“Sergeant Viktor Marstein,” Marstein said, and snapped off a salute. The clerk, obviously taken with the novelty of being saluted, straightened his back.
“Ah yes. Heard about your disappearance. Well, glad you made it back. What did you want to report?”
“For Blyseden’s ears only,” Viktor told him.
“Oh, all right then. The commander is still awake. Come on. You can wait here,” he told the sentry as he made to follow him in.
“Good luck, Viktor,” he said as his colleague entered the tent.
Viktor, however, didn’t hear him. As he ducked through the canvas curtain into the oil-lit expanse of his commander’s quarters, he was already calculating, evaluating, searching.
The tent was empty, apart from a scrum of men who stood around the cartographer’s table in the centre. A large oil lamp hung above them, illuminating the freshly-inked canvas of the map, and gleaming on the brass angles of the cartographer’s compasses that rested on a side table. As the clerk cleared his throat nervously, the assembled commanders, obviously interrupted in the middle of their conference, turned to face him. In the midst of them all, his expression as bland as always, stood Blyseden.
“Why have we been interrupted?” he asked the clerk.
“This man escaped from a Strigany ambush,” the clerk squeaked, and pushed Viktor forward as though he were a human shield.
“A Strigany ambush? Damn!”
Blyseden scowled, and pushed past his colleagues towards the battered sergeant. He wore his usual broadcloth tunic, and, apart from the cutlass he wore at his belt, he might have been a clerk in a counting house. The commanders who surrounded him, each one decked out in the very height of colourful martial fashion, made him look like a crow amongst a flock of peacocks.
“Where were you attacked?” he asked, seizing Viktor by the arm and dragging him over to the table. “They must have found out about our presence. Heads will roll for that, I can assure you.”
The commanders who surrounded him looked suddenly uneasy. Blyseden’s punishments were fast becoming a legend amongst his subordinates. The man had a real flair for creative misery.
“I’ll show you where I was ambushed,” Viktor said, and went forward to stand over the map table. The canvas that lay upon it had obviously been freshly made. The colours all stood out cleanly against the cream of the parchment, and the material was unblemished by age or staining.
“It was over there,” Viktor said, pointing at the opposite end of the table, and, as everybody turned to look, he snatched up one of the cartographer’s compasses and hurled himself at Blyseden.
The speed and ferocity of his attack would have been the end of most men, but not Blyseden. Despite his stocky build, he reacted with the whiplash reflexes of a cornered rat, twisting out of the way as the brass point of the compass punched through the air where his stomach had been. Viktor twisted and struck again, aiming for the soft spot just below his commander’s ribs.
Blyseden wriggled behind one of his captains and pushed the man forward to meet the thrust of the attack. The mercenary, who had barely realised what was going on, took the full force of the blow, and the brass spike of the compass punctured his skin, muscle and entrails. He screamed, more with surprise than pain. Then he screamed again, as Viktor pulled his makeshift weapon out of the sucking wound and leapt over his accidental victim’s collapsing body.
The room was in uproar. The assembled captains began drawing their sabres, but both the assassin and his target ignored them. Blyseden, with an impressive turn of speed, had already jinked around the table and was heading for the door, calling for the ogres who waited outside.
Viktor was hot on his heels. He dodged one sword stroke, and dashed another one away with the compass. A third caught him on his back, unzipping the muscles beneath his shoulders in a spray of blood.
He didn’t feel a thing, not even the warmth that trickled down his back. All he cared about was his quarry, and, to his rage, he saw that his target had already made it to the door. In another second, he would be outside, escaped, gone.
Viktor acted with an instinct that betrayed every principle he had ever been taught. He tested the weight of the brass compass, drew back his arm, and threw it towards the broad target of his commander’s back.
The makeshift weapon whirred as it spun through the air, the brass of its construction glittering like some hellish wasp. Then, with a meaty thunk that was the most satisfying thing Viktor had ever heard, it buried itself in the meat of Blyseden’s shoulder.
The commander screamed, and spun around, lashing out at the assailant he had assumed was already behind him. It was all the Viktor needed. With a feral snarl that was more animal than human, he leapt forward, fingers outstretched in an attempt to grab his commander’s throat.
Even wounded, however, Blyseden’s reflexes didn’t let him down. He ducked down beneath his assailant’s wild charge, and, striking with the neat efficiency of a butcher quartering a pig, he hacked the cutlass blade up. The force of the blow combined with the momentum of his assailant’s charge and Viktor’s sternum was shattered in two, chips of bone driven back to puncture his heart.
The assassin dropped on top of Blyseden, and his dead weight threw both of them to the floor.
For a moment, Blyseden saw the dull sheen that had covered his assailant’s eyes clear, and a look of almost comical surprise crossed his face. Then it was gone, and even wounded and on fire with adrenaline, Blyseden winced at the stink of the man’s last, tidal breath.
He rolled out from under the body and saw the ring of horrified faces above him.
“It seems that the Strigany do indeed know that we’re here,” he wheezed, and he got painfully to his feet. With a sickening lurch of nausea, he realised that he could still feel the weight of a weapon hanging from the numbness of his shoulder. He reached back, and pulled the compass free. The bloodstained brass glittered in the light as he walked purposefully back to the table.
“Well, gentlemen, we obviously need to bring our plans forward. No matter. As we agreed, then, Captain Liebhert will place his archers here. You see, Liebhert, how you can approach the position without being spotted?”
Blyseden indicated a hollow on the map with the tip of the compass. A drop of his blood dripped onto the map, landing on the circle that marked the township of Flintmar.
It was, all concerned were later to agree, a good omen.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Old Mourkain was a land of honey and milk
The pigs lived in houses, the peasants wore silk
The land was so rich it bore three crops a year
And there was nothing but joy from cradle to bier.
Our lords were as fair as our land was fine
As wise as our petru and as strong as our kine
Their beautiful lives were of such elegant grace
That all clambered out for the joy of their embrace.”
—From The Song of Mourkain
Not a day went by without Seneschal Martmann thanking the good fortune that had brought him to this posting. He was realistic enough to admit that he had done nothing to deserve it, any more than he had done anything to deserve becoming a seneschal in the first place. Being born to one of the old baron’s maidservants had been enough. That, and the striking resemblance Martmann had born to the lecherous nobleman.
Other, more ambitious men, might not have found this small border fortress to their liking. It was little more than a fortified manor: two storeys for the men, a slate roof, and a wood-built corral for their horses.
It had been built to guard the pastures and low hills that lay to the west of the new baron’s demesne, and apart from grass and sheep, and weather, there was nothing much there: no trade routes, thick with fat merchants and bulging purses; and no local town from which to squeeze the gold and the girls. There wasn’t even any decent hunting. The shepherds and cattlemen who inhabited the area had long since killed most of the game.
&nb
sp; No, this posting would not have been for everybody, but for a man of Martmann’s temperament, it was ideal. He was seldom one for exerting himself, and never one for facing the kind of dangers that other, more lucrative postings, offered.
Occasionally, he and his men would make a show of chasing goblins back into the forested hills beyond. Not much of a show, though, and none at all if the goblins ever stopped running. Then there had been the recent proclamation from the baron about the Strigany, just in time for Martmann and his men to seize an entire caravan. It had been the most heroic action of his military career. The caravan had been small, but wealthy, and Martmann, deciding that its presence was another sign of fortune’s favour, had stripped it like a vulture before burning it to the ground. After all, he liked to think that he was a far-sighted man, and he especially liked to think that nobody was going to be left alive to start thinking about revenge.
Yes, life was good. It was in celebration of this fact that tonight, as on every night, Martmann was drunk. He sat at the head of the table in the hall of his small fortress, as perfectly at home as a frog on a lily. The reed torches lent a warmth to the cold granite walls, and to the rough-hewn features of the rabble he commanded. There were a score of them, a motley crew of troopers who nobody else had wanted, and they had just finished feasting. Now, replete, they concentrated on their jugs of ale, leaving the old women who ran the kitchen to bustle and argue their way around the table as they cleared it.
Martmann yawned contentedly as he surveyed his domain, took another swig of ale, and then produced a knife and the piece of wood he was working on. It had once been a baton, he thought. He had found it in the burnt-out remains of the caravan that he and his men had looted a while back, and he often wiled away the hours by engraving scenes from the tale of Sigmar Heldenhammer onto it.
Meanwhile, his sergeant, whose only similarity to his seneschal was his love of ale, belched, wiped the back of his hand across his moustache, and regarded his master with the appraising eye of a peasant choosing a hen to slaughter.
“Fancy a game of stones, sire?” he asked, trying not to sound too eager. By his calculation, his superiority at the game meant that he ended up making about twice as much as his commander. He reckoned he had about three more months to go until he had won enough to buy a farm. That was, as long as he could keep Martmann interested in the game.
“Not tonight,” Martmann said. “I think I’ll just do a spot of carving then turn in.”
The sergeant hid his irritation. There were, after all, other fish to fry. None of them had the seneschal’s pay, though, or his overconfidence.
“Ah, c’mon, boss,” the sergeant said, hiding the steel trap of his greed beneath his impression of beery good nature. “The lads don’t have your skill. Anyway, I want to try to win back some of my money from you.”
Martmann, whose idleness didn’t quite extend to not counting the coins in his purse, smiled wryly.
“I’m sure you’ll have plenty of time for that, sergeant. Anyway, I want to finish this bit. See here?” he said, thrusting the piece of carved wood under the sergeant’s nose, “that’s Sigmar’s first meeting with the dwarfs.”
“It’s good,” the sergeant said. It was, too. The figures were simple, but no less realistic for that. In the flickering torchlight, they almost seemed alive, moving with the shadows that danced around the hall. The seneschal had real skill, and, for the thousandth time, the sergeant wondered if Martmann really was the old baron’s bastard.
Well, he’s a lucky swine either way, the sergeant thought. Just as well I don’t have to rely on luck to fleece him.
What he said was, “When you’re finished carving that, what are you going to do with it seneschal? It would make a fine souvenir of our service. I’ve certainly learnt a lot from being under your command.”
Martmann shrugged.
“I’m not sure, really. I might have it blessed at the Sigmarite shrine in Stein. I might even sell it as a Strigany stick to some merchant who has to deal with the rascals. The material’s appropriate enough, isn’t it?”
Martmann winked and the sergeant forced himself to laugh, despite his disappointment. He had had the same idea himself. He was about to suggest playing stones one last time, when, from outside the hall, the horses started to scream.
It was a piercing sound, and so horribly human that everyone in the hall fell immediately silent: the servants chattering, the drunks bantering, the man who had been playing the piccolo, and the one who had been about to deliver the punch line to his story. They all stopped, frozen, so that, apart from the cries of animal terror outside, the only sound in the hall was the splutter of the reed torches that lined the walls.
All eyes turned to Martmann, who cursed inwardly. Despite the ale in his belly, the hairs on the back of his neck had risen like the scruff of a frightened dog. Having studiously avoided battle, he had never heard the horses make such noises before, and the sound of their screaming had a nightmare quality to it that he didn’t like at all. He licked his lips, and shifted. Then he turned to the sergeant.
“Sounds like there might be a wolf pack out there,” he said, trying to sound casual. He failed. “Take a couple of the lads and go and make sure that they can’t get into the corral, would you?”
“Yes sire,” the sergeant said, inwardly cursing his master. For a moment, he thought about delegating too, sending out Greis, perhaps. Then he dismissed the idea, annoyed with himself. He was the sergeant, after all. He had to be able to command the men’s respect.
“Who’s on the first night watch?” he asked as he got to his feet and checked that his sword was secure in his scabbard. “You five? Good. Grab some crossbows. We’ll see if we can’t bag a couple of wolves. Well, hurry up then!”
As the five men rushed to the far wall, upon which the company’s weapons were hung, the sergeant strode over to one of the few slit windows that looked out over the corral. He opened the shutter and peered out into the night.
There was nothing but darkness, as black and unbroken as the spaces between the stars. That, and the screaming of the horses. Although the noise was as loud as ever, the sergeant thought that fewer of the animals were crying out. He scowled and turned away from the window, suddenly furious. He told himself that he was furious at the damned wolves, although only because he didn’t want to admit the peasant superstition that bubbled beneath his thoughts like some debilitating hereditary illness.
He hadn’t fought his way out of serfdom to fall for that nonsense now.
“Come on,” he told his men as they formed up behind him. Although they were armed, none of them wore any armour. There was no time for that, the sergeant decided. The longer they waited, the more horses they would lose, and the more time he would have to think.
“Right,” he told them, “grab a torch and follow me.”
With a gesture towards his seneschal, which might have been a salute, the sergeant led his men down the stairs to the ground floor, opened the iron-bound door, and strode out into the night. The door banged shut behind him, although not before a draft of chill air rushed into the hall to set the remaining torches dancing.
Martmann watched the flames flicker and shifted uneasily on his chair. He caught somebody’s eye, and fought down a sudden feeling of irrational guilt. After all, why should he have gone and seen to the horses? Wolves were nothing for a man of his rank to waste time dealing with.
If they were wolves, of course.
From outside, he could hear the sound of the sergeant’s barked orders over the noise the horses were making.
“You,” Martmann said, gesturing to the man who had been looking at him, “go and close those shutters. No point letting mosquitoes in.”
“Yes, sire,” the man said, and, exchanging a blank look with one of his comrades, he got up and went over to the open window. He peered out into the night. Seeing nothing, he swung the shutters closed. Almost as an afterthought, he dropped the latch, locking out whatever waited in
the darkness outside.
Martmann returned to whittling at his piece of bone. Gradually, the noise of screaming horses died away. For a while, a single animal carried on, and then it stopped too, as suddenly as it had started.
Martmann sighed with relief. That sergeant was a good enough fellow, even if he did cheat at stones. He looked around, and saw that the rest of his men had relaxed, too. One of them picked up his piccolo, and, as if trying to wash the memory of the horses’ screams from his comrades’ ears, he began to play. There was some chatter and a burst of relieved laughter. From the kitchen there came the smash of a dropped pot, and a chorus of voices raised in mutual recrimination.
Then, from the silence of the night beyond, a single, terrified shriek.
The assembled men looked at each other. Then, once more, all eyes turned to Martmann. He cursed inwardly. All he wanted was a quiet life. Was that really too much to ask?
“The sergeant must have had to put down one of the horses,” he said.
Nobody believed him. He could see that in their eyes, in their postures, in the way that they were resting hands on the hilts of their swords. He didn’t care. The ale he had drunk had suddenly turned sour in his stomach, and his armpits had become damp with sweat. Anyway, he was tired. It had been a long day. As soon as the sergeant came back, he would turn in.
He looked down at the piece of wood in his hands, and started carving the branch of one of the trees that overhung Sigmar’s head. The sweat on his palms made it difficult to grip, though, and, as he turned the wood, it slid through his fingers, and he cut himself with the knife.
“Damn the thing!” he swore, and banged it down onto the table. He looked around at the silent gathering and swore again. Why did they all look at him like that?
“You,” he snapped. “You with the piccolo, play something for us.”
The man played, reluctantly, badly. Martmann sucked the blood from his injured thumb, and shifted in his seat. What the hell was taking the sergeant so long?
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