[Blood on the Reik 01] - Death's Messenger

by Sandy Mitchell - (ebook by Undead)

  “You don’t understand,” the figure shouted. “I’ve got proof of witchcraft! My brother’s been cursed!” Rudi felt his stomach drop. Fritz Katzenjammer, it had to be. A moment later his guess was confirmed as the hulking youth’s face fell into a pool of torchlight. The crowd began to grow restive, fresh voices rising over the commotion.

  “Let him speak! Let him through!” The mood was turning ugly and it wouldn’t take much to spark a riot. People were frightened and angry, and now Katzenjammer had given them a focus for it. He glanced round, once, then forced his way into the crowd, hoping to get across the square and out of the village before things got out of control.

  “Your brother’s just sick. Like everyone else.” Franz pushed the youth back with a surge of strength, clearing a little space between the militiamen and the crowd. Fritz staggered and regained his feet, raising his voice in answer. Rudi ignored the fracas as best he could, his eyes fixed on the entrance to an alleyway across the open space. Elbows buffeted him, and he was almost knocked off his feet a couple of times, but a lifetime of slipping through dense forest undergrowth allowed him to make steady progress. Just a few more yards…

  “Hey! Mind where you’re going!” someone said. He cannoned into something soft and yielding, and glanced down into the face of Hanna Reifenstal. “Oh, it’s you. What’s going on?” By way of a reply he seized her arm and dragged her towards the alley mouth.

  “Come with me,” he said, already sure it would be too late. Explanations would have to wait…

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Hanna planted her heels and glared at him, her face furious. “If you think I’m going anywhere with you…” Rudi glanced round desperately. Fortunately they were on the fringes of the crowd by now, and everyone’s attention was on the drama being enacted outside the burgomeister’s house.

  “You’ve been accused of witchcraft,” he whispered in an urgent undertone. “If you don’t get out of here right now these idiots will lynch you!”

  “I don’t believe it!” Hanna’s face turned pale in the flickering torchlight. “How could anyone be so…”

  “My brother was cursed by Hanna Reifenstal!” Fritz bellowed. “She’s a witch! I heard her!”

  “This is ridiculous.” Hanna put her hands on her hips, an expression of cold anger on her face now. “I’m going to give that idiot a piece of my mind…”

  “Now would be a bad time,” Rudi said, dragging her into the shadows of the alleyway while her attention was distracted. She rounded on him and slapped his face. Surprised, he let go of her arm.

  “If you think I’m going to let him get away with that…” Hanna began, but Rudi cut her off.

  “Run now, talk later,” he said. “No one’s listening.” For the first time the full extent of the danger she was in seemed to sink in. She turned towards the square. A low murmur of anger crackled across the crowd like thunder in the distant hills. Gradually a chant began.

  “Burn the witch! Burn the witch!”

  “Come on.” Rudi took hold of her arm again, gently this time, and urged her into motion. This time she acquiesced, seemingly stunned by the turn of events. “We’ve got to get out of here.” They trotted down the alleyway at a fast clip, the sound growing behind them like the roar of an approaching flash flood.

  “How could they believe him?” Hanna asked. She had discarded her habitual air of disdainful self-confidence like an old cloak. All of a sudden she seemed like a different person, frightened and vulnerable, and altogether more likeable. Rudi shrugged.

  “They’re frightened and desperate,” he said. “In the morning they’ll come to their senses.” The gate was becoming visible now, the glow of a watch fire next to the guard post.

  “Will they?” Hanna asked, looking dubious. Rudi nodded, with all the confidence he could summon up.

  “I’m sure of it,” he said, wishing he could believe his own words. From what he’d seen of Gerhard it seemed likely that the witch hunter would investigate such claims thoroughly before acting on them. But he was a dangerous man without a doubt, and it was hard to know how he would react.

  To his relief there was only one militiaman guarding the gate. It was Stug the youth he’d met that afternoon, so he was able to distract him for a couple of minutes while Hanna scurried through unnoticed. The sound of raised voices could be heard even here, and Stug kept his ear cocked while they were talking.

  “What’s that?” he asked. Rudi shrugged.

  “Some sort of welcoming party for our witch hunter.”

  “Oh,” Stug said, while the hunted witch slipped out of the gate almost in front of his nose. “Well, good luck to him, I say.” After a brief exchange of pleasantries, Rudi followed her.

  Outside the stockade the night was darker, with more concealing shadows. The only light came from the stars and the sickly green glow of Morrslieb, the lesser moon. With his forester’s instincts Rudi found Hanna quickly enough. She was lurking in a patch of darkness, and he felt vaguely surprised that she’d waited for him.

  “Thank you.” Her voice was low, her face a patch of paleness in the enveloping gloom. “If it hadn’t been for you…” Her voice trailed off.

  “We’d better get going,” Rudi said, feeling awkward and embarrassed now that the immediate danger was past.

  “Yes. Right.” Hanna pulled herself together, sounding almost like her old self for a moment. Then she paused. “Go where, exactly?”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The journey to the Walders’ hut on the fringes of the forest passed in silence for the most part, to Rudi’s unspoken relief. He wasn’t sure quite what to say to the girl in any case. Instead he listened for any sounds of pursuit, but the gates of Kohlstadt appeared to have been sealed for the night and no villagers were abroad. Apart from the lights of the village itself the only glow that didn’t emanate from the sky was the faint yellow beacon leaking between the shutters of the Reifenstal’s cottage. Rudi couldn’t be sure because of the darkness, but he felt certain that Hanna glanced back at it many times on that long walk through the dark.

  Concerned that the witch hunter might take Fritz’s accusations seriously he’d tried to persuade the girl to wait outside while he made sure the coast was clear and hurried inside to warn Greta. But Hanna refused outright, and rather than waste time arguing he’d let her have her own way. To their surprise, the cottage had been deserted.

  “We can’t wait,” he urged, while Hanna threw a few possessions into her satchel. “They could be right behind us.”

  “Then we’d hear them,” Hanna pointed out, white-faced. She seized a stick of charcoal from the fireplace and scribbled something on the outside of Gerhard’s note, which Rudi had left propped up on the table where Greta would be sure to see it when she returned. “And we can’t just run off and leave mother to face them alone.”

  “She’ll be all right,” Rudi assured her, with as much conviction as he could manage. “People around here respect her. A lot of them owe their lives to her.”

  “You really think that’ll make a difference when some idiot starts crying ‘witch’?” Hanna asked bleakly. Rudi shrugged.

  “I don’t think Gerhard would be swayed too much by that,” he said. “He strikes me as the kind who makes up his own mind about things.”

  “Let’s hope so,” Hanna said, allowing herself to be led outside again.

  Rudi knew the way well enough, but his companion stumbled often, her eyes unused to the faint illumination of the stars. At length the faint sliver of Mannslieb, the larger moon, rose low on the horizon, but at this time of the month it had waned almost to the point of invisibility. Tomorrow it would be gone entirely, leaving only its ill-favoured sibling to light the night sky. Morrslieb was almost full, it was true, and would be so completely on the morrow, but the light it cast was pale and sickly. It imparted a greenish, necrotic tinge to everything it fell on, and if anything it made the darkness worse.

  “Ow!” Hanna had stumbled over something i
n the gloom. She added a couple of words Rudi was mildly shocked to find that she knew, he slowed his own surefooted stride to a pace more comfortable for her. “How do you manage to find your way around out here at night?”

  “I don’t know. I just do.” Rudi shrugged, before remembering that she couldn’t see the gesture. “How do you know where to find the herbs you need for medicines?”

  “The same way, I guess.” She tripped again, almost falling this time. Then she stopped. “This is hopeless!” Frustration and anger raised her voice another octave, and Rudi heard a loud sniff in the darkness. A sudden spasm of panic seized him. Girls under stress tended to start crying, he remembered, and he couldn’t imagine how to deal with it if she burst into tears or something.

  “We’re nearly there,” he said, trying to sound encouraging. “Just stick as close to me as you can.”

  “You wish.” For a moment he bristled at the familiar edge of sarcasm in her voice, then he picked up how fragile it was. Well if that was how she coped with things, at least she’d be quiet about it. Then he jumped, as a small, warm hand closed itself around his palm. “Close enough?”

  “Reckon it’ll do,” he said, determined to match her casual attitude. He’d never held hands with a girl before, and had never felt the urge to with this one, but it felt strangely pleasant. Hesitantly he curled his fingers around hers, keeping the pressure light. He wondered vaguely why his heartbeat had suddenly grown so loud.

  “Don’t sound so enthusiastic,” she said. But this time he had an inkling of how the game was played and didn’t take offence. He swallowed hard to clear his throat before speaking.

  “We’d better get going,” he said, leading the way along a familiar path towards the forest. They moved a little slower than he might normally have done, but he told himself that was only prudent. Hanna found the trail less treacherous with his support, and now that he was getting used to the sensation of her skin against his he was mildly surprised to find that he had no objection to prolonging the experience.

  The hut he shared with his father came into view at last, a faint glow of candlelight leaking from the shutters. Though it had always seemed comfortable enough to him, he found himself comparing it to the cosy cottage Hanna was used to, and it suddenly seemed very small and spartan.

  “Well,” he said as they stepped into the clearing, “here it is.” He had been half expecting a withering comment, but Hanna said nothing. She simply relinquished his hand as she stepped out onto the greensward surrounding the hut. Suppressing a pang of disappointment Rudi led the way past the vegetable patch to the door.

  “There you are, lad.” Gunther glanced up from his fletching jig, a half-completed arrow on the rough-hewn wooden table absorbing most of his attention. “There’s stew in the pot.” An expression of wary disquiet came across his face as he noticed Hanna standing behind his son. “I’d have made more if I’d known you had company.” He stood up to vacate one of the only two chairs in the hut, then fetched a couple of bowls.

  “I’m not hungry, thank you,” Hanna said. If Gunther took offence at her refusal he didn’t show it.

  “Please yourself,” he said, as though her reluctance to eat was perfectly natural. Rudi shook his head.

  “Me neither.” Even though he hadn’t eaten for a long time the tension in the pit of his stomach was robbing him of his appetite.

  “It’ll keep.” Gunther returned the bowls to their shelf, and glanced at Hanna. “You’d better sit down. You’ll have had a long walk.”

  “You don’t know the half of it.” Rudi waited until his guest had taken one of the chairs before speaking. He was surprised by Hanna’s reticence. He’d expected her to be talking her head off by now, and launching into another diatribe against the villagers who had so unexpectedly turned on her, but instead she just sat and stared at the simple furnishings. “There’s a witch hunter in the village…”

  “I know.” Gunther returned to the arrow he’d been working on, leaving Rudi to lean against the table between him and Hanna. “That sort of news travels fast.” He cast a curious glance at his son. “And you’ve been taking letters around for him too, I hear.”

  “Just a couple.” Rudi hesitated before broaching the subject, unsure of how Hanna would take it. “That’s why Hanna’s with me. People are saying things about her, and she’s safer out here.”

  “Then people are idiots.” Gunther lifted the newly fletched arrow from the table. He inspected it before spinning it like an elongated child’s top on the palm of his hand. It moved smoothly, without a trace of the minute wobble which would have indicated a small imperfection in its balance. He set it aside, sure it would fly true. “She’s no more touched by Chaos than I am.”

  “Thank you.” Hanna smiled hesitantly, for the first time since entering the hut. “It’s good to know some people still believe in me.”

  “Belief doesn’t come into it.” Gunther shrugged. Looking a little embarrassed, he reached for another shaft. “Some things you just know.”

  The rest of the evening passed in desultory conversation. Neither Rudi nor his father were particularly garrulous by nature, and Hanna was too distracted to play cards, which was how the Walders normally passed the time when there was nothing else too pressing to be done. It came as something of a relief when the candle on the table had burned down to a stub and Gunther suggested turning in rather than lighting a fresh one.

  Of course that threw up a new set of problems. There were only two pallets in the hut, and the single room was singularly ill equipped to afford Hanna the privacy her hosts felt she required. In the end Gunther hung a clothesline across one corner and draped a spare blanket from it. When Rudi had dragged his own mattress across there, Hanna disappeared behind it with muttered thanks. After a few moments of rustling, which both men did their best to ignore, everything went quiet. Gunther fetched another spare blanket from the chest.

  “You’d best have mine,” he said, indicating his own pallet. Rudi shook his head.

  “That wouldn’t be fair. I’ll manage.”

  “Suit yourself.” Gunther handed him the blanket and settled on his mattress with ill-concealed relief. As his father unfastened his shirt Rudi could see that the rash on his chest had spread even further. He bent close, keeping his voice low in case Hanna overheard.

  “That doesn’t look any better,” he said. “Maybe while Hanna’s here she could make you a poultice or something.”

  “It’s fine,” Gunther said, in the tone that meant the subject was not open to discussion. “I’m fine. She doesn’t need to be bothered right now.”

  “If you say so,” Rudi replied. He took the blanket, and tried to make himself as comfortable as he could, but the floor felt hard and unyielding. And every time he closed his eyes he saw the face of the beastman, or Altman’s mutilated corpse. And if it wasn’t either of those it was Gerhard, talking in perfectly reasonable tones of killing him in order to read a worthless scrap of paper, and somehow that was the worst of all.

  Despite his exhaustion, sleep was a long time coming that night. And when it did his dreams were troubled by visions of nameless horrors that woke him, cold and sweating, and unable to recall what they were.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The following morning was heralded by bright sunlight streaming in through the gaps in the shutters. It picked out random patches of wall or floor with beams of silver radiance made visible by the dancing of the dust motes trapped within them. One fell on Rudi’s face as he turned fitfully on the hard wooden floor. He squinted reflexively as the light hit his eyelids and stirred, roused from uneasy slumber by the involuntary movement of his facial muscles.

  Once conscious he was unable to drift off to sleep again. Even if the floor had been comfortable, which it most decidedly wasn’t, the faint residue of his dreams made dozing an option he’d rather avoid. After a moment he sat up, his back and shoulder muscles creaking in protest. He groaned aloud.

  “Sleep well?” Hanna aske
d, regarding him quizzically through the steam rising from a mug in her hand. He tried to frame a reply, but it turned into a jaw-cracking yawn. After a moment he tried again.

  “All right. You?” He scrambled to his feet, blessing the foresight that had impelled him to leave his britches on under the blanket. He fumbled for his shirt. The girl nodded.

  “Fine, thank you.” Her face belied her words: the dark patches under her eyes stood out starkly against the unfamiliar pallor of her skin. She held out another mug of hot liquid, and Rudi took it without thinking.

  “What’s this?” As he sipped it his head cleared a little. He couldn’t determine whether it was the liquid itself or the fragrant steam that did it.

  Hanna shrugged.

  “It’s a herbal infusion. Gives you energy. I brought it with me last night.” She smiled bleakly. “I thought it might come in handy.”

  “You thought right.” He ambled over to the cooking fire, and ladled out some of the stew left over from the previous evening. “This isn’t much, but it’ll help.”

  “Thanks.” Hanna took it without much enthusiasm, and began to eat. Rudi wolfed down his own portion, his sense of wellbeing improving with every bite. By the time his bowl was empty he was sure he would be able to make Gerhard see sense with a few well-chosen words. After all, everyone knew Fritz Katzenjammer was feeble-minded. He said as much, hoping to raise Hanna’s spirits, and she smiled wanly.

  “If only it was as easy as that,” she said.

  With breakfast over, Rudi completed his toilet by washing in the bowl of cold water Gunther had brought in before going off to make his rounds of the woods. He’d left early, before either youngster was awake, but Rudi wasn’t too concerned about that. His father generally up with the dawn, and after the attack on the Altmans’ farm he’d want to check the area for any sign of the beastmen as quickly as possible.