I got a good response to the first installment of this, seems only right to continue it.....
Their uncle had fallen asleep after the last tale, preventing any follow up questions from the children. The next day was torturous, their minds far from the tasks of arithmetic or grammar, focused solely on their uncle as a young man, running from the walking dead, and finding his saviour in the white lady. They both remembered a strange look in his eye as he spoke of her. Perhaps it was his true love? Princes always fell in love with princesses in the other stories they knew, so perhaps his tale was no different? They had never met a woman in their uncle's life, perhaps it was because of his love for her?
They cornered their uncle after dinner, finding him alone in a quiet room of the house staring intently into the fire. A thousand questions fought to spill out of their mouths and they both talked at once, excitedly, asking all of the questions they had thought of through the day, every question important, every one the most essential piece of information they have ever needed in their lives. The final question that won out of the wall of noise they created was how did you lose your arm?
At this their uncle spoke. Kindly, he hushed the children, speaking softly and gesturing to them to sit by the fire and join him. Hush the questions kinder, all of them will be answered in due time. It wasn't until much later that I lost this, gesturing to his lost arm, and I had learned, and lost, much more valuable things before losing that.
The magics of the White Lady had healed my leg, the blackness around the wound had gone, leaving only this scar. The old man pulled up his pant leg, displaying a brutal scar, unmistakably that caused by the thrashing of human jaws. Watching the children flinch away, he rolled the pants leg quickly down. Steel your hearts kinder, and let us return to the tale...
Throughout the day, more stragglers from the battle found me, a few soldaten, a big pioneer named Gunter, who I came to rely on greatly in the trying days ahead. All who joined me shared the same look in their eyes, the same stare, the horrors of the past days catching up with them, haunting their sleep and their waking hours. Of the White Lady herself? There was no sign, her comings and goings far beyond my sight.
A young soldat, Uwe, joined us late in the day. He kept his own company mostly, sitting by the fire listening as the other soldiers told tales of home, of hearthsides and heartbreaks. He sat quietly, toying with a small coin in his hands, the glint of it catching the light of the fire as it spun in his hands.
That's goblin gold Soldat Uwe. Goblins never give up that which is theirs willingly, where did you get it?
It was as if she had appeared out of thin air, one second I was listening to Gunter tell a tale of a particular waitress at a particular Silesian Brühaus, and the second she was there, sitting next to Uwe, her hand in his, the coin on full display in the firelight.
I....I... found it.... the boy stammered, overawed by her sudden appearance.
You will take me there. Remembering it now, I remember the hunger in her voice, the longing, the need that was there, an undercurrent waiting to wash us all along with her on her quest.
And so it was in following Uwe that I ended up back in another ruined town, another remnant of the war that raged around me. The White Lady had shared little about the goblins, and while the others in our group thought her mad for believing in them, the glint of the golden coin- and the prospect of more- was enough to secure their loyalty for now.
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| Feldwebel Leichhardt, and Pioneersoldat Gunter |
The sounds of battle reached us from ahead, and with the practiced ease of men who had lived past their first battle, we moved forward cautiously and carefully. To the right, I spotted a figures running in unmistakable French blue, advancing and firing their muskets. To the left, I saw the redcoats of the British advancing forward too.
In the centre, I saw the oddest creature I had yet laid my eyes on. Standing no taller than you young Bruno, wearing a great black hooded coat with eyes the colour of fresh blood. Even from a distance it's cackling laugh reached us.
Redcoats had run closer to the creature to take better shots at the Frenchmen. They took a knee and aimed their long muskets. When they pulled the trigger... nothing.
And then the goblin was among them, it's blade snapping left and right, hacking at the bewildered British. Their officer stepped forward to protect his men and duel the goblin, matching the speed and lethality of the goblin with an efficient suite of parries. From his swordplay I recognised him as one of the upper class elite types that the British were so fond of breeding, The Captain Lord Bedley St. John Baskerville. A brilliant swordsman, he and I had crossed blades when I was a younger man, still at the Academy.
Goblin magic Feldwebel. They are imicable to technology when you get close to them. You could bring an entire battery of artillery here and it would all simply refuse to fire as if sodden from the rain...
The Lady was next to me again, her voice barely more than a whisper. How she had arrived, I did not know. By now, my men were firing, their muskets seemingly too far away to be affected by the goblin's magics.
Turning back to the combat, I watched as The Lord Bedley gained the upper hand, slashing his sabre across the arm of the goblin. He held his sword aloft, ready to dispatch the killing blow.
Oh no, that won't do.
The White Lady again. I turned to her, her hands outstretched as if a puppeteer controlling a marionette on the side of a Konigsburg street. She pushed her right hand down, gasping with the effort. I watched as the downward slash of The Lord Bedley.... missed the goblin out right. The goblin took the opportunity, lunging with his crude sword at the British lord. The White Lady gasped again, pushing her right hand and arm out again. The Lord Bedley's sabre followed her hands, exposing his stomach to the goblin's blade. He staggered and turned, blood visible through the red cloth of his coat, and the cackling goblin closed in.
A heavy cavalry sabre slashed down, bisecting the goblin. Stepping forth from behind a ruined wall, a large, well built Frenchman strode out, leveled his pistol at The Lord Bedley, and fired.
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| Carabnier, Goblin and British |
A cry of pain rang out beside me, and the White Lady threw both arms out, and fell to her knees. The Lord Bedley dropped like a stone, the weight of her magic pushing him down into the earth. The shot struck the infantryman advancing behind him, killing the man outright.
In my haste, I had forgotten the damnable French!
I drew my blade and advanced, calling my men to me, trying to establish some order, some sort of firing line to exact revenge for the black stain that I wore on my heart from the battle barely a week ago.
But I hadn't counted on goblins not being solitary creatures. I knew as soon as the right of my small skirmish line fired, but not the left, that all was not well. I had time enough to order a charge before another goblin broke cover, hacking down Silas and Tiberius. The return fire from the French, unhindered as it was by goblin magic began to reap it's harvest of Prussian blood.
The British had taken their leave, I watched as The Lord Bedley knelt next to Uwe's still body, grabbing a small, golden coin from the corpse's hand. I thought at the time that perhaps he thought it recompense for the damage the goblin had done- but later I learned the truth of the matter.
The French muskets pushed us back, Gunter and I sheltering behind cover. We took a break in the firing to pull back, aiming for a safe return to the farmhouse. The White Lady was up ahead, her aura diminished by her use of her magic, but still she shone bright, a beacon of light to guide us. Neither Gunter or I saw the shadowy figure behind her, but both of us saw the blade that he ran across her throat.
In a flash of light, she was gone, leaving behind a figure standing in a brown cot, his face mostly obscured by a rag, a slightly bemused expression on what was visible of his face. He spoke in German, with a heavy French accent. You keep strange friends Feldwebel Leichhardt. When she returns, and she will, tell her That Lieutenant Jean-Paul Chateaubriand is waiting for her. We need not be enemies her and I...
He ducked back behind the building, a shadow lost among the ruins. Fearing the goblins at our heels, Gunter and I made haste from the village, following the same path back to the farmhouse, to whatever safety we might find there.
Out of breath, we slumped at the table on arrival, both Gunter and I lacking the words to quite comprehend what had taken place.
Seven years passed before I saw her again. I survived seven years with my beloved Prussia under the thumb of Napoleon's rule. Seven years trying to understand what I had seen, had experienced. I poured over books of the magical and the mystical. Gunter became a trusted friend and confidant, staying by my side while I learned all I could about the Harvestmen, of goblins, revenants, werewolves and all manner of horrors. When opportunity came with Napoleon's folly in Russia, I rejoined the army and was promoted to higher honours.
It was the day after the glorious battle of Leipzig, I sat drunkenly slumped in a chair in the city, the room's true owner long fled.
The years have been good to you Capitan Leichhart, but victory here does nothing for the the stain on your heart does it?
I looked up, seeing the White Lady Mathilde standing before me. She was as bright as ever, her voice clear and strong. Sure enough, seven years later, Lieutenant Chateaubriand had been proven right....
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| The White Lady Mathilde herself! |
