01 - Honour of the Grave (7 page)

She rounded a corner. A figure appeared out of the darkness to pin her
against a cold stone wall. Though he barely came up to her waist, he was stout
and muscular, and held her fast. A reek of ale wafted up from him. He had her
right arm pinned, so she couldn’t get to the knife on her belt. Neither could
she reach the other one in the cuff of her boot. She grunted, trying to push off
from the wall, but the bastard was strong and had a low centre of gravity. She
twisted to look at his ill-lit features. She’d assumed from his belligerence and
strength that he would be a dwarf, but now that she looked at him, she knew him
for a halfling. He had a wide and beardless face, sunken eyes and a prominent
brow, topped by curly locks. Both of his circular ears had large wedges cut out
of them. The blotchy pink remains of an old burn marred his left cheek; a wide,
red worm-like scar wriggled around his throat.

He pushed his shoulder into her and opened his mouth, letting his wide tongue
come out to slurp up a skein of drool that had fallen onto his chin. “So who are
we, girlie?” he asked, staring wild-eyed into her face. His voice was high and
boyish, lending his lechery an extra layer of obscene menace. Keeping his
shoulder pressed in hard, he waggled his broad hands at her, apparently
searching for her breasts.

“If those hands go any further, I’ll cut them off.”

He grinned, but ceased his pawing. “Ah, girlie talks, does she? Girlie talks
mean. I like that.”

Angelika squirmed. “Let me have my knife and I’ll really give you a thrill.”

He ground his shoulder into her kidney. A groan escaped her lips.

“So girlie, I haven’t seen you in town before. Tell me who you might be.”

She slid sideways along the wall until she had him off balance. Then she
snaked forward to grind a thumb into his neck, digging deep into a pressure
point. Grunting indignantly, he shifted his weight off her. She clamped her
hands around each of his ears, held his face in position, and kneed him between
the eyes. She wanted to do it again, but his skull-bone was hard and had hurt
her knee. She let go of him, scudded back, and pulled out her knife.

Reeling back, he blinked tears from his eyes. Blood ran out of his nose and
into his mouth. He wrenched a dagger from his own belt.

“I only asked you for simple information, girlie,” he complained, breathing
tiny red bubbles, which quickly popped. “Now I’ll have to teach you a lesson.”

She thought of a retort but didn’t bother. Halflings were too easy. All you
had to do was remind them they were short. She extended her legs, leaned back to
widen her first swing, and waited for the little lout come to her. He wiped his
mouth with his free hand. The blood was still flooding down—it covered his
chin. He took a half-step at her and feinted, jabbing his blade like a
pig-sticker. Angelika tilted her head to the side and clucked at him, wordlessly
taunting him for the feeble move.

“Oh, you’re one of those ones,” he said, “who think you’re so…” He charged
her; she dodged him but couldn’t get a decent opening. They circled each other
in the middle of the lane, dirt scraping under the toes of their boots. None of
the nearby windows were lit. But few locals would risk their necks to intervene
in a scrap, anyway.

“You think I don’t know how to handle a knife,” the halfling said. “I just
don’t know whether to cut you with my right hand, or my left.” He tossed the
dagger back and forth from one hand to the other. Angelika watched the blade, not the man. She chose her
moment and kicked out with her long and slender leg. Her toe caught his knife in
mid-air, between right hand and left. It twirled end over end, up past the
halfling’s head and into the darkness behind him. He looked up, disbelieving.

Angelika kicked him in the throat. He gasped and gargled. He spat up more
blood. She dropped back into a defensive crouch. Her plan was to goad him into a
stupid charge, then use his own momentum to plant her knife deep into him, just
below the Adam’s apple. He reached to his right hip for a longer, sturdier
weapon, a short sword. He copied her crouch and shifted his weight from side to
side.

“AH right,” he said. “You’re not just any girlie. Someone taught you how to
fight. Maybe I should have heard your name before.”

“They call me Bleeder of Halflings.”

He curled his lip. “There’s a difference between talking mean and talking
smart.”

“Sorry if I seem suddenly unattractive to you.”

He hefted the sword in his hand, as if testing its weight. He stuck it up
into the air, screamed a strangled battlecry, then turned his arse to her and
ran across the lane, scattering up gravel and dust. He darted into the mouth of
an alleyway. She sprinted after him but stopped short a good ten feet before the
unlit alley entrance. She’d paid him back sufficiently; she didn’t need to kill
him. Besides, it could be a trap: he might have any number of cronies in there
waiting to leap on her.

Still, she hated to let such a thing trail off, without proper resolution.
His interest in her name troubled her. She stood before the alley, panting, then
decided to wait until her breath had returned to normal. She heard nothing, saw
nothing, down the laneway.

“Angelika!” It was Franziskus. He’d come back for her. He seemed worried. “Is
everything all right?” he asked.

“Of course,” she answered.

They rode through green flatlands, ice-topped mountains rising up on either
side of them. The sun had just slid behind the peaks to the right of them, as
they travelled south. The sky was yellow, interrupted by purple bands of cloud.
Unseen birds twittered from the trees that lined the foothills. All day long,
white bellflower blossoms had covered the grassy slopes; now the blooms had
closed themselves up, against the fading light.

They were eight hours south of the Castello. The party would have made better
progress, were it not for the typically Imperial attitudes of its leaders. They
couldn’t just provide horses for everyone, that would show insufficient
deference to hierarchy. The officers, Benno and Gelfrat, rode sleek and muscular
stallions. Angelika, as a guest (or as a woman—it wasn’t clear which), had
been given a pokey mule with a patchy coat and a resentful glare. The ordinary
soldiers had to make it on foot. So did Franziskus, whose status lacked clarity.
This situation meant that the party moved only as quickly as its slowest man—who in this case was a paunchy fellow with greying mutton-chops and a bad wheeze, named Ekbert. In a mixed group, the horses were an impediment: they
prevented the group from moving up into the hills, where the going would be
slower but safer. Angelika eyed the trees and remembered how the Averlandish
forces had used them to ambush their orcish prey. She wanted to be up in the
hills herself, on the good side of all that cover.

Angelika had offered Franziskus a turn on the mule; she hated the surly
beasts, so it was no great sacrifice. Franziskus had been offended by the very
suggestion. He still seemed piqued by their exchange on the street, the night
before. Angelika wasn’t sure why he’d got so huffy, but saw little reason to tax
herself puzzling him out.

Benno and Gelfrat kept themselves close at hand, riding to keep her flanked.
It seemed they were worried that she might up and bolt on them. There was little
chance of that: she hadn’t yet separated them from their coins.

Benno in particular had been giving her close attention. He’d slapped on some
perfume that smelled like Araby spice. Angelika had given some thought to his
new attitude and had not settled on an opinion about it. He was more fetching
from certain angles than from others. The weak chin was a problem, but the spark
in his eyes might compensate. She’d certainly bedded worse specimens. For the
moment, however, there was business between them, and that would take precedence
over any other stirrings.

Gelfrat’s odour had not changed since their last meeting. He still smelled of
the Dolorosa la Bara. He took frequent pulls on his water skin, which probably
contained something more than water. He’d begun the day’s travels with a blank
and guarded expression, and had steadily grown more bored and petty with the
death of each hour.

“You,” he grunted, interrupting Angelika’s uneasy survey of the thickening
trees to the left and right. He had allowed his horse to fall back and was now
riding alongside Franziskus. Franziskus craned a wary head up at him.

“Yes?”

“Where are you from?”

“From nowhere, like everyone else around here.”

“You don’t sound like you’re from nowhere.”

Benno pulled his horse’s reins and circled back toward his half-brother.

“If my accent offends you, I apologise,” Franziskus said, keeping his tone
bland and even.

“I want to know where you’re from.”

Benno reached Gelfrat’s side. “Maybe it is time to find a good camp for the
night.”

Gelfrat kept his eyes on Franziskus. “I want to know why he’s with us.”

“Because he is with her,” Benno said, jabbing a thumb in Angelika’s
direction. “Let’s remain intent on our mission, shall we?”

Ignoring his brother, Gelfrat kept on, “You sound like a Stirlander. Why
aren’t you in Stirland?”

Franziskus shrugged. Benno sighed and rode ahead, catching up to Angelika.
She expected him to beg pardon for his comrade’s poor manners, but he said
nothing. He fidgeted with his helmet strap and kept his eyes straight ahead.

“I said, why aren’t you in Stirland?”

Angelika saw movement up in the hills, to her right. She put up her hand.

Gelfrat was too preoccupied to see her signal. “I
said
—”

Benno shushed him. Gelfrat’s muscles bunched up; red embarrassment flushed
his face.

“What do you see?” Benno asked her.

“Figures in the trees.” With a flick of the head, she showed him where.
Gelfrat kicked his horse. It bolted ahead. Benno followed. Angelika jumped free
of her mule and ran to follow the two brothers; Franziskus came too. The
soldiers stayed stupidly put. Soon, the officers’ horses were rearing up,
refusing to press on through a scattering of large rocks. Gelfrat turned his
horse around and rode back to their men. Benno calmed his mount, then leapt down
from his back. He landed on his ankle, and exclaimed, more in surprise than
pain. Angelika pointed up into the pines.

“You see them?” she asked Franziskus. He nodded.

Benno limped over. He stood behind Angelika’s outstretched arm and squinted.
“I don’t see.”

“They’re gone,” Angelika said.

“Did you get a good look at them?”

She shook her head. They had only been dark figures moving through the trees.
But two of them were much shorter than the other; they might have been
halflings. Like the knave who’d accosted her the night before.

“It could be anyone up there, correct?” Benno said. “This whole pass crawls
with goblins, skaven, outlaws… and Sigmar knows what else.”

“If someone were keeping a watch on you,” Angelika asked, “who would it most
likely be?”

Benno raised his eyebrows and threw up his hands. “No one. No one would know
why we’re here. Or care.”

“Because we are being followed.”

The clouds thickened overhead, and by the time dusk had finished its
transformation into night, they had filled the sky entirely. They left the party
in darkness, with not even the faint light of the stars to travel by. Angelika
could hear the rat-ding of buckles against breastplates, and the breath of the
men and horses around her, but she could see nothing. She stretched her hand out
and spread its fingers. She could not see that, either.

Benno slapped reins to his horse’s neck and called the party to a halt. “A
devil’s choice,” he said. “We camp here, under the noses of our watchers, or we
light lanterns—making it easy for them to follow us.”

“If they follow us,” Gelfrat’s voice boomed from the blackness, “I say we
make our stand here.”

“What say you?” Benno asked.

It took Angelika a moment to realise that the Averlander was addressing her.
It was not the usual thing, for an Imperial officer to solicit advice from a
border rat—or from a woman, for that matter. She pulled her cloak tighter. The
temperature had been steadily dropping for the past hour. “Gelfrat’s right,” she
said. “This is the Blackfire Pass, so we have to assume the worst—that
whoever’s following us plans to attack. If we camp here, we can find a good
place to defend ourselves from, and conserve our strength. Otherwise, we’re just
waiting to be ambushed. And if I’m wrong, and there’s no one chasing us… a few
more hours, here and there, will make no difference to your brother now.”

Gelfrat muttered a complaint. The foot soldiers whispered to one another,
uneasily.

“I’d like to do this without lanterns,” Benno said, “but then again, I would
prefer to be abed in Grenzstadt, with a sweet-smelling harlot snoozing on either
side of me.” Angelika heard him dismount; he landed with surprising lightness.
“Ekbert, Heinrich! Strike those flints of yours!”

Angelika wormed her way off the back of her mule. It twisted its neck to snap
at her. She coiled her muscles as someone touched her, cupping a hand around her
shoulder.

It was Benno; he spoke into her ear. His breath was warm. “We don’t want to
be camping out here on the plain, do we?”

“No,” she said. “Up in the hills. We can probably find a big rock to huddle
against, that will shelter us from the wind. If we’re lucky, we can find a place
with few approaches, which will be easier to guard. Tell the men to pick up any
dead wood they find; we can lay it out on the pathways, so anyone coming will
knock into it, and make noise. Branches with dead leaves still stuck to them are
the best; they give off a good rattle.”

“There’s no sense in the whole lot of us tramping blindly about. You and I
will go,” Benno said, “and then come back for the others, when we’ve found
something.”