Cursed Companions

They stood silently clinging to the log that ran through the darkness, where the torrential roar of the river drowned out the sound of their panting breaths. They were all too cold and too beaten and frightened to speak. There was no room in Reiner's head to wonder what might happen next, to make plans. He was a rat clinging to a wreck, trying to keep his head above water and struggling to breathe once more, with every higher thought vanished, defeated by the invincible animal instinct to cling to life as long as there was strength left in his body.

Other wrecks crashed into them, wrenching screams of pain and fear from them, bruising themselves as they scraped against the walls as the river sped them around a bend, and each time this happened, Reiner thought they had hit the invisible obstacle that would at last shatter their bodies and split their skulls.

His brain was so dulled that it did not occur to him to wonder what the roar that steadily increased in his ears could mean until he, the log, and his companions plunged haphazardly down some staggering rapids and plunged into the gushing waters of a waterfall. After the frightening liquid spray, the log surfaced and Reiner discovered that they were floating in relatively calm water. When he had caught his breath, he raised his voice.

"Are you all here?"

"Yes, captain." Pavel said.

"Here." Franka said.

"And where will 'here' be?" grumbled Hals.

"If we've been swallowed by a dragon." Said Oskar. "It will use us to feed its fire."

"Shut your mouth, you madman." Giano said, angrily.

Judging by the echoes, they seemed to be in a large cavern. There was still a current dragging them insistently, but there were no waves. A hollow, almost musical thumping was coming from the left. To Reiner, the sound resembled the sound of huge wooden chimes clashing together.

He had been in the cold water so long that he hardly felt it anymore, but he sensed a dangerous urge to sleep, to let go of the log and close his eyes. He shook himself.

"I don't suppose anyone will have tinder dry enough to-" He was interrupted when the roar of the rapids, which had been gradually fading, picked up again. "Are we approaching other rapids?" he asked.

"I don't think so." Franka replied, her teeth chattering. "Because the other sound we still have to the left."

The rapids roared in their ears and sprayed them with pulverized water, and after a moment the roar subsided again, though the sound of wood against wood remained constant.

"We're moving in circles." Reiner said as his stomach knotted. "We're caught in a vortex, a whirlpool."

There was a brief silence as the others assimilated the information, and then Pavel spoke.

"So what's to be done, what do we do?"

"Do?" Reiner laughed mirthlessly. "My dear pikeman, we are already doing it."

"But, captain." Hals said uneasily. "You must have a plan. So far you have not failed us."

Reiner swore to himself. Damn them and the trust they had in him. In his opinion, he had failed them at every turn. Why didn't they realize it?

"I'm sorry, kid. I'm drawing a blank."

The sound of the rapids again waxed and waned, though this time it was not as loud, while the hollow pounding of wood slowly but steadily increased. The current was also getting stronger and dragging them around the vortex with increasing speed as it pulled them downward. Their tired arms were finding it increasingly difficult to hold on to the log.

"Isn't there any shore?" asked Giano, plaintively.

"I don't know." Reiner replied. "But explore if you want to. The Tilean didn't seem very enthusiastic about it."

As they left the sound of the rapids behind for the sixth or seventh time, Reiner noticed a strange phenomenon. The surface of the water was not horizontal, but sloped to the left like the outer side of a soup bowl, and now the clatter of wood drowned out any other sound.

"The bridge." Said Reiner, who at last understood. "All the timbers have gathered here, but the wood won't sink."

"Ow!" cried Franka. "It's dragging me down!"

"By the gods!" Hals said. "Me too!"

"Hold on tight!" shouted Reiner, though he knew it would no longer do any good.

The current was pulling them almost in a vertical line. The log they were clinging to slid down the side of the soup bowl and one of its ends collided with the others spinning in a violent circle, held in eternal equilibrium in the center of the vortex by the current pulling them down and their buoyancy pushing them up.

The impact shook Reiner so hard that his teeth clacked together. He lost his grip and was instantly sucked into the maw of the whirlpool. The logs pummeled him as he sank, but immediately he was beneath them, dragged inexorably down into the depths as if a sea serpent had grabbed him by the legs and was pulling him into its underwater lair.

Animal instinct took hold of him once again and, though he knew it was useless to struggle, he clawed at the water trying desperately to swim to the surface, to reach the air again as his lungs seemed to scream in fierce agony.

The current took a sudden turn to one side and one of his shoulders impacted against a rock surface with enough force to make him almost scream. He was dragged into an airless tunnel where he scraped against rough rocks at breakneck speed. He felt his clothes being torn off and then his skin ripped. He became a jumble of pain, speed and disorientation. He didn't know if he was alive or dead, if he was cold or hot, if he was in pain or couldn't feel anything at all. Red lines snaked through the blackness that was his field of vision. A rapid pounding sounded inside his ears. His chest felt like it was being crushed in a vise.

And then, suddenly, there was air. And he was falling.

Into the water. Again.

Reiner's first thought as he surfaced was, 'What is that damn light?' Because an unbearable glow was burning his eyes through his eyelids. Then he began coughing violently and vomiting large quantities of water as he paddled with his arms to stay afloat. He heard others around him doing the same. His eyes were watering. Water was coming out of his nose. His throat felt as if he had swallowed broken glass, but at last he cleared his lungs and looked around.

He and his companions were floating in a small mountain lake, surrounded by huge pine trees. A tall waterfall cascaded into the lake from a crevice in a cliff. A pair of ducks glided over the water to perch. I was outdoors. The bright light was the sun setting over a carpet of evergreens. They were finally out of the tunnels!

Pavel gurgled beside him.

"Captain, I..., Hals is..., I can't..."

Reiner looked at him. The pikeman was flailing about, trying unsuccessfully to keep his head above water. Hals was floating face down next to him, motionless. Beyond, Oskar was swimming calmly one-handed toward the shore, while Franka and Giano were recovering.

"Giano, Franz!" Reiner called to them. "Can you swim?"

"Yes." They answered in unison.

"Then help Pavel get to shore."

Reiner took Hals by the shoulders and turned him over onto his back, then swam with him to the nearest land area, a muddy shore covered with reeds.

When they reached the shallows, Pavel crawled out under his own power in the same way Franka and Giano helped Reiner drag Hals out of the water and lay him on his side. Reiner slapped his back hard.

For a moment, Hals did not move and Pavel sat watching him anxiously. But at last, with a violent convulsion, the booby began to cough and vomited an alarming amount of water onto the mud. Reiner held his head until he finished.

"Are you all right, pikeman?" he then asked. Hals looked at him with bloodshot eyes.

"I'll never...go...back...to bathing." Pavel smiled with relief.

"And why would you start doing that now, you old goat?"

Reiner patted Hals on one shoulder and stood up to look at them all. He shook his head.

"I've never seen such a sorry bunch of wretches." Hals laughed.

"You're no beauty either, Captain." He sneezed and shuddered.

They were all shivering. Franka's teeth chattered uncontrollably and Reiner realized that his were doing the same. Violent tremors shook his body, and his fingers were blue. Although buds were beginning to sprout on the nearby dogwoods, it was only early spring and they were still high in the mountains.

"Any fingers missing? Any broken bones?"

They all shook their heads, but it was clear that the river and the whirlpool had beaten them badly. Hals had lost his crutch. Pavel was missing his eye patch and the empty socket looked like a red cave. Oskar had a fresh wound on his forehead. One of Giano's forearms had ugly scratches, and Franka's shirt was again stained red, as if the cuts he had suffered while fleeing from the war party had reopened.

Reiner squinted to look up at the nearby peaks for some familiar landmark.

"Do we have any idea where we are?" he asked. Hals sat up and looked around. "It doesn't look familiar." He said. "But by the sun we must be on the southern slope of the Central Mountains."

Reiner nodded.

"Wherever we are, we must find shelter. We need to dry out in front of a fire before the cold kills us."

"There's chimney smoke down the hillside, Captain." Oskar said. "Do you still have the flask?"

Reiner was reluctant to give Oskar another sip of that elixir that already seemed to have caught him in its clutches, but lately the man had been of greater use. He put a hand to his jerkin, and found that the flask was missing.

"I'm sorry, lad. I've lost it."

Oskar swallowed and nodded.

"I see. Very well." He wrapped his arms around himself and shivered. Reiner coughed and sniffed the air.

"Good. Come on, fellows. Let's go take advantage of their hospitality, whoever they are."

The group members managed to get to their feet and began hobbling and stumbling down the pine-covered slope.

Reiner turned his eyes toward the waterfall. This one was as tall as three houses. He shook his head. It seemed incredible that they had survived.

"The water is softer than rock." Franka commented, reading his thoughts. Reiner grimaced.

"Not much more." They set off after the others.

Reiner cast a furtive sidelong glance at the girl walking beside him, content. Damn her for being so nice, he thought. It was unnerving that it was so easy to get along with a woman, so much like a friend, and yet....

He shook his head in an attempt to rid himself of the image of her with her naked torso.

The journey to the village was short, fortunately for them, for they were not trained for long walks, and were ill-equipped to deal with any danger they might encounter. In addition to being injured and bruised, they were almost entirely without weapons. Reiner had his pistols, though he lacked powder and bullets, and he and Giano still had their swords. The river had taken from them almost everything they had not lost before. Giano's crossbow was gone. Oskar's rifle, Franka's bow, Pavel's spear, Hals' crutch that had once been a spear, all had been lost in the darkness of the underworld and only their daggers remained.

They reached the village just as the sun was disappearing behind the mountains and the landscape was tinged with purple. At first, glimpsing it through the trees, it seemed to them a picturesque place almost untouched by the war: a few small huts of stone and unpolished boards huddled among a cluster of hills beside the stream that meandered away from the lake. Smoke billowed from a few chimneys.

Reiner heard Franka stifle a sob.

"It's so much like home..." she said after recovering.

Reiner knew exactly how she felt. Having spent so much time in such a strange place as the tunnels, those small huts, which he wouldn't have looked twice at a couple of weeks ago, now seemed more welcoming than the more refined inns.

Nevertheless, the hair on the back of Reiner's neck stood up as he approached. Although he didn't know what, something didn't quite fit. Despite the smoke billowing from the chimneys, the place looked neglected, abandoned. Weeds grew freely around the houses, and the windows were open, with the shutters hanging from the hinges. The place had a disconcertingly unpopulated appearance. The companions advanced cautiously through the muddy street to the water well in the center of the square. They heard not a sound of human occupation: not a voice, not a movement; not the cry of a child, nor the hammering of a blacksmith's hammer. They looked around, their hand on the pommel of sword or dagger. The empty windows stared back at them.

"There's someone there!" called Reiner.

His voice echoed through the houses and was lost in the forest.

"Where are they?" asked Franka in a low voice." Where have they gone?"

"And whose smoke is that coming out of the chimneys?" growled Hals.

"Maybe they've gone for a walk?" Oskar suggested.

"And maybe you'll die when you find out." Said a gruff voice behind them.

The companions turned around with a gasp. A skinny man with straight hair covering his forehead was standing in the corner of a house. He was dressed in dirty, patched clothes and carried a bow in which an arrow was ready. He raised a hand and other ragged men appeared behind him and from behind each of the houses surrounding the square. They all aimed their arrows at Reiner's men. They were surrounded.

The skinny man advanced into the center of the square accompanied by two others, a short, flat man with a clump of sand-colored hair on his chin, and a scowling, powerfully built warrior with long braids hanging down his chest. The chief smiled and bared horse teeth.

"You are pitiful." He said. "What has he chewed you?"

"They're hardly worth mugging." The flat one commented with a smirk. The one with the braids pointed to Reiner's leather jerkin, and then to those of Hals and Pavel.

"Their uniform, or what's left of it. They're soldiers."

The smug smile died on the horse-faced one's lips, and his eyes turned cold.

"Are you chasing us?" he asked Reiner. "Are you scouts?"

"It's better to kill them, Horst." Said the flat one. "Just to make sure."

"Yes." Nodded the horse-faced one as he pushed his hair aside to rub his forehead. "Yeah, I guess we should do that." As he pushed back his hair, Reiner thought he saw a familiar scar on the man's forehead. The bandit signaled to his men and Reiner heard the creak of two dozen bowstrings being drawn taut.

"Wait!" shouted Pavel.

"What do we do?" mumbled Giano, anxious. "What do we do?"

"Take off your gloves, quickly!" said Reiner.

"The gloves..." repeated Giano, puzzled. Reiner took off the still-wet glove with his teeth and raised his hand to show the scar on the back of it.

"Brothers!" he cried, with the broadest smile he was capable of. "How glad we are to find fellows of mark!"

The men paused. The horse-faced one and his lieutenants squinted at the hand to make it out in the dying twilight, while Reiner's companions pulled off their gloves and showed the mark as well. The circle of archers loosened their strings, though they did not lower their bows.

"We...have recently escaped from a column of convicts." Reiner said, making up the story as he went along. "We were on our way to Seaheim to work as forced laborers on the docks. We were closely pursued by soldiers and almost..."

The one with the braids advanced a step with a menacing air.

"Did you bring Solados up into our hills?"

"No, no." Reiner hastened to reply as he raised his hands." No, no. We lost them a day ago, but then, alas, we lost ourselves too. And many misadventures have befallen us since then. There was a bear..."

"And a waterfall." Franka added, understanding the situation. Reiner nodded his head. "And the fall down the ravine."

The one with the braids clutched Reiner's hand in an iron dam and examined the fire mark closely. He rubbed it with his thumb as if he expected it to disappear. When that didn't happen, he grunted and turned his back on it. The horse-faced one smiled.

"You really are a pitiful bunch, aren't you? Flat-earth people with squishy feet stumbling around the hills like lost babies."

Reiner straightened up.

"We're not hardened bandits like you yet. Our brand is still fresh, but we have a lifetime to learn."

The horse-faced one and the flat one burst out laughing, and the rest of the men joined in the laughter.

"Very good, my young offspring." Said the horse-faced one. "We'll help you get off to a good start. Allow us to show you the joys of the outlaw life." He bowed. "Welcome to our humble home."

And as he said this, a few skinny women and dirty children came out of their hiding places and peered out of the windows and doors of the dilapidated shacks to look at the newcomers. Reiner frowned in confusion as the horse-faced man led them toward the larger house. Now, the darkness was total.

"Are you bandits, or is this your village?"

Horseface grimaced. "Well, both, actually. A lot of us lived here before the war. Or around here. But then we left to fight for the crown, and we got a great deal of thanks in return, I assure you. We fell in our thousands while the nobles made some speeches." He waved a hand. "But you're already aware of all that, aren't you? In any case, when we got back they were all dead, our mothers and fathers, sisters and children..." He sighed and looked around. "We love living here again, but with the Norse devils nesting high in the hills we have to be on our guard. We can't set up anything permanent."

"You guys know how to disappear very well." Reiner commented.

"Yes." Nodded the horse-faced one." We've had a lot of practice." He shrugged. "If we could ask the authorities for protection, they would hopefully drive out the heathens and make these lands safe again, but well, most of us are marked men like yourselves. You would hang us rather than help us."

They entered the house. Reiner's vision of roasting venison and wild boar spit over the fire and wine flowing from barrels stolen from a monastery vanished as the horse-faced man offered him and his companions a place by the small fireplace and asked for food. There was no furniture. They sat on the floor as the wind blew in through the open windows and leaves and dust formed piles in the corners. The small fire was barely enough to warm Reiner's hands, much less dry his clothes.

Though they had little, the bandits were not stingy. They filled bowls and glasses for them, and refilled them when they were empty. There was no venison. No wild boar. Just scrawny rabbits and squirrels roasting on sticks, and a porridge of oats and wild carrots so thin it was almost all water. At least it filled their bellies and warmed their bodies.

As he plucked the last bits of meat off a rabbit bone, Hals leaned over to murmur in Reiner's ear.

"Why don't we join these guys?" the pikeman said. "They look like promising people."

Reiner grimaced. In the firelight, it was easy to see how malnourished they were, licked-faced and pale. These were not outlaws leading carefree lives.

They were wanted men, much persecuted and longing to return to their former lives, a dream as impossible for them as flying to the moon on the back of a dragon.

"Why not?" asked Reiner. "Because here I would feel as comfortable as you would in the king's court."

"Ah." Hals said. "That's not so bad."

"You think not? Look at them. They're starving."

"It's winter." Pavel interjected. "Things get a little bit lean in winter, it's true. But we're in spring now. Soon there will be an abundance of food."

"And another winter next year." Hals shrugged.

Reiner lowered his voice and leaned closer to them because he didn't want to be heard by the bandits.

"You can stay, if you feel like it. I won't stop you." He raised his scarred hand. "But at the end of this journey there is a chance to erase this mark and return to normal life; for me, back to my gambling halls and taverns, for you, back to your farms. To me, that seems better than wandering around in the woods and eating rabbits for the rest of our lives."

Hals and Pavel furrowed their brows and leaned back to whisper to each other. After a moment, Hals leaned forward again with an air of regret.

"We're with you, Captain." He shrugged. "We..., well, sometimes it's a bit hard to believe we'll ever get home after all that's happened."

"Yes." nodded Reiner. "I know."

A hand patted his back and the horse-faced man sat down next to him, with the flat one and the one with the braids next to him.

"How do you like our home cooking?" he asked with a broad smile.

"It's the best we've had in days." Reiner replied with complete sincerity. "And we thank you for your hospitality."

The bandit waved a hand to downplay the issue.

"It's not hospitality. You will pay for it, one way or another. If you stay with us, you will carry your burden. If you leave, your money bags will be lighter." He smiled again. "Have you decided what you will do?"

Reiner sighed. He had expected something along those lines. After all, those men were bandits.

"I think we will continue on our way. You have been more than generous, but I realize you have little to share. You do not need six more mouths to feed."

"Where will you go?" asked the one with the braids. Reiner frowned and rubbed his hand.

"The man who made this mark for us rides with Duke Herlmann, who intends to rescue Nordheim from the hands of the Norsemen. We have unfinished business with that man, if we can find Nordheim." He smiled with a crooked mouth. "We are utterly lost."

Flat grimaced.

"Will you run back into the arms of your executioners, are you mad?"

"We are willing to die as long as the one who condemned us dies too."

"They are going to betray us." Said the one with the braids. "They hope to get clemency for denouncing us."

Reiner gave him a fierce look.

"Do you think I am so stupid, sir? I know the justice of the realm as well as anyone. There is no clemency for anyone bearing the mark of the X. You may spare me the axe, but only to give me a pick and shovel. I shall die in chains one way or another."

The one with the braids snorted, but the horse-faced one waved a hand at him in annoyance.

"Give it up, Gherholt. You'd be able to suspect even an angel." He directed a smile at Reiner. "You have chosen a busy destination. This morning we sighted Herlmann marching toward Nordheim, and the Norsemen have been coming down from the crags to defend him. We intend to go there after the battle to clean the bones of the dead."

A shiver of fear ran down Reiner's back.

"Then you think the battle has already begun? Have you seen the troops of the duke's brother, Baron Ulburt?"

"Do you fear that he who condemned you may die without your help?" asked the flat man.

"Precisely. I do not want a grimy Norseman to deprive me of vengeance.

The horse-faced one shook his head.

"Herlmann will not reach Nordheim before nightfall. They won't form until dawn. We didn't see his brother."

Reiner let out something that was halfway between a sigh of relief and a groan. He was relieved that they weren't too late, but almost disheartened to realize what they had to do now.

"And how far is Nordheime from here, can we get there in the morning?"

The flat man laughed.

"In your condition? I doubt you'll make it at all."

"You'll walk all night." Said the horse-faced one. "But you'll be there before dawn."

Reiner's companions groaned.

"Can you show us the way?" asked Hals.

"Yes we can." Replied the flat one. They waited for him to continue, but he did not.

"Will you show us the way?" asked Pavel.

The horse-faced man shrugged.

"Well, folks, that depends on the contents of your money bags."

Reiner smiled wryly. He already knew that, sooner or later, it would come to that. Fortunately, unlike the slashes and thrusts of dueling, the arduous negotiations were a scuffle in which he felt comfortable. There he could safely navigate.

"Well, we don't have much to negotiate, do we? Because if you don't like our offer, you can just kill us and take whatever you want. Therefore, I must call upon your honor as brothers of mark to negotiate honestly with us and to remind you that cornered rats bite. You will receive a fair price for your help if we get a fair deal. You will get more than you agreed to if you fight us."

The horse-faced man exchanged a glance with his companions, then nodded.

"Fair enough. Tell us what you want and make an offer."

In the end they made it out alive, but it cost Reiner all of Barrister's gold coins, one of his pistols, and the sword his father had given him. Gold was always coming and going. That was its purpose. And if Duke Herlmann rewarded them as he hoped, they would soon be knee-deep in gold. Nevertheless, he found it painful to part with the sword. It was true that he could buy a better one with Herlmann's gold, but it wouldn't be his sword, would it?"

In addition to not killing them, the bandits had dressed their wounds, though not as expertly as Gustaf would have done, had pointed them in the direction they should go, and had given them all weapons: a lesser sword to Reiner, spears for Pavel and Hals, plus a crutch, bows for Franka and Giano, and a huge old blunderbuss for Oskar, but only enough powder and bullets for a few shots.

As instructed by the bandits, they followed the stream down the mountain until it crossed a major road, and then headed northeast at the maximum speed their bruised and exhausted bodies would allow.

Franka smiled as she walked alongside Reiner.

"I've never heard anyone lie like that. So easily and so plausibly. Running to kill the man who marked us. Ha!"

"Well, isn't that the truth?" asked Reiner. "We may not have the pleasure of slaying Ulburt with our own swords, but, if we succeed, we will certainly be the cause of his downfall."

"But that was not what you implied. You presented us as the most bloodthirsty villains in search of terrible vengeance. I have never met a master of deception such as you."

Reiner smiled with a smug air.

"Have you looked in the mirror, lately?"

Franka punched him and looked anxiously around to see if anyone else had heard.

They followed the road all night long, shuffling like sleepwalkers for endless miles and miles. Before long all conversation ceased. All pretense of vigilance fell by the wayside. Reiner felt as if he were dreaming. Sometimes it seemed to him that he was walking without moving from the spot and the world was passing beneath him. At other times he had the sensation of floating above himself and watching from the clouds the line of ragged, limp figures meandering through the dark forest and moors bathed in moonlight. The air grew colder as the dawn came, and the warmth of the fire became a distant memory. They tucked on the tattered and threadbare juleps as they missed the thick cloaks they had been given at the beginning of that insane journey.

Long after the moons had set, they reached the turn-off the bandits had mentioned and began to ascend back toward the hills. Their pace slowed. More than once, Reiner recovered just before his knees buckled. What he wanted most in the world was to curl up and sleep, right in the middle of the road if necessary. He dropped his chin against his chest at regular intervals, and on a few occasions he opened his eyes without being sure when he had closed them.

At last, just as a faint pink light tinged the snowy mountain peaks, they crested a pass and saw, in the distance, a huge castle towering like a vulture over a shady valley. The valley opened up in the shape of a "Y" before Reiner and his companions, with the castle built on a high ridge at the fork. At the base of the "Y", just below where they stood, was a village. No light shone on it, but farther into the valley, at a prudent distance from the castle, the morning fires of a large army's encampment flickered in the darkness.

"Come on, boys." Reiner said. "The journey is coming to an end."

"One way or another." Hals grumbled, but he was too tired to put much feeling into his words.

They trudged down the hill to the valley floor.

When they arrived at the village, they saw that it had been razed to the ground. There was not a single building with a roof or four corresponding walls. Most of it had been burned to the ground. The empty holes in the charred windows looked at them reproachfully, like betrayed comrades who had returned from the dead. The silence was absolute. Though the dawn broke, not a single bird sang. There was no wind to stir the blackened, leafless trees. It gave the impression that the world had died, that it had let out its last breath and now lay totally motionless at the feet of the group.

As they trudged along the dirt road that ran down the center of the valley, the camp began to appear above the trees and living hedges that lay between them: the white tents in neat rows, with the banners of the knights and companies that were housed in them hanging high above. Herlmann's banner, with a white wolf embroidered in silver, was displayed above all the others and, to Reiner's relief, there was not the slightest trace of the banner of the manticore, the corrupted Dragon Heart.

Noise returned to the world as they approached: clanging pots and pans, creaking ropes and harnesses, kicking horses' hooves, the scraping of whetstones, sleepy soldiers coughing and grumbling. Smells followed the sounds: porridge and bacon, horse, man, leather and canvas, wood smoke and gunpowder. Reiner and his companions inhaled deeply. Although Reiner had reluctantly enlisted and would have sworn he had hated every minute of his time in the army, the sounds and smells of camp filled him with jubilant longing to the point of tears in his eyes.

He had to swallow several times before he could speak.

"Cover your marks. We don't want to be thrown into the dungeon before we see Herlmann.

At the perimeter of the camp, a picket stopped them.

"Who goes!" shouted a sentry.

"Messengers with news for Duke Herlmann." Reiner said with all the military brusqueness he was capable of.

The picket came out of the shadows, eight men led by a sergeant, a square-shouldered, even squarer-jawed swordsman. He wrinkled his nose and cast a suspicious glance at Reiner's group.

"You look more like patched-up coppersmiths - where's your insignia?"

"We've been attacked, as you can see." Reiner replied. "And we have lost almost everything, but we have urgent news of Baron Ulburt Franzen's advance that the Duke must hear."

"That is for me to decide. What news is it?"

"It is not for your ears, damn your eyes!" cried Reiner as he stood upright. "Do you think I will tell a mere sergeant what torture has failed to wring from me? I am Captain Reiner Blackbrick and I demand to see Duke Herlmann!"

The sergeant shot Reiner a hostile look for bringing up rank, and turned to one of his men.

"Hergig. Take his lordship and these men to see Captain Shaffer. I have had enough."

This comedy was repeated four times before several captains, lieutenants, and gentlemen, before Reiner and his companions were at last led to the stately white tent in the center of the camp that sported the white and gold banner.

"Your men will wait out here." Said the captain of the duke's guard. "And you will hand me your sword and dagger."

Reiner obeyed and the knight made him step through the canvas flap of the tent.

Inside, Duke Herlmann von Franzen was eating breakfast. He was seated at a large table and gobbling ham, eggs and beer while his generals stood around him, splendid in their lustrous armor and colorful cloaks, discussing positions and strategies on the map spread out under the duke's plates and glasses. Herlmann, his hair disheveled, was still in his underwear and shirt. A camp bed where animal skins were piled lay unmade in a corner; at the foot of it, the duke's steel armor with silver accents stood like a sentry supported by a frame.

The count was much like his younger brother in build and size: a burly, barrel-chested man with the general appearance of a fighter, but just as Ulburt's face wore a cruelly cunning expression, Herlmann, with a touch of silver at his temples and silver threads in his beard, had a kindly, amused expression. In fact, he looked too gentle to be the commander of a large army. But when the captain who had led Reiner into the tent whispered in his ear and the earl raised his head, the icy blue gaze that fell on Reiner revealed the steel beneath his fatherly exterior. He was not a wolf in sheep's clothing, Reiner thought, for he sensed that the count's gentle nature was not a pretense, but was more like a sheep who ate wolves for dinner, a man to be wary of, a man to whom it would be unwise to lie.

"What news, messenger?" he asked with vivacity. Reiner dug a knee into the ground, as much out of exhaustion as deference.

"My lord, I have news of your brother that I fear you will neither want to hear nor believe."

The generals stopped muttering and looked up at him. Herlmann put down his knife and fork.

"Go ahead, my son."

Reiner swallowed. Now that the time had come to speak, he was afraid to narrate his story. It seemed so damned implausible.....

"My lord, two weeks ago, your brother ordered my companions and me to escort Lady Roselyn, a priestess of Radiantus, to a temple of the mother at the foot of the Nordic Mountains, where she was to open a sealed vault and retrieve from within it a battle standard of great power."

"The Dragon Heart." Herlmann said. "I know that, though the priestesses have always denied that they had it."

"And they may well have, my lord." Reiner continued. "For it is no longer the powerful weapon of good it once was. Demon blood has penetrated the very fiber of the banner and corrupted it, turning it into an object of terrible evil. But when we discovered this, Lady Roselyn was not deterred from taking it. On the contrary, she attacked us with an evil power and escaped, killing our captain and leaving us to die."

Herlmann raised an eyebrow.

Reiner hastened to continue.

"My lord, at the beginning of the journey we were led to believe that your brother desired the banner to help you regain Nordheim, but now I believe otherwise."

The generals murmured, dismayed, and Herlmann waved a hand to enforce silence upon them.

"I do not wish to speak ill of your brother," Reiner continued. "but Lady Roselyn is an ambitious woman who craves power, and I believe that Ulburt, under her influence, has come to share her ambitions. I fear she will march to this place using the Dragon Heart, not to help you regain Nordheim but to take it for herself."

"Lies!" cried a voice as the generals burst into angry murmurs. "All lies!"

Reiner turned as did the others.

Standing at the entrance to the tent were Lady Roselyn, once again the stiff and stern priestess, and Erich Heisenberg, resplendent in beautiful blued steel armor and a feathered crested helmet under his arm. He had spoken.