A tall, wolf-lean man in gaudy doublet and hose climbed into an embrasure formed between a portion of smashed decking and a series of lashed walkways. A tricorn hat with an ostrich feather was pulled down tight over his ears and he carried a meticulously crafted three-barelled wheel-lock pistol. Kurt noticed each hammer striker was a miniature Ghal-maraz.
‘Halt!’ cried the man in sharply accented Reikspiel. ‘Come no closer or we will shoot.’
‘You shoot us, Empire man?’ shouted Tey-Muraz. ‘You blind?’
‘Walk that horse any further and you’ll find out just how good our eyes are.’
Tey-Muraz turned to Kurt, a perplexed look on his open face.
‘What is the matter with him? Why does he point gun at me?’
‘A ragged troop of winged lancers probably don’t look much different from marauding northmen,’ said Kurt.
The boyars took offence at this, but before they could do anything too rash, too Kislevite, Kurt jabbed his spur’s into Pavel’s flank. A dozen powder-dusted muzzles followed him as he picked a path through the debris towards the barricade.
He was acutely aware of how easily those lead balls could punch through his breastplate. Such weapons were transforming war, and the days of armoured knights on the charge were numbered. Even were half these weapons to misfire, more than enough remained to shred him.
‘I am Kurt Bremen of the Knights Panther,’ he shouted up to the man with the elaborate pistol. ‘To whom am I speaking?’
The man peered at him, eyeing him suspiciously before saying, ‘Ulrecht Zwitzer, captain of the Trinovante.’
‘Well met, Captain Zwitzer,’ said Kurt. ‘I never thought to see a vessel of the Empire this far north again.’
‘You say you’re Knights Panther?’ said Zwitzer. ‘How do I know you didn’t just peel that armour from a dead knight?’
Kurt’s temper frayed at the man’s tone, but he held it in check. Given Erengrad’s devastation and the unlikelihood of meeting a Knight Panther, Zwitzer’s suspicion was forgiveable.
‘That pistol,’ said Kurt. ‘Was it by any chance fashioned by Master Viedler on the Koenigplatz? The Grand Master of my order commissioned a twin-barrelled version from the irascible old gunsmith. And since we were to fight in the service of Graf Boris of Middenheim, he ordered one hammer to be wrought as a hammer, the other as a leaping wolf.’
‘Aye,’ said Zwitzer. ‘It’s Master Viedler’s work, sure enough. And if you’ve met the old rogue, then you’ll know how what became of his little finger, yes?’
Kurt grinned. ‘He told people it was bitten off by a rat and later turned up in one of Godrun the Pieman’s savouries.’
‘Aye, that’s what he told folk,’ agreed Zwitzer, ‘but what really happened to it?’
‘His wife shot it off with one of his own pistols after she caught him dipping his ramrod into the Widow Braufeltz,’ said Kurt, remembering the Altdorf Town Crier gleefully printing the sordid details of the affair.
Zwitzer laughed and lowered the hammers of his pistol.
‘Lower your weapons, lads,’ said Zwitzer. ‘This one’s Altdorf born and bred.’
Kurt let out a relieved breath as the handguns were withdrawn and Zwitzer put up his pistol. He cocked his ostrich-feathered hat and said, ‘So what in Sigmar’s name brings a Knight Panther to Erengrad when all with any sense are already in the south?’
‘I could ask you the same question,’ replied Kurt.
‘I asked first,’ said Zwitzer. ‘And I have handgunners.’
Kurt twisted in the saddle as the winged lancers walked their horses to the side and the Ice Queen rode her snow-white steed into view. Sofia walked beside her and Miska sat in the saddle before the Tzarina.
Zwitzer’s face fell open in a picture of comic surprise.
‘Ghal-maraz strike me sideways,’ said Zwitzer. ‘It’s you. I didn’t dare hope it could be true…’
The captain climbed over the barricade and scrambled down the slope of smashed timber. He removed his hat and tucked it under his arm before marching briskly towards the Ice Queen.
‘Your majesty,’ said Zwitzer, bowing deeply and sweeping his feathered hat in an elaborate flourish.
The Tzarina dismounted and looked up at the Trinovante.
‘Captain Zwitzer,’ she said. ‘You are a most welcome sight, and please do not think me ungrateful when I ask what exactly brought you to Kislev? To Erengrad?’
‘You did, my lady,’ said Zwitzer.
‘I did?’
‘I saw you in my dreams,’ said Zwitzer with the heartfelt wonder of a man who wakes to see his nighttime flights of fantasy are not delusions at all, but reality.
‘You dreamed of me?’ said the Ice Queen.
‘Every night for two months,’ said Zwitzer. ‘I saw your face and heard your voice calling me here. Thought I was going mad. To even consider coming north when every other captain worth his salt was sailing as far south as he dared. I had to pay every scurvy knave on the Trinovante every coin I had just to get them to come with me.’
Before the Tzarina could respond, the rain that had dogged their course for days finally broke. It fell suddenly and hard from onrushing thunderclouds bloated with titanic shadows. One minute the day was dry and still, the next a hammering black rain beat the wharf’s stones and churned the ocean.
A chorus of ululating warhorns brayed from the city walls, drawing every gaze upwards. Moments later the horns were answered by howls of bloodlust torn from the rabid maws of ten thousand beasts as they poured into the High City.
‘Men of Kislev!’ yelled the Tzarina. ‘To arms!’
A dozen lancers vaulted from their mounts, bending their backs to helping the Trinovante’s crew demolish the barricade and clear a path to the ship. Wreckage was shoved into the sea as frightened men and women ran to its gangway.
Sofia and Ryurik pulled a protesting Miska between them as sailors sawed through the sodden ropes securing the galleon to the bridge’s rune-carved mooring rings. Sofia had no idea how much time was necessary to ready a ship this big to sail, but prayed to all the gods to grant them enough.
‘Let me go!’ cried Miska, squirming and fighting them every step of the way. ‘I need to go to her!’
‘No, little one,’ said Sofia. ‘We need to get aboard!’
‘Please!’ begged the girl, her eyes brimming with tears. ‘Please, you don’t understand…’
Sofia looked over her shoulder, and the breath caught in her chest at the host swarming from the city above: an unending horde of flesh-hungry beasts and monsters.
‘Faster,’ she said. ‘Go faster.’
No sooner had she spoken than Ryurik slipped on the rain-slick stone and lost his grip on Miska. Small as the youngster was, her struggles dragged Sofia down too. Nimble as an oblast fox, the girl was up and running a heartbeat later.
‘Miska!’ cried Sofia. ‘Gods, no!’
The girl sprinted back towards the assembling lancers. Few people tried stop her, too afraid for their own lives to care if this youngster wanted to choose her own ending.
Sofia picked herself up and ran after her.
‘Sofia!’ cried Ryurik, turning to come after her.
She didn’t answer him and ran after Miska, losing sight of the girl in the rain as a barging krug of winged lancers rode past. The warriors thrust their lances to the sky and yelled words of praise to Tor and Dhaz and Ursun.
‘Miska!’ she cried, turning in a circle. ‘Gods, please! Miska! Please, come back to me. We have to go!’
A vast horse reared up before her, a sorrel gelding bearing an armoured warrior upon its back.