01 - Death's Messenger

by Sandy Mitchell - (ebook by Undead)

  He turned to scan the undergrowth. He could see countless places to conceal himself without much difficulty. Then he calculated that the number of tracks indicated a fair-sized warband, a dozen of the creatures at least.

  A stronger patch of sunlight indicated the direction of the forest’s edge, and he began to move towards it. Hanna followed. The main thing, he thought, is to get out of the trees. Goblins didn’t like direct sunlight, they preferred to lurk in the dark places, so they ought to be safe from pursuit if they got onto the open moor. They could pick up the stream once they were beyond the tree line…

  “What’s that?” Hanna pointed at a strange lump lying ahead of them, dappled by the shadows of the leaves overhead. It looked like a diseased plant growth of some kind, or a rotting log, but as they moved closer Rudi got a clearer look at it and froze.

  “Wait.” He held out an arm to bar her way, momentarily distracted by the sensation of something soft and yielding as she walked into it. Ignoring her faint annoyed sigh he focussed on the thing on the pathway ahead of them. The colours had fooled him for a moment but now his sight had adjusted, and he could clearly make out the shape of a head and arm sprawled out on the dirt, the dark green of the flesh blending into the mud-brown tunic and trews the thing wore. “It’s a goblin!”

  “Is it dead?” Hanna asked, craning her neck to see. Rudi shrugged, and fitted an arrow into his bow. Killing the wolf had boosted his confidence with the weapon. He really ought to be able to hit a stationary target from this close.

  He drew and loosed in one fluid motion, and almost against his expectation the shaft thudded home in the goblin’s torso. The body shuddered briefly from the impact then lay still, instead of spasming and shrieking like a live target would. It hadn’t been shamming then, hoping to lure them closer before launching an attack.

  “I think so,” he said laconically, amused at the girl’s expression. He nocked another shaft before advancing. Even though it had genuinely been dead there could be others lurking in ambush, using the corpse as bait in a trap. With his ears straining for any tell-tale rustling in the undergrowth he crept forward until he was standing above the cadaver.

  Up close it was even more hideous than he’d imagined. A large head with a flattened nose and a wide drooling mouth was attached to a scrawny body. Had it been standing, the skull would have appeared too large for the torso supporting it. Sharp teeth, more like fangs or tusks, were revealed by the drooping lips, slack now in death. With a grimace of disgust he bent to retrieve his arrow.

  “And I thought its blanket smelled bad.”

  “What killed it?” Hanna asked, walking up to him, and looking down at it curiously. “Some kind of animal?”

  “I can’t see any tracks,” Rudi said, his sense of foreboding returning stronger than ever. The only footprints he could see in the carpet of loam were their own, and the goblin’s. Judging by the spacing, and the length of the creature’s legs, it had been running when it died. He looked at the body again. There was a dark discolouration on its back and its tunic was charred. As he bent closer there was the unmistakable smell of burned flesh.

  “Sorcery,” Hanna said, making the sign of the dove. Rudi looked hard at her, and she flushed. “What else could it be?”

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. He was going to regret asking this, he knew, but… “Does anything seem familiar about it?”

  “What’s that supposed to imply?” Hanna snapped, and he took an instinctive step backwards.

  “Nothing! I just thought… Well, you can read.” The thought came from nowhere, the perfect way to mollify her. “You must know a lot of things. Stuff I’ve never even heard about.” A faint part of his mind remembered Gerhard’s words about Greta. There were certain books. He wondered if Hanna had read them too, or had even been aware of their existence.

  “I wouldn’t doubt it.” Her tone was still waspish, but less defensive. “There are some colleges of magic which use fire as a weapon. I imagine the effects would be something like this.”

  “So we might be dealing with a wizard.” The thought was hardly comforting. He remembered a band of roving adventurers who had wandered through Kohlstadt a year or so before, and spent the night at the tavern. One of them had been a wizard, a thin, pale-faced young man who’d said very little, but somehow seemed more dangerous than all his heavily armed companions put together. The largest and most belligerent of the group, who’d been trying to pick a fight with Big Franz, had sat down and shut up after the young man had said a few quiet words and had seemed positively nervous for the rest of the evening.

  “Maybe.” The thought seemed to interest Hanna. “At least we wouldn’t have much to worry about then.”

  “Why not?” Rudi asked, not caring how naive the question made him look. Hanna gave him a pitying glance.

  “Because the only sort of wizard likely to be wandering around the back end of nowhere killing goblins would be part of a mercenary group. We’d be safe enough with them.”

  “Unless they heard we were wanted for heresy,” Rudi pointed out mildly. Hanna flushed, turning the body over with her foot, and unnecessary vigour. “What are you doing?”

  “Just seeing if there’s anything we’re missing,” Hanna said, but the dead goblin looked even more repulsive lying on its back. For the life of him Rudi couldn’t understand what she was getting at. After a moment she turned away and headed for the light at the edge of the woodland.

  Rudi watched her go, nonplussed for a second. Then he hurried after her, trotting to keep up. He’d almost reached her elbow when she stopped suddenly.

  “Shallya’s mercy!” There was no need to ask what had shocked her so profoundly. Ahead of them was a clearing littered with corpses like the one they’d just seen, but this time there was no doubt as to what had killed the greenskins. Raw, bloody wounds marked their corpses, where they’d been hacked, slashed, or bludgeoned to death. Some bore the unmistakable stigmata of claw or fang, others seemed to have simply been ripped apart. “What could have done something like this?”

  Rudi had a terrible suspicion he knew. Sure enough, as they picked their way across that churned and bloody ground, he began to pick out the prints of cloven hooves.

  “Beastmen,” he said. He glanced around, looking for some sign to confirm it, like the shaggy corpses in the glade where his father had died, but if the goblins had managed to kill any of their assailants the marauders had taken the bodies with them. So they’d probably got away with no casualties, he thought, as beastmen didn’t seem to be sentimental.

  “Do you think they followed us?” Hanna asked, her face ashen. Rudi shook his head.

  “Why would they?” he asked reasonably. “They’ve obviously passed through here ahead of us anyway.” Another thought occurred to him. “That’s assuming they’re the same warband.”

  “Oh come on!” Hanna was scornful. “We haven’t had a beastman incursion around here in decades, and now two warbands turn up at the same time?”

  “It’s possible,” Rudi said. Then he shrugged. “So long as they stay out of our way I don’t really care.”

  “Come to that, neither do I.” Hanna squared her shoulders and started walking again. She picked her way fastidiously through the corpses. Rudi followed, keeping a little tension in the bowstring, ready to draw and shoot at the first sign of movement, but none came.

  As they left the shelter of the trees and he felt the warmth of the sun on his face a faint sigh escaped him. It struck him how tightly his body had been wound. Hanna glanced back into the shade behind them with undisguised relief.

  “I think we should get as far away from here as possible before night comes,” she said. Rudi nodded, and returned the arrow to his quiver.

  “I think the stream’s that way.” They angled away from the stand of trees rather than following it back to the water, so it was some time before they had the comforting torrent of water at their side again. It was only then, as he watched a twig whirling past on the
current, that Rudi realised they hadn’t remembered to pick up any firewood after all.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  As the hours wore on Rudi grew accustomed to the new landscape, so that the sense of impending danger he’d felt at first had diminished. There seemed little danger of enemies approaching unobserved across the bleak and open moor. Hanna, on the other hand, seemed enchanted with the place. It was so different to any environment she’d ever seen before. She kept stopping to look at some plant or other with comments he didn’t understand about their potential medicinal properties. A few she picked, and tucked away in her satchel for later.

  One plant they could both have done without was the ubiquitous bracken, which snagged at their clothes, a constant irritation. Rudi at least had the protection of his breeches, their stout fabric chosen for its resistance to the similar hazards of the forest, but Hanna’s skirt was a light summer weave and hardly any use at all in this regard. Before long her calves were covered in small scratches, which she ignored stoically. Time and again she had to pause to shake some small piece of detritus from her shoe.

  Despite the discomfort she was determined to remain cheerful. She made bright remarks about the warmth of the sun and the pleasantness of the sweet-smelling breeze as though they were simply out for a summer stroll. She even picked a sprig of vivid purple heather, a colour Rudi had never imagined a plant could be, and tucked it behind her ear, where it somehow seemed to accentuate the colour of her hair.

  Gradually the stream picked up its pace and widened a little, but there was still no sign of the river Rudi hoped it would lead them to. He had only the vaguest idea of what the Reik would look like. He was unable to imagine a stretch of open water so wide you could barely see the other bank, but he was pretty sure it would be hard to miss.

  “Isn’t east that way?” Hanna asked, shortly after noon. They’d paused to eat some of the cold rabbit, with their backs against a large moss-covered rock which had absorbed the pleasant summer heat. She gestured to their left, where the shadows had begun to lengthen.

  Rudi nodded, trying to seem blasé. He’d been beginning to wonder that himself, but it had been hard to be sure with the sun almost directly overhead.

  “I think so,” he said, taking another bite of rabbit to try and seem calm. “The stream seems to be flowing south now.”

  “Perhaps we should strike across country, then,” Hanna suggested. Rudi shook his head.

  “We’ve nothing to carry any water in,” he pointed out. “And the stream’s bound to reach the river eventually.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” Hanna said, seeming relieved at this observation. Rudi suspected she was as reluctant to leave the security of the watercourse as he was. Over the last couple of days it had become a familiar presence in their lives, almost the only thing they had left which gave them any sense of stability.

  By nightfall it remained pointing resolutely to the south, and Rudi was beginning to think it had even turned westward a little. He pushed the thought from his mind as best he could, and began looking for a place to make camp.

  In the end they’d had to settle for a hollow in the ground, which at least sheltered them from the worst of the increasingly chill wind. They managed to find enough stones before the light went to fashion a functional fire pit. Rudi collected as much of the dry scrub as he could find, piled it up carefully, and took the precious tinderbox from his pack.

  He was unable to coax a spark from the flint and steel sufficient to start a flame, and his mood darkened with the lowering sky. It was dusk already, and without a fire they faced a bleak night at best. At worst they would be left at the mercy of whatever predators roamed this strange wilderness.

  “Let me try,” Hanna said, stretching out a hand for it. “If you’re going to set some snares you’d better do it while there’s still some daylight left.” Rudi acquiesced grudgingly, his hurt pride eventually displaced by logic. He moved away from the makeshift camp. There was no point setting traps where the rabbits could get wind of them. At least the rabbits seemed to be abundant in this wilderness, there were plenty of signs of their presence, and so they should be able to replenish their meagre store of food.

  Not that it would do them much good without a fire to cook the carcasses with, of course…

  Despite his forebodings, however, he was greeted by a cheerful blaze when he returned to the makeshift camp.

  “You’ve obviously got a knack for this sort of thing,” he said, trying not to sound grudging. Hanna smiled; the first spontaneous expression of happiness he’d seen on her face since they’d fled from Kohlstadt.

  “It wouldn’t make any difference without your foraging skills,” she said, returning the compliment.

  The night passed uneventfully, despite his wariness, and the following day was almost a repeat of the previous one. The stream continued to grow in strength and volume, drawing them onwards despite its increased deviation from the direction they assumed both the river and the city they sought lay in.

  “It’s no bad thing,” Rudi said, as they made their way through a narrow defile along the banks of a sudden display of rapids. “If anyone was trying to follow us they’d be leagues away by now.”

  “Good thing too,” Hanna added, hopping over a small cleft in the underlying rock.

  That night they found a section of broken stone wall and slept in its lee, grateful for the shelter it afforded against the wind. This time Rudi didn’t even try to make a fire, he just left Hanna to it and went off to set his snares again, completely confident that she would have kindled a flame before he got back.

  Morrslieb was waning now and Mannslieb growing fuller, so the night, if anything, was a little darker than it had been, but what light there was seemed purer, less corrupt. Rudi sat with his back to the wall, wondering who had shaped these stones and what had happened to them. Something akin to the Altmans’ fate, he supposed, but whatever it was, it had happened a long time ago. There were no signs that anything bigger than a fox had been here in decades. But the presence of the wall meant they were getting nearer to civilisation.

  The thought was both encouraging and alarming. They might be approaching Marienburg, or some way of getting there, but civilisation meant people. And that could mean enemies.

  He listened to Hanna’s regular breathing, and watched the faint rise and fall of her malodorous blanket in the moonlight. He yawned. Time enough to worry about Gerhard and whoever else he might have sent after them in the morning.

  The dawn woke them as it always did, and Rudi went off to check his traps. Two of them were full. He hung the little bodies on his belt as usual, conscious that he was getting into the swing of a routine. True, their diet was getting a little monotonous, but at least they were in no danger of starving and he was sure the mounting collection of rabbit pelts would be worth a copper or two when they found somewhere to trade with them.

  As the sun rose he was able to see more of their immediate surroundings finding his guess about the wall they’d sheltered behind was more or less accurate. It had once marked the boundary of a field, the shape of which could still be discerned sketched in clumps of tumbled rubble. Curious he walked on, towards the far boundary, wondering if any other signs of habitation remained. Clearly this had once been a well-tended smallholding, carefully sited to take advantage of the water supply afforded by the stream.

  His guess was confirmed as he reached the far edge of the old field. A few scattered carrot tops waved defiantly above the encroaching bracken, which had all but reclaimed them. He stooped to pull a few as he passed. They were stunted, misshapen things, but they were edible, and he was sure Hanna would welcome the change in their diet.

  “Hanna!” he called, waving to attract her attention as a flash of blonde hair popped up above the now-distant wall. “Look at this!” He waited until she’d scrambled over it, and had started trotting towards him, before returning his attention to the ruins of the cottage he’d found.

  Despite his g
loomy impressions of the previous night, it was clear that it was neglect rather than violence that had killed this place. The remains of the roof thatch lay tumbled across the floor, but most of the walls were still intact. The wood of the window frames had succumbed to rot for the most part, and the door hung crooked from a single hinge, which gave way as he pushed gently at it. The slab of boards fell to the ground with a crack like a falling tree branch as it split into several sections, the wood dry and powdery within.

  “Is it safe?” Hanna asked, materialising at his elbow. Her cheeks were flushed from running, and she smelled pleasantly of light perspiration and the plants she’d crushed on her journey.

  “I don’t know,” Rudi replied, edging inside. The stonework was slick with mildew, and a couple of roof timbers lay on the ground inside. Where the floor had been the ubiquitous bracken had seeded itself, so everything felt faintly springy underfoot.

  “Is there anything here we can use?” Hanna wondered, venturing in after him. Rudi glanced around.

  “I doubt it.” Other scavengers had obviously been here before them, and taken anything worth having. A few broken boards, half buried in the encroaching scrub, hinted at long-decayed shelves or furnishings, but anything they’d held was long gone. Hanna nodded, reluctantly.

  “Best eat and get going, then.”

  “I suppose so.” Rudi followed her outside, and took a last look around. “Do you see that?”

  “See what?” She followed his pointing finger with her gaze, and shrugged. Rudi walked a few paces to confirm his guess, and nodded.

  “There’s a track here. Or was, at least.” The bracken here was different; it was shorter and patchier, marking a line across the moorland he could follow quite easily. “It must lead somewhere.”

  “You said that about the stream,” Hanna reminded him. Rudi nodded.