Isaak shortened the distance between himself and the big man. “My comrades
were watering their horses by a stream, assuming we were safe from attack, when
your men came crashing through the woods towards them. Nothing to worry about,
they thought, they’re our allies. Then out came the swords and pistols, and a
dozen good souls were murdered, before they could even draw their blades!”
Isaak’s men followed him onto the small, circular ledge where Angelika had made
camp. She squeezed up against the rock, thinking of the long fall, should anyone
be shoved off. Franziskus had foolishly planted himself near an edge. She tried
to catch his eye, to beckon him away from it, but he was too intent on the two
angry men.
“I don’t know what happened,” Gelfrat conceded. “I was not at the fight
you’re talking about. All I know is that the border princes betrayed us, and had
to be shown the cost of that.”
“You don’t deny that they were basely slain, then?”
Gelfrat looked down on his adversary. “Do you deny that your men then
attacked one of our regiments, which was already taxed and wounded from fighting
the greenskin? That you slew them nearly to a man? Is that what you slimy
rodents call a fair fight?”
Isaak made fists. “That was just vengeance!”
“They weakened themselves battling the orcs—who aim to destroy us all—and
you took the chance to cut them down like stalks of wheat. I say our only error
was in not killing more of you!”
The pistolier gripped the polished oaken handles of his weapons. His eyes
parted ways: one pointed at Gelfrat, the other, at Benno. Angelika decided that
her hundred and twenty-five crowns were in jeopardy.
“How long have you been out on the trail, Isaak?” she said.
“Nearly a month. We were sent south, to recruit replacements for our fallen
friends.”
“These men were allowed to enter the Castello unmolested. Prince Davio could
have easily taken them hostage, or worse. It could be that he’s reconciled with
the Averlandish commander. You know how quickly allegiances shift, hereabouts.”
He sank the back of his left hand indecisively into the palm of his right.
“All things are possible in the Blackfire…”
“Perhaps then you should know for sure where Davio stands, before you wreak
any more vengeance for him. If he’s settled his dispute, he won’t be happy for
you to stir it up again.”
He stood thinking, his tongue working around the inside his mouth. After
taking a long pause, he said, “I will remain facing you, as will my comrade
Ivan, here.” He indicated the gunman. “The rest of my band will turn their backs
to you, and head down the trail. Then the two of us will follow. We will leave
your man as he is now, tied up. We’ll ride away, and you will not pursue us.”
“No doubt you’ve already stolen our horses,” said Benno. “So it’s an easy
promise to make.”
Isaak employed a dark-rimmed fingernail to pick at a morsel of food lodged
between his front teeth. “We don’t want to kill each other over mere horseflesh,
do we?”
Benno shook his head.
“If you do cross us,” Isaak continued, “we’ll grant you no mercy. Our numbers
equal yours, and we know this country better than you.”
“Be gone then,” Gelfrat said, “before your boasts fatally bore me.”
The border men executed their retreat as Isaak had said. Following Gelfrat’s
example, the Averlanders affected postures of varying disinterest. Gelfrat
studied his fingernails, as if contemplating their overdue annual cleaning.
As he turned to go, Isaak said, to Angelika, “You’ve saved your companions
from harm, but you must not trust them.”
Scornfully, Gelfrat cleared his throat. When he saw that Isaak and Ivan had
reached the slope below, he stepped towards the trail. Benno held him back. “Wait
till we see them ride off.”
“What if they stick a knife in Ekbert?”
“They’ll leave him for us to deal with.” A hardness had appeared on Benno’s
face, provoking a doubtful look from his half-brother.
“Vou don’t mean to—
Benno went to relieve himself against the big rock. His men took the same
opportunity. As they watered the boulder, Angelika cast a revolted look up into
the white-grey sky.
The faint sound of hoofbeats echoed up from the valley. Benno pulled at the
drawstring of his leggings, adjusted his codpiece, and headed down the path,
angrily kicking away the branches they’d laid down the night before. “It’s
fortunate that Angelika was with us, to hear them coming, or our bellies would
now gape open.” He spoke in a raised voice, but his nose pointed heavenward, so
it wasn’t clear who he was talking to. “Sigmar knows, it would be foolish to
expect an actual member of the company to execute my orders.”
“Do not take it out on poor old Ekbert,” Gelfrat said, in a pleading tone.
Angelika found it comically strange, coming from him. He bounded around the
soldier called Heinrich, who had been between the two brothers.
“The Black Field Sabres do not tolerate dereliction. You know that.”
“But Ekbert has been a Sabre since before we were born.”
“Discipline must be maintained,” replied Benno.
“For years, he rode at our father’s side!”
“And you know what father would demand, if he were here.”
Gelfrat hung his head. Angelika noticed a couple of the other soldiers
exchanging worried looks. This Ekbert had made little impression on her, and she
couldn’t see herself caring two hoots for his fate. Even so, she felt a certain
tautness above her breastbone.
They found Ekbert lying on his side, among the weeds and wildflowers. His
wrists were tied together, as were his ankles. Isaak’s men had taken the mule
and horses, as well as all the breastplates and helmets. Ekbert wriggled as the
company drew near, wheezing and puffing, his face slick with dew. Blades of
grass stuck to it. Benno stood over him, and wrinkled up his nose. The old
campaigner had soiled himself.
“Heinrich, untruss this goose,” Benno ordered. The younger soldier slunk
reluctantly up and sliced the thin, dirty cords that bound Ekbert’s wrists and ankles. He scuttled back as soon as he was
finished. Ekbert stayed down even after Heinrich had freed him. “I’m sorry,” he
burbled.
“I’ve never seen sorrier,” said Benno. He kicked him in the teeth. Gelfrat
flinched.
“Such are my just desserts,” Ekbert moaned. The kick had split his lip; he
bled onto his mutton-chops.
“You deserve far worse. We could all be dead now.
Get your fat carcass
up!”
Trembling, Ekbert heaved himself to his hands and knees. Gelfrat came to him,
stretching out an arm to grasp. Benno pushed it away. Ekbert tottered up on his
own.
Franziskus grabbed Angelika’s elbow. She looked down and saw that she’d had
her dagger an inch out of its scabbard. She shoved it back in. She nodded to
Franziskus. He let her go. His eyes were moist, she saw.
“This calls for thirty lashes,” Benno said. “If it were anyone else, it would
be Ekbert who’d administer the whipping. But in this case, the honour must fall
to his defender. Gelfrat?”
Gelfrat leaned back. “Benno, don’t—
“Lieutenant, the formality of the circumstance calls for you to refer to me
as lieutenant.” Benno turned to Heinrich and instructed him to retrieve the lash
from Ekbert’s pack.
A decision registered on Gelfrat’s face. He held out his hand to receive the
lash’s handle. He put his other hand on Ekbert’s shoulder. “Come over to that
log there,” he said, indicating the dark trunk of a fallen tree, its bark
riddled with lichen and round beige shelves of fungus. Ekbert moved to it with a
sleepwalker’s slowness. He removed his coat and shirt, draping them over the
log.
“Don’t stint,” Ekbert told Gelfrat. “Strike hard, and cleanse my debt of
honour.”
Angelika turned her back, to spare herself the sight of Ekbert’s punishment,
but there was no escaping his cries, or the sound of wet leather crackling into
his flesh.
With everyone now on foot, Angelika argued for a route that concealed them in
the hills. Benno insisted that they stick to the bottomlands, instead of
tramping through rocks and brambles. But then the sky began to rumble, and the
travellers could not be sure whether it was thunder, or the booming of orcish
war drums. They chose the hills.
Ekbert trudged with laboured steps; his coat hid the spreading blood that
glued the shirt to his back. Gelfrat kept by his side, to steady the old man if
needed. Angelika protected herself from the sight of this, and what it aroused
in her, by keeping to the head of the party, alongside Benno. In today’s grey
light, he didn’t look good from any angle.
About two hours into their journey, a drizzle started up. They took a
moment’s shelter beneath a tall and leafy oak; Gelfrat passed his wineskin.
Angelika took a sip, but it was rancid. She wished she’d thought to bring some
brandy.
“It won’t get any drier,” she said, watching the sky darken. They pushed on.
The rain grew heavier, soaking through their cloaks and tunics. Angelika spotted
a small cave, and they all squeezed into it. Soon after they had arranged
themselves inside, spears of sunlight broke through the clouds, and the rain resolved
itself into a mist. Angelika reached out a hand, and declared it time to move
on. Benno plodded after her without comment, his soldiers trailing behind him.
When there were about three hours of light left in the day, Angelika stopped
to peer up at the mountaintops. Landmarks were scarce here; one section of the
pass looked pretty much like any other.
“I think I recognise that peak there, with the cleft in the middle,” she
said. “If I’m right, we’ve got about a league left to go.” She increased her
pace, thinking of the best spot to hide her pay. She’d decided that these
Averlanders were bad men—same as any men—but they would not try to cheat
her. She kept an eye for a trail leading down into the valley, finding one about
fifteen minutes into her search. She stopped to listen: she heard birdsong and a
light wind playing on tree branches. Satisfied that it was safe to descend to
open ground, she whistled a warning to the men behind her and took the path
down. It was a light trail, most likely made by boars or deer. Midway along, she
surprised a fat marmot, grey with a brown ruff at the back of its neck. It sat
up and shrieked angrily at her, but did not think to run until she stamped her
foot at it.
“We could have eaten that,” Gelfrat said.
“Are we here to dine on marmot, or recover your brother’s bones?”
She reached the flat terrain of the valley floor and looked around to orient
herself. For many hundreds of yards, lightly forested slopes, dotted with
boulders and stones, gradually gave way to level scrubland, which extended all
the way across the valley to the hills and mountains on the pass’ opposite
side. She saw a curtain of rock ahead. Angelika kept walking, skirting the
grade, until she saw a place where the mountain rock descended to the valley, in
a sheer curtain of crumbling limestone at least forty feet high. A recently
fallen slab of stone lay at its feet, others teetered up on the cliffs edge.
Angelika knew this spot; it was her landmark.
“How much further?” asked Gelfrat.
“We’re there,” she said. She walked, hugging the cliff wall, until she stopped
at the edge of a bowl-shaped depression. It was an old sinkhole filled in by soil washed down from the hills. New
spruces, few of them higher than six feet tall, competed for space along its
slopes. Angelika waded into them, parting the young trees.
“Wait,” yelled Benno, from the sinkhole’s edge. “This is it?”
“Yes,” said Angelika, continuing down into the thickly massed spruces.
“When you first came upon this place—how did you know where to look?” asked
the Averlandish officer, placing a tentative boot over the depression’s edge. “I
see only trees.”
“In the same way I find any fresh battle,” she called back. “I followed the
crows.”
She heard the sound of spruce needles brushing against cloth: Benno, Gelfrat
and the others had descended and were wading through the trees. Something
crunched under her boot. She lifted up the sole: she’d stepped on a finger bone,
snapping it. “We’re here!”
She couldn’t remember exactly where she’d picked up the emblem, except that
it had been in a patch of muddy, treeless ground. As she slipped between
spruces, her toe hit a skull, making it roll over. She dropped to her knees and
set it respectfully next to its ribcage, which lay nearby and wore torn
black-and-yellow. Angelika could hear that some of the others were close by.
“How will we recognise your brother?” she called. “Or do you mean to haul
back all your comrades?”
“Officer’s cuffs have gold threading!” Benno shouted. He seemed to be over to
her left. “Failing that, we’ll judge by the boots. They were buckled in gold.
Their heels bear the mark of Grenzstadt’s best cobbler!”
Angelika ducked down to finger the cuffs of the skeleton at her feet. They
seemed ordinary enough. She thought it impolitic to mention that she’d taken the
gold buckles from a pair of boots, and sold them. If she could remember where
she’d found that particular haul, she’d have Claus’ remains… She closed her
eyes, trying to picture the moment. She’d sat on a large, bench-shaped stone
while she’d pried the buckles loose from the boots, and it hadn’t been too far
from where she’d laid hands on them. “Look for a boulder, flat enough to sit
on!” she shouted.
“Like this?” Franziskus called. She tracked the sound of his voice, parting
trees until she found him. He was by the stone, and kneeling over a tunic, which
lay in the midst of a pile of scattered bones. Wolves had been at it, or wild
pigs, perhaps.
She stood and waved her arms above her head. She could see the top of
Gelfrat’s head, poking up over the trees around him. “Over here!” she
proclaimed. Gelfrat crashed over to her. After examining her discovery from a
distance, he unhooked the scabbard from his belt and used it to jab tentatively
at the skull, and tunic. Benno appeared. Gelfrat used the scabbard to lift the
ripped and bloodied shirt, and held it up before him. Benno took it and
stretched it out. The garment was large; its wearer had been nearly as big as
Gelfrat. Benno checked the cuffs.