“It was my own fault,” he said cheerily. “I saw some feverleaf growing a bit off the path, and hopped across to get it. Then I saw some spleenwort a bit further out. Before I knew it I was out of sight of the track, and twisted my ankle trying to jump back. If this lad hadn’t come along, I’d have been swamp bait for sure.”
“Shallya must have sent him, right enough,” Ranulph agreed, slapping Rudi on the back and passing him a hunk of bread dripping with honey. “They say she looks after the feeble-minded.” Gofrey bellowed with laughter.
“Then she’ll have her work cut out around here.” He took a deep draught of the mug of mulled ale that someone had handed to him. “Ah, that’s better. It was a bit chilly out there in the dark.”
“Did you see any monsters?” a child asked, tugging at Rudi’s trouser leg. Swallowing a mouthful of bread, he shook his head.
“Nothing we couldn’t handle,” he assured the girl, with a wink at the assembled adults. “They all ran off when they saw there were two of us.” The simple pleasures of conversation and goodwill were almost intoxicating. The morning was fine, growing brighter and clearer by the minute, and the food in his stomach seemed astonishingly reviving.
“So where’s my patient?” Gofrey asked, pulling clear of the little knot of excited villagers. “First things first.”
“On the boat.” Ranulph pointed to the wharf, where the Reikmaiden still lay. At the sight of her, Rudi let go a breath he hadn’t been aware he was holding. Shenk would undoubtedly assume he was dead by now, and would have had no reason to delay his departure. As they walked slowly towards the gangplank, Rudi still supporting Gofrey for the sake of appearances, the captain himself appeared on deck.
“If you’re going to leave it to the last minute to come aboard every time, you might not make it as far as Altdorf,” he said mildly. Rudi nodded.
“I brought the healer. How’s Hanna?”
“Not much different,” Shenk said. “She’s stirring a bit, but she’s still asleep.”
“I’d better take a look at her,” Gofrey said, “since this young man seemed so keen to find me.” Rudi supported him up the gangplank, glancing around at the rest of the crew. Pieter waved a greeting, but Busch and Yullis could barely conceal their disappointment at his return. Ansbach wasn’t even bothering to try, glaring at him as if his failure to drown in the swamp was a personal insult. Berta and Shenk’s expressions remained neutral.
“She’s been quiet all night,” the boatwoman volunteered. “Then she started making these noises just after dawn.”
“What kind of noises?” Gofrey asked. Berta shrugged.
“Just noises,” she said. “You know, like people do when they’re asleep. I only noticed because she’s been so still before.”
“That’s a good sign,” the healer said, obviously reading Rudi’s apprehension on his face. “It means she’s coming out of it.” He beckoned to Yullis. “Can you get me some boiling water?”
“I suppose so.” The cook disappeared into the superstructure in the centre of the deck, and after a moment Rudi heard clattering noises coming from the galley.
“She’s down here,” Rudi said, indicating the companionway that led to the hold. Gofrey nodded.
“Then if you wouldn’t mind?” He held out a hand and let Rudi help him down the narrow flight of stairs, wincing a little every time he took his weight on the supposedly injured ankle. To Rudi’s unspoken relief, everyone else remained on deck, dispersing to prepare the Reikmaiden for departure.
At first sight, Hanna looked exactly as she had when Rudi had gone ashore the previous evening, but as he stepped closer to the hammock he saw her stir fitfully as if dreaming. Her breathing seemed a little deeper too, and her face rather less pallid than he remembered. He mentioned as much to Gofrey.
“Good.” The healer nodded, his attention still fixed on the sleeping girl. “She’s definitely starting to recover. Anything else you can tell me?” Certain that they wouldn’t be overheard, since the echoes of the footsteps on the deck above their heads let him know exactly where each of the crew was, Rudi nodded.
“She cast a spell, a big one. Then she just collapsed.”
“I see.” Gofrey bent over Hanna’s recumbent form, examining her face minutely. Reminded of Gerhard’s scrutiny, Rudi fought down the urge to drag him away. “That would be after the witch hunter’s mark was removed?”
“Yes,” Rudi confirmed. The healer nodded.
“Remarkable. You’d never know it had been there.”
“It was as if all the power it had been blocking suddenly burst out of her,” Rudi went on. Gofrey looked up at him, an expression of puzzlement on his face.
“That’s what I don’t understand,” he said. “How could she possibly have survived for so long with that abomination in place?”
Rudi shrugged, unwilling to answer. The skaven’s stone wasn’t exactly a secret, but it was clearly a powerful charm of some kind, and Hanna had evidently bonded with it in some way. Perhaps Gofrey would want to take it if he found out about it, or if he touched it, it might harm Hanna by breaking the link. Magic was a strange and capricious thing, he knew, and far beyond his comprehension.
“She’s tougher than she looks,” he said truthfully, evading the issue. If Hanna thought that telling Gofrey about the stone was a good idea, she could do it herself when she woke.
“Evidently.” The healer pressed a hand to the girl’s forehead, exactly where Gerhard’s talisman had been, murmuring something under his breath. Alarmed, Rudi started forwards, but before he could intervene, Hanna sighed deeply, and her eyes flickered open.
“Who are you?” she asked, sounding puzzled rather than afraid. Rudi remembered she could recognise another magic user by sight. She sat up, awareness returning to her features, compensating for the rocking of the hammock with small, precise movements, and smiled at Rudi. “We made it then.”
“This is Gofrey,” Rudi explained. No point telling her where they were, she’d obviously recognised the hold of the Reikmaiden instantly. “He’s a healer, like you.”
“Not quite,” Gofrey said. He nodded formally. “My powers are far more limited than yours appear to be.” He turned to Rudi, and pulled some dried leaves from his bag. “Could you take these to Yullis, and ask him to infuse them for me? He must have boiled the water by now.”
Torn between the desire to help and reluctance to leave Hanna again, Rudi hesitated. The girl nodded.
“I’ll be fine,” she said. As he climbed up the companionway into the open air, the two mages began a hushed and urgent conversation behind him, none of which he could hear.
Rudi hurried through the errand as quickly as he could, but Yullis insisted on taking the time to infuse the leaves properly before they left his galley, and several minutes had passed before he was able to return to the hold. When he did, he was just in time to meet Gofrey emerging from the hatch.
“See that she drinks that,” the healer said. Turning away from Rudi, he waved at Shenk. “Just going ashore,” he called. “I’m sure I’ve delayed you quite long enough!”
“We’ll make up the time,” Shenk assured him. With a final round of waving and shouted farewells, Gofrey hobbled down the gangplank, and Pieter and Ansbach began to unship the hawsers holding the riverboat in place. Having nothing better to do on deck, and anxious about Hanna, Rudi negotiated the narrow steps as best he could with a steaming mug in one hand and handed the drink to her.
“Thank you.” Hanna was out of the hammock, and sitting on one of the barrels stowed all through the hold. She sipped the fragrant brew carefully, and regarded Rudi through the steam with narrowed eyes.
“Did he tell you he’d seen Greta?” Rudi asked.
“Yes,” Hanna said, nodding, as if it wasn’t really of any importance. Rudi felt a faint stirring of irritation.
“Did he say anything else?”
“We discussed my symptoms,” Hanna said, in a curiously flat tone that warned Rudi not to p
ursue the matter.
“I see.” Vaguely disconcerted, Rudi shrugged. “Would you like some fresh air? We’re just getting under way.”
“I’ll join you on deck when I’ve finished this,” Hanna said. Taking the hint, Rudi climbed out of the hold again, leaving her to her thoughts.
The air outside was crisp, and the sun strong on the open water, but his spirits refused to lift. By the time he found himself able to relax again, the riverside settlement and its enigmatic healer were both long out of sight.
CHAPTER SIX
The next week or so passed without incident, the sturdy little riverboat forging its way upstream while the landscape beyond the rail changed slowly into something more familiar. The ever-present swamp and heathland began to be dotted with trees, isolated specimens at first, stunted and windswept for the most part, and then clustering into copses of gradually increasing size. After the first couple of days Rudi began to see patches of actual woodland, his spirits rising incrementally with each canopy of foliage to come into view. The leaves were turning the colours of autumn, evergreens mingled with browns, reds and yellows, so that from a distance some of the trees might have been pillars of frozen fire.
“It’s beautiful,” Hanna said, as the Reikmaiden glided past a patch of forest that stretched down to the very banks of the river, making the water that reflected it appear to burn as it rippled with the wake of their passing. She seemed stronger, although she still hadn’t recovered all her former vigour, and Rudi felt quietly encouraged by her words. Since Gofrey had woken her she’d seemed more thoughtful and withdrawn, although her underlying strength of character was just as evident, and she’d shown little inclination for small talk. “Remind you of home?”
Taken by surprise at the question, Rudi could only nod. He could picture the scene under the trees all too vividly; almost smell the leaf mould, and feel the crispness of the frost-hardened leaves under his boots. That was where he belonged, he thought, in the tranquillity of a forest glade, not chasing all over the Empire avoiding murderous lunatics. Reading his silence, Hanna squeezed his hand for a moment.
“Sorry,” she said, “stupid question.”
“It’s all right,” Rudi said, touched by her solicitude. This was almost like having the old Hanna back, but without the propensity to sarcasm and the hair-trigger temper. He tried not to think of it as an improvement. He’d changed too in the last few months, more than he would have believed possible, and he wondered for a moment what alterations she’d noticed in him.
“Any idea where we’re putting in tonight?” he asked, hoping to cover the awkwardness. Hanna shrugged.
“I don’t suppose it matters,” she said, “they all seem pretty much the same.” Since leaving Nocht’s Landing they’d spent most of the intervening nights at similar riverside settlements, and passed many more during the days, anonymous little islets of habitation that slipped past the railing and vanished as if they’d never been. Some undoubtedly had. He’d seen a couple of decayed jetties too, clearly long abandoned, although who’d built them and why they’d left he had no idea, and he hadn’t felt much like asking any of the crew. On a couple of nights the boat had just kept sailing, forging through the dark, her running lights sketching her shape against the sky, but he knew that Shenk would rather lay up until the morning if he could. Gossip was the lifeblood of the river, and the news the captain gathered at these tiny settlements could be vital, and the steady stream of letters and messages the boat took on for forwarding at the next big town was a useful addition to her revenue.
“Wherever it is, we must be getting pretty close,” Rudi said, glancing back over the stern. The sun was low in the western sky, tinting the waters of the Reik the colour of molten gold, and he narrowed his eyes against the glare. “It’s almost dark.” Something seemed to be moving on the water behind the boat, but he couldn’t be sure what it was, his vision dazzled by the dancing reflections.
“What is it?” Hanna asked, aware of the subtle changes in his body language that indicated tension.
“I’m not sure.” He shaded his eyes with a hand, and , a dark silhouette resolved itself slowly, shimmering in the nimbus of light that surrounded it. “It looks like a boat.” Whatever it was, it was moving fast, slipping through the water like a predator. The image rose unbidden in his mind, a warning from his subconscious. The tiller was only a few yards away, Ansbach leaning against it, ostentatiously unaware of their presence as he adjusted the ship’s heading with small, precise movements. Rudi hailed him. “Ansbach!”
“What do you want?” the steersman asked, his tone making it abundantly clear that he couldn’t have cared less. Rudi gestured over the stern.
“There’s a boat behind us, catching up fast. Should we be worried?” He’d half-expected some sarcastic rejoinder, the deckhand pretending to think he meant the small rowing boat that trailed in their wake at the end of a rope, but Ansbach simply turned, narrowing his eyes against the glare, and nodded grimly.
“Yes.” He filled his lungs, and bellowed, “Stand to!”
The rest of the crew abandoned their jobs around the deck and ran to join them, Shenk emerging from his cabin, still fastening his coat.
“What is it?” the captain asked. Once again, Rudi marvelled at the transformation of the shabby little man, here in his natural habitat. He sounded crisp and incisive, every inch the leader that his crew evidently expected him to be.
“We’ve got company,” Ansbach reported, jerking a thumb in the direction of the stern. “Your friend here spotted them.” The last was delivered in a grudging tone, it was true, but Rudi appreciated it nevertheless. Shenk nodded. The approaching vessel was clearly visible, slicing through the water at a speed the heavily laden riverboat couldn’t hope to match. Its hull was lean and narrow, its sails rigged for speed, and it was closing fast.
“Typical pirate trick,” Shenk said, nodding his thanks to Rudi, “coming out of the sun at dawn or dusk.” He turned, running back to his cabin, and vanished inside.
“Don’t just stand there, arm yourselves!” Busch bellowed, and Berta, Yullis and Pieter scattered to find whatever makeshift weapons they could. That wouldn’t be much, Rudi thought. Most people in the Empire carried a knife, for eating, odd jobs, and self-defence at a pinch, but the crew of the marauding vessel would be far better armed than that, he was sure.
“Better get below,” Rudi said to Hanna. He’d been expecting her to argue, but she simply nodded, tight-lipped. She might be well on the road to recovery, but she was still in no condition to fight. They both knew that. Her spell casting abilities could turn the tide of battle easily, of course, and he pictured a bolt of magical fire like the ones that had consumed the skaven and Magnus’ mutants bursting on the deck of the approaching marauder with a sigh of regret. There was no way, however, that the young sorceress could use her abilities in front of the crew without betraying her secret, and if that happened, he had no doubt at all that Shenk would turn them in to the authorities, in spite of the debt he owed him. The captain wouldn’t risk being burned for harbouring a witch, however grateful he might have been to Rudi for helping him evade arrest back in Marienburg.
“Good luck.” Hanna turned, and disappeared down the hatch to the hold. Relieved that she was safe, at least for the time being, Rudi turned his attention to the immediate threat.
The pirate vessel was close enough to have lost the protection of the westering sun, its sails blotting out the sinking ball of fire, and Rudi began to make out some of the details. A cluster of men stood on its deck, pointing and gesticulating, clearly getting ready for combat. Shafts of light from the setting sun glittered off the swords in their hands, turning the blades the colour of blood, and Rudi drew his own.
“Hadn’t you better get a weapon too?” he asked Ansbach.
“I can’t leave the tiller,” the deckhand said, with the weary patience of someone explaining the obvious. “If we lose way, we’re done for.” He was clearly unhappy about this, and
Rudi could understand why. Standing at the stern, Ansbach was uncomfortably exposed, and would be unable to defend himself if he was attacked.
“I’ll cover your back,” Rudi assured him. Ansbach didn’t look as if he found that much of a comfort.
“Rudi!” Hanna’s head and shoulders emerged from the hold, his bow and arrows held aloft. “Here!”
“I’ll take them. Get below!” Shenk grabbed the weapon and quiver in one hand, the other holding the cutlass he’d returned to his cabin for, and sprinted across the deck towards Rudi. Hanna ducked out of sight again. “I hope you know how to use this.”
“I can use it all right on the land,” Rudi said. Needing both hands to draw the bow, he re-sheathed his sword, and shrugged the quiver into place across his shoulders. “How good are you with that wood chopper?”
“Good as I have to be,” Shenk said, with more confidence than Rudi had expected. He turned to call out to his crew. “Spread out, cover the deck. When they try to board, we’ll take them.” He took a guard position, slightly stiffly to Rudi’s practiced eye, but well enough to show him that the riverman actually knew how to use the weapon. The blade seemed to burn in the reddening light, picking out a few nicks along its length. That was reassuring too, Shenk had obviously used it successfully before.
“You sound confident at any rate.” Rudi nocked an arrow and drew back smoothly, seeking a target. He’d feared the faint rocking of the boat would throw off his aim, but he had his river legs, and found himself compensating for the motion as instinctively as all the other factors his conscious mind barely registered, following the advice his adoptive father had tried so hard to instil in him, he drew and loosed in one fluid movement, leaving it to the arrow to find the target without trying too hard to aim.
[Blood on the Reik 03] - Death's Legacy Page 6