by ich du
Reiner retreated back behind the pillar as red-beard's blade splintered it again. Behind the giant another Kurgan screamed and tumbled into the water. The others turned. Ulf was behind them, wading into them, maul swinging. Reiner gasped, amazed at the big man's agility on the treacherous framework. He seemed more at home there than on solid ground. All those years clambering up and down scaffolding, building fortifications, Reiner decided.
For a foolish moment, as another Kurgan fell victim to Ulfs maul, Reiner thought the engineer might win, but more and more Kurgan were climbing over the rail. There was an endless supply of them. The battle could not be won.
'Tied off, captain.' said Pavel, behind him.
'Tie my waist.' Reiner dodged another cautious blow from red beard and backed up. He felt Pavel's hands go around his waist. 'Ulf!' he bellowed. 'Fall back! Abandon the bridge!'
'No!' shouted the engineer. 'I must strike just one blow!' He dodged back from two Kurgan, then slipped around the far side of a pillar, ending up behind them. 'Jump!' he called. 'Everyone jump! I will join you.'
Red-beard leapt forward and lunged at Reiner. Reiner jumped back desperately and evaded the blade by a finger's-width, but lost his balance. His feet flew out from under him and he fell backward. He had a brief flash of Pavel flailing, and then icy black water closed over him. The current yanked him down river like a giant hand.
The answer to whether Pavel had finished tying him off came almost immediately. He jerked to a brutal stop, the thin rope biting painfully into his waist. Something slammed into his left side. Pavel. The current stretched them out in the water like men side by side on a rack. The cold was unbearable. Reiner fought to bring his arms down and grab the rope. He tried to raise his head out of the river. The water split at his chin like the prow of a ship. It filled his mouth.
Reiner at last caught the rope. He pulled, and rose a little from the water. He sucked air. Pavel was struggling to do the same at his side. Reiner let go with one hand and grabbed him behind the neck. He nearly fell back again for this kindness, but Pavel at last found the rope and they both got their shoulders above the waves, though the strain was considerable.
To his right, Reiner could see that Oskar, Franka, Hals and Giano were in the water as well, all together in a knot at the end of their ropes. They were tantalisingly close to the landing and were straining to reach it. A Kurgan splashed by between them, trying to swim, and Reiner looked back at the bridge.
The cannon had nearly reached the north bank again, with slaves pushing and pulling at it fore and aft. Below them, Ulf was swinging at a support post in the centre of the bridge as Kurgan climbed toward him from all directions. He struck a mighty blow that Reiner heard above even the noise of the water, but the post remained in place. He swung again, but a Kurgan leapt at him and spoiled his aim. Then they were all around him, slashing and thrusting. Ulf took a cut in the shoulder, another in the leg. He roared and swung in a circle, knocking three Kurgan into the drink. Five took their place.
Pavel began pulling at the rope, trying to climb toward the bridge, against the current. 'Curse the lummox!' he cried. 'Pull, captain! We have to help him!'
'Ulf!' screamed Reiner. 'Jump, you fool.'
Ulf laid about him like Sigmar-in-the-pass and amazingly, for a moment, the Kurgan fell back before him, uncertain on the precarious struts. With a desperate, all or nothing swing, Ulf bashed the post again, a terrific smash that jarred it loose at last. It spun out of place and bounced down through the joists and beams to splash into the water.
The Kurgan under the bridge froze, looking around uneasily. At first it seemed that nothing would happen, then the bridge groaned like a dyspeptic giant. Another post fell out of place and dropped into the river, then another.
With a roar of rage, one of the Kurgan leapt at Ulf, bringing his sword down like a headsman's axe. Reiner watched in horror as the stroke chopped down through the engineer's collarbone all the way to his heart, causing an eruption of blood.
Ulf was dead, but it seemed that, by slaying him, the Kurgan had slain the bridge as well, for as Ulf fell, so did the span, twisting and collapsing with a slow grace.
'The damned fool,' said Reiner, swallowing hard. 'I told him...'
The bridge sagged first in the centre, and then disintegrated all along its length. On the north side the overseers were screeching at the cannon slaves to pull faster, but the great gun was still on the planks, and began rolling back down the swiftly steepening incline, dragging slaves and Chaos marauders with it, until at last its weight proved too much for the remaining supports, and it crashed through into the drooping understructure. The cannon crushed Ulf and the Kurgan warriors and took them and the bridge with it as it plunged into the river with an enormous splash.
A huge swell of water rose and began rolling down the river as the cannon's daemon mouth sank below the waves like some sea monster in its death throes. Reiner felt the tension on the rope around his waist slacken as the bridge became free-floating debris, all of which was heading their way.
'Brace yourself!' Reiner cried to Pavel, and risked a glance toward Hals, Franka, Oskar and Giano. They were just pulling themselves onto the landing. Franka lay gasping on the flagstones. Giano was trying desperately to get a leg up. Then the wave hit, covering the landing in a waist deep blanket of water. As he was lifted and tossed about on the swell, Reiner saw Franka and Giano swept off the landing and back into the river with Oskar and Hals as if by a broom.
Their only piece of fortune - if it could be called that - was that the wave pushed the four toward Reiner and Pavel; almost drove them into them in fact. Reiner had to raise his hands to fend off Oskar's knees as he whirled past him.
'Catch them!' Reiner called to Pavel. 'Hold 'em fast!'
He and Pavel grabbed at the spinning mass of limbs and torsos. Through the splash and foam, Reiner locked eyes with Franka. He grabbed her arm and pulled her close. Pavel had Hals by the collar.
'At least,' choked Giano, spitting water, 'we all die together, eh?'
'Watch out!' shouted Franka.
Reiner looked back, and almost had his head caved in by a huge log rising and turning on the swell. He kicked it away and another struck him in the back. The remains of the bridge were bounding past them, tumbling and knocking together with great hollow thuds, ropes like spiderwebs tangling them together.
A rope caught Oskar across the chest, jerking him forward, which in turn dragged his companions. Hals pulled the rope up and over Oskar's head. The artilleryman was barely conscious. Hals and Pavel tried to hold him out of the water, but they were sinking as well.
Reiner caught a rope-draped log and clung to it. 'Climb on! All of you.'
The light, which had been dimming quickly as they sped away from the Kurgans torches, went out entirely as the river took them around a bend. Reiner pulled Franka to the log by feel and she threw an arm over it. Reiner heard the others doing the same as the current swept them further into the darkness at a terrifying speed.
SIXTEEN
Fellows Of The Brand
THEY CLUNG SILENTLY to the log as it hurtled through the deafening black, the sound of their gasping breaths lost in the rushing roar of the river. All of them were too cold, too battered and too frightened to speak. There was no room in Reiner's head for wondering what might happen next, for making plans. He was a rat, clutching at flotsam, trying to keep his head above water, fighting for one more breath, all higher thoughts gone, surrendered to the unconquerable animal instinct to hold on to life while there was yet strength in his limbs.
Other pieces of debris glanced off them, causing fresh cries of pain and fear, and they careered bruisingly into the walls as the river whipped them around corners, each time making Reiner think that they had crashed into the invisible obstacle that would at last break their bodies and crack their skulls.
His brain was so numb that he failed to wonder what the steadily growing roaring in his ears might mean until he and the log and hi
s companions flew helter skelter down smooth, stairstepped rapids and plunged into a roiling boil of leaping water.
After a frightening liquid battering, the log resurfaced and Reiner found that they were floating in relatively calm water. When he had caught his breath, he raised his voice. 'Are we all here?'
'Aye, captain,' said Pavel.
'Here.' said Franka.
'And where might here be?' grumbled Hals.
'We are swallowed by the dragon,' said Oskar. 'He will use us as fuel for his fire.'
'Shut you mouth, crazy man,' said Giano angrily.
From the echoes they seemed to be in a large cavern. There was still a current, pulling them insistently along, but there were no waves. A hollow knocking - almost musical - came from their left. It sounded to Reiner like enormous wooden wind chimes banging together.
Reiner had been in the cold water for so long he hardly felt it anymore, but he had a dangerous urge to sleep, to let go of the log and drift away. He shook himself.
'I don't suppose anyone's tinder is dry enough to...' He paused as the roar of the rapids, which had been growing gradually quieter, got louder once again. 'Are we coming to a second set of rapids?' he asked.
'I don't believe so,' said Franka, her teeth chattering. 'For the other sound is still to our left.'
The rapids roared in their ears and they were splashed with spray, then after a moment the rumble once again diminished, while the wood-on-wood sound remained a constant.
'We are travelling in a circle,' said Reiner, his stomach sinking. 'We are caught in a vortex, a whirlpool.'
There was a short silence as this sunk in, then Pavel spoke.
'So what's to be done? What d'we do?'
'Do?' Reiner laughed mirthlessly. 'My dear pikeman, we are doing it.'
'But captain,' said Hals uneasily. 'You must have a plan. Y'haven't failed us yet.'
Reiner cursed inwardly. Damn them and their confidence in him. In his mind he had failed them at every turn. Why couldn't they see it? 'I'm sorry, lad. I'm fresh out.'
The sound of the rapids came and went again, but this time not so loudly, while the hollow wooden knocking grew slowly but steadily louder. The current was getting stronger as well, pulling them around the vortex more and more quickly, while at the same time tugging them down as well. Their tired arms were finding it harder and harder to hold onto the log.
'Is no shore to swim?' asked Giano querulously.
'I know not.' said Reiner. 'But feel free to explore.'
The Tilean didn't seem so inclined.
As they passed the sound of the rapids for the sixth or seventh time Reiner noted a strange phenomenon. The surface of the water was not level. It sloped away on their left like the side of a soup bowl, and now the wooden knocking was drowning out everything else.
'The bridge.' said Reiner, understanding at last. 'All the timbers have gathered here, but wood doesn't sink.'
'Oh!' Franka cried. 'It's pulling me down!'
'By Sigmar.' said Hals. 'It has me too!'
'Hold fast!' Reiner cried, though he knew now it was hopeless.
The current pulled almost straight down now. Their log slid down the side of the soup bowl and smashed end-on into the others as they spun in a violent circle, held forever in agitated equilibrium in the centre of the vortex by the current that pulled them down and their buoyancy that forced them up. The impact jarred Reiner so hard his teeth snapped. He lost his grip and was instantly sucked down the whirlpool's maw. The swirling logs bludgeoned him as he sank, but he was soon below them, pulled inexorably down, as if some sea-serpent had him by the legs and dragged him to its underwater lair.
Once again animal instinct overcame him, and though he knew that struggle was useless, he clawed at the water, trying desperately to swim to the surface, to reach air again, while his lungs screamed in fiery agony.
The current angled suddenly sideways and his shoulder struck a rocky surface hard enough that he almost gasped. He was dragged into an airless tunnel, scraping along the rough roof at a furious pace. He could feel his clothes, and then his skin shredding. All became a jumble of pain and speed and disorientation. He knew not if he was alive or dead, cold or hot, in pain or unable to feel anything at all. Red lines wormed across the blackness of his vision. A rapid thumping pounded in his ears. His chest felt as if it were being crushed in a vice.
And then, suddenly, there was air.
And he was falling.
Into water.
Again.
THE FIRST THING Reiner thought when he broke the surface was, 'What is that Sigmar-cursed light?' For a unbearable brightness seared through his eyelids. Then he began coughing violently, retching out great quantities of water as he paddled his arms to stay afloat. He could hear others around him doing the same. His eyes watered. His nose ran. His throat felt like he had swallowed broken glass, but at last he cleared his lungs and looked around.
He and his companions were bobbing in a small mountain lake, surrounded by tall pines. A high waterfall dropped to the lake from a cleft in a crag. A pair of ducks skimmed into a landing on the water. He was outside. The bright light was the sun, setting over a carpet of evergreens. They were out of the tunnels at last!
Pavel gurgled beside him. 'Captain, I... Hals is... I can't...'
Reiner looked at him. The pikeman was thrashing around, trying unsuccessfully to keep his head above water. Hals floated face down beside him, not moving. Beyond them, Oskar was calmly paddling one-handed for the shore, while Franka and Giano recovered themselves.
'Giano, Franz,' called Reiner. 'Can you swim?'
'Aye,' they said in unison.
'Then help Pavel to shore.'
Reiner caught Hals around the shoulders and turned him face up, then swam him to the nearest landfall, a muddy bank, thick with rushes.
As they reached the shallows Pavel crawled out under his own power and Franka and Giano helped Reiner drag Hals out and lay him on his side. Reiner pounded him on the back.
For a moment Hals didn't move, and Pavel sat watching anxiously. But at last, with a violent convulsion, the pikeman began coughing and spewed an alarming amount of water out onto the mud. Reiner held his head until he was through.
'All right, pikeman?' asked Reiner.
Hals looked at him with bloodshot eyes. 'I'm... never bathing... again.'
Pavel grinned with relief. 'And why should ye start now anyway, y'old goat?'
Reiner patted Hals's shoulder and stood, looking at them all. He shook his head. 'A sorrier lot of wretches I have never seen.'
Hals laughed. 'Yer no beauty yerself, captain.' He sneezed and shivered.
They were all shivering. Franka's teeth were chattering uncontrollably and Reiner realised that his were doing the same. Tremors racked his body. His fingers were blue. Though there were buds sprouting on the nearby dogwoods it was only early spring yet, and they were still high in the mountains. 'Any missing fingers? Any bones broken?'
They all shook their heads, but it was clear that they had all been badly battered by the river and the vortex. Hals has lost his crutch. Pavel's eye-patch was missing and his eye socket gaped like a red cave. Oskar had a fresh wound on his brow. Giano's forearm was badly scraped and Franka's shirt was newly red, as if the gashes she had received from the warhound had reopened.
Reiner squinted at the nearby mountain tops, looking for familiar landmarks. 'Have we any idea where we are?' he asked.
Hals sat up and looked around. 'It don't look familiar,' he said. 'But by the sun we must be on the southern face of the Middle Mountains'
Reiner nodded. 'Wherever we are, we must find shelter. We need to dry off in front of a fire before we all catch our deaths.'
'There's chimney smoke down the hill, captain,' said Oskar. 'And do you still have the bottle?'
Reiner was loath to give Oskar any more of the juice. It already seemed to have him in its clutches, but he'd been most helpful of late. He put his hand in his jerkin. The vial
was gone. 'Sorry, old son. I've lost the bottle.'
Oskar swallowed, and nodded. 'I see. Very well.' He hugged his arms and shivered.
Reiner coughed and sniffed. 'Right. Come on, you lot. Let us go take advantage of their hospitality, whoever they are.'
The party got to their feet and began limping and staggering down the piney slope.
Reiner looked back at the waterfall. It was as high as three houses. He shook his head. It seemed incredible they had survived.
'Water is a softer landing than rock.' said Franka, reading his thoughts.
Reiner grimaced. 'Not by much.' They started after the others.
Reiner stole a sidelong look at the girl, who walked contentedly beside him. Curse her for being so companionable, he thought. It was unnerving for a woman to be so easy to get along with, so much like a friend, and yet so...
He shook his head, trying to dislodge the image of her standing before him, naked to the waist.
IT WAS ONLY a short walk to the village - a good thing, for none of them were capable of a long walk, and they were ill-equipped to face any danger they might come across. In addition to being lame and sore, they were almost entirely unarmed. Though Reiner had his pistols - but no powder or shot - and he and Giano still had swords, the river had taken almost everything they hadn't lost earlier. Giano's crossbow was gone. Oskar's long gun, Franka's bow, Pavel's spear, Hals's crutch-that-was-once-a-spear, all lost in the darkness of the underworld, leaving them with only their daggers.
They reached the village just as the sun disappeared behind the mountains and the landscape shaded to purple. At first, as they came upon it through the trees, it seemed a quaint place, strangely untouched by the war - a few small stone and shingle cottages tucked in a fold of hills by the stream that wound away from the lake. Smoke rose from a few chimneys.
Reiner heard Franka choke back a sob beside him.
'It's so much like home,' she said, recovering herself.