CHAPTER 4

The wind screamed across the battlements howling like a thousand condemned souls crying for mercy. The Duke stared out across the broad plain in front of his castle. The Goblin watch fires which seemed as numerous as the stars in the sky before, were now just coals in the dust behind the retreating hoard! The fighting that day had been fierce, many good men had died but far more of those Goblin scum had been sent to a bloody grave. He stood there for what seemed like hours basking in the glory of victory.

He had not wanted to join his men just yet. Could not bring himself to do it. Then he heard it, that voice, that incessant voice. It shook him at his core, undid in seconds years of discipline and hard work. It made him feel the worst emotion a man could feel. "Shame!" He climbed down from the great stone wall and strode purposefully toward his men, "Shame, hah, I am Duke Stormfeld, why should I feel ashamed." As he strode into the light of the giant bonfire his men had lit in celebration, his heart sank. As he looked across the many worn but happy faces his gaze was drawn to a man standing playing a flute and dancing.

He played a melody of sweet sounding notes that tugged at your heart and when he sang, the crowd of men stood mesmerized by the beauty of the song. But if the voice and the notes were good, the dancing was absolutely grand. His feet moved like nothing anyone had ever seen. They darted in and out, up and down as if creating an intricate pattern in the blood-soaked ground. The Duke stared in dismay, "This is probably the best Bard in the Empire. No, in the world. Surely none of those Bretonnian scum had seen the likes of this." The Duke turned and walked away unable to watch any more of the spectacle before him, ignoring the congratulatory comments as he sulked away from his men. "I like Bards, I truly do, so why should this one be any different." The Duke berated himself for the thought. "Of course he should be different, it is my son. He should be fighting by my side, not singing and dancing like a damned commoner. True, he is my second son, but if Calamar were to die in battle, he would be heir to the throne." He tugged at his beard, "What would Sigmar think, this, this pansy, the dancing Duke. Oh the shame. The heir to one of the most important thrones in the empire." He wandered into his bedchamber and lay down. "I must do something, I must, I must...."

As Garrick walked through the deserted hallway he stopped to look out a high arching window. The moon was nearly at its apex. It had been two days since the Goblin siege had ended, but instead of the immense joy he thought surely he should be feeling, he felt only sadness. He and his father had never been close, but now it seemed as if they were worlds apart. Garrick knew his father did not approve of his chosen art, but now he sensed it was more than that. He hated fighting and wars, despised it with all of his being. "I'm not even sure I could hold a weapon in defense if I had too," he thought to himself as he continued down the corridor toward his bedchamber. "Singing and dancing is what I do." He nearly laughed aloud as he thought about his father that day eight full seasons ago when he told him he was going to apprentice with Binabon Greatharp. "The Bard," his father laughed thinking it a joke. "Not a Bard, but the greatest Bard in the known lands. This is a chance of a lifetime for me. He said I had natural talent such as he had never seen, he came here from Altdorf to get away from the chokings of a large city and saw me in the courtyard playing my flute and dancing to the tune." "HA!, Well, you play your little games, but when you are ready to become a man I will send you to fighting school and you can learn to be a great fighter like your brother." So there it was again, the inevitable comparison to Calamar. "Calamar the Goblin Slayer. That's what everyone had called him since the siege ended." "Calamar the Mighty. Calamar the Magnificent. Calamar the Mercenary, if you ask me."

Garrick had apprenticed with the Bard for over four seasons and his instructor had told him there was nothing more he could teach him. The Great Binabon had told him, him, Garrick, that he had surpassed even his great skills. So what next, he had thought about travelling, but his father would not let him leave hoping some day he would come to his senses. In the meantime, he spent his time in taverns and inns listening for stories of great deeds or treasures he could put to song. Since his mother died five seasons ago, he had not spent much time in the castle. She had understood him, she loved his music and dancing. "I'm sure that was the only reason father put up with it." But when she died, he became cold and distant to him. He pushed the thought from his mind he had been an outcast in the castle and he knew it would never change. He reached the end of the long corridor and turned to the right. He saw a movement out of the corner of his eye and then felt a searing pain move through his head and down his back, then everything went black...

A light was shining, it seemed like it was miles away. He reached for it and it came closer slowly at first, then more quickly. It widened until it seemed to be as bright as the sun itself. It burned his eyes, until he thought his head would explode. Suddenly when he thought he could take it no more, he was awake. Garrick took in his surroundings, he sat in a clearing surrounded by tall trees and scrub. He heard horses off to the left, a campfire burned in the middle of the clearing with three scruffy-looking men sitting around it. He felt a cramping in his arm and suddenly realized his hands and feet were tied behind his back in a most uncomfortable position. Garrick stared silently at the men for a long time, trying to listen to snatches of conversation.

He had lifted his head to try to hear better when he heard a noise behind him. "Ah, it seems our young friend is awake." Garrick turned just in time to see a boot slamming into his side. He groaned and rolled on his stomach. "What...?" The boot slammed into him again nearly lifting him up off of the ground. A searing pain went through the entire side of his body. "Shut up!," the man bellowed, showing what was left of his ragged yellow teeth." Don't say a word until I tell you to." Garrick lifted his head and cringed. The man was short and stocky his head was shaved as smooth as a pearl from the great Elven kingdom of Elthuan. He had a scruffy-looking beard and wore a patch over one eye. "What am I doing here? How..?" Garrick fell silent as the man waved his boot menacingly. "So, I see you recognize me boy." Jered grabbed Garrick by the collar and lifted him so that their faces were nearly touching. Garrick smelled his rotten breath and nearly passed out. His mind was racing. This man that had him tied up as helpless as a newborn babe was none other than Jered, if that was his real name, a Mercenary his father occasionally hired to fight for him. Most recently, he had called him into service against the Goblin siege. But why was he here, and why was he tied up. "Why are you here, boy, well let me tell you it wasn't by choice." "When my father finds out about this you will pay Jered." The other man's laugh was so loud that the three men around the campfire looked up as if trying to guess at the obviously hilarious joke that the Mercenary leader had left them out of. "Oh young Garrick, you think I stole you away for ransom, how foolish do you think I am? You father pays me very well for the services I render," he shoved Garrick's head back to the ground and strode over to the fire.

The sun was just up over the horizon so the men began packing the horses and breaking camp. "So, what by all that is holy am I doing here?" "Well, it seems that your father wants me to teach you how to fight and figures there is no better way to get you to give up that silly music and dancing than to get you out from behind the walls of the castle and on the road fighting for your life," he looked at Garrick almost sympathetically. "Guess he's going to turn you into a fighter even if it kills you." His sympathetic look was immediately replaced by a hardy laugh. "Well, I just won't stay," Garrick stated flatly. "Boy!" By the tone in Jered's voice Garrick could tell he wasn't joking now. "Your father is paying me a lot of gold to do this. Half now, half when I return you as a fighting man. If you get my meaning. So you won't be going anywhere."

They broke camp and untied Garrick's legs so he could ride, but his hands were not freed. They had ridden for a better part of the morning when Jered appeared almost from nowhere to ride beside him. "How am I going to defend myself if my hands are tied like a prisoner?," Garrick stated matter of factly. "You haven't even given me a weapon." Jered stared at him curiously for a moment. "You will be riding with your hands untied and with a weapon when we are far enough away from your home that I will not have to fear an early departure." "Well forget it anyway, I will not use a sword so you might as well leave me tied up." Jered smiled, "Brave words from a boy who has never looked into the hungry maw of a River Troll, or the bloodthirsty eyes of a Minotaur, you may just decide that you would rather defend yourself than have a Dragon Ogre using your bones to pick his teeth." Garrick shuddered in spite of his best efforts not to. He was determined not to let Jered get into his head. "Well, just stay away from them and you won't have to worry about it." "That's the problem," Jered groaned in jest. "You just never know what tree they will be lurking behind." Garrick's head shot from side-to-side looking to the woods for some sign of the horrible beasts but found nothing. Jered smiled and kicked his horse which surged ahead gracefully to the front of the line.

They rode for nearly three weeks passing through ancient forests and broad plains. He had heard one of his guards mention Kislev, which he knew was far to the north of his home. He also knew that it bordered the Orc and Goblin infested World's Edge mountains and the unknown lands to the north. They had untied his hands after about a week's travel. Jered had been right about one thing. He didn't have to fear me wandering too far away." They had been set upon several times by Orcs, Goblins, and even Humans, and Garrick had no ambition to try to find his way on his own. No, he would stick it out until they reached Kislev and sneak away with a caravan travelling back to the south. Then as if from nowhere the thought hit him like a cannonball at point blank range. "Where will I go? I can't go home, my father is the one who sent me here in the first place. Unless Jered was lying, could his father really be responsible for this?" Garrick thought about it for a while and realized Jered was telling the truth. His father had been acting different lately and all the pieces now seemed to fit perfectly into place. He wondered if Calamar knew, "Certainly not," he said aloud. "Calamar and I have actually been fairly close and I can't imagine that he knew anything about this." He hoped that was true anyway. "Father had always wanted me to be a fighting man and I am sure he would go to any lengths to see to it. The worst thing that could happen is I could get swallowed by a dragon and the shameful second son would be gone."

Garrick's despair turned to anger. "So this is what it has come to. I'm traveling with a band of Mercenaries into the most hostile territory in the empire. I have no home, all my friends are hundreds of miles away, and I'm not even capable of taking care of myself. Sigmar save me." He scratched at the new growth of hair on his face and rode in silence lost in thoughts of betrayal and self-pity. As they kept on riding, Garrick occupied his time talking to Fenwick a grizzled old veteran of many battles and adventures. The man loved telling stories and Garrick memorized them and put them to song. He was slowly beginning to like Fenwick despite his obvious love for battle. He particularly enjoyed the story where Fenwick went into the icy north with a group of adventurers to defeat the Frozen Horror and retrieve the Amulet of the North. "So you saved the entire Continent of Norsca?," Garrick asked. "No, but we weakened the dark power responsible. There were still battles to be fought but good prevailed in the end."

They were now about four weeks into their journey. The 18 mercenaries and Garrick had been riding in silence most of the morning. As they came to a sharp curve in the road, after the lead horses had disappeared from view, Garrick heard what sounded to be steel hitting steel, heard someone in the front shout, "Ambush!," and then they were set upon by a huge band of Orcs. The sounds of battle were all around him. He tried to just stay out of the way. He saw a movement behind him and then a glint of steel. When he turned around Fenwick was pulling his blood-soaked sword out of the Orc who had broken through their line. "He seemed to have his eye on you young Garrick," the veteran said as he rushed back into the fray. The Mercenaries had formed a sort of circle with their horses and were trying to beat back the Orcs. There were many bodies littering the ground and half of the Mercenaries were dead. He heard Jered shouting orders to regroup. Garrick felt a blow from behind, another horse had slammed into his and he was knocked from his mount. He looked around to see what had happened. The dead body of a Mercenary lay at his feet, but the blood red eyes of the Orc who had slain him were there too. Garrick's mind raced, he would never get to the fallen man's sword in time. The Orc lunged at him, but Fenwick was upon him in an instant, their swords flashing in the noontime sun. Garrick grabbed the dead man's sword. "What am I going to do with this, I have never even used one before."

The fighting was all around him. The Orc Fenwick was fighting was ferocious and he was hard pressed to stay on his feet. He looked and saw Jered trying to cut a path through the filthy greenskins and heard him yell for his men to follow. Fenwick had just dispatched the Orc he was fighting and turned to head back to his horse when he felt cold steel pushing into his gut. He thought surely this is the end, but death did not come. Instead the sword clanged to the ground and he looked up in time to see the Orc's eyes roll into the back of its head. As it slumped to the ground Fenwick saw Garrick standing behind it hacking away with a bloodstained sword, his eyes, red with fury, were glazed over like a man possessed, Fenwick grabbed him and they ran to their mounts and rode toward Jered and his small group of men. They forced their way through the tide of Orcs and galloped down the road to safety. In all, only seven Mercenaries survived besides himself.

Garrick was floating through the air, suspended by some invisible rope. All he could see was blackness. He could feel a presence, it seemed as though it was all around him, but he could not see it. He felt a shudder wrack his entire body. He could tell that whatever it was, it was Evil. So totally Evil that hatred oozed out of it like a river of sacrificial blood. He struggled to get away but there was nowhere to go, just an empty black void. It seemed the story of his life "Nowhere to go, nowhere to run, no one to turn to." How his life had changed. But the more he thought about it, his life hadn't changed, just his surroundings had. He was always alone. "You are alone no longer my young friend, you are among friends now." The voice drifted across the void comforting him, caressing him. "Who's there?," Garrick screamed at what seemed like the top of his lungs, but the only sound that came out was an inaudible squeak. "I am your friend," the voice answered, "I will help you, I know how you feel, lost, alone, betrayed!" The voice was soothing. "Yes, betrayed, how do you know so much about me?" "I can see into your soul, young Garrick. I can see the hurt, the pain, and especially the ANGER." The last words seemed to cut through him, gripped him like a vice grips the metal that the blacksmith is going to mold into shape. They tore through his mind like a spear into his head. He tried to scream but it caught in his throat. "Fear not, you are not lost and alone anymore, young Garrick. You belong to me!" Garrick started falling, falling through the void, faster, faster until surely he would hit the ground and die a quick but gruesome death. Faster, faster his head was spinning, he couldn't think, the rush of air screamed through his ears, until he thought his head would explode and then suddenly he was awake.

Khorne sat in his large ornate throne and laughed. "Evil men are easy to bring over to Chaos, but good men are so much more satisfying." The God of War had seen the bloodlust that this mortal had shown in battle. Not just a need to defend himself but a sheer desire to kill the thing that was trying to harm him. Such a good man wanting to kill, Khorne had sensed it immediately and exploited it. Pushed him just a little bit further and the mortal had opened his mind to him. Now there was no going back.