuaded them. The rest of the trek was dangerous, but no worse than expected, and a week later the two men were looking down on a wide valley, between several low peaks, an impressive stretch of rolling grass, trees and distant rivers.
“It’s beautiful,” Alaric whispered, as they gazed out across it.
“Less scrub and brush, that’s certain,” Dietz agreed. “Still, it’s got some decent timber, looks like.” He gestured a short way ahead, where the mountains dropped away, and a vast forest rushed up to meet them. It looked every bit as tall and dense as the heaviest foliage he’d seen elsewhere in the Empire, and somehow Dietz knew it was even older.
“Where are we going?” he asked finally, when he realised his friend would remain staring out at the landscape unless prodded.
“Oh, right.” Alaric glanced around, then looked again, more slowly. After a moment he nodded. “That way.” The direction he pointed was west, straight towards the forest.
“Of course.” Dietz shook his head. “Fine. Lead the way.”
Alaric grimaced. “I already told you, it’s that way.” They both looked down at their feet, and at the steep incline just beyond them.
“Morr’s Blood,” Dietz whispered. “They went down that?” Alaric nodded. “Well, we’re not,” he said firmly, earning another, more emphatic nod in reply. He began casting about for a different way down, one that wouldn’t guarantee they reached the bottom with broken necks.
After several minutes of searching, Dietz found another trail, or perhaps simply the continuation of the one that had led them through the mountains. It was narrower, and steeper, but soon enough it brought them out onto more level ground.
“We need to veer north again,” Alaric reminded him, as they sat on an exposed root as thick as a log and ate what remained of their food. “Did you mark where they came down?”
Dietz nodded, gnawing on a hunk of stale bread. “I can find it from the ground, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Good.” Alaric visibly relaxed. “We’ll do that, then. Once we’re standing there, I’m sure I can pick up their trail.”
Dietz nodded, reached for the waterskin at his feet, and froze. Something was touching his neck, someth
ing small and hard, and very sharp. Off to the side, he heard a muffled exclamation from Alaric, but there were no other sounds.
Slowly, carefully, Dietz raised his hands, palms out. Then he glanced up.
The object was an arrowhead. He couldn’t see the tip, but he was looking up the shaft, past the powerful carved bow and the taut drawstring, right into a face of an elf.
Thought by most to be mere legend, known by some to be at least a part of history, this elf was very real, and he did not look happy.
“You are trespassing.” The words were halting, the voice musical, but clearly not used to forming such sounds.
Dietz looked around, careful not to move his head or otherwise antagonise the elf archer. A second elf stood a few feet away, his hair the colour of moonlight. This one wore armour, although it was like nothing Dietz had seen before. A long cloak the colour of a soft fog fluttered around him. This elf also carried a bow, although he was leaning upon it, and Dietz could see what looked like poultices and wrappings around his middle. Clearly, this elf was in charge, and just as clearly he had recently been on the losing end of a fight.
“We apologise,” Alaric said. Dietz could just make out his friend as a blur in his peripheral vision, but suspected he too had an arrow at his throat. “We did not know. We mean no harm and no disrespect. Actually we—”
“You are trespassing,” the elf said again, his face stem. “You have tainted these woods with your presence. Now you must atone, in blood.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Well, this doesn’t look good, Alaric thought, but he tried again anyway. “We had no intention of trespassing,” he said, keeping his voice low and friendly. He spoke without moving, the arrow pressing into his neck hard enough to break the skin, and kept his hands up and out, and steady. The last thing he wanted was to anger the elves further.
Elves! His mind was still reeling at their presence. He had heard of them, of course, but few had ever seen them in person. Most of the tales were ancient stories, fables, and tall tales told to prevent peasant children from straying too far from home. He had often wondered if the elves existed at all, or were merely figments of imagination or perhaps some isolated tribe of hunters and woodsmen who had become distanced from the rest of the world.
Yet he could not deny what he was seeing, and feeling, right now. The elves surrounding him and Dietz were very real and definitely not human.
The other interesting thing Alaric noticed was that these elves were exactly as they seemed. The woods around them possessed a strange layer of shadowy images, not quite like the terrible apparitions he had been seeing of late, but as if there were more here than normally appeared. When he looked at the elves, even when he let his mind slip into the half-trance state that he had discovered brought forth the visions more clearly, he saw only them, without distortion. If he was seeing Chaos, overlaid upon the world, the elves were not touched by it in any way. They were wholly their own creatures, and beholden to none.
That was all the more reason to be careful and courteous. “We did no harm,” he continued slowly. “We only sat to rest a moment. We will be on our way and the woods will be as if we had never entered.”
The wounded elf, the one that had spoken before, shook his head, a sharp, quick motion. “These woods are sacred,” he stated, the words emerging strangely from his mouth. Clearly he knew Reikspiel but did not often use it, Alaric thought. “There is only one response to such a trespass. You must die, that your blood may feed the forest and appease its wrath.” He gestured. “Now walk.”
Alaric started to protest, but thought better of it as the archer beside him prodded him with the arrow. Moving slowly, Alaric rose to his feet, Dietz doing the same beside him. The elves, Alaric thought there were ten of them, but they moved quickly and silently in the shadows, grouped around them, and led him and Dietz through the forest without another word.
How in Sigmar’s name are we going to get out of this one, Alaric wondered? His hands were unbound and his rapier still hung at his side, but the elves never took their eyes off him, and he was sure they could fill him with arrows before he could even draw his blade. Once they reached wherever the elves were going, they planned to kill him and Dietz. Walking delayed that, but for how long? There had to be something else he could do, some way to stall them or negotiate with them or, if necessary, trick them, but he couldn’t think of anything.
It was difficult to tell time beneath the trees, but they walked for an hour or so, until the elves in front suddenly stopped. Alaric saw they stood between four large oaks, their heavy branches intersecting above to form a tight canopy. The ground around them bore only grass, some of it flattened in long swathes, and he realised that this must he where the elves had made their camp. That meant they’d reached their destination.
The elf Alaric had come to think of as their leader glanced to his left, towards an archer, but before he could gesture or issue a command, his eyes widened. He twisted to one side even as Alaric heard a faint whistling sound, and then a crossbow bolt was quivering where it had struck a tree trunk, more than half its length buried in the wood.
The elves all moved as one, swivelling in the direction of the shot and raising their weapons. Alaric took advantage of the moment to roll to one side, putting a little distance between him and the archer beside him. He rose in a crouch, drawing his rapier, and saw Dietz in a similar posture nearby, knives in hands.
The elf leader whispered something, though in no language Alaric knew. The other elves clearly understood, and they fanned out, loosing arrows into the woods. A volley of crossbow bolts shot from the shadows in response, but the elves were ready, and shifted to avoid the attack.
Alaric wondered who they were fighting, and edged back a few paces. One elf had said that the woods were sacred, so whoever was out there was also trespassing. That meant it wasn’t more elves, but why interfere and call attention to their presence? Not that he was complaining.
His question was answered a moment later, when a voice called out from the woods, a voice that sounded strangely familiar.
“Release your prisoners,” the voice called clearly, “or face the wrath of Sigmar!”
The elves whispered to one another, no doubt debating their options, but another volley of crossbow bolts swept towards them, one actually clipping an archer’s forearm. The attack apparently decided them. The leader spoke again, and the elves vanished. Alaric blinked, and they were gone. He was sure they hadn’t actually vanished, but they had moved so quickly and quietly, and blended into the woods so easily, they might as well have.
He glanced over at Dietz, who was staring around, wild-eyed. When Alaric caught his gaze, the older man nodded. He could find no trace of them either.
“Ho, there,” the voice called out. “Have they fled, then?”
“They have,” Alaric called back, his rapier held low and out of view. “You have our thanks, friend. Without your timely intervention we would surely be dead.”
“Aye, so it seemed to me,” the voice replied, “and that I could not allow. For truly Sigmar’s faithful are difficult enough to find, and he would be angered indeed were I to allow you to perish before your time.”
The leaves rustled, and then were pushed aside as several men stepped into view, crossbows at the ready. They had the hard-bitten look of mercenaries. Then another man strode past them, his narrow features offset by his broad shoulders, his tall pointed hat brushing a low-hanging branch as he approached, and Alaric sheathed his sword. No wonder the voice had sounded so familiar! “Herr Kleiber.”
The witch hunter bowed.
“I would not have expected to see you here,” said Alaric.
“Nor I you,” Kleiber replied, nodding at Dietz. “This is far indeed from Altdorf, where last I saw you.”
“Farther than we ever expected go, in all truth,” Alaric agreed, “but then this quest has proved more complicated than we ever could have expected.”
Kleiber started to say some
thing else, but paused as a fourth man approached them, additional warriors behind him. He was shorter and broader than Kleiber, though dressed in similar attire, and Alaric recognised him as the other witch hunter they had seen in Altdorf, the one Kleiber had said would be accompanying him on his mission.
“The foul creatures have vanished utterly,” the second witch hunter reported gruffly. “Clearly they possess dark magicks to effect such an abrupt departure, and so we must needs be on our guard.”
“We will be wary indeed, Wilcreitz,” Kleiber agreed, nodding curtly, “but I suspect their method for disappearing was less supernatural than skilful in nature.” He gestured towards Alaric and Dietz. “You may remember Master von Jungfreud and Master Froebel from Altdorf?”
Wilcreitz studied them each in turn, his sharp little eyes giving them a quick once-over followed by a dismissive glance away, and then he nodded. “You loitered outside our headquarters during Geheimnistag,” he muttered, “no doubt as debauched as all the city’s other sinners.”
“A pleasure to see you again, Herr Wilcreitz,” Alaric replied, bowing smoothly, and favouring the witch hunter with a cool smile, “and at such an opportune moment.”
“Hm.” Wilcreitz’s eyes narrowed. “Why are you in the forest?” he demanded sharply. “Surely no right-thinking citizen of the Empire would venture into such a wilderness without good reason. What is yours?”
“Some civility, Wilcreitz, if you please,” Kleiber snapped, his tone stopping the other witch hunter cold. “I know these men well, and will vouch for them personally. They are true defenders of the realm and have done much good in Sigmar’s name.”
“My apologies,” Wilcreitz said grudgingly. He bowed stiffly. “If Herr Kleiber has such a high opinion of you, no doubt you are worthy of it.”
“That is most kind of you,” Alaric answered, still maintaining the image of a polite nobleman. “Herr Kleiber is too free with his praise, although I hope we have provided such service as we could offer.”
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