C. Werner: Dead Winter

‘The warherds have been broken,’ Boeckenfoerde said. ‘What are left are small packs of scavengers that pose no threat to any sizable settlement. The towns of southern Drakwald have nothing to fear from them. It is the logging camps and cattle ranches in the north that are imperilled.’

‘So you are saying the Drakwald still needs protecting?’ the bearded Baron Thornig asked.

‘Was it not by your suggestion that the Army of Drakwald was disbanded?’ Count Artur quickly pointed out. The Army of Drakwald had been hastily assembled from contingents drawn from across the Empire. Crossbowmen from Wissenland, spearmen from Ostland, horsemen from Averland, swordsmen from Reikland, knights from the Ostermark and Middenheim. Now those contingents were already marching back to their homelands.

‘Smashing the great warherds was work for an army,’ Boeckenfoerde stated. ‘What is left is a different kind of thing altogether. It will require…’

‘Time for Drakwald to heal her wounds,’ Emperor Boris declared. He motioned for Boeckenfoerde to be seated. ‘We have spent enough blood and treasure crushing the monsters. We will spend no more. The beastmen are ruinous things. Without their leader they will break apart now, scatter back into the forest.’ He turned his gaze again to the Kaiseraugen, watching the autumn leaves drifting down onto the slanted rooftops of his city. ‘The brutes will seek their lairs once winter is upon us. Ulric’s Howl,’ he grinned at the use of the old euphemism for the winter wind, ‘will thin out their numbers and come the spring there won’t be enough of them left to threaten a Mootland bawdyhouse.’

The jest brought the expected laughter from the assembled dignitaries. Chief Elder Aldo Broadfellow cackled like a hyena, though his amusement didn’t seem to reach his eyes.

‘Then why do we not redirect our armies northwards to Westerland?’ asked Baron Dettleb von Schomberg. The knight was an older man, his long moustaches faded to almost pure white, his head nearly as barren as the shell of an egg. But the physique beneath his black doublet remained a powerful one and there was a sharpness in his gaze that bespoke the keenness of his mind. As Grand Master of the Reiksknecht, he owed his loyalty to the Emperor but he owed his position to Sigdan Holswig, Prince of Altdorf.

The suggestion was quickly caught up by Baron Salzwedel. ‘That makes sense, your Imperial Majesty,’ the Nordlander exclaimed. ‘If the beastmen pose no serious threat, then the army could be sent to deal with the barbarians and avenge the outrages of Ormgaard upon our people.’

‘Ormgaard is dead,’ snarled Duke Konrad. ‘Or were you too drunk to see his head spitted on a pike on your way in here?’

Count van Sauckelhof glared at the Drakwalder. ‘Ormgaard and his fleet may be gone, but he left a son and hundreds of blood-crazed marauders behind. Do you know that Norscan animal is calling himself Jarl of Vestland? They’ve occupied almost the whole of Marienburg!’

‘Better to lose a single city than lose an entire province!’ Duke Konrad shouted back. ‘The beastkin have scattered my peasantry to the four corners of the Empire and slaughtered every steer and sheep they can find!’

‘Truly spoken!’ rose the thunderous voice of Baron Thornig. ‘The beastkin are a blight that we’ve ignored far too long! They’ve despoiled not just Drakwald but Middenland as well.’ The bearded baron waved his goblet at the fuming van Sauckelhof. ‘As for this Snagr Half-nose and his sea-wolves, they’ll lose interest in your fishing village soon enough and head back to their homes.’

‘You said that last year,’ van Sauckelhof hissed, ‘and the Norscans are still occupying my city! They’ve burned down the Tempelwijk and built a fort from the ruins of the Winkelmarkt!’ He turned his ire back upon Duke Konrad, wagging his finger at the nobleman. ‘And don’t think we aren’t aware of how you Drakwalders have been thriving off our suffering! With Marienburg in the hands of barbarians, the river trade has been stopping at Carroburg and filling your coffers with taxes and tariffs! I shouldn’t be surprised if you paid Snagr Half-nose to sack our city!’

‘Maybe he should pay the Norscans to get rid of the beastmen,’ quipped Count Artur, making no effort to hide his enjoyment of watching the argument.

‘Enough!’ The shout came from a hitherto silent man positioned at the end of the table. He was a lean, sturdily built man with piercing blue eyes and close-cropped blond hair. His vestments were of fashionable cut, but of simple material, the rings on his fingers boasting fine craftsmanship but unadorned by the jewels displayed on the hands of the assembled nobility.

The attention of the dignitaries turned towards the blue-eyed man. Count van Sauckelhof and several of the others made no effort to keep the scorn off their faces. Tradition allowed for members of the clergy to be treated as belonging to an equal station and the capricious decree of Emperor Ludwig the Fat had forced them to accept the Elder of Mootland as their contemporary, but there was no precedent forcing them to treat Adolf Kreyssig as anything but beneath their station.

Kreyssig was a peasant, a low-born ruffian who had managed to work his way into the graces of Emperor Boris and become Commander of the Kaiserjaeger. The Kaiserjaeger had originally been nothing more than woodsmen who organised hunts for the sovereign and his guests. Under Kreyssig’s leadership, however, their powers and responsibilities had been expanded. The Kaiserjaeger had become the private constabulary of Emperor Boris, the secret police of Altdorf.

Whatever his position, Kreyssig was still a mere peasant, and that was enough for some in the room to dismiss him entirely. To suffer his presence at the table, even if custom dictated he remain standing while his betters sat, was a vexation many of the nobles found difficult to ignore. For Kreyssig to have the impertinence to shout down two scions of the Empire was beyond an outrage.

‘You forget your tongue, churl!’ growled Baron Thornig, his hand dropping to where he would have worn his sword had such a weapon been allowed in the Imperial Presence.

‘I mean no disrespect, my lord,’ Kreyssig said, bowing to the Middenheimer. ‘However it ill becomes the decorum of this assembly for two noble peers of the Empire to make such hurtful and foundless accusations against one another.’ Kreyssig turned to regard Duke Konrad and Count van Sauckelhof in turn. ‘Your grace, I beg your indulgence if I have spoken out of turn. However I am thinking only of the unity and fellowship of our nation…’

‘Arguing over the Army of the Drakwald is useless at any event,’ Reiksmarshal Boeckenfoerde said. ‘The soldiers have been disbanded and are returning to their homes.’ Again, he shot a glance towards Emperor Boris.

‘The soldiers have been mustered out,’ Boris declared. ‘Even those who must return to Ostland and Averland should be home in time for the harvest.’ He waved a bejewelled hand, motioning for the stoop-shouldered man seated near the head of the table to speak.

Lord Ratimir stood, adjusting the spectacles perched upon his hawkish nose, and started to read from a vellum scroll. A sickly pallor spread among the assembled dignitaries. In forty years, none of them had ever looked forward to anything the Imperial Minister of Finance had to say.

‘Be it here decreed, on this day, the twelfth of Nachgeheim…’ Lord Ratimir began.

‘Just cut the pleasantries and tell us how much it will cost us,’ growled Count Artur, all joviality absent now from his rotund face.

Lord Ratimir grumbled, folding the scroll in his hands. ‘There will be a new war tax levied upon each able-bodied peasant. One schilling for all those aged between ten and fifty. One half-schilling for all those beyond the age of fifty or under the age of ten.’