Ratboy looked down at the massacre below and grimaced. “How many are still
alive?”
The soldier shook his head and followed Ratboy’s gaze. “Impossible to say.
It’s even darker down there in the shadow of the forest. Hundreds of them have
already fled beneath the trees. The ogres are all dead and the riders from the
Steppe vanished as quickly as they came. They seem to have lost their fighting
spirit,” he laughed. “The Iron Duke is determined that none should survive to
reach their own borders though. He’s ordered the whole army to pursue them into
the forest.” He laughed again, obviously a little light-headed after their
unexpected victory. “I’ve a feeling some of our more experienced veterans may
have taken the opportunity to slope off. The battle is obviously won, so who can
blame them, really. We’d all be making for the nearest town to start the
celebrations if it was up to me.”
“So,
is
the battle over?”
The soldier shook his head. “No, not really, I suppose. I’m only talking
about a few people who were a little too eager to return home. The bulk of our
men are following the duke into the forest.” He raised his battered sword and
grinned enthusiastically. “After all—there’s more than one way to celebrate a
victory.” The grin dropped from his face as he remembered something Ratboy had
said. “Did you say that your master is in
pursuit
of the duke?”
Ratboy sneered. “Yes!” he snapped. “My master must stop—” he paused as he
noticed the frown on the soldier’s face. “Well, yes, of course,” he continued,
in a softer voice. “He wishes to assist the duke in any way he can.”
The soldier’s eyes narrowed with suspicion, then he gave a curt nod. “Good
luck, friend,” he muttered, snapping the reins of his horse and disappearing
down the hill.
Ratboy shook his head at his own stupidity and hoped that no harm would come
of his indiscretion. Then he helped Anna up onto his horse and climbed up after
her. “Well, sister,” he said, taking the reins. “Let’s see if we can keep
ourselves out of any more trouble.” With that, he rode after the distant,
sparkling helms of the Knights Griffon.
“I’ve killed a man,” whispered Anna into his ear.
Ratboy reined in his horse and looked back at her in confusion.
“Earlier on,” she said, holding up her bloody fingers and shaking her head at
him. “I put a sword through his neck and watched him die.” She groaned in horror
at the memory. “What right had I to take another’s life? He would have had
parents and children. How could I do such a thing? I was a Sister of Shallya,
but what am I now?”
Ratboy lowered her hands. “Alive.”
Anna simply stared at him.
“We must move fast, if I’m going to catch up with my master,” he said, afraid
of the despair in her eyes. He steered his horse down the hill and tried
desperately to think of something more useful to say.
Beneath the eaves of the forest, the darkness was almost total. As Fabian’s
men left behind the open, moonlit fields, they slowed their horses to a walk and
peered nervously into the shifting gloom. The Iron Duke’s army still numbered in
the thousands, but as the ancient trees engulfed it, the host fragmented.
Something of the forest’s wildness seemed to infect them and as they hunted down
the fleeing marauders, the Ostlanders ignored the commands of their officers and
blundered wildly through the undergrowth, even abandoning their horses as the
slender pines gave way to low, twisted yews and ugly, knotted oaks.
It was only by the flashing armour of Maximilian’s knights that Ratboy was
able to find his master in the shadows. “Lord,” he gasped as he climbed down
from his horse and rushed after him with Anna following close behind. “How will
you find Fabian in this darkness?”
Wolff looked back and Ratboy saw that his face was still twisted in an animal
snarl. Ratboy blanched at his master’s fierce glare, feeling that he was looking
into the eyes of a stranger. “I’ll find him,” growled the priest.
After a few minutes, as they entered a small hollow, one of the knights
grunted in pain and stumbled backwards with a spear jammed under his
breastplate.
The rest of the party paused and raised their weapons, scouring the small
clearing for any sign of the attackers as the injured knight dropped, wheezing,
to his knees.
“There,” cried Maximilian, pointing his sword at a group of figures emerging
from the trees.
Ratboy gasped in disgust as the vague shapes entered the pool of moonlight at
the centre of the clearing. Most were the same bare-chested northmen they had
faced on the hillside, but there were other, stranger things with them. He
realised that they were the creatures he had seen before: men with deformed,
bestial heads, cloven hooves and thick, greasy hides.
At a signal from Maximilian, the knights fell on the creatures with a flurry
of sword strikes.
Wolff launched himself at the marauders with a terrifying combination of
hammer blows and scripture. As the knights pushed the other warriors back
towards the trees, the priest grabbed one of the beastmen by the scruff of its
neck and slammed its head into a tree trunk. The creature collapsed, with a
bellow of pain and Wolff placed a foot on its chest and crunched his hammer down
into its face. The priest’s fury only seemed to grow as the creature stopped
breathing and as its dark blood rushed over the roots of the tree, he kept
swinging the hammer: pounding the metal into the broken body with spasmodic,
jerking blows.
Ratboy saw the look of horror on Anna’s face as she watched the priest and he
rushed to Wolff’s side. The other attackers were already fleeing or dead and as
the knights resumed their positions they were also eying Wolff with unease.
“Master,” said Ratboy, placing a hand on the priest’s shoulder. “He’s dead.”
Wolff spun around. His face was white with passion as he glared at the
acolyte. “Yes,” he muttered, looking down at the corpse with a slightly confused
expression.
He staggered back from the dead beastman and raised his dripping hammer
towards the heart of the forest. “We must keep moving,” he gasped, breathlessly.
Maximilian looked at Wolff’s pale, blood-splattered face with concern. He
stepped after him and placed a hand on his arm. “Brother Wolff, rest yourself
for a moment, I beg you. Your zeal does you credit, but the battle is won.” He
looked with distaste at the crumpled mess Wolff had made of the marauder. “Do we
really need to hunt down every last one? My hatred of these beasts is as great
as yours, I assure you, but this forest is fey, and unpredictable. I have a
feeling that the deeper we go, the stranger it will become. Why not let the
stragglers crawl back to their own lands? It would be no bad thing if a few of
them lived to spread the word of our decisive victory.” He waved at the calm
faces of his knights. “I’ve no desire to sacrifice my men in a pointless game of
cat and mouse.”
Wolff’s black eyes flashed. “Do as you wish,” he growled, “but I must
continue. Listen,” he said. The surrounding trees echoed with the noise of the
victorious army, clattering and hacking their way after their general. “Fabian’s
leading these men into the forest for a reason. I don’t know exactly what it is,
but I know it’s going to end in more bloodshed. As you say, the battle’s won,
but my brother was never interested in victory—he’s brought these men here for
some dark purpose of his own.” He gripped Maximilian’s shoulders. “I think he
means to use them as some kind of sacrifice. I’m not sure how, but I think he’s
going to use their blood to buy the favour of his dark masters.” He shook his
head. “It’s not the marauders I’m pursuing, it’s my brother.”
Maximilian turned away with a sigh. “Tell me, Jakob—how can you be sure
Fabian is so evil? He’s just led this army to another glorious victory. You saw
how he dealt with Mormius.” The baron looked back at Wolff. “Maybe he’s just a
brilliant tactician who’s eager to protect his homeland?”
Wolff gripped the baron’s shoulders even more tightly and glowered at him. “I
know my own brother, Maximilian. I think that deep down I’ve had my suspicions
for decades, but guilt clouded my judgement. As soon as I heard the truth from
the witch hunter, Surman, I knew it had to be right.”
Maximilian shrugged. “Could this Surman not have been mistaken?”
Ratboy suddenly gasped and rushed to Wolff’s side. “He’s here,” he gasped. “I
saw Surman’s face in the battle. He’s followed us.”
Anna let out a groan of dismay, wrapping her arms around herself and looking
around at the mass of ancient, winding boughs.
Wolff shook his head at Ratboy. “I doubt it very much, boy. I hammered a
stake into his chest.”
Ratboy gripped his master’s arm with an urgent expression on his face. “I’m
sure it was him—I’d never forget those peculiar eyes of his.”
Maximilian took a deep breath and freed himself from the priest’s grip. “Old
friend,” he said, still watching Wolff with concern. “When this witch hunter
denounced your brother as a heretic, was it before or after you attacked him
with a piece of tree?”
Wolff strode after the knight with a furious expression on his face. “I
know
Fabian’s guilty, Maximilian. He spent his whole childhood dreaming of
military glory but he was useless with a sword and could barely ride a horse.
The closest he ever came to battles was reading about them in old folk tales.
Then, around the same time as I discovered occult objects in our family home, he
suddenly became a deadly warrior.” He shook his head in disgust. “I was so
wrapped up in my own guilt over summoning the witch hunter, it never occurred to
me that there might really be a cultist in our family, but now I have no doubt
about it at all. I don’t know exactly how this will end, but I think this whole
campaign is just a way for Fabian to somehow gain even greater strength.” He
leant closer to the knight. “Come with me Maximilian. I
must
find him.”
Maximilian gave a long sigh. He looked around the clearing at the rows of
expectant faces. “Well,” he said finally, “I’m not sure I really follow your
logic, but I don’t like the idea of leaving you to go on alone. Your brother’s
still surrounded by those swordsmen of his, the Oberhau.” He nodded at Wolff’s
dripping hammer. “And whether you’re right or not, I’m sure they’ll defend their
lord fiercely. I doubt even you could take them
all
on.” There was a
metallic
clang
as he patted Wolff’s shoulder and turned to his knights.
“Looks like we still have a little work to do.”
The priest gave a barely perceptible nod of thanks, before turning on his
heel and heading off into the trees.
As Maximilian predicted, the deeper they moved into the forest, the stranger
it became. Ratboy struggled to keep up with his master’s brisk pace as the
moonlight began to play tricks on him. Dawn was still several hours away but, as
they rushed after the rest of Fabian’s army, pale lights flickered at the corner
of his vision, only to vanish when he tried to focus on them. He shivered and
tried to keep his eyes on the bear-like silhouette of the priest as he
shouldered his way through the trees. It was tough going. The forest floor was
sloping slowly upwards, and after the exertion of the battle, Ratboy soon grew
short of breath.
“Are you sure it was him?” whispered Anna, looming out of the darkness and
gripping his arm.
“What?”
“Are you sure it was Surman you saw on the hill?”
“Oh, yes,” he replied, without slowing his pace or taking his eyes off Wolff.
“I couldn’t forget a face like that. He was watching me, I’m sure of it.” He let
his eyes flick briefly in Anna’s direction. “I think he must have followed us
here.”
Her eyes widened and she clenched her bloodstained hands together. “How could
he have survived such an injury?” she muttered.
Ratboy shook his head as he vaulted a low branch. “Who knows? I imagine old
mendicants like that are hardened by all those years of travel. Maybe he’s not
as frail as he looks.”
“I knew he’d come for me,” whispered Anna, tightening her grip on Ratboy’s
arm. “The day you rescued me I knew it. As soon as I saw he had escaped from
your master, I knew he would hunt me down.”
Ratboy frowned. “He might not be here for you, Anna. He could be after any of
us. Wolff’s the one who injured him. I can’t imagine he’ll forget that in a
hurry.” He shrugged. “Anyway, I might be wrong. Maybe he didn’t follow us. He
might have just seen me in the crowd and wondered where he knew my face from.”
Anna shook her head. “He’s come for me, I can feel it.”
They ran on in silence for a few minutes and then noticed that the trees were
thinning slightly and the soldiers ahead of them were slowing their pace.
Up ahead, Wolff reached the top of the wooded slope and paused at the edge of
a large clearing. As Ratboy and the others huffed and clattered to his side,
Wolff turned and raised his hand, signalling for them to stop at the edge of the
trees. “They’re making camp,” he announced, with an incredulous expression on
his face.
Ratboy looked past him and saw that it was true. Hundreds of the Ostlanders
had gathered on the plateau at the top of the slope, and none of them looked
happy to be there. The fervour that had driven them into the forest was fading
quickly. There was a tangible feeling of menace about the place that made them
wonder if they had been acting entirely under their own volition. They had
huddled together for protection and there was a hum of nervous conversation as
they eyed the surrounding trees. The wolf-helmed officers of Fabian’s honour
guard were moving amongst them, and as the nearest one caught sight of Wolff and
the Knights Griffon, he strode over and gave Maximilian a stiff bow. “The
Kriegsmarshall has granted you all a few hours rest,” he said, waving to the
treetops spread out below them. “The marauders have already hidden themselves
throughout the forest. You’ll need some sleep before we start the long job of
hunting them all down.”