[Empire Army 04] - Grimblades

by Nick Kyme - (ebook by Undead)

  Eber felt cold and clammy to the touch as Karlich stooped beside him. Masbrecht was crouched next to the sergeant, tearing strips from his cloak and jerkin, and pressing them against Eber’s flowing wounds.

  “I was wrong. He’s alive,” said Masbrecht.

  Below, the prince’s entourage could be heard charging past. It was likely they’d heard the shot, but impossible to know what they made of it. Bandits and rogues of all stripes were common in the wild and often attacked travellers on the road. In truth, it seemed most of these reprobates had abandoned ambushing the Imperial byways in the wake of Grom’s invasion, but Wilhelm and his Griffonkorps couldn’t be certain of that. At least it was easier to countenance than an assassin hired to slay him from the shadows.

  Karlich had seen the assassin fall to Volker’s bullet. At least they’d managed that. It would all be for nothing if the prince discovered the truth, though. The Grimblades kept down, staying out of sight to add weight to the lie that errant bandits were lurking on the hillside. Rechts threatened to shatter the deceit with what he said next.

  “We should hail them. Eber’s alive and he needs help,” he pleaded to Karlich. “A horse will get him back to Mannsgard faster than we can.”

  Masbrecht replied before Karlich could answer. “I can help him.” He felt Eber’s trunk-like neck. “His pulse is weak, but he’s a strong one. I can help him,” he repeated.

  Rechts balled his fists as his jaw set in a firm, unyielding line. “If you say you’ll pray for him…”

  Masbrecht turned to him, stony-faced. “My father was a physician. I learned some of his trade.”

  Rechts wasn’t convinced. The horses were almost gone. He went to Karlich for a second opinion.

  The sergeant considered hard.

  “We can’t risk it,” he decided in the end.

  “Eber will probably die!” said Rechts.

  “We can’t risk it!” Karlich hissed, his eyes urging the drummer to be quiet and stay down like the rest of them. “One life for the fate of the Empire. I won’t do it, Rechts. Stay down.”

  The clacking of hooves against the road slowly receded into the distance. Morning had passed, the prince and his knights were gone.

  The leather mask was almost black. It had two angular eye slits and bent outwards along the middle to accommodate the nose. It came off easily when Karlich pulled at it, sticking only slightly to the bloodied mess underneath.

  Lenkmann had joined them and gave a sharp intake of breath as the assassin’s identity was revealed.

  Prince Wilhelm’s would-be killer was a woman, a pretty one if not for the bullet hole ruining one side of her face. Only Brand had known it beforehand.

  “Doesn’t look Imperial,” said Rechts.

  The dead assassin had olive skin with big, dark eyes and hair like sable to match.

  “She’s a hireling, a sell-sword,” said Brand. “A dog of war.”

  Karlich felt that same tremor of unease whenever Brand spoke of things that hinted at his old life. It had been a short while since Wilhelm had passed through the valley, alive and well. Together with his Griffonkorps, the prince was just a dust cloud on the horizon now, riding hard for Mannsgard, Karlich wondered idly if their entreaties to Wissenland had been successful. He suspected not. He winced when a bitter smile pulled at his injured cheek. Masbrecht had removed most of the stone shards but it was still painful. Dried blood covered one half of the sergeant’s face like a mask. The shoulder of his jerkin was caked in it.

  Four men surrounded the corpse. Volker was off somewhere, burying Dog. He’d not spoken a word since the mastiffs death. He didn’t appear to be distraught or even angry, just null of feeling, as if he were made of marble. Masbrecht was still tending to Eber, fulfilling his promise to help the burly Reiklander if he could. With Eber’s wounds bandaged, there was little more Masbrecht could do. Eber remained unconscious, his breathing laboured. The paleness of his skin suggested he’d lost a lot of blood. Some of it stained Masbrecht’s sleeves and stuck between his fingers and under his nails. It wasn’t a pleasant sensation.

  Keller sat off to the side of the group of four around the assassin. He was downcast, lost in his thoughts.

  “Looks like a tattoo,” remarked Rechts, noting the mark on the side of the assassin’s neck. Brand had brushed aside her hair and revealed it.

  “Do you know what it means?” asked Karlich.

  “No,” said Brand. “I don’t recognise this one.”

  This one… thought Karlich.

  “But I know what this is,” Brand added. From a small pouch tied to the assassin’s belt he produced a gold coin.

  Karlich took it to examine it.

  “Stamped with the burgers’ seal,” he muttered. “This is Marienburg gold. Freshly minted too, if the sheen is anything to go by.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Lenkmann.

  Karlich’s face darkened as the possibilities ran through his mind. This business was growing murkier by the minute.

  “Neither do I,” he said.

  “She was expensive,” Brand told them. “Those blades, that rifle… Doesn’t come cheap. And she was good. Really good.”

  Karlich thought he heard a note of reluctant admiration in the other Reiklander’s voice.

  “Have you ever seen anything like that?” asked Lenkmann.

  He was pointing at the rifle next to her. The lacquered wood stock was finely carved and it had a metal barrel and trigger. It was much longer than an ordinary harquebus with a deeper, narrower barrel. It was unadorned, though a gunsmith’s mark was engraved in the wood of the butt. A small circlet of iron with a cross through it was hinged to the end of the barrel. A sighter of some description.

  “It’s Tilean, like her,” said Brand.

  Karlich knew little of Tilea, save it was a country far south of the Empire renowned for thieves, sell-swords and adventurers. She certainly had a foreign cast to her features and Tilea had a prominent and powerful assassins’ guild whose reach stretched through much of the Old World. He couldn’t be sure, though. He wanted to know how Brand could be.

  “How do you know?” Karlich asked.

  “I’ve been there.”

  Karlich was incredulous. He didn’t know of any soldiers that had travelled beyond the Empire. “When?”

  “I was sixteen.”

  Karlich waited but when it was obvious no further explanation was coming, he dropped the subject. Brand’s past was as cloudy as the Reik during fog. Instead, he focused back on the rifle and the question of what to do with it.

  “We have to destroy it,” he said.

  Lenkmann made to protest. “Such a masterpiece weapon, couldn’t we—”

  “How would you explain it when we return to Mannsgard? We can’t just say we found it in the wild. Questions would be asked. The truth would come out.”

  Lenkmann had no answer.

  “Every trace of her must disappear,” Karlich concluded. Rechts pulled off his cloak and rolled up his sleeves. “Then we’d best get started.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  OLD WOUNDS

  The roadwardens rest, Averland woods,

  408 miles from Altdorf

  They buried the assassin on the hillside in a shallow grave. There was no time to dig a deeper one and Karlich hoped that scavengers might unearth and then devour her. It was a gruesome thought, and no one voiced it out loud, but they’d been forced to compromise ever since discovering the Altdorf messenger’s corpse and becoming Ledner’s thugs. Brand dismantled the rifle, smashing its mechanical parts beyond repair with the butt of his pistol and setting fire to the wooden components.

  Eber lived, for the moment. His breathing was still shallow and he hadn’t regained consciousness yet. By the time they were able to move him—lifting his body with a pair of cloaks like a hammock and carried between two—evening was already drawing in.

  It was Volker who found the roadwarden’s rest, a small shack well hidden in the woods with a second
outbuilding that served as a watchtower nearby. It was bare wood, but sturdy and well kept. Judging by the dust and the smell, it hadn’t been occupied in weeks. As they entered the hut where the roadwarden would sleep and eat his meals, Karlich was reminded of the crucifixes they’d found on the way to Blosstadt. The fluttering of dark wings, the frenzied pecking and the excited caws of crows came back to him, unwelcome as bad eggs.

  The hut was sparse with a small iron stove in one corner, an empty skillet perched on top. There was a bed. It had mildewed blankets and was stuffed with straw for comfort. This was where they laid Eber, his bearers grateful for not having to haul him around for a while. A stool sat by the bed—Karlich imagined the roadwarden tugging on his boots or sharpening his blade. A hook on the wall contained the empty echo of a crossbow, a darker patch in the wood where the light hadn’t touched it. A small cupboard revealed salted meats and a barrel of warm ale. The Grimblades tucked in without thought, not realising how hungry they actually were until presented with food.

  Small windows revealed a dingy view. The shack had a flat roof but angled at one end. It had started to rain, thunder in the east announcing a heavy downpour, and it teemed over the window in thick streaks. Through it there was the watchtower, a hundred feet or so from the hut and a small tethering pole where the roadwarden would have secured his horse. They’d found rope and spare iron horseshoes in the shack, but there was no animal in sight. The entire place was desolate and forlorn, as if missing the presence of its occupants.

  “This is a cold house,” moaned Rechts, huddled in his cloak. His gaze went longingly to the empty iron hearth and the weeks-old soot coating it.

  On Karlich’s orders they’d kept the fire doused. Like much of the shack, it was well tended. Apart from the recent soot, the stones were swept and the iron grate that kept the logs in place was brushed. A small chimney poked from the canted roof. Smoke would be a certain signal that the shack was occupied. The roadwarden had picked his spot well. It was untouched because no one, save an expert tracker, would know it was there. Even Averland, with its abundance of plains, had its forests. Like all the places of the Empire, darkness lurked there too, out of sight in the shadows. With greenskins and other beasts abroad, Karlich had reason to be cautious.

  As an added precaution, the sergeant had posted a watch. The small outhouse was a perfect location for sentry duty.

  “These are cold times,” added Lenkmann, “as bleak as winter.”

  With the bed occupied by Eber, most of the Grimblades squatted on the floor. It was cold but warmer than the outdoors, and at least they had a roof over their heads. Masbrecht sat on the stool, keeping an eye on his patient. He’d redressed the bandages and cleaned the wounds with water from a well around the back of the hut, but there was little more he could do for poor Eber. While he lived, there was hope. He was a strong man. Masbrecht prayed silently for him to pull through.

  “What do you make of the gold?” asked Rechts, trying to occupy his mind with something other than how chill his bones were. It was the first time anyone had said anything of it or the assassination plot since they’d left the hillside. With the few words he’d spoken, Volker reckoned they were well over halfway to Mannsgard, possibly another day’s journey encumbered by Eber.

  Prince Wilhelm would have returned already and by the time the Grimblades got back to town, preparations would be underway for the march to Averheim. Karlich hoped they wouldn’t be missed. Ledner probably hoped they were all dead.

  “Marienburg seal, clearly fresh,” said Karlich, bringing the coin to his mind’s eye. Like her trappings, the coin had been buried with the dead assassin. “I’m not sure what to think. Honestly, I don’t really want to.”

  “I cannot countenance a prince of Reikland would be the victim of a blade in his own camp,” added Masbrecht. “We are not savages. Sigmar-fearing men are godly and honourable, they—”

  “Stop your preaching,” snapped Rechts with the weary ire of a frustrated drunk.

  Karlich intervened before it went further. “First time was a warning, Rechts. Don’t make me come over to you.”

  Rechts scowled behind his cloak, but backed down.

  “I only meant it is hard for me as a devout…” Masbrecht paused when he saw Rechts glaring at him, “…for me to believe a Reiklander could wish harm upon his own prince. Have we fallen so far?”

  “We are not on the Warrior’s Hill, if that’s what you mean,” said Karlich.

  Warrior’s Hill was where in ages past that Sigmar gathered his chieftains and had them swear allegiance to an ideal, to the birth of an Empire. It was an act of fealty, not just to an emperor, the first emperor in fact, but to each other and the realm of man as a whole.

  “Dreams fade with the dawn, Masbrecht,” Karlich continued. “Like a wisp of cloud, they are at once beautiful and lofty, but also unreachable, transient. At best, they’re a memory. At worst, they’re entirely forgotten.”

  “Gods, but that’s bleak,” said Lenkmann, shaking his head.

  Karlich was impassive. “I’m a realist, that’s all. I’ve seen the dark things men do.” His eyes met with Rechts’ out of reflex rather than design. He went on. “What remains after idealism is gone is life.” Karlich was almost sanguine. “It is the pledges we make to one another, on the field of battle, in this very room.” He spread his hands and looked at Masbrecht again. “Not all men are as pure-hearted as you, Masbrecht. Even I have… regrets.”

  For a moment, Karlich went to a place inside him, where he kept his own dark truths. Whenever he opened that door, he smelled smoke and felt again his hands burning in the pyre, tearing at the ropes that held her… then pushing his face into the mud when he knew it was too late and they were gone…

  Masbrecht wasn’t done. His voice brought Karlich back. “We’re expected to keep all knowledge of this to ourselves, of what we did,” he said. “I’m not sure I can do that.”

  Karlich looked serious now. “Well you must. We all know what’s at stake.”

  “If we don’t, yes I know. But what’s at stake if we do keep our mouths shut?” He put it to all of them. “One killer has failed, but who’s to say others won’t be sent for the prince. He must be told his life is in danger.”

  “We’ve been through this already, brother.” Rechts’ upper lip curled into a snarl.

  Karlich sighed deeply. “Yes, there may be others. Perhaps this is also an end to it, we can but hope. But I doubt they’ll strike now Wilhelm is back in Mannsgard with the army. Assassination will be the least of his concerns. Greenskins await us at Averheim, a horde the likes of which we’ve never seen if the scouts are to be believed. There is much we don’t know here, Masbrecht. Don’t act before being certain of the facts at hand.”

  Masbrecht wasn’t happy about it, his moral code was a strict one, but he nodded his agreement all the same.

  “Ledner knows more than he’s saying,” said Volker, sticking to the shadows, a few feet from the rest of the group. Lenkmann offered him a strip of salted beef but he declined.

  “You could hang princes on that man’s secrets,” Karlich replied in a bitter voice. The irony of the statement was not lost on him. By using Wilhelm as bait to draw out the assassin, Ledner had almost done just that.

  There were rumours that Marienburg desired independence from the Empire. Karlich had heard traders in Altdorf and on the Reik claiming as much. It was so far fetched an idea that it had become something of a joke, an idiosyncratic quirk of a people joined by land but divorced in ideology. A rich state wanting to get richer. Even the underclass were well heeled.

  There are no peasants in Marienburg, so the popular myth went, because they can’t tend fields with all those rings on their fingers.

  “And what if he hangs us?” added Volker.

  Lenkmann raised an eyebrow. “A dour thought, Volker.”

  “I have plenty to be dour about.”

  Lenkmann was closest to him and reached over to pat his shoulder. The gestu
re was a little awkward, but his expression conveyed sadness. “It was a brave animal.”

  Something dark flashed across the huntsman’s eyes as he looked back.

  “It was a mean bastard.”

  Karlich was looking around. “Speaking of which, where is Brand?”

  All eyes went to one corner of the room. Brand had been sitting there, almost invisibly in the deepest shadows. Now he was not.

  “I could’ve sworn…” Lenkmann began.

  Karlich was on his feet. His anxious mood passed to the others, a sudden sense of urgency charging the air. He asked a question to which he already knew the answer.

  “Who is on watch?”

  Masbrecht was the first to answer. “Keller.” Karlich left the door banging loudly in the wind as he bolted from the shack.

  Slipping out was easy. It was gloomy in the shack and filled with shadows. A few candles had been scavenged from a drawer but they were stubby and weak. Karlich was wise to light only a few. Any more and the fiery glow would have attracted more than just moths. Just like smoke from a chimney, larger nocturnal predators would be drawn to a flame, drawn to the warmth it promised and that of the humans crowded round it.

  A back door led out into a small yard where they’d found the well. Without a handle or any discerning marks, it was hard to see. Brand had found it easily enough, though. Easier still was disappearing when the debate about Wilhelm’s would-be killers was going on.

  No one noticed the slightest flutter of the candle flames or the faint draft of cold air, so fleeting it could have been imagined.

  Brand was out in the rain. To some it would be a cleansing experience, but no amount of rain could purify the taint Brand felt on his body like a second skin. Rain reminded him of drowning, only by degrees, one drop at a time. He’d led a violent life, and associated everything with death. Brand circled around the back of the hut, staying low and moving steadily but calmly. Sudden movements, even out in the rain-drenched darkness, might attract the attention of his comrades, and they had no part in what he was about to do.