“Where is it?” Gerhard rolled to his feet. Littman spat.
“Gone,” he said. The witch hunter nodded.
“And your men?”
Rudi looked at the militiaman sprawled at his feet. He vaguely recognised his face. He thought he sold vegetables in the market.
“This one’s dead,” he said. The militiaman with the blood-soaked tunic regained his feet at last, a colleague stepping in to help stem the bleeding. He looked all right, at least, and aimed a wan smile at the sergeant.
“Good as,” Littman said quietly, indicating Stug. The youth was breathing heavily, his face white. Without another word Gerhard walked over to him and knelt.
“You did well,” he said, making the sign of the hammer. “Sigmar will be proud to welcome you.”
Stug coughed, and tried to say something. After a moment he hawked up a plug of blood and expired, his face relaxing into an expression that struck Rudi as one of almost childish bewilderment.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Then what happened?” Hanna asked, leaning across the rough wooden table towards him. Rudi shrugged. Normally he would have relished the fact that she was fascinated with his story instead of dismissing him out of hand as an uncouth lout, but there was still too much about the day’s events that he wanted to forget. Though he hadn’t known Stug or the vegetable merchant, whose name he still couldn’t recall, their deaths had shaken him. And Hans was still out there somewhere in the forest.
“Not much. We tried to follow his trail, but we lost it.” Gerhard had been icily polite about that, which had chilled him almost as much as the mutant’s threats of revenge. But the surviving militiamen had been all too grateful for the excuse to turn back. “We’ll try again in the morning. I’m sure my father will be able to track him.” He hoped so. It was that promise which had turned the witch hunter’s ire so they could return home. The trip back had been an unnerving one, as approaching night had begun to seep through the trees, deepening the shadows. He’d started at every sound, fearing that Hans was sneaking up on him. But such fancies were ridiculous, he knew. Even before he had changed Katzenjammer wasn’t capable of subtlety, and now he certainly wouldn’t bother sneaking around.
“Do you know where my father is?”
“No.” Hanna shook her head. “He still isn’t back.” She stood and wandered over to the cooking fire, where the stew pot still hung. Something was bubbling inside which made Rudi’s mouth flood with saliva every time he caught a sniff of it, but Hanna had looked very hard at him when he tried to investigate and he’d felt it best to sit down and leave her to her cooking without interruption. He watched as she stirred the contents, and smiled.
“Well if that smell doesn’t bring him back, nothing will.” Hanna accepted the compliment with a slight dip of her head.
“If he isn’t quick, he’ll miss out. It’s almost done.” The odour of cooking had been the first thing he noticed when he arrived home, and he still hadn’t quite got over the surprise. He might have known that she wasn’t the type to just sit around the place, but the transformation she’d managed to wreak on the tiny hut in the space of a day was little short of miraculous. Things were neatly arranged on shelves, the floor had been swept, and the cooking pot and a couple of items of furniture seemed to be a slightly different colour. It was only while he was looking at the surface of the table with some perplexity that he realised she’d cleaned it. Another couple of days and he supposed she’d have had it as neat as the Reifenstals’ cottage. It was a shame that once the accusations against her had comprehensively been disproved she’d be off home again. A faint pang of regret surfaced at the thought, and he forced it away. It wasn’t as though they had much in common, after all.
“I should be getting back after we’ve eaten,” the girl said, almost as if she’d been able to read his mind. Or perhaps his musings had shown on his face somehow. He nodded reluctantly.
“I suppose,” he agreed. Then another thought occurred to him. “Perhaps you should wait until the morning, though.” He hoped he hadn’t sounded too eager, although the faint moue of amusement on her face made him suspect that he had. “Hans is still out there. You’ll be safer in daylight.”
“Maybe.” She conceded the point with a slight smile, and began to collect a couple of bowls from the dresser. “I should wait until your father gets back, anyway. I haven’t really had a chance to thank him.”
The meal passed in companionable silence for the most part. It was a new experience for the young forester, but an agreeable one. He had virtually no experience of socialising, especially not with young women, so he wouldn’t have known what to say in any case. The food tasted wonderful, and he said as much. Hanna seemed pleased, but amused at his enthusiasm.
“I just put a couple of herbs in it,” she said. “It’s nothing special.”
While they ate, and talked of nothing much, the night grew dark around them. Gunther had still not returned. Though he tried to remain calm, Rudi found himself growing increasingly anxious. His father was out at night often enough, it was true, but he always let him know beforehand. And he had not been out late since the beastmen had entered the woods.
“I should go and look for him,” Rudi said at last. Hanna shook her head dubiously.
“Where will you start?” Her words were mild, and reasonable enough, but he found them irksome all the same. They contained an echo of the antagonistic manner he still associated with her. He shrugged, not wanting to admit that he hadn’t a clue.
“I’ll think of something. Maybe he’s checking the snares.” That would be highly unlikely tonight, with only the sickly glow of Morrslieb to see by, but it sounded as though he had a plan. She nodded.
“Well you’d know. Unless he’s gone to the Blessed Grove, wherever that is.”
“The what?” Rudi thought he knew every landmark in the forest, at least for as far as anyone from the village had penetrated it, but he’d never heard of such a place. Hanna shrugged, and produced a piece of paper from a drawer in the dresser.
“Here,” she said, unfolding it. It was a crudely-sketched map, with words on it Rudi couldn’t read, but after a moment’s thought he recognised the peculiar shape towards one side as Kohlstadt, and the lines emanating from it as the roads which linked it to the rest of the world. A mark and some words were in the middle of the village, and two similar marks were also visible elsewhere on the plan. One close to the Dreibruken road, and the other in the forest. Hanna pointed to it. “There. ‘The Blessed Grove.’ Does that mean anything to you?”
A sense of foreboding seemed to settle in the pit of his stomach, displacing the pleasant afterglow of the fine meal he’d so recently enjoyed.
“Where did you get this?” he asked. Hanna indicated the dresser.
“The drawer was sticking. I found that jammed behind it when I pulled it out. Have you ever seen it before?”
“No.” He tried not to think about the conclusion he’d drawn, that the spot on the map was where he’d stumbled across the clearing full of rotting plants. But why would his father have a map locating it? He pointed to the other two marks. “What do they say?” The flash of embarrassment at having to ask her was fleeting at best. This was too important to let his pride get in the way. Hanna pointed to the mark in the middle of Kohlstadt.
“This one says ‘The Magister’.” Her finger moved to the other one. “This one just says ‘The Farm’. Not very helpful, I’m afraid. There must be dozens along the Dreibruken road.”
“It’s the Altmans’,” Rudi said, cold certainty beginning to settle in his stomach. The image of the strange patch of earth in the dead farmer’s field, so charged with Chaotic forces that he’d almost lost his mind simply by stepping onto it, rose vividly to the surface of his thoughts. Which sparked another memory. The strange, triangular amulet the farmer had worn…
His finger traced a line between the three points on the map, finding them equidistant from one another. He didn’t know why, but som
ehow that seemed significant too.
“What are you doing?” Hanna asked. He explained briefly, and shrugged.
“I don’t know what it means, though.”
“It must be sorcery,” Hanna said slowly. She seemed reluctant to speak, as though admitting to knowledge she shouldn’t have. “I’ve heard stories about rituals and things, collecting energy…”
“Making the people ill, and the crops fail, and the trees die.” Rudi nodded. “But what for?”
“How should I know?” Hanna asked. A trace of her old defensive truculence was beginning to emerge again. “Ask your witch hunter friend. He seems to have all the answers.”
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” Rudi said. He indicated the map. “He’d probably burn the pair of us just for looking at this.” He’d meant the remark as a joke, but the expression on Hanna’s face made him consider the possibility seriously. He hurried on, hoping to distract her. “What I want to know is how this got into our house in the first place.”
“We’ll have to ask your father.” Hanna looked at him with a peculiar expression on her face. After a moment he recognised it as barely concealed unease. The easy trust that had grown between them since he saved her from the mob seemed to waver, as they both reflected that neither really knew the other all that well. “Perhaps he knows.”
“Perhaps.” Rudi tried to sound as though it didn’t matter. “It’s just a scrap of paper after all. It could have been there for years.”
“That’s probably it.” Hanna nodded, trying to convince herself. “It must have been there when he bought the dresser.” That seemed plausible, Rudi thought. The heavy item of furniture had been standing in the corner for as long as he could remember. But why would an old scrap of paper be so closely linked to events that were happening now? Had they been planned long ago? He dismissed the thought as fruitless. His father would explain, he was sure. If he could only find him. If something hadn’t already happened to the forester…
He forced the thought away, unable to contemplate the possibility. Gunther would be fine, he told himself fiercely, and everything would be all right again soon. He paced the tiny hut, the urge for action building within him. He couldn’t just wait here while his father might be in danger, however perilous the forest might be tonight. He picked up his bow and the quiver of arrows. As he strapped the bracer to his forearm, his fingers trembled slightly.
“Be careful out there.” To her credit Hanna didn’t try to dissuade him, despite the apprehension she must surely have felt at the thought of being left alone again. He nodded grimly.
“I won’t be long,” he said.
Night had fallen in earnest now, the darkness between the trees all but absolute. As he moved deeper into the forest Rudi began to question the wisdom of what he was doing. The trees and bushes were solid chunks of blackness, practically indistinguishable from the shadows that surrounded them, and the faint necrotic glimmer of Morrslieb barely penetrated the canopy of branches. The only way he would find his father under these conditions would be if he tripped over him. But something drove him on, an impulse he could barely explain, somehow taking him through the myriad of obstacles and entanglements in his path as though they weren’t even there. It was as if he could feel the branches and the scrub ahead of him so he would twist to evade them even though the darkness was too absolute to reveal anything to his sight.
As a result he made good time, moving as swiftly through the woodlands as though it were broad daylight. A small portion of his mind marvelled at this, even began to question it, but the growing sense of urgency crowded it out. It was as though he already knew where he was going, and the purpose of his journey was almost clear, if he could just manage to recall it somehow…
A new sound broke his reverie: the unmistakable sound of something big smashing its way through the undergrowth. He froze. A moment later his nostrils were assailed by a stench he remembered all too well, and as if in confirmation the harsh syllables of the language he’d heard in Altman’s field echoed through the trees.
Beastmen! His scalp crawled, anticipating cries of discovery, but a nearby thicket offered concealment, and the group passed him by unheeding. There seemed to be three or four of them, moving rapidly, and as the sound of their passage receded he let out a small sigh of relief. The sense of urgency returned, stronger than ever, and he began to move again, following his original path.
Then another thought occurred to him. Perhaps the creatures were after his father! He hesitated, torn between conflicting impulses. Some deep, primal conviction told him that he had to keep moving, that somewhere ahead of him were the answers he sought, but for the first time logic began to crowd it out. He should follow the beastmen and find out what they were doing. It might be important.
He turned aside, feeling a sudden pang of frustration and anger, which surprised him with its intensity. It almost persuaded him to change his mind, but he exerted his willpower and forced it down. Whatever lay ahead could wait. The beastmen were a real and tangible foe, and he owed it to everyone in the village to find out what they were up to.
He set off slowly, following the path the creatures had taken. Now he’d turned aside he found the going more difficult. His newly acquired instinct for avoiding obstacles had apparently deserted him, as he had to stop frequently to disentangle himself from the bushes that snagged his clothing or the quiver every few yards. Nevertheless the beastmen had ploughed a clear enough trail through the underbrush to make the going relatively simple, and he made good enough time to keep them in earshot.
So good, in fact, that he almost stumbled into the clearing before realising it was there. Fortunately the sickly green light of the Chaos moon was striking down through the gap in the foliage, illuminating the whole scene brightly enough for his dark-adapted eyes to see everything in more detail than he would have believed possible.
At first his eyes were drawn to the beastmen ranged about it: There were a dozen at least, maybe more. Many were like the one he’d encountered the previous day, but lithe and uninjured. They moved with a swiftness and grace he would never have believed possible for such lumpen-looking creatures. Others were taller and more muscular, their heads crowned with imposing horns which were clearly far larger than those of the others. And in the centre of the group…
His breath stilled. Then he gasped, and for a panic-stricken moment he was sure the bestial host before him must have heard it. But their attention was fixed on the drama being enacted at the centre of the clearing.
Three figures were visible there, although one drew the eye as it was at least a couple of heads taller than the other two. A moment later Rudi realised it was considerably taller than any of the beastmen surrounding it, and its horns were by far the largest and most elaborately curved. It stalked forward, growling something in the creatures’ own barbarous tongue, a sword the length of Rudi’s leg casually held in its right hand.
“Any time.” The response came in Reikspiel, although the voice was almost as harsh as the beastman’s. “If you think you’re hard enough.” A chill ran down Rudi’s spine. Hans Katzenjammer? Here? He slunk even deeper into the shadows.
Hans took a step towards the shaggy giant, the wounds he’d sustained at the hands of the militia a few hours before apparently already healed. Sickly green moonlight glinted from the talons on his hands as he flexed his fingers. Lazy confidence radiated from his stance.
“Peace.” The third figure placed a hand on his chest to forestall him, and stepped between the two putative combatants. The voice was soft and feminine, in startling contrast to the guttural sounds of the others. From where Rudi was standing her face remained in shadow, although she too seemed to have a pair of horns. They were smaller than the others’ and struck highlights from her forehead. She addressed the hulking beastman directly. “He’s no bray. He’s been blessed by the changer himself.” The beastman responded in its own tongue, harsh gutturals echoing through the trees, and the beastwoman respond
ed in the same language.
After another brief exchange she turned back to Hans.
“Graghgor will take you in, if he judges you worthy.” Hans grinned, and flexed his talons again.
“I’ll show him worthy,” he said. The woman nodded.
“Try not to kill him,” she said. Hans looked almost sulky for a moment, and she patted him on the arm. “The changer has chosen you for a reason. You may have to turn against his other servants one day, for such is the nature of change, but for now you need allies.”
“Yeah, right, fine.” Hans pushed the beastwoman aside, and sprang at the towering beastman with a roar. The creature responded, shaking the trees with the volume of its challenge. It charged forwards, swinging its sword. Hans deflected it easily with the bony ridge along his forearm, and raked his talons across the beastman’s face.
A howl of rage and pain echoed through the forest, and the combat began in deadly earnest. For a moment Rudi remained rooted to the spot, unable to tear his eyes from the brutal spectacle, which held the surrounding beastmen in thrall. There was no subtlety to this duel, just animal ferocity, inhuman strength, and a lust for pain and blood that made him shudder to contemplate. He began to back away slowly, aware that this was no place to be caught.
Luck was with him, he thought, as the instinct he’d felt earlier which had guided him so unerringly seemed to have returned, and despite the darkness surrounding him he was able to move swiftly and silently away. Absently a small portion of his mind registered that he’d resumed his former course through the forest, towards whatever destination awaited him, and as the sound of that inhuman combat faded slowly into the distance he began to wonder what he would find there.
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