The Inn of the Midnight Pony

by Emerald Harp

The Road to Sigmar

Felix shook his head and opened his eyes. He was standing on a stone road on top of a small hill. The poet was surrounded on all sides by trees. The smell of acorns and maple leaves was everywhere. The poet frowned. “This place looks familiar.”

He looked off to the side. If he was where he thought he was, then . . . .“Can it be?” he said to himself. Felix walked off the road and towards a familiar-looking tree some yards away. He was striding quickly towards a sycamore. In the distance he could hear the rush of a stream over the crunching of rocks and leaves under his feet. As he walked, he dodged holes in the ground and branches. His feet knew those obstacles were there before he did. He had traveled the path he was on before, or so he thought.

When he reached the white tree, he saw nothing of note. It was not here. Disappointment creased his handsome features. He was not where he thought he was after all. As he turned to leave and go back the way he came, a memory struck him like lightning. He turned to face the familiar tree again. “It’s on the other side,” he whispered.

Felix hastily ran to the other side of the sycamore, nearly tripping over the roots of the lonely sentinel. He knew without a doubt where he was as he touched rough knife marks that he and his brother made years ago. They were faint and weathered by time, but he knew his handiwork and that of his kin’s. Carved into the tree were the letters “F” for Felix and “O” for Otto, and underneath those characters was the letter “J” for Jaeger. These three letters were encircled by a crude, three-pronged shield.

A wide smile broke upon Felix’s face as he said, “I’m home.” He abruptly turned on his heel and ran back the way he came until he happened back upon the stone road. Grinning from ear to ear, his feet slapped down on the path as he ran as fast as he could. He became dimly aware he had this route to himself as he pumped his fists up and down to build momentum. As he crested a hill, he was breathing hard and sweating. But to view the sight he was seeing now, he would have crossed a thousand hills.

He was looking upon the outskirts of a huge city a few miles away in the distance. The name of the city came to him instantly for this was the metropolis of his birth.

“Altdorf, I’m . . . I’m back, praise Sigmar.” Unbidden tears came down his face as he said the words he had not expected to say for a long time. He had never truly realized how beautiful and grand this city was until now. It was and still is the greatest, most powerful city of the Empire of Man and home of His Majesty, Emperor Karl Franz, forever may he reign. He knew he had been away for a long time but could not remember why for some reason. Nor could he remember why he was wearing a strange tabard on his chest or a foreign sword sheathed at his side.

The sun was setting behind him. The dying light of the day highlighted the regal gryphon statues on the battlements and towers. This sight filled Felix with longing to go into the metropolis and see his father. Despite his somewhat ill feelings towards the old man, he missed him. He had not seen him in years, and he hoped he was still well.

Despite the majesty he felt during this moment of primitive beauty, the poet began to feel uncomfortable, like he should not be here. That was a strange thought; of course, he should be here. This was his home. But there in lay the problem. This was indeed his home, and he missed it. However, there was a reason why he left, why he had been avoiding it, but at the moment, he could not remember.

He pushed those thoughts aside and took a few step forward on the road. The wind picked up suddenly and helped propel him down the stone path very quickly. It was exhilarating. He ran faster than he had ever run before. The wind rejuvenated him, and he was no longer sweating or breathing hard from his previous exertion. Gods he had missed this place. The wind died down slowly and eventually stopped. He must have run nearly two miles, almost to the very gates of the city and was not tired. This fact did not register with Felix as he saw huge structures poking up from behind the mighty dwarven-built walls of the town. He beheld the towers of the College of Magic and the spires of the School of Engineers. Then his gaze rested upon the towering Cathedral of Altdorf, and he felt an overpowering urge to go into the city and visit that holy place.

Wanting to savor the moment, Felix stepped off the road and sat down underneath an oak tree. That one feeling was still bothering him and kept him from completely enjoying this perfect moment. He could feel it down in his bones, and it demanded his attention like a thorn pushing through the sole of his boot. The poet closed his eyes and concentrated. In his mind a misty face appeared and forced its way forward into the forefront of his thoughts. Felix could not make out specific details, but he knew it belonged to a dwarf. Gotrek? Yes, that was his name, Gotrek Gurnison.

An agonizing pain shot through Felix’s right foot. The poet looked down and to his surprise, blood was leaking from his boot. The pain galvanized the warrior into a moment of clarity. His memory returned. He remembered the Slayer and his adventures with him. He also recalled the Elements of Harmony, Equestria, and his latest wounding in a series of wounds sustained in prosecuting his mission. Only one question remained for the poet. “Why am I here?” muttered Felix.

Slowly, the knight stood and limped back to the road. Felix watched the sun disappear beyond the horizon and plunge his world into darkness. His jaw clenched tightly. There was only one creature he knew that had the power to herald in the night so quickly. The poet’s anger built and grew like thunder heads. The city he had one day prayed he would return to seemed so close and yet was really far, far away, for none of this was real.

“Come out if it pleases you, Princess Luna. I know this is your doing. There is no need to hide from your servant.” Hearing no reply, he looked from side to side and behind him to see if she was nearby. He saw nothing but dark, unfriendly trees surrounding him. This did not stop Felix from saying, “I would not mind speaking to you, My Lady, but why? Why did you choose to meet me here so close to my home?” He looked around him again hoping to see movement. “You know I can’t come back here, so why now do you decide to torture me in this way?”

His frustration and anger came to a head as he shouted, “Answer me, damn you!” Taking a step forward, he cringed in pain as his hurt leg tripped on a loose stone. Losing his footing, Felix fell on the cold, unforgiving stones.

At first silence was his only companion. Then from behind him he heard the sound of approaching hoof beats, rhythmically slapping down on the stone road. Painfully rising to his feet, Felix turned and looked into the darkness. What came forth out of the night was not his Princess, but a stout, healthy mule bathed in torchlight. On top of the animal sat a bald man garbed in the scarlet robes of a Priest of Sigmar. In his left hand a bright lantern was held aloft highlighting the priest’s face. The face held deep stress lines and eyes that had the look of one who beheld the deaths of too many innocents. His right hand held the reigns of the mule, but clipped to his belt on the right side of his waist was a war hammer, the weapon favored by the priest’s deity and all who followed his way.

The holy man pulled gently on the reigns and stopped his mount some feet away from Felix. He dismounted slowly yet gracefully like he was born in the saddle. His sandaled feet made only the slightest noise when he touched the stone, his eyes never leaving the poet’s. He was tall, several inches taller than Felix, but carried himself delicately and deliberately. It was like if he did not move in a certain way, he would collapse and break. With his right hand the priest pulled a thick, sturdy metal walking stick out of a pair of holding straps attached to the mule. The man ponderously walked towards the poet while he leaned heavily on the metallic rod. He stopped when he was just out of Felix’s sword reach.

Up close the priest was younger than Felix expected but wore a frown as he spoke. “I do not recognize your heraldry, sir knight. Who are you and where do you come from?” His voice was stern but laced with pain that he was doing his best to conceal. He spoke heavily accented Reikspeil like he belonged to the northern nations bordering the Chaos Wastes.

Since this was obviously another dream, Felix decided to answer the priest’s question honestly. “My name is Felix Jaeger, Father. I am . . .” Felix snickered, suddenly overcome with mirth. “I don’t think I am really here and that you exist. I believe I am in a dream pieced together by my own or somebody else’s imagination. As far as who I serve . . .” Felix straightened and pointed to his tabard’s emblem. “Besides his majesty, Emperor Karl Franz, I serve her Excellency, Princess Luna, an alicorn and joint ruler of the Realm of Equestria.”

The priest looked Felix over with his dark, brown eyes like he was trying to find some hidden truth from this stranger’s movements and gestures. His gaze came to rest on the hilt of Felix’s long sword and his eyes widened. He pointed at the sheathed blade and said, “That is a handsome looking sword, sir. May I take a closer look at it?”

Felix hesitated at the request; he had not expected that sort of reply from a figment of his imagination. Sensing little threat from the crippled apparition, he unsheathed his sword, walked up to the priest, and presented him the weapon, hilt first. The holy man in return gave Felix his metallic walking stick and grasped the weapon that Felix was handing him. He did not swish the blade around in the air but held his lantern over the sword while he examined it.

The flame from the lantern danced across the scarlet weapon, and the runes upon the sword blazed like several tiny fires across the length of the weapon. After several long minutes of looking at the dwarvish runes on the crimson blade, the priest spoke. “You realize what you have here, don’t you, Sir?”

The poet snorted. “Please, since this is a dream, you don’t have to be so formal. Call me Felix. And yes, I have an idea of what the weapon is. The blade’s name is Karaghul, and it is a weapon made for the Sigmarian Order of the Fiery Heart. Specifically, it was created to slay dragons. ”

The priest nodded. “Aye, that is its purpose. Are you a member of said order, Felix?”

Felix shook his head. “No. I found this blade traveling with a companion of mine. However, we were joined at the time with another of that order. His name was Aldred Keppler. He was leading a quest down into Karak Eight Peaks to recover this relic. When the venture was over, just me and my companion, a dwarven slayer, were left alive. I had promised myself I would return this sword to the order as soon as I could, and thus far, that opportunity has eluded me.”

The priest nodded again as he absorbed this information. He then shown his light at Felix’s bloody boot. “Arrow wound?”

“Yes,” answered Felix. He winced as he put more of his weight on the injured member, testing his pain tolerance.

Without a word the holy man returned the runed blade back to Felix and limped back to his mule. With practiced ease he slung himself into the saddle, but the effort was taxing, and it showed by the pained grimace on his face. Carefully, the priest placed his lantern around his saddle.

Despite this being a dream, Felix felt a pang of concern for the man and regretted not showing more respect towards him. The swordsman tried to give back the priest’s iron walking stick, but the holy man shook his head. “Keep it. That wound in your leg looks painful.” The Sigmarian sighed and declared, “Believe it or not, Felix, I think I am in this place . . . this dream with you. I believe my body, that is . . . my physical body is in another place while my soul is here. ”

The poet favored the priest with a curious look. “What makes you say that, Father?”

In reply the priest smiled. “If this is a dream, then call me Dimitri.” The holy man extend his hand. “Dimitri Tupalov of Kislev at your service.” Felix grasped the other man’s hand firmly and shook it. The holy man had a crushing grip; Felix had no doubt that despite his handicap, the man was still very dangerous.

Dimitri dug his heels into the mule’s flanks, and the beast of burden began to move forward. Felix kept pace beside the animal, thanks to the metal rod.

Clearing his throat the holy man continued, “I believe this is a dream because . . .” he chuckled almost the same way Felix did earlier, “I have never ridden a mule before in my life. I grew up riding horses. This animal was with me when I . . . appeared in this world. You see, my post was in the City of Praag, and that’s where I began this dream, this spiritual journey, as I like to call it, in that city. This mule appeared to me saddled and ready to ride outside my hospital tent, and I felt an overpowering desire to climb aboard and see where it took me.”

Dimitri suddenly cried out in agony as the mule jostled him.

Felix stopped the beast of burden and put his hand on the arm of Dimitri. “How bad are you hurt, Father?”

Through gritted teeth he said, “Bad, but there’s nothing to be done about it.”

He gently pushed Felix back and spurred the mule forward again.

As Felix walked with the mule, he saw blood soaking through the priest’s robes. “How did you get hurt?”

After a deep breath, the priest replied, “A poisoned spear through the lung. I think it was half a day ago by now. I was riding with a group of town watchmen when we were attacked by chaos marauders. We drove them off, but one of those bast---, heathens drove a spear through my chest and broke off the tip. The surgeon dug it out, and Sigmar has done what he could for the poison. The pain though is nigh unbearable and is getting worse, and I believe I will be by Sigmar’s side very soon. In fact, the doctors said that I probably would not last the night. Soon after I went to sleep, and I see this mule standing outside my tent. So I figure, pardon the expression, what the hell? I got nothing better to do other than die. I got dressed, climbed on, and the mule started walking. However, oddly enough, it did not seem strange to me at the time that I did not see anyone in the city. No one was manning the walls or towers, and no lights were in any of the buildings. That should have let me know that this was . . . something different; Praag would never be abandoned, not in the face of an invasion.” He looked down at the knight and said seriously, “We are on the verge of another chaos incursion, Felix, and it’s a big one, I fear. It may well be as great as the one two hundred years ago during the reign of your emperor, Magnus the Pious, Sigmar rest his soul.”

Felix nodded. When he and Gotrek were on their way back from Karag Dum on the Spirit of Grungi, he had seen with his own eyes the vast chaos armies pouring south from the Wastes. If Luna had not called them to Equestria, he and Gotrek would probably be in Kislev waiting to help repel the invaders.

The poet’s thoughts were interrupted when Dimitri said, “But none of these things should worry you since I am not real and could be telling you lies.”

Felix let out his breath in a slow sad sigh. As he did so, he saw the air form into a cloud of vapor. It had gotten colder. “I’m sorry for saying that earlier, Father. And I am sorry about your wound.”

The holy man laughed and then started to cough violently in-between laughs. When he was done, he said, “I’m just giving you a hard time, Felix, and I thank you for your condolences. I don’t blame you; you have every right to be suspicious of me. In fact, I am not completely convinced that you’re real either. But there are two things I am certain about. We will all meet our creator, in my case sooner rather than later. And that the only way out of this dream or journey is down this road.”

To change the subject about Dimitri’s wound Felix stated, “I’m assuming you tried to deviate from this path.” The priest shook his head. “No. Instead I closed my eyes to pray when this mule began to take me out of the city gates of Praag. When I was done praying and opened my eyes, I was here, and I heard your voice a minute ago.”

As soon as Dimitri finished speaking, they arrived at the opened gates of Altdorf. Felix looked up and along the walls of the vast city as they walked through one of the main entrances. It was just like Dimitri had described Praag, vacant and eerie.

They advanced through the phantom city, foot and hoof falls echoing throughout the abandoned streets. No lights greeted them. All was darkness, save for one beacon of illumination in the distance.

Standing defiant against the darkness was the grand old Cathedral of Altdorf. A golden aura surrounded the entire building, and it glowed majestically like it was the only source of light in the world. It was rumored over two thousand years ago Sigmar himself was crowned emperor on the ground where the cathedral now stood. Felix had been there before many times, but the saintly place had never looked more beautiful to him than it did now.

Both men stopped to gaze upon the majesty of the enormous, octagonal structure. No more were they afraid of what may have laid in-between the shadows of Altdorf. Instead they were filled with purpose. They knew deep down that the cathedral was where the road ended and a new path would start. There they would find their answers to unspoken questions.

As Felix limped along-side the plodding mule towards the pillar of light, the knight regaled Dimitri about his adventures with Gotrek and how he had come about to swear his services to him. Felix told him everything except for his current expedition in Equestria and how he ended up in that place. Dimitri was enthralled with Felix’s stories. All he had to do was listen because the mule knew exactly where they were going. The poet told the dying holy man about his many encounters with beastmen and cultists in the woodlands of the empire, and sadly explained how he lost the woman he had hoped to spend the rest of his life with in a goblin raid. He described foiling the many skaven plots in the city of Nuln, and then heading into the chaos wastes on a dwarven-made airship to rescue the survivors of Karag Dum. Finally, Felix spoke of fighting and slaying the chaos dragon Skjalandir in the World Edge Mountains with the help of the Slayers, the magician, Max Schriber, and a Kislev warrior-princess, Ulrika Magdova.

Felix hesitated before continuing; he did not want to talk about Ulrika. Ever since Luna had summoned them to Equestria, he had avoided thinking about her. From the moment he saw her, he was in love, and the feeling was mutual. However, it was a tumultuous relationship. They were very different from each other. He was a wandering poet with very little attached to his name, while Ulrika was a princess with a bright but predictable future ahead of her. After the fight with the dragon, the Spirit of Grungi had to head east to Nuln to warn the Empire of the impending threat coming down from the north. Ulrika understood the ties of blood and honor that compelled the dwarfs to warn their Imperial allies, but she could not wait. Her mission was to warn her princess, the Ice Queen of Kislev, of the same threat. Felix could not come with her since he had sworn to follow the Troll Slayer, and Gotrek was going to Nuln with his dwarven comrades.

When Felix told Dimitri this, the priest nodded in understanding. He said that he was a good and honorable man for staying with Gotrek and keeping his promise to the dwarf. The knight knew that this was high praise indeed coming from the holy man. However, at the same time he would have given anything to be with Ulrika at that moment.

As Felix was concluding his odyssey tale, they passed through the golden aura that encompassed the cathedral grounds. At once Felix could feel the temperature begin to warm to a more comfortable level, and he heard a powerful voice issuing from the heart of the building.

As he tried to listen to what the voice was saying, he found that his gaze was drifting skyward to look at the cathedral in all its magnificence. Felix looked over to Dimitri to see if he was doing the same. Dimitri was indeed looking heavenward, but at the same time he was knuckling his eyes and doing his best to suppress a loud sob. Felix respectfully looked away from the priest, completely understanding his emotion. One would need a heart of iron to not be moved at this spectacle. From far away the cathedral was beautiful. However, if one were to stand before it at its very doors . . . there were no words to describe its magnificence.

Felix patiently waited for the priest to compose himself, and after a few moments, the holy man said in a husky voice, “Well, my friend . . . shall we go in?” Felix turned to face the holy man and walked over to the mule. He was about to assist Dimitri off of the beast of burden when the priest waved off his attempt and said nervously, “I want to try something. Stand back, please.”

Felix grudgingly obeyed and took a few steps back and waited. Dimitri took a deep breath, as if he was expecting what he was about to do would cause him a lot of pain. He began to dismount, at first timidly, then more quickly, gaining confidence as he progressed until he was on the ground and standing straight as an arrow, unassisted. Grinning nervously, he experimentally took one step forward and then a few more.

The priest was now smiling from ear to ear as he was doing this. He then opened the red robes of his office to reveal a large, unsightly scar in the center of his chest that had just recently healed. It was pink but not green or black like it would have been if poison was still in the wound.

Dimitri stood back up and said happily, “At least I may stand before Sigmar when the time comes.”

Felix was smiling, too, as he nodded his agreement. He lifted his right foot, and to his satisfaction, his wound had stopped bleeding and was no longer causing him pain. If this place and Dimitri were a figment of his imagination, it was the most convincing and likeable one he had ever had the pleasure of being in. Felix was glad that Dimitri’s pain had been temporarily alleviated. However, if the holy man was real, then his wound might still be on his real body, still festering, and still killing him.

As Felix thought of this, his smile disappeared and a pitying look came over his features. In spite of his rapidly disappearing doubts about the holy man, he found that he cared for the priest, regardless of the short time they had been in each other’s company.

Noticing the change in the knight’s demeanor, the holy man came up to Felix and put a fatherly hand on his shoulder. He looked his friend in the eye and said, “Felix, my friend, if you are worried about me, don’t be. I am in the Founder’s hands, as are you. I believe he is the one who bid us down this path, although I know not why. So let us dwell here no more in darkness. Instead, let us find shelter in our Father’s house.” The holy man’s words did much to lighten Felix’s heart, and together they walked up to the great doors of the Cathedral and pushed them open.

Comments

[Starlight Nova]

Are Gotrek and Felix real Fantasy Warhammer characters?

[Emerald Harp]

7633087

Oh yeah.

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