Dieter, Adolph and Lampertus donned caps sewn with the badge of the Brewers’ Guild. Thus disguised, if one could call it that, they climbed back onto the wagon and drove on towards the northern gate.
As planned, they reached the immense arch, portcullis and iron-bound valves shortly before the soldiers who’d stood watch through the night were due to be relieved. Tired, the guards had little inclination to question any of the merchants and other travellers lined up in hopes of an early start. They simply waved Dieter and his companions through with the rest.
Lampertus twisted around and stared back at the metropolis slowly dwindling behind them. He’d probably spent his entire life in Altdorf, and was now trying to come to terms with the truth that he was unlikely ever to walk its streets again. Rather, he must now struggle to survive in a wilderness infested with bears, wolves, beastmen and countless other perils.
Dieter squeezed the coppersmith’s shoulder. “It will be all right,” he said. “Mann and his people will take care of you. You’ll be safe with them as you could never be in Altdorf. There, it was only a matter of time until the witch hunters came for you. Here, you’re going to live.”
Lampertus took a deep breath. “You’re right,” he said. “You got me out, I’m going to live, and I’m grateful. Thank you both.”
Adolph responded with a smile. “You’re welcome,” he said.
For his part, Dieter felt irrationally touched by the mutant’s jubilation, and envious of it too. What a wonderful thing it must be to escape! He certainly hadn’t. Even out here in the countryside, he was still enmeshed in a web of danger, deception and puzzles without answers, of fear, hope, ambivalence and unhealthy fascination. He drew what solace he could from contemplating the sky as it ought to look, with no tangle of spires eclipsing it and without smoke or smog besmirching it.
People spoke of raiders lurking just outside the city walls, but, of course, the situation wasn’t quite that bad. The capital rose amid a circle of farmland. It took all morning to cross the fields and reach the forest beyond. Uncomfortable as it looked, Lampertus eventually managed to stretch out atop the barrels and doze. The growth beneath his shirt switched back and forth like a cat’s tail, more active when he was asleep.
Adolph forsook the highway for a secondary road, and when it forked, took the narrower of the two branches. After every such choice, there was less traffic than before.
Late afternoon found them jolting along a track scarcely better than a game trail. Brush swished and rattled on the underside of the wagon, and walls of mossy tree trunks pressed so close on either side that the vehicle only barely had room to pass. Resentful of the hard going, the mules baulked repeatedly, and Adolph, no expert teamster, snarled obscenities and lashed them with the reins to goad them into motion once again.
“If the track gets any worse,” Dieter said, “we won’t be able to continue.”
“I know what I’m doing!” Adolph snapped.
Dieter resisted the impulse to take a similar tone. “I wasn’t suggesting that you don’t. After all, you’re the one who’s visited the raiders before. I’m just saying, I hope we didn’t overload the wagon.”
Adolph grunted. Then, after a pause, he drew back on the reins, halted the team, and said, “I admit, I thought someone would make contact with us before now.”
“Could the raiders have moved their camp?” Lampertus asked. The constant bumping and swaying had long since put an end to his napping. “Mama Solveig told me they sneak around a lot to stay ahead of the soldiers.”
“The Master has ways of keeping track of them,” Adolph replied, “and he told Mama this is the right area. Still, if something’s happened within the last day or so…” He turned to Dieter. “Is there any chance you can locate them with your magic?”
Dieter hesitated. “Perhaps.”
“Then give it a try. I’d rather sunset found us in Leopold’s camp, not alone and bewildered on the trail. The god’s children aren’t the only things living in these woods.”
“All right.” The branches arched and tangled so densely overhead as to virtually hide the sky, but Dieter recalled a better view a turn or two back down the track. The trick would be to take advantage of it without providing further evidence that all his magic derived from the heavens. “But I think I’ll focus better if I don’t have the two of you looking over my shoulder. Do you mind if I walk a little way back down the trail?”
He actually expected Adolph, ever avid to observe and master all the sorcery he could, to insist on accompanying him, but the scribe surprised him. “Fine. Lampertus and I will guard the wagon, just don’t go too far.”
“I won’t.” Dieter hopped down from the bench and hiked back the way they’d come. Even with the undergrowth clogging the path and making walking strenuous, it felt good to stretch his legs after hours of perching on a hard, unsteady seat.
When he sighted the patch of open sky, the tender spot in his forehead squirmed. No, he told it, I’m going to cast a spell, but not your kind—the kind I was born to cast. He took a deep breath, then declaimed the words of power and swept his hand through the proper passes.
The wind whispered to him and ran its cool fingers across his face. Grey and silver ripples streamed through streaks of wispy cloud to point the way. It appeared Adolph had been heading in the right direction after all. Dieter felt both relieved and disappointed, the latter because it would have gratified the spiteful part of him to inform the scribe he’d blundered.
Then, for just an instant, the streaming bands of dull and bright took on a crimson tinge, and though the resemblance was tenuous at best, Dieter instantly thought of blood flowing from an open wound. He stared, trying to read the significance of the additional and unexpected portent, but the manifestation ended before he could interpret it.
It indicated danger, that much seemed clear. He hesitated, wondering if a second casting would provide additional insight. But if the peril was imminent, it might be better to rejoin his companions as quickly as possible. He turned and ran back up the trail.
The wagon was still where he’d left it, with the mules standing stolidly in their traces. But at first he could see no sign of Adolph or Lampertus. He had to run closer before he spotted the motionless form all but buried in the brush.
It was Lampertus, unblinking eyes staring at the sky, mouth twisted. His deformity, a thick, warty tentacle terminating in a round, fanged mouth like that of a lamprey, had burst through his clothing but now lay flaccid and inert. Though disgusted by the unnatural growth, Dieter forced himself to kneel down to determine if the fugitive was still breathing.
He wasn’t. Something had killed him, although the cause of death wasn’t immediately apparent.
Dieter rose and turned, peering, seeing only rank upon rank of trees, wondering who or what was watching him. Wondering what had become of Adolph.
Adolph strode through the forest, trying to hurry but move quietly as well. He didn’t want Dieter to track him by the noise.
He still felt rattled from the close call he’d just experienced, and wished he’d had the prudence to open a wider distance between Lampertus and himself before hurling his shadow knives. But he’d expected the other man to go down instantly. Most people did.
Lampertus, however, hadn’t. Perhaps his transformation had made him inhumanly tough. He’d pivoted and rushed his attacker, and the eel-like growth on his chest had punched through his clothing to strike at Adolph like a snake. Adolph hadn’t expected such an assault, and it was pure luck that the tentacle hadn’t snagged him with that nasty ring of fangs.
He was lucky, too, that the deformity only had time for one bite. Then, at last, Lampertus’ legs buckled, and he swayed and toppled over backwards.
It was actually too bad about Lampertus. Adolph had had nothing against him. He’d even fell vaguely moved by the coppersmith’s gratitude. But a man had to do what was necessary to look after himself. It was simply the way of the world.
He reso
lved to put Lampertus out of his mind and concentrate on the next phase of his scheme. Everything was going even better than anticipated, for he hadn’t expected that Dieter would be obliging enough to wander off on his own and so facilitate matters, and in fact, the rest should be easy enough. The raiders knew and trusted him. Still, a ready tongue and an earnest manner would serve him well.
Suddenly a green and brown mass surged up in front of him like mud and liquefied grass and dead leaves flowing in defiance of gravity. It rapidly took on a degree of definition, sprouting limbs and a hairless bump of a head, but remained a sexless and unfinished-looking thing. It stuck a three-fingered hand inside its own semi-solid torso, extracted a javelin, and hefted it to throw.
“No!” Adolph said. “I belong to the Red Crown! I’ve seen you before. Don’t you recognise me?”
The sentry hesitated. “Red Crown?” it asked in a mushy voice.
“Yes.” He prayed the bandit understood. Sometimes the god’s mark diminished a person’s intelligence, and the guard appeared a case in point.
“Sweetmeats?” asked the sentry, peering past him. “Treats?”
“I brought supplies,” Adolph said, “but something’s wrong. I need to speak with the others immediately.”
The sentry simply stood, seemingly struggling to comprehend, until he wanted to scream at it. At last it said, “Come,” floundered around, and led him onwards, its boneless gait somehow awkward and flowing at the same time. With each step, it looked on the verge of collapsing and melting back into shapelessness again.
The raiders had pitched their tents, built their lean-tos, and dug their fire pits and latrines in what passed for a clearing in the dense and ancient wood. Many of the band were simply lazing about, and, curious, came scurrying when the sentry conducted Adolph into view. In moments he found himself surrounded by faces with beaks, scales, doglike muzzles, or set upside down so the mouth split the top, the nose was inverted, and the eyes blinked and shifted at the bottom. Voices, many barely intelligible, croaked, growled, and hissed greetings and questions. As Adolph had learned from past experience, not all such creatures stank, but enough of them did that when they clustered around him, the eye-watering funk was like the reek of a dirty kennel mixed with the foetor of a plague pit.
In other words, the bandits provided a glimpse of the glory that would reign everywhere once Chaos obliterated the conventional human world, and on previous visits, Adolph had always tried to rejoice in the promise they embodied—and to quash the weak, unregenerate part of himself that persisted in finding them hideous and dreaded the day when he too would change and join their company.
Today, however, both adoration and repulsion were beside the point. He needed to enlist the marauders’ help as expeditiously as possible. “Is Leopold here?” he asked.
“I am,” a shrill voice answered from overhead.
Adolph looked up just in time to see a grey-black bundle hanging upside down from a tree limb unfurl the furry wings wrapped around its body. Then the claws on its toes released their hold and it dropped, not to take flight as a true bat might, but to bound from one branch to another like a squirrel. Some of the boughs snapped beneath the considerable weight, but still provided momentary support sufficient to prevent a bone-shattering plummet all the way to the ground.
Leopold Mann landed with a thud. Despite his stunted legs and forward cant—leaning his weight on his knuckles, he generally used his arm-wings like crutches when he walked—he was so huge that his eyeless head with its enormous pointed ears showed above the heads of his followers even before they parted to make way for him. He swung himself forwards, the golden, wire-wrapped hilt of his greatsword gleaming above his shoulder and folds of alar membrane dragging on the ground like an overlong cloak.
“You look upset,” Leopold said, although how Adolph could “look” any way to a being without eyes, he couldn’t imagine.
“I had trouble,” he answered. “I was bringing you supplies and a recruit. A new member of the coven rode along with me. Mama Solveig thought it was time for him to meet you.”
“Go on,” Leopold said, still in the soprano voice that was so incongruous squealing from his barrel chest.
“He’s a magician, too,” Adolph said, “and he used a spell to murder Lampertus, the recruit. Then he tried to do the same to me. It all caught me by surprise, and I only just managed to escape.”
“Why would he do that?” Leopold asked.
“I don’t know.” Adolph hesitated, making a show of pondering. He didn’t want to seem too facile producing an explanation. “Unless… suppose he’s a spy, who infiltrated the Red Crown in the hope we’d lead him to you. As, to my regret, I did. But as we approached, his nerve failed at the prospect of actually meeting you. Perhaps he imagined that, what with all the amazing gifts the Changer of the Ways has given you, one of you would see through his disguise. At any rate, he decided that he’d discovered the general vicinity of your camp, and that was good enough. He’d kill his companions, flee, and lead the army back here to wipe you out.”
Leopold snorted. “We’d be far away by the time the soldiers came.”
“But only if you knew they were coming. If Dieter—the spy—had succeeded in killing me, too, you wouldn’t realise anything was amiss.”
“I suppose that’s true.” Leopold’s mouth was no longer shaped much like that of an ordinary human, but it managed something approximating a fang-baring leer. “Anyway, I don’t feel like moving camp just yet.” He turned to his followers. “Find the spy and kill him.”
And that’s that, Adolph thought.
Much as he would have liked to learn every secret Dieter might conceivably have taught, it had become clear to him that if he was ever to regain his privileged position within the coven, his woman, and, if he was to be honest with himself, his pride, the wyrd had to go. Yet he’d hesitated to attempt the deed with his own hands, partly because he’d acquired a healthy respect for Dieter’s powers and partly because he worried that Mama, Jarla and the others would suspect him if the hedge wizard turned up dead inside the city.
Fortunately, it was inconceivable that Dieter’s sorcery, formidable though it was, would suffice to fend off a small army of brigands, and afterwards, if anyone asked questions, the outlaws would support Adolph in his claim that his companion had been a spy. Having slaughtered Dieter, they could only assume the act was warranted. It was human nature to justify oneself, and Adolph was confident that even the most extreme transformations hadn’t cured his dupes of the habit.
As he watched them lope, hobble and even slither on their bellies in search of their prey, he had to clamp down hard to stifle a laugh.
CHAPTER NINE
Dieter stood beside the wagon watching twilight overtake the forest and wondering what to do. One of the mules tossed its head as though to convey scorn for his paralysis.
He felt the same way about it, or at least he had a restless sense that he ought to be pursuing some plan of action, that he was in danger, and it deepened with every moment he failed to put himself into motion. But since he didn’t understand what had happened, it was difficult to formulate an appropriate response.
Though he’d feared that once they entered the forest, Adolph might try to do him harm, what reason could the scribe have had to kill Lampertus? But if his companion hadn’t done it, who had, and either way, where was Adolph now?
Should Dieter search for the cultist, who might be waiting in ambush? Try to find the bandits, who didn’t know him and might not believe he was a Chaos worshipper? Flee back down the trail, forsaking the errand on which Mama Solveig had sent him and jeopardising his standing within the coven? Stand guard over the wagon and its contraband, and hope either Adolph or some friendly outlaw would happen along eventually?
Perhaps divination held the answer, and perhaps it ought to be a different spell than before. That would maximise the chances of it yielding insights his previous effort hadn’t produced, and in any case, with
anxiety and restlessness gnawing at him, the delay involved in going back down the trail seemed insupportable. He swept his hand through a pass and whispered the first line of the oracular spell he’d acquired from the dark lore. His forehead throbbed. One of the mules brayed, and, straining against the wagon’s brake mechanism, the team attempted to distance itself from him.
A javelin arced out of the trees and plunged into the ground mere inches from his right foot.
Even so, for a moment, he kept conjuring. He wanted to finish the spell, or perhaps, like a frantic lover unwilling to stop short of consummation, it wanted to be finished. But then the rational part of him screamed that more missiles were surely coming, that he was utterly vulnerable standing out in the open chanting and flapping his arms, and somehow he mustered the will to break off the incantation.
He dived to the ground, scrambled under the wagon, and crouched behind one of the wheels. Guns banged and flashed, smearing the air with their smoke. The barrage battered the wagon, cracking and splintering wood. Beer gushed from punctured kegs. An arrow hit one of the mules, and the animal stumbled and screamed.
The wagon provided insufficient cover, which soon would become even less adequate: Dieter could make out darting shadows spreading out to flank his position. He needed magical protection, and as soon as he conceived the thought, Chaos whispered, urging him to invoke its power as he stupidly, unthinkingly had before. Denying the impulse, he spoke to the heavens, and they cloaked him in the halo that had shielded him from the serpent of fire.
Thus armoured, he shouted to his attackers, who, though he had yet to see them clearly, he assumed to be the brigands. “Stop this! I’m an ally! A follower of the Red Crown! I’ve brought you supplies!”
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