'A bit, yes,' Alaric admitted, and he did, now that he stopped and took stock. His stomach was still tender and he could feel the wound pulsing angrily, and trying to straighten up had caused him to break out in a sweat and made his vision swim, but at least he wasn't shuddering or freezing as he had been right after taking the wound. 'I don't believe we've met.'
The stranger laughed. 'Such polite prisoners,' he said, tipping his hat slightly. 'Merkel Lankdorf, and I already know your name, Herr Alaric.' Alaric glanced at Dietz, who nodded. 'I should check your dressings, since you're finally awake.'
Lankdorf halted the mule in a shallow basin between two mountain ridges, untied the rope around it, and dragged Alaric off, setting him on the ground none too gently. He also pounded a metal stake into the nearer ridge wall and attached Dietz's manacles to it. Then he removed the bandages Alaric found around his waist, cleaned the wound, and packed some sort of paste into it before binding it with fresh bandages. He finished by tying Alaric's hands and feet and then looping the rope around the stake as well, but at least he left Alaric enough slack to sit on the ground.
'I take it I've got you to thank for this,' Alaric said, gesturing weakly at the bandages, 'my thanks.'
Thank your friend,' Lankdorf replied, jerking a thumb back towards Dietz, 'he convinced me.' Alaric noticed that it was getting dark, as the bounty hunter stood up and took
something from the far side of the mule. 'We'll camp here,' he announced, raising the crossbow and sliding a bolt in place. 'Don't go anywhere.' Then he turned and walked away, vanishing into the lengthening shadows.
'How long was I out?' Alaric asked once Lankdorf was gone. He tried to pull himself into a more upright position but gave up when his vision swam again.
Two days,' Dietz replied, crouching by the wall. That was apparently as far as the manacles would allow him to go. 'You were feverish at first but Lankdorf fed you a broth of some sort and put a compress on your forehead. That helped.' He nodded in the direction they were heading. 'He says there's a pass not far from here and that's how we'll get back out of the mountains.'
Alaric nodded. 'He seems... efficient.'
'He is,' Dietz agreed, frowning. 'I just hope it doesn't become easier for him to kill us and haul our heads back as proof.'
Lankdorf returned an hour or so later, a dead mountain goat slung across his shoulders. The bounty hunter gutted the animal, built a fire, and roasted the meat on Alaric's rapier. Lankdorf ate his fill but he only gave Dietz and Alaric small pieces of meat, barely enough to stop their stomachs growling. Nor did he release Dietz's hands, setting the meat upon the mule's back and forcing Alaric's friend to eat by bending down and snaring each piece with his teeth.
'Can we have a bit more?' Alaric asked after he'd finished the meagre meal and accepted a water skin from his captor. 'We're still hungry.'
'I know,' Lankdorf replied, carefully wrapping the rest of the meat and storing it in one of the saddlebags, 'but I don't know how often we'll find meat up here.' He grinned. 'Besides, I feed you more and you might feel strong enough to escape. 1 like you better this way.' The bounty hunter didn't seem inclined to further conversation and moved to the far side of the mule after holding the water skin for Dietz to drink. He kept a clear line of sight on both of
them, however, and lay down with the loaded crossbow on his chest, ready to fire at a moment's notice.
'Charming fellow,' Alaric muttered, stretching out carefully and wincing as the movement pulled at his wound. Dietz only grunted a reply.
The next day they continued to make their way through the mountains, following narrow trails between cliffs and peaks, and wending generally southward. Alaric was well enough for Lankdorf to set him upon the mule in a sitting position, piling the saddlebags behind him to provide some support and tying his legs below the beast and his hands to the halter. Alaric swayed slightly but held on, pleased not to be banging his face against the mule all day.
He tried to engage Lankdorf in conversation several times but the bounty hunter proved almost as taciturn as Dietz. When he did respond his replies were short and to the point, and he offered very little information about himself, their surroundings, or what might happen to them once they reached Akendorf.
'Don't know, don't care,' was Lankdorfs answer to that last question, but Alaric certainly cared, and since their captor wouldn't talk about it he spoke to Dietz instead.
'Do you think they mean to kill us?' he asked his friend as they picked their way slowly through the mountains. Lankdorf was out in front scouting for loose rocks and unstable ledges, and then returning to lead the mule and Dietz carefully from crevice to crevice and peak to peak.
'Probably,' Dietz replied. The older man's eyes were downcast, although Alaric suspected it was more to watch his footing than from some sense of foreboding.
'I wonder if it will be a public display or a private execution?' Alaric mused. He knew the thought was morbid but he had little else to think about, and he kept hoping that Lankdorf would offer his opinion, since the bounty hunter clearly knew the Border Princes and its customs far better than they did.
'How much did you say they'd offered for us?' Alaric asked as the bounty hunter returned and took the mule's lead again.
'I didn't.'
'All right then, how much did they offer?' When Lankdorf did not reply Alaric pressed him. 'Oh, come now, surely I have the right to know my own price!'
For a moment he thought the bounty hunter was going to ignore him again, but finally the man grunted out an answer. Alaric leaned forwards to hear it, and then sat back, astonished. He had to grab the mule's halter to keep from topping from his makeshift seat.
'Did you say five hundred gold?' he asked finally.
'I did,' the bounty hunter replied.
'Each?'
That's right.'
Alaric whistled, even though it made his side twinge. 'Dietz, we're rich!'
Dietz laughed. 'How's that?'
'Well, we're worth five hundred gold apiece,' Alaric told him giddily, part of him realising that it was the pain, the fatigue and the hunger talking. 'That's as good as carrying around the money ourselves, for who's closer to it than us?'
'Can't spend it, though,' Dietz pointed out.
'Of course we can,' Alaric argued. 'We can buy things on credit. We make a purchase, accept the debt, and they can collect the money when we're caught and killed, simple as that.'
'Except I caught you already,' Lankdorf said softly, 'and I'm not inclined to share.'
'Well, it's hardly up to you, is it?' Alaric retorted. "You cannot very well stop us from owning ourselves, and thus the money is as much ours as yours, more even.'
Lankdorf half-turned, his sword hissing from his scabbard, and Dietz took several quick hops forwards, placing himself between Alaric and the bounty hunter. 'He doesn't know what he's saying,' Dietz said quickly. 'He's delirious.'
Lankdorf stared at Alaric past Dietz's shoulder, the bounty hunter's cold grey eyes hard. Finally he turned away again, the blade returning to its sheath. 'The money is mine,' he said again as he distanced himself from them.
'Sigmar's hammer, Alaric, are you trying to get us killed sooner?' Dietz demanded once their captor was away again. 'He'll gladly cut us both down and drag our corpses back.'
'Sorry,' Alaric said, although he didn't feel very repentant. 'I was just passing the time.'
'Pass it more quietly next time,' Dietz warned.
That night, Alaric and Dietz waited, bound and staked as usual, for Lankdorf to return from hunting. The man had already shown himself to be an excellent shot, particularly with the crossbow, although Dietz had noticed a sling at the man's belt as well. While they sat Alaric let his thoughts drift back to the tomb and its hideous occupant.
He had been trying not to think too much about the valley and the structure built within it, because he was already having nightmares about walking, rotting corpses, mummified cats with eyes of fire and
statues that came to life and carved people to pieces. Plus he kept seeing Therese and the others in his dreams, their skin chalk-white, their eyes milky, and their wounds still dripping blood as they came for his flesh. He knew he could not avoid the memories forever, and something about the doomed expedition was nagging at him, something that didn't make any sense.
Alaric leaned back against the cold stone cliff and tried to lock down the errant thought. What was it that had bothered him? The tomb's construction? No, even though the exterior had not matched - no pyramid - the interior had been consistent with what he'd read of the Nehekharans. The inhabitants? Certainly, but he'd heard stories of such creatures being found in pyramids and tombs before. No, that wasn't it. It was something he'd seen, something that didn't seem to belong.
Then he knew what it was.
It was the gauntlet.
'Hammlich wanted that specifically.' he said softly.
'What's that?' Dietz had been petting Glouste, as best he could with his cheek.
The gauntlet,' Alaric replied. 'It was the one thing Hammlich specifically wanted. He took the gold, of course, but the others had gathered trinkets as well. He ignored all of those, but the gauntlet he took.'
Dietz shrugged. 'Maybe he thought it was worth more.'
Alaric nodded, "Yes, clearly, but why? It wasn't made of gold, I don't think, and it didn't have any gems that I recall.' He closed his eyes, trying to see the gauntlet again in his mind. There! Not gold, no, some sort of strange, banded stone, he remembered, with overlapping plates, and barbs everywhere. There were engravings as well, but he hadn't been able to examine it properly and couldn't say what they were, exactly. It was certainly an intriguing piece, but worth more than the rest put together? He doubted it.
He thought there was something else about its appearance. Alaric concentrated, forcing himself to ignore the pain, hunger and fatigue, and push through it. What else had he seen about the gauntlet?
Then he remembered. It had been covered in runes, and he had seen those runes before.
Reaching for his belt pouch, Alaric winced as he tugged at the wound yet again. Moving more carefully he managed to retrieve his notebook, which he flipped open.
'There!' he said after finding the right page. Dietz glanced over at the mark Alaric was indicating. That's it!'
That's what?' his friend asked.
'That mark,' Alaric explained, 'was on the gauntlet.'
'You're sure?'
'Of course I'm sure!' Alaric snapped. 'I know what I saw.' He stopped to think. The entire surface was covered in runes.' He straightened up, carefully, knowing how painful it might be.
'That gauntlet was marked by Chaos!' he whispered. 'It's another artefact!'
Dietz groaned. 'What, another one?'
'I know.' Alaric agreed, 'but that's partly why we came out here, to make sure nothing like that was set loose upon the world.' He grimaced. 'I suppose we haven't been doing much to stop that lately, but now we will.'
He thought about the gauntlet again. Now that he knew its origins the design made sense. No human would have designed it with so many spikes and barbs. Perhaps he had even recognised the gauntlet's inhuman nature subconsciously and that was why he had taken it from the crypt.
'But that doesn't make any sense.' he realised. Dietz waited patiently for an explanation. 'The gauntlet was in the Death Scarab's crypt, the very heart of his tomb.' Alaric explained, 'but the Death Scarab is a liche, one of the undead. The undead may be evil but they're tied to this world, not another. I've never heard of such creatures consorting with the forces of Chaos. It should be anathema to them.'
'Maybe they've got a pact?' Dietz suggested, and shivered. 'Sigmar's hammer, just thinking about those skeletons mixed with that daemon makes me sweat.'
'It wouldn't happen/ Alaric reassured him. 'Artefacts of Chaos make us uncomfortable because they come from another world. The undead are powered by magic, and Chaos magic would disrupt that. They'd never work together. If anything, I would think the undead would be even more determined to destroy anything Chaos-tainted.'
He thought back. What was it Karitamen had done when he'd found the gauntlet? The liche had looked almost crazed with anger and it had shouted something, but Alaric didn't know enough Nehekharan to understand the words. The long-dead king had certainly wanted him dead, however.
Or perhaps he simply had not wanted that gauntlet to leave his tomb.
If it had belonged to Karitamen, an artefact like that, why hadn't he been wearing it? It had been tucked safely into his sarcophagus instead, almost as if it had been placed there for safekeeping.
'Morr's blood.' Alaric whispered as he realised exactly what the liche's actions meant. 'I'm an idiot.'
'No argument here.' Dietz replied, leaning against the rock wall.
'He wasn't trying to protect it.' Alaric said absently, replaying the scene in his head. 'He was trying to guard it.' Alaric tried pulling himself to his feet but gave up after a second, forced to content himself with sitting a little straighter than before.
'If the gauntlet had been Karitamen's he would have been wearing it/ Alaric pointed out. 'It had to be one of the most potent items he possessed, but he had it stashed in his sarcophagus instead. It was hidden in the innermost layer, which is the most important one, and the most heavily guarded. He was trying to keep anyone else from finding and taking the thrice-cursed thing. That way the servants of Chaos wouldn't have access to something so powerful; until now.'
'So how does a liche get hold of a Chaos artefact, anyway?' Dietz asked.
'I don't know.' Alaric admitted. 'We know he had some sort of foul sorcery, bestowed on all the walking dead, but why wouldn't he tell them to keep anything Chaos-tainted well away from his tomb?'
'We need to find that gauntlet/ Alaric announced, feeling some of his aches and pains fading to the background.
'How are we going to do that?' Dietz asked. 'Hammlich is long gone.'
'Doesn't matter.' Lankdorf pointed out, appearing from the shadows and dropping a brace of birds by the fire, 'since I'm taking you straight to Akendorf.' Obviously his sharp ears had picked up at least part of their conversation and Alaric wondered how long Lankdorf had been listening. The mountains were quiet enough, and the small crevice where he'd made camp would amplify any sounds so that he could have heard the entire discussion.
'You don't understand.' Alaric told him as the bounty hunter began plucking the birds and getting them ready for the fire. 'That gauntlet is very powerful and very dangerous.'
Lankdorf shrugged. 'Not my problem. All I have to do is get you back to Akendorf. End of story.'
'Well, it is my problem,' Alaric replied heatedly. 'I found the gauntlet and I'm the one who removed it from the tomb. That means I'm responsible for letting it loose. I've got to put that right by finding it and either destroying it or returning it to the tomb!'
The bounty hunter finished gutting the birds, cleaned his knife against his trouser leg, and slammed the short blade back into its sheath. 'We are not going anywhere near that thing,' he announced.'I'm taking you back to Akendorf. End of discussion.'
'I let it out, but you're stopping me from correcting that,' Alaric responded. 'That makes it your responsibility, too! If anyone dies from that thing because we couldn't go after it, it will be your fault.'
Suddenly Lankdorf was on his feet, the knife back in his hand. In two quick steps he was across the clearing and the blade was against Alaric's throat. 'Another word and I'm bringing back a corpse,' he hissed, his eyes as cold as the stone around them, 'understand?'
Alaric nodded carefully, the sharp blade pressing into his flesh, and the bounty hunter backed away. Then, without a word, he stormed off into the night, climbing the shallow incline to one side that led back towards a higher peak, leaving them, the mule, and the uncooked birds behind.
'Bit of a temper, hasn't he?' Dietz commented dryly after a moment.
Alaric nodded, rubbing the line th
at still tingled along his throat. 'These artefacts certainly bring out the worst in people,' he said absently. Then his gaze fixed on the birds and the fire beside them, both out of reach, and he shook his head.
'I guess I should have waited until after dinner to anger him.'
Lankdorf returned an hour or so later, tossed the birds into the fire, and lay down, all without speaking to Alaric
and Dietz. He didn't mention the incident the next morning, either, but he did alter their bonds slightly. He tied Alaric's hands but not to the mule, leaving him free to twist about a bit more. His feet were still tied together below the beast's belly, of course, and Lankdorf kept a tight grip on the mule's lead, so there was no chance of escape. The bounty hunter also shifted Dietz's bonds, moving his arms around in front instead of behind and then refastening the manacles. Now Dietz could eat more easily, and walk more comfortably, which was certainly a blessing.
Shortly before noon they topped another rise, this one taller than most of the previous ones. Below them lay a wide, deep channel, cut as straight as the stubborn rock would allow and broad enough to accommodate several wagons abreast.
'Mad Dog Pass,' Lankdorf said, clearly pleased, 'takes us straight down out of these bloody mountains. Then we'll follow the river north to Akendorf.' He glanced at Alaric, as if daring him to argue, but Alaric simply nodded. The bounty hunter seemed to be in a good mood and he didn't want to jeopardise that.
Lankdorf located a narrow trail curving down to the floor of the pass and they navigated it carefully, the bounty hunter in the lead, followed by Dietz and then the mule. It was slow going, the trail so tight in places the mule's sides scraped the rock, and all their attention was on the next step and the one after that. They were almost to the bottom when they heard noises and glanced up.
They saw a group of men, perhaps a dozen or more, emerging around a bend in the pass. From this distance, Alaric could make out very little about them, beyond the fact that they significantly outnumbered him and his companions.
Daemon Gates Trilogy 02 Night of the Daemon Page 14
