“Looks like it’s just us then,” Ansbach said.
To his vague surprise, Rudi found the evening remarkably enjoyable. It had been a long time since he’d been able to savour the simple pleasures of socialising, and as the night wore on and the amount of ale they’d both consumed increased, Ansbach mellowed far more than he would have believed possible. The deckhand had a couple of acquaintances among the woodsmen, whose names Rudi never quite caught, but whose stories of life among the timber made him feel comfortably nostalgic for his former life in the woods around Kohlstadt, and who seemed gratifyingly pleased to have found a kindred spirit. Eventually, they went off to bed, and Rudi rose to his feet, swaying slightly, his head pleasantly clouded with the effects of the alcohol he’d drunk.
“We’d best be getting back too,” he suggested. Ansbach stood as well, a trifle unsteadily, and nodded.
“Reckon you’re right,” he said at last. The makeshift taproom was much quieter now, most of the drinkers left snoring quietly to themselves, their heads pillowed on forearms folded neatly on the ale-puddled tabletops or vomit-puddled floor, and only a few diehards continuing to besiege the bar. Now that Rudi could see it more clearly, it turned out to be another assemblage of crudely nailed-together planking. “Looks like it’s just us left.”
“Looks like,” Rudi agreed. He glanced around, looking for their companions, but Shenk had long since disappeared, and Berta had vanished too, leaving most of the participants of her drinking game snoring quietly in a heap of tangled limbs. “How do we get back to the wharf from here?”
“That’s easy.” Ansbach led the way outside, and pointed. “It’s down that way.” He stepped into the shadows. “Hang on a minute. Just need to make an offering to Mannan, if you know what I mean.” Stepping away from the relieved sigh and the sudden cloud of acrid-smelling steam that followed it, Rudi let his gaze wander around the logging camp. As he’d expected, the frost was hard, sharp pinpoints of starlight speckling the sky, and the silver disc of Mannslieb, the major moon, was crisply delineated like a hole in the sky. He amused himself for a moment looking for the shape of the rabbit in the softly glowing orb, as he had done as a child, and returned his gaze to the buildings surrounding them. Shards of frost glittered on every surface, painting the world silver, and he was able to see almost as well as he would have done in daylight. His breath puffed into little clouds that reflected the sheen of moonlight with every exhalation, and the bitter cold began to clear his head, although the alcohol he’d drunk insulated him from its worst effects.
As he waited for Ansbach to conclude his devotions, another glint of reflected moonlight caught his eye, and he turned, trying to find the source of it. For a moment he failed to see it again, and then there it was: a hard-edged glitter deep within the shadows cast by a nearby warehouse.
Something was moving, an indistinct mass, and then his night vision, which for so long had been muted by the ubiquitous lamps and torches of the city streets, reasserted itself. There had been no aids to vision growing up in the woods, and using them would surely have scared off the game he’d been after anyway, so for most of his life he’d been adept at distinguishing shapes in the darkness. This was a human figure, he was suddenly sure, wrapped in a cloak of some dark material. Why would anyone be hanging about outside on a freezing cold night like this?
His nascent suspicions flared up in earnest as a burst of raucous laughter echoed across the empty space, and the mysterious figure shrank back deeper into the shadows, as if fearful of discovery. Berta stumbled across the gap between two buildings, an arm each around the shoulders of a pair of lumberjacks, all three of them clearly in high spirits. A moment later, they disappeared, and the banging of a door cut off the second verse of a song about a goblin and a goat, which Rudi remembered being a perennial favourite among the drunk and disorderly cases he’d swept off the streets of Marienburg on a more or less nightly basis.
“Can you see that?” he asked, aware suddenly that Ansbach had just joined him. The deckhand shook his head, and tottered another pace forwards, unbalanced for a moment by the violent movement.
“See what?” he asked, and then his face cleared. “Oh, you mean the skipper?” Shenk was walking down the middle of the thoroughfare leading back towards the wharf, with the air of a man whose business had just been satisfactorily concluded, and who was looking forward to reaching his bunk. The shadow moved again, the glitter of moonlight striking out from it once more, and Rudi had no doubt at all that what he was seeing was the reflection of an unsheathed blade.
“Shenk! Look out!” He began to run, his sword hissing from its scabbard as he did so. Ansbach stayed rooted to the spot for a moment, his expression one of stupefied bafflement. Then he stumbled in Rudi’s wake, a good dozen paces behind the young forester, the gap widening with every misplaced step. He drew his knife from his belt regardless, flourishing it with drunken bravado, and a complete lack of comprehension.
“I’m right behind you!” he bellowed. “Anyone messes with you, they mess with me!” Rudi was by no means sure that this was reassuring, but it seemed to give the lurker in the shadows pause. A hooded head snapped round in the direction of the commotion, rapidly assessed the relative positions of Rudi, Ansbach, and his intended target, and made a swift decision predicated entirely on self-preservation. There was a sudden blur of motion, and the shard of moonlight left his hand, hurtling straight for Rudi’s chest.
As it had on so many previous occasions, time seemed to slow and stretch. Instinctively, without thinking, Rudi snapped his blade up into a guard position, parrying as if against a sword thrust, and the flung dagger rebounded into the darkness with a clang of clashing steel. He had what felt like several minutes to watch it spin away, shining like a silver comet, and to take in the assassin’s panic-stricken reaction to the failure of his attack. He wondered if a second knife was about to follow the first, but the anonymous figure simply turned and ran.
“Oh no you don’t!” Shenk tackled his would-be assailant with vigour and a degree of resolution that would have surprised Rudi before today, but the assassin was far more skilled in brawling than the riverboat captain. The black-clad figure slipped out of the boatman’s grip easily, with a vicious backhanded strike to the face. Shenk went down, and the assassin turned, clearly intent on finishing him. Rudi was just within sword’s reach of the man, and aimed a cut at his head, as intent on distracting him as on inflicting any actual damage, ripping through the cloth of the hood. It parted, revealing a glimpse of a nondescript face, indistinguishable at first sight from any of the lumberjacks inhabiting the settlement. Nevertheless, its owner turned away, continuing to conceal his identity as best he could.
“Hang on, skipper! We’re coming!” Ansbach roared, and the assassin hesitated again. With what sounded to Rudi like a sigh of irritation, the man suddenly turned and bent over, lashing out with a booted foot, which connected solidly with the side of the young forester’s head. Rudi staggered back, dazed and surprised by the unconventional attack. By the time he’d recovered, a second or two later, the black-clad figure was fleeing for the nearest patch of concealing shadow.
“That’s right, run!” Ansbach bellowed, flushed with victory. Shenk staggered slowly to his feet, the blood streaming from his nose appearing black in the silvery moonlight.
“Are you all right?” he asked. Rudi nodded.
“Fine. I just wasn’t expecting Bretonnian foot-boxing tricks.” Shenk raised an eyebrow, and pinched the bridge of his nose to stem the bleeding. “I rousted a few cheese-breaths in the watch,” Rudi explained. “First time I came across one who knew savartay, he nearly took my head off. How are you feeling?”
“I’ll live.” The captain watched curiously as Rudi stared at the ground. “What are you looking for?”
Rudi sighed in frustration. “Tracks, but it’s hopeless.” He’d been hoping the assassin had left enough traces to follow, but the frost-hardened ground was too solid to dent with fresh footprin
ts, and the thin film of glistening rime had been disturbed by pretty much everybody in the settlement. After a few yards the scuffmarks in the glowing white surface vanished, swallowed by the maelstrom of footprints left by the bed-bound revellers from the Floating Log. “What are you going to do now?” Shenk shrugged.
“Talk to Hanna, for a start,” he said, “and think very hard about asking for a bonus when we get to Altdorf.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Berta returned to the Reikmaiden just after dawn, ambling up the gangplank with an air of self-satisfied lassitude, and a cheery wave to the brace of swains who had followed to see her off. Catching sight of Rudi and Shenk on deck, she allowed her grin to widen.
“You were right,” she told the captain. “This is definitely no place for a lady. I might retire here.” Her expression changed slowly to one of puzzlement as she took in Shenk’s bruised face and dishevelled appearance. “What happened to you?”
“Someone went after my purse,” Shenk said shortly. “Luckily, Rudi was there.” Ansbach, who looked a little pale, said nothing, but seemed a trifle disappointed that his own contribution to the affray had been overlooked. Shenk looked his errant deckhand up and down. “If you’ve quite finished rutting your way through everything in britches, perhaps we could trouble you to do a little work? Help Ansbach get us under way.”
“Right, sorry Skipper, didn’t mean to keep you waiting.” Colouring slightly, Berta began to unship the hawser securing the bow to the dock, while Ansbach let go the stern lines in an equally desultory fashion. Busch glared from one to the other as if their hangovers were a personal insult.
“Look lively, the pair of you! Let’s try to get to Carroburg before we die of old age, shall we?”
“Yes, Herr Busch.” The two deckhands began to move a little more quickly, and within a few moments the strip of clear blue water between the wharf and the hull of the riverboat began to widen. Rudi watched the dock recede with wary eyes, trying to see anything out of the ordinary, refusing to relax until the Reikmaiden was at least a bowshot from the bank. Despite his trepidation, the mysterious assassin didn’t try to prevent them from leaving, apparently content to blend back into the life of the logging camp. He wasn’t sure that that was particularly reassuring, however. It meant that whoever he was, the Fog Walker was confident that another of his colleagues would be able to intercept the package that Shenk was carrying, further up the river. He said as much, and Shenk nodded.
“I know. But we should be in Carroburg tomorrow, and if we don’t put in anywhere along the bank tonight they won’t have another chance before we get there.”
“Unless they try boarding us again,” Rudi pointed out. Shenk shook his head.
“I doubt it. Their boat’s fast enough to catch us, no doubt about that, but after the bloody nose they got last time, they’ll think twice about trying it. I don’t think they’ve got enough people left anyway, we took out nearly all of them.” Rudi nodded.
“What happens when we get to Carroburg?” he asked. Shenk shrugged.
“We offload our cargo, take on whatever we can, and put out again before dark. Then we run through the night till we get to Altdorf.” He sighed. “I don’t like doing it, but after last night, there’s no telling how many more of them are waiting along the river.” He hesitated, as if wondering how much more to say, and then made a decision. Clearly he felt that Rudi had a right to know something of what was going on. “Besides, we’re supposed to meet our contact in Carroburg. With any luck he’ll take the damn thing off my hands there, and we won’t have to worry anymore.”
“Let’s hope so,” Rudi agreed.
In the event, the journey to Carroburg passed without further incident, although Rudi spent most of the day, and the following night, on the deck, his bow to hand, scanning the river for any sign of pursuit or ambush. Hanna joined him at the rail shortly after sun-up, and handed him a steaming mug of one of her herbal infusions. Rudi took the aromatic drink gratefully, and warmed his hands around it before sipping a cautious mouthful, aware of the need to keep his fingers flexible enough to draw a bowstring.
“At least we’ll be there a bit quicker than we expected,” she said. Rudi nodded, savouring the sensation of warmth that seemed to begin radiating outwards from his midriff as the drink began its work.
“Some time this morning, Shenk says.” As he spoke he found himself glancing forwards, looking for some sign of the city itself, although as yet the pale dawn glow showed nothing more than the endless forest, the few scattered settlements they passed still dark and apparently lifeless. There were no other boats to be seen on the water either, although several were still tied to the wharves on the bank. Running through the night was something most skippers would try to avoid if they could, if only because of the toll such a course would take on their crews.
Shenk had tried to minimise the strain, leaving only two hands on duty overnight, changing watches in the small hours and taking the tiller himself for most of the time. Watching him from his position by the rail, Rudi had had the distinct impression that the skipper had rather enjoyed the chance to take direct control of the sturdy little vessel. To everyone’s surprise, Pieter had insisted on taking his turn on deck, standing watch alongside the captain, although he was still too incapacitated to do much heavy work. At one point, when the sails had needed trimming, he’d had to ask Rudi to haul on the ropes under his direction.
“The others need all the rest they can get,” he pointed out, when Rudi had asked if he was up to the task. “They’ll need to stow cargo tomorrow.” He gestured idly with the arm that Hanna had strapped up in a sling, “and I can’t lift boxes with this thing on. So, I might as well make myself useful while I can.”
Yullis had relieved him some time in the small hours, taking the tiller from Shenk, while Busch took charge of the Reikmaiden for the rest of the night. Neither of them had felt much like conversation, and Rudi had dozed for a while, sure that he’d be woken in the event of another attack.
“Are you going ashore when we get there?” Hanna asked. Rudi shrugged. He hadn’t really considered the idea, although it did sound quite appealing now that Hanna suggested it.
“I might do,” he said. “Stretch my legs a bit. Find something to eat.” The Reikmaiden would be in dock for several hours while her crew offloaded the portion of her cargo bound for Carroburg, and Shenk tried to find something else to fill the gap in her hold with for the final leg of their journey up to Altdorf. Remaining on board, he strongly suspected, would only result in her passengers getting in the way. “How about you?”
“I think so,” Hanna said. “I could do with some exercise.” She glanced down at her dress, from which energetic laundering had failed to completely remove the staining acquired in Marienburg. “I might find something a little more respectable to wear. I’ll need to make a good impression on the colleges when we get to Altdorf.”
“I’ve been wondering about that,” Rudi said. “What are you going to do, exactly? You can’t just walk in off the streets and ask to be admitted, can you?” For the first time since her recovery, he saw her facade of easy confidence begin to crumble.
“I’m not sure,” she conceded at last, “but I still have my student’s accreditation from Baron Hendryk’s. I’m hoping that will be enough for one of them to take me seriously.”
“It’s worth a try,” Rudi said. “At least you can prove you were a licensed apprentice mage in Marienburg. That ought to count for something.”
“I hope so,” Hanna said. Then her mood lifted, with an obvious effort. “Still, we won’t be in Altdorf until tomorrow. There’s time to worry about that when we get there.” She held out a hand. “Finished with the mug?”
To his vague surprise, Rudi found that it was indeed empty, and that he felt more alert and energetic than he had any right to after such a long and relatively sleepless night. He nodded.
“Yes, thank you.” He handed it over, and watched her disappear into the galley, a
troubled frown on his face. From what Shenk had said, Altdorf was full of witch hunters as well as licensed mages. If none of the colleges would offer her sanctuary, it was the most dangerous place in the whole Empire for Hanna to be heading for. Not that he would be particularly safe there either, having been condemned as a heretic, however unjustly.
Despite that thought, he felt a rising sense of excitement and anticipation that even his most pessimistic forebodings couldn’t quite suppress. The answers he so desperately wanted lay in Altdorf, and he was only a day away from the place where his quest would end. It was with an unexpectedly light heart that he resumed his position at the rail, alert for his first sight of Carroburg.
Rudi hadn’t been sure what he was expecting to see when the city finally came into view, but his initial reaction was one of complete astonishment. Marienburg had been a low-lying metropolis, built on the chain of islands at the mouth of the Reik, and with a few exceptions, like the colossal span of the Hoogbrug, most of the rooflines had been more or less even. Carroburg, however, loomed over the river like a man-made mountain, sprawling back up the hillside that rose from the steep banks of the Reik, until its upper streets and houses became lost in the low-lying mist that wreathed the summits of the valley.
“Quite a sight, eh?” Pieter asked at his elbow, and Rudi nodded, lost for words. “They say Middenheim makes it look like a pimple, but I wouldn’t know.” He shrugged. “Too far from the water, see?”
“I see.” Rudi nodded, taking in the scale of the place as the Reikmaiden forged through the water towards the docks, a bustling tangle of quays and wharves that, at least, seemed vaguely familiar. Dozens of other riverboats were visible, coming and going, or lying alongside, and innumerable smaller craft were scudding about on urgent business, or casting hopeful fishing nets into the choppy water. This at least was reminiscent of his sojourn in the maritime city, and he found the familiar bustle vaguely reassuring.
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