of the pouring rain was preferable to crossing Gotrek Gurnisson. He shook his head wearily as men returned to reset the seating, fix the table, and sort through the maps that had fallen on the floor. A too-young lad with haunted eyes and gore-drenched woollen coveralls – two months apprenticed to a chirurgeon before the armies of the Everchosen had ground his regiment underfoot – applied a grubby cloth to the fallen man’s brow.
Felix took advantage of the lull to check on the arrangements. Such as they were.
Rain drummed on the canvas sheet that had been spread between two banner poles and the rear compartment of a wagon loaded with crates, barrels and sacks, most of them empty. In its former incarnation ferrying ore of less than dwarfish quality on the Kadrin Road to the less discerning marketplaces of Osterwald, Bechafen, and Kislev City it had been the property of old Lorin Lanarksson and his son Lyndun. They sat in the unsheltered front of the cart, soaking in the misery as only two dwarfs together could. A single storm lantern swayed with the wind from a pole attached to the wagon’s rear.
A gaunt-looking kossar and a bald-headed bruiser in the black and dirty off-white of Ostland each took one end of the ‘table’ and reset it across the two barrels. When they noticed Felix watching they threw a salute, which Felix returned with an inner sigh. The kossar sergeant made a show of assessing the table’s stability with a gentle rocking before declaring it fit for the maps to be relaid.
Men in the state colours of provinces from across the Empire’s north and east and with golden epaulets on the slashed shoulders of their doublets gathered around with pages of soggy parchment in hand. Each man commanded anything between five and twenty-five men, sergeants – so titled by Felix, whose patience for provincial variation in military hierarchy was thinner than the wool of his cloak – of the ad-hoc fighting companies that had tagged along on Felix and Gotrek’s long westward trek.
On the table, individual charts were strategically positioned under stone paperweights so that the overlap of one fed vaguely into the next to fashion a map of the entire Empire. Areas where Chaos was known or rumoured to have conquered had been filled with pencil drawings of hideous monsters that left Felix with grave concerns as to the artist’s state of mind. Even without those personal worries it made for unsettling viewing. The only parts of the map that looked healthy were to the south and then only because they did not know any better. Daemons capered around the walled symbols of Bechafen and Osterwald, filling the forested spaces of Ostland and Ostermark and nibbling at the edges of Talabheim itself. A great tentacled monstrosity reared out of the Sea of Claws as if to drag Erengrad into the water, and stick-figure longboats peopled with gibbering horrors closed on the Marienburg delta.
Felix decided that whoever was responsible should never be allowed near pencil or paper again.
‘You have timing of Ursun for his seasons,’ said Kolya, lounging against the wagon’s tailboard as he had been throughout, chewing on a pungent blend of locally foraged herbs and tabac. ‘Zabójka might have killed that man.’
‘Remind me later to thank you for the help,’ Felix replied.
The Kislevite pursed his lips, cocked his head slightly as though listening intently to the rain, and shrugged. ‘No matter.’
The Hochlander moaned, taking a swallow of water from the cloth that the young chirurgeon squeezed into his mouth. Felix dropped down beside him.
The man had a long mane of dark hair, crushed from being all day inside a helmet. His beard was dashed with white, and cleft by a scar that cut across his left cheek from the corner of his lip. His breastplate was almost brown from mud, blood and rust, and so well beaten that in places it had more edges than a chewed coin. The vicious dent left below the collar by Gotrek’s fist
Felix took advantage of the lull to check on the arrangements. Such as they were.
Rain drummed on the canvas sheet that had been spread between two banner poles and the rear compartment of a wagon loaded with crates, barrels and sacks, most of them empty. In its former incarnation ferrying ore of less than dwarfish quality on the Kadrin Road to the less discerning marketplaces of Osterwald, Bechafen, and Kislev City it had been the property of old Lorin Lanarksson and his son Lyndun. They sat in the unsheltered front of the cart, soaking in the misery as only two dwarfs together could. A single storm lantern swayed with the wind from a pole attached to the wagon’s rear.
A gaunt-looking kossar and a bald-headed bruiser in the black and dirty off-white of Ostland each took one end of the ‘table’ and reset it across the two barrels. When they noticed Felix watching they threw a salute, which Felix returned with an inner sigh. The kossar sergeant made a show of assessing the table’s stability with a gentle rocking before declaring it fit for the maps to be relaid.
Men in the state colours of provinces from across the Empire’s north and east and with golden epaulets on the slashed shoulders of their doublets gathered around with pages of soggy parchment in hand. Each man commanded anything between five and twenty-five men, sergeants – so titled by Felix, whose patience for provincial variation in military hierarchy was thinner than the wool of his cloak – of the ad-hoc fighting companies that had tagged along on Felix and Gotrek’s long westward trek.
On the table, individual charts were strategically positioned under stone paperweights so that the overlap of one fed vaguely into the next to fashion a map of the entire Empire. Areas where Chaos was known or rumoured to have conquered had been filled with pencil drawings of hideous monsters that left Felix with grave concerns as to the artist’s state of mind. Even without those personal worries it made for unsettling viewing. The only parts of the map that looked healthy were to the south and then only because they did not know any better. Daemons capered around the walled symbols of Bechafen and Osterwald, filling the forested spaces of Ostland and Ostermark and nibbling at the edges of Talabheim itself. A great tentacled monstrosity reared out of the Sea of Claws as if to drag Erengrad into the water, and stick-figure longboats peopled with gibbering horrors closed on the Marienburg delta.
Felix decided that whoever was responsible should never be allowed near pencil or paper again.
‘You have timing of Ursun for his seasons,’ said Kolya, lounging against the wagon’s tailboard as he had been throughout, chewing on a pungent blend of locally foraged herbs and tabac. ‘Zabójka might have killed that man.’
‘Remind me later to thank you for the help,’ Felix replied.
The Kislevite pursed his lips, cocked his head slightly as though listening intently to the rain, and shrugged. ‘No matter.’
The Hochlander moaned, taking a swallow of water from the cloth that the young chirurgeon squeezed into his mouth. Felix dropped down beside him.
The man had a long mane of dark hair, crushed from being all day inside a helmet. His beard was dashed with white, and cleft by a scar that cut across his left cheek from the corner of his lip. His breastplate was almost brown from mud, blood and rust, and so well beaten that in places it had more edges than a chewed coin. The vicious dent left below the collar by Gotrek’s fist
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