35: Leadership

Kurtis told me once, a long story about his grandfather, and how he had been a hero in a far-away war. The thing about Kurtis is that you have to take his stories with a pinch of salt, if not a whole cellar. He never knew his father, and so came up with this story about how his father was actually a noble from Altdorf. And he even travelled to Altdorf for the man’s funeral. We met that family, and it turns out the father was alive and well. We saw him greeting the countess and gravin in Nuln. So Kurtis is obviously full of it. And to my shame, I fell for the story, and he made me look a fool.

It seems to me that all his stories are just there to cover the poor behaviour and lack of responsibility of all the men in the Graeber family. I wonder what sort of stories Kurtis’ inevitable offspring will come up with to cover the fact that he has left them to fend for themselves, while he goes off on his adventures, which is bound to happen if he continues upon his current path. Perhaps they will end up in my orphanage, which is quite likely considering how much I run around after him cleaning up his mess.

He said Captain Pfeffer, the head of the Ubersreik watch, wanted to go out with him. He had a mad idea about being a spy for Emmanuelle Nacht. He asked Genevieve to marry him and then left her to rot in a Nuln jail. He decided that being made a judicial champion was just a ploy by the gravin so she would be able to go out with him. And yet, the people who do not know him well seem to fall for this stuff. After all, he became the supposedly respected judicial champion of the gravin herself on the back of a coincidence and one lucky (and probably rigged) fight.

On the eve of his judicial fight, when he was worried about dying, he told Gulgad the story of his grandfather, how he had fought and died heroically at the battle of Broken Leg Gully fighting alongside the Dwarfs against a Greenskin horde, and he showed him the pendant his grandfather had worn. How in the world it had got back from the mountains he didn’t explain. I imagine he picked it up from a trinket stall in Marktplatz for a couple of pennies. And he requested that Gulgad go back to Broken Leg Gully and hang it on a tree there in honour of his grandfather, or something. Of course, he hammed it up and Gulgad fell for it. In any case the details of his grandfather’s role in that battle seemed to change with every retelling. And it was very selfish to make his dying wish that Gulgad go all that way to the World’s Edge Mountains just to accommodate one of Kurtis’ delusions.

So, when he came back from a meeting with the gravin and told us she had made him an ambassador and he had to travel to Pfeildorf in order to meet a delegation of Dwarfs, or some such, then I was sceptical. I imagined she had just asked him to deliver a message or something similarly menial, but Kurtis insisted he was an actual ambassador, and our leader, and we had to travel with him as his underlings. He did later admit that this was more of a fact-finding mission on behalf of the gravin than a genuine ambassadorial role.

At least, I thought, it might be good to go to Pfeildorf. I’ve never been there, and I don’t know of any relatives from there, and I’ve no idea how that became my family name, but I thought it would be interesting to see the city I am named after. Unlike Kurtis, though, I’m not going to make up a convoluted story about how my great grandfather was once the duke of Pfeildorf but he got double crossed by a wizard and turned into a frog and how I am the rightful heir of the entire city after all, and all I have to do is present my magic amulet to the town guard and they will make me king of the world.

Kurtis may talk the talk, but he doesn’t walk the walk very well. For example, Pfeildorf, as everyone knows, is the next large town upriver from Nuln. So Kurtis requested a load of horses for us to get there. And when we pointed out it was on the river, he requested a boat to put the horses in. I’m surprised he didn’t go looking for a large horse to put the boat on. Eventually it was decided that we would ride there, even though none of us were particularly great riders, and the road follows the course of the river all the way. I’m not sure how Erhardt got out of coming with us, but he managed it. Or maybe he was there with us all along, and we just couldn’t notice him.

It was after about half a day’s riding we got to a stretch of the road where the forest overshadows it. It looked a bit spooky, but Kurtis led us through. I tried to explain to him how Emmanuelle Nacht, the gravin, and the countess, all had an air of leadership about them, and how they would command respect quite naturally, but he didn’t seem to understand the point I was making, and he seemed to think that just saying ‘I am the leader’ made him a leader. It’s strange that he didn’t understand it, because when he used to do the singing, he had some sort of stage presence, which could be likened to leadership.

Some way into the forest we spotted a couple of figures in the road, that looked like they had set up some sort of makeshift toll gate. It involved a barrier across the road but it wasn’t really a convincing gate. And when we got a bit closer, we could see that they were small, wiry, green-skinned creatures, the goblins of the forest that we all knew about from fairy tales.

Kurtis drew his sword and rode his horse towards the pair of them, and I thought he was going to just attack them, but he pulled up at the last minute to see what they had to say. They demanded a toll for us to pass, which, when pressed, they decided would be three pennies although they didn’t seem that sure about it. In any case it was plainly not an official toll and so Kurtis slashed one of them with his sword and the pair of them ran off. That was leadership of sorts, I suppose.

Kurtis pressed on and Otto followed him, but soon a couple of crossbows were thrust in Otto’s face, and the Dwarf owners exclaimed surprise that he was only a human. They had clearly been after the goblins. Kurtis introduced himself as the envoy of the gravin, and the Dwarfs welcomed him but wondered where all the reinforcements were. They told us to dismount and lead our horses through the woods towards their camp as quickly as possible.

Kurtis spoke to the leader of these rangers, Durgaz, who looked like a typical grizzled veteran. He seemed to think that he had been promised considerable reinforcements by the Countess of Nuln and wondered why Kurtis had only arrived with his measly retinue. Meanwhile all the Dwarfs walked around pointedly ignoring Gulgad’s presence, which I assumed had something to do with his death oath.

It crossed our minds that the gravin might have been pulling a trick and leaving us at the mercy of these Dwarfs, but on the other hand, it could all have been an innocent misunderstanding. I wasn’t sure which to believe at this stage, but I couldn’t really see any reason why she would set us up like this unless she had finally got tired of her fight-monkey-Kurtis and wanted to get rid of him. I know I did.

Durgaz explained that they had pursued a Greenskin warlord, Vastgut Facepuncher, down from the mountains, and considered it part of Karak Norn’s debt to Nuln to fight them down here, but he wished they’d sent the reinforcements they had requested. Then we heard some drums coming from the forest, and Durgaz told us these were Greenskin war drums and we had to get out of there fast. So we rushed through the woods, with the Greenskins pursuing us, until we emerged onto a hilly plain and could see a huge Dwarf army positioned around a hilltop, and to our side we could see an even bigger Greenskin army lined up against them. So, we rode across the clearing as fast as we could to get to the Dwarf lines while the rangers fought a retreat.

The dwarfs had a couple of huge wooden war machines behind their lines next to their baggage train, and it seemed to me to be the best place to find shelter. Gulgad soon joined the front line of the battle, though, standing all alone between the massed formations and facing a gang of huge marsh monsters. I wondered what the others would do. I don’t think we really belonged there, and I would have felt better about things if Gulgad had stayed with us, but he was on a mission, and I suspected I might not see him again.

Some formations of goblins riding wolves ran around our flank, raining arrows upon us, and the Greenskin hordes to our front advanced. Then nearby, there was a sound of thunder as the Dwarf handgunners fired. All this was too much for me, I dived for cover, and while, as far as I can piece things together from our discussions afterwards, Solvej and Otto readily joined the battle finding a good vantage point to attack the enemy with sling and bow, I saw Kurtis crouching beside me sheltering from the din. So much for leadership.

When I had recovered from the initial shock, I looked out to see Gulgad frenziedly charging into the marsh monsters entirely heedless of the danger. I think this was the way he would have wanted to go, and so I was happy for him to meet his doom in this way, although I wondered who would look after us now.

Soon, Dwarf orderlies and soldiers began carrying their wounded comrades from the frontline back to the camp and handing them over to their doctors and priests. So, I rushed to help them. This took my mind of the battle, and I felt much more comfortable working in this way. It didn’t matter that they were Dwarfs, the wounded were wounded, and healers were healers.

The Dwarf priests, worshippers of Valaya, were acting exactly as I would expect of Shallyans on the battlefield. It seems clear that Shallya and Valaya are sister gods, if not the essentially the same god. I don’t have the theological expertise to discuss this in detail, but I suspect that gods can exist in two or more aspects at once, while being essentially the same deity. And it was plain to me that however strange Dwarfs are generally, and however divorced from the culture and traditions of the Empire, we are essentially brothers in arms, in this battle, and also metaphorically in our place in this world.

The battle went badly for the Dwarfs at first. They were outnumbered and the Greenskins were desperate as I suspect they had nowhere to run to should they lose the fight. But it was turned by a single combat between the Dwarf thegn and the Greenskin warlord. Even so, the fighting continued, and a unit of wolf riders managed to get into the baggage train and attack us healers as we worked. I was struck a couple of times by their blades and was lucky to be alive. Otto, thankfully, came to my rescue in the nick of time, and saved me, but he was badly wounded. And Solvej helped defend the camp, too, hitting countless Greenskins with her arrows.

And as the battle turned and the Greenskins fled, we were safe. I found Otto lying unconscious, heavily wounded. I could see his tusk-dagger lying in the mud next to him and I decided to take that off his hands, just in case. And then I said a prayer to Shallya and I could see her light enter his body, and his eyes opened and he was healed. I knew he would be because I think Otto has great faith in Shallya, even if he has been misguided in life, and I resolved to get him enrolled at the temple in Nuln as soon as we got back.

Looking over the battlefield I could see the massive devastation and the huge losses the Dwarfs must have suffered. I wondered why reinforcements had not been sent by Nuln, and I hoped it was a simple lack of communication and not anything more cynical.

And then I saw Gulgad emerging from the trees at the far side of the field. He had pursued the Greenskins all the way into the woods. I was surprised to see that he had survived, and he had certainly dished out huge damage to whoever he had fought. And I was even more surprised to see Kurtis by his side. I had last seen him cowering in a ditch, but he had apparently steeled himself and charged his horse into the fray and fought as bravely as any one on that field, cutting down his enemies and meeting up with Gulgad to destroy the entire horde of marsh monsters.

He spoke to the Dwarf Thegn who expressed his gratitude for Kurtis’ presence and said that he considered his hold’s debt to Nuln now paid in full. They would be returning to Karak Norn straight away and so he needed Kurtis to carry that message back to the Countess of Nuln on his behalf. And so, he would be returning to Nuln a proper ambassador, after all, and a proper leader. And I think his grandfather would have been proud of him.