WAR Fiction - The Sword Is Forged

"Kleinmann, bring up your shield!" Regina Seibolt shouted. "Bring up your..." She winced as the young novice took a wooden sword across the ear and howled. "Ah well, you'll remember next time, eh? Come on, stop blubbing. Back to guard."

Regina sighed and looked across the chapter house's practice yard to the chapel of Myrmidia as Kleinmann and Pfaller squared off again. She wasn't giving the lesson the attention she should and she knew it. She was too anxious for what was to come.
Tonight, after four years of training, she was to begin her fasting and meditation in preparation for her knighthood ceremony the next morning. Tonight she would take the ritual bath and don the robe and kneel on the bare floor of the chapel before the altar of Myrmidia until dawn, contemplating the divinity of the warrior goddess and opening her mind to her wisdom and guidance.

Then in the morning, if Chapter Master Veicht and the other templars of the Order of the Blazing Sun found her still on her knees and awake, she would be deemed worthy, and they would dress her in her new armor, spurs, and the black and gold surcoat. Kneeling again at the altar, she would recite the holy vows and answer the sixteen questions. If her replies were satisfactory, she would be given the chalice to drink from, and the master would then strike her sharply on each shoulder with the blade of the ceremonial spear and bid her rise.

When she stood, and they strapped on her sword and presented her with the spear and shield that were the symbols of the goddess, she would no longer be just Regina Seibolt of Carroburg. She would be Madam Regina Seibolt, Knight Assumptive of the Order of the Blazing Sun, a member of the most elite fighting force in all the old world. Then her life could truly begin. Then she would embark on her quest to win honor and full status in the--

"That's it, fat-head! You're for it!"

Regina spun to see Kleinmann throw down his shield and wooden sword and tackle Pfaller to the ground.

"You hit me in the ear one more time and I'll--"

With a curse Regina grabbed the young men by their collars and hauled them to their feet. "Enough! If you can't fight properly, I'll send you both to the kitchens! Now--"

"Initiate Seibolt," said a voice behind her. "May I have a word?"

Regina turned. Knight Sergeant Augustus Hollweg stood under the shaded portico, looking uncharacteristically uncomfortable. On most days the crag-faced veteran was as blunt and direct as a brick. Now he looked like he'd just broken the silence in chapel.

Regina pushed the two novices away. "Shields at arms' length until I return. And if they droop so much as an inch you'll be cleaning the stables until Vorhexen."

She turned back to Hollweg as the novices groaned, then followed him as he walked slowly across the yard toward the chapel.

"Yes, Sir Hollweg?" she asked. "How may I serve?"

Hollweg looked at the ground for a long moment. "I... I don't know how to begin."

Regina's heart dropped. This was something about her initiation. She knew it. She had done something wrong. They weren't going to knight her after all.

"Chapter Master Veicht..." began Hollweg at last. "He is sick."

Regina's heart dropped another few floors. "Sick?" she said, barely breathing. "With... the plague?"

"I don't know," said Hollweg. "But he is too ill to leave his bed."

"So... so the ceremony will be postponed?" It felt terrible to ask it. She should be offering good wishes for Sir Veicht's health, but she couldn't help herself.

Hollweg shook his head as they reached the chapel. "Master Veicht has ordered that the chapterhouse be closed until... until further notice. All the novices will be sent home - the knights, the priests, the teachers too."

He pushed open the chapel doors and Regina followed him into the cool, echoey interior, with its gilded statue of Myrmidia rising naked behind the altar. Two squires were piling some garments before it. They stepped back as Hollweg and Regina approached.

"Master Veicht is aware that this would be a hardship on you," Sir Hollweg continued. "To have your knighthood indefinitely deferred, so he had deputized me to perform the ceremony for him."

Regina's heart sank a little more. The ritual wouldn't be the same without Master Veicht presiding over it. The ancient Templar had been a second father to her, looking after her when everyone else had forsaken her, keeping her on the path of honor when she had been tempted to stray. It was crushing that he wouldn't be there to see her win her spurs.

"So..." she began miserably. "So, shall I bathe and begin my fasting now?"

Hollweg shook his head again. "There's no time for that." He indicated the pile of garments on the floor. "There's your armor. Put it on and we'll begin."

"But... but the ritual," said Regina, her voice climbing. "I must be cleansed. I must meditate. The order requires it! I can't be a knight without--"

"There's no time, I tell you!" barked Hollweg, and Regina was shocked to see the grizzled knight's eyes glistening with unshed tears. "You will either do this today or...." He turned away. "Just put on the armor."

Suddenly Regina was fighting back tears herself, but she took a deep breath and stepped to the armor. It felt wrong, all of it. She was dusty and hot from the practice yard. She hadn't prayed. She hadn't prepared, but there was nothing for it. With the help of the two squires, she donned her breastplate and pauldrons, her vambraces and orobraces, and finally her close-fitting helm.

Sir Hollweg stood before her and nodded. "Kneel, then."

She knelt and began reciting the holy vows.

Hollweg stopped her before she got to the third one. "That's enough. You know them. I see that."

"But...."

He cut her off. "Do you swear to uphold the name and honor of the Order of the Blazing Sun, and to keep Myrmidia and her teachings always in your heart?"

"I... I do."

"Good. Then rise, knight, and...."

"There are sixteen questions, Sir Hollweg," said Regina between her teeth.

"Not today, initiate," said the old knight. "Now rise, and...."

"Sir Hollweg!" cried Regina, her anger flaring. "I will take the blow!"

Hollweg grunted. "Very well."

As she bowed her head she heard him pick up the spear, then there was a swish and a hard smack on her left shoulder, followed by another on her right.

"Rise, Madam Regina," said Hollweg. "Rise a knight of the Blazing Sun and wear its insignia with pride."

Regina stood and squared her shoulders, though she felt like curling up and weeping. This was to have been the greatest day of her life. Instead it was a rushed, botched mess. She clamped her teeth to keep her lips from quivering.

Sir Hollweg held out the spear and shield to her as the squires belted her new sword around her waist. He looked her in the eye for the first time.

"I'm sorry," he said. "There is war in the north. Go there and seek honor. There will be plenty to be found."



As she rode her new horse through the streets of Carroburg, Regina realized that living in the chapterhouse had sheltered her. She had heard tales of the terrible plague that had swept through the Empire, and the panic that had followed it, but she hadn't seen it. It was worse than she could have imagined.

The stench of death was everywhere, and priests of Morr in beak-like masks trudged through the town, piling the dead on carts, while black smoke rose over the rooftops from mass pyres burning on the banks of the river. On every street red Xs were painted on the doors of houses, indicating that plague was present. Other houses had wards scrawled on them - Sigmar's Hammer or Shallya's Dove - in hopes that they would keep the sickness away. Except for the priests, the streets were deserted, the townsfolk apparently hiding in their houses.

Down an alley, Regina heard horrible wails and the sounds of a fight, but when she went to investigate, as was her knightly duty, the noise had stopped and she couldn't find its source. She rode on.

Though her ceremony of knighthood had been less than she might have wished, Sir Hollweg had given her good advice. She would go north and seek honor. With the Marauders pressing south into Nordland, there would be plenty of opportunities to prove her valor. But before she left Carroburg there was one last thing she must do.

Her mother had never wanted Regina to be a knight. Regina had never wanted anything else. While her sisters had grown up dainty and beautiful like their mother, Regina had grown up tall and strong-boned like her father. While her sisters had laughed and flirted with boys, Regina had knocked them down and beat them in foot races.

It wasn't that Regina hadn't tried. She had put on dresses and practiced her dancing, but it hadn't been any use. Any dress she wore looked like a sack, she had broken Abel Stengler's big toe while dancing with him, and nobody ever talked to her at parties. She only ever showed any grace when she held a sword, and only ever felt comfortable speaking to boys when she was sparring with them.

When Regina's father had been alive, he had humored her strange passions because he had no son, but when he died fighting orcs in the south in the Emperor's service, her mother had forbidden her hoyden pursuits and tried to find her a husband. It was then that Regina had run away to kneel before the steps of the chapterhouse of the Order of the Blazing Sun. She had stayed there for five days and nights before they finally relented and took her in.

Now, before she went north, before she died in battle and followed her father to the grave, she wanted to try once more to win her mother's blessing. Surely now that she had become a knight, her mother would admit that she had made the right choice.



"You can't come in," said Dorothea, looking around the door of the country house that had once been Regina's home.

"Why?" asked Regina. "Will she not see me?"

Dorothea bit her lip. She looked gaunt and frightened, nothing like the laughing little sister Regina remembered.

"It isn't that," said Dorothea at last. "She's... she's ill."

A sliver of dread stabbed Regina's spine. "Not...."

"No no," said Dorothea quickly. "Not that. Just... just a cold."

"Then I will see her," said Regina and stepped forward.

"No! You can't!" cried Dorothea, and tried to hold shut the door, but Regina was taller by a foot and stronger by dint of four years of constant sword-work.

She pushed her sister back with ease and shouldered into the entry hall. The smell made her wrinkle her nose. Her mother had been a fastidious housekeeper, but now the house stank of stale laundry and old food. There was dust on everything, and it looked like Dorothea had been living entirely in the parlor. A pile of bedclothes lay rumpled by the cold fire. The Book of Sigmar was open on the table.

"Please, sister," Dorothea pleaded. "Just go away."

Regina started up the stairs. Dorothea stumbled up after her, whimpering. Their mother's room was at the back of the house. The fusty smell was worse there, and combined with a reek of sickness and rot.

Regina knocked on the bedroom door. "Mother?"

There was a thud from the room beyond, and then angry hissing.

"Leave her be," Dorothea sobbed. "The sickness will pass. All will be well again."

Regina knocked again. "Mother, are you there?"

Another thud, and then a loud smashing and shrieking.

"Mother!" Regina tried the door. It was locked. She stepped back and raised a booted foot.

"No!" cried Dorothea. "Don't!"

Regina drove her heel into the latch-plate and the door splintered open. She shoved in, then gagged.

The smell was horrible, like a sewer full of meat, but it was the thing in the corner that froze Regina in her tracks. Its lumpy head pulsed like a bag full of rats, and glossy black tentacles sprouted from its shoulders in place of arms. And yet, for all that, it was still recognizably her mother.

The thing screeched and leapt at her, flailing with its tentacles. "Don't look at me! Don't look at me!"

Regina threw herself backwards through the door and grabbed for her sword. Dorothea fled to the end of the hall, weeping.

Regina held out her sword as the thing pushed out the door after her. It batted at the blade with a tentacle.

"For shame, Regina!" it said from a mouth like a sphincter. "Would you attack your own mother?"

Regina shuddered, for despite the hideous transformation, her mother's voice was unchanged - as snooty and cultured as it had ever been.

"And look what you've become," the mutant continued, swiping again as Regina backed toward the stairs, too horrified to attack. "Dressed in sword and armor like a man. You bring shame upon our name."

"Mother!" cried Regina. "I am a knight of the Blazing Sun! There is no more honorable--"

The thing sprang, knocking her sword aside with one tentacle and knocking her flat at the top of the stairs.

"You are an abomination!" it shrieked as it pinned her to the floor. "An unnatural child!"

Repulsed, Regina bucked convulsively and heaved the thing off. It bounced down the stairs in a jumble of tentacles and slammed hard on the parlor floor.

Regina pushed painfully to her feet, then looked down at it. The misshapen head was bent at an odd angle, and its various limbs twitched spasmodically. It looked up at her with pleading eyes, its fury gone.

"Help me, daughter. I... I've hurt my legs."

Regina started slowly down the stairs, her sword white-knuckled in her hand.

The thing reached out trembling tentacles. "Regina. Help me."

Regina stood over it, then swallowed. "I'm sorry, mother. This is the only help I can give you."

She stabbed it through the heart.

Dorothea shrieked from the top of the stairs as the thing shuddered and died. "You killed mother! You killed our mother!"

Regina shook her head. "The plague killed her." She knelt by the dead thing and prayed to Myrmidia and Sigmar for wisdom and strength, and to Shallya and Morr for mercy on her mother's soul, then stood again and looked up at her sister, who had slumped against the newel post. "I vow, by my name and by the honor of the Order of the Blazing Sun, that I will take vengeance for this terrible tragedy upon those who I am certain are its cause, the vile hordes that spill from the Chaos Wastes."

To be continued next week...

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