Same place, four hours later
The fly walked all over the eyeball, sucking fluids as it went. No eyelid closed on it, no hand tried to shoo it away. Mors had claimed the soul that had occupied the body a few hours ago and nature was about to claim the rest during the next hours.
Robert de Grail was not about to change any of that and only angered at the loss of four overseers that were hard to replace. He had examined the wounds of the dead, they had been stabbed and slashed. Good work with daggers, nothing too flashy and certainly caused by the new weapons the Rebels had at times. Were these killed by a different group than those he had tracked? Unlikely, the hounds had brought him here. Maybe they wanted to keep it quiet?
No matter, this was not allowed to stand, if the overseers became fair game he would lose the serfs.
"You, you there, you are the new head overseer. Get the serfs back to the fortified village, they won`t do any good today. And if you lose any of them you will work the fields from tomorrow, get it?"
"Yes Sire."
"Good. Now Hugo, you lead the way. We have some daylight left, let`s use that.
15 kilometers from the fields, much later
Leon Curvier had considered himself reasonably fit for a man of his age and indeed he was. That just meant that he was still alive, utterly exhausted and he felt pain in places that he hardly remembered having. He had popped a couple of Tylenols during the day to keep himself functioning and now his stomach was a bit upset with that. He dreaded another night where his back would be far too close to a hard and unyielding ground. The morning could not come quickly enough as it was still quite cold after sunset and much too early as getting up would be bad. He had been through two attacks of the shakes. Once when the adrenaline rush had subsided. The other when he realized that men had been killed, that he and his team were now hunted fugitives and that it fell to him to get everybody home safe. He had no choice to push on regardless and for a while he was bathed in cold sweat and marched on unsteady legs. He had continued the treck regardless, he simply had no choice in the matter. The Legion had it right there, it was march or die.
All of that would have filled his mind but for Martin. Martin, the serf who had fled into his arms, who had come around when he had been offered food. Martin who found somebody was genuinely interested in his fate and what was left of his family.
He had to whisper which restricted whatever rhetoric skills he might possess, the darkness made his face invisible and his vocabulary was severely limited. And still what he had to say froze Leon to the spot, made him wish for a different place. For the moment, he forgot the doubts he had entertained about the violence that had played itself out so few hours ago.
Martin had exhausted himself when the stars came up and Leon still had a hard time sleeping. He worked on his tablet when he heard a slight rustling to his left. He was still grabbing for his rifle when Maurice stepped into his sight.
"Could not sleep Patron?"
"No, too much on my mind."
"Don`t think too much about it Patron. These enculees had it coming, no two ways about it."
"Still do not have to like it."
"No, they`ll hunt us now, sure as sure."
"Qui. It's my watch now, right?"
"Yes. If you are too tired…"
"No problem. But one thing Maurice, I have copied the data of what we did on this. This and Luis have to reach the Rebels, no matter if I do."
"Do not speak like this Patron, you tempt the fates."
"Not giving you this tempts the fates. If we spill so much blood it should count for something."
"Qui."
20 Kilometers from the fields, next morning
"We`ll get them before lunch."
"Think they`ll be good sport."
"No way, they are just thieves and murderers"
"Can`t the dogs go a bit faster?"
The Knight Errants were good horsemen, reasonably good in a fight, arrogant, impetuous and serf-despising to a fault. The latter was why Robert de Grail had picked them over mounted yeomen, he could not be perfectly sure about the yeomen`s loyalties. They were following the dogs that were led by Baron Artois`s warden. The yelping of the dogs, the thunder of their hooves and their joyful challenges to each other complimented their colorful tabards and saddle pads to give the picture of a hunt. And hunt they would, not that they had entered the fields around the abandoned village of Arundel. There were scattered trees, some more cows and a few rickety fences. None of which would lend any sort of cover to the murderers they would bring to justice. And indeed they could see a small group that made its way to the next tree line. A year before they would not have stood out, now that every movement of commoners was so heavily restricted anybody who moved was suspicious.
"There they are."
"How many do we need alive?"
"See how they run."
"Charge"
Whatever was wrong with their minds, nothing at all was wrong with their riding. The ground could be more even, there were fences and other hurdles and they were armored. Still they managed to accelerate into a gallop easily, they kept formation and their lances never wavered. They would use them, as any knight should, to run through those rascals and be done with it. This was not a worthy battle, this was pest control.
The air was filled with the sound of horses, with the shouting of the riders and the crack.
A curious crack, flat, short and with nothing visual as a source. And while the riders did not slow down they started looking for a source or any result of it. They found none, but seconds later a second crack announced the fall of Hilbert de Braggart`s horse. The shot missed the knight completely and he managed to clear his horse when it dropped, a commendable performance. It did not keep his neck from snapping when the helmet hit a molehill at 30 kph. By the time his body stopped moving two more shots had followed, one piercing innocent air, the other drilling right through the chest armor and lung of a knight. By now the Knights had found the source of the killing, somebody was standing besides a substantial tree and blasted away at them. Altering their course slightly they hunkered down on their steeds. Another shot went wide and then the knights saw the shooter do something at the rear of his rifle. They were still too far from him when the rifle came back up and the next shot brought another horse down. Its rider would survive, even if his leg would never be the same again. The next shot had an echo that sounded like a hammer had been taken to a pail and the head of a young nobleman was thoroughly rearranged inside his helmet. By now the troop had lost a third of its members and even reckless courage had its bounds. The only thing that kept the Knight Errands from breaking off was the realization that they would be shot whether they attacked or retreated.
There were more shots and another Knight dropped and then, just when the knight could see him well the murderer retreated behind the tree. They went past it, full intent to bring the horses about to finally get their licks in when a double boom from the other side of the tree felled another rider. The rest rode away as fast as possible and lost another horse.
Their retreating backs were watched by Leon`s small troop for a few seconds before they resumed their flight. Exhausted even before now they redoubled their efforts and made a beeline for the closest piece of forest they could see from their position. None of them saw the brief flash of light that came from the same woods they made their way to.
Inside the forest, same time
Robert de Grail set his binoculars down, they had shown the combat the brutal clarity. There were only a few surviving Knight Errant, maybe they would see the value of obeying orders and become moderately useful to the Lady. But even in their pigheadedness they had performed the task Robert had set them and driven the fugitives in Robert`s direction. He would have been disappointed in himself otherwise.
He watched the prey for another minute before being reasonably certain where they would enter the forest. Time to get going, he had an appointment he did not want to miss.
Before the forest, a few minutes later
Leon`s lungs were not burning but getting there for sure. If he needed any reminder how "burning" should feel he could refer to his legs which did. He felt exposed and only his exhaustion and the combat they had just survived allowed him to suppress the recriminations that ran through his head. Why did he allow the movement during the day? Yes, because of the dogs, they would not care. Still he wasn`t sure if he had not made the move simply to get distance between himself and his mistakes.
Now they had survived the consequences of his miscalculation just by causing more death. So much for quick in and out with nobody being the wiser. Now the dark forest loomed before him, promising concealment. At the same time it would take away his range advantage. Leon slowed down for a few steps and depressed a button close to the muzzle of his rifle.
He was still fumbling when the screaming began. There was shouting,twin "booms" there was the meat-cleaver-hits-home sound of melee combat, and the gurgling of at least one airway that tried to work filled with blood. He paused only long enough to extract the bayonet and fix it to the rifle before running towards the fight. He had just entered the woods when something grabbed his ankle and dropped him on his face. He turned once, saw the treacherous root that got him, made another turn and managed to face the fight. There were men clothed like his own, in threadbare clothes and bits of armor. They wielded daggers, short spears and at least one had a serf-catcher. The ugly weapon was made to capture the neck of its victim and currently pinned Maurice to the ground. The first round went directly into the chest of the brute on the other end of the shaft.
He worked the rifle, cambering another round while Luis barely avoided being hit by another blade. The next shot went directly into the head of another man he had never seen before. Leon had no time being unhappy, even as he had aimed for the chest. One more shot missed and the next connected with a leg that nearly detached itself from its former owner.
He looked for the next target when he saw the shadow that ran from tree to tree, faster than any human had a right to be. Before he could shout a warning a sword went into Pierre`s neck. He tried to get a bead on the man, if the shadow was indeed one who never stopped and pushed his weapon through the back of another before his shot broke. He would never learn if he hit or missed as the shadow was suddenly besides him. He wanted to to lunge forward with his rifle and his muscles were still making up their mind about that when something unbearably hot went into his chest.
He dropped on his back and tried to breathe, just that nothing would come. The sounds that resembled an old drain pipe could not possibly come from his body, couldn`t they? And then the pain ended and darkness claimed him.
Robert de Grail tried to see how badly his ambush had gone. The two Rebels with their firearms had made a proper hash of it, that was for sure. He would need a new team, his old one was done for. Too bad, it would need weeks of training to make a new one. His head turned before his mind had registered the rustling behind him. Someone, no two someones wanted to run. He caught a glimpse of a Rebel and what seemed to be the runaway serf before the forest swallowed both. He shifted his weight to his other leg to start the sprint that would net them both when his leg simply collapsed. He could just stare at the neat round entry hole that pierced his upper leg. A round hole like the needle bayonet of a MAS 36 rifle would make.
He had to hobble back, grunting and asking the Lady for forgiveness all the way. Neither of them had any idea about the magnitude of what had just happened till much later.
Haltdorf, Empire
The chalk crawled over the blackboard, held by fingers not used to it and the lines were not very even.
"HALTDORFF"
"Nearly good Eberhard, but our fair town is written with one "F" only. Next time, ok?"
"Yes Herr Hermsdorf."
"Ok, next, this time we try "Raiffeisen". Who wants to have a go at that?"
The sun was setting outside of Haltdorf`s school building, but still the classroom was nearly full. Just that the normal students were home, hopefully doing the assignments that Haltdorf`s one and only teacher had given them.
Instead their parents were doing their very best to cope with reading, writing and arithmetic. Life was great for a farmer in a Raiffeisen village, they could farm far more land than their counterparts elsewhere in the Empire and they needed to pay taxes only to the Emperor himself. Tractors, reapers and balers made things so much easier and allowed for so much more income. Haltdorf`s kids had never known hunger and likely they never would.
The downside to all of this was that things were so much more complicated. And things were so much easier when one could really read and write, when one could calculate the amount of seed needed for a field and sign only things one could read.
Karl Hermsdorf made decent money from his day job as a teacher and could have done with more spare time. His leg had never healed totally and he had yet to meet anyone who wanted to marry him.
Still he was happy for the extra work, he could use the money all right, the one he earned by teaching or the one he received for reading aloud for those who could not.
He spent most of that money at the same thing he was asked to read from most.
The Otto Catalog. The farmers all wanted to know what the products on the bright pictures were. And when they learned they started to calculate what of them they could afford. So did he, these things made life so much nicer.
Two more months of night shifts plus the gifts he traditionally received when his students graduated. That would allow him to buy a Siemens tablet, probably. Or would a fridge be better?
(The Otto catalog is a mail-order catalog like Sears Roebuck used to be)
Reiksbund Paladin Salle, Altdorf
Hermann von Mechmershausen was a swordfighter of renown, one of the best the Empire had. There were very few who could call themselves his equal when it came to fighting with sword in armor in the Empire. It was no accident that he was the Paladin`s instructor in this, they rated the best the Empire had to offer. Many of his German students took it as physical exercise and something to learn as the enemy would use it. Few saw any practical use in it past that and that influenced the amount of training they spent that way. The members from the Empire saw things differently unsurprisingly, but even they barely kept up the old ways.
The Paladin`s XO had been no different from them ,maybe even a bit worse and Mechmershausen had resented the hours the man had cut from his curriculum for "more important" things. And now he was here, now he tried to learn the way of the true warrior. Mechmershausen had looked forward to a bit of fun here, all in the name of good training of course. He found himself working hard in short order, especially once Sir Joakim had shifted the training towards power armor. He proved to be remarkably fast in it, moving like he was wearing a T-Shirt and wielded a cane instead of armor and sword.
He had good students before and was pretty sure the Paladin`s commander would do well enough if hen kept at it for a couple of years. Now he watched a progress that was fast enough to be disconcerting. The same could be said of the way Sir Joakim sometimes looked at the ancient Runefang. He had heard that the old blades sometimes seemed to have a mind of their own, but it seemed like the commander was ..listening.
And now Sir Joakim stood there, legs apart and sword held high, unmoving like a statue. Everything and everybody in the salle had come to a stop for a moment and waited for what was to happen.
One second there was nothing, the next the sword went down from its position in an arc from the right that would have terminated somewhere at Joakim`s left leg if it would not strike. This was called the "Meisterhau" in the Lichtenauer, the German art of fencing and "First Strike" with the Imperials. The blade moved with a speed impossible for anybody not in power armor and hit the target within a centimeter. It sliced through stout oaken wood and parted the iron backing with a sound like an armor piercing round hitting home.
Everybody was looking at the glowing end of iron backing that was still attached to the target pole. Everybody but Sir Joakim who held the sword before his face in a salute. The cheers broke the awkward silence a second later and the sword was maglocked against the power armor`s back.
"Not a scratch on the blade, incredible."
"Yes Sir, it is dwarven work, they do not make them like this any more. It will pierce any armor, as you just showed us all."
"Sorry, did not intend to."
"Well, it seems like you have your First Strike down well Sir, congratulations."
"Thanks. I think I`ll call it a day."
"Of course Sir."
Hermann von Mechmershausen could not make heads or tails of his highest ranking student, neither of his learning speed nor his reactions. Anybody else would have been overjoyed at such an accomplishment, his commander seemed deeply in thought. If this would have been any other weapon the instructor would have checked for Chaos influence, but this was one of the twelve rune swords, they were immune. So what was on Sir Joakim`s mind.
Joakim Vos looked at the sword that stood before him in the stand in the locker room.
"Stormbrenger, Stormbrenger…."
"Why the heck would a sword want to be called Stormbringer of all things?"
