'Now, I've never actually met the young man in question, so would any of you gentlemen care to confirm that this is indeed the mortal remains of the missing Brother Wollen?'
That wasn't even nearly funny,' Vido complained, taking another long gulp from Konniger's hip flask, hoping that the strong Bretonnian brandy would help wash away the memory of the swollen-faced corpse lurching towards him out of the sarcophagus. 'And you still haven't explained what this is all about.'
Konniger sat beside him in the richly upholstered interior of the coach, looking out of the window as they galloped at breakneck speed through the dark and empty streets of predawn Altdorf. Everything had happened so fast since the discovery of Brother Wollen's body and Vido - even with the benefit of his master's fine taste in spirits - was still struggling to catch up with the subsequent chain of events.
He remembered the look on the face of the Chief- Archivist, the old man still too shocked to object as Konniger took command of the situation and requisitioned his personal coach and a retinue of cathedral guards. He remembered the race through the corridors of the Archives and the sight of the coach waiting for them in the courtyard above, with Konniger barking one single command, The river-docks, and quickly!' to the liveried coachman. And now they were almost there, the chill river mists outside growing thicker as they neared the wharves. From outside Vido could also hear the clatter of horses' hooves on the slick cobblestones, a retinue of guard cavalry riding alongside the coach.
'Araby,' Konniger said by way of a reply, still gazing out into the misty gloom. Vido thought he could see the first blush of dawn light through the fog. 'As I said before, everything in this affair connects back to Araby. I should have realised the growing danger when that young fool Wollen first wrote to me asking my help in identifying one particular Araby hieroglyph.' As he spoke, his finger traced quick strokes through the condensation on the rough glass window of the coach. Vido leaned across the seat, seeing nothing but a meaningless jumble of intersecting lines and squiggles.
'I feigned ignorance, advising him to drop the matter and pursue other, more promising subjects of research. Had I thought about it more closely, I would have realised that he had already guessed its meaning and was merely seeking confirmation of his secret discovery.' Konniger abruptly wiped his hand across the window, erasing all trace of the symbol he had described there.
'That symbol, was it the same as the one on the seal of the missing clay jar?' Vido ventured.
'Indeed,' Konniger replied. 'One of the most potent symbols of Araby magic, put there centuries ago to contain the spirit of the desert daemon imprisoned within the jar.'
Vido coughed, spluttering up a mouthful of brandy. Ancient Araby magic... Imprisoned desert daemons... What had the master got them into this time?
'I first knew for sure what we were dealing with when I saw the garrotte wounds on the throats of those dead guards,' Konniger continued evenly. 'Only one group I know kills in that distinctive style, and only one thing would have brought them this far north from their desert lairs.'
Vido took another healthy swig from the hip flask, knowing that whatever Konniger was going to say next, it definitely wasn't going to be to the halfling's liking.
'I assume you've never heard of the Cult of Ishmail, Vido? Few outside of Araby have. They worshipped the foul gods of Chaos, and daemons walked freely amongst them in human form. Their power was finally broken centuries before the Bretonnian crusades when a combined army of Araby tribes laid siege to their mountain fortress.
'The fortress finally fell, with a cabal of sorcerers defeating the cult's daemonic masters. These creatures could not be destroyed, but were instead imprisoned in magical vessels, which were then carefully hidden the length and breadth of Araby. But remnants of the cult still survive to this day, dedicated to finding these magical prisons and releasing the daemons contained within.'
Vido hesitated, trying to take all this in. 'So the clay jar in the archives was one of these, um, things, stolen by some Bretonnian knight during the crusades and eventually ending up here without anyone ever knowing what it really was?'
Konniger looked at him expectantly, waiting for his manservant to progress to the next logical link in the chain of events. Realisation suddenly dawned in the halfling's eyes.
'Wollen! Wollen must have recognised it and got word to these maniacs about what he had discovered and where it could be found. But Ranald's eye, why would he have done that?'
Konniger sat back in his seat, rubbing his eyes in weariness and accepting the proffered hip flask from Vido. 'For gold, most likely. He seemed an ambitious sort, and wouldn't have been content as a mere novice-scribe.
'No, he dreamed of life as a great sage and scholar, but scholars need books and expensive libraries, and the freedom to be able to continue their work without worrying about where the next purse of gold crowns is coming from. After providing the Ishmailis with details of one of the secret routes into the archives, he probably thought it was just going to be a straightforward robbery. I imagine, when he saw the guards being garrotted, he belatedly began to realise what his own fate was going to be.'
Konniger drained the last of the contents of the flask, absent-mindedly tucking it away within one of the many inside pockets of his voluminous Kislev-style cloak. 'Alas, as he found to his cost, those who would sup with the servants of Chaos should bring a long spoon to the feast.'
Vido was still puzzling over that last comment - 'Konnigerisms' he called them - when he heard the loud rumble of the coach wheels trundling across thick wooden planks. A bridge, he realised. We're crossing the river. Then that must mean we're almost at the-
'The docks!' he said suddenly. 'You haven't explained why we're going to the docks!'
Konniger smiled before replying. 'You know I study with great interest the comings and goings of the river traffic along the Reik. In a place such as Altdorf, it often pays to know just who or what is entering or leaving the city. Why, just two days ago, I noted the arrival of an Araby merchant caravel and thought it strange that such an exotic vessel - a rare sight even in the port of Marienburg - should be found this far upriver.'
Then the thieves-' interrupted Vido.
'Are already safely back aboard with their stolen cargo and preparing their flight from the city,' Konniger nodded. 'The river gates guarding the harbour are closed during the hours of darkness. They have had to wait until first light to make their escape.'
Vido glanced out of the window, noting the look on the face of the startled watchman at the entrance to the harbour as a full squad of cavalry and a coach bearing the coat of arms of the Church of Sigmar thundered past him. Beyond, Vido could see the harbour itself, with rows of river barges sitting waiting at the loading quays, and the telltale smoke stack of one of the new river steamers firing up its boilers in readiness of an early morning departure.
And there, silhouetted against the rising sun, he saw the outline of an unfamiliar-looking vessel which was even now slipping away from its moorings and heading towards the open river gates...
Vido suddenly panicked as he felt the coach door swing open before him, threatening to send him spilling out of the compartment. At the same time he felt Konniger grab him by the scruff of the neck, safely pulling him back in just as the sage himself leaned fully out of the open door and called out to the figure riding at the head of cavalry group. 'Herr Captain. The river gates! Secure the river gates and close up the mouth of the harbour!'
The soldier raised a mailed fist in acknowledgement, already leading his men towards the gatehouse containing the mechanism that opened and shut the river gates. Two of his men had died at the hands of the thief-assassins, and Vido didn't doubt the man's determination to stop the killers' getaway.
'Will that be enough to stop the ship escaping?' Vido asked in trepidation, noticing that Konniger was still standing at the open door of the speeding coach and hadn't yet relinquished his grip on his manservant's cloak collar.
'I doubt it. It will take several minutes to wind the river gates shut again, and by that time the Araby ship will have left the harbour.'
Oh no, here it comes, thought Vido, feeling Konniger's grip tighten on his collar and shutting his eyes in anticipation of what he knew was going to happen next.
'We've got to get aboard the ship and slow it down,' Konniger said, as if he were announcing a sojourn to the nearest alehouse.
And then they were falling, tumbling out of the speeding coach as it rattled along the quayside. Vido kept his eyes tighdy shut, thinking of the many sharp and hard-edged objects that usually littered every harbour he'd ever seen, and then the breath was knocked out of him as they landed on top of a large pile of grain sacks. Whether Konniger had known it had been there or not before jumping was something the halfling would never learn, because they were already on their feet and running up one of the wooden jetties. Ahead, Vido could see the even now sleep-dulled crew of a river barge loading barrels into the hold of their vessel and, just beyond, the sleek shape of the Araby vessel, sliding into view.
'Faster!' Konniger yelled, redoubling his pace and actually picking up his manservant and bodily carrying him down the jetty.
The crew of the river barge visibly gawped at the apparition that suddenly appeared before them - the Empire's most distinguished scholar-sage, with his cloak spread out behind him, halfling hanging from his arm, charging out of the morning mist and leaping aboard their ship. Konniger didn't break stride, running across the deck, snatching a boathook out of the hands of a dumbfounded bargeman and using it to pole-vault straight over the other side of the vessel.
He landed sure-footedly on the deck of the caravel as it eased past the moored barge, the shock sending Vido tumbling from his master's shoulders. Vido rolled, absorbing the impact of the fall with the natural agility of a born cat burglar. Vido jumped to his feet, alert to everything around him and drawing the two cutpurse daggers that he habitually kept hidden inside his doublet.
Old habits die hard, he thought grimly, and now's where we see whether nearly breaking my neck twice in the last half-minute has been worth the effort.
The question of whether or not they had landed on the right vessel soon became an academic point, Vido thought,
as just about every Araby crewman in sight charged at them in attack. Konniger expertly swung the boathook as if it was a quarterstaff, using the strange but effective fighting style that he claimed to have learned from a travelling wise man from legendary Cathay. Vido didn't know anything about that, but he did know that Konniger could break heads with the best of them when he wanted to. The weapon in Konniger's hand was a blur of motion, parrying sword blows, jabbing into vulnerable nerve points or connecting hard with turban-covered skulls. The crew of the Araby vessel retreated, leaving three of their number lying unmoving on the deck at Konniger's feet.
Lurking forgotten on the sidelines of the battle - a skill he'd spent years perfecting - Vido saw a dark figure hanging from the rigging above Konniger's head. Its face was hidden by the same kind of dark veil worn by many of the crew and Vido saw the razor-edged glint of the garrotte wire in its hands as it leaned out above its intended victim. Two blinks later and the assassin tumbled from the rigging, one of Vido's finely-balanced throwing knives buried hilt-deep in its throat.
'What are you doing, you Moot-born cretin?' was the bellowed response from Konniger. 'I'm doing the fighting. You're supposed to be doing something to slow down this damned boat!'
Vido cursed, noting that Konniger's shout had alerted just about everyone else aboard ship to his presence. One of the crew turned and ran towards him. Vido couldn't help but notice the writhing mass of tentacle tattoos that covered most of the Chaos cultist's body, but on the whole his main attention was fixed on the bloodthirsty look on the man's face and the heavy scimitar blade in his hand. Vido ducked, avoiding the swinging scimitar, and rolled between the cultist's legs, stabbing upward with his one remaining knife as he did so. A loud but satisfying scream told him that his assailant could look forward to a new career as a harem guard at the court of one of those fabulously wealthy Araby sultans he had heard tales about.
Now what? Vido asked himself, rolling clear of the falling body of the cultist and finding himself at the pointy-shaped front end of the ship. I'm a halfling. I come
from a race with a long and proud tradition of staying well away from wide open stretches of water, so what do I know about boats? He paused for a second, kicking over a barrel into the path of another group of cultists running up the deck towards him.
Think about it, Vido, came a voice in his head that sounded worryingly like Konniger's, as he watched the cultists either fall over the obstacle or slip in the spreading pool of oil and pitch that came sloshing out of the barrel as it rolled along the deck. Boats have big sail things to make them go when it's windy and those oar things for when it's not. So what do they have to make them stop?
One of the cultists leaped over the spreading pool of oil and came at Vido with a garrotte wire wrapped round his lists. Vido neatly sidestepped, tripping his attacker with an outstretched hairy foot. The cultist fell forward, smacking face first into a rope-wound capstan wheel at the side of the deck and setting it into rapid motion. Vido heard the ominous splash of something heavy falling off the front of the ship, followed closely by the scream of the cultist as he became entangled in the unwinding rope and was catapulted over the side of the ship.
'Bravo, Vido!' came a bellow from Konniger. 'Even if they manage to weigh anchor again, it'll be too late to escape from the harbour!'
Although clueless about what Konniger was talking about, Vido was distracted enough by his master's unexpected praise to almost miss the flaming missile that buried itself into the deck a few feet away from him. An arrow, he realised. One of those gung-ho cathedral guard types on the shore was aiming for the sail and trying to set it on fire. As Vido watched, the burning arrowhead set light to a pool of spilled pitch and oil, instantly creating a flickering trail of fire that sped along the length of the deck heading straight back towards-
'Master! Look out!' Vido screamed, throwing himself forward over the trail of flame just as it reached the stack of barrels where he had been standing. He rolled through the circle of cultists surrounding his master and cannonballed straight into him, knocking Konniger's feet away from under him.
Vido, what in Morr's name do you think-' was as far as the outraged sage managed to get before the ship's prow erupted into a roaring ball of fire. Vido pinned Konniger to the deck as a wave of flame heat washed over them. One of the Araby cultists, wreathed head to foot in flames, stumbled past, screaming and blindly clawing at the burning air around him. Searing gobbets of oil and pitch rained down all around them, setting alight the rest of the ship or landing hissing and spluttering in the waters of the harbour.
Vido felt the deck lurch beneath him as the shattered front end of the ship sank into the water. Well, at least the water will put the fire out, he consoled himself, before a loud splintering sound announced that the burning mast and sail were about to collapse on top of them.
Vido grabbed Konniger, dragging him across the deck towards the side of the ship. Konniger shrugged him off, pointing towards the open hatch of the cargo hold. 'The daemon jar! It's somewhere down there! We must recover it! We must ensure that it is returned to a proper place of safekeeping. Somewhere where the Ishmailis can never again find it!'
Vido stared in disbelief at his master, noting that Konniger was oblivious to the fact that his own cloak had been set alight by the falling hail of burning oil. Vido glanced at the entrance to the cargo hold, tongues of flame already leaping from the open hatch, and then at the burning mast looming over them.
Quickly calculating the odds between two different ways to certain death and the chance of continued living, Vido made his move, taking firm hold of his master and pushing him hard over the side of the ship. Vido hit the water a
heartbeat later, showered in a cloud of firefly-like embers sent up as the burning mast and rigging collapsed and crashed through the decking of the ship.
Swallowing his first mouthful of harbour water, Vido remembered an important fact that his subconscious had been carefully blocking out until now.
Halflings can't swim!
'Bleeauuugh!' Vido leaned over the side of the rowboat, vomiting up another stomachful of foul-tasting water and vowing to take issue the next time he heard some drunken
riverboatman singing one of those alehouse songs about the dean clear waters of the rolling River Reik.
For his part, Konniger sat at the stern of the boat the cathedral guard had launched to rescue them, staring gloomily at the burning wreck of the caravel as it finally sank below the surface. 'Maybe all is not lost,' he said, speaking for the first lime since the two of them had been pulled out of the water. The harbour mouth isn't so deep. Maybe the wreck could be raised and the contents of its hold still be recovered.'
One of the oarsmen on the boat looked up, shaking his head in disagreement.
'Not very likely this time of year, sir. Spring thaw's got the river swollen to bursting, and them strong undercurrents come right under the gates and into the harbour and sweep away anything lying on the bottom. Whatever you were after, I he river's got it now, and old Father Reik don't give up anything he's got until he's carried it right past Marienburg and out to sea.
'No, sir, neither you nor anyone else will be finding that cargo again.'
Vido looked up, hacking up the last of the river water and catching the look of sudden realisation in Konniger's eyes. '"A proper place of safekeeping" you said,' the halfling murmured.
'Somewhere the cult can never again find it,' echoed Konniger. And the oarsmen continued rowing towards the shore, wondering why their two battered, burned and half- drowned passengers were both suddenly bellowing together with laughter.
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