Rudi considered this. He’d heard of the race before, of course, they’d been allies of Sigmar, but he’d never expected to meet one in the flesh. From everything Father Antrobus had said they were trustworthy enough. And they could hardly refuse so kind an invitation without drawing more attention to themselves. He shrugged, and followed their new friend back to his table.
“Sit down, sit down!” The dwarf heaved a couple of packs from the bench along one side of the table, heedless of the hard stares of his companions, and motioned them forward again. Rudi slid into it, leaving Hanna perched on the end, to find himself sitting next to a slender woman in britches and a travelling cloak. Her hair was red, and her eyes green; she looked at him for a moment with an air of mild interest, before leaning around him to smile warmly at Hanna.
“Alwyn,” she said. “And how may I call you?”
“Hanna.” The girl looked mildly flustered for a moment, and Rudi felt he was missing something. There was no time to think about it, though, because the man opposite was looking him over with a sardonic expression, which reminded him of Magnus. His hair was black, but flecked with grey almost the same shade as his eyes. Like most of his companions he wore a well-used cloak over travelling clothes, which bore plenty of evidence of hard wear. He had a sword scabbarded at his hip, and the hilt was worn with much use.
“So,” he said at last. “Bodun says you’ve a tale to tell.” There were a couple of others at the table too, hard-eyed men who under other circumstances would have made him distinctly nervous, but somehow Rudi could tell that they would take their lead from this fellow and the dwarf. He nodded.
“So he tells me,” he said, relieved to hear friendly laughter rippling round the table.
“You can’t tell a story with empty hands,” Bodun said, handing one of the tankards he’d collected from the bar to him, and another to Hanna. Mindful of the dwarf’s scathing opinion of the brew on offer Rudi sipped cautiously at it, but found it palatable enough. Something of his confusion must have shown on his face, as the man opposite smiled.
“He’s always rude about the beer. It’s a dwarf thing.”
“I suppose it’s passable enough for a manling brew.” Bodun emptied his tankard in a couple of swallows, and belched loudly. “But once you’ve had Bugman’s…”
“You can’t stop talking about it,” one of the other men said, to the general amusement of the group. He seemed to be the youngest, being barely older than Rudi, although his eyes seemed to hold a wealth of experience. A thin straggle of hopeful beard, the same blonde hue as his hair, clung to his face, not quite hiding a ragged scar across his right cheek. Bodun snorted.
“Unlike the endless fascination of your monologues on the charms of certain young ladies…” He broke off, laughing, as the young man kicked him under the table.
“You have to admit they’re imaginative,” the other man broke in. His hair was brown, like his eyes, and his clothing was as nondescript as his features. “Uncontaminated as they are by any actual experience…” He dodged aside as the young man tried to elbow him in the ribs, and patted him condescendingly on the head. “Nice try, Bruno. Nearly got me that time.”
“Leave him alone,” Alwyn said, leaning across to ruffle the young man’s hair. “You were young once, remember?”
“Never that young,” the older man replied. Alwyn grinned, her face lit up with mirth.
“I don’t know. I seem to remember an incident with a barmaid in Nuln…”
“That was before I even met you! How could you possibly know about that?”
“Dwarfs have long memories.” She grinned at Bodun. “And a talent for tale-telling…”
“Whatever he told you, he was making it up.” Rudi couldn’t fathom what was going on. These people seemed to be quarrelling, but without any heat. It was almost as if they enjoyed needling each other.
“You’ll have to excuse my companions,” the leader said. “They were all brought up in a barn somewhere.” Bodun hurrumphed loudly. “Except for the dwarf, who we found down a hole.”
“And a very comfortable hole it was too,” Bodun put in. “Apart from the greenskins infesting it.”
“Who would have been dancing on your corpse if Conrad and I hadn’t happened to be passing,” the leader added.
“Happened to be looting the damn place you mean.” Bodun smiled widely. “Luckily there was enough to go round, so I didn’t have to kill you too.”
“Quite.” The leader grinned at Rudi, and indicated the brown-haired man. “That’s Conrad. He and I go way back. I’m Krieger, by the way, but you can call me Theo.”
“Rudi.” He stuck out a hand, which Theo shook. “That’s Hanna, my sister.” They might as well stick to the same story, he supposed. Theo nodded, as though filing the information away somewhere. His expression remained neutral.
“Alwyn’s introduced herself already, and that’s Bruno.” The young man smiled at Hanna, and nodded.
“Pleased to meet you, miss.”
“Likewise.” Hanna smiled in return. Theo continued.
“Allie tags along because for some reason she thinks Conrad’s worth looking after, and Bruno we sort of adopted.” Rudi glanced at the three of them, noting the way Alwyn and Conrad’s eyes met, and the matching rings on the third fingers of their left hands.
“Adopted?” he asked, unsure quite why the word held so much resonance for him. Perhaps Bruno was another foundling like himself. Bruno nodded.
“My family had a smallholding in the Drakwald. Beastmen attacked it, and I was the only survivor.” Darkness had entered his wide blue eyes now, like a thunderhead on a bright summer day. “I was twelve. Luckily Captain Krieger happened along, and saw them off before they finished…” He picked up his tankard and drained it. “Who wants another?” He stood abruptly.
“Everyone, lad,” Bodun said. “I’ll help you get them in.” He stood up, and accompanied the young man back to the bar.
“They were going to sacrifice him,” Alwyn said. Her voice took on an edge of loathing. “To some Chaos thing. We’ve been looking after him ever since.”
“He can look after himself well enough,” Conrad added. He leaned closer across the table. “Not a good person to get on the wrong side of. He’d kill you in a heartbeat.”
“That’s enough, Conrad,” Theo said. “We’re all friends here, aren’t we?”
“More like family,” Conrad said. He looked at Rudi and Hanna, the ruse of amiable idiocy slipping for a moment. “I remember when I was like you, just starting out in the world. I was sure I’d never need anyone else. Take my word for it, you do. And choose them carefully.”
“I’ll remember that,” Rudi said.
“Now lad,” Bodun said, dropping another tankard of ale in front of Rudi, “tell us all about how you took down the wolfboy.”
“There wasn’t much to it really,” Rudi began, sipping at the ale again. To his vague surprise he found most of it had gone already, so he accepted the refill Bruno passed him with gratitude. “We’d camped for the night in a copse on the moorland, and…”
“You came across country?” Theo looked curious. “Why not use the road?”
“It seemed more direct,” Hanna said, a little too casually. “And Rudi thought we’d have better hunting that way.”
“You’d meet fewer people too,” Conrad added thoughtfully. “Not a good idea if you ran into trouble.”
“These two look as though they can take care of themselves,” the dwarf put in. “If they saw off a greenskin scout…”
“He was dead when we found him,” Rudi explained, eager to change the subject. “Slain by sorcery, we thought.” Something told him it was best not to mention the rest of the warband. “The wolf just wandered into our camp, so I shot it.”
“He took it down with a single arrow,” Hanna put in, sensing a slight air of disappointment around the table. “While it was charging at me.”
“It charged you?” Alwyn stared at Hanna in astonishm
ent. Hanna nodded.
“Jaws open, slobber foaming around its mouth, I swear I could see right down its throat…” The whole party around the table leaned imperceptibly forward. Rudi picked up his cue. If they wanted a dramatic story then by Sigmar he’d give them one.
“I’d been washing in the stream nearby, so I didn’t have the bow with me. I thought I wasn’t going to make it back in time, but Hanna threw a stone at it, which made it flinch. It was only a split second, but that was enough.”
“Aye.” Theo nodded. “In combat it makes all the difference.”
“I snatched up the bow, and grabbed an arrow. I knew I’d only get time for a single shot. I didn’t even have time to aim, but somehow when I drew the bow I knew just when to loose.”
“I know that feeling.” Conrad nodded and Rudi noticed a bow propped up against the table next to him. “As though the gods are telling you the shot can’t miss.”
“Exactly.” Rudi nodded. “My father was a forester, so I’ve been shooting for as long as I can remember, but I’ve never been surer of a shot in my life.”
“It took the wolf right in the throat,” Hanna said. “And it dropped like a stone. But it was moving so fast it kept rolling towards me. I thought it was going to knock me over anyway, but it stopped just in front of me. I was petrified!”
“I’m not surprised.” Bruno leaned across the table and patted her hand sympathetically. Hanna pulled it away, to his barely-concealed chagrin. Rudi was surprised to feel a surge of satisfaction at that.
“Your father’s dead then?” Theo asked. Rudi swallowed, unsure how to answer, but Hanna stepped in first.
“Mother too.” Her voice quavered a little, and Alwyn squeezed her other hand for a moment. This time Hanna seemed willing to accept the gesture. “So we thought it was time we made a fresh start.”
“I see.” Theo nodded again, evidently satisfied by this. “At least you have each other.”
“Are you going anywhere in particular?” Bruno asked, seemingly addressing Hanna directly. The girl nodded.
“Kallcaat. Then maybe Marienburg, if we can find a boat willing to take us.”
“Marienburg?” Conrad exchanged a glance with Alwyn. “You might want to think twice about that. The city can be a rough place if you don’t know it.” His wife nodded.
“Stick to the small towns for a while, that’s my advice.” She glanced at Hanna again. “If you’re determined to go to the city, head upstream instead. You’ll get a better reception in Altdorf if I’m any judge.”
“Why Altdorf?” Rudi asked, once again feeling that he was missing something. Alwyn looked as though she was about to say something else, but then she glanced around at the crowded taproom and appeared to change her mind.
“No reason,” she said. Any further questions Rudi might have had were swiftly deflected by the arrival of a young woman whose lavish d�colletage seemed to capture Bruno’s attention almost as fully as the platters of food in her hands captured the rest of the party. Rudi’s stomach was growling loudly. Absently he noticed his ale tankard was empty again.
“Eat hearty, manling!” Bodun grabbed a haunch of meat from the nearest plate, and began to demonstrate. “And drink! More ale, my lovely!” The tavern girl winked at Bruno, who seemed to inflate. She slipped away to comply with the request.
“A toast!” The dwarf hoisted his tankard. “To Rudi Wolfbane!” The others laughed, but went along with it, echoing the call.
“Young Wolfbane!”
Rudi grinned widely. Whether it was from the closeness of the taproom, the unaccustomed quantity of ale he was drinking, or the richness of the food piled up in front of him he couldn’t say, but he became suffused by a sense of wellbeing stronger than any he could recall. Even Hanna was smiling at him. He hoisted the tankard Bodun had refilled from a fresh flagon delivered by the tavern girl.
“And to Krieger’s company,” he replied. “Good friends well met.” A gratifying chorus of approbation rose in response. He settled back on the bench, turning his attention to the food, and felt that a night as good as this should go on forever.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Rudi woke slowly. His head was pounding, and every muscle in his body creaked in protest. Something hard lay under his head, and as he lifted it, fighting the sudden surge of nausea that accompanied the motion, the skin of his cheek peeled stickily away from whatever it was.
As his eyes became focussed the rippling brown mass in front of him resolved itself into the woodgrain of the tabletop, still puddled with congealing patches of spilled ale. He blinked, yawned, and levered himself upright, surprised to find that he was still perched on the bench.
Gradually the memory of the evening began to seep its way into his forebrain, apparently carving a path through his skull with the aid of a pickaxe. His temples pounded with every beat of his heart, sending a sharp, stabbing pain through the space behind his eyes. He swallowed convulsively, just in time to quell an incipient rebellion in his stomach.
“Oh. You’re awake.” The landlord glanced up from a table nearby, a stack of plates in his hands. “I was beginning to wonder if I should just get a priest of Morr in for you. I would have done if it wasn’t for the snoring.”
“What…?” Rudi blinked gummy eyes at the man. “Where…?”
“You passed out. Not surprised the way you were sinking them last night. Your friends left at dawn, along with everyone else.”
“Passed out?” A surge of panic galvanised Rudi, and he glanced around for his belongings. How could he have been so stupid? But his pack was where he’d left it, under the table, along with his bundle of furs, the bow, and Hanna’s satchel.
After the initial rush of relief he felt vaguely ashamed of himself. The group of adventurers they’d met the previous night had been a little odd, no doubt, but they’d shown him and Hanna nothing but kindness. That reminded him, Hanna should be…
He glanced down, the barely-perceived weight in his lap turning out to be a blonde head pillowed on his thigh. She was stretched out along the bench, snoring faintly, somehow contriving to look comfortable despite the narrowness of the plank. She looked very trusting and vulnerable, completely different from the self-assured virago he was used to. A sudden rush of protectiveness left him momentarily breathless. He was also abruptly aware of a sharp and insistent pressure in his bladder, which the weight of her skull was doing nothing to alleviate. He reached down a tentative hand to brush the hair away from her face. She stirred.
“Hanna. Hanna, wake up.” For a moment he feared she was going to fall off the bench as she stretched and sat upright, but she retained her balance with an easy grace he quite envied.
“Shallya’s mercy, my head hurts.” She screwed her eyes up against the bright sunlight lancing in through the windows, and bent down to rummage in her pack. After a moment she emerged with some dried leaves, and focussed bleary eyes on the landlord. “Can we have some boiling water please?”
“If you like.” The man shrugged, and called to one of the tavern girls. “Trudi. Hot water for the big spenders.” After a moment the girl ambled over with two mugs of hot water in her hands. She watched curiously as Hanna stirred the herbs into them.
“That’s not weirdroot or anything, is it? Only the road wardens come by here.” She shrugged. “Just so you know.”
“It’s for headaches,” Hanna said shortly, her temper not helped by a raging hangover. The girl nodded.
“That’s all right then.” She ambled away, while Rudi tried to remember if she was the one Bruno had spent most of the evening making calf eyes at.
Fortunately Hanna’s knowledge of herbalism proved as reliable as ever, and as he sipped the aromatic infusion Rudi felt his stomach begin to settle and the pounding behind his eyes recede to a dull ache.
“We should eat something,” Hanna said. Though the notion of food in the abstract made his stomach heave again, like the stream as it dropped through the sinkhole on the moors, logic told him she wa
s right.
“We’ve got bread and cold bacon,” the landlord told them. Rudi soon found himself staring at a slab of pink meat and a couple of chunks of loaf. Fighting the renewed surge of nausea he chewed a hunk of bread and swallowed hastily, half expecting it to come straight back up again, but to his relief it remained where it was. Now he had something back in his stomach he was surprised to find how quickly his appetite returned, and he wolfed down the impromptu breakfast more quickly than he’d expected.
“Feeling better?” he asked Hanna, returning to the table a little slower than he’d left it after a successful search for the privy. The fresh air outside had revived him a little, and he barely staggered at all as he walked now. His stomach still seemed to roll over if he made any sudden movements, but for the most part the nausea had receded to a nagging ache, like the time he’d eaten some apples which hadn’t been quite ripe. She glanced up, her face white, and nodded.
“A little.” She gestured at a pitcher of well water which had appeared on the table in his absence. “You should drink. You’re probably dehydrated from all that ale.” Rudi didn’t have a clue what she meant, but he did have a raging thirst, so he complied eagerly; the water tasted cool and refreshing, and after a second tankard he found his headache was fading a bit.
“We should get going,” he said at last. Hanna lifted her head from the pillow of her arms and glared at him before nodding reluctantly.
“Yes. Yes, I suppose you’re right.” She yawned widely, and picked up her satchel. Seeing his last remaining customers getting to their feet the landlord wandered over.
“On your way, then?” he asked, flicking a beer-stained towel over the surface of the table. Rudi nodded, and hefted his pack.
“We’ve wasted enough of the morning, I think.” He dug out his pouch of coins and loosened the drawstring, to the landlord’s evident satisfaction. “How much do we owe you?”
“Seventeen shillings and elevenpence.” The innkeeper grinned conspiratorially. “Those dwarfs can’t half put it away, eh? However much they complain, I’ve never known one who didn’t try to drink the place dry.”
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