The First Duty 
Joshua Reynolds

	‘What is the first duty, young Goetz?’ 
	‘To go where we are needed, hochmeister,’ Hector Goetz had said promptly. Goetz was a young man, tall and broad in all the right places with the pale, fair features of the Talabheim aristocracy. His hair was shorn close to the scalp, as was proper for one of his station, and his wrists and shoulders were thick with muscle. It had been only three short weeks since he’d won his spurs in his final test – a bloody melee with a band of orcs in the hills near Talabheim. 
	‘And what is the second?’
	‘To do what must be done!’ Goetz had replied, crashing a fist against the embossed twin-tailed comet on his brightly polished cuirass. 
	And the hochmeister had smiled sadly. Goetz hadn’t realised why at the time. 
	Now, however, he was beginning to understand. 
	Armour the colour of brass reflected the light of the burning mill as the horse reared, steel-shod hooves lashing out to connect with brutish skulls. A man howled as a sword sheared through his raised arm, sending both his blade and the hand that wielded it flying off into the smoke. Another warrior staggered as the sword whipped around to chop through its shield and into the skull beyond. 
	Hector Goetz grunted and ripped his sword free with a surge of muscle as his horse spun, bugling a challenge to the stallion charging to meet them. Goetz, eyes narrowed within his helm, set his horse into motion to meet this newest threat. The rider, a pale-skinned, spade-bearded brute, gave a guttural cry as he swung his heavy, chopping blade wildly. 
	Goetz twisted to the side as the horses crashed against one another and swung his shield between himself and his opponent’s weapon. As the blade chunked into the surface of the shield, Goetz shifted, pushing the sword away and his opponent off balance. His own blade met the bared surface of the man’s neck in a spray of blood. The head toppled, jaws still champing. Goetz grabbed the reins and turned the horse.
	With a rending crash, the mill wheel collapsed into the Talabec, taking part of the mill with it. His attention diverted, the young knight barely managed to avoid the stroke of the axe that was aimed at his hip. 
	Goetz threw himself from his saddle, crashing to the ground with a clatter. Rolling to his feet, he stumbled back as the axe chopped towards him.
	It was a crude thing, battered and beaten into a rough approximation of shape. Despite its crudity it was still dangerous and Goetz bent backwards as it looped past his visor. Its wielder wore the stink of death like a cloak, and his grunt of effort as he regained his balance was bestial. 
	He swung the axe up again and brought it crashing down on Goetz’s shield. The ill-treated blade shivered and splintered, and Goetz swept it aside without thought as he drove his sword point-first into the man’s belly. The man folded up over the blade and dropped, screaming. 
	Goetz wrenched his weapon free and stepped back, fighting a surge of nausea as his opponent thrashed on the ground. 
	‘Sir Hector, look out!’
	Goetz ducked as a hammer pummelled the air inches away from the back of his skull. He reversed his blade and stabbed it back into his attacker. The man wailed and slid off the blade as Goetz turned. Breathing shallowly, he looked around. ‘Thank you, Captain Hoffman,’ he said.
	‘Think nothing of it, Sir Hector.’ Dressed in the crimson and gold finery of an officer in the Talabecland militia, now smudged and fouled with soot, Captain Hoffman leaned on his sword and spat. ‘All dead, curse the luck.’
	‘All–’ Goetz pushed up his visor and looked around. Bodies lay scattered everywhere around the burning mill. ‘No! No!’ he said. Then, more quietly, ‘Too late.’ He stabbed his sword into the dirt to clean it. ‘Again, too late.’ He looked at the other man. ‘Call your men together, Captain Hoffman. We need to put this fire out and check for–’
	‘Let it burn,’ a rough voice interjected. Goetz turned. A man clad in the tanned leathers and rough pelts of a forester gestured towards the fire with his blood-stained hatchet. ‘Let it burn. There won’t be any survivors and no sense wasting the effort. Not when we could be putting it to better uses.’
	‘You don’t know that!’ Hoffman snarled, wiping sweat and soot off of his brow. He looked at Goetz. ‘Sir Hector, we have to at least try!’
	Goetz hesitated but then regretfully shook his head as he looked at the crumbling mill. ‘No. No, Lothar is correct. Let it burn out.’ He spat, trying to clear his mouth of the taste of smoke. ‘They’re all dead.’
	Just like last time. Just like every time. Every person they had come to save, every person in every isolated mill and farmstead between the river and Volgen. ‘It was just wishful thinking, I suppose.’ 
	He forced himself to breathe and planted his sword point first into the ground. Prayer wasn’t something he was normally comfortable with, being from the aristocracy. He knelt and bowed his head, murmuring a swift prayer to Myrmidia, the patron-goddess of the Order of the Blazing Sun. It seemed fitting that he ask the Goddess of Battle to take in the souls of those slain in such a manner. Six times he had done such, and this time made him feel no better than the first. 
	If anything, he felt worse. 
	A shadow fell over him, and he broke off and looked up at Lothar. Yellow, square teeth surfaced in a mocking grin from beneath the man’s thick beard. ‘Begging your pardon, sir knight, but when you’re finished, there’s doings afoot.’
	Goetz rose stiffly, armour creaking. ‘What is it?’ he said. 
	‘Something you ought to see,’ the forester said, crooking a finger. ‘Since you’re here and all and in charge, so you are.’
	Goetz sheathed his sword with a touch more force than was necessary and, squashing the flare of indignation that the man’s impertinent tone had brought up, followed him. The hochmeister had warned him that the foresters were an unruly lot, and impatient with rank. 
	Not at all like the stiffly formal militiamen that had accompanied Goetz from Volgen. Captain Hoffman was a stickler for the rules and formalities that he likely had little enough opportunity to use in a town like Volgen. Goetz joined Lothar and the captain in examining the body of one of the men he’d killed. 
	‘First time we’ve been able to catch the devils at their work,’ Hoffman said. ‘Too bad we didn’t get them alive.’
	‘They’ll talk all the same,’ Lothar said, dropping easily to his haunches.
	The contorted body was well-illuminated by the light of the flames. He wore cast-off leathers and rags of chainmail that had proven more decorative than protective in the end. Lothar grunted and used the blade of his hatchet to rip open the man’s filthy tunic. He grimaced at what was revealed and made a sign in the air. 
	‘Witch’s mark,’ he said, looking up at Goetz. ‘Sure as I’m alive.’
	‘A tattoo,’ Hoffman said, slapping his leather gloves into his palm. ‘A bit of peasant crudity. It proves nothing.’
	‘It proves what we’ve been saying is all,’ Lothar said, cramming his helmet back on his head. ‘Even a lack-wit townie like you should be able to see that. These men are devil-spawn!’
	‘Insulting a superior officer?’ Hoffman said, his eyes narrowing. ‘A man can get the lash for that.’
	‘True. But who would you get to wield it?’ Lothar said, grinning in an unfriendly fashion. The two men had been at each other’s throats since they’d set out from Volgen. The foresters were nominally under the command of the local militia commander, but in reality they were completely autonomous. They functioned as scouts most of the time, but rarely responded when the Imperial Levy was called, unless it was a case like this. Most local authorities turned a blind eye – the foresters were far too useful, given that Talabecland was mostly forest and hills. 
	Regardless, it was a constant point of friction with Hoffman. ‘There’s no need to bother Sir Hector with your suspicions,’ Hoffman said harshly, his face pinched and disapproving. ‘Get your men back here.’
	‘Why?’ Lothar snorted.
	‘Why, to bury the dead of course!’ Hoffman said incredulously.
	‘A waste of time. The rest of them can’t have gone far! Not if these–’ He waved a hand at the dead men, ‘–were still here!’
	‘Far enough,’ Goetz murmured, glancing over his shoulder and casting a glare at the dark stretch of forest that loomed just beyond the wide trade-bridge that connected the mill to the far shore. Running beneath it, the River Talabec marked the boundary of Talabecland. 
	The others had followed his gaze. Lothar unconsciously made a gesture that Goetz recognised as the sign of Taal. Goetz frowned. While the Empire had a state religion, the old faiths lingered here on the fringes. Being himself a worshipper of one of those faiths, Goetz said nothing. Hoffman, however, had no such compunctions.
	‘Taalist filth,’ the militia commander said when he caught sight of the forester’s gesture.
	‘No, they’re the filth,’ Lothar said, jerking a thumb at the body.
	‘Trust one to know another,’ Hoffman spat. ‘For all I know, you’re in with these–’
	‘Enough,’ Goetz interjected sharply. He’d been playing mediator between the two since they’d left Volgen and it was beginning to grate on his nerves. ‘Enough. Hoffman is correct. It is our duty to see to the bodies.’ 
	Lothar snorted insolently. ‘Begging your pardon then, sir knight, and I’ll gather my men.’ Without waiting for a reply, Lothar stumped off. Hoffman grunted.
	‘The impertinence of the man.’ He looked at Goetz. ‘Pardon my familiarity, sir knight, but that man is a–’ 
	‘Yes. But good at his job, I’m told,’ Goetz said. ‘And these are no ordinary brigands, captain.’
	‘The foresters see devils in every shadow,’ Hoffman said dismissively. He turned away and began bellowing orders to his men.
	‘Maybe,’ Goetz said. He reached up and touched the stylised twin-tailed comet on his breastplate, a gesture he’d found comfort in since his days as a novice in the Order. 
	In truth, Goetz didn’t feel much different now, despite winning his spurs. He was a Knight according to the hochmeister and according to the Order’s laws, but he didn’t feel like one. Not truly, not in the way he’d hoped. He wasn’t really sure what he’d expected – a new sense of competence, perhaps. Wisdom, maybe. Instead, things seemed even more complex than when he’d been a novice, and him no more able to figure out the what and the where of it all. 
	‘We go where we are needed and do what must be done,’ he said to himself as he knelt beside the body, examining the man and the mark that Lothar had been so interested in. The mark wasn’t a tattoo, Hoffman’s assertions to the contrary. Instead it was a gouge in the flesh. A brand, and a fairly recent one. Ragged scratches in the flesh that seemed to undulate as Goetz looked at them closely. He blinked and looked away, unable to fully grasp the shape of it.
	A Chaos mark, sure enough. Though of what variety he could not say. Nor, in truth, did he wish to know. That it was what it was, was enough for him. It defined his enemy. 
	He turned and looked at the river again. On the other side of it was Middenland. And the Drakwald.
	A slight shudder ran through him as he contemplated the dark trees. As a breeze caught the distant branches, they seemed to reach for him. 
	‘Sir Knight!’
	Goetz looked up as Lothar hurried forward. The forester waved a hand. ‘Come! We found a survivor!’
	Goetz sprang to his feet as quickly as his armour would allow and hurried after the forester. Excitement hummed through him. They had never found a survivor before. Indeed, this was the first time they had even come to grips with any of the foe. 
	Hoffman hurried after him, face drawn. ‘An evening for firsts,’ he murmured. 
	‘My thoughts exactly, captain.’ 
	The survivor proved to be a woman. Middle-aged, with wild hair and blank features. Her hands and feet were bloody and she was covered in newly-blossomed bruises and black filth. She sat hunched on the ground, hands dangling over her knees, body pressed up against the rough wood of the outhouse. 
	‘My men found her inside,’ Lothar said as Goetz and Hoffman came up. ‘She was hiding in the jakes. She’s a bit ripe.’ 
	Goetz looked down at the woman. Her eyes were unfocused and staring at nothing in particular. A stab of pity cut through him and he dropped to one knee. Carefully, he reached for her. Her scream, when it came, was unexpected, and he nearly fell in surprise. 
	The scream faded into whimpers as she huddled away from him and pressed her face to the wood. Her bloody fingers clawed at the outhouse and Goetz lunged for her. ‘Help me!’ he snapped. ‘Grab her arms!’
	Lothar and Hoffman started forward, but the woman gave a sobbing howl and flung herself into Goetz’s arms. He rocked back, eyes wide. She clung to him with terrified strength and he arose awkwardly, one arm around her. 
	‘I – what do we–’ Goetz began. 
	‘Give her a smack,’ Lothar said harshly. ‘It’s the only way we’ll get anything worthwhile out of her.’
	‘She’s been through a great deal,’ Hoffman said. ‘A sympathetic hand might do better than the rude shake a forester’s woman gets.’ 
	Lothar glared at the other man, but nodded stiffly. Hoffman crouched beside the woman and began to murmur to her, softly stroking her hair. Just as Lothar began to grumble impatiently, one of his men signalled him.
	‘Lothar! Tracks!’ Lothar looked at Goetz, who looked at Hoffman.
	‘I’ll take her,’ Hoffman said softly. Goetz gratefully peeled the woman off and turned her towards the other man. Then he followed Lothar, who was already hurrying towards his men. The forester who’d called them, a young man with coiling scars on both cheeks, squatted and tapped his fingertips against the ash-coated grass. ‘Hoof-prints, looks like. And feet.’
	‘Not big enough for horses,’ Lothar muttered, dropping to his haunches. ‘And something else. Shoes.’
	‘Shoes?’
	‘Home-made. Too small for a man, likely a woman.’ He traced a mark and looked up at Goetz. ‘See?’
	‘Yes?’ Goetz said, though he didn’t really. ‘Meaning?’
	Lothar looked at the other forester, then back at Goetz. ‘Means more survivors than just her,’ he said, jerking his chin at Hoffman and the woman. He locked eyes with Goetz. ‘Means we might also have been wrong before.’
	‘You mean survivors from the other attacks?’
	‘I mean that this might not have been a pillaging expedition,’ Lothar said flatly, clutching his medallion. The other foresters murmured and Goetz swallowed. ‘We have to follow them.’
	He looked back at the woman, and then the body of the man he’d killed. ‘They were looking for her, weren’t they?’ he said. 
	‘Most likely. If she broke away…’ Lothar tapped the ground with his fingers. ‘These hoof-prints, though, are a puzzlement.’
	‘Scrub ponies perhaps,’ Hoffman said, striding up. The militia commander sniffed. ‘Hardly expect bandits to be riding warhorses, now can we?’ He looked at Goetz. ‘My men are making the woman comfortable. If we can get her back to Volgen, perhaps–’
	‘Not horses of any stripe, I don’t think,’ Lothar interrupted, rising. ‘Wrong shape.’
	‘Oh? And you’re an expert on horseflesh then? Stolen many, have we?’ Hoffman said.
	‘Enough to know these aren’t horse-tracks,’ Lothar said, glaring at the other man. His gaze swivelled to Goetz. 
	‘What are they?’ the knight said.
	‘Beast-kin.’
	Hoffman snorted. ‘Preposterous. They’ve never come this far south.’
	‘The tracks go over the river. Our missing folk went with them.’
	Goetz looked at the trees on the opposite bank. The Drakwald wasn’t simply a collection of trees, like the Great Forest. It was home to nightmares: men with the heads of beasts, witches and heretics. A prickle of latent childhood fear caressed his spine and he brushed it aside. ‘Then we will go after them.’
	‘Sir Hector, I must protest,’ Hoffman said. ‘We are a Talabecland Levy. We’ll be out of our jurisdiction!’
	‘Only if they catch us,’ Lothar said. 
	‘And if they do, I’ll make sure you’re the first up the gallows-stairs,’ Hoffman said. ‘We should return to Garndorf or Werder and send an official inquiry. The Middenlanders have experience with this sort of thing.’
	‘Daemons, you mean,’ Lothar said, snickering.
	Hoffman whirled on him. ‘No. Organised bandit activity,’ he said through gritted teeth. He looked back at Goetz. ‘My men are not equipped for–’
	‘They have supplies and weapons. Good enough, I should think,’ Lothar said. 
	‘For your illiterate band of half-savages, possibly. But my men are soldiers,’ Hoffman shot back. 
	‘Under my command,’ Goetz said quietly. ‘As are the foresters.’ The two men fell silent, looking at him. It was a tense moment, and not the first such. He looked at Lothar. ‘Can you catch them?’
	Lothar spat. ‘Yes.’
	‘Then we go. Lothar, find that trail. If these raiders have captives, they’re likely moving slow. Meaning we can catch them. And when we do…’ Goetz clenched a fist. ‘Middenland be damned.’
	Lothar gave a snarl and Hoffman banged a fist against his breastplate. As the dark of the night wore into the fiery orange of morning the party moved across the Talabec. 
	The bridge was old and sturdy. Dwarf-work, it was said, with vast blocks of smooth stone bestriding the waters. There were several like it, the length of the Talabec and on the Stir. Goetz had always admired them, admired the craftsmanship that went into them. Part of him wished that he could have built bridges instead of learning the art of the blade. He thought perhaps bridge builders had happier lives, on the whole. 
	The river was deceptively calm as it flowed beneath the bridge. Goetz knew that it could spring from docile placidity to roaring viciousness in moments. The Talabec brought trade, but it also brought death. 
	Most thought that was a fair swap. Goetz wasn’t sure, but then he wasn’t a merchant. His father was, and a fine one, but a trade in trade had never been Goetz’s fate. 
	They left the bridge behind and moved slowly into the trees, on foot. Hoffman’s troops, all thirty of them, formed into two ranks, halberdiers and crossbowmen clad in cuirasses and greaves that clanked and clattered softly as they marched in disciplined formation. Lothar’s foresters ranged ahead, fifteen shadowy shapes threading through the close-set trees like ghosts.
	The foresters were hard to figure out. Goetz knew that they weren’t truly soldiers, being more in the manner of thief-takers or road-wardens. It made them hard to trust. There was no guarantee that they would stay in a fight, rather than simply fading away. And he was down two men, to boot.
	They had sent the woman back to Werder, the closest town, along with two of Hoffman’s men. She’d ridden off on Goetz’s horse, something which had brought a pang to Goetz, and he briefly wished he’d kept his mount. The Order normally fought mounted, but in situations like these Knights were expected to fight on foot so as to be more effective. Too, a lone man on a horse was easy to pick off. The flesh between Goetz’s shoulder blades crawled at the thought.
	He didn’t fear death, as such. But he was afraid of dying badly. Of being unable to fight back against his death. Arrows were a bad way to die. Then, in his darker moments, he thought that perhaps there was no good way to die, regardless of what the Order taught. 
	The pace was slow, but steady. Occasionally one of the foresters would drift back to report, but not often. Goetz took the lead, mindful of the honour of the Order. The Drakwald didn’t seem to care about either his honour or the men he was in charge of, however.
	Overgrown roots rose like the humps of sea-serpents through the dark soil and the trees became bloated and massive the further away from the farm they drew. Unconsciously, the militia clustered together, their previously pristine order decaying into a stumbling mass of men. Nervous murmurs rippled through the ranks as the sunlight was strangled to the merest drizzle by the thick branches that spread overhead. 
	Hoffman stilled his men with a look. Goetz stopped and turned. The men were sweating and listless, as if the trees were sucking the life out of them. Some of that was exhaustion – the militia wasn’t used to being pushed this hard, having mostly performed only garrison duties – the rest was what? Fear? Nervousness, maybe. 
	The Drakwald had a well-deserved reputation, even outside the borders of Middenland. It had inspired more than one nightmare in the children of Talabheim. Why should the children of Volgen, living far closer as they did, be any different? Birds croaked and cawed to each other in the trees, and several times Goetz had caught himself wondering whether or not those cries meant something other than the obvious. He forced himself to release the hilt of his sword as he caught the looks he was getting. 
	‘No need to be nervous, Sir Hector,’ Hoffman murmured. 
	Goetz glanced at him. ‘Knights do not get nervous,’ he said stiffly. ‘We merely anticipate the worst.’
	Hoffman smiled. ‘You’re a bit young to be a knight, if you’ll pardon the familiarity.’
	Goetz chuckled. ‘My father saw to it that I started my training early. My brother… disappointed his expectations, and the honour of the family had to be considered.’ Goetz fell silent, realizing that he’d said more than he intended. 
	His brother Caspar had been pledged to the Order, but had refused the honour in the most vociferous terms possible. Caspar had been headstrong and single-minded, much like their father, and his obsessions had taken precedence over familial obligations. 
	‘Goetz is not a common Talabecland name,’ Hoffman said, changing the subject. 
	‘My family came from Solland originally,’ Goetz said, rubbing the comet on his cuirass. ‘Before the – ah.’ He made a gesture. 
	‘Yes,’ Hoffman said. Solland’s sad fate was well known, and many great families of Talabecland, Ostermark and Wissenland could trace their origins to that doomed province, their ancestors having fled the orcish invasion that ravaged the province beyond recovery. 
	Mention of Solland brought Caspar to the forefront of Goetz’s thoughts once more. Even as a child, his older brother had been obsessed with the history of Solland, even going so far as to joining a hare-brained expedition to find the lost Solland Crown, despite his father’s protests. Caspar and his expedition had vanished in the maelstrom of the recent northern invasion. Goetz shook his head, banishing the dark thoughts. 
	‘I wanted to be an artisan. Or a scribe,’ Goetz said. Hoffman raised his eyebrows and Goetz nodded at the unspoken question. ‘Oh yes. I excelled in the arts of engineering. My tutors saw a great future for me, and the Order’s engineers agreed, though the exact nature of my future projects differed. Instead of bridges and walls, I’ll now construct devices to demolish such structures.’ The last bit was said sadly. Goetz shook himself. ‘Funny how things work out, in the end.’
	‘Speaking of funny,’ Hoffman said and leaned close. ‘I haven’t seen those damned foresters in awhile.’
	‘Then you weren’t looking close enough,’ Lothar grunted, slipping out from between the trees. He whipped off his helmet and ran a hand through his hair. 
	‘Have you found the trail?’ Goetz said, fighting to keep the eagerness out of his voice. ‘Have you found them?’
	‘In and out,’ Lothar said. ‘Comes and goes. The forest – bah. They’ve got them some woodcraft, sure enough.’
	‘Better than yours?’
	Lothar grinned. ‘No one is better than us.’ 
	‘Then why haven’t you found them yet?’ Hoffman snapped. ‘They can’t have gone far, and we’ve been at this for hours! If anyone noticed us coming over the river–’
	‘Hunts like this can take days,’ Lothar said mildly. His eyes hardened. ‘And the more noise you make, the harder it is, so it is.’
	‘You’re blaming me?’ Hoffman said incredulously. 
	‘I – hsst.’ Lothar raised a hand. He cocked his head.
	‘What?’ Goetz said, looking at Hoffman.
	‘Hear that?’ Lothar said, turning. He made a sound like a bird call. It was answered from deeper within the trees. Goetz’s nape prickled. He heard it now. It was a bone-deep sensation, echoing from everywhere and nowhere. He had felt it before, but dismissed it as the background noise of the forest, or perhaps the echo of the river.
	‘What is that?’ Hoffman said.
	‘I don’t know,’ Lothar said. He looked at Goetz. ‘We’ve been hearing it off and on since we came into the woods.’ His face was grim.
	‘And you’re just thinking now to inform us?’ Hoffman spat. ‘Have you been leading us in circles all of this time?’ He swung an arm out. ‘My men are exhausted. They’ve been marching all day!’ Hoffman frowned. ‘Or is that what you intended?’
	‘What are you accusing me of?’ Lothar said, his eyes narrowing dangerously. 
	‘I’ve heard the stories of what the Taalists got up to before the light of Sigmar was brought to these regions. Worse than the worshippers of the Wolf-God! Burn any men alive in wooden cages lately?’ Hoffman said, fingering the pommel of his sword.
	‘No. Are you volunteering?’ Lothar said, clutching his medallion.
	‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you, you savage?’ Hoffman said. ‘I know what you foresters get up to, you know. You’re half-bandit yourselves, helping yourself to the odd merchant’s goods! Oh yes, I have those reports memorised!’
	Goetz blinked and looked at Lothar. The forester shifted uncomfortably. Then, he lunged forward, stabbing a finger into Hoffman’s polished breastplate. ‘And if you tight-fisted city-rats bothered to pay us for spilling our blood to keep you safe–’
	‘Not doing a good job of that lately,’ one of the nearby militiamen barked. A forester turned and drove a fist across the speaker’s jaw, dropping him like a bag of rocks. Another trooper came to his comrade’s aid and several foresters drifted out of the trees, faces set. 
	Hoffman’s knuckles were white on his sword-hilt. ‘Admit it! You’ve been leading us in circles! What is it? Trying to give your comrades time to get away?’ he bellowed in his best parade-ground voice. ‘I bet they didn’t even come into the Drakwald! Just more stories, like your witch-marks and hoof-prints!’ Behind him, crossbows were hastily readied by the militiamen as several foresters surreptitiously readied their bows.
	‘Comrades?’ Lothar roared. ‘You think we’d have any dealings with witches or beastmen?’
	‘You knew an awful lot about those marks–’ Hoffman began. Lothar growled and snatched his hatchet out of his belt even as Hoffman made to pull his sword.
	‘Enough!’ Goetz shouted, even as he silently winced at the way his voice cracked. He drew his sword and planted it in the ground, point-first. ‘Enough.’
	All eyes turned towards him. He took a breath and thought of building bridges, even if they were only metaphorical. ‘We are all on the same side here. We are all servants of the Empire, all soldiers in the Emperor’s service.’ He let his gaze sweep across the gathered men. ‘If any of you wish it to be otherwise, you may leave. Otherwise you will stop this foolishness.’
	Lothar lowered his hatchet and stepped back. ‘I’ll not serve with this man. Not a moment longer,’ he grunted, gesturing to Hoffman. ‘We are loyal soldiers, but we cannot do our job with these plodders following us!’ 
	‘Perhaps there’s another way of going about this,’ Goetz said, raising a hand and stretching it between them before Hoffman could reply. ‘We could set up a permanent camp and let your foresters find our opponents… drive them towards us perhaps? Or failing that, find them and report back to us?’ 
	Lothar scrubbed his chin. ‘Could work.’
	Goetz nodded. ‘We’ll set up here then.’ The forester grunted and then headed back into the woods without a backwards glance. 
	‘Nicely done,’ Hoffman said, after a moment. 
	‘Yes,’ Goetz said. He looked around at the trees, feeling slightly repulsed. He had never felt that way about a forest before. He was sweating beneath his armour, despite the oncoming chill of night. The sun was setting, and shadows were bunching thickly beneath the trees. ‘Would you have killed him?’ he said, after a moment. 
	‘Better to ask him whether he would have killed me, I think,’ Hoffman replied grudgingly. ‘The foresters aren’t to be trusted, Sir Hector. They are thieves, poachers and worse.’
	‘Then why sanction them?’
	‘Set a thief to catch a thief,’ Hoffman said, shrugging. ‘This wouldn’t be the first time that a group of them has decided to go over the fence.’ Around them, the militia began setting up a temporary camp, moving with practiced precision.
	‘You believe this is the case now?’ Goetz said softly.
	Hoffman looked at him. ‘I know that Lothar and his men have never respected Imperial authority. And I know that Lothar himself used to rob coaches on the Emperor’s Road.’
	Goetz shook his head. ‘I didn’t know that.’
	‘There are a lot of things you don’t know, sir,’ Hoffman said, turning away. ‘Get those defensive hedges up!’ he shouted as two of his men unrolled a length of flat leather pierced with wooden stakes that pointed outward. The hedge hung at chest height around the circumference of the camp, and was nearly invisible to the eye of anyone creeping up on them. That was the thought anyway. Goetz examined the hedges with an engineer’s eye, finding the design to be brutally simplistic. He had no doubts as to their effectiveness, however.
	‘Steichen! Get a fire going!’ Hoffman continued, jabbing a finger at the man in question. He turned to Goetz. ‘A few minutes, and we’ll be ready for whatever troubles those damnable foresters are bringing down on our heads. Whenever they do so. If they do so.’
	‘Yes.’ Goetz looked around. ‘Perhaps you were right, Captain. Perhaps we shouldn’t have attempted this.’ He sighed. ‘I’ll be honest with you… I’m a bit new to this sort of thing.’
	Hoffman smiled and his features softened. ‘You’re doing fine, Sir Hector. Even that ill-mannered brute Lothar believes so, I’d wager. And, if I might be frank, better a commander who fears he knows nothing than one who thinks he knows everything.’ Hoffman sighed. ‘Not what I would have picked for a first duty though, I must say.’
	‘We of the Order go where we are needed, Captain.’ 
	‘True enough, sir. True enough.’ Hoffman sniffed. ‘And now we’re needed here.’
	For a moment, Goetz wondered whether or not that was true. Then, he wondered whether that was what the future held for him now that he had won his spurs. Was this merely the first out of an unending series of duties, going from horror to horror, upholding the honour of the Order of the Blazing Sun until, at last, he met an enemy that he could not beat? He pushed aside that grim thought and tried to concentrate on his surroundings. ‘Go where needed, do what must be done,’ he said to himself. 
	The night wore on, and the sound seemed to grow with it, rising in tempo. Mixed in with the vast beat was the deep thudding of distant drums. Goetz paced the line like a tiger in a cage, his nerves screaming warnings that his brain fought to ignore. He heard the men on picket duty snap at one another in irritation, and Hoffman’s mood grew fouler. 
	It was the drums that were doing it. Why hadn’t Lothar returned yet? Surely it was easy enough to find where the noise was emanating from. Goetz busied himself with his sword, swiping a whetstone across the length of the blade. 
	As he honed the edge of his sword, he wondered why the men – no, the creatures – they were pursuing had even come into Talabecland. A matter of chance? Or something else? 
	What if Hoffman was right? The whetstone skittered to a stop. Goetz closed his eyes. What if the creatures had come because they were invited? Invited by the very men he had sent out to find them?
	The scream, when it came, was brief. Goetz shot to his feet. A sentry staggered back into the defensive line, clutching at the thin shape that protruded from his throat. Before Goetz’s horrified eyes, he collapsed over the line, gurgling. 
	A moment later, arrows cut the air with a steady rattle-hiss, piercing the gloom of the trees. Men fell screaming, and Goetz spun, his sword flashing as it split an arrow into splinters. Another struck his pauldron, rocking him. 
	‘That devil Lothar has betrayed us!’ Hoffman howled as men sprouted feathered shafts and died. Goetz swung around, trying to spot their attackers. It didn’t make sense! Was Hoffman right? 
	A militiaman screamed as one of his fellows put a crossbow bolt into his back by accident. Halberds flashed as men turned on one another, trapped as they were by their own defensive perimeter. Goetz watched in shock as his men began to tear one another apart. Shaking himself, he turned, only to come face to face with a demon’s mask. 
	The soldier shrieked like a bird of prey and lunged for the knight, driving a dagger towards his face. Goetz reacted on instinct, swatting the blade aside with the flat of his sword and then slashing the edge across the man’s belly as he stumbled, off-balance. 
	‘No! Sigmar’s Oath, no!’ he said, as the militiaman fell, his shrieks becoming animal whines of pain. He writhed on the ground, trying to hold his belly together and spat vile oaths at Goetz, each one striking him like the blow of a hammer. Pale and shaken, he stumbled back, unable to look at the dying man.
	‘Traitors,’ Goetz murmured. He had heard the stories and the whispered rumours, but he’d never expected to face it himself. Lothar had been right. He’d been right all along. Goetz looked for Hoffman. He had to get the men under control. To retreat. They could come back later, with more men. He caught sight of Hoffman, defending himself from a screaming militiaman. Goetz swung past him and drove his blade into the man’s shoulder, dropping him. 
	‘Hoffman! We need to–’ he began. The sword danced across the buckles of his breastplate, scoring the armour and driving a spike of pain into his side. Goetz’s arm swung down, trapping the blade. He jerked forward, ripping the weapon out of its owner’s hands and turned, letting it fall. His eye widened. ‘Captain?’ he said. 
	Otto Hoffman didn’t answer, instead lunging for the knight, his fist cracking against the latter’s breastplate. Goetz staggered. Another blow caused him to stumble back. Hoffman snatched up his sword and then came again, lunging smoothly. Goetz parried the blow, stunned by the inhuman strength the militia commander displayed.
	‘Hoffman! Captain! What are you doing?’ 
	‘Fool,’ Hoffman grunted, baring his teeth. ‘You walked right into it, didn’t you?’ 
	Goetz didn’t bother to reply. Instead he lashed out with a foot and kicked the man in the knee. Hoffman wobbled, and Goetz brought his sword down on the man’s neck. Blood spurted, and Hoffman squealed. His sword licked out as he clamped a hand onto the gouting wound. Goetz jerked back as the sword-point carved a line across his throat-guard. The sword in the militia commander’s hand darted out again and again, snake-swift. Goetz parried desperately as Hoffman shuffled in pursuit. 
	‘Die,’ Hoffman gurgled. 
	‘You first,’ someone called out. A bow string twanged and Hoffman froze as an arrow sprouted from between his eyes. He croaked, the sword falling from his fingers. Then he toppled. Goetz leaned on his sword, breathing heavily. 
	‘Lothar?’ he said, blinking sweat out of his eyes.
	‘I never liked him much,’ the forester said, stalking out of the trees. ‘Now I know why.’ He paused to spit on Hoffman’s body, then looked at Goetz. ‘You fought well, sir knight.’
	‘What – what–’
	‘We ambushed the ambushers. Came up behind them and cut their throats,’ Lothar said, jerking a thumb across his throat. He gestured to Hoffman. ‘Didn’t expect that, though.’
	‘Expect what?’
	‘This,’ Lothar said, dropping to his haunches and grabbing Hoffman’s head. He pulled the dead man’s gorget aside and exposed the eerily familiar brand on his flesh. He bared his teeth in a vicious grin. ‘It was a trap.’
	‘For who?’ Goetz said.
	‘You. Us. Anybody.’ Lothar let Hoffman’s body flop back down and stood. ‘Looks like about half of them were in on it with Hoffman. Likely intended to capture or kill the other half. And you.’
	‘Why?’
	‘Something’s going on out here, in the deep woods. Hear the drums?’
	‘Yes,’ Goetz said absently, staring down out the body. 
	‘Happens sometimes, when the moons are up and fat. Drums deep in the trees, and hoof-marks in the loam.’ Lothar spat. ‘Didn’t realise it until I saw them back at the mill. Only one reason the twisted folk take ours…’
	‘Sacrifices,’ Goetz said. ‘Sigmar’s Hammer. He said something about a celebration.’ He looked at Lothar. ‘Where are they?’
	‘Waiting for these to join them,’ Lothar said, kicking the body. ‘And for them in the forest who set off the ambush.’ He shook his head. ‘Wondered why them in the city were slow about going for help.’ 
	Goetz grimaced. ‘They’re in the town. A cult… Myrmidia preserve them.’
	‘Not many, likely. Volgen isn’t that big. Those here in the forest worry me more,’ the forester said. ‘Those and them they took.’ He looked at Goetz. ‘What are your orders, sir knight?’
	Goetz hesitated. Of the thirty men in the militia, only eight or so remained standing. And they looked as out of sorts as he felt. Confused, wounded and on the verge of running for safety. This wasn’t their land, and the temptation to leave was likely great. He licked his lips. ‘If we headed back,’ he said, not quite asking. 
	‘Then whatever them drums mean will be done and over, and them as sounding them will be gone.’
	Goetz closed his eyes. The faces of the dead swam up out of his memories to meet him. He thought of the people they’d been unable to save, and the one they had, though likely too late for her own mind. His eyes opened. ‘We go where we are needed and we do what we must.’
	Lothar nodded brusquely. He shouted orders to his men as Goetz faced the remaining members of the militia. They watched him warily. ‘You can’t make us do this,’ one said. ‘You can’t.’
	‘Twenty-four men stand better odds than sixteen,’ Goetz said. He used his sword to prod a body. ‘They led you into a slaughter. Would you have others suffer the same fate?’ he said gently. He touched the comet on his cuirass. ‘We go where we are needed,’ he said, trying to capture the hochmeister’s cadence. 
	None of them looked at him. He sighed. ‘I’m going. Come with us or not.’ He started towards the foresters. He did not turn around when he heard the militiamen fall in behind him. 
	They moved swiftly through the forest, following the pounding sound. It rose and fell, and the ache in Goetz’s head grew. It was spiritually painful, like a soreness in his soul. It pulsed like a blister or a bad tooth, growing worse the closer they got to wherever they were going. 
	He had fallen into a rhythm when Lothar suddenly broke it with a hard jerk on his arm. ‘Stop!’ the forester hissed. He made a sharp motion and the men sank to the ground. He pulled Goetz with him as he crawled forward through the heavy brush towards a strange, flickering brightness that seemed to seep between the trees.
	Below them, at the bottom of a slope, beasts danced beneath the dark pines, pawing the soil around a crackling fire and braying out abominable hymns. Mingled amongst the brute forms of the beasts were the smaller shapes of men and women. All were naked, save for unpleasant sigils daubed onto their flesh by means of primitive dyes and paints. 
	The shriek of crude pipes slithered beneath the trees, their rhythms carrying the gathered throng into berserk ecstasy as the dance sped up. The flames curled higher, turning an unhealthy hue, casting a weird light over the proceedings as man and beast engaged in unholy practices. As vile as it was, however, Goetz couldn’t look away from the foul spectacle, no matter how much he might wish to. 
	What drew his eye, however, was something infinitely worse than the dancers. Something fouler even than the worst thing he could have expected. 
	‘Taal,’ Lothar whispered, his voice hoarse and his eyes wide. ‘What is it?’
	‘Something that doesn’t belong here,’ Goetz said, running his fingers across the double-tailed comet embossed on his breastplate. And it was. A vast scar in the earth near the bonfire, it was like a scab of blackened dirt. Whatever it was, it had pushed aside trees and rocks in its haste to reach the surface and now it sat like a pustule ready to burst. There was a stink about it, worse than anything Goetz had smelled before, even in a greenskin camp. And from its pearly surface came the aching hum that had plagued them all since they’d entered the forest.
	As he and the forester watched, a burly creature with a leprous stag’s head shoved a squalling man into the milky surface of the foul bubble. He sank in with a shriek, his struggles seemingly pulling him deeper. A moan arose from the huddled group of victims, and snarling beastmen reached in among them to find the next sacrifice. 
	Lothar half-rose, a curse on his lips. Goetz grabbed his arm. ‘No. Get your men into position.’ Lothar stared at him incredulously. Goetz licked his lips and looked back at the fire. It seemed to play tricks on his eyes, showing him first this many gathered around it, then fewer. He tasted bile in the back of his throat. He spat and continued. ‘There are too many of them. More than twice our number. Your foresters will soften them up. How quickly can your men get into position?’ he asked. 
	‘Quick enough,’ Lothar said. He patted his bow. ‘What will you do?’
	‘A quick charge might be enough to scatter them. At least long enough for us to save the prisoners.’
	‘If it’s not?’
	Goetz swallowed. ‘Then run. As fast and as far as you can.’
	Lothar nodded and clapped a hand to Goetz’s shoulder. Then he crawled back towards his men. Goetz waited, listening to the dim crackle of the fire and trying to ignore the throb of the thing in the clearing. He did not look at it, or dwell upon it. 
	He knew little of the things of Chaos, but he knew enough. It would have to be fire. That was the only way to be sure. 
	Behind him, he heard the trill of a bird. Seconds later, the air was heavy with the hiss of arrows and crossbow bolts. Down below, things screamed in pain. With a shout, Goetz rose to his feet and charged down the slope. 
	He met a thin creature coming the opposite way, its goatish face twisted in an almost comic expression of shock. Goetz didn’t stop, instead letting his sword take the thing in the neck. Its head flopped free as he landed in the clearing. For a moment, he stood alone as the shock of the sudden barrage of arrows wore off. From behind him, he heard a shout of ‘Talabecland!’ and then he heard nothing but the clash of steel. 
	The battle was a confused mess of darting shapes and screaming voices. Goetz blundered towards the fire, sweeping his sword out with instinctive skill. He lopped off an offending sword-hand and kicked something with too many limbs away. As screaming faces drew too close, the arrows of the foresters swept them aside. 
	Goetz ducked and grabbed up a burning brand from the bonfire and turned towards the pestilent mass. It had to be fire. He charged forward, swinging the brand in preparation to throw it.
	Something struck him across the back, nearly knocking him back into the fire and slapping the air from his lungs. Flat on his belly, Goetz tried to breathe. He coughed as a raw, animal scent invaded the confines of his helmet. His eyes opened, and he looked up into a face out of nightmare. 
	The beastman was an ugly thing, all muscle and fang and claw. Piecemeal armoured plates strung together with twine and less savoury things clung to its bulky frame, less protection than decoration. Stag-horns curled up from its flat skull and back in on themselves. Dark eyes glared balefully at him from beneath heavy brows, and snaggle teeth snapped together in a deer’s mouth, its foul breath misting in the cold air as it grunted querulously. Using his sword as a crutch, Goetz levered himself to his knees and stifled a groan. His body felt like a bag of broken sticks. 
	He shook his head, trying to clear it. He could hear the gentle rumble of the river in the distance, somewhere past the crooked, close-set pines of the forest. The beastman pawed the ground and snorted. Some of them, it was said, could speak. This one showed no such inclination. Instead, it lunged clumsily, swinging its crude axe towards Goetz. 
	Still on one knee, Goetz guided the blow aside with a twist of his wrist, and countered with his own weak thrust. The beastman stumbled back with an annoyed bleat as his sword sliced a patch of rusty mail from its cuirass. It was larger than the others, larger than Goetz himself by more inches than he cared to consider. Its axe was so much hammered scrap, but no less dangerous for that. It was strong too. Muscles like smooth stones moved under its porous, hairy hide as it swung the blade up again and brought it down towards Goetz’s head. He caught the blow on his sword and grunted at the weight. Equal parts adrenaline and terror helped him surge to his feet, shoving the creature back. Weapons locked, they strained against one another. Goetz blinked as the weird runes scratched into the creature’s axe-blade seemed to squirm beneath his gaze. Its smell, like a slaughterhouse on a hot day, bit into his sinuses and made it hard to breath. Goetz kicked out, catching the creature’s knee. It howled and staggered, and they broke apart.
	Steady on his feet now, Goetz stepped back, raising his sword. The beastman clutched its weapon in both hands and gave a throaty snarl. Teeth bared, it bulled towards him. Despite his guard, the edge of the axe skidded across Goetz’s breastplate, dislodging the ornaments of his order and the ribbons of purity he wore in order to announce his status as a novice of the Order of the Blazing Sun. Sparks flew as northern iron met Imperial steel, and Goetz found himself momentarily off balance. The beastman was quick to capitalise. It crashed against him, clawed hand scrabbling at his helm, trying to shove his head back to expose his throat even as it flailed at him awkwardly with its axe. 
	Smashing the hilt of his sword against its skull, Goetz thrust his forearm against its throat and forced the snapping jaws away from him. They fell, locked together, and rolled across the ground, struggling. Goetz lost hold of his sword, but managed to snatch his dagger from his belt. He drove it into the beastman’s side, angling the blade up, aiming for the heart, his old fencing teacher’s admonitions ringing in his mind. The beastman squealed in pain and clawed at him. He closed his eyes and forced the blade in deeper, ignoring the crunch of bone and the hot wet foulness that gushed suddenly over his gauntlet. 
	The creature’s struggles grew weaker and weaker until they stopped completely. It expired with a whimper, its limbs flopping down with a relieving finality. Breathing heavily, Goetz pushed the dead weight off of himself and stared up at the stars dancing between the talon-like branches of the pines. The sky seemed to spin.
	Grimacing, he climbed to his feet and snatched up his fallen brand. Staggering, he moved towards the mass, which seemed to quiver at his approach. The stink grew heavier, almost solid. He caught a glimpse of bones scattered around it, and in the light of the fire he though he saw something floating within. Something that turned in its bloated womb to look at him with eyes like open wounds. 
	Deep in the woods, something was being born. Something horrible and beautiful. A whisper of sound caressed his ears, and a lovely voice spoke to him, making promises and predictions. A sweet smell, like sugar on ice tickled his nose, and he hesitated. 
	What had he been doing? What–
	‘Sir knight!’ Lothar roared, lunging past him with his hatchet. The forester struck the thing with the weapon and the hum screamed forth, bringing blood to Goetz’s ears and nose and he bit into his tongue. Screams rose from behind him, but he ignored them, ignored Lothar, ignored it all and concentrated on shoving the burning brand into the sticky foulness. The flames caught quickly and he fell back, coughing as the hum rose to a shrill shrieking whine that seemed to shake the entire clearing. 
	The promises were gone, swept away by the begging, the pleading notes that sank insidiously into his brain. He slashed at the quivering burning mass with berserk abandon, ignoring the ichors that splashed him and ate into his armour. Ignoring the shrieks that tore at his soul.
	The whine faded as he turned away and fell to his knees, leaning on his sword. Goetz looked tiredly at the surviving captives, who squatted in a huddle nearby. They all looked unharmed, save for exhaustion and fear.
	‘You’re safe,’ he croaked. ‘We’ve come to take you home. Lothar, get–’ He turned, spotting Lothar’s body lying nearby, his sightless eyes locked on the stars above. Goetz paused, but only for a moment. He pushed himself to his feet and began to rasp orders to his surviving troops. 
	They would burn the dead. Better than interring them in the foul earth of this place. As he watched his men get to work, Goetz sat wearily on a charred stump. He finally understood why the hochmeister had smiled so sadly that day. There were some bridges that needed burning and some walls that needed shattering, but the cost of doing so was always going to be high. 
	‘We go where we are needed. We do what must be done,’ Goetz whispered, as he watched bodies get thrown on the pyre and thought of bridges, and the men who built them.