C. Werner - Blighted Empire

The men who rode beneath the trees did their best to avoid those rare patches of sunlight. The least reflection off a buckle or an exposed bit of armour would shine like a beacon in the darkened forest. The fell things that called the shadows home already had enough ways to detect strangers in their domain without making them a gift of still another.

They’d done their best to conceal their presence, limiting their numbers to half a dozen riders rather than a stronger company of horsemen. Under the guidance of Mad Albrecht, a trapper who had made his living off the Drakwald for decades, the riders had stained their leatherworks with the musky scent of forest buffalo and banded the hooves of their steeds with fur to muffle their steps. Anything that might make noise, from scabbards to loose bridles and straps, had been carefully secured lest they rattle against a bit of armour or a kicking spur.

Despite his attention to detail, Mad Albrecht didn’t think their chances of going unnoticed were very high. It truly was in the hands of Grim Grey Taal, Lord of the Forests, and the trapper whispered a constant prayer to his god as his eyes roved the forest, and his ears strained to catch every sound.

Watching the trapper from the saddle of his courser, Prince Mandred felt guilt pull at his heart. Mad Albrecht was the best woodsman in Middenheim barring one or two acolytes of Taal. A refugee from the Drakwald province, the man had an almost preternatural affinity for the forest. There was no better guide a patrol could ask for.

Which was why Prince Mandred felt the flesh behind his trim black beard flush with shame. Middenheim had lost several patrols to the forest, patrols that hadn’t been so fortunate to have a guide like Albrecht along. Patrols that hadn’t been so fortunate as to have Graf Gunthar making sure they had a man like Albrecht to guide them.

Mandred raised his eyes skywards, watching the branches rustle far overhead. He appreciated his father’s concern, was moved by his paternal devotion. At the same time, he resented being treated any differently from the brave men who risked their lives to keep the countryside surrounding the Ulricsberg secure. It was vital that the rural raugrafs and their peasants be protected. Without them, Middenheim and the refugee settlement of Warrenburg would starve. The patrols’ importance was why Mandred had insisted on leading some of them himself, as a gesture of solidarity with the rangers. But with his father showing him extra consideration, he was finding his presence to be detrimental rather than beneficial to morale.

The prince shifted in his saddle, glancing back at the other riders, catching them in a hushed conversation. They threw him a guilty look and quickly fell silent. A sense of regret tugged at him. He was an outsider to these valorous men, a pampered noble who could only play in their world, never actually share it. Mandred could almost curse his breeding, the vast fissure that separated noble from peasant, prince from dienstmann. The Black Plague hadn’t shown such distinction in its depredations. The turmoil and confusion left in its wake were similarly shared by all men regardless of class. Yet instead of drawing men closer, uniting them against the common adversity, it was rendering society ever more fractious and resentful.

‘I’ll report them to the graf,’ the stern voice of Beck growled, provoking a warning hiss from Albrecht up ahead. The burly knight just scowled at the wiry trapper. Quickly he turned his attention back to Mandred. ‘They have no cause talking about you.’

Mandred shook his head. Beck had been his bodyguard for six years now, ever since Franz had ridden with the prince to relieve the massacre of Warrenburg by marauding beastmen. Dear old Franz had contracted the plague in that expedition. He’d died down in the refugee camp, never again to set foot upon the Ulricsberg. Mandred was ashamed that it had taken the death of his friend to appreciate the meaning of sacrifice, of what it meant to put loyalty above one’s own life. A leader could command such loyalty. A good leader was one who would never abuse it.

Beck was a very different sort of man than Franz. He was a grim, hardened warrior, a veteran of the Knights of the White Wolf. He was a man of constant vigilance, ready to see threat in the most innocuous things. A surly look, an unguarded word, and he was ready to condemn a man as a traitorous dog. Right now, Mandred could almost see his bodyguard formulating the report he would give Graf Gunthar denouncing the three Dienstleute .

‘Let it be,’ Mandred told Beck. He forced a tone of levity into his voice. ‘A soldier who doesn’t complain is one who doesn’t understand his job.’

Beck frowned back at the horsemen. ‘As you will, your grace,’ he said.

‘I mean it, Beck,’ Mandred warned. With all the other problems afflicting them, he found it absurd that so much attention was still devoted to custom and propriety. The Empire was tearing itself apart, decimated by disease, brought to its knees by warfare. Barbarians still held Marienburg and much of Westerland. The province of Drakwald was an abandoned ruin, her countryside ravaged by beastmen, her great cities exterminated by the plague. Nordland was ablaze with civil war after the death of her grand count, grasping barons striving with one another to expand their own petty interests. Ostland was much the same, and the Ostermark was teetering on the brink of annihilation after a goblin horde descended upon the weakened land. As bad as things were in the north, Mandred had heard it was even worse in the south.

The Empire was in its death throes, and the scavengers were already gathering about the carcass.

Middenheim had withstood the worst of the plague, a fact that Mandred wasn’t too proud to attribute to the draconian policies of his father. Graf Gunthar had sealed the city against the tide of refugees, preventing the disease from gaining a foothold on the Ulricsberg. It had been a cruel, inhuman thing to do. Mandred still considered it vicious and villainous. At the same time, it had spared the people of Middenheim untold death and misery. Once, the prince had excoriated his father for such brutality. Now, he understood it, hoped that if such hideous necessity ever arose again he would have the strength to make the same decision.

Alone among the great cities of the Empire, Middenheim had emerged from the plague stronger than before. As the disease abated, refugees were accepted into the city. Warrenburg evolved from a shabby camp into an organised settlement. Regular patrols were dispatched to bring order to the surrounding country, stabilising much of Middenland and extending to its scattered villages the protection of the Ulricsberg. Something approaching normality had settled upon the province.

The price for that fragile peace was vigilance. Patrols such as this one constantly ranged through the forest, watching for signs of bandits, goblins and the ever-present threat of marauding beastmen. The abominable creatures had been beaten back time and again, but with small bands of refugees still braving the forest to seek the safety of Middenheim, the lure of easy prey kept the monsters creeping back. No man, even Graf Gunthar, could cleanse the Drakwald of all the evil hiding in its shadows.

A flash of white among the dark tree trunks brought Mandred’s head snapping around, his hand flashing to the sword at his side. As his eyes focused upon the shape loping out from the forest darkness, his grip on the sword faltered, his breath caught in his throat.

Trotting out from the trees was a great white wolf, the biggest Mandred had ever seen. It moved with a boldness, a nonchalance he’d never witnessed in a wolf before, as though it were completely indifferent to the armed riders less than a dozen yards away from it. The animal loped to within a few yards of the trail, then sat on its haunches and turned its head towards the prince. Mandred was struck by the piercing gleam of the wolf’s pale blue eyes, eyes that were like chips of frost cut from the peak of the Ulricsberg. There was more than an animal’s understanding in those eyes.