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The Offering – Extract

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The Offering

Andy Clark

In the dark of Nost’rnight,

When all’s cold as a tomb

Then comes Grobbi Blackencap,

A-creeping from the gloom.

To ward him from thine hearth and home,

A price you have to pay

Or through the starless night he’ll steal,

And drag you all away.

Elder led his villagers through the forest gloom. They pushed laden barrows: barrels of salt-meat and shald-wine; glassware from Anvilspire traders; sacks of argentite nuggets. That last was their only real wealth, and not easily given away.

But the offering had to be made.

The path was muddy. Glintwyr roots poked through the soil, snagging wheels and feet. The trees’ silvery needles glimmered in the twilight, emitting metallic rasps in the breeze.

Elder heaved his barrow up a final rise and into the presence of the Offering Tree. Despite the chill, he snatched off his cloth cap and used it to mop his brow. One by one his companions joined him. All were younger, even old Martyn, but they were puffing and blowing too. He glanced at the darkening sky. Nost’rnight was almost upon them, when not a single star shone. They would be home safe before truedark, he promised himself.

Even then he wouldn’t feel safe until Hyshlight crept over the horizon the following dawn.

‘Never gets easier,’ he commented.

‘Never does,’ agreed Martyn, distracted. Like the rest, he couldn’t take his eyes from the Offering Tree. It hunched alone, as though the other trees had recoiled from it, and its bloated trunk was thick with fungi. It coiled skywards, branches outflung as though in supplication. The Offering Tree stank like an infected foot, the reek wafting from deep crevices in its bark.

Narry was last into the clearing. He was a scrawny lad just come of age, and he was sweaty and scowling.

‘What are we doing here?’ Narry’s demand shattered the deep arboreal quiet. They all cringed.

‘Keep your voice down!’ hissed old Martyn.

Narry was not to be dissuaded, though Elder noted the lad dropped to a hoarse whisper.

‘What are we doing here?’ he repeated.

‘You know,’ snapped Martyn.

‘I know we’re wasting produce, and we’re going to lie about it to the Anvilspire assayers,’ said Narry. ‘I know we’re giving this lot away to some local bandit for the sake of fae-tales and nursing rhymes.’

Elder reckoned the lad had rehearsed this speech. Narry perhaps expected amazement from them, dawning realisation and shame. Instead they glared. Narry’s jaw set, ready for an argument.

Won’t keep until we get home, Elder thought, resigned. Always the young’uns think they know better.

Elder raised a placating hand, then stepped close to Narry and laid it on the lad’s shoulder. He felt the tension there, a live wire under his hand. Narry was frightened, and angry with himself for it. He didn’t want to lose face. Problem was, if he weren’t careful, Narry’s youthful insecurities might be the death of them.

‘Listen to me, lad, because lives depend on it,’ said Elder. He pinned Narry’s roving gaze. ‘You listening?’

Narry nodded, the angry jerk of a youth’s disingenuous agreement. Did he plan to argue? Maybe slip away on the walk back, double back for his barrow or catch his imagined bandits in the act?

‘Sigmar knows I’d rather tell this tale anywhere but here. But you need to hear this.’

Narry didn’t speak, but he didn’t push Elder’s hand away either. The others drew closer, as though Elder’s voice were a fire to huddle around. Most had heard this story before, but he supposed anything was better than listening to the Offering Tree creaking.

‘There was one Nost’rnight when we didn’t make the offering,’ Elder began. ‘It’s not jumping ahead to say it didn’t go well…’

The carriage rattled along the dirt road. Within, Gustav Thatcher battled nausea. He felt hot and claustrophobic. Shoving his head out the window didn’t help, as then he was treated to the depressing sight of the glintwyr forests marching away into the rain.

Mud, trees and filthy peasants, he thought with weary disgust.

The long carriage ride hadn’t helped his hangover. Neither had passing through a Realmgate earlier that day. But who could blame him for a few nights’ drowning his sorrows?

Exiled.

He scowled. Gustav had always thought himself too cunning to be caught with his hand in the war coffers. His mistake.

He wasn’t a physical presence, and he knew deep down he lacked for charm. A loathed former acquaintance had once described him as the bastard child of a leech and a gyrferret. Yet Rahme Thatcher’s third son had a keen eye for financial wrangling and had long turned his skills to lining his pockets, and to destroying such fools for their slights. The thought lifted Gustav’s spirits, but the next hard jolt of the carriage dashed them anew. He leaned out and yelled at the coachman.

‘Are you aiming for the potholes, cretin?’

‘Sorry m’lord,’ the man’s voice floated back to him. ‘Road to the Anvilspire front ain’t in a good way.’

‘I thought this road was meant for Lord Sigmar’s armies?’ sneered Gustav.

‘T’is, m’lord. But there’s pyryke crystals in the soil. Engineers dig ’em out, but they just grow back.’

Gustav wondered whether the military funds he had embezzled had been earmarked for road maintenance.

Sigmar, have you such a sense of irony? You’d think exile from Azyrheim to some grubby Chamonite backwater would be punishment enough…

Gustav looked back down the road to where Captain Thorne rode at the head of his household guard. It was a grand title for ten weather-beaten Freeguilders riding somewhat aged-looking horses, but they were all his father had granted.

At least he managed to spare me the noose, thought Gustav. Then the carriage bounced again.

‘Captain Thorne,’ he barked. She set spurs to her steed, cantered up alongside the carriage.

‘Sir?’ Thorne enquired.

She was young for an officer, heavyset from easy Azyrheimer living. As always, though, Thorne’s jaw was set and her gaze keen; Larinda Thorne’s assignment to his guard was the only sign that his father cared whether his disgraced son lived or died.

‘If the inbred driving this carriage hits another pothole, shoot him.’

It was there and gone – the flicker of loathing in Thorne’s eyes. Gustav didn’t mind. He enjoyed exercising power over those who resented him.

‘Understood, Lord Thatcher,’ Thorne replied. She unholstered her coglock pistol and spurred her steed, drawing level with the coachman. Gustav settled back, smirking as he listened to the man bluster.

Soon be there, he thought.

In the end though, driving slower for fear of his life, it took the coachman another three hours to reach Breaker’s Vale. By the time they passed through the gates of the small mining town, Gustav was tempted by the hempen caress of the noose after all.

Gustav peered out at the muddy main street. The buildings were charmless slabs of metal and stone with a little wood worked into the more salubrious structures. Relative term, thought Gustav, wistfully picturing the magnificence of Azyrheim. In Breaker’s Vale, it seemed, a second storey was opulence indeed. He passed dwellings with smoking chimney holes and heavy shutters, a smithy, a local inn. Folk watched his carriage pass. Gustav saw careworn clothes and faces, unfriendly eyes that made him shrink back. He made a mental note to keep Thorne and her soldiers close.

The carriage rounded a bend, furnishing Gustav with a view out over the valley. More silver-leafed glintwyr trees marched away until they reached the towering cliffs, where lay the argentite mines.

The one good thing about this mess.

The bead-pushers of Azyrheim were cunning foes. But if a percentage of this little town’s output went astray before reaching the counting houses of Anvilspire? Gustav was certain no one out here would have the wit to notice. Argentite was a precious ore, and some alchemist or armourer in one of Sigmar’s cities would doubtless pay well for their own personal, unregulated supply.

A few years feathering my nest, then–

His musings were disturbed as the carriage halted. Muttering biliously, Gustav craned out to see the coachman clambering from his perch.

They had arrived.

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A Black Library Publication

First published in Great Britain in 2020.
This eBook edition published in 2020 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

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