Honour was satisfied even if death wasn’t.
For every victory the living claimed, the dead matched them.
The living learned their lessons well.
Martin refused to allow Mannfred the luxury of time.
The living harried his forces across the world.
Respite was rare and broken.
Under Martin’s guiding hand, the men shaped themselves into a mighty foe-hammer. They beat down remorselessly on the flesh eaters and the Black Hand.
Differences cast aside, the men of the Empire refused to be humbled. In that, they reaped what they sowed. Their courage brought them small victories. Each small triumph spurred them on as the nature of the war shifted. There were cowards, of course, but there were heroes too, ordinary men like Vorster Schlagener, whose bravura, courage and skill on the battlefield earned them reputations among the men.
Fewer and fewer skirmishes took place on the wide open fields of battle as the conflict became a guerrilla war, the living being forced to scour the woods for the vampire’s foul army.
The dead were not content to be victims.
Mannfred deployed all of his cunning to make the hunt lethal, fashioning traps, pits and spikes, nets and more wily artifices to ensure that the living trod softly, forever fearful of their hidden enemy.
Still, the deadlock could not last.
Vorster emerged from the trees, blood caked around a wound on the side of his head.
An open plain sloped up gradually to a sharp ridge. Beyond it stood yet more trees.
He felt nauseous. He had taken a blow to the head that morning. A cudgel had lifted him off his horse and left him unconscious in the mulch of fallen leaves. Twice since coming around he had found the world spinning beneath him, his vision blurring. He wasn’t about to complain. He was alive. Fifty men had fallen. It was a sobering thought.
Vorster Schlagener and Ackim Brandt rode side by side up the ridge, along with one hundred men who were part of Stirland’s ranger advance, scouting out the lie of the land.
Hel Fenn spread out before them. Fog had settled in. Wisps of white drifted through the twisted trees, moving sluggishly on the breeze that came from the stinking swamp. The cloying reek of the place was foul.
The ball of the sun hung low in the sky, the light fading fast.
Vorster’s first thought was that his mind had been damaged by the blow to the head. It looked for all the world as though the blackened limbs of the trees were moving!
He steadied himself in the saddle, closed his eyes and opened them again, the wave of sickness passing.
It was no fever-dream.
The bones of the forest were on the march, the dead streaming out of the withered trees in droves.
Vorster’s horse shied as it caught the stench of rotting flesh.
A thrill of fear chased up the length of his spine.
More poured out from the forest, endless columns of walking dead.
They were not alone.
Wolves loped along at their side and the sky grew black as a flock of fell bats converged in swirling clouds.
The dead spread out before them, thousands upon thousands, an endless danse macabre.
His breath caught in his throat. Vorster had faced the undead more times than most, and still the sight of them exerted a grip of fear around his heart that no other enemy could. He felt the first constricting touch of horror and struggled to banish it. Fear was a soldier’s worst enemy and constant companion.
They came out of the forest, spilling endlessly across the plain.
“Do you think it’s too late to burn the forest to the ground?” Ackim Brandt asked, irony bitter in his voice.
“How can they have grown so?” Vorster breathed in disbelief.
“The world is full of the dead, my friend. It is the living we have a shortage of.”
“Now that is a sobering thought.”
The darkness thickened. The shriek and chitter of the bats was the only sound across the whole battleground.
The truth was sickening. While playing hide and seek in the damned forests, the Vampire Count had drawn them into the jaws of a trap. He had lulled them into believing that in harrying his forces, chipping away at their number battle by battle, they were somehow winning the long war of attrition.
The proof of that lie was laying itself out before them in the form of a vast host of skeletons, ghouls, zombies, wights and, alongside them, the vampire’s peasant levies.
“What man would willingly march to war under the banners of the undead?” Vorster asked. He still found it difficult to come to terms with the fact that any of the living could willingly choose to throw their lot in with the vile dead.
They fight for their cruel masters because they fear them, my friend. It is as simple and as sad as that. Fear can drive a man to do many things’
Vorster shivered.
“As hard as it is for us to comprehend, they see von Carstein as their legitimate lord. It infects them with a twisted sense of loyalty. To them we are the invaders and they are merely protecting their homeland.”
“Then I pity them,” said Vorster, earnestly.
“Pity is better than hatred. That way lies madness. The best we can hope to achieve is to bring death to a few of them. Doubtless it is a release from a much worse fate.”
Two hundred thousand strong, at least, and still the undead spilled from the cover of the trees.
“So this is to be our doom,” Vorster said to the man beside him.
“It would seem so,” Brandt agreed as it became sickeningly obvious that for every human there were twenty or more creatures dragged back from beyond the grave, hungry to kill them.
“Why do we even bother with the charade? How can we do anything other than die here?”
“Look at our choice of masters. Should we die in battle, we’ll still be enlisted into this war, my friend.”
They watched with mounting horror as still more and more of the corpses shuffled out of the forest, forming into hellish regiments in complete silence. No order was shouted, no trumpet bayed.
Then they saw him, a distant smear in the dusk’s light. The Vampire Count’s silhouette was unmistakable.
He threw his arms aloft, the sky answering with a devastating crack as lightning trembled and flashed around him. The harsh bluish-white light revealed the full extent of his forces. The vast fen was a sea of dead. They surged forwards as still more corpses swelled in behind them, a relentless tide rolling towards the living.
Brandt called a young rider forward.
“You see what we face, soldier?”
The fresh-faced rider nodded sickly, making the sign of the hammer across his chest.
“Good. Carry it with you. Martin is half a day away. Drive your horse into the ground. Ride the poor animal until she drops. There is nothing to be gained from sparing her. You must get word to Martin. Tell him the vampire has found new strength and has been waiting for us. Should he find us amongst the enemy, beg him to be merciful and slay us quickly. Now ride like the wind, soldier.”
The sunlight streaming in through the stained glass window refracted into the eight colours of the winds.
Finreir stood over the battle plans, playing at general, pleased with himself and his first victory, and eager to march deeper into the lands of the Vampire Count to press home the advantage he’d secured.
He looked up.
One by one the colours wove themselves into the tapestry of a man, no, not a man, an elf.
The spectral projection of his tutor, Areiraenni, took shape and stepped out of the glass window to stand before him. The old sorcerer was not amused.
“I see you play at soldiers.”
“I am making a difference, master. The humans need us.”
“The humans need many things, Finreir. We are not one of them. You were forbidden from coming here. You are to return to Ulthuan immediately.”
“But I have so much to do.”
“It is not a
request. The council has issued an edict. You will carry it out. If you cannot find within you the discipline that is required I will recommend that you begin your studies all over again, and I shall remove myself from the council for I shall have failed in my role as your teacher.”
“If I can just show you what I have found here, master, the threat the humans face,” he walked over to the map. “So many battles, but they all rise from the same darkness. The sleeping one’s influence is undeniable. If he is allowed to wake—”
“Finreir, are you so naive as to think you are the only one that has seen what is happening here? The council sees wisdom in not interfering. This is the fight of humans. It will define their place in the world. If they fail, well, they have no place living. You must allow nature to take its course. There is a reason for everything. You will come voluntarily, or we will forcibly remove you.” With that, the shadow-shapes of two guardian elves began to form on either side of the sorcerer’s projection.
“Tell me something, Finreir, does Málalanyn live?”
“He does master. Your son acquitted himself well in the battle. He will become a fine warrior one day.” He saw upon the old elf s face the relief that only a worried parent could know.
“My apologies if I have offended the council, master. It was not my intention.”
“You will apologise to them in person within the month. I suggest you also beg for their forgiveness. I also suggest that you take the shortest route possible, Finreir. Your proclivities for exploration will not be tolerated further until you come of age. Is that understood?”
Finreir understood perfectly well, but he would continue to watch over the humans from afar. There was nothing the council could do to stop that.
Kallad Stormwarden stumbled out of the forest.
Cahgur and the other survivors staggered out behind him, exhausted.
They lay in the snow, peering up at the sky, wondering how, why, they still lived.
Cahgur sniffed the air curiously. “Do you smell ale?”
“We’re running for our lives and that’s all you can think about?” Othtin asked in disbelief.
“Well it’s not all I can think of, but it is a goodly portion of it,” Cahgur said, sitting up. “Seriously, can you smell it?”
He looked around, trying to see where the tantalising smell was coming from.
A small ramshackle cottage sat to the side of deeply rutted tracks. They were on a trade route of some kind, although it was unlike any trade route the dwarfs had been on before. This was a road no traveller dared veer from. The cartwheel ruts were deep and rigidly adhered to. The long, skeletal fingers of the withered trees dragged low enough to snare any passing coaches.
“Is that a house?” Cahgur pointed at the dilapidated building.
“Surely not, who’d be mad enough to live out here?”
There were more horses tethered outside than they would otherwise have expected from a hovel.
“It looks like an inn to me,” Othtin said.
Kallad pulled himself up to his feet using one of the dragging branches. He sighed wearily. “Well, whatever it is, it’s got four walls and a door. That ought to be enough to keep a vampire out for the night. At the very least if they are still chasing us by dawn anyone in that building just joined our wee gang.”
He set off in the direction of the building.
“What if they’re already in the other fella’s gang?” Belamir wondered. “Oh, did I say that out loud?” He grinned at the others. “All this running works up a thirst.”
“Skalfkrag and Valarik would have loved this place.”
“Aye, that they would, laddie, that they would,” said Kallad.
The door to the taproom swung open on the creek of rusted hinges.
Kallad felt as if he had stepped back in time.
He walked through the rotten sawdust up to the bar where an emaciated barkeep towelled out a pewter flagon. Kallad reached into his pouch and pulled out the dead vampire’s ring, finger and all, and slammed it down on the ale-stained bar. “I’m here to see about a bloodsucker.”
“He’s been expecting you. He sleeps in the basement.”
Kallad nodded.
His kinsmen were shocked. “You knew we were coming here?” Cahgur asked, shaking his head.
“Nothing on our journey is without reason,” Kallad said.
“So what’s down there?”
“Nothing you want to see. I’m here to settle my debt.” He slapped a handful of coins on the bar. The drinks are on me. Try not to fall down. We might need to leave in a hurry.”
“I don’t like the sound of that,” said Molagon.
“But I do like the smell of that ale,” Cahgur said, grinning, willing to forgive anything for a dram of the wet stuff. “So, barman, busy yourself, I’ve worked up a fearful thirst.”
Kallad left them drinking and disappeared into the dank cellar beneath the inn.
The first thing he noticed was the smell, the musk redolent of the grave.
Kallad said into the darkness, “There are easier places we could have met.”
“Ahh, maybe so, but none more scenic.”
“You’re a strange one, even for a dead man. If you weren’t dead already I’d have half a mind to kill you where you stand.”
“There’s time for pleasantries later. Do you have the ring?” Jerek von Carstein asked, emerging from the sanctuary of the shadows.
Kallad gladly gave him the finger.
Jerek unwrapped the small muslin bundle hastily, his hands shaking with anticipation as he removed its contents. He stared at it for a moment. The dwarf could not fathom whether his disbelief was born of pleasure or disgust until the ring finger went flying across the room, clattering off an unseen wall. “It is a very pretty ring, dwarf, but it is not the ring I asked for.”
“You wanted Mannfred dead,” said Kallad. “I made sure of it. I walked into the very heart of his damned castle and cut off his head while he sat on his stinking throne. That is his finger. That is his ring.”
“That was not his ring. You did not kill Mannfred. You killed Mannfred’s man.”
“What are you saying?”
“The Vampire Count is still at large, as is the damnable ring. You merely ensured he has one less decoy in the world, one less thrall willing to die for him.”
“You mean to say it was all for nothing?”
“Not nothing,” said Jerek and then a moment later, Yes, nothing.”
“I lost two dwarfs for that bloody ring!”
“Careless.”
“I consider this debt settled,” Kallad said.
Jerek moved in swiftly. “Know this, dwarf. I do not consider it settled. We had an agreement. If you do not deliver the right ring, I consider your life forfeit, and I will exact payment.”
There was nothing he could say to that. He trudged wearily back up the stairs to the taproom and determined to console himself with ale.
But Kallad had no taste for it.
He sat apart from his compatriots, nursing a tankard.
Then a hooded man he had never seen enter the bar spoke, “You look lost, dwarf.”
“What’s it to you, stranger, whether I am lost or found?” he demanded with suspicion. He couldn’t see the stranger’s face; the hood was drawn down so completely as to obscure it.
“I cannot linger, dwarf, but know that I have come to deliver a message.”
“Who the bloody hell are you?”
“Names are not important.” the stranger pulled back the hood to reveal aquiline features. Something about him seemed unreal, insubstantial. “I was with you when you fled Drakenhof. I was with you when you stumbled through the forest of bones’
“Well I didn’t see you. You could have lent us a hand!” Kallad grumbled sourly.
“There is little a carrion bird can do but watch. You acquitted yourself well.”
“What, by Valaya’s buttocks, are you talkin’ about, fella?”
There was so
mething not quite right about the stranger; he did not look human. He knew instinctively he was no vampire, but equally, he knew he was no man either. No, the more Kallad stared, the more he realised exactly what the stranger was: an elf.
“I don’t have much time, dwarf. I am not going to waste it explaining insignificant details to you. I am here to deliver a message. Know this, Kallad, son of Kellus, last dwarf of Karak Sadra: All of the Old World is in jeopardy. The life of every living creature hangs in the balance. The war with the undead wages still. It cannot be fought by man alone. The dwarf nation will determine whether the Old World as we know it stands or falls. That is your destiny, Kallad. That is the storm you were born to ward, Stormwarden, son of Kellus.”
“How do you know who I am, and who are you to tell me what my destiny is? Answer me, elf! And give me one good reason why I should believe a word out of yer treacherous mouth! Now!”
“The forces converge. You must away to Hel Fenn.”
Kallad launched forwards, clutching at the stranger’s cloak. It turned to rags in his hands and crumpled to the floor.
There was no sign of the stranger.
Across the room, Belamir and Cahgur roared with laugher. “Kallad’s drunk off his arse. He’s arguing with the curtains!”
Martin of Stirland held the higher ground.
His left flank was sheltered by forests and farmland, and to his right stood the ruins of an old stone fort. Ahead lay a raised track running parallel to the bottom of the hill. His position was strong, but it wasn’t perfect.
Martin von Kristallbach arrayed his artillery pieces across the crest of Thunder Ridge. Both cannon and mortar had good vantage over the approaching enemy. He did not want to risk a repeat of what Gothard’s Black Knights had attempted at Marienburg. He gave particular attention to supporting his flanks, which he did by installing brigades of his elite Ostland Black Guard under the aegis of Vorster Schlagener in hiding among the masonry of the ruined buildings. The vast bulk of his army, the infantry under the command of Ackim Brandt, the cavalry answering to Dietrich Jaeger, he kept hidden behind Thunder Ridge, while he stationed huntsmen and free companies out in plain sight, as his bait.
[Von Carstein 03] - Retribution Page 28
