The Van Tanncred Sword [Warhammer] Chill in the Air

Memoirs of Anya Eisenjaeger 

~ Angestag 32nd Kaldezeit 2522 ~

It is a whole week since I tried my hand at pocketing from the Witch Hunter Pieter Verstohlen. A week since I chose life over his pistol, and since that choice I have found myself many other dangerous means of death. So many options to pick from if I was so inclined. Thus far I have survived and plan to continue doing so. I cannot believe it has only been one week past as it feels more like a lifetime. Now I am sat numb on a cart to the Greatest City of the Empire. The City of Spires - Altdorf. My father’s next favoured city after Marienburg for the wealth it brings him in trade. 

Yesterday we thankfully pulled into the next town, a days ride from Reiksbruck. It was a welcome change to be able to stretch my legs and enter the almost steamy warmth of the inn. We were relieved to find no trace of the pox there. No speak of what had happened downriver. It is sometimes good fortune that news does not always travel fast.

An odd matter I noticed was that our friend the dwarf did not drink himself under the table. He stuck to small beer the strength of bog water. I wonder if the event of the burning did bother him after all, or maybe so much cart travel had upset his stomach. I know it is upsetting my joints for sure, and my buttocks. I think I could sit on glass and not feel it.

Maybe I will ask him of this some other time.

We are back on the road once more. A fairly wide track through the thick forests of the Reikland. Once you have seen a days worth of woodland in winter you have pretty much seen it all. The same scene rattles past with little change. Sometimes we pass worn paths leading off the main road, sometimes seeing a clearing through the maze of branches and dead-growth: a homestead here, a fallen tree there, a small burn or marshy pond. I haven’t seen anything untoward. No brigands or beastmen. No creatures either, or signs of life, tis winter after all. Maybe it really is the will of Sigmar that protects us on our journey, if Pieter and Grunnd are right. I do not know anymore.


I sometimes see crude little altars by the wayside, for offerings to Taal I believe. For we are definitely in his lands from what the farming traders said when they spoke of their homes whilst visiting Marienburg. Our own family altar revered Handrich and Manaan both. I know that my father also had a small shrine to Ranald hidden in his personal study, as if a nosy young girl would not have searched there. Better to hedge your bets in life I guess.

I have honoured Ranald for some time since my brother started taking me out on his little adventures. Andreas told me that at least he was honest about his trade instead of the ‘backstab with a smile’ of our fathers dealings. Merchants and pirates are robbers all the same he said, except one thinks he is better than the other with the pretense of honesty and the aboveboard-facade. 

When we went out with Andreas’ friends he used to dress me up in some of his clothes; all fashionable and bonneted so my hair was hidden and my girlish looks disguised in Marienburg garb. It is not too hard when you are young. In the times when I wasn’t playing his younger brother we dressed for shadows and light-fingered work. The thrill of the theft was addictive. To gain goods and wealth so easily. The merchant doesn’t notice a few small wares gone from his stall in fact he plans for it. The lady does not believe her trinket stolen, but merely lost or misplaced. It was not long before our adventures were curtailed by my ‘blossoming’ into womanhood and the rise of my responsibilities at home with my older sister marrying. 

Thievery was how I planned to make my way in the world, at least for a time, when later marriage to the son of one of my father’s fellow merchants - Olof Ehrlichmann - proved unavoidable. The boy Klaus, or I should say man though he is far from it, was not a bad one but he was not my Marcel. No one could be my Marcel. 

I used to find it amusing- a merchant with a surname meaning honest man. I stopped finding it amusing when Olof and my father intended Klaus to make me an ‘honest woman’. Disgusting. Two fat old men conniving to ruin the life of a young woman all in the name of a business deal like exchanging goods and money. A product of my father’s to be bought and sold for a profit among his friends.

My older sister Annette and oldest brother Bernhard are both married well so my father should be happy that his business is done. I lost my husband before we could marry through the wrath of Manann. I would have happily kept house for my father for the rest of my earthly days - to care for him in his dotage, care for my sweet little sister Beatrix, even cow-tail to her loathsome mother the saintly ‘lady’ Nadine Fuchs Kaufmannstein, or Amsel as my father calls her. His little blackbird, how quaint. I could find other more appropriate names but I shall not waste my ink. How sweet in love my father is. Blind man. My poor mother is cold in her crypt sleeping far away from his conscience. To see an old man with such a young beautiful wife, they do say there is no fool like an old fool. I do so wish her beatific countenance would reflect her heart, she’d then be a true sight to see.

I digress a little me thinks. It passes the time. This venting of my spleen on parchment should be good for the soul I would think. I may not be the most valorous being in the flesh but here in my head I can right the wrongs and slay beasts with my pen. Mäuschen is what Grunnd calls me, he is right you know.

There was a point to my writings before it got lost and travelled into much venom. Ranald.

Yes, Ranald. I am not so sure he approves of what I have done. My mind is a thing twisted and taught with the morality of my, our, actions. I agreed that I did not have a choice. I agreed with Pieter that they all posed a threat with their possible harboring of the pox and all the chaotic possibilities that entailed. I even agreed that the best way to deal with such evils is with the cleansing of fire, indeed I even held one of the torches that set their deaths in motion. However I cannot bear that they could have died a quicker, more humane death. Apothecaries have tinctures to bring the eternal sleep calmly. Worse still some may have been free from the affliction. Does the death of one innocent constitute murder? Does the blessing of them in Morr’s name before the fiery death absolve the torch bearers of any guilt or blame? I do not know. 

It is in Sigmar’s name that we now journey the deadly road, dance the merry dance, to find the Van Tanncred sword before it kills all. It is in Sigmar’s name that Pieter Verstohlen dons his tall black buckled hat and roots out all chaos and evil in his work, nay, his calling as Witch Hunter. It is. Sigmar, patron of the mighty Empire, Hammer of Heroes and god of the twin tailed comet.

I do not know where I stand in this matter other than in a place of sad hurtful thoughts. I feel I cannot speak of them lest my faltering faith mark me as one weak to the powers of chaos and have my face blown off for ‘my own good’. 

Where is my faith now when I need it? Has Ranald left me? For such a god of trickery, luck and thievery to have the high morals to abhor violent crime and murder. Manann lost me when he took my love, and we are far from the sea. Handrich never knew me. I was a merchant’s daughter not the merchant himself. Who do I follow now? Such wayward lost sheep are prey for many a wolf. We pass through the wilds of nature, Taal’s heartland. We have come from the cultured fields of Rhya. They know me not. Morr might know me soon but I hope Verena is not watching. Shallya would cry to see what I have done, and Myrmidia would laugh if I called her, for I would laugh too. There are many gods in this land and in others. I have heard their names and seen their followers, their altars, in the hub of life that is the port of Marienburg. I do not feel the hand of any upon my shoulder. I feel I have lost part of myself again. Not that there was all that much left if I am honest. 

How do you go forth from here? From a place so dark? I cannot speak to Danielle on such a matter, and certainly not in this blasted cart where even the mule can hear me breathe. Hans is a boy, a simple villager, and a stranger. Stefan is hardly impartial and I don’t believe he has any understanding outside of his own small world, being a man. Maybe when the time is right I can speak with Grunnd. He seems to care whether I live or die, and even for my welfare. I do not think the fervour of the witch hunt has such a hold on him as it does Pieter. Maybe we will talk in Altdorf. Maybe I will die tomorrow. Catch a chill from sitting in the cold. Would that not be an irony?

~ A ~

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