C. Werner - Blighted Empire

For a moment, man and wolf simply stared at one another, locked in each other’s gaze. Mandred felt his pulse quicken, his chest grow heavy. He felt the primal yearning for wild places, the howl of the wild primitive that lurks beneath the thin veneer of civilisation. He knew the thrill of the hunt, the ecstasy of the kill. The devotion of the pack…

In one smooth motion, displaying a lithe grace, the white wolf rose and dashed across the trail. Though it sprinted directly ahead of Mad Albrecht and caused the trapper’s horse to shy, the Drakwalder didn’t see the animal. Beck and the soldiers likewise gave no shouts of alarm or surprise. Mandred alone, it seemed, had seen the wolf.

‘Turn to the left,’ Mandred called out, an eerie feeling rushing through his body. The men with him directed questioning stares his way, wondering what strange impulse had come upon the prince. Mandred barely acknowledged them. Raising himself in the saddle, he peered into the forest, spotting the white blur of the running wolf.

‘You heard his grace,’ Beck snarled at the others. The knight did not know what reason Mandred had for his strange order, nor did he care. It was enough that the prince had issued a command. ‘Into the trees.’ Beck spurred his horse from the trail, charging into the forest.

Mandred smiled at the man’s unquestioning loyalty as he turned his own mount and left the trail. He could hear Albrecht and the others following close behind. Ahead, drifting between the trunks, its white pelt shining in the shadows, the wolf seemed to beckon.

For what seemed leagues, the rangers maintained their silent pursuit of a quarry only the prince could see. Several times, Mandred had despaired of the hunt, but always the white wolf would suddenly reappear, tantalisingly near yet frustratingly far away. He was reminded of old nursery fables about the hunter who had dared to pursue the sacred stag of Taal and been cursed by the god to forever pursue a quarry he would never catch. He thought of tales he had heard of the haunted Laurelorn forest and the fairy creatures that lurked within its borders.

Mandred felt the urge to pull rein, to stop this reckless hunt before he led his followers into disaster. There was magic here, try as he might he couldn’t dismiss that frightful realisation. Even as the decision to call off the chase came to him, he saw the wolf turn its head, stare back at him with its uncanny gaze. The prince’s determination faltered. He was reminded of another legend, one that wasn’t an obscure rumour or fable, but a part of everyday life in Middenheim. The white wolf, the sacred animal of Ulric.

The wolf dashed off among the trees, vanishing in the shadows. Mandred tried to catch some sign of it, standing up in his stirrups, craning his neck as he attempted to see through the thick cluster of trunks. Throughout the chase, he’d always caught sight of the wolf again after it had disappeared. This time, however, no trace of that lupine form rewarded his efforts.

‘Stop,’ Mandred called out, tugging at his reins. The command was quickly echoed by Beck, and soon the entire patrol was gathered about the prince. He could feel the sullen annoyance of the rangers as they stared at him with questioning eyes. None of them had seen the white wolf, so none of them understood the purpose behind this mad chase through the forest.

Mandred opened his mouth to explain when a strange smell struck his nose. It was the odour of smoke, and beneath it a loathsome stench he’d become horribly intimate with during the worst of the plague, when the refugees of Warrenburg had burned their dead. The stench was that of burning flesh.

Albrecht made a sound like the croak of a raven, a warning signal for the rest to remain silent. Dropping down from his saddle, the trapper gave his reins to one of the rangers and scrambled off into the forest gloom, his steps as silent as any beast of the wild. Beck drew his sword, one of the rangers unlimbered the bow strapped to his saddle. An expectant tension filled the air. These men were veterans of many patrols. This close to the Ulricsberg, they knew what the stink of cooking human flesh meant.

The Kineater was back in its old haunts.

Carroburg

Ertezeit, 1114

Carroburg had been the jewel in the crown of Drakwald. Less cramped and confined than Altdorf, more accessible than Middenheim, spared the foetid atmosphere of Marienburg, the city had been growing in prominence for the better part of a century. It had become a serious rival to Marienburg for trade on the River Reik, once even going so far as to blockade the river and exact a toll from all ships wishing to proceed northwards into Westerland. That practice had ended only after the elector of Westerland agreed to support the bid by a Hohenbach to become emperor.

The line of Drakwald emperors had continued to foster the growth of Carroburg, grooming the city to become a cosmopolitan jewel to rival Altdorf, Mordheim and even Nuln itself. Indeed, there had been many who thought the Imperial court would move to Carroburg when Nuln was abandoned by the Emperor. An old grudge between Count Vilner and the Emperor was rumoured to be the reason for Altdorf’s restoration as the capital.

War had brought the first blemish to the glories of Carroburg. When northmen attacked Westerland and occupied Marienburg, a veritable tide of trade was ended, decimating the coffers of Carroburg’s burghers and merchants. Worse was to come when the beastmen rampaged through the province, laying waste to the land. The brutes were never so bold as to lay siege to the city itself, but their depredations were felt almost as keenly. The agriculture of Drakwald was virtually annihilated, forcing the rich burghers to spend their hoarded wealth on the extra expense of importing food and wool. Waves of refugees flocked to the city, seeking protection behind its stone walls, further taxing the resources of the burghers.

Then the Black Plague struck. Already on the edge of disaster, the plague was the final push Carroburg needed to descend into the pit. The stream of food reaching the city from downriver slowed to a mere trickle while the waves of refugees increased tenfold. A vast squalor of shacks engulfed the fields beyond the walls, thousands of displaced peasants with nowhere else to turn. In these conditions, starvation ran rampant, disease flourished and the embers of despair grew into the fires of anarchy. Riots broke out across the city and shantytown, exploding into a conflagration of disorder and violence. For ten days the inferno raged, and before it exhausted itself a third of Carroburg was in ruins, a quarter of its people were dead. The shantytown was put to the torch, the land beyond the walls becoming a blackened desolation.

One tiny spark had pushed the dejected and the desperate to cast aside generations of obedience, adherence to the ancient distinctions between peasant and noble. They died by the hundreds in their futile revolt against a system that had enslaved and abused them, giving their lives to tear down the thrones of their callous masters. In the end, the revolt failed, crushed by the knights and soldiers of the Hohenbachs. The rebel dead were cast into an open pit beyond the walls, left exposed to feed worm and crow. Left as a lesson to those who survived that they should be thankful for what little they were allowed to have.

One tiny spark, a new tax upon a people already reduced to nothing, a fee upon each ear on each head. The penalty for non-payment was mutilation. No coin, no ear.

The tax was a penalty exacted upon the people of Drakwald for the role their last count had played in the conspiracy against the Imperial throne. The execution of Duke Konrad had done little to placate the ire of Emperor Boris. Others had to suffer for his cousin’s treachery, even if they’d had no part in it.