Chapter Eight

 

 

In the dark fastness of the forest, Gulkroth stood in the midst of his lieutenants. From the most ox-shouldered of monstrosities to the wiriest little humanoid runt, the beasts that were gathered here were the most vicious examples of their various herds. That was how they had come to lead them.

Even so, they cringed as their lord’s gaze swept over them, the infernal fires that lit it bright in the darkness. For many of them the instinct to submit to a stronger beast was something which they had not felt for long, long years. Some tried to resist the instinct, but none succeeded. When they looked into the burning void of their lord’s gaze they could feel their own souls beginning to melt like wax in a furnace, and even after they lowered their heads the terror echoed within their skulls.

If Gulkroth had been a lesser creature there would have been a mutiny, of that he had no doubt. Those within striking distance grovelled, but in the aftermath of the battle a dangerous musk of frustration and defiance still greased the air. Blood that should have been spilt had not been. The herds needed a killing to release the pent-up tension that snapped amongst them like lightning.

“I called you here to explain,” Gulkroth told them, and they shifted restlessly. Only the weak explained. From the darkness in the back ranks eyes glittered as they dared to look directly at their lord before quickly glancing away.

Gulkroth bared his fangs in a grimace of pleasure.

Let them watch.

“We are the truth of the world,” he continued. “We bring death and birth and death again. It has always been thus, and soon we will make the truth permanent. We will wipe the stain of humanity from the world.”

“Soon!” The voice echoed his own. “We should have done it today.”

A moment of shocked silence was followed by a chorus of nervous agreement, the low growls and whinnies as cautious as they were heartfelt.

Gulkroth looked at the beast who had dared to challenge his authority. It was a goat-faced thing, almost as big as the minotaurs whose blood had fertilised the field today. He could smell that it was in the prime of its life, and that its life was a great one. There was magnificence about it. A wild energy.

It would make the perfect sacrifice.

“You challenge me,” Gulkroth stated, and the need for words was over. The beast bellowed, a full-throated roar that carried through the forest to the army that waited beyond, then it charged at him in an avalanche of horn and hide and muscle.

Gulkroth waited as, hidden like tumours in the darkness, Ruhrkar and his shamans seized and twisted the thread of its life. He could see their sorcerous assault as others could not, the dark energy that flowed through the forest like blood through a body. It buckled and snarled up beneath the shamans’ will, and then they were using it, curling it like a whip around the charging bulk of Gulkroth’s challenger.

The beast screamed as its bones splintered beneath it, the joints grinding and snapping as they exploded within the living meat of its legs. It fell forwards, and even as it did its mighty shoulders were snapping as loudly as branches breaking beneath the frost. Its arms flailed uselessly, elbows popping and wrists crunching apart so that the muscles slipped from their moorings and writhed like coils of snakes beneath its hide.

The beast took another lungful of air, but this time it wheezed out to the crackle of disintegrating vertebrae.

Gulkroth watched his challenger flop bonelessly on the floor, as helpless as a newborn foal. A stream of ripe yellow dung sputtered from between its legs and it rolled in the filth even as blood started to leak from the sudden snap of its jaws.

“I called you here to explain,” Gulkroth repeated. The beasts listened to him even as they watched the mewling thing that now lay dying in its own filth.

“The humans are weak in small numbers, and they are weak in the forest. As easy to crush as a hornet. But together, and in the open, they become strong. As dangerous as a nest of hornets. So we will lure them in.”

He gestured expansively over the still-living body of his challenger.

“We will separate them.”

He bent down and seized the rubbery tube of meat and splintered bone that had been the challenger’s arm. With a grunt of effort and a sudden twist he tore the limb free. Blood sprayed from severed arteries as a horrible bubbling scream came from the stricken beast. Gulkroth ignored it as, with a wide-armed throw, he hurled the limb into the forest.

“And we will tear them to shreds.”

He took another limb, this one the remains of a leg, and his shoulders rolled as he tore again. Then he took the other arm. More blood arced into the air as the butchery continued, the victim’s still-beating heart pumping with horror and desperation as it was dismembered.

“We will tear them to shreds,” Gulkroth explained as he stooped to grasp his assailant’s head. It crunched like a leather bag full of broken glass as he tore it from the torso, and the eyes rolled with the last flickers of anguish even as he lifted it above his head.

“And we will tear them to shreds piece by piece,” he proclaimed, and bowled the head almost casually into the frozen terror of the beasts around him.

And suddenly they were roaring their approval, a tsunami of terror and frustration and admiration for the beast who would lead them to victory. Gulkroth’s eyes blazed with an unholy fire as he looked at the sea of distorted faces around him, every one twisted into a rictus of fear and aggression, and in that moment he knew that they were truly unstoppable.

He rolled back his head and added his voice to the bellow of the herd, and as he did so the thousands of beasts beyond joined them so that the trees quivered and the ground trembled and the earth itself seemed to shake with anticipation of the slaughter to come.

 

A week had passed since they had handed the assassins over to the provost marshal, and in that time Erikson and Alter had drilled the men relentlessly. Every morning the guards huddled on top of the battlements had watched them march out of the city into the open spaces beyond. There they had watched them form and re-form their square, or watched them cross broken ground time and again until they could do so without breaking formation, or watched them close ranks as Erikson removed random men from amongst them, or watched them move from defensive square to marching column and then back again.

And all the time Erikson and Alter harried them with the relentless energy of sheepdogs rounding up a flock. The captain and the sergeant barked and shoved and beat the manoeuvres into their men’s instincts with constant repetition so that they learned to respond with unthinking precision.

Every evening the company marched back into the city before the gathering dusk, the men exhausted and their officers hoarse. For the first few days the men had staggered back after the day’s exercises with their heads down, their faces grim with confusion and resentment. It was only gradually that they began to learn the lessons that Erikson was hammering into their muscles, and as they learned they began to march with a different expression.

An expression of pride.

For some, this was the first time they had felt such an emotion, and Erikson tended it as closely as the first delicate flame in a ball of tinder. He knew that compared to the clockwork precision of the state troopers his company were still little more than a mob, but that didn’t worry him. They were a mob that might be able to hold together in the storm of a battle, and that was all he had ever expected from them.

Today, after marching the company out of the city, he had split it into three sections. Alter, Gunter and Porter stood at the head of their men. Erikson wondered if it would be possible to find an odder assortment of leaders. It certainly wouldn’t be possible to find an odder assortment of men. When they were marching or when they had formed a perfect checkerboard of rank and file, it was possible to forget that they were the sweepings of Hergig’s gaol. But when they were standing, or rather skulking, at ease they appeared exactly what they were.

“Gentlemen,” he told them. “Today we are going to try something different. Today we are going to have a relay race between here and the city walls. One man from each section will run to that tower, then back to his section. The next man will do the same and so on. And the winning team,” he paused for dramatic effect, “will get a roasted pig. Go!”

And they went. Gunter contented himself with the palmed fist of Sigmarite catechism as a blessing before unleashing his first man. Alter barked his own section into silence before selecting their first runner. Porter, meanwhile, was a dozen paces into the lead before either of his rivals had started.

As the first men raced towards the wall their comrades bellowed out encouragement, their voices drawing curious stares from the regiment that was marching out of Hergig’s gates and towards some unknown destination. There had been a lot of these sudden departures over the past few days, Erikson considered, then turned his attention back to the race as the spectators rose to a roar of protest.

Porter, it seemed, had kicked the legs out from his competitor.

“Carry on!” Erikson bellowed above the racket.

He was so engrossed in the race that he didn’t hear the gallop of the approaching herald’s horse until the man was right on top of him. He swung from his saddle, landed easily on his heels and saluted Erikson.

“Good to see you again,” Erikson told the man, recognising him from the battlefield.

“Likewise, sir,” the herald grinned. “After your battle you are the talk of the town.”

“That’s what we train for,” Erikson told him and the man’s grin grew even wider.

“Yes, they do seem to be getting faster,” the herald said as he watched the racing men.

Erikson bit back on the urge to laugh and forced himself to scowl instead.

“Strength and teamwork,” he said as one of the runners elbowed another in the kidneys. “That’s what it’s all about. Have you ever considered joining a frontline company? We could always use another man.”

Erikson let the question hang in the air, and was pleased to see the grin vanish from the herald’s face.

“No, I know my place,” he said and rapidly unrolled his parchment. “Which is why I’m here. Baron Ludenhof requests and requires that the Gentleman’s free Company of Hergig make all speed to the town of Nalderstein, and there make such preparations as may be necessary to its defence.”

Erikson regarded him with suspicion.

“Nalderstein? Where’s that?”

“Three days’ march down the southern road,” the herald read from his parchment. “And then one day’s march east on the forest highway. All who you encounter are required to give reasonable assistance, and may in turn apply to the chancellor for recompense.”

“The forest highway,” Erikson repeated. “Presumably runs through the forest.”

“It runs along it, sir,” the herald told him. “It might be an idea to march along that bit at double time. And in the daylight.”

“Thanks,” said Erikson as the herald formally handed him the parchment and bowed.

“Do you accept the orders as given to you?” he asked.

Erikson grunted and nodded his head.

“We will leave in the morning. I need time to prepare.”

“The orders do require you to make all due speed…” the herald began, then saw the look on Erikson’s face and trailed off. “Yes, well. As you see fit, captain.”

“Sure you won’t come with us?” said Erikson, straightening his back and beaming with confidence as some of the men looked curiously at him and the messenger.

“No thank you,” the herald said. “But I will be putting a couple of shillings on you making it back. Good luck!”

With a final salute he leapt back on his horse and trotted back towards the city walls. They suddenly looked very inviting. Very secure. And if they looked that way to him, Erikson thought, how much more so would they look to his reluctant warriors?

Well, so be it. They hadn’t deserted yet. And anyway, by the time he told them where they were going they would be far beyond the safety of the city walls. The terror of what lay in the woods might be just the bond he needed to keep them together once they were outside of the reach of Ludenhof’s swift justice.

There was a shriek of pain from the torn-up race track and he saw one of the men writhing around, his nose pouring with blood. Cries of outrage from his comrades vied with the jeers from those of the perpetrator, a bull-necked man who was gleefully sprinting away from the tackle.

Erikson took a deep breath, and smiled. He would run them hard today. Exhausted men were less likely to react badly when they learned where they were going. Or at the very least, they would be less likely to desert.

At least, he hoped so.

 

Viksberg was loitering in the hall of columns that formed the entrance to the baron’s palace. It was a busy thoroughfare, and dozens of urgent footsteps echoed in the high vaults and amongst the pillars that held them up. Even during the quietest times it was busy. Now, with the army squeezed into the city and the land outside under attack, it bustled like a marketplace.

Although he hardly wanted to be seen with the herald, Viksberg hadn’t been able to wait for the good news. As soon as he saw the man he scuttled over to him, took him by the elbow and guided him into one of the alcoves that riddled the masonry here.

“Did he accept?” Viksberg asked, oblivious to the look of distaste that pinched the herald’s face.

“Yes,” the herald told him. “Yes, he accepted.”

“You don’t think he doubted the seal?” Viksberg asked. “He wasn’t suspicious?”

“Why would he be suspicious?” the herald asked him coldly. “He’s a soldier. Going to fight the enemy is what soldiers do. Most soldiers, anyway.”

That last comment slipped out before he could stop himself, but he needn’t have worried. Viksberg was too relieved to notice the implied reproach.

“So is he going now?” Viksberg wanted to know. The herald, who was beginning to feel the first flickers of regret about this whole business, shook his head.

“No, they’ll go in the morning,” he said. “In the meantime, where is my fee?”

Viksberg was suddenly wary.

“Oh no, not until they’ve gone,” he said and lowered his voice to a whisper. “That was the arrangement.”

The herald made sure that nobody was within earshot before replying.

“The arrangement was that I altered the orders so that the Gentleman’s Free Company was sent into the dragon’s mouth whilst the company that was actually supposed to go remained nice and safe here, on garrison duty.”

“Keep your voice down,” Viksberg told him nervously.

The herald shook his head with disgust.

“I assume that the company that gets to stay here is yours,” the herald said.

Viksberg looked surprised, then affronted. Then he just shrugged. If the man believed that he had sent Dolf’s company to its doom in place of his own, then let him. He wanted nobody to suspect the real reason for his machinations, which was to permanently silence the little street rat who was the only witness to his crime.

“I would pay up now if I were you,” the herald told him. “Before somebody realises that a bunch of militiamen have been sent to hold a town that was actually assigned a whole regiment.”

“Why would you tell anybody now?” Viksberg sneered. “That way you’d lose your money.”

“Because I can’t help liking the poor beggars’ captain,” the herald said. “And because we’re at war.”

The statement had the ring of truth to it and, with a last look around him, Viksberg reached for his purse. He counted out the coins and handed them over.

“Just make sure that nobody does find out,” Viksberg told the herald, who nodded reluctantly.

Everything was fair in love and war, he told himself. And business is business.

He sighed, pocketed the coin and went on his way.

 

The next morning, in the grey hour before the sun had risen and with the chill of Fish Market Square’s cobbles in their bones, the company was roused and assembled in the midst of the square for the last time. Once they had formed rank and file, Erikson gave them the good news. They didn’t take it well.

“We’re going where?” Minsk asked, his voice high-pitched with outrage.

“Silence in the ranks,” Alter barked at him, but for once the whiplash of the sergeant’s voice wasn’t enough to quell the muttering.

“We are going,” Erikson repeated, “to a place called Nalderstein.”

“In the middle of the forest?” Minsk asked. “On our own? We won’t last five minutes.”

Erikson was disappointed that the murmur of agreement seemed to come from virtually every man in the company. He exchanged a glance with Alter, but before he could speak again Corporal Gunter intervened on his behalf.

“It is true that the forest is teeming with the enemy,” he said as he turned to his fellows. “And it is also true that we will be isolated, cut off from the artillery and the knights and the other regiments that would be able to help us. But if we die, our bodies torn to shreds and our bones littered throughout the blood-soaked wilderness, then so be it. We are the sons of Sigmar, and there can be no more righteous death than that which awaits us in the darkness of the forest.”

A handful of Gunter’s disciples nodded their agreement. The rest of the company stood in an aghast silence.

“That’s it, I’m not going.” Minsk declared.

“You have to,” Alter snapped.

“No I don’t,” Minsk said and folded his arms. “I want to go back to gaol. At least it’s safe there.”

“You really are an arse,” Porter told him.

“At least I won’t be a dead one,” Minsk said, and Erikson watched to see who nodded in agreement. He had let Minsk speak so that he would encourage the weak links to show themselves. Now that they had done so, it was time to shut him up.

“Minsk,” Erikson told him, the tone of his voice friendly and relaxed. “If you refuse to fight you refuse to fight. I can accept this. But be under no illusion. You are a soldier and we are at war. There will be no gaol for you. Just the executioner’s block.”

The mutineer’s mouth opened and then closed. He pulled nervously on his earlobe and turned to find support amongst his comrades, but they were all suddenly looking elsewhere.

“Corporal Porter,” Erikson said, raising his voice slightly. “The chopping block and cleaver you use for butchering the meat. Would it be hygienic to use them?”

“On Minsk, sir?” Porter asked with a malicious delight. “I should think so. Just have to make sure they’re thoroughly washed afterwards.”

“This is ridiculous,” Minsk said, and took a step backwards.

“You don’t expect a battle axe and a blacksmith in a hood, do you?” Erikson asked him. “We’re a regiment in the field. We have to make do with what we have. Corporal Gunter, would you be willing to read Minsk his last rites?”

“No, sir,” Gunter shook his head. “A coward can expect neither mercy nor forgiveness. I will wield the cleaver though.”

“Thank you,” Erikson said, then raised his voice to speak to the company.

“Would anybody else prefer a quick death here to taking their chances with the rest of us?”

“Wait a minute!” Minsk cried. “I’ve changed my mind.”

“You have decided not to desert after all?” Erikson asked, feigning surprise.

“Yes, yes. Of course.”

“Good,” Erikson told him. “Now, gentlemen, if there are no more questions I suggest we make a start. Porter, you will have responsibility for the mules and the stores. Your section will be in the middle of the column.”

Porter grinned and rubbed his hands with such avaricious glee that for a moment Erikson considered changing his mind. He hadn’t intended to put the company’s entire material wealth in Porter’s sticky fingers, but after his support he was feeling generous. And anyway, over the past weeks the villain’s economy had outstripped his greed, and the men were fed as well as any soldiers could expect to be. No reason this wouldn’t continue.

“Gunter,” he continued. “Yours will take the rear, and Sergeant Alter’s section will lead. Understand?”

“Answer the officer,” Alter barked, and as one man they said, “Yes, sir.”

It was on that unified note that the Gentleman’s Free Company of Hergig set out on their first posting.

By the time the sun had risen they were passing through the city gates. The previous day had seen Erikson and Porter bully and bribe and scrounge their way through the city’s stores, the requisition parchment in their hands, and of all the dangers they would face starvation was not one. As well as their bedrolls and weapons each man also carried a half-sack of grain or millet or salt-fish over his shoulders. The half-dozen mules they had been able to commandeer carried barrels of wine and the two massive brass kettles which Porter had acquired for boiling water.

As the company moved off Erikson was in high spirits. Last night he had secured an advance on the payment for the company’s hire, and the purse was as heavy on his belt as the sun was warm on his neck.

What more could a mercenary ask for?

They marched for four hours at a steady pace that ate up the miles with a deceptive speed. The ground rolled ahead of them in a gently undulating sea of growing wheat, waist high and shimmering with tones of green and gold. It was coated with dust on either side of the road, and high overhead hawks circled, looking for the mice that feasted on the growing crop. Erikson looked across the endless fields and wondered how long it would be until they were scythed.

For some reason the thought sent a chill down his back, and he quickened the pace until, in the distance, they could see the storm front of a distant forest. It edged up to the fields, as dark and silent as some terrible predator. As the column drew near to it the head of every man in the company turned to peer nervously into the tangled depths. If Erikson hadn’t known better he would have thought it impossible that beasts the size of those he had seen could move so easily through such undergrowth.

But know better he did. That was why he marched the company through the midday heat. It wasn’t until the sun was setting on the exhausted column that the road wound away from the forest and towards the wreckage of a deserted village. A stream gurgled between the broken walls and blackened timbers, and before Erikson could stop them the men were stampeding towards the delicious coolness of the fresh water.

“We’ll camp here tonight,” he told Alter as they watched the men slaking their thirst, getting down on all fours to drink like cattle from the stream.

“It doesn’t look as though it has been deserted for long,” Alter said doubtfully, and scratched a fingernail through the charcoal that blackened one of the shattered timbers which littered the ground.

“I know,” Erikson nodded, and looked back towards the forest which lurked no more than a couple of bow shots distant. Whatever fate had befallen the people of this village, he had no doubt that it had come from the depths of that terrible wilderness.

For the first time he noticed the scatter of bones and stakes that lay to the south of the ruins. At first he took the bones to be human, but as he drew closer he saw that they belonged to dogs. The animals’ skulls had been punched into sharpened sticks, which had since been blown over.

“I’ve heard of this,” Alter told him. “Some say that the beasts fear our hounds more than our arms.”

“They have nothing to fear from these hounds anymore,” Erikson said and examined the gnaw marks that had patterned one of the skulls. He was still turning it in his hands when a scream rang out from amongst the men.

Erikson raced towards the commotion, vaulting tumbledown walls and sodden piles of collapsed thatch as he did so. His sword was already in his hand when he reached the group which had gathered around the man. Erikson pushed through them to see a man bent over, vomiting up the water he had drunk. As he stumbled away from what he had found a groan went through the crowd and suddenly another man was vomiting. And then two more.

The acrid stink of their sickness adding a bitter tang to the sickly-sweet smell of decay that Erikson could now smell. It grew stronger with every step Erikson took closer to the stream, and by the time he reached the carcass he wasn’t surprised. He had smelt death often enough in the past.

The rotting corpse was wedged beneath the bank where it had been hidden by overhanging vegetation. As Erikson leant over it and prodded it with his sword the stink of it rose up and hit him like a fist. He felt his stomach roll and saliva flooded his mouth as he fought back the urge to retch.

Whatever the thing was, it hadn’t been human. The fur, which now undulated with the wriggle of maggots, was as thick and coarse as a goat’s, and the partially stripped skull was armoured with horns and long, yellow fangs.

Erikson poked at it again and it disintegrated with a squelch of rotten flesh. The skull rolled out into the centre of the stream but another part broke free and floated down past where the men had been drinking moments before.

Their cries of disgust rose in a chorus, and Erikson cursed himself for letting them drink before he had checked the water source.

“From now on, gentlemen,” he called, “we will boil all water until we know that it is safe.”

He didn’t think that he would need to tell them again.

 

That night they ate a hearty meal of salt-fish stew and flatbread. As the sun set and the dying cooking fires sent their shadows chasing amongst the ruins, Erikson set the first sentries and rolled into his blanket. Within minutes he was asleep, and as the fires died down so the rest of the company also collapsed into their blankets. Soon they were snoring amongst the ruins as happily as a herd of pigs, oblivious to the pale moon that rose overhead.

It wasn’t until the purple of dusk had fully darkened into the velvet blackness of the night that Minsk made his move.

He was exhausted from the day’s march, and only his anticipation of the trials to come kept him awake. When he finally rolled up his blankets and sidled over to where Hofstadter was curled up, he was alive with expectation.

“Hofstadter,” he whispered into his comrade’s ear, “Wake up.”

The two of them had been together for years, right up until that last job when they’d been captured by the city watch. When Hofstadter blinked awake he took one look at Minsk, wide-eyed in the moonlight, and knew that the time had come.

“I said we’d take Karl, too,” he whispered as his comrade silently gathered his belongings.

“And I promised Ernst and Hendrick we’d take them when we left,” Hofstadter hissed, and Minsk sucked his teeth as he considered the idea. There was always safety in numbers, especially when some of those numbers could be outrun. On the other hand, he didn’t want to take so many men that the swine Erikson would be compelled to pursue them.

Eventually it was the thought of what might happen if they ran into some of the enemy before they got back to Hergig that decided him, and he nodded reluctantly.

“Right you are,” he whispered into Hofstadter’s ear, “but make it quick. Theo is the sentry in the west, and he’s in on it too. We need to go before he’s replaced.”

The two deserters made their way amongst the patches of moonlight and endless shadows as they gathered together their little band. Now and again they froze at some movement or the sound of one of their sleeping companions crying out in his sleep, but slowly, with a stealth born of long practice, they gathered their friends and slipped towards the sentry.

He leapt to his feet when he heard them approach, and the blade of his halberd winked coldly with starlight.

“Don’t say anything,” Minsk hissed urgently. “It’s only us.”

“Minsk,” Theo said. His expression was invisible in the darkness but there was something in the tone of his voice that Minsk didn’t like.

“You ready?” he asked. “Me and the boys are heading off. Going to do our own little bit of campaigning.”

There was a snigger from behind him and an angry hush. Minsk looked back, eyes flashing with anger at the stupidity.

“No, I’ve changed my mind,” Theo said, his voice quiet but edged with defiance.

“Are you mad?” Minsk said. “This is the best chance we’ve got.”

“I think I’ll stay with this lot, all the same,” Theo said, then hesitated as he saw two of Minsk’s companions circling silently around on either side of him. “You don’t need to worry about me, though. I never saw you. All right?”

There was a moment of breathless silence in which nobody moved. Minsk broke it.

“All right, Theo,” he said. “I trust you. Let’s shake on it.”

As the two men gripped each other’s hands Hofstadter struck, banging the hilt of his sword into the side of Theo’s head. There was a crack which sounded as loud as a gunshot in the night, and the sentry collapsed into Minsk’s arms.

“Maybe we should finish him off?” Minsk whispered as he carefully lowered the unconscious man to the floor.

Another silence, this time broken by Hofstadter.

“Well, I don’t fancy doing it,” he said.

“Let’s get a move on then,” Minsk said and, pausing only to relieve Theo of his purse, he led his band of deserters out into the night.

Despite the day’s march they moved fast, especially when the glow of the company’s fires disappeared behind a small hill and they found themselves alone in the darkness. The moon had risen high enough to give them a good view of the road. The solid earth of its surface glowed pale in the moonlight and even without torches the men trotted along at a good pace.

They didn’t stop until the moon had begun to sink down towards the horizon, and even then it was only to rest for a while before heading on.

They first saw the flame a mile after the stop. It hung on the horizon like a miniature sun in the darkness.

“Are we there already?” Hofstadter wondered aloud.

“No, we can’t be,” Minsk told him.

The deserters looked at the light uncertainly.

“Maybe we should go around it,” Ernst said.

“No,” Minsk decided. “I think it’s only one torch. Let’s get a bit closer. But quietly, now. You never know, we might have found our first bit of loot on our first night of freedom.”

It was on this happy note that the men advanced. When they were close enough to see that the flame was a single torch they spread out, leaving the road on either side to outflank whoever the torch bearer might be. It was an instinctive manoeuvre, as lethal and well tried as the circling of wolves, and soon the target was surrounded.

The torch had been driven into the hard-packed earth of the road, hammered fast before it had been set alight. The top was a wicker basket that blazed with flames from the oil reservoir that had been bundled inside. There was neither sight nor sound of who might have left it there.

“Perhaps it’s a signal to somebody,” Hofstadter suggested.

“Or a warning,” Minsk replied. “Look, look there. There’s a parchment tied to the haft.”

Reluctantly, knowing that he would have to do this if he was to remain his pack’s leader, Minsk edged forwards. He moved slowly, examining the ground before him for any sign of pit or snare, although occasionally he would look to his comrades for reassurance.

He finally reached the torch and, careful of the sparks that crackled and sputtered from the fire, he untied the parchment and held it to the light to read. He squinted as he tilted the parchment to make out the single word which had been printed across it.

“What does it say?” Hofstadter called out impatiently.

“‘Goodbye’,” Minsk said, puzzlement creasing his brow.

A hum cut through the darkness, as soft as the purr of a silken cat, and when Minsk stood up his men could see that the expression had been pinned to his face for an eternity. The arrow had buried itself between his eyes, a perfect shot that had killed him so neatly that he stood for a while longer, his body not yet realising that it was dead.

The men watched in silence as their leader stood there, ridiculous in his injury.

“Gentlemen,” a voice called out of the darkness. “Minsk was given his warning. He chose not to take it. Now, I give you yours.”

The four mutineers froze. They could see each other in the torchlight. And so could the archer.

“Will you abandon this attempt at mutiny and return to your comrades?” the voice asked again, and this time Hofstadter recognised it.

“Erikson,” he said.

“What?” The voice took on a harder edge.

“Captain, I mean,” Hofstadter corrected himself with a quick glance down towards the corpse of his comrade. Minsk’s eyes glittered in the torchlight, as dead as the stars above.

“That’s more like it,” Erikson said as he rose from the hollow he had lain in and strode into their midst. He bent down over his victim and, with a well-practiced twist, freed the arrow. He knelt on his haunches, his back to the mutineers, and used Minsk’s tunic to clean the gore from it.

“Will we be punished, captain?” one of the mutineers asked.

“Yes,” Erikson told them. “You will have to carry double loads until we reach our destination. And if you try to mutiny again…” He stood up and gestured towards the cooling corpse of their leader.

The mutineers hesitated, torn between returning to the company or trying to kill their captain.

“Hofstadter.” Erikson pretended not to know what was going through their minds. “You can carry the body. The man may not have been much of a soldier, but I know he was your comrade and we will bury him properly before we move on tomorrow. Ernst, you help him. Come on, man, snap to it. Who knows what else that flame may have brought?”

The men looked around nervously then hurried to pick up the body of their leader.

“Come on,” Erikson said, and led them back towards the camp, the occasional splash of Minsk’s cooling blood leaving a dark trail behind them.