Warhammer Anthology 07

by Way of the Dead

  ‘Enough, poet, enough.’ Villon again heard amusement in the stranger’s voice. ‘Your over-honeyed words are wasted on me. I had nothing to do with your fall from favour. It seems your past has caught up with you.’

  ‘My past, lord?’ Despite his innocent tone, Villon’s guts had suddenly started to churn. ‘By my troth I don’t…’

  ‘Keep your troth to yourself and stop treating me like the kind of preening idiot who gives a good damn about how others think of them.’ What sounded like genuine anger had replaced the amusement in the stranger’s voice. ‘Does the name von Klatch mean anything to you?’

  ‘Von… Klatch.’ Villon’s stomach had stopped churning and had begun a tumbling free-fall.

  ‘Madame von Klatch, it seems, has several brothers,’ the stranger continued. ‘One of whom attended the Graf’s soiree. His family name, and that of Madame von Klatch before she married, is Liebermann. The name Villon was well known to him before he came to Wallenholt.

  ‘Herr Liebermann has told the Graf much that he was unaware of regarding your past. He was surprised to learn that you have a reputation as an accomplished thief. However, when you begin your journey back to Marienburg tomorrow, you will be going to answer for the insult you paid Madame von Klatch. The Graf von Wallenholt knows better than to cross one of the Merchant Princes of Marienburg.’

  ‘This… This Herr Liebermann is mistaken,’ Villon stuttered. ‘He has mistaken my name for that of the thief of which you speak. Perhaps he is called Villain, or Villette, or-‘

  ‘I do hope not,’ the stranger interrupted. ‘If that were the case, I would have no reason to help you escape.’

  AFTER AN UNGUESSABLE amount of time in the dark, they came for him, manacled his wrists and ankles and led him up into the dawn.

  A donkey cart was waiting for them in the stable yard. They all but threw Villon aboard and clucked the donkey into rattling motion through the still-quiet streets. Villon was left to roll painfully about in the bottom of the cart, receiving a kick every time he rolled too close to the feet of one of the constables that had climbed aboard after him. It was, unfortunately, a very small cart.

  The slow-running Kleinereik fed into the Reik several leagues to the west and served as Wallenholt’s main trading route to the Empire. But the boat moored at Jetty Number Four, a river cutter that was flying a crest Villon assumed to belong to the Liebermann family, had more to do with politics than trade; it was going to take Villon back to Marienburg.

  Villon was able to swing his feet under him as he was rolled off the cart and, with the aid of an inelegant stumble-and-shuffle, he managed to stay upright. However, the over-zealous prod in the back he received from the chief constable’s short club almost pitched him into the dirt. With a constable keeping pace on either side, he shuffled towards the jetty.

  Looking about him, he saw that the quayside was not much busier than the rest of the town at this early hour. Another cutter had finished loading and its crew were in the process of casting off; another, two jetties along, was still being loaded. The door of the Rudderless Cutter, the tavern that catered night and day to dock workers and rivermen, stood open, though the lack of noise from within suggested that business was slow this morning.

  ‘It’ll be a long time before you see the inside of a tavern again,’ the chief constable snarled in Villon’s ear, then prodded him again with his club. ‘Get a move on. Your carriage awaits.’

  Villon continued to glance up and down the wharfside as he shuffled along the short wooden jetty. At least he didn’t have to invent some pretext for slowing his progress towards the cutter. He wanted to give the stranger - what had the Graf called him? Magister? - as much time as possible to make good on his promise.

  But, when his foot touched the lip of the gangplank that angled between the jetty and the cutter, Villon had to admit the possibility that the Magister had reconsidered his plan.

  ‘Curse you, man! I’ll not have anyone say that about my sister, even in jest!’

  ‘Get back, you blackguard, or I’ll do to you what I did to her - but you won’t enjoy as much as she!’

  ‘That’s it! You’re going to eat those words!’

  The sounds of an argument exploded into the still air. There was the sound of heavy footsteps on wood. Villon, one foot on the gangplank, craned to look over his shoulder.

  There were five of them, rivermen judging by their clothing. A couple of them still held flagons in their fists, though Villon had the impression that they had come from the opposite direction to the Rudderless Cutter.

  They were already on the jetty. The last of them to speak shoved another in the chest, forcing him to stumble backwards towards Villon and his escort. The aggressor chased after him; the others crowded onto the jetty behind him.

  ‘You men, stop that!’ the chief constable stepped away from Villon and pointed at the men with his club. ‘By order of the Graf, go home and sleep off whatever idiocy it is that you’re arguing about!’

  ‘You calling me an idiot?’ The riverman who had been pushed backwards along the jetty had regained his balance and turned to face the chief constable. Villon noted that he held a flagon down by his hip.

  It didn’t stay there for long. The crack of its impact on the chief constable’s skull was as loud as a musket’s report. The chief constable staggered, came close to stepping off the jetty’s edge, but recovered. Clearly the metal skull cap helmet that was regulation wear for the constables of Wallenholt had absorbed a good deal of the blow.

  The chief constable’s attacker stared for a heartbeat at the dented drinking vessel before hurling it aside. The constables were pounding towards him; his companions were racing to meet them. Villon didn’t envy him his position at the meeting point of the two opposing forces…

  The riverman dived at the constables’ feet, clearly hoping to trip them. Ready for him, they leapt over his sprawling body and continued their forward rush. Rolling to his feet, he looked around for another target. Unfortunately for him, his first target found him.

  Stepping close behind the riverman, the chief constable hooked his club under his chin and levered backwards. To avoid strangulation, the riverman managed to half-turn towards his assailant and they grappled, staggering back and forth across the width of the jetty, each trying and failing to hurl the other into the river.

  Behind Villon, the cutter’s crew looked on, unsure of whether or not their duties included going to the constables’ aid. Villon imagined that, if their sympathies lay anywhere, it would be with their fellow rivermen. Past the struggling figures of the chief constable and his attacker, one of the chasing group had already been launched into the river, courtesy of a well-timed blow from one of the constables, but the remaining two were meeting every one of the constables’ blows with one or more of their own.

  As yet, none of cutter’s crew had thought to complete Villon’s transfer to their vessel and Villon wanted to be far from the wharf before the thought occurred to them. The manacles made swimming impossible. There was only one way off the jetty: past both sets of combatants.

  Nervously, Villon shuffled away from the gangplank. Ahead of him, the chief constable seemed to be getting the upper hand. He paused, hoping to spot a chance to ease past them unnoticed.

  ‘You! Stay!’ the chief constable had succeeded in applying a head-lock to his opponent that looked at least halfway secure. Both hands occupied, he was relying upon the authority in his voice and the threat in his eyes to root Villon to the spot. Not about to be frozen like a frightened rabbit, Villon took another manacled step towards the wharf’s end of the jetty.

  ‘I said stay!’ The chief constable shot a clawed hand at Villon, who jumped backwards more vigorously than the manacles were designed to allow. Suddenly, he was falling, feet tangled in the manacles’ chains, hands clutching at air.

  The river folded itself around him, pushing foul-tasting water up his nose and down his throat. Eyes still open, the world suddenly lost focus and to
ok on a greenish tinge.

  Arms and legs pumping as best they could, he somehow broke the surface long enough to gulp down barely half a lungful of air. Then the weight of the manacles dragged him back under. As he kicked and clawed at the water around him, desperate to regain the surface, he had the dim sense of a sluggish current carrying him away from the jetty.

  Grey mist edged his vision as he redoubled his spastic, frog-like swimming stroke. This time, he managed to take a whole shuddering breath before the manacles’ dragging mass reclaimed him for the river.

  HE HAD NO idea how long he had been unconscious. He woke to the sensation of being lifted clear of the river’s dank embrace. Was he being carried to stand before Morr’s dark throne and be judged? He struggled to breathe, then coughed and what felt like a barrel’s worth of river water jetted from his throat. Somehow he didn’t imagine that his final journey would feel like this.

  ‘Alive then.’ Now he was flat on his back in some kind of rivercraft. Cracking his eyelids he could see the sides of the wooden hull rising over him. Something was hanging over him, he noticed. Fixing his bleary gaze upon it, he made out a face: pale eyes; black beard, neatly trimmed.

  The stranger moved away from Villon, who struggled into a half-supine position. He seemed to be in a smaller craft than the trading vessel moored at the jetties: narrow, shallow and fitted with a single sail, which the stranger was in the process of trimming, though there didn’t seem to be much point in raising a sail on a windless morning like this.

  Raising his head above the gunwales, Villon was surprised to feel that a wind had indeed sprung up and was filling the small sail. He also realised that, rather than heading downriver with the current, the stranger was steering the craft back towards Wallenholt. Hauling himself into an unsteady position somewhere between kneeling and crouching, he stared ahead: there was Wallenholt; there was the ship that was to return him to Marienburg; and there were the constables, standing on the jetty, waving as if they expected the stranger to steer his boat towards them. There was no sign of the argumentative group who, deliberately or otherwise, had facilitated his escape.

  ‘Master!’ he rasped out through a throat made rank by river water.

  ‘Magister,’ the stranger corrected, without turning his head. He seemed to be looking for something further upriver, past Wallenholt.

  ‘Magister,’ Villon added. The stranger seemed to be very particular about titles and Villon saw no profit in antagonising him. ‘While I am in your debt for rescuing me from the river, I confess I am surprised to find us returning to Wallenholt. Given our conversation in the cells, I had formed the understanding that you wanted to help me escape.’

  ‘We’re not returning to Wallenholt. Our path lies in this direction.’ The Magister pointed upstream. Wisps of river mist clung to the banks further upstream.

  ‘But the constables…’ The boat was close enough for the shouts of the frustrated law officers to reach it. Villon saw that the chief constable was engaged in animated discussion with a man Villon took to be the captain of the river cutter. The chief constable jabbed a finger at the craft in which Villon sat, feeling particularly vulnerable. The captain thought for a moment, then nodded.

  ‘They’re coming after us!’ The cutter’s captain was barking orders to his crew, orders which were answered at a run by his crew. On the jetty, the constables began to unfasten the cutter’s mooring ropes. ‘They’ll run us down!’

  ‘Not if they cannot find us,’ the Magister answered calmly. He pointed upstream. ‘It seems the river mist is especially persistent this morning.’

  ‘What?’ Villon couldn’t understand why the Magister should give a damn about the weather - until he looked past the low prow of the boat and saw that what had, only moments earlier, appeared to be faint wisps of mist had thickened and grown into a bank of dense white opacity that stretched from bank to bank. Nor was it simply sitting there. It was moving downriver towards them.

  The Magister’s craft had passed the Wallenholt Wharf. As it left the town behind, it seemed to be picking up speed, as if the wind that filled its sail was growing stronger. But, if the wind was blowing upstream, Villon realised, what was propelling the bank of mist downstream?

  Villon had no time to ponder this further. The combined speeds of the Magister’s boat and the mist brought the two together more quickly than might be considered entirely natural and Villon’s world turned white.

  ‘IN CENTURIES PAST, the Kleinereik was known for the peculiarity of its weather.’ The Magister handed Villon a key and nodded at his manacles.

  ‘Really.’ Villon got the impression that his rescuer didn’t really care whether or not he believed him. He got on with fitting the key to the thick metal cuffs that bound his wrists and ankles. They hit the soft, slightly boggy soil of the river bank with a muffled clank. The grey mare that had been waiting, tethered, on the bank - the opposite bank to that on which Wallenholt stood, at least a day’s ride downstream - shifted its weight and whinnied softly at the sudden noise. Villon offered the key to the Magister, who took it - then tossed it into the river.

  ‘Do likewise with the chains,’ he instructed Villon. ‘I prefer to leave no trace.’

  By the time Villon had gathered up the manacles and propelled them as far away from the bank as possible, given their weight and awkwardness, the Magister had reached into the boat and lifted out a set of saddle bags. He handed the bags to Villon.

  ‘In there you will find a map, some provisions and a small purse,’ the Magister said without preamble. ‘The map will guide your through the Reikwald Forest to a backwoods town which, I am informed, has become the base of operations of one Gerhard Kraus. Kraus is a bandit, nothing more, though he has ambitions towards respectability.’ He broke off to snort derisively.

  ‘I commissioned Kraus to acquire a certain… artefact,’ the Magister continued. ‘This he did, but subsequently reneged on our agreement, preferring to keep it for himself. In return for your liberation, you shall acquire that artefact from Kraus and deliver it to me.’ The Magister had turned his pale gaze on Villon. It was clear that he did not expect Villon to object.

  ‘What is it that you want me to acquire?’ Villon asked.

  ‘Oh, you will know it when you see it,’ the Magister replied. ‘It has a certain quality that you are sure to recognise, given your poetic sensibility.’ It was impossible to miss the weight of mockery the Magister loaded upon the word ”poetic”. ‘Kraus is a vain man who enjoys the flattery of poets. That and your talents as a thief shall be his undoing.’

  The Magister turned and stepped into the boat, unhitched its mooring rope from the overhanging branch to which he had tethered it and pushed away from the bank. As the boat began to drift downstream, this time obeying the river’s natural current, he looked up at Villon.

  ‘I shall travel to Altdorf and stay there for the next seven days,’ he said. ‘You will find me at The Broken Bough, on Karl-Ludwigplatz. ‘Do not disappoint me. Do not try to run. I will find you.’

  ‘I believe you,’ Villon replied - but the Magister had already turned to set his sail. That done, he settled into the stern of the boat, hand on the tiller. He didn’t look back and was soon lost to sight around the first bend.

  VILLON HAD HEARD his destination before he saw it: the sound of hammers, saws and shouted instructions.

  A wall of stakes, taller than two men, was being erected around the town. A closer look at the labour force over the next couple of days would show that the townsfolk were building the walls of their own prison, supervised by the bandits who had taken possession of their home.

  ‘Welcome to Krausberg,’ the taller of the two gatekeepers growled. Like his fellow, this man was heavily armed, heavily bearded and just plain heavy. He held out an open palm and growled again: this time informing Villon how much it would cost to enter the town.

  Villon paid the toll and was allowed to enter. He knew little about military matters, but the fortifications looke
d sturdy enough - though, he noticed the wall of stakes had yet to completely encircle the town. He made a mental note of the locations of the open sections, then made enquiries about the availability of a room for a weary traveller.

  With surprising shrewdness, Kraus had barracked his men in the homes of the townsfolk and left the town’s two lodging houses and its single inn open to accept paying guests. After visiting both guest houses, thus providing himself with an excuse for wandering through the streets, setting in his mind the locations of the gaps in the wall, he took the cheaper of the two rooms available at the inn.

  IT WAS SOMETHING Villon had done hundreds of times before: pretend to become the friend and drinking partner of someone he fully intended to fleece. The only difference this time was that he was pretending to become the friend and drinking partner of somewhere between fifty and seventy men simultaneously, in the hope that his hurriedly-assembled reputation would reach the ears of Gerhard Kraus.

  In the three days that had passed since his arrival in Krausberg, the man after whom the town had been re-named had not left the confines of what used to be the mayor’s house at the far end of the main street. Direct questions regarding Kraus had met with hostile, suspicious glares, so Villon had concentrated on entertaining his new friends with verses that had proved popular in the stews and taverns of Marienburg. Ironically, ”Madame Klatch’s Menagerie” proved to be the most popular of all.

  ‘KLATCH! KLATCH!’ VILLON wasn’t sure what the time was, but he was pretty certain that he had already recited that particular verse once already this evening. His audience, however, had decided what it wanted to hear.

  Holding up his hand for quiet, Villon prepared himself. Sweeping his flagon from the bar, he took a long draught, making sure to spill most of it down his shirt front in the process. Had he swallowed a fraction of what he appeared to have drunk, he would have been insensible hours ago. Placing the empty vessel on the bar, he took a breath.