He gazed down with disgust. The man was just another impoverished village trickster with delusions of power. It would have been better to have made an example of him, to have drawn his guts slowly out in front of a crowd of appreciative peasants. Out here in the wilds, the lesson was wasted.
Leoncoeur plunged his sword into the twitching corpse, just to be sure, then pulled the blade free, noting with distaste the stains along the steel.
He felt soiled. Running down such filth was a task barely worthy of his station. He needed something better, something grander, befitting the station he had once enjoyed.
Ahead of him, the Gironne churned at the base of a deep creek, its banks thickly cloaked with trees and creeping vines. The leaves had an unhealthy sheen to them, as if rot had penetrated down to the sap.
Leoncoeur tied his horse up and trudged down to the water’s edge. He slithered down the muddy bank and knelt down, dipping his sword into the murky water. Grabbing tufts of grass, he wiped the gore from the blade, working slowly and patiently. His sword was his life, and had been ever since he had been a raw novice with more bravery than sense.
He had always done things diligently. He had always served, and yet the reward had been snatched away.
His blade now a little cleaner, he replaced it in the scabbard. Then he knelt over the water’s edge, thirst kindling in his throat. He stared at the scummy surface, and changed his mind. Something foul was getting into the rivers – they were beginning to smell like sewers.
Just as he was about to pull away, he caught sight of his reflection gazing up at him. He looked haggard, his noble bearing thinned out by Mallobaude’s treachery and le Breton’s acquisition of his birthright.
Then, looking closer, he saw that it was not his reflection at all – he had not lost that much weight. The golden locks were too long, the face too slender. A face clarified below the filmy surface, one he remembered from the distant past.
‘My Lady,’ he breathed, falling to both knees.
The waters stirred, bubbling into a froth, then broke. A figure rose from the river, lithe and translucent. She wore a gown of purest emerald, and it flowed across her like cataracts. Her face was hard to look at for long – it had a fey, dangerous quality, as if touched by elven magic. She remained standing in the river, the weeds draped around her ankles, gazing benevolently down at the kneeling knight before her. The sunlight became a little less grey, and the leaves were touched with a golden sheen.
Leoncoeur felt his heart-rate pick up, and his face went hot.
‘Lion-heart,’ the Lady murmured, her voice as ephemeral as the wind in the reeds. ‘You were ever my favourite. My champion.’
Leoncoeur looked up at her, and the sight of her unfiltered beauty pierced his heart. ‘Then why, lady?’ he asked.
She knew what he meant. Her face did not give away pity – it would never do that – but understanding shone in her emerald eyes.
‘All things are changing,’ she said softly. ‘The world turns faster, and the old gods are passing. This realm is only one of many, lion-heart – you could not be contained by it forever.’
Leoncoeur struggled to hear her. When they had spoken before, so long ago that it seemed like a dream of infancy, she had been proud and imperious, a queen in her invincible realm. Now, she whispered as if sick, her otherworldly voice as faint as an invalid’s.
‘My soul is Bretonnia,’ Leoncoeur said, not understanding what she was telling him.
‘It was. The Green Knight has come to claim his kingdom. It has always been his. Your destiny is different. You will die alone, my champion, far from home. You will never take the throne again.’
The words were harsh, and they cut him deeply. Deep down, Leoncoeur had never quite lost the half-hope that le Breton was an apparition sent by the fell gods, some terrible shade who would be exposed in due time, leaving the throne free for him again.
‘Once, you told me different,’ he said, unable to keep the ghost of reproach from his voice.
‘I never tell false,’ she said. ‘I told you that you would lead your people into glory. That remains your destiny, should you be strong enough to seize it. Are you strong enough, lion-heart? Or has this bitterness quenched your fire?’
‘Never. Command me.’
A chill breeze made the river ripple, stirring the trees around them. The Lady shivered, and her impeccable features creased. ‘Great powers are moving. They converge on Sigmar’s city. The Fallen covet it, as do the Dead. Those who remain will not stand unaided. That is where the hammer will fall, and that is where the world will change.’
‘But my realm–’
‘It is no longer your realm.’
‘My people are hard-pressed.’
‘The Green Knight is their guardian now,’ the Lady said, almost sorrowfully, as if that alone presaged the end of her hopes for something better. ‘I tell you the truth. Is that not what you have been praying for?’
Leoncoeur looked at her intently. The beauty was still there, as was the ethereal power, but both were diminished. She was fighting against something. This apparition was costing her, and the price would be steep. ‘All lands are dying,’ he said, realising what made her sick. ‘They have poisoned the rivers.’
‘You asked for a way to serve,’ she said. ‘I have given it to you.’ She gave him a fond, faint smile. ‘If you spurn the offer, you might yet live. There might be some kind of service for you in safer places, of a meagre sort.’
Then it was Leoncoeur’s turn to smile. When their faces cast off the most oppressive lines of care, they looked so alike. ‘I never craved meagre service. I was a king.’
‘You still can be.’ The Lady began to sink, sliding down into the brackish waters. ‘The City of Sigmar, my champion. Already its foundations tremble. That is the anvil upon which the fate of man will be tempered.’
‘Then will you live, Lady?’ asked Leoncoeur, watching with concern as she slipped towards the Gironne’s tainted waters. ‘Can you be saved?’
‘Ask only of mortal fates,’ she whispered, her tresses sliding under the surface. ‘Look for me in pure waters, but the games of gods do not concern you.’
But they did. They always had. As Leoncoeur watched her subside into nothingness again, as the golden edges faded from the leaves and the air sunk once more into mud-stinking foulness, he felt as if his heart had been ripped out. He remained immobile for a long time, his knees sinking steadily into the mire, his hands limp by his sides.
‘The City of Sigmar,’ he murmured.
No force of the Empire had stirred itself when Bretonnia had been riven by war. Very rarely had the great and the good of Karl Franz’s realm given much thought to their chivalrous cousins over the Grey Mountains. Then again, it was foolish to assume that they had not been hard-pressed themselves. Leoncoeur had heard the rumours running through court – that disaster had overtaken Marienburg, that the north was aflame, that even the greenskins were terrified of something and remained hidden in their forest lairs.
He felt icy water creep under the skin of his armour plate, rousing him from his lethargy. He stood cumbersomely, hauling on looped creepers. No remnant of the Lady’s presence remained, and the Gironne looked as turgid and weed-choked as before.
Leoncoeur trudged back to his mount, slipping on the mud-slick riverbank as he went.
‘Altdorf,’ he said, musingly, already gauging the distances. ‘If that is where the fates are to be written, we must not be missing.’