by ich du
A flickering light caught Kurt's attention, and that of the trolls. Out of the darkness flew a bolt of fire, and as it slammed into the stomach of the closest troll Kurt saw that it was a flaming arrow. The flames spread across its body and it gave a keening cry and dropped to the snow. Seeing his opportunity, Kurt rushed forward and hacked at the screeching beast. It paid him no attention and he struck repeatedly, his sword biting into its arms, neck and legs as it thrashed around. More flaming arrows came flickering into the battle, a couple of them falling wide, but more catching their mark and setting fire to the trolls. Kurt reversed his sword and gripped it in both hands, ramming the point through the troll's neck, pinioning it to the ground. Ripping the sword free, Kurt gave a shout of triumph, a bellow that roared from his throat louder than the calls of the trolls.
Strength surged through him, boiling through his veins, rushing through his heart making it beat like a blacksmith's hammer. With his sword still gripped in both hands, Kurt charged through the snow towards the wounded troll. It was no longer on fire, its body covered in a smattering of snow where it had doused the flames. It bellowed at Kurt and he answered the challenge with a shout of his own, cleaving his sword through the air. The blade ripped through an outstretched arm, the clawed hand spinning away, scattering droplets of blood across Kurt. The beast howled into the sky and Kurt's rush continued, driving his sword through its chest up the hilt, the impetus of his attack making him barrel into its collapsing form. Taking no chances, he tore his sword out and slashed across its neck, severing its head.
Panting hard, he turned to finish off the last troll, but its corpse was burning fitfully a few yards away, Ursula standing over it with a blood-slicked blade. The energy Kurt felt started to drain away, leaving his limbs leaden and his lungs aching. From the darkness, he heard Jakob shout, and Ursula called back that it was safe.
'Where were you?' Kurt demanded when Jakob appeared, running through the snow.
'I go to forest, to fetch tree resin to light,' the Norscan explained, picking an arrow out of its quiver. 'Troll cannot heal burns, fire best weapon against them.'
'You could have told me that before,' Kurt said, turning away. 'We almost died here.'
'Is it safe to go back to the camp?' Ursula asked, looking at Jakob who looked at Kurt. The former knight sniffed the air, but all he could smell was blood and burning flesh.
'The stench will carry a long way,' he said, sheathing his sword. 'The gods only know what it might bring from the north. It is not safe, tonight we keep double watch, and tomorrow we go back to Tungask. If the gods demand that I fight Marius, then I will be there, waiting for him to come to me, not running away like a coward.'
CHAPTER FOUR
Warband
Kislev, Early winter 1709
'THE SEER SAYS we have turned too far north.' Ruprecht told Marius as the small army prepared for the day's march. 'We need to go more westerly and south, towards the Lynsk.'
'I don't suppose he cared to mention on which bank of the river we need to be?' grumbled Marius, rubbing his hands to warm them before slipping on the sheepskin mittens he had picked up in Erengrad.
'He didn't say.' Ruprecht said, ignoring his master's tone. 'The scouts reported some forest about twelve miles to the west. The road leads through it, or we can go around the southern edges.'
'Why would we want to go further south than necessary?' asked Marius, mounting the long-haired pony he had bought for the journey into the harsh northlands.
'We are almost north of the Lynsk, Marius.' Ruprecht warned. He pointed northwards. 'That's Troll Country up there, and in harsh winters like we've been having, all sorts of beasts and men are driven south in search of food. That forest is a dangerous place, there could be all manner of beasts lurking within the treeline.'
'It would be a foolish creature who attacked us, my friend.' laughed Marius, waving an arm to encompass the three dozen knights and fifty men who now accompanied him. 'I have enough men here to fight off any number of trolls. Or perhaps you are afraid of dragons? Or manticores? Or the grimgralkin living under your bed that used to terrify you when you were young?'
'You still think these things are children's stories, when you have seen the things we've seen.' Ruprecht said. 'We have fought creatures that were half beast and half man, who fed on raw flesh. We've faced the walking dead, for Ulric's sake! And what about the skaven? Most people in the Empire would think you mad if you started talking about rats that walked on their hind legs and were the size of a small man. No, there is truth to those old stories, they don't pass into legend for no reason.'
'Well, goblins and skaven I have seen, but I've yet to see a dragon and until I do, then a myth they shall remain.' said Marius before kicking his heels into the pony's flanks and riding off towards the road. 'We go through the forest!' he called back.
MARIUS'S FORCE HAD set off early and made good speed along the road, so it was just before noon when the first trees began to appear, scattered thinly at first, but after a mile or so, they started to crowd together until the horizon was thick with a dark swathe of pine trees. The road itself twisted and meandered into hollows and around hillocks, so that for every straight mile travelled, the column had to ride or walk a mile and a half.
With the trees to shelter them from the constant bitter winds, it seemed deadly silent within the looming trunks of the trees. The air was filled with the scent of pine resin and rotting mulch, and not a sound could be heard above the sighing of the breeze through the treetops. The state of the road began to deteriorate as well, soon turning into little more than a muddy track with the trees pressing close on both sides.
Ruprecht felt his hackles rising as he walked through the stillness of the forest, and pulled his hammer from the sling at his back. A couple of the men noticed him arming himself and looked around for signs of danger.
'Don't mind me, lads.' the big mercenary said. 'I just feel more comfortable with it in my hands rather than slapping my backside.'
His joke fell flat and there was no laughing. The mood of the whole column was subdued, from the knights to the squires and the warrior band of Marius: everyone felt the same tenseness and air of danger.
About three miles into the forest a stream trickled under the road ahead, and a small wooden bridge had been built. Some of the men dismounted and began to lead their horses down to the bank when Ruprecht stopped them with a shout.
'Hold it there, men!' he called, striding towards the front of the column. 'Have you not brains in your heads?'
'What's the problem here?' demanded Marius, trotting over on his pony. 'What's the delay?'
'The men were going to water at the stream.' Ruprecht explained.
'So?' said Marius.
Ruprecht said nothing. Jumping off his horse, he gestured for Marius to follow him. The witch hunter dismounted and the two of them strode down to the water's edge.
'Look at it!' snapped Ruprecht in exasperation. Marius and some of the men did so, and gasped at what they saw. The stream was running with a thick red liquid, like blood, and a slight smell of rotting flesh could be detected.
'What's this?' Marius said, looking around in alarm. 'How did you know?'
'I told you! We're as good as in Troll Country now.' Ruprecht said. 'Things are not as we are used to this far north. I used to take my boat up the Talabec as far as the Urskoy sometimes and spoke to traders from these parts and a little further north. When the wind is from the north, they call it the dovoiska petrenya; the breath of the dark lords. Any river that flows from the north can be tainted, some like this, others with tar, or oil, or seething with fish that walk on legs and birds with no wings. These are strange places, we should not tarry here!'
Marius gave Ruprecht an odd look after his outburst and then seemed to dismiss whatever thought was passing through his mind at the time.
'Move along, you men!' he called out to the knights at the front who had stopped. 'I want to be out of these woods by nightfall.'
'We can hope.' muttered Ruprecht, tightening his grip on the warhammer and stalking off through the snow.
AS THE SUN, faint behind the winter clouds, dipped towards the treetops, the forest was bathed in long shadows. The path the group followed had long given up any semblance of being a true road, and had disappeared altogether over the last mile or so. Now the band was making its way between the trunks of the pine trees themselves. They were incredibly ancient, soaring high above the heads of the mounted men, their thick trunks too wide for even a big man like Ruprecht to put his arms all the way round. Their bark was dark and craggy, and the snowdrifts beneath the branches were littered with dead pine needles.
Ruprecht's attention was attracted to one tree in particular, as he ploughed his boots through the thick layer of snow. It was just to his left and seemed to be reddish in colour, or perhaps it was red resin oozing from the cracks in the bark. He strayed slightly from the column to investigate, his suspicions aroused.
Sure enough, there was something thick and red seeping from the tree, and touching a finger to it, Ruprecht was convinced it was blood. Perhaps there was some dead animal under the roots, he thought and then he glanced up. Over his head, in the lower branches some ten feet higher above him, hung a corpse. Its head was battered and bloody and it was bound to the trunk and branches by thick rope studded with flint blades. It was then that Ruprecht realised that the man was wearing the colours of the Osterknacht; he was one of their scouts. And as a gurgling sound issued from the corpse's throat Ruprecht also realised with horror that it was not a corpse at all, but a living man.
'Ware! Ware!' shouted Ruprecht, breaking into a run. 'To arms! Prepare yourselves!'
As he ran back towards the others, Ruprecht tripped through a snowdrift and heard a shout. Amazed, the burly Talabeclander watched the drift rise up, to reveal a heavily muscled man swathed in a cloak. Snow stuck to his long blond hair and plaited beard, and except for boots, cloak and a loincloth, he was naked to the elements. He was pale-skinned and covered in tattoos made from swirling blue patterns. The man grinned, shouted something in a foreign tongue and then swung his axe at Ruprecht's head.
'Ambush!' Ruprecht bellowed, throwing himself clear of the blow and rolling to his feet. Dozens more figures were now rising up through the snow, similarly garbed, wearing an assortment of horned helmets, scraps of leather and mail, and wielding axes and maces. They screamed hoarse battle cries as they raced through the trees towards the straggling knights, dragging them off their horses and staving in their heads and chests with their brutal weapons.
Ruprecht had little time to pity the dead knights as he lifted his hammer to parry another axe blow aimed for his chest. Metal rang on metal and jarred his arm as the blow was deflected away.
'Norse scum!' growled Ruprecht, shoulder charging into the marauder and hurling him into a nearby tree. The Norscan ducked Ruprecht's swing with his hammer; the head of the weapon smashing loose a clump of bark and wood just above his enemy. The Norseman struck out quickly with his axe, trying to rip through his groin, but Ruprecht just managed to get the haft of the hammer in the way to prevent a fatal injury. Bringing down the heavy head of the hammer, he slammed it into the Norseman's stomach, smashing him to one side with a cracking of ribs. The Norscan vomited blood into the snow and Ruprecht pressed forward, his hammer dashing the marauder's brains out over the tree's roots.
Ruprecht saw that most of the knights had dismounted now, the trees making it impossible to fight properly from horseback. Marius's men and the squires were firing ragged volleys of arrows and crossbow bolts at the attacking marauders, though few shots were finding their mark amongst the shadowy trunks. Ruprecht charged into the fray, bellowing Ulric's name, his hammer snapping the spine of one Norscan who failed to turn in time and smashing the mace from the hand of another who was too slow to dodge Ruprecht's next attack.
Over the Norscan's shoulder Ruprecht could see Marius battling with two more marauders, deftly parrying their attacks with his sword, wearing them down ready for a counter-attack. The Norseman fighting Ruprecht made a dive for his mace, half-buried in the snow, but Ruprecht kicked him squarely in the stomach as he went past, spinning him onto his back. He didn't have time for the finishing blow though, as a throwing axe spun towards him, forcing him to dodge to the right as it skimmed past his head. The snow underfoot was slippery and Ruprecht had to take a moment to steady himself, by which time the Norseman on the floor had clambered to his feet and was holding a wickedly long hunting knife in his left hand. His other hand hung loosely by his side, and his face was twisted with the pain of his broken fingers.
'Back to the hell that spawned you,' snarled Ruprecht, swinging low with his hammer. The Norseman nimbly jumped back, and then stepped forward with his knife thrust forward, burying it an inch into Ruprecht's chest. Grunting away the pain, Ruprecht wedged his hammer between the two of them to lever away his attacker, but was stunned by a head butt that crashed against the bridge of his nose, breaking it. He could taste blood running over his lips and brought his knee up sharply, ramming it into the groin of the marauder, who collapsed to the ground again.
'Spoil my good looks, would you?' spat Ruprecht through the blood and phlegm in his throat, before driving his hammer into the man's chest, bludgeoning into his heart and lungs.
The rest of the men were faring well now that they were over the shock of being ambushed. The marauders wore little or no armour and their clumsy axes and maces were poorly matched against the deft swords wielded by the fully armoured Osterknacht. Ruprecht saw shadowy shapes slinking off through the woods as the more sensible members of the warband made a bid to escape.
'Follow them, they're getting away!' bellowed Marius, two dead marauders at his feet, their blood cooling in the glinting snow.
'We'll never catch them on horseback,' called back Trevigar. The lord militant had volunteered to lead the force sent after the renegade, Kurt Leitzig, when he had met Marius outside Badenhof. He had been almost as obsessed as Marius at the start, as if the traitor had done him some personal slight, but Ruprecht had never felt comfortable about pursuing the matter further. Now, though, Trevigar was just as weary and tired as the rest of them and did what he could to temper the effect on his men when Marius was in one of his manic moods.
A dozen or so marauders were left, battling on for a little while longer against impossible odds. They were foolishly brave, thought Ruprecht but then again if he had been in the same position, would he actually have the stomach to turn and run rather than facing the gods' judgement?
'Find me at least one that's alive.' commanded Marius, striding through the corpses, inspecting them for signs of life. 'I want to know where Leitzig is!'
'HE'S TRYING TO pretend he doesn't understand Reikspiel.' Ruprecht told Marius, striding out of the witch hunter's tent, wiping blood from his hands on a ragged remnant of the marauder's clothing.
'You can get nothing out of him?' Marius asked, not turning from where he was stood, gazing into the red depths of one of the camp's cooking fires.
'He just keeps spouting Norscan nonsense, as far as I can tell.' Ruprecht said, tossing the rag onto the fire where it hissed and sputtered in the heat before being consumed by the flames.
'No reaction to Leitzig's name?' pressed Marius, now actually turning to face his second-in-command.
'He doesn't seem to recognise it, just like the other two.' said Ruprecht.
'What could he have possibly offered them to make them so tight-lipped, I wonder?' said Marius. 'Gold? No, he was not rich unless he has stolen something since he fled from me. Honour? Pride? Glory? How has he made them so loyal?'
'Perhaps he has nothing to do with them.' suggested Ruprecht, turning to look back at the tent where the marauder was still bound to the central pole, leaking blood from dozens of small cuts inflicted by the witch hunter's burly interrogator.
'Nothing to do with them?' asked Marius, with an edge to his voice that Ruprecht had now learn
t meant that he was on the verge of launching into another lengthy tirade. 'They just happened to be lying in wait for us, eh? Leitzig didn't send them back to attack us, is that what you are saying?'
'Many things are driven south by the bad winters, perhaps these northerners come south looking for easy pickings.' suggest Ruprecht. 'In which case, they should have chosen a more defenceless prey.'
'No, they're not that stupid.' announced Marius. 'These are hardened raiders, used to feeding off soft merchants and stupid peasants from coastal villages. They know better than to attack knights and men-at-arms. No, Leitzig must have sent them to waylay us, there's no other reason why they would attack such an obviously difficult target.'
'You may be right.' Ruprecht conceded. 'I have sent a couple of trackers to follow their trail through the woods. They'll be back by morning to tell us which way they went. We can follow them right back to their camp if you wish.'
'Yes, we should get some rest now, it's been a hard day.' said Marius, closing his eyes and all of a sudden looking like the tired, battered old man that he really was. 'But we march out at first light, I want this whole affair settled before the real winter snows come. I want to be in a house with a warm fire and a soft bed when the north winds start howling.'
'Don't we all, Marius, don't we all?' agreed Ruprecht, stooping to pick a stick from the fire, its end glowing red-hot. 'Anyway, I'll give this one another chance to tell us everything.' he said, blowing on the stick to make the ember flicker into flame again.
CHAPTER FIVE
Betrayal
Tungask, Early winter 1709
URSULA SIGHED HEAVILY, earning a smile of understanding from the Kislevite housewife sitting at the next table. The pair of them watched as Jakob, Kurt, the woman's husband and two Norscans argued in the corner, remonstrating with each other in a language neither Ursula nor her companion could understand. Ursula couldn't fathom why Kurt would want to learn such a disgusting, tainted tongue. Worse than that, she had no idea why they had come this far north in the first place. Every time she had argued for turning east or west, or, Sigmar forbid, actually heading south again, Jakob had been there with reasons why they could not turn from their course. Now the winter was setting in and the likelihood that she could leave Tungask before the spring thaws had all but vanished, and who could tell how long that would be?
