by J. K. Swift
He stood up and stared down at the man. He clung to the side of the boat with only the tenuous grip of his fingertips.
“No please! I got a family. Like I said, it was just orders.” He was so cold he no longer shivered, but his words flowed slowly, like winter cream.
Thomas shook his head. “Orders you chose to follow. You have taken sides, and I can respect that.” Thomas hefted the heavy oar in his hands. “But forgiveness is another matter.”
“God, please…” Thomas cut off the man’s words by bringing the oar down hard on his head.
***
It took only a few moments to set the sail and get the boat moving towards the figure standing on the edge of the lake. Thomas worked the steerboard with one hand and used the soldier’s helmet to bail water from the bottom of the boat. Soon he was tossing the bowline to Ruedi, who deftly secured it around the exposed roots of a crooked pine tree growing too close to the water’s edge.
“This was not exactly what I had in mind when I suggested we go hunting, you and I Cap’n. But I must say, you do flush out interesting game.”
Thomas stepped ashore onto a large flat rock and the two men embraced, and then Thomas wasted no time in quizzing Ruedi on what he knew of Seraina’s whereabouts.
“You saw what happened in Altdorf?”
“Saw enough. I came very close to shooting Gissler through that mutinous heart of his.”
Thomas shook his head. “If you had I would still be in chains on this boat, and you beside me. Did you see where they took her?”
“Aye Cap’n. Gissler threw her into a cage wagon then him and the Duke took the north road out of Altdorf. They will be taking her to Habsburg I imagine.”
Thomas nodded. With the fortress in Altdorf still under construction, the Habsburg castle was the safest place for a member of the royal family. If they reached the castle with Seraina, Thomas knew he would never see her alive again. Leopold and his clerics would try her as a witch and torture a confession from her. And if she survived the tortures, she would be burnt at the stake. He had to get to her before they reached Habsburg.
As though reading his mind, Ruedi said, “We had best be off then. She looks to be a fast boat. If we leave now we may be able to cut them off at the Kussnacht. Be just like old times, eh Cap’n?”
Thomas placed a restraining hand on Ruedi’s shoulder to stop him from climbing into the boat.
“I would like nothing more old friend. But I need this boat as light as possible. She will not make the speed with two of us.”
Ruedi looked at the boat and then back at Thomas with a hurt look in his eyes. But he knew Thomas was right. Gissler and Leopold had too much of a head start. He removed his belt, with its dangling hook on the front for working a crossbow string, and gave it to Thomas. Then held out his crossbow and two bolts.
“These are all I got left. Gissler and Leopold were riding, and there were two soldiers driving the wagon.”
“Thanks, friend. You have come through for me more times than I can count.”
Ruedi’s lower lip trembled just enough to be visible beneath his red moustache and beard.
“Now you listen to me Cap’n. This is the best crossbow I have ever owned. Made by a Genoese master, and I will be expecting it back, so you heed what I tell you. You shoot Gissler with your first bolt. You shoot from behind cover and without him ever seeing you. If you miss your first shot you take him out with the second. Pay no mind to the other three until Gissler is down. You hear me Cap’n?”
Thomas looked into Ruedi’s pleading grey eyes and was overwhelmed with the impression his friend was saying goodbye.
Chapter 37
SERAINA SAT hunched in the low wagon, her eyes fixed on the narrow, hard-packed road through the carriage’s barred rear door. Occasionally she heard voices above her but could never make out the words as the iron-rimmed wheels rattled and ground out the miles, snaking a ponderous route along the heavily treed coastline of the Great Lake.
She closed her eyes, ignoring the pain of her cracked lip, and focused on the trees. It took a great deal of time to still her mind and tuck away the emotions clawing to the surface, demanding to be acknowledged. Mile upon mile passed, and she knew with every passing moment she was careening closer to Habsburg Castle. Further from Schwyz, her people, and from Thomas, if he yet lived.
She clenched her teeth and bit down on her split lip, letting the pain clear her mind and refocus her energies. He was alive. She was sure of it, but she needed all her strength if she were to ever see him again.
She focused on her breathing and allowed her body’s rhythms to merge with the swaying movement of the wagon. Then, when she was ready, Seraina closed her eyes and reached out to the trees.
She pushed her essence beyond the rolling cage that would keep her imprisoned, and found herself hovering outside the wagon; free, but unable to move, as though still tethered to her physical self. Her spirit kicked and screamed, grasping at every branch and leaf whipping past in a desperate attempt to disengage her spirit form from her body. She grew weak, and felt the cold iron bars press up against her back, threatening to pull her back within her prison of flesh and bone once again.
Then wind caressed her cheek. It danced through her hair, and brushed away her tears, and without warning, snatched her away, sweeping her straight up the side of a tall pine. Breathless, she floated high above the world on clouds of green.
The strength of the natural world replenished her spirit. Invigorated, she leapt and pirouetted from one lush dome to another, rejoicing in her freedom. On some distant plane she was aware of her physical body collapsing onto its side, and the scent of moldy straw and human excrement invaded her senses for a moment. But then she turned her face to the sun and leapt to hover above the leaves of a giant cherry tree. She laughed and gazed over the canopy of the forest. The tops of the trees undulated far into the distance like gentle hills, but then they began to move and reform. The treetops took on the shapes of heads, in a crowd of giants, gathered to admire the azure waters of the Great Lake shimmering below. And off to the right, rising higher than them all, were the ancient Mythen Mountains, majestic mates of stone and earth.
Seraina felt herself whisked forward along the green-topped crowd until she hovered a thousand feet above the shore, the edge of the forest rustling at her feet. Movement caught her eye. Farther away than any human eye should be able to see, a speck marred the perfect blue-green waters. Tiny, inconsequential, yet Seraina could not pull her eyes away. She tried to avert her gaze, but there was something about that speck she knew she should remember.
Thomas.
She fell to her knees. The stink of the prison wagon filled her nostrils once again and the bruises and cuts on her body sapped her strength and called out, begging her spirit to return. She clasped her hands together at her chest, and not knowing what else to do, called upon the Mythen.
***
The wind was not with him. Thomas angled the bow of the boat as close to the wind as she could manage and sat high on the edge to keep it flat on the water as he pulled the sail in tight. After a few minutes of making decent headway across the water, he pushed the steerboard away from him and ducked under the boom to sit on the other side of the boat. The boat shuddered as the heavy boom swung across the boat and snapped into place with the sail once again filling with wind.
He continued tacking back and forth across the point of the wind, his eyes fixed on a stand of trees on the shoreline far ahead in the distance, at a spot where he knew the road ran close to the water’s edge. If he had any chance at all of catching up to Gissler, it would be there.
At that point the road narrowed before branching into two, with one route continuing along the shore of the lake and the other pushing east, leading away from the water and further into the Kussnacht, and eventually, to Habsburg Castle. If Gissler made it past that fork, Seraina would be lost to Thomas forever.
He focused on making the tightest turns possible, makin
g the most of the feeble wind. Only the faintest tendrils of white floated across the blue sky and the slight breeze rippled the top of the water without breaking it. The horizon was not coming fast enough. In his heart he knew he would not make it. The boat was fast and well built, but he was running out of time.
Still, he would not give up. His mind raced with calculations and angles, trying to come up with alternate scenarios that would get him across the lake faster.
At the front of the boat, tucked into the bow was a cache of supplies stored under an oiled leather tarp. Most probably water and foodstuffs, perhaps a few tools for making emergency repairs. Whatever the items were, they were heavy and keeping the bow of the boat low in the water. They had to go, but he could not let go of the rudder without losing speed. Sailing into the wind required constant minute adjustments on the steerboard to keep the speed up, or worse, to prevent the boat from capsizing. What he really needed was a steerboard extension.
After tacking yet again, he wrapped the sail line around a cleat on the side of the boat to hold it in place. He picked up one of the oars and lashed it onto the steerboard, effectively extending it by the entire length of the oar. He tested it by moving a few feet away and steered the boat to see how she responded. Satisfied, he freed up the sail, tacked once more, and cleated the sail into place once again.
Moving quickly, he picked up his sword and scrambled to the front of the boat. He cut the restraints on the tarp and threw everything overboard he could with one hand, while he held the steerboard steady with the other hand. It was awkward and a balancing act, but it worked well enough. The items turned out to not be foodstuffs after all, but were sets of mason and carpenter tools: mallets, chisels, drawknives, and such. Thomas threw out half the items before deciding he needed to go back to the rear of the boat and tack again in order to stay on course.
The bow rode higher now that it was lighter, and after one more trip up it would ride higher still. Thomas tacked and was scrambling under the sail to the leeward side when the boat leaned heavily and almost capsized as a sudden gust of wind caught the sail. He eased off on the steerboard and scrambled to the high side to bring her back into contact with the water. The boat settled down and flattened out with the redistribution of his weight.
Thomas allowed himself a breath. It took a moment for his heart to stop hammering. If he capsized the boat now, there would be absolutely no way to make up the time.
He had almost lost her.
Looking around him, he noticed the ripples in the water had grown into small whitecaps. Preoccupied as he was, he had failed to recognize the change in weather. Turning his face to the sky he was shocked to see a bank of clouds rolling in fast. There had been no sign of them earlier.
Within minutes the entire sky was smothered in billowing grey clouds with dark, swollen underbellies. This was like no storm he had ever seen. It had to be a föhn, one of the unnatural warm winds that blew over the Alps. The locals had warned him to never be caught out on the lake when a föhn appeared.
Well, it was too late to heed that advice.
He felt the first drop of rain and tightened his grip on the sail line. The whitecaps grew and the water bubbled like some great titan stirred it from below.
I have my wind now, Thomas thought, his face grim. He looked out over the churning water and swallowed.
The gale blew so fierce it drove the rain hard against his skin, leaving painful welts like one of the sandstorms of the Levant. He had seen all manner of weather in twenty years on the sea, but never the likes of this. One moment the sky had been clear as far as the eye could see, and the next the storm waged around him, the unnatural wind changing direction and swirling without notice.
Thomas was convinced God had set his wrath against him. Was it because he fought to save Seraina? Was she truly Lucifer’s servant as Leopold had called her? Thomas threw back his head and shook the water from his eyes. He shouted into the gale in defiance, his voice registering in his ears as a whisper.
Thomas made his way to the center of the boat, using the long oar extension to steer. Then he jumped up onto the side of the boat, balancing there for a moment to get a feel for the wind. He took up the slack in the sail line and looped it under the backs of his legs in a makeshift harness. When he was ready, he trimmed the sail and adjusted the steerboard until the boat lurched ahead and its one side lifted out of the water. With his feet perched only on the four-inch wide side of the boat, Thomas leaned flat out above the water in his harness. He tweaked the steerboard in small increments, and the boat leveled out and shot across the waves.
Thomas yelled in terror and exhilaration.
If this was God’s attempt at sending him to Hell, He was about to be disappointed.
A wave caressed the back of Thomas’s hair, as though reaching for him, but he raced by far too fast. With the dark waters heaving and jumping around him, a terrible laugh escaped from his lips.
He screamed at the elements and at God, both in equal measure, like a man possessed by some malevolent spirit.
Chapter 38
“SHE IS A QUIET ONE. Hardly made a sound since we took her,” Gissler said to Leopold.
The two men rode side by side in front of the wagon. The Duke had kept to himself since Altdorf, and Gissler had hoped the long ride to Habsburg castle would have afforded him the opportunity to broach the subject of when he could expect to see his new horses. His first task would be to hire a farrier, as Leopold had mentioned before. He needed someone dependable, who knew about breeding, but would not drain his purse too quickly. He would have to ask around, for he knew very little about what constituted a good farrier.
“What did you say Gissler?”
“The woman. She’s been quiet, my lord. Perhaps we should check on her condition?”
Leopold grunted. “No need. She lives, for her kind do not leave this world so easily.”
The forest road was narrow, more a path really, that had been carved into the sloped land by centuries of use. As the driver slowed the wagon to navigate a switchback, a crossbow bolt caught him high in the chest, lifting him off the bench seat and depositing him deep into the foliage where he disappeared from view.
When Gissler heard the distinctive twang of a crossbow tickler being released, his instincts forced him low over his mount’s neck at the same instant the guard took the quarrel in the chest. Ignoring the panicked shouts of the other soldier in the wagon, he scanned the woods and whispered to his horse to keep her calm. Thirty yards to his left he saw a man bent over. He stood up stiffly, using his body to pull a heavy crossbow string back with a hook on his belt. The man straightened and Gissler found himself locking eyes with Thomas.
Impossible.
Leopold was shouting something but he did not comprehend the words. How could Thomas be here?
Thomas slotted a bolt into the crossbow and raised the heavy weapon to his shoulder. He pulled the trigger. The second man on the wagon screamed as the quarrel tore into his abdomen, slamming him back into the seat and careening off the side to land on the hard road. Thomas threw his crossbow into the woods and picked up a sword at his feet.
After a quick glance around, Gissler relaxed slightly and sat up in his saddle. Thomas was alone. Leopold pulled alongside Gissler and grabbed his arm. The Duke’s eyes were wide and wild.
“That man is all that stands between you and a life of nobility. Finish this, here and now and I swear you will be ordained a Knight of Austria on this very day.”
Gissler looked into Leopold’s face, searching for deceit, but saw none. The young Duke gave him a knowing nod and gestured at the wreck of a man running to the back of the prison wagon. He cleaved the lock off the door with a single swing of his blade.
Gissler stared at the man who stood between him and his future. He looked like a survivor of a hellhound savaging. Water and sweat ran off him in torrents. His tunic was in tatters and did little to cover the bruises and cuts on his arms and upper back that he had suffere
d at the hands of his captors. His left eye was hideously swollen, and a crusted-over cut above it threatened to reopen at any moment. Added to this was the ever-present scar marking the entire side of his face. He appeared more apparition than man.
The soldier with the bolt in his belly lay on his side and groaned. His hands pressed over the entrance hole of the shaft, while the bulk of the wooden missile extruded from his back with only the leather vanes still lodged somewhere within his torso. Every few moments he would let out a gurgling scream of pain.
The noise was beginning to irritate Gissler.
Thomas kept his eyes focused on Gissler and Leopold while he walked over to the pain-ridden soldier. He placed the tip of his sword in the hollow between the moaning man’s collarbone and the left side of his neck. He leaned on the blade, and the woods became silent.
The girl stumbled from the wagon like she was drugged and Thomas went to her. He caught her as she collapsed, and eased her to the ground. He gave the two mounted men a dark stare and took a few steps toward them, moving remarkably well, considering his appearance. Ten paces away he set the point of his sword into the hard-packed earth of the road and rested his hands on the pommel. Leopold’s horse whinnied, and danced to the side a couple steps until the Duke reined her in.
Gissler dismounted and drew his blade.
“What happened to you Thomas? Since when did you become protector to the Devil’s spawn?”
“Say what you will, Gissler. But we both know why you are doing this. And it has nothing to do with the Devil.”
“Spare me your lectures, Captain. Is it so wrong to want a better life for yourself? I have served God as well as any man and I will not be judged by the likes of you.”
“You have traded your allegiance to God for that of a man.”
Gissler laughed. “And you think serving the Hospitallers was so much more? We fought and died for French nobles, not God. The knights were all blue-bloods who saw us as little more than dogs.”