The End Times: The Return of Nagash
- Автор: Рейнольдс Джош
- Год: 2014
- Язык: английский
- Год: Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd.
- Жанр: Боевая фантастика
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He had been ushered from her chambers then, with a promise that she would find an answer for him, and for three days she took neither food nor drink. Her chamber had rocked with the sounds of madness – strange laughter, scratching on the stones and foul smells that lingered in the corridors of the castle. The knights began to mutter that the Lady had deserted them – why else would Tancred have fallen? Why else would the realm be beset by so many enemies at once?
As Anthelme sat and waited for the Lady Elynesse to come out of her room, knights had demanded that he ride out to face one foe or another. Anthelme refused them all, though it hurt him to do so. Some knights left, sallying forth alone to confront the horrors that afflicted their ancestral lands. Others stayed, their natural impetuousness tempered by the memory of Tancred’s fall.
On the third day, their patience was rewarded. Lady Elynesse staggered from her chambers. The Lady’s voice had at last pierced her fevered dreams, and given her a dire warning to pass on – if Anthelme did not go to La Maisontaal, Bretonnia itself would fall.
‘Stop thinking,’ a voice said, rousing Anthelme from his reverie.
‘What?’ he asked. Gioffre of Anglaron grinned at him, and slapped him on the back, causing his mail to jingle.
‘I said stop thinking so hard. You’re spooking the horses.’
‘That doesn’t make any sense.’ Anthelme looked around.
‘No, but it got you to pay attention, didn’t it?’ Gioffre said. ‘We’re but a day’s hard ride from the abbey, and you look as if you’d rather be anywhere else.’
‘It’s not that,’ Anthelme said quickly. Gioffre laughed.
‘Oh I know. Anthelme, you are a true knight, as was Tancred. I fought beside you during Mallobaude’s rebellion, remember? I know that you are no coward. Just as I know that you only fear failure.’ He smiled. Gioffre wasn’t especially handsome, but his face became almost pleasant when he smiled. ‘We will not fail. Troubadours will sing of the day the Companions of Quenelles sent the dead back into the dark, and saved Bretonnia.’ He clapped Anthelme on the shoulder. ‘Now, heads up.’ He pointed upwards. ‘The Ghoulslayer and his flock of overgrown pigeons are back.’
Anthelme couldn’t resist a smile. Gioffre had a distaste for the winged stallions that Fastric Ghoulslayer and his fellow pegasus knights rode. Anthelme suspected that it had less to do with the fact that he felt the surly beasts were unnatural, and more to do with their habit of befouling the ground beneath them as they swooped through the air. Horse dung wasn’t pleasant, especially when it was coming at you from above, and very quickly.
‘Ho, Duke Anthelme,’ Fastric shouted as his steed swooped lazily through the air. The pegasus whinnied as it descended, and it tossed its head and trotted arrogantly towards Anthelme and Gioffre. Their own steeds snorted and pawed the ground as the beast fell into step with them. Normal warhorses didn’t get along with pegasus, even at the best of times. Gioffre’s stallion nipped at Fastric’s steed, and the former planted a fist between his mount’s ears. ‘Keep that bad-tempered nag of yours under control, sirrah,’ Fastric said.
‘It’d be easier if that beast of yours didn’t provoke the other animals,’ Gioffre said.
Before the old, familiar argument could begin again, Anthelme said, ‘What news, Ghoulslayer?’
‘Beasts,’ Fastric growled. ‘Hundreds of them. They’re moving north, but much more slowly than us.’
‘Has Arkhan the Black made common cause with the creatures, do you think?’ Gioffre asked. ‘I wouldn’t put anything past that creature, frankly.’
Anthelme frowned. ‘They’ve been following us for days. If they were allies, wouldn’t they have attacked us by now? Even creatures like that should have no difficulty in divining our destination.’ He thought briefly of the beast-herd that had led Tancred into the ambush that had cost him his life, and wondered if this was the same one, before dismissing the idea. There were dozens of such warbands prowling the province now. ‘No,’ he said, straightening in his saddle. ‘No, they’re scavengers. They’re following us in hope of an easy victory. Well, let them. All they’ll find is death.’
He twisted in his saddle and looked back at the column of knights that followed him. Standards of every design and hue rose over the assembled force. Warriors from every province and city were counted amongst the Companions of Quenelles, and for a moment, just a moment, Anthelme felt the shadow that had been on his heart since Tancred’s death lift. He felt a hand on his shoulder, and looked at Fastric. ‘He would be proud,’ the older knight murmured. ‘As are we all. Where you lead, Anthelme, Duke of Quenelles, your Companions will follow.’
Anthelme nodded brusquely. ‘Then let us ride. La Maisontaal Abbey is in need of defenders, and I would not have it said that the Duke of Quenelles fell short in his responsibility.’ He kicked his horse into a gallop, followed by Gioffre. Fastric set spurs to his steed and the pegasus sprang into the air with a neigh.
Horns blew up and down the column, and the Companions of Quenelles hurtled north.
Theoderic of Brionne growled in satisfaction as the line of shields buckled, but did not break. ‘Hold, you filthy pigs,’ he rumbled as he watched the peasants resist the undead advance. ‘Hold.’ The peasants did not love him. He knew this, and accepted it as a consequence of his position. But if they did not love him, they at least feared him, and they would do their duty, dreading the price of failure.
Tancred had cautioned him against meeting the enemy in open battle, should they arrive in his absence. The dead could not be smashed aside so easily, he’d said. But Tancred hadn’t heeded his own advice, and now, if the message his cousin had sent was to be believed, his body was somewhere out there in that lurching horde.
It was almost enough to make him doubt himself. The newly christened Duke of Quenelles had sent riders from Castle Brenache, where he was taking the counsel of the Lady Elynesse, the Dowager of Charnorte. The riders had only just managed to outpace the dead, and they had brought word of Tancred’s fall and of Anthelme’s intention to ride to La Maisontaal’s aid with the Companions of Quenelles. Anthelme had advised him to retreat behind the abbey walls, and to hold the dead back, but not to meet them in pitched battle.
A sensible plan; behind the walls, the muster of La Maisontaal could more readily rely upon the magics of the three sisters of Ancelioux. At the thought of the trio of damsels, he glanced towards the shieldwall, where they stood, clad in shimmering damask and furs against the chill of evening. He knew little of the women, and what he did know, he didn’t like.
It was rare to have three daughters chosen by the Fay Enchantress, as poor Evroul of Mousillon had, and even rarer to see them after the fact. It hadn’t been a happy reunion, by all accounts – Evroul, unlucky in fortune as well as family, had chosen the wrong side in the civil war, and his own daughters had killed him. Nonetheless, their magics would come in handy in the battle to come, he thought.
Anthelme’s advice aside, Theoderic had no intention of waiting for rescue. Right or wrong, he was a man of tradition. The darkness was not to be feared, or avoided. It was to be confronted head on, and smashed aside with blade and lance. Under his command, the garrison at La Maisontaal was more active than it had been, even under Tancred’s father. It was larger, with more men than had ever before manned its walls.
As soon as his scouts had reported the host approaching the cleared plains before the abbey he had sworn on the tatters of his honour to guard, he had known that the moment he had been seeking since he had given up his ancestral lands and titles had arrived. Before him was a chance for redemption, a chance to atone for the failings of mind and body that had tarnished his family name.