01 - Death's Messenger

by Sandy Mitchell - (ebook by Undead)

  “We’d better get going.” Somehow he felt he needed to distract her, to get her away from here as soon as possible. She nodded, and turned her back on the wreckage of her home with the air of someone determined not to be bowed by the weight of misfortune.

  “We won’t find her by hanging around here.”

  “Exactly.” Rudi fell into step beside her. Just then his boot crunched on something in the grass. He looked down.

  It was the small icon of Shallya that he’d noticed on his first visit to the cottage, but something seemed different about it. After a moment’s thought he realised that the frame was missing.

  A prickle of apprehension ran up his spine. Now he could picture it in his mind, he realised where he’d seen the sigil Hans Katzenjammer and the beastmen wore before. The frame had been the same shape.

  He opened his mouth to ask Hanna about it, but closed it again. She had enough to deal with at the moment, and this was no time to bother her with trivia.

  Despite his apprehension they were able to enter Kohlstadt without any trouble. The gates were open, a few farmers staggering out with the dawn to wrest as much as they could from their ravaged fields. Most looked drawn and haggard, too tired for conversation, and the few remarks Rudi overheard were about the momentous events of the previous day. Hans Katzenjammer’s metamorphosis, the disappearance of his brother, and the witch hunter’s burning of the family home figured largely in their talk. No one so much as glanced in the direction of the two youngsters as they slipped inside the stockade. Rudi shot a nervous glance at the watch post beside the gate, but it was deserted, and the brazier burned low.

  An eerie quiet hung over the streets as they moved towards the burgomeister’s mansion, keeping to the narrowest of alleyways, and starting at every sound. But the voices they heard were all behind shutters, the everyday utterances of rising villagers. The only thing they disturbed along the way was the occasional rat.

  “How do we get in?” Hanna asked, once they were outside the familiar kitchen door of the Steiner mansion. By way of reply Rudi shrugged. He knocked on it as loudly as he could. Hanna jumped. “Are you mad?”

  “I don’t think so.” For some reason the question intrigued him. “But if I was, do you think I’d know?” Hanna gaped at him, unsure how to respond, but she was saved from doing so by the rattling of bolts.

  “Who is it?” The servant who had greeted him on his first visit to the mansion glared resentfully through the opening gap, his livery rumpled. Recognition sparked in his eyes after a moment. “Oh. It’s you.”

  “I’ve a message for the burgomeister,” Rudi lied. He was vaguely surprised by his recent aptitude for deceit. The servant yawned widely, and stood aside to admit them.

  “He’s in the parlour. You know the way.” He glanced at Hanna. “Who’s this?”

  “She’s with me,” Rudi said. The servant looked from one to the other, clearly drawing his own conclusions. He nodded to the girl.

  “Wait here.” He slammed the door behind Rudi, cutting off Hanna’s indignant protest, then motioned him along the familiar passage. Rudi fought down a flutter of apprehension. Somehow the idea that Hanna would be with him when he faced Gerhard’s most loyal ally had made the prospect less intimidating. Well, he’d just have to do it as best he could alone. He squared his shoulders and marched into the parlour.

  It was empty. He glanced round, feeling deflated. The servant shrugged.

  “He’ll be back soon.” He might have said more, but a thunderous knocking on the front door made him turn his head with a sigh of exasperation. “Stay here. And if that’s your girlfriend, Sigmar help the pair of you.”

  “She’s not my…” Rudi began, but the man had already gone. Rudi hovered by the parlour door. He eased it open a crack, and put his ear to it. Bolts rattled, and a lock clicked, followed by a creak of hinges.

  “Steiner. Where is he?” Rudi shuddered at the familiar voice. Gerhard was back already! They must have wasted more time than they’d realised packing their belongings and contemplating the burning cottage. When the servant replied his voice was far more subdued and deferential than it had been.

  “I’ll summon him at once, sir. If you’d care to wait in the parlour…” Rudi’s heart blocked his throat for a moment.

  “I would not.” Gerhard raised his voice for the first time Rudi could recall. “Steiner! Get down here!”

  “What? Who is that?” After a moment footsteps descended the main staircase, echoing in the hallway. “Do you know what time it is?”

  “Later than you think.” Gerhard’s voice resumed its normal volume. “Last night we found evidence of a heretic cult in the forest, preparing for some hideous blasphemy.”

  “Dear Sigmar!” The burgomeister sounded as though someone had just told him his waistcoat looked cheap. “They must be arrested, brought to justice…”

  “They’re beyond the reach of mortal justice now,” Gerhard said with grim satisfaction. “But there may have been survivors. Anyone connected with those we identified must be brought in for questioning. I have a list.”

  “Of course.” Rudi heard a rustling of paper, as the burgomeister took the document. His voice took on a tone of incredulity. “The Walder boy? Von Blackenburg? Are you serious?”

  “Completely,” Gerhard assured him. “The boy’s father and Von Blackenburg’s servant were both there. The other names merit some investigation too, but the pair at the top is our most pressing concern. They’ve been involved in this affair from the beginning, and if their loyally is questionable they could have done untold harm.”

  “You could say the same about me,” Steiner said, with rather more courage than Rudi would have given him credit for. “Or Greta Reifenstal.”

  “I have no evidence against you. For the moment that is sufficient. And the witch is dead.”

  “Dead?” Steiner practically gasped the word. “But I thought the accusations against her daughter had been disproved.”

  “They had been,” Gerhard conceded. “But when I visited her home last night I found clear evidence of sorcery.” Once again Rudi found the image of the sigil floating into his mind, accompanied by a vague feeling of revulsion. “There were signs, and certain books. If you doubt me, your own militia will bear witness.”

  “Of course I don’t doubt you.” Steiner’s voice had the level tone of a man entering a state of shock. “You cut her down yourself?”

  “She forced us from the house, and barred the door. We burned it down. She couldn’t have survived.” Gerhard was as matter of fact about it as if he had been commenting on the weather. “Her daughter’s name is also on the list.”

  Rudi could wait no longer. He hurried to the window and sprung the latch, thankful that Steiner was vain enough to display his wealth by putting glass in the windows, and that the shutters had already been taken down for the day. He wriggled through the narrow opening, and dropped to the ground outside.

  “Rudi!” Hanna beckoned to him from the corner of the house. There was an expression of relief on her face. “What happened?”

  “Gerhard’s there.” This was not the time to tell her about Greta, he knew that. “I had to sneak away before he saw me.”

  “Something’s going on. Look.” Following her lead he peered cautiously round the edge of the wall. The square was full of militiamen, Littman at their head. They looked tired, but full of grim determination.

  “We have to leave. Now.” He took her by the hand, and tried to pull her back down the alley they’d come by.

  “Why?” She looked at him challengingly, a trace of her former arrogance returning. “What did you find out?”

  “He has a list of people he wants arrested. We’re both on it, and so’s Magnus.”

  “What about my mother?” The question took him by surprise, his expression was all the answer she needed. Something seemed to crumple inside her. “Oh,” she said, almost inaudibly.

  “We have to warn Magnus,” Rudi insisted. No matter what
the danger might be in doing so, he had to see him. The questions he desperately wanted answers to crowded his mind for a moment, buzzing like flies, blotting out everything else.

  “Yes. Of course.” Hanna nodded numbly. Her face had turned pure white. She seemed to be responding purely by instinct, but at least that was something. Rudi wondered for a moment how she’d be when the full truth of her mother’s death had sunk in, but he shied away from the thought. He took her by the hand, and she returned the grip, her knuckles white.

  “Come on.” Ignoring the pain in his fingers, Rudi got her moving at last. If he could just keep her distracted until they found safety, he felt they’d be all right. To his relief she matched his pace, and they hurried down the street towards the merchant’s house. “This way.”

  He ducked into the side passage that led to the kitchen door Kirstin had shown him out by a couple of days ago with a sensation of profound relief. They had only been in the main street for a few score paces, but his shoulder blades had itched the whole time. It would only have taken one of the assembled militiamen to glance in their direction for their lives to be over, but luck or one of the gods had been with them. Once he was sure they had remained unobserved, Rudi pounded on the back door.

  “The windows are still shuttered,” Hanna said. It was true. Rudi knocked again. No sound came back to them but echoes. “He isn’t here.”

  “He must be!” Rage and frustration seized him. He looked round frantically for something to force the lock with. Maybe his knife…

  “Listen!” Hanna grabbed his arm before he could do anything, her eyes panicky. Running footsteps were approaching from down the street, lots of them. Someone began pounding on the front door.

  “Von Blackenburg! Open in the name of Sigmar!” Gerhard’s familiar voice carried easily over the tumult even though it was no louder than usual. “Littman, take some men and cover the back.”

  “We have to get out of here!” Hanna insisted, her voice rising in pitch. She tugged at his arm again. “Come on!”

  For a moment Rudi resisted, the need for answers overriding every other impulse, then his sense of self-preservation kicked in. He turned and pointed out a narrow gap between a pair of adjacent buildings.

  “Through here,” he said. Hanna shook her head.

  “We’ll get stuck!”

  “No we won’t.” He hoped they wouldn’t. But if they tried to run the approaching militiamen would see them for sure. He took a deep breath and squeezed through, the rough plaster and brickwork scraping his exposed flesh and catching at his clothing. For a panic-stricken moment he thought Hanna had been right, that they’d be immobilised, but he breathed in deeply and somehow got through; one arm stretched out before him holding his bundle of possessions, and the other behind him clutching his bow and the quiver of arrows. He breathed deeply again, weak-kneed from relief. “Nothing to it.”

  “So you say.” Hanna followed, her slighter frame squeezing through a little more easily. They found themselves in the yard of a tanner’s shop, the smell of uncured hides rising around them in a reek they could cut with a knife. No one came out to challenge them, so Rudi leant as close to the crack as he could, hoping to hear something.

  “No one here, sergeant,” someone called. Rudi’s mouth went dry as he realised the narrowness of their escape. Littman had sent two groups of militiamen round the back of Magnus’ house, one from each direction, so if he hadn’t remembered this short cut from his childhood they would have been caught between them.

  “Course not.” Though the old soldier was out of sight, Rudi could picture him punctuating his conversation with a gobbet of saliva. Sure enough he continued after a fractional pause. “He’s either dead or long gone.” A loud crash indicated that someone had obtained entry. Hanna tugged at his arm.

  “We have to go,” she insisted.

  “Yes. I know.” Too numb to refuse, and not knowing what else to do, he started running towards the village gates. Hanna kept pace with him easily, and they passed through the gap in the stockade without being challenged. The rising babble of voices behind them was attracting the interest of most of the citizens of Kohlstadt, so no one had a thought to spare for the youth and girl that scuttled along in the shadows at the edges of the streets.

  After they made the open countryside they kept going, angling away from the roads and any possible pursuit, slogging across fields and grazing land until the village was no more than a tiny smudge on the horizon. Eventually their breath gave out and they stopped on the banks of a small stream, gasping. They looked back to see a thin trail of smoke rising behind them. Gerhard was consistent in his habits.

  “What do we do now?” Hanna asked, cupping her hands to gulp at the cool, clear water. Rudi tried to reply, but his labouring lungs could do nothing but pant. Even if he could have formed words he was at a loss. The truth was he didn’t have the faintest idea.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  By noon the last traces of Kohlstadt were well out of sight, and the fugitives settled in the shade of a grove of trees to escape the heat of the sun. For want of any better idea they’d followed the stream, so at least they’d have water to drink, but their supply of food was still far from adequate. Rudi had spread out what food he’d brought on his spare shirt the first time they stopped and been appalled at how little there was: a chunk of bread, too hard to chew without being moistened with stream water first, some cheese, which was beginning to smell a little too strong for comfort in the summer heat, some dried meat, and a couple of apples. Barely a meal for one.

  Hanna had sniffed suspiciously at the dried rabbit flesh to begin with, but eventually hunger overcame her reluctance and she chewed at it with an air of grim determination.

  “Where are we going?” she asked at length. Rudi shrugged. He’d never been this far from the village in his life, and he didn’t have a clue what lay ahead of them.

  “Marienburg,” he said at last, the name of the city falling into his head as if from nowhere. Hanna stared at him as though he’d gone mad.

  “How on earth do you expect to survive in Marienburg? It’s full of thieves and cut-throats, everyone knows that!” Everyone in Kohlstadt believed that anyway, and perhaps they were right, but Rudi seized on the idea like a terrier with a rat.

  “They can’t be any worse than Gerhard,” he pointed out. “And there are hundreds of people there, maybe even a thousand.” For a lad whose idea of a bustling metropolis was Kohlstadt, even this woefully inadequate estimate sounded unimaginably huge. “We could hide there for weeks. Years even.”

  “Assuming we’d want to.” Hanna wasn’t about to concede the point without considering it carefully. “City people never wash, you know. The smell must be appalling.”

  “We’d get used to it.” Rudi thought for a moment. “Maybe we could pick some flowers on the way in, to mask it a bit.”

  “I suppose so.” Hanna regarded the cheese dubiously, then selected another piece of dried rabbit as the lesser of two evils. Feeling he’d won the debate, Rudi nodded sagely. Magnus had a house in Marienburg, he remembered. Maybe he had gone there after fleeing from the beastmen in the forest. If so, he might be able to help them and answer some of the questions which had tormented him since his father had uttered those last enigmatic words. Hanna chewed thoughtfully for a moment. “So where is Marienburg anyway?”

  The question hit him like a face full of cold porridge. Somewhere to the east of Kohlstadt he supposed, as that was the direction the carts and pack mules of the merchants came from, but beyond that he didn’t have the faintest idea. Despite the growling in his stomach he rewrapped the remaining food, wondering how long it would last, and took a deep draught of the stream water to help fill him up a little. Water, at least, was limitless.

  “We just have to keep following the stream,” he said, the realisation coming to him on wings of welcome relief. “It must flow into the Reik eventually.” Hanna nodded.

  “Then we can follow the river downstream,”
she agreed. “Maybe even hail a boat. There must be trading vessels going up and down all the time.”

  Hail the vessel. The words came back to him unbidden, and he shivered. Was that what Magnus had meant? Find a boat to take him to Marienburg? He nodded, to cover his confusion.

  “It’s a plan, anyway,” he said.

  With nothing more to detain them they set out again, deeper into the wilderness. The constant chuckling of the water beside them was a pleasing note of comfort. The land was sparse here, the clumps of trees few and far between, and the sun felt hot and oppressive. Rudi felt exposed and uneasy, used as he was to the dim shade of the forest.

  The grass had grown to shin height, as there was no cattle to keep it down. This made walking awkward, as it hid the small undulations in the ground so the pair stumbled every few steps. After a while Hanna stopped to hitch up her skirt and tuck the hem into her belt, exposing surprisingly thin calves. Rudi kept his eyes fixed on the surrounding landscape, not quite sure if it was polite to have noticed or not.

  “We’ll need to find somewhere to sleep soon,” Hanna said, as the sun began sinking, lengthening their shadows before them. Rudi nodded, exhaustion fogging the inside of his head. He hadn’t slept at all the previous night, and he doubted that Hanna had either. So far they’d kept going on the energy of fear, but that would leave them soon enough. He suspected that without rest and adequate food he would collapse before very long.

  “You’re right.” He narrowed his eyes, and held up a hand to shade them. A grove of trees larger than the rest was visible some way ahead, and the stream disappeared into it. “We’ll just go as far as that copse over there. Then we can make camp.”

  “With what, exactly?” Hanna asked acidly, her eyes flickering between their two tiny packs. Rudi shrugged.

  “With whatever we’ve got,” he replied, determined not to let fatigue and emotion drive a wedge between them. They might not have got on too well in the past, but that was changing, and they needed each other now. Hanna snorted, but said nothing more. She strode out determinedly, taking the lead.