03 - Liar's Peak

by Robin D. Laws - (ebook by Undead)

  Jonas moved to his skittish mount, clucking soothingly at it. He hauled himself up onto the stirrup and, caressing the horse’s neck, impelled it forward, toward his men. “Stand down!” he called. “Do not pursue.” The men regarded him with obvious relief, then watched as the barbarians dispersed. A few, bolting from burning homes, were trapped, brought down and slaughtered by furious townsmen. Dozens more escaped. Within minutes, the surviving Chaos troops were gone, each routing in his own random direction.

  Emil led the Gerolsbruch Swordsmen in tending to their dead and wounded. A pair of swordsmen had been killed, along with the two archers whose heads the chieftain had taken.

  Worried halflings gathered around Deely, who lay prone near the rubble pile. The right sleeve had been ripped from Curran’s shirt and wrapped around his brother’s torn throat. It was already stained through with bright arterial blood. Filch was at his brother’s side, too. Deely tried to raise himself up on his elbows to speak to him, then sank back down.

  Angelika ventured from her hiding place and Franziskus hobbled over to join her.

  “Wounded?” she asked him.

  He shook his head. “Tired.”

  “Let’s go.”

  “Shouldn’t we at least—”

  “I’d prefer to subject my execution to a permanent postponement.”

  “That was before you saved their village, Angelika.”

  “If you want to count on their forgiveness, you’re free to stay. I’m going.” She clenched her fists, Jonas was approaching. An unobtrusive exit would not be possible until she’d shaken him.

  He stood beside Angelika. Together they watched as a grey-bearded village healer dribbled a thick brown potion onto Deely’s resistant lips. “You see the dangers now,” said Jonas.

  “I was never unacquainted with them.”

  “You must help us. We must stop more of these barbarians from crossing the mountains.”

  “I’m no soldier.”

  “Soldiers I have already. It’s your services I require, Angelika.”

  “No.”

  “You dealt ably with that chieftain.”

  “I wouldn’t be able to repeat that trick up in the mountains.”

  “You’ve more tricks than that, I’ll warrant.”

  “My answer remains no.” She indicated the rubble pile. “Maybe you should move some of those bricks and make sure that chieftain is truly dead.”

  “He could not possibly be alive under there.”

  Angelika shrugged. “I wouldn’t want to be in this village if you’re wrong. He seems likely to bear a grudge.”

  “By the by,” she said, raising her voice so that the townsmen gathered around Deely could hear, “how is it that the barbarians arrived here so quickly after you did? It isn’t possible, is it, that you led them here?”

  Heads turned their way. Jonas flushed. “Of course not,” he said.

  “So you saw no enemy marauders on your way here?”

  Emil, along with others of the Gerolsbruch Swordsmen, came near, attracted by the rising edge in Angelika’s voice. The disquiet on their faces was plain: her guess was right. They’d encountered Chaos forces, who’d followed them to Hochsmoor.

  “We did not,” said Jonas.

  “Then they were able to follow you completely undetected.”

  Villagers drifted nearer, among them, the gaunt knife-man. Franziskus attempted to interpose himself between Angelika and Jonas; she moved to prevent him.

  Jonas spoke soothingly. “It is not seemly to argue now. We faced a common foe. Working together, we drove it off. That is what counts.”

  “The truth is,” said Angelika, “that these folk might not have had to drive it off, were it not for your lack of caution.”

  “No,” said Jonas, punctuating his exclamation with a snap of his cloak. “What is true is that we are at war. Against an enemy who hates all that we stand for, and wishes harm to all of us. You of Hochmoor have fought gloriously today, and brought defeat to that common adversary. Again, I say, it is time for loyal sons of Stirland to step forward, to join us as we journey to the mountains, to staunch the flow of barbarian foemen.”

  “Join you?” The gaunt man pointed his knife at Jonas. “Your soldiers have brought us nothing but disaster.” His bloodied friends murmured their assent.

  “Our homes are aflame,” an old woman cried.

  “Imagine your fate if we hadn’t been here to protect you.”

  “The grave robber’s not right, is she?” asked the gaunt man. “You couldn’t have led them here, to a defenceless village, its best fighters already slain on your godforsaken battleground.” He advanced on Jonas, brandishing his weapon.

  Jonas’ swordsmen had casually encircled him, and now closed tighter, to defend him. They pushed past Angelika, leaving her outside the stiffening jostle. Angelika inched crabwise, toward a promising route of escape.

  “Listen to me!” Jonas called. “Are you cowards, or are you Stirlanders? You are Stirlanders, are you not? Is that not the important truth?”

  His ardour increased. “You are right to protest the injustice of war. But it’s the wretched enemy you must blame for the harm done to you today. Are we such fools that we’ll allow him to divide us?”

  Angelika’s estimation of his oratorical skills, already high, increased by yet another degree. Already he had the distrustful, grief-maddened villagers at least halfway swayed. It was time for Angelika to speed her exit. Franziskus would have to shift for himself. He could find her later, or join Jonas, if he preferred. They were due to part, anyhow.

  A halfling voice threw a declamatory obstacle in Jonas’ path. “If you led them here, tell us the truth, and we’ll forgive you.” It was Filch, Angelika realised. He seemed to think he was being helpful. Angelika was almost tempted to stay, just to see how it all turned out.

  Angelika found herself at the rubble pile. She looked at it uncertainly. The corpse of the chieftain’s steed still lay on it. There was no sign of the barbarian leader beneath it—not a leg, not a protruding hand. No way of being sure he was dead. The stones were heavy, but the Kurgan had been well-armoured. Despite Jonas’ certitude, he might still be breathing under there.

  “It pains me to say it, Filch,” came Jonas’ reply. “But do we know for sure it was not you and your brothers who were followed here?”

  The crowd hummed its horror at this unthinkable suggestion. There was no truth to it: if Chaos had been on their trail during the trek to Hochmoor, Angelika would have noticed.

  She froze. One of the bricks seemed to shift.

  “Deely’s dead,” Curran ran toward her, from the side, blinded by tears. He had his spear out.

  “Stay back,” Angelika cried. “The barbarian—”

  “If it weren’t for you, he’d be alive.” Curran came at her from her right, occupying her chosen path out of the village. Behind her was the rubble pile, which she had no desire to interfere with. If she ran ahead, she’d be right back in the crowd. She ran to the left, toward the treacherous fortress walls.

  Curran hurled his spear; it came at her as she wove between gaps in the wall. She skipped left to avoid it, her shoulder grazing the still-extant part of the wall she’d toppled. Stones barraged down onto her head and shoulders. Her chin hit the ground and her vision blurred. Before she lost consciousness, small, angry fists were grabbing her hair, pounding her skull against the stony ground.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Her beating and rescue swam before her in flashes of dulled, fragmented awareness. The halfling was on her, a tenacious daemon crawling on her back, hurting her, shrieking into her ear. Voices chorused: an audience to watch her downed and brutalised. The daemon was lifted from her back, screeching, demanding blood in the disconcerting voice of a child. There were blows struck, not against her, but against him. His face fell in the dirt before her, a soldier’s boot at the back of his neck, holding him in place as he sputtered and jigged. Crimson trickled from his scalp; his cheeks puffed ou
t in impotent fury. More contending voices: the villagers arguing with the soldiers. Jonas placating. Unfamiliar voices demanding. Swords unsheathed. A hush—the quiet that precedes a fight. The delicate tread of boots on gravel, men shifting positions, preparing to spring.

  Lower voices, full of threat. A stand-off. A resolution. A falling-off of tension. Negotiations.

  Angelika lifted up into the air. Droplets falling on her lips. Tasting them: blood, presumably her own.

  Trying to walk. Unable to do it. A familiar smell nearby: Franziskus’ hair. He was carrying her on his shoulders. Someone else holding her up from the right. Jonas?

  Lifted up further. Bonds tying her in place. Breathing shallowly. Her vision labouring to unblur. The rhythm of her own breathing, against that of another creature. Lying against the neck of a horse. Tied into the saddle. They had her on a horse. Her pulse, against its. Calmness, blackness.

  She was being taken into safety, and also danger.

  Jonas had rescued her from the villagers.

  Jonas had taken her prisoner.

  She was going to the mountains.

  Jonas and Franziskus walked together beside the horse that bore Angelika along. The Gerolsbruch Swordsmen marched toward the World’s Edge Mountains, Emil in the lead. Hochmoor was only an hour behind them. Jonas had allowed himself to straggle back from the pack, though not so far that he and Franziskus could not rejoin the column should enemies crash suddenly into view. The soldiers trudged along a wide and treeless plain, far from the threat of ambush.

  Franziskus checked Angelika’s condition. He’d replaced her head bandage twice already. Unlike the others, this one had remained white and pristine. He wondered whether he should wake her for water, and decided not to.

  “Not nearly as bad as she looks,” Jonas said. He was only a few years older than Franziskus, but addressed him with an air of confident seniority. “She’ll be up before we know it. Mostly shock, I think.”

  Franziskus walked closer to the horse to check on Angelika’s condition. He’d be happier if they found a safe, stationary place for her to rest. “I was afraid she wouldn’t stop bleeding.”

  “Scalp injury,” shrugged Jonas. “They always look worse than they are. Plenty of blood, but the wound’s superficial.” Franziskus had stood over while the unit’s medic stitched her; it was true that the cut was much smaller than he’d imagined.

  “I hope you’re right. Head injuries can fool you.”

  “Unfurrow your worried brows. That hot-headed halfling may have bashed her around some, but I got to him before he did any real harm.”

  Franziskus winced. Jonas had probably broken several of Curran’s ribs when he threw him down. Though naturally glad to see him pulled away from Angelika, Franziskus was nonetheless twinged by a residual sympathy for the poor fellow. He’d lost his best friend, and his brother, too. If Franziskus had got to Curran first, he wouldn’t have hurt him so badly. But then, Jonas did what needed doing. Any injuries the halfling had suffered were ultimately of his own making.

  “Franziskus, I’ll be frank with you. The simple truth of it is that your friend will be assisting us in our mission. Make it easy on her. Help her to see the way.”

  Franziskus grimaced. “I don’t see how you intend to get her into those mountains if she doesn’t want to go.”

  Jonas spoke softly. “That’s your job, my friend.”

  “Why do you think you need her so badly?”

  “I know it, because my commander ordered me to find someone like her, and there she is, right before me. The gods have provided. Surely you have faith, Franziskus?”

  “Yes. Sigmar will deliver us. But I suggest you not use that argument on Angelika.”

  “The gods may bind the godless to their cause.”

  “Especially don’t say that.”

  Jonas laughed, though Franziskus had not been joking. “You’re a Stirlander,” he said.

  Franziskus couldn’t deny it, his accent gave him away.

  “Like me, you come from a pedigreed family.”

  Unwanted emotion choked at him. “I have lost any claim on a noble name,” he said.

  “Maybe we’ve even met before. When we were children, perhaps?”

  Franziskus shrugged.

  “Which unit did you desert from, Franziskus?”

  He buttoned his coat, as if torn by a chill wind. “If you wish to bring me up on charges, the articles of military justice of course permit you to do so.”

  The lieutenant’s hand appeared on his shoulder. “You’re here, aren’t you? Fighting when it counts.”

  “As a warrior for the Empire, I’ve proven myself of little use. Instead, lieutenant, I’ve adopted a narrower goal—the aid of a single person, who protected me when there was no one else to do it.”

  “We are peers, Franziskus. Honour me by referring to me as Jonas.”

  “You spoke very eloquently to those townsfolk back there, Jonas.”

  “You think me a silvertongue? A dissembler?”

  “I wouldn’t say that. But you look quickly into a man’s heart and plumb there for ascendancy.”

  Now Jonas chuckled. “Your meaning eludes me, Franziskus.”

  “You can tell I yearn for the respect of a man like you. A leader of soldiers. A hero of the black and yellow. So I’ll warn you—the more I argue your cause, the more Angelika will resist. On my clumsy lips, any call to virtue or sacrifice seems absurdly naive.”

  “I suspect you’ve more influence over her than you know.”

  “You haven’t seen us together much.”

  Jonas’ voice dropped down into the conspiratorial registers. “You aren’t the first man to ever doubt himself, Franziskus. I might look to you like a great hero or somesuch, but this is my first command. And I tell you, I will not allow myself to fail. You agree that the enemy force—that which we cannot name—it must be vanquished, yes?”

  “Without question.”

  “You saw how unprotected that village was, from even a few stray marauders. If there’s a second wave of enemies about to swarm down those mountains, and you have the power to stop them, then you must. Yes?”

  “If I could, yes, I would.”

  “Well, Franziskus, we can, together. With your friend’s help. And if what you say is right, that you can’t secure that help, well then you must do your bit to advise me. Yes?”

  A vague nausea swept through the blond deserter. “She won’t do it. She’d sooner slash her own throat than follow an order. Nothing matters to her more than her freedom.”

  “That will mean nothing if the Empire falls.”

  “Here’s what she’ll say to that: that ever since it was founded, twenty-five hundred years ago, the Empire has been falling, and it’s nowhere nearer to hitting the ground than it ever was.”

  “She’s wrong. Never have we been more besieged.”

  “If there is a fact she does not wish to hear, she will not hear it. By the end of the argument, she may have you convinced you’re wrong. That up is down, and the sun rises in the north each afternoon.”

  “It would require a certain contrariness, to live as she does.”

  Franziskus nodded vigorously. “You don’t know the half of it.”

  “She loots graves for a living?”

  “Battlefields only. She lives by a strict credo. Never does she rob from the living. Nor will she kill, except in self-defence.”

  “That will pose us no difficulty. The moment you meet him, any Kurgan warrior will give you ample reason to kill him. How long has she plied this trade of hers?”

  “I’m not sure. She was quite experienced when I met her, nearly two years ago now.”

  “It can’t be a lucrative profession.”

  “You’d be surprised at the wealth soldiers carry with them.”

  “You take a share of this money?”

  “She has offered it but I refuse, always. Though I am still a little tainted: sometimes she pays for my lodging and food, with the gold
she’s earned.”

  “She fritters away the rest on drink? On other amusements?”

  “She’s no wastrel.” Franziskus blurted the words a bit curtly. He took a breath, to tamp down his growing anger.

  “I meant no offence. And surely it takes a kind of bravery, to do what she does. Sometimes the dead are less so than they at first appear.”

  “Or they have angry relatives,” said Franziskus. “I’ve begged and pleaded with her to stop, you know.” He looked to Jonas for a response, but the lieutenant simply waited for him to continue. “And she’s retiring, finally.”

  “So you do hold sway over her, after all.”

  “It’s nothing I said. To that I can attest. But now she’s left the Blackfire, and—she’s already admitted it, the attempt to loot up here in Stirland was a foolish, greedy error. We were about to part ways. Jonas, you can’t drag her off to war. I won’t have her put in danger again, now that she’s at last decided to live a quiet life.”

  “You fear fate’s cruelty?”

  “The gods are too fond of irony. Now that she seeks safety, that’s when they’ll strike her down.”

  “The gods are on our side, Franziskus.”

  “Let her rest up, then go on her way.” Franziskus seized the lieutenant by the sleeve. “I’ll go in her place. I’ve learned my way around crags and forests. I implore you, Jonas, don’t make her go with you.”

  Jonas patted Franziskus’ hand as he detached it from his arm. “I’ll ask her to come. I won’t force her, I give you my word on that. If it’s gold she craves, I can offer it.”

  “She doesn’t need any more—” Franziskus cut himself off.

  “She has all the wealth she needs?”

  “She has given up this life.” Franziskus’ ears burned. He looked over at Angelika. She seemed to be stirring. He dashed to her side, then took a canteen from the horse’s saddlebag to wet a cloth. He pressed it gently to her cheeks. Her eyes opened.

  “I’m going to kill that halfling,” she said, and fell back into her wounded slumber.