“So, that’s that.”

The words sounded more quizzical than intended, spoken out of a need to fill the endless, silent morning on the banks of the great stream that was the lifeblood of much of the Empire, and, today, held judgement away from Adebar von Bolstedt.

He sat on the jagged edge of soil above the sandy patch where he’d run the boat aground, behind him stretched the fields around, what he hoped was the town of Kemperbad, in Talabecland. Far beyond that lay the Great Forest, filled with all manner of animal and monster.

Damnations.

The sacrifice of Gottlieb Zech gnawed at him, he knew full well that the commoner was most likely a dead man. He just did not truly understand why the innkeeper had done it. He supposed it was all logical enough, yet he hadn’t expected a man who had been a virtual stranger to have likely forfeited his life to protect his own.

Had he really deceived them all so easily? Had Ludolf Holzer’s drunken ramblings, sprung from his own colourful excuses, truly inspired them so? It was incomprehensible.

Adebar swore an oath, he would return to Diesdorf one day, and set things right, would help...he had not even bothered to learn their names.

Because of him and his vanity a family would be without a father, and he did not even know names to connect to the faces of the bloodline he had condemned to that existence!

He dug his fingers into his hair, clawing at his scalp, grasped by deep despair.

What would come of him now? He had done as he had promised, forced by mad, hopeless passion and his own web of lies, and here he sat, in a land that held neither kin nor ken, alone, with the dreadful suspicion that he had done nothing but make things worse. Was this Sigmar’s hand at play, divine punishment for taking his name in vain?

If it was, the God-King had cast his vindictive glare fully and completely.

Von Bolstedt was covered in crusted blood, his left leg hurt like hell itself, hands burned from rowing the boat against the strong Reik currents, breathing was hard, and, all in all, he looked more like a scarecrow than a daring nobleman. Not to mention that, for all his trouble, he now too had come down with the realization that he wouldn’t return to Diesdorf. The Count wouldn’t be sated with Zech, he knew von Bolstedt was involved. Would he be hounded, maybe sought by Electoral Decree?

To add insult to injury, he thought of Lady Emilia. He’d been foolish, of course, had not wanted to think of practicality, had given in to base instinct and romantic notions that, in the end, things would merely go as he pleased.

Staring at the pistol, he found that it was actually a fairly well made thing. It brought him no joy, it all smacked of fate’s mocking laughter, wringing a wail of despair from his chest as he cast the thing into the barren field behind him, as if that could somehow make his deeds undone, as if the tool that had sealed his fate held in power over it.

Painfully he stood, taking stock. It seemed senseless, all so very senseless.

He still bore his rapier by his side, his velvet doublet was stained and showed signs of abuse, not to mention the once white breeches.

He felt the cold wind on his face, in his hair, creeping into his bones. He’d lost his cap somewhere, probably left behind in the Black Boar.

Kemperbad seemed to slowly come to life as the morning grew brighter, people left their houses among the fields. People like Holzer, people like Zech.

Adebar von Bolstedt wandered into the fields, where he had cast the damnable leadspitter. In his mind he saw Zech, and recalled his last words.

Maybe he could do some good elsewhere, he thought.

Reluctantly taking up the pistol once more and tucking it under his belt, he turned his back on Diesdorf, on Reikland and Altdorf.

He could only hope to the gods that he would find atonement.