“The world is large,” he replied at length. “In truth, he could be anywhere.”
“We’ll pick up the trail again,” Bruno said, firmly. “There’ll be clues,
somewhere. He can’t hide from us, not forever.”
Stefan Kumansky leant back eyes closed, and tugged fingers through hair that
had grown long and matted over weeks of travel. There would be clues, there had
already been clues. Too many clues, that was the problem. Too many trails, like
this one that had carried them east from Kislev back into the Empire. Too many
trails leading nowhere, going cold.
Across the border in Kislev they had fought a war—he, Bruno and the
countless others who had taken arms against the dark armies of Chaos. Erengrad
had been saved, the forces of light had prevailed over the darkness. That should
have been the end, but fate had offered an unexpected and unwelcome twist to the
tail of their adventure. Alexei Zucharov had been amongst the bravest and
strongest of their comrades at Erengrad. One of the first to lead the line, and
the last to quit the battle. Zucharov had left the field alive, but not
unscathed. Greed had found a weakness, a way to harm him where his enemies could
not. The golden band upon the body of the Chaos knight had been too much to
resist. Alexei had stripped it from the body as a prize, a trophy of war. In
that moment, Stefan feared, the poisons of Chaos had entered his comrade’s
blood.
Zucharov had fled Erengrad a changed man. Now, Stefan had pledged, he could
not rest until he had been found.
“Do you know what day it is?” he asked. Bruno looked at him, quizzically.
“No,” he said. “Do you?”
“It’s Kaldezeit’s Eve,” Stefan told him. He had been counting off the days.
Even though their journey had taken them roughly south they had not been able to
outrun the seasons. Steadily the days had been growing shorter and the nights
colder, and now they had reached the very cusp of fading summer, and the dawn of
the autumn season.
“Kaldezeit’s Eve,” Bruno repeated. He smiled, wistfully. “That’ll be a fair
excuse for much beer and company back home.”
Stefan nodded in agreement. Back home was where they, too, could already have
been, many hundreds of miles to the south-west, in Altdorf. By his reckoning it
was almost six months since they had left the city. On Kaldezeit’s Eve he could
have been back, sitting in his favourite corner bar of the Helmsman, sharing a
pot of beer with his brother.
That had been one choice. And there had been other choices, other paths he
could, perhaps, have chosen to take. He had been offered another. With the
battle at Erengrad won, Stefan had been asked to join a war, a hidden, never-ending war against
the powers of Chaos. A war waged in secret by a circle of men such as Gastez
Castelguerre, the general who had led the army at Erengrad. There, perhaps, his
restless crusade against the darkness would have found a home, a place where he
was accepted, not mocked as a zealot who saw shadows where there was only light.
But the choice Stefan had made had led him here. Right now, he wasn’t sure he
didn’t regret it.
“I doubt we’ll see much in the way of joyous celebration in this dump,” Bruno
continued, sourly. He set the bowl to one side, even his hearty appetite now
blunted. He looked around disdainfully at the bare, empty quarters of the
tavern. “I can’t imagine they go much in the way of celebration around here.”
Stefan smiled. He knew that Bruno, at least, was not mocking him. “What do
they call this place, anyway?” he asked.
“Mielstadt,” a flat, soulless voice answered. The innkeeper snatched the two
bowls off the table and glared accusingly at Stefan and Bruno.
“Another?” he said, indicating the mugs of beer still left on the table.
Stefan looked up at the man. It was more of a challenge than an invitation, but,
in any case, Stefan wasn’t interested in staying around.
“No thanks,” he replied. “We wouldn’t want to outstay a welcome. We’ll finish
our beer and then—”
He was interrupted by a sudden commotion coming from somewhere outside the
tavern. A scream, followed by voices raised in anger or agitation, and a clatter
of wood and steel. Stefan and Bruno exchanged a single glance and got up quickly
from the table.
“Here,” Stefan said, throwing down some coins. “Thanks for your hospitality.”
They stepped from the door of the inn onto the street. Something in the
clamour of voices coming from the town square away to their left communicated a
sense of urgency, and soon they were running. Mielstadt wasn’t big—not much
more than a warren of cluttered streets clustered around a central square. Stefan and Bruno were soon at the heart of the
disturbance.
The streets around the inn had been deserted, but the dusty clearing that
served as the town square was full to bursting. The crowd was about the size
that might gather in a place like Mielstadt on a carnival day. On Kaldezeit’s
Eve, indeed. But there was nothing festive about the mood of the people—mostly
men—jostling each other in the square. Fear and anger hung in the air, and
Stefan sensed that, yet again, he had found trouble without looking for it.
They pushed forward, the crowd parting grudgingly for the outsiders.
Instinctively, Stefan scanned the faces obscured by cowls or a mask of grime,
searching for that one familiar, elusive face. Nothing, as always. No sign.
The crowd was milling around a crude wooden structure that had been set up in
the middle of the square. As Stefan and Bruno looked on, a thickset man with a
face blotched red from exertion, hatred and too much drink muscled his way
through and stood facing the newcomers, hands planted squarely upon fleshy hips.
Here we go, Stefan said to himself. He’d met this type plenty of times
before. His hand stroked the hilt of the sword hanging at his side. To a man,
the watching mob fell silent.
Red Face extended a finger, and jabbed it towards Stefan. “You! You’re in the
way,” he said. His breath smelt of something that should have been long buried.
Dabs of spittle flecked Stefan’s face as the self-styled leader addressed him.
“I’ve got a job to get on with,” the man said. He extended one stubby finger,
and pointed at his chest, self-importantly. “Witch-hunter, me,” he said.
“Business to attend to.”
“If you’re a witch-hunter,” Bruno muttered under his breath, “then I’m the
Emperor Karl-Franz.”
“I’ll give you a chance, since it’s clear you just arrived.” The man ran a
yellowed eye over the two of them. “Young gentlemen, I don’t doubt,” he sneered.
“Fancy yourselves as explorers, maybe, adventurers. Thing is-' he gestured
towards the wooden platform up behind him. You can’t come
adventuring
round here.” He smirked at Stefan, and was rewarded by a ripple of laughter from the men standing round.
“Really?” Stefan replied, politely. He made a rapid sweep of the activity in
the square. “And why would that be?”
But he already had the answer to that question. A young woman, slight and
wiry with cropped, bronze hair was being jostled through the crowd towards the
platform. Her blouse was torn and dirty, her expression defiant but very, very
scared. Up on the platform, a length of rope knotted into a noose hung
expectantly from a crossbeam.
“This looks like a rough kind of justice,” Bruno said.
“Looks like no justice at all,” Stefan corrected him. Red Face twisted his
mouth into a snarl, infuriated that the intruders were still there.
“I told you once,” he said. “We’ve got a witch to deal with here, and you’re
in the way.”
“Well,” Stefan replied, evenly. “We’re sorry about that, aren’t we Bruno?”
“Absolutely,” Bruno concurred, drawing closer to his companion as he spoke.
“We hate getting in people’s way.”
There were uniformed men milling uncertainly round at the edge the square, at
least a dozen of them. Stefan reckoned them to be local militia. Most were
busying themselves trying not to notice what was happening under their noses.
Stefan guessed they would wait to see which way the wind was going to blow
before wading in. No use looking for any help there.
Red Face had drawn a few like-minded townsfolk to his cause. Now Stefan and
Bruno were inside a tightening ring of six or seven heavily built men, all
clutching daggers or wooden staves.
“Maybe your ears are no better than your eyes,” one of the roughnecks said.
“Maybe you’ve not heard about the troubles over in Kislev. Cities burnt to the
ground. Armies of mutants running amok. All manner of trouble, no mistake, and
creeping this way.” Voices joined in loud agreement.
“On the contrary,” Stefan told him. “We know all about that.” Somewhere in the
crowd, he heard a voice mutter, “Easterners,” and another, “Snow in their
beards.”
“Aye,” Red Face went on, taking encouragement from his supporters. “And we’re
not about to let evil take root around here! No witchcraft in Mielstadt!”
The crowd roared their approval. “So then,” Red Face drew a long knife and
waved the pitted blade before Stefan’s face. “Why don’t the two of you turn
around and get out of our way. We’ve got a hanging to finish.”
Stefan met Bruno’s gaze. The look that passed between them was almost
imperceptible, but it signalled agreement.
“I don’t think so,” Stefan replied, firmly. Red Face took a step back. The
tiniest of doubts mixed with the disbelief on his face.
“
You
don’t think so?” he demanded. Stefan ignored him, and turned towards
the figure tethered on the gallows. “Hey, you!” he called, “What’s your name?”
It took the young woman a few seconds to realise that Stefan was now talking
to her. Then she replied, in a clear but faltering voice: “Beatrice. Beatrice de
Lucht.”
“Very well, Beatrice. Tell me this: is there anything in your heart that is
not loyal to the memory of our Emperor Sigmar or true to the teachings of the
goddess Shallya?”
The young woman shook her head, vigorously.
“Have you done any wrong?” Stefan demanded of her. He looked around at Red
Face and his unsavoury companions. “Anything to harm these good people?”
“Nothing,” the girl answered. “Nothing, I swear.”
Stefan turned to Bruno and shrugged. “See? A simple case of mistaken
identity.”
“That’s how it looks to me,” Bruno agreed.
Red Face spread his arms wide in a gesture to the crowd. His face cracked
into an unpleasant grin. “Better make room for two more on the gallows, friends.
Looks like we’ve got our work cut out today.”
The big man moved with surprising speed, grasping hold of Stefan’s tunic near
the neck. Stefan was tugged forwards, fighting to hold his balance. He fastened
onto Red Face’s wrist with his right hand, and drew his sword with his left. Red
Face was fast, but Stefan was faster. Unlike his opponent, his judgement wasn’t
clouded by drink. He could kill the other man in an instant, but he didn’t want to do that, at least not yet.
Still gripping Red Face by the wrist he swung around, striking the other man
with a carefully aimed blow from the flat of his sword. Red Face toppled back
into the crowd as Stefan closed in upon him. Behind him, Bruno brandished his
sword for the benefit of other would-be aggressors. The crowd backed off.
Red Face had fallen to his knees. His face streamed with perspiration. He
lunged at Stefan, aiming the knife at his gut. The younger man side-stepped the
blow and brought his own blade down in a single stroke, skewering his attacker
through the hand. Red Face squealed like a pig as blood flowed out onto the dry
dust of the town square.
“Murderer!” he screamed, scanning the faces around him for support. “Ralf!
Helmut! Get the bastard!” But his friends had now gone very quiet. Like the rest
of the mob, they sensed the change in the wind. Stefan pulled his sword clear.
His opponent scrambled to his feet, his wounded hand stuffed inside his shirt.
Red Face was about to try his luck with the dagger again, but, before he could
move, Stefan had the point of his sword tucked neatly underneath the other man’s
chin.
“Believe me, friend, if I’d wanted to murder you we wouldn’t be having this
conversation now.” He looked round for Bruno and found his comrade circling the
gallows, clearing a space between the platform and the crowd. “All well?” Stefan
asked.
“Quiet as the grave,” Bruno assured him. Stefan turned his attention back to
Red Face and pressed home his sword until it nicked at the leathery flesh on his
opponent’s neck. “Don’t let’s repeat this,” he suggested.
Red Face started to gather himself for a final onslaught then thought better
of it. He turned away from Stefan with a muttered curse and vanished into the
crowd.
“Right,” said Stefan. “I think this woman’s been up there long enough. Who’s
going to help her down?”
Faces in the mob looked cowed rather than bloodthirsty now. Red Face’s
capitulation had had a sobering effect. A few men and women stepped forward, hesitantly, at Stefan’s command. As if on cue,
the militia now waded in, suddenly keen to impose their authority. Stefan found
a brace of crossbows aimed at his head. He sheathed his sword and raised one arm
to head height.
The militia chief cleared his throat self-consciously. “You and your friend
better come with us,” he said. “And you others-” he glared at whoever in the
crowd was prepared to meet his eye. “Get back to your homes before I decide to
take some of you in too.”
Augustus Sierck, acting graf of Mielstadt, was a man who disliked change,
especially the kind of change which, of late, had caused him to fix iron bars
across the once elegant windows of his office, the only half-decent building in
Mielstadt. Change which had persuaded him, against his better judgement, to
allow the daubing of crude protective runes on the walls of houses in the town.
Now change had brought him two outsiders, and a little matter of a domestic
problem which otherwise might have sorted itself out.