Weeks passed. The landscape changed drastically. The rocky mountains gave way to wooded hills and, finally, to the great muddy plains that marked the border between the Grey Mountains and the Empire. It was a no-man's-land, dotted with fortified inns that looked like small castles and villages surrounded by palisades of sharpened logs.
Geneviève rode along the Old Dwarf Road. Duraz was tireless, a machine of muscle grinding out the miles. But there was something in the air. A static tension. The birds were not singing. The farms she encountered were empty, but there were no signs of battle. Simply put, the people had gone. Or disappeared.
One evening, as the sun set dyeing the sky a bruised purple, Geneviève saw smoke on the horizon. Not the white smoke of a chimney, but the black, greasy smoke of something that should not be burning. She was near the Helmgart pass, the great fortress guarding access to the Empire.
She spurred Duraz. The horse responded immediately, accelerating into a heavy gallop that made the ground shake. When she reached the top of the hill, she saw the scene.
A caravan of Imperial refugees was under attack. But they were not orcs, nor beastmen. They were Knights. Men in full black armor, with skull-shaped helms or decorated with bat wings. Renegade Knights of the White Wolf? Or worse, Chaos warriors? They were slaughtering the civilians with cold, methodical precision. They did not look like raiders looking for gold; they looked like butchers at work.
Geneviève felt her Detect Evil scream in her head like never before. There were five of them. Five heavy knights against wooden wagons and peasants armed with pitchforks.
Geneviève did not slow down. She drew her sword, which immediately shone with its own light in the twilight. "DURAZ! CHARGE!" she yelled, her voice amplified by the helm.
The armored destrier neighed, a sound that seemed like the whistle of a steam locomotive, and launched itself down the hill. Geneviève was not going to save someone. She was going to punish. But as she drew closer, she noticed a detail that froze her blood. The shields of the enemy knights did not bear the symbols of the Dark Gods. They bore the crest of a Black Sun. And they moved with unnatural speed, too fluid to be human. Vampires?
The impact was imminent. Five against one. Geneviève smiled under the visor.
Finally, she thought. Someone my size.
Here is the translation of the chapter "The Impact was Geological".
I have rendered the combat with the Black Knights using the full weight of her new mount and training. The interaction with the Imperial Road Wardens adds a crucial layer of political tension and reinforces the theme of identity/disguise.
The Impact was Geological
The impact was geological. Duraz, eight hundred kilos of muscle and dwarf steel launched at forty kilometers an hour, did not collide with the horse of the first enemy knight: he disintegrated it. There was a horrific sound of shattering bone and twisting metal when the armored shoulder of Geneviève's destrier hit the flank of the enemy mount. The opposing horse was hurled sideways like a rag doll, dragging its rider into a tangle of broken limbs.
Geneviève did not stop. The force of the collision shook every tooth in her head, but the deep dwarf saddle kept her anchored. "For the Lady!" she shouted mentally, as her sword described a lethal arc. The second knight, caught by surprise by the speed of that mobile fortress, tried to raise his shield. Geneviève's blade, infused with Divine Favor, cut through the reinforced wood, through the helm, through the skull. There was no spray of blood. Only a dry, black dust that exploded into the air. Undead. They were not men. They were empty shells animated by dark magic, Wights dressed in the liveries of a fallen order.
The three remaining knights reacted with silent, perfect coordination. They pulled the reins of their skeletal horses, which moved with unnatural jerks, and surrounded Geneviève. Their blades were wrapped in a freezing aura that made the grass die at their passing.
Geneviève found herself in the center of the circle. The temptation to lower her guard, to look for a nod of approval as she did with Thorgard, vanished in an instant. Here there were no friends. Here there was only the enemy and the terrified eyes of the Imperial peasants watching from the wagons. She had to be perfect. She had to be Sir Gilles.
One of the Wights charged from behind. Geneviève did not turn. Duraz did it for her. The Imperial destrier, trained by dwarves in hatred, kicked out with his barded hind legs. The steel hooves smashed through the chest of the undead horse, causing it to collapse. The rider rolled onto the ground, rising with spider-like movements.
Geneviève jumped down from the saddle. On horseback she was powerful, but on the ground, with the technique of the Mountain learned from the dwarves, she was immovable. The dismounted Wight launched himself at her with a bastard sword. Geneviève planted her feet. Stability. She parried the blow with the flat of her sword, absorbing the kinetic energy, and responded with a shoulder check. The weight of her full armor against the monster's rusty chainmail. The Wight staggered. Geneviève sank the point of her sword into the creature's sternum, activating a flash of Punish Evil. The monster screamed—a shrill sound like metal on glass—and caught fire from within, collapsing into a pile of empty armor.
Two remained. The leader, an imposing warrior with a helm shaped like a wolf's skull, stared at her. "The light burns," he hissed, with a voice that seemed to come from a water-filled grave. "But the Black Sun swallows all light."
He dismounted. His sword was black, serrated, dripping with a viscous liquid. Geneviève felt the cold try to penetrate her Aura of Courage. It was supernatural fear. She gripped the hilt. I am not alone, she told herself. I have Thorgard on my right. I have the Damsel on my left. And I have the Lady in my heart.
The duel was fast and brutal. The Wight was fast, inhumanly fast. His black blade scratched Geneviève's breastplate, seeking the joints of her neck. But Geneviève had learned to fight in the tight spaces of tunnels. She did not back down. When the Wight attempted a thrust, she did the unthinkable: she let go of the sword with her left hand and grabbed the enemy's blade directly with her gauntlet. The sacred metal of the dwarf gauntlets sizzled against the black magic, but it held. The Wight froze, surprised by the suicidal move.
Geneviève pulled the enemy toward her and struck with her head. Sir Gilles' helm against the wolf skull. Steel won over rotten bone. While the monster was stunned, Geneviève brought her sword down with one hand, decapitating him cleanly.
The last knight, seeing his lord destroyed, turned his horse and fled into the woods, dissolving into the rising mist.
Geneviève stood still, her heavy breathing fogging the inside of her visor. The fight was over. Now began the hard part. She sheathed her sword and turned toward the wagons.
The refugees had climbed down. There were about ten of them: wounded men, mud-stained women, crying children. An elderly man, dressed in clothes that had once been of good quality but were now tattered, stepped forward. He held a short sword in his hand, but the point was lowered. He looked at the black knight, motionless as a statue, and the monstrous horse grazing on grass stained with black ichor.
"Are you... are you a Knight of the White Wolf?" asked the man, his voice trembling. "Or of the Panther?"
Geneviève shook her head slowly. The man swallowed. In the Empire, a knight without insignia is often a brigand or a mercenary without honor. But that knight had just emanated holy light.
"Whoever you are, you saved us," said the man, bowing. "I am Albrecht, a cloth merchant from Bogenhafen. We were fleeing to Helmgart... the roads are no longer safe."
Geneviève looked at him through the slit of her helm. She could nod and leave. But a mute knight attracts suspicion. A knight who speaks little, however, inspires fear. She had to speak. But she had to do it with the "Voice." That technique Hendrik the merchant had taught her years ago: push air from the diaphragm, lower the chin to compress the vocal cords, scrape the words as if she had swallowed glass.
"The road is dangerous," said Geneviève. The voice came out horrible: flat, rasping, devoid of any feminine musicality, like two stones rubbing against each other. It was the voice of a man who has screamed too much in battle or smoked cheap cigars for twenty years. "Go to Helmgart. Do not stop."
Albrecht swallowed, intimidated by that inhuman timbre. "Yes... yes, milord. Thank you."
Before they could get back on the road, the sound of hooves rang out. This time it wasn't monsters. It was a patrol of Imperial Road Wardens. Men in blue and yellow coats, feathered hats, and wheel-lock pistols in holsters. They stopped in front of the carnage, pistols drawn. The patrol captain, a man with handlebar mustaches and suspicious eyes, looked at the dissolving bodies of the Wights, then looked at Geneviève.
"Hands down, knight!" ordered the captain, aiming his pistol at Geneviève's chest. "Identify yourself! In the name of Emperor Karl Franz, remove that helm!"
Geneviève stiffened. If she took off the helm, they would see a woman. A Bretonnian woman, armed like a noble, on Imperial soil, without papers. They would arrest her as a spy or a witch. If she didn't take it off, they would shoot. Imperial pistols pierce armor.
Duraz growled and took a step forward, protecting his mistress. "Hold!" shouted the captain, cocking the hammer of his pistol.
Albrecht, the merchant, stepped in between. "Wait, Captain! This man saved us! He killed dark creatures!"
"Dark creatures?" The captain spat. "Or accomplices he eliminated so he wouldn't have to share the loot? A knight without a crest who hides his face is a bandit until proven otherwise."
He turned back to Geneviève. "I'm asking you one last time. Speak or I'll put a hole in your cuirass. Who are you?"
Geneviève remained motionless. Sweat trickled down her shaved forehead inside the helm. She could kill them all. They were just five wardens. She was a Paladin trained by Dwarves. In ten seconds they would be dead. No, she thought. A Paladin does not kill the law, even when the law is stupid.
Slowly, very slowly, she raised her empty hands. She did not speak. She did not remove her helm. Instead, she unhooked a rolled parchment from her belt. It was not an Imperial document. It was a letter of recommendation written in Reikspiel (the language of the Empire) that Thorgard had had a dwarf scribe write for her before leaving, predicting exactly this moment.
The captain took the parchment with suspicion, keeping his pistol aimed. He read. His eyes widened. The red wax seal at the bottom was not that of a human noble. It was the personal seal of King Thorgrim, Lord of Karak-Azgaraz.
"The bearer of this letter is Sir Gilles, Friend of the Dawi, Avenger of the Bell. Any insult to him is an insult to the Stonehammer Clan. Let him pass or prepare to shave your beards in shame."
The captain paled. A diplomatic incident with the Dwarves was the last thing the Governor of Helmgart wanted. The Dwarves provided steel and gunpowder. He lowered his pistol. "Apologies... Sir Gilles," he muttered, handing back the parchment with two fingers, as if it burned. "We did not know you were an agent of the Dwarves. The road to Helmgart is open."
Geneviève took back the letter. She gave a curt nod, mounted Duraz, and trotted away without looking back. The merchant Albrecht watched her go, admiringly. The guards watched her go, frightened.
But under the helm, Geneviève was trembling. She had bluffed. The letter had saved her. But she had realized a fundamental thing: in the Empire, bureaucracy was a monster more dangerous than vampires. And now, officially, "Sir Gilles" was an emissary of the Dwarves. A new lie to add to the collection. Another layer of metal over her skin. And as night fell on Helmgart, Geneviève wondered if she would ever remember who was under all those layers.