Eisengrim lay alone on his bed, the covers half thrown over his body. His gut felt tight, and breathing made it burn. He ignored it, or tried to. It didn’t matter anyway. In his big hand the bull held a number of star stones, which manipulated with his fingers, as a monk might with prayer beads.

  Siegfried's. Click.

  Dietrich's. Click.

  Gerda's. Click.

  They had found her this morning, bringing him her star as proof, as requested. The old bull had known it was coming. Despite that, his heart had struggled against it. He'd concocted all kinds of absurd scenarios to explain why she was really alive despite the King's men still finding no sign of her..

  Gerda had fallen through the ground and was in the sewers. She had fled the scene at the last second, and was out tracking Rahm now, rather than waste her time listening to the others plot and argue. The fantasies had only grown more absurd, more desperate as he had waited, and prayed. Oh God, how he had prayed here in this room as he waited, too injured to look for her himself. He had begged. He had pleaded and in the dark had offered up all kinds of bargains to God. He was old and useless. She was young and had a great future of service and faith ahead of her. Why not take him instead? It had all been for naught, for they had brought him Gerda’s stone, anyway. They'd interred her once more, surrounded by strangers as she was laid down to a proper rest. It would be weeks yet before he could visit her and pray over her grave.

  And what use will that be? He wondered, despite himself. He could not answer the question.

  The old bull stared at the star stones of his lost friends. His letter to the King was well on its way by now. It had been hard for the minotaur to put his thoughts into proper words as a knight waited to take them down. Volkard had been stopped, true, but the cost... Eichen would never recover from this, even if most of its populace had been evacuated before the battle. No sane person would settle here again, not when the story of this disaster circulated through the kingdom. The wilderness that had claimed so much of the city, and the forests beyond for many leagues, were naught but ash and death now. So many people were dead, the Order had been devastated, and its young Master – the King’s own nephew – was dead, too.

  In spite of everything that had passed between them, Eisengrim’s pride was great enough to feel wounded as deeply as his belly when he thought of the young Prince. Siegfried had been smarter, and far more capable, than the old bull had thought. The young prince had also been braver than Eisengrim, or any of the others, would have ever credited him. He had been wrong about Siegfried. Eisengrim had tried his best to convey those thoughts and apologise for his failure to see those qualities in a separate letter to His Majesty, Reinhardt IV. This letter, he'd written personally, painstakingly. The thought of dictation had seemed wrong, no matter how awkward and painful the process had been. In the end, the young knight who'd served as his scribe for the report re-copied everything Eisengrim had written, for even the author was hard-pressed to make out the words upon the page. In it, he'd chronicled prince Siegfried's final days and actions in this most unpredictable of hunts. Contrition was not something Eisengrim was used to, and yet the old bull had offered his resignation, and even his life, as the price for his failure to the Kingdom and the future of the Order. The only duty he was fit for completed days ago, there was little for Eisengrim to do but wait on the King's reply and ruminate.

  Eisengrim spent his days staring at the ceiling, though his mind was usually far away. He was sometimes in the hall of the Palace back in Gozer, young and proud as he took the hand of a gangly young man named Dietrich, who was to be his first apprentice. Other times, it was the woods near the southern canals, where Gerda had found his campfire. She'd tried to steal the meagre meal he had been cooking that night. She had been so young, and small, and afraid. Those memories came back again and again to the old bull, and it would take all his strength to drive them away. He could not handle it yet. He would think of Siegfried, and things were little better. He had known the man, but too often in his minds eye he saw the boy, frightened and pale, who just escaped the fall of his father’s Court and the massacre of his family. He had seen the boy prince soon after he had arrived, but had not spoken with him then. The boy had been sitting alone in the library, looking lost and alone. Now he had gone to join his royal father and mother, and all the rest of the people who had died helping spirit him to safety.

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  He’ll be dug up again, Eisengrim thought sometimes with absolute certainty. He’ll likely never rest with his own people, but his majesty will want Siegfried moved up and buried in the crypt up in Gozer. It was a strange thing to dwell upon, but these were strange days to the old bull, and it sometimes made him wonder what might be done with him when his old heart finally had enough. It was then that his thoughts would turn to the abbey in Anderswo, and the lady who ruled there.

  Should he write to Hildrun? It seemed unfair, both to her and to whoever would be unlucky enough to have to carry Eisengrim’s message with them. Despite this, the old bull found himself returning to the idea often. Klara would have to pass through the town on her way to The Hold, and Eisengrim had told her something of the Abbess there. He had thought of having something written then, posing as a letter of introduction for his former apprentice, but he had demurred at the last second. That Klara might have had use of such a letter was not in question. No, the issue that had stopped him was what else he might say in it. That was what kept him from calling someone in to take down a message and carry it to Hildrun. What he wanted to say was for Hildrun, and he could not abide someone else, however much they swore themselves to secrecy, knowing it.

  If only I knew what I wanted to say, Eisengrim thought bitterly, as he stared up at the ceiling and dwelt in the memories of his dead friends. He was a man of action, and had never been able to adapt himself to a sedentary existence of any kind. This room felt too small to him often, but he knew he would feel that way about whatever space his carcass was hauled to. He missed being able to move freely, but more than that he missed the company of people he knew, and trusted.

  So, why do I dwell on the Abbess?

  It felt better, proper, to think of her as the Abbess. It was a cheap way to sanitise these thoughts and it didn’t work, yet the faithful side of the Hammer persisted stubbornly on in this empty formality. The reasons were simple, and Eisengrim was old enough to confront them all without too much personal embarrassment. She was a minotaur like him. They were of an age, or near enough to make no matter, and yet she still retained much of the dignity and beauty he suspected she had carried in her youth. She was female and he was a male, and he suspected she felt as lonely as he did. Was there lust there, that base instinct the priests they both worked alongside condemned? Of course, but more than that, the old bull wanted company. They had not spent much time together after Vali had died and they had done their duties for him. Those moments, as melancholic as they had been, remained branded in Eisengrim’s mind all the same.

  Better not to think about her, the old bull chided himself, over and over. He knew that he could be doing something productive of some kind. He could be harassing the remaining soldiery about the clean-up of the bodies. He could be dictating a more detailed report to the King. There were many things he could be doing to pass the time. He did none of them. Here, he was powerless to influence anything. Instead he must wait for the younger hands that still survived to carry his ancient burden, while he lay here and felt sorry for himself.

  Be gone, he pleaded in silence to the faces of his fallen friends, and the living woman who would at times all hover over his bed, invading his thoughts and even his dreams. Leave me here alone for a while, please. I can’t take thinking of any of you any more.

  Someone knocked timidly at the door to his room. The church mouse beyond had to repeat the gesture a second time to get the old bull's attention. Eisengrim stirred, half awake and cursed himself.

  “Sir?” a voice called from the other side. “Someone has arrived to speak with you.”

  Eisengrim sighed. “Is it someone from the King?” he asked, surprised at how apathetic he felt on the subject of how his fate would be decided.

  “No, sir. They came from Anderswo. A minotaur. A lady one, sir. She says she is a nun of some sort, and she’s asking to see you.”

  Eisengrim woke fully then. He stared at the door, uncomprehending and suddenly somewhat afraid. He had lain here for days with not a stitch of clothing save his bandages and the sheet of his bed, but only now did he actually feel naked.

  “Sir?” The voice from the other side of the door called, after he had been quiet for far too long. “Are you awake?”

  Eisengrim stared at the door. He wasn’t ready for this. What would he say? What would happen if he let her in? He had no idea. He was sick and weak and hurt, and lonely and any hope of control would disappear if he looked in her eyes. He wasn’t ready for this.

  “Sir?”

  The Hammer stared at the door. In the shadows of the rooms corners he saw his friends.

  I’ll never be ready for this, he realised.

  “Sir?”

  “I’m awake, son,” Eisengrim answered, his throat arid, his eyes beginning to warm, and his stomach tight, and painful. “I’m awake...and you can let her in.”