Ledner opened the oil valve on the lamp so the flame burned at its fiercest. He took the map and poked one corner in through the shutter.
“What are you doing?” Karlich reached out for the parchment, which was already burning, but Ledner seized his wrist in a grip as strong as a serpent’s jaws.
“You remember the location on the map, the low hills, the mid-point between Prince Wilhelm’s route?” He sniffed scornfully. “Of course you do. A man like you, sergeant, would have seared it into his mind. Am I right?”
Karlich backed down. He nodded slowly and Ledner released him so he could continue burning the map. The flames seemed to fill his eyes, revealing a dark glint in the pupils. When he was done reducing the parchment to charred fragments, he turned his gaze back on Karlich.
“A plot against the prince that comes from within his very camp,” said Ledner. “No one is to be trusted, sergeant. You shouldn’t even have trusted me but then you had little choice in the matter since you had to do something. No one else can know of this—no one. If word slipped out of an assassination plot against the prince, by his own court no less, two things would certainly happen. Our killer would realise his plan was compromised and change it, thus denying us the opportunity to stop him. Furthermore, this campaign, the Empire itself, would be thrown into even greater turmoil. We are divided enough as it is without talk of assassination within our own ranks. What do you think would happen next? Electors, barons, earls, they’d be even more paranoid than they are now. Instead of one assassin, you would have hundreds.” Ledner breathed deeply, as if making up his mind. “Stahler cannot know,” he said. “But here is what you’ll do. Fetch your men, the other four who saw the body, and bring them here to me.”
“Why? What do you plan to do?” asked Karlich, forgetting his place for a moment.
“Other than finding out who ordered the contract on the prince, I am not going to do anything. You however will be responsible for stopping this assassin.”
Karlich was already shaking his head when Ledner interrupted him.
“This must not get out. Be very clear on this. So far, the only ones who know of it are you, your men and I. Keep it that way or risk far more than the death of a beloved prince.” Ledner waved a finger at him. The glint in his eye returned. “Civil war, sergeant, just like in the old days.”
Karlich still wasn’t convinced.
“There must be those better equipped than us to deal with this matter.”
“Yes, of course there are,” said Ledner, “but we’ve been over this. The fewer people who know, remember?”
“Sigmar be damned,” muttered Karlich, and knew they had no choice. A trained killer against him and seven of his men. Were it not for Brand, he wouldn’t have liked the odds.
“Halberds are hardly made for stealth,” Karlich added.
“Get your men, bring them here. I will have weapons waiting,” Ledner told him. “You can use a pistol?” he asked.
Karlich nodded.
“Anyone else?”
Volker raised a hand, as Masbrecht shook his head.
Ledner’s eyes went to Brand, who had watched the whole affair intently from the darkness.
“Oh, I bet you can use one. I bet you’re no stranger to having blood on your hands, are you?” The spymaster’s smile was almost venomous.
Brand never moved.
Ledner looked as if he was about to say something else to him, but he turned his attention back on Karlich.
“The prince will make his return in just over a day. You need to be in those hills and root out the killer before the prince reaches them.” He doused the lantern, plunging the room back into darkness. “Go,” he added, sitting down again. “Weapons will be waiting for you.”
Karlich didn’t know what else to say. He turned on his heel, glad to be leaving the counting house and Ledner behind.
* * *
Eight Grimblades left the town of Mannsgard just before dusk, armed with short swords and bucklers. Three men also carried pistols. Ledner had met them at the counting house and told them to wait until night was approaching to make their way out. Patrols were not that uncommon at the end of the day and their presence would barely raise an eyebrow amongst the watchmen and gate guards. By way of a parting gift, Ledner provided fur-lined cloaks for them all. Without the sun to warm them and few trees and valleys to shield against the wind, the plains would be bitterly cold after dark.
They were to travel on foot, a journey that would take the entire night and most of the next morning. Ledner reasoned that the prince and his Griffonkorps would likely ride from Pfeildorf at dawn, bringing them to the assassination site—the hilly valley denoted at the map—no earlier than late morning. The Grimblades had to find the assassin and kill him before then. They’d be cutting it fine.
Without the crackle of a fire for company, it felt eerie on the grassy heath. Some of the Grimblades huddled together against a harsh wind, as it tossed their cloaks about, trying to work them free with its chill fingers. The fur lining might as well be soaked through for all the protection it offered; blowing from the east, the wind was like daggers shearing through their clothes. It brought the smell of burning meat with it from the huge ritual pyres erected by the orcs. It wasn’t animal in origin; the stench was human.
“If I imagine a fire, will that warm me?” said Rechts. He was shivering more than the others, a grey pallor affecting his face.
“Aye, and draw fewer greenskins and other beasts to our camp than a real fire,” Karlich replied with a scowl. He nursed a pipe in his hands, taking care to shelter the small flame.
“Wish I was still drunk,” Rechts muttered.
“Perhaps if you’d stayed sober you wouldn’t feel the cold so much,” snapped the sergeant. He was starting to lose his patience. They all were.
Since leaving Mannsgard that evening, the men had said little to one another. Each had his mind on his thoughts and the awful truth that someone within the Empire, within their camp, was plotting to kill Prince Wilhelm. Worse still, they were the ones supposed to prevent it. Karlich, for one, didn’t appreciate the burden. He’d noticed something cruel in Ledner’s eyes when he’d sent them off. The spymaster didn’t expect them all to return.
What are men like us to men like him, he thought bitterly? Just fodder for his schemes and lies.
A low howl from the distant hills to the south startled them. Volker turned quickly, soothing Dog who had been lying beside him but was now on his feet and growling. He made out a silhouette on the far away hills, of a beast prowling the moors near the Wissenland border. All men of the Aver had heard tales of the balewolf. It was a legend spun by housewives and bored soldiers. The Grimblades had listened to a veteran piker tell it in Mannsgard. Now it came back to haunt them with the shadows, real or imagined, on the wind-tossed grasslands of the wild.
“Easy boy,” he murmured, using the tone of his voice to quieten the mastiff. Volker blinked and the silhouette was gone, like a wisp of smoke carried off by the breeze.
“Good dog…” said Lenkmann, reaching over to pat the mutt’s head. He snatched his hand away when Dog snapped at him, fangs bared.
“Not really,” Volker replied with a smile. The moon was high overhead, revealed through scudding cloud, and it cast his face in a sinister light. “It means no offence. Just knows its master.”
Lenkmann mumbled something before planting his hands firmly back inside his cloak.
Volker tickled Dog under the chin and the savage beast growled appreciatively before licking the salt off his fingers.
“It scents evil,” said Brand. He was sitting a little way back from the circle of men, who turned suddenly at the sound of his voice. “Can’t you smell it, too?”
Masbrecht made the sign of Sigmar and watched the darkness where the beast had been with fearful eyes.
“Smell what?” asked Eber. Of all the Grimblades, the big Reiklander appeared least troubled by the cold. The layers of muscle obviously made for
good insulation.
“Orc spore. It’s thick.”
Now they all smelled it, coming from the east on the same breeze that brought the reek of burning meat. Orange smudges blighted that part of the horizon from the villages and towns still ablaze. Men and women would be burning. Some might have fled if they were lucky. Perhaps the fell beasts of the wild had easier prey that night than the Grimblades.
Overhead, there came the flapping of wings and a shadow passed over them like a curse. Every man, even Brand, flattened to the ground and didn’t look up again until the shadow was gone.
“We all saw that, right?” asked Volker, wanting to be convinced he wasn’t just hallucinating.
Keller nodded meekly. Like in the barn, he’d kept his eyes on the ground for most of the journey, using whoever was in front of him as a guide. No one questioned him about it. They all knew something had happened to him since Blosstadt. Only he and Brand knew the truth.
“It was the shaman and his wyvern,” said Karlich, trying to slow his racing heartbeat.
Keller’s teeth were chattering, and not from the cold. Masbrecht was muttering a prayer of warding under his breath. The others just huddled, trying to look as small as possible. Even Brand was shaken. If this was the effect that the creature caused hundreds of feet away, up in the air, then how could men face it on the battlefield? It only made Wilhelm’s victory at the Brigund Bridge, when he had driven the beast and its master off, all the more impressive. It also convinced Karlich that they had to save this man, that without him they would surely fail. He’d been right in the tent all those days ago: men like Wilhelm were greater than he, capable of doing great things.
Several minutes passed before they felt comfortable enough to return to the circle. No one spoke of the wyvern again, nor did they look in the direction of its heading if they could help it. In the end, it was Rechts who broke the fearful silence.
“What are we doing out here, sergeant?”
It was a valid question, one Karlich had asked himself several times already. But it wasn’t what Rechts really meant. What he really meant was: why us? Karlich’s answer, as he’d already told himself, was simple.
“Our duty to prince and province,” he said.
“To Ledner, you mean. That bastard doesn’t care if we live or die. He probably hopes we don’t survive.” Rechts was emboldened by his anger, grateful to it for smothering his fear. “And if we succeed? What then? What recompense will we get?”
Karlich was tiring of the drummer’s belligerence. He knew he was only scared, just like the rest of them. But this wasn’t helping.
“Nothing! We get nothing, save the knowledge that we prevented the murder of our liege-lord and prince,” he snapped. “Is that not enough? It should be enough.”
Rechts bowed his head, shamed.
“Aye, I thought so,” muttered Karlich and instantly regretted it.
After that the rest of the night without incident, but it was long and uncomfortable, filled with the shadows of monsters and the howl of wolves.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
GHOSTS
Averland plains,
411 miles from Altdorf
The dawn brought little comfort for the Grimblades, despite the rising sun. It had yet to warm the plains or their aching bones. Breath still ghosted the air. It came out in white gusts as Karlich had coughed and wheezed. They’d slept sitting up, and there was nothing to pack, though Lenkmann had leaned over onto Eber’s shoulder and was profoundly embarrassed when he woke.
“Didn’t even buy him a drink!” Rechts had chortled with uncommon good humour. He’d obviously slept off the booze at last.
Brand had stayed awake all night. Volker, who’d been the first up, would later say how he rose to find the cold eyes of the man regarding him through the twilit mist. Volker didn’t stay to chat. In minutes he was gone, scouting off into the distance with Dog.
Few words were exchanged when the others stirred and began to move. No one felt like talking after a harrowing night. It was a while trudging through the long grasses before the grim silence was lifted.
“Who would want to kill the prince?” asked Eber, unaware of the sour mood and more out of exasperation than any desire to actually know. “I can’t understand it.”
“All political figures have enemies, Brutan,” Lenkmann replied. “Wilhelm is no different. It could be one of a hundred or more men.”
“It’s poor timing,” muttered Keller, his displeasure at the mission currently outweighing his other “concerns”.
“So there’s a good time to try and kill a prince of Altdorf?” asked Karlich. He looked towards the sun, gauging its position and therefore the time. By his reckoning, they had maybe three hours before the prince could arrive at the valley. The pace suddenly didn’t feel fast enough. “Hurry it up,” he said, eyes front, hoping to see Volker. The huntsman was still ranging ahead with the mutt, keeping them away from any greenskins that might be roaming nearby, and leading them to the hills. His last report had been some time ago.
“When his back is turned and his guard is down,” said Brand to the sergeant’s first comment.
Karlich scowled at the dry humour, finding it inappropriate.
“I wish Varveiter were here,” said Lenkmann, to Karlich’s right. “We could use his wisdom now.”
“Aye, he might’ve been canny enough for us to get us out of this shitheap we currently find ourselves in,” said Rechts, his humour fleeting.
Masbrecht looked affronted. “Saving a prince is an honour, brother. It is Sigmar’s work we go to do this day.”
Rechts was livid. “He calls me ‘brother’ one more time and it won’t be Wilhelm’s assassin you’ll be stopping.”
“Shut up, Rechts,” snapped Karlich. “Whatever it is between the two of you, deal with it. This is the most important deed you’ll ever do in your entire life, don’t wreck it,” he warned, before turning his anger on Masbrecht. “And you. Save the sermons. You know he doesn’t like it. Not all of us are willing converts.” He wanted to say more, but saw Volker running back towards them.
“Just beyond the next rise,” he said. “The land slopes downward and lifts again to a set of hills. That must be the place.”
“You sure?” asked Karlich.
“As I can be. The map was quite well detailed and there are few hills in Averland, especially so close to the road.”
“Makes you wonder why the prince came this way at all,” said Lenkmann. “A valley is a good place for an ambush.”
“The road is the most direct route, I suppose,” said Karlich, “but who’s to say the prince even chose it.”
None of it really mattered. The morning sun was high and its rays were creeping steadily across the plains. Time was running out.
Cresting the rise, the Grimblades had the sloping plain laid out below them. A short distance and the flat land rose up again, the road bending with it, and there were the hills. Strewn with rocks, hollows and wild bracken, it was a rugged place full of shadows. “Lots of places to hide,” observed Volker.
They came at the hills from an oblique angle, ever watchful for movement, keeping the sun behind them all the way.
“He’ll be up high,” added Brand, “probably with a bow or harquebus. He’ll want to kill the prince from a distance, so he doesn’t have to fight his Griffonkorps.”
“So we’re looking for a marksman, then,” said Karlich. “Perhaps we’ll be able to stop him, after all.”
“A marksman, yes,” said Brand. “And a swordsman and a knife-wielder, and a pugilist. Assassins are killers. They’re trained well in the art. Don’t make the mistake of thinking just because he wants to shoot the prince that he can’t execute him, or us, in ten or more other ways.”
Yet again, Karlich felt a cold shiver but couldn’t deny the sense in what Brand was saying. He decided to change tack.
“He could be anywhere, behind any rock, hunkered down in any hollow, hidden in the long grasses or crouched
upon any ridge, as still as the earth,” said Karlich. “We root him out before the prince gets here. He cannot know of it. To do so would mean this whole dirty business gets out and, alive or dead, the prince and his cohorts can’t ignore it. You heard Ledner—the Empire would fracture under the strain. We’d have civil war.”
Karlich eyed his men and felt a surge of pride, even for Keller who he considered a bastard of the highest order.
“We’re not assassins or spies; we’re just men, soldiers of the Empire who face a difficult duty. This is an enemy like any other. At Blosstadt you gave me your resolve, at the Brigund Bridge your courage. Now I ask for cunning. Find this whoreson, stop him and stay alive into the bargain.”
He allowed a short pause to think, how in Sigmar’s name did we ever get here? and then deferred to Volker, who knew the ways of hunting better than any of them.
“We split into pairs, four groups, one compass direction each. Start wide and move in slowly. Stay low and keep your eyes open. Chances are, he’s already in there, waiting.”
“Sobering thought,” muttered Rechts.
“Just as well, where you’re concerned,” said Karlich, before addressing his men. “No heroics,” he said, looking at Brand in particular. “Find him, signal your comrades and we’ll silence this cur together without our blood being spilled to do it. Faith in Sigmar,” he added.
The Grimblades echoed him, all except for Rechts.
“And Morr be damned,” said Karlich to himself, trudging down towards the road where the hills loomed with quiet menace.
Eight against one. So, why did it feel like they were the prey?
Up close the hills were vast, easily sprawling a half mile either side and along the road. They dipped, rose and undulated as if in a pact with the assassin to frustrate the Grimblades’ search. Patches of scree and loose rocks made the ground treacherous. There were small ravines and caves. Crags and sheltered gullies were everywhere. Each and every nook had to be searched. Other creatures might lurk along the hillsides. It wasn’t unknown for trolls or even larger beasts to make their lairs in such places. Keller, for one, hoped that wouldn’t be the case.
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