C. Werner - Blighted Empire

Slowly, the Kineater bent over Mandred, bringing its sharp fangs towards his throat.

Before the brute could strike, a white blur swept between it and its foe. Mandred turned his face as hot blood sprayed over him. He felt the claw’s pressure vanish, the imprisoning hoof lift away. Quickly he rolled onto his feet, raising his sword to fend off a renewed attack. What he saw made him marvel. The Kineater was staggering about the clearing, its claw clamped about its own neck trying to staunch the torrent of blood streaming from its torn throat. The brute stumbled about for a moment, then collapsed, its beauteous face slamming into the embers of the fire.

Mandred could only shake his head in wonder at his strange rescue. He didn’t have long to ponder it, however. The clamour of battle yet rang within the clearing. The Kineater was dead, but the fiend’s herd was still in the fight.

Ignoring the hurt of his battered body, Mandred rushed to help his embattled patrol.

‘Voller and Gustav,’ Mandred said, his voice sombre as he stared down at the dead rangers. Victory over the beastmen hadn’t come without a cost. Not one man of the patrol was without his wounds, but Voller and Gustav had made the ultimate sacrifice. ‘They will be remembered,’ he vowed.

Leaving the surviving ranger and Albrecht to prepare the bodies for transport back to Middenheim, Mandred walked across the bloodied battlefield. A few of the beastmen had escaped the destruction of the Kineater. He looked in vain for the carcass of the rat-like monster, so he knew at least that obscenity had gone free. It was just as well. The survivors would seek places in other warherds and take with them the story of this fight. It might make some of the chiefs think twice before straying so close to the Ulricsberg.

‘How are they?’ Mandred asked Beck as he approached the tree where the captives had been bound. The knight had already cut them from their bonds and the two prisoners were sitting huddled together on the ground. The middle-aged man was draped in Beck’s cloak and doing his best to share the warmth of the garment with the shivering woman beside him. Mandred noted with some interest the Kineater’s cloak lying in a heap a short distance away.

‘Cold and scared,’ Beck answered. He sighed and pointed at the woman. ‘She refused to wrap herself in the chief’s cloak.’

The woman looked up at Mandred. Despite her ordeal and the less than dignified condition she was in, there was a firmness, a pride in that gaze that impressed the prince. ‘Can you blame her?’ Mandred asked, unfastening the brooch that pinned his own cloak. With a courteous bow, he offered it to the woman.

Beck shook his head. ‘Damn foolishness,’ he grumbled. ‘Preferring to freeze.’

The woman shot him a scowling look. ‘You… didn’t have… the experience of… knowing your hair was going to end up adorning that… filth.’

The knight’s face flushed and he was unable to hold the woman’s glare. ‘I’ll… I’ll see about the horses, your grace.’ Almost unconsciously, he glanced back at the woman, then hurried away when she tightened Mandred’s cloak about herself with an angry tug.

The man paid no attention to the knight’s withdrawal, more interested in the address Beck had used. ‘Pardon my insolence,’ he begged in a voice that was at once cultured and deferential, ‘but that man called you “your grace”. Would I be correct in believing we owe our deliverance to Prince Mandred von Zelt?’

‘You have me at a disadvantage,’ Mandred answered. He smiled benignly at the two wayfarers. ‘I don’t know how my name is regarded in your land. I would be right in detecting the accent of Reikland in your words?’

The traveller chuckled and bowed. ‘There are some who are envious of Middenheim and would like to see her rulers strung up like a Sigmarsfest goose,’ he admitted. ‘But, that sort tends to stay in Altdorf.’ Mustering what dignity his state of undress allowed, he presented himself with such formality as circumstances would afford. ‘You see before you Friar Richter, a humble priest of Holy Sigmar and confessor to her ladyship, Mirella von Wittmar.’

Mandred nodded to the priest. ‘Brother Richter,’ he said. Turning to the woman, he found his eyes lingering on her proud face. ‘Lady Mirella,’ he said, bowing to kiss her hand.

‘I thank you for your gallantry,’ Mirella returned. She hadn’t blushed under Beck’s scrutiny, but colour rushed to her cheeks as the prince released her hand. Mandred pretended not to notice and quickly looked away.

‘Would I be correct in the belief that you are seeking refuge in Middenheim?’ he asked. It was a foolish question. There wasn’t any other reason for a Reikland noblewoman and her confessor to be traipsing about in the Drakwald.

‘We beg asylum from your father,’ Brother Richter answered. He sighed and seemed to shrink visibly as a great sorrow depressed him. ‘Circumstances make it imperative we surrender ourselves to the consideration of Graf Gunthar.’

Mandred stared hard at the priest, puzzled by his manner of speech. Perhaps it was an affectation of the Sigmarite temple, but for a mere confessor, Brother Richter spoke as though he were the social equal of Lady Mirella. His surprise must have shown on his face, for the noblewoman gave the priest a warning glance.

‘There is a price on my head,’ Mirella stated, trying to give Mandred something else to think about. ‘I was implicated in Prince Sigdan’s plot against Emperor Boris.’

Mandred smiled at her frankness. ‘Then you are doubly welcome in Middenheim,’ he said. He turned as he heard Beck coming back with the horses. A thought occurred to him. ‘I fear we’ll need one of the horses to carry our dead,’ he admitted with a touch of awkwardness. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to ride double.’

Brother Richter’s face curled in a sly grin. ‘I fear I’m a poor horseman,’ he confessed.

‘You can ride with me then,’ Mandred decided.

The flustered priest sputtered a protest. ‘Oh, I’ll be quite all right on my own,’ he said. ‘I just… Well… riding double might… be inconvenient.’ Rolling his eyes he nodded his head towards Mirella. Mandred smiled when he caught Brother Richter’s meaning.

‘Lady Mirella, may I offer you my saddle?’ the prince asked. Lowering her eyes, the noblewoman sketched the slightest nod of her head.

As they prepared to quit the grisly clearing, Mandred gave one last look at the carcasses of the Kineater and its herd. In accordance with custom, the head of each monster had been cut from its body and staked to the branch of a tree, a warning to others of their breed. Only the Kineater’s head had been kept, lashed to Albrecht’s saddle, a trophy that would bring a ray of cheer to the people of Middenheim when it was set upon the walls.

‘What’s wrong?’ Lady Mirella asked Mandred. Seated behind him in the saddle, she had felt the prince start. She followed the direction of his gaze, but saw only an old log lying just at the edge of the clearing.

Mandred, however, found himself staring into the frosty eyes of a great white wolf. A wolf with blood on its muzzle.

‘Those with a destiny are watched over by the gods.’ Seated upon Voller’s horse, Brother Richter was also staring in the direction of the log. Mandred glanced at the priest, but when he looked back, the wolf was gone.

‘It guided me here,’ Mandred told the priest, feeling a chill run through him. Even at its most benign, there was an unsettling wrongness about magic. ‘What does it mean?’

‘Only time may tell,’ Richter admitted. ‘But is it not reassuring to know that the good gods have not abandoned us?’ He nudged the flanks of his horse with his bare feet, urging the steed through the trees with a display of expert horsemanship. Mandred smiled and shook his head.