The Empire Omnibus

by Chris Wraight

  Chapter Fourteen

  An unexpected murderer

  Averland plains,

  413 miles from Altdorf

  The first moment Karlich knew something was wrong, Masbrecht was shouting.

  ‘Eber’s dead! He killed him! He’s here!’

  That couldn’t be right. He’d seen Eber but a half hour ago, he was fine. A strong ox of a man was Eber. No, he couldn’t be dead. There must be a mistake.

  Then came the running, Karlich and Rechts together, Karlich’s legs working in advance of his mind, his fingers tugging the pistol from his belt before his brain had told them to.

  Eber was dead. The assassin had killed him.

  A sound like thunder echoed throughout the hills, the natural depression within the valley rebounding and intensifying it so it was loud and difficult to pinpoint. A rock just above Karlich’s head exploded a half-second later.

  Karlich cried out as stony shrapnel embedded in his cheek like hot needles. He went down behind some scattered boulders lodged in the hillside – so did Rechts – and not from the injury. The next shot could be his skull instead of a rock.

  ‘Grimblades!’ he roared, trying to staunch the blood flooding down his face and neck, spilling through his fingers and soaking his shoulder. Karlich searched the hills. His head was down but he saw his men moving through the gaps in the rocks. The sun was in his eye-line, partially blinding him.

  The bastard had been waiting all along, waiting for the perfect moment.

  Grimacing with the pain in his cheek, Karlich cursed and stepped out from behind the boulders. He had to join the hunt. He just hoped the assassin had switched aim or the next iron ball would indeed be in his head.

  Brand kept his anger like a caged thing, deep inside him. Now it was threatening to spill over, so annoyed was he about being on the wrong side of the hills. He bolted like a maniac across the road, leaving Lenkmann behind. Intent to the point of recklessness, he powered up the opposite hillside in long, rangy strides. He met Eber a short distance up, ashen-faced and lying on his side in a pool of his own blood. The red rivulets coming from his body were like thick veins threading the grass. Brand barely glanced down as he raced past him.

  Masbrecht was knelt beside him. ‘I didn’t see, I didn’t see…’

  Brand wasn’t listening.

  Not far now.

  He ran harder.

  Volker drew his pistol when he saw Eber go down. It was so quick. A snatch of movement, the fading memory of a lithe figure in dark-brown and green felling an oak in the time it should take to cut down a sapling. Then the assassin was gone and Volker lowered his pistol with a curse.

  ‘He’s here. Come on!’ he urged Keller, who looked like his wits had deserted him.

  ‘Get away! Get out of my head!’ he murmured, staggering after Volker and Dog. The mutt was barking loudly, drawing the others to the fight.

  ‘Good boy, good boy,’ said Volker, bounding across the hillside, his words coming out in a breathless rush. He ducked through tight ravines, hooked around boulders, leapt over mounds of earth. Just the flicker of his enemy, the waft of something incongruous on the breeze, kept him on the assassin’s tail.

  As a huntsman on his native lands, during all the years he’d been in the Reikland army, Volker had never tracked a prey so elusive. The assassin left foils and false signs everywhere he went. He had just seconds to do it, and Volker had even less time to decipher them. He went on a winding path, first down and then up again, across the length and breadth of the hillside.

  Volker lost concentration for a split-second when he saw Brand barrelling up to meet him. In the corner of his eye, he noticed Karlich and Rechts too. In that moment, he lost his prey. Volker paused, annoyed at himself and felt a slight shift in the air nearby. Ducking out of instinct, he heard something whip over his head that ended in a dissonant clang against the rocks beside him. Volker was swinging the pistol around when he saw the assassin. Lithe and tall, he wore a tight leather bodice tied off down the middle. Their leggings and boots were of a dark animal hide. No skin was visible, hidden as it was behind long sleeves, gloves and a mask to cover the face. Something flashed between the eye-slits. It looked like enjoyment. The assassin had blades up his arms, daggers at his belt, a short sword down one leg and some kind of rifle, like no harquebus Volker had ever seen, on a strap slung over his shoulder.

  The huntsman’s skill at observation had always been keen, and all this he discerned in the moment it took for the assassin to loose another throwing dagger and end Volker’s life.

  Fate intervened in the huntsman’s favour, a burly mass of fur and fangs smashing into the assassin and spoiling his aim. The dagger clattered harmlessly to one side and Volker was on his feet a moment later. Dog was fastened to the assassin’s arm, biting down and growling. It elicited a screech of pain from the masked killer, a lot higher in pitch than Volker was expecting. Before he could get there, the assassin threw Dog off. The mastiff rolled and leapt again, but faltered in mid-flight. Volker thought he’d seen the killer raise a hand in warding, a natural reaction to a savage beast coming at him, but as Dog yelped and crumpled to the ground, he suspected something else. Horror built in Volker’s gut, all thought of stopping the assassin momentarily forgotten in his concern for Dog. The mastiff wasn’t moving. Something bubbled from its maw amidst the foaming saliva.

  Frantic, Volker searched Dog’s cooling body for sign of injury. Under its chin, he found a tiny dart. So innocuous-looking, yet so deadly. He went to tear it out before realising the barb was poisoned. Dog was dead. There was nothing Volker could do.

  Brand got the assassin’s attention simply by running towards her at speed. He redoubled his efforts when he saw the mastiff fall to the dart. Unless the assassin’s attention was elsewhere, she’d gut Volker next while his grief made him defenceless. No such weakness from Brand. He knew her, this killer, because he knew himself.

  Karlich and Rechts were coming from below. Even Keller was catching up to where Volker cradled his beast’s lifeless head. The others were not far, either. They were herding her. She knew it. But Brand knew that an animal was deadliest when cornered. He followed her as she raced up the hillside. She was trying to reach higher ground and find an escape route. Perhaps, with Wilhelm closing by the moment, she merely wished to stall her attackers and execute her mission and the prince with a kill shot from the summit of the hill. The rifle she wore on her back looked like it was up to the task.

  With Volker incapacitated, Brand easily outstripped the others for pace. Powering up the rugged slope, he had the assassin exactly where he wanted her – to himself.

  Weaving around a rocky outcrop, Brand saw the flash of steel just in time. He parried with his blade, sparks and metal slivers shearing off in the air like falling stars. The second thrust came just as swiftly and he was forced to deflect low to avoid having a knife in his abdomen. The assassin, surprised her victim had lasted this long, drew a second dagger. Brand stepped back, pulling a throwing knife from his vambrace and using it like a foil. Her attack exploded against him in a rain of blows. High and low thrusts, wide slashes and overhand cuts prodded and probed the Reiklander’s defences, seeking an opening.

  She was good, faster than him. Brand knew he couldn’t beat her while she had the upper hand. But all he had to do was hold her off and wait for the others. He’d wanted the assassin for himself, but was pragmatic enough to accept help when he needed it. A flurry of blade strokes pushed Brand back. A hot line of pain seared his arm as she opened up a bloody gash in his wrist. A well-aimed kick punched the air from Brand’s lungs and sent him sprawling down the slope. Winded, but with anger fuelling his body in lieu of air, Brand scrambled back after her.

  ‘Bitch…’ he muttered in a rare moment of pique.

  Then he saw the rifle levelled almost point blank at his chest and knew he’d made a mistake. Closing his eyes, Bra
nd accepted the inevitable. He heard horses in the distance and men shouting from the valley below. But when the shot rang out, he felt no pain. He didn’t fall with an iron bullet in his heart.

  Brand opened his eyes.

  She was dead, the left eye-slit of her mask exploded outwards in a bloom of bloodstained leather. Volker was revealed behind her, an empty look on his face, a smoking pistol in his hand.

  Eber felt cold and clammy to the touch as Karlich stooped beside him. Masbrecht was crouched next to the sergeant, tearing strips from his cloak and jerkin, and pressing them against Eber’s flowing wounds.

  ‘I was wrong. He’s alive,’ said Masbrecht.

  Below, the prince’s entourage could be heard charging past. It was likely they’d heard the shot, but impossible to know what they made of it. Bandits and rogues of all stripes were common in the wild and often attacked travellers on the road. In truth, it seemed most of these reprobates had abandoned ambushing the Imperial byways in the wake of Grom’s invasion, but Wilhelm and his Griffonkorps couldn’t be certain of that. At least it was easier to countenance than an assassin hired to slay him from the shadows.

  Karlich had seen the assassin fall to Volker’s bullet. At least they’d managed that. It would all be for nothing if the prince discovered the truth, though. The Grimblades kept down, staying out of sight to add weight to the lie that errant bandits were lurking on the hillside. Rechts threatened to shatter the deceit with what he said next.

  ‘We should hail them. Eber’s alive and he needs help,’ he pleaded to Karlich. ‘A horse will get him back to Mannsgard faster than we can.’

  Masbrecht replied before Karlich could answer. ‘I can help him.’ He felt Eber’s trunk-like neck. ‘His pulse is weak, but he’s a strong one. I can help him,’ he repeated.

  Rechts balled his fists as his jaw set in a firm, unyielding line. ‘If you say you’ll pray for him…’

  Masbrecht turned to him, stony-faced. ‘My father was a physician. I learned some of his trade.’

  Rechts wasn’t convinced. The horses were almost gone. He went to Karlich for a second opinion.

  The sergeant considered hard.

  ‘We can’t risk it,’ he decided in the end.

  ‘Eber will probably die!’ said Rechts.

  ‘We can’t risk it!’ Karlich hissed, his eyes urging the drummer to be quiet and stay down like the rest of them. ‘One life for the fate of the Empire. I won’t do it, Rechts. Stay down.’

  The clacking of hooves against the road slowly receded into the distance. Morning had passed, the prince and his knights were gone.

  The leather mask was almost black. It had two angular eye slits and bent outwards along the middle to accommodate the nose. It came off easily when Karlich pulled at it, sticking only slightly to the bloodied mess underneath.

  Lenkmann had joined them and gave a sharp intake of breath as the assassin’s identity was revealed.

  Prince Wilhelm’s would-be killer was a woman, a pretty one if not for the bullet hole ruining one side of her face. Only Brand had known it beforehand.

  ‘Doesn’t look Imperial,’ said Rechts.

  The dead assassin had olive skin with big, dark eyes and hair like sable to match.

  ‘She’s a hireling, a sell-sword,’ said Brand. ‘A dog of war.’

  Karlich felt that same tremor of unease whenever Brand spoke of things that hinted at his old life. It had been a short while since Wilhelm had passed through the valley, alive and well. Together with his Griffon-korps, the prince was just a dust cloud on the horizon now, riding hard for Mannsgard. Karlich wondered idly if their entreaties to Wissenland had been successful. He suspected not. He winced when a bitter smile pulled at his injured cheek. Masbrecht had removed most of the stone shards but it was still painful. Dried blood covered one half of the sergeant’s face like a mask. The shoulder of his jerkin was caked in it.

  Four men surrounded the corpse. Volker was off somewhere, burying Dog. He’d not spoken a word since the mastiff’s death. He didn’t appear to be distraught or even angry, just null of feeling, as if he were made of marble. Masbrecht was still tending to Eber, fulfilling his promise to help the burly Reiklander if he could. With Eber’s wounds bandaged, there was little more Masbrecht could do. Eber remained unconscious, his breathing laboured. The paleness of his skin suggested he’d lost a lot of blood. Some of it stained Masbrecht’s sleeves and stuck between his fingers and under his nails. It wasn’t a pleasant sensation.

  Keller sat off to the side of the group of four around the assassin. He was downcast, lost in his thoughts.

  ‘Looks like a tattoo,’ remarked Rechts, noting the mark on the side of the assassin’s neck. Brand had brushed aside her hair and revealed it.

  ‘Do you know what it means?’ asked Karlich.

  ‘No,’ said Brand. ‘I don’t recognise this one.’

  This one… thought Karlich.

  ‘But I know what this is,’ Brand added. From a small pouch tied to the assassin’s belt he produced a gold coin.

  Karlich took it to examine it.

  ‘Stamped with the burgers’ seal,’ he muttered. ‘This is Marienburg gold. Freshly minted too, if the sheen is anything to go by.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Lenkmann.

  Karlich’s face darkened as the possibilities ran through his mind. This business was growing murkier by the minute.

  ‘Neither do I,’ he said.

  ‘She was expensive,’ Brand told them. ‘Those blades, that rifle… Doesn’t come cheap. And she was good. Really good.’

  Karlich thought he heard a note of reluctant admiration in the other Reiklander’s voice.

  ‘Have you ever seen anything like that?’ asked Lenkmann.

  He was pointing at the rifle next to her. The lacquered wood stock was finely carved and it had a metal barrel and trigger. It was much longer than an ordinary harquebus with a deeper, narrower barrel. It was unadorned, though a gunsmith’s mark was engraved in the wood of the butt. A small circlet of iron with a cross through it was hinged to the end of the barrel. A sighter of some description.

  ‘It’s Tilean, like her,’ said Brand.

  Karlich knew little of Tilea, save it was a country far south of the Empire renowned for thieves, sell-swords and adventurers. She certainly had a foreign cast to her features and Tilea had a prominent and powerful assassins’ guild whose reach stretched through much of the Old World. He couldn’t be sure, though. He wanted to know how Brand could be.

  ‘How do you know?’ Karlich asked.

  ‘I’ve been there.’

  Karlich was incredulous. He didn’t know of any soldiers that had travelled beyond the Empire. ‘When?’

  ‘I was sixteen.’

  Karlich waited but when it was obvious no further explanation was coming, he dropped the subject. Brand’s past was as cloudy as the Reik during fog. Instead, he focused back on the rifle and the question of what to do with it.

  ‘We have to destroy it,’ he said.

  Lenkmann made to protest. ‘Such a masterpiece weapon, couldn’t we–’

  ‘How would you explain it when we return to Mannsgard? We can’t just say we found it in the wild. Questions would be asked. The truth would come out.’

  Lenkmann had no answer.

  ‘Every trace of her must disappear,’ Karlich concluded.

  Rechts pulled off his cloak and rolled up his sleeves.

  ‘Then we’d best get started.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  Old wounds

  The road warden’s rest, Averland woods,

  408 miles from Altdorf

  They buried the assassin on the hillside in a shallow grave. There was no time to dig a deeper one and Karlich hoped that scavengers might unearth and then devour her. It was a gruesome thought, and no one voiced it out loud, but they�
��d been forced to compromise ever since discovering the Altdorf messenger’s corpse and becoming Ledner’s thugs. Brand dismantled the rifle, smashing its mechanical parts beyond repair with the butt of his pistol and setting fire to the wooden components.

  Eber lived, for the moment. His breathing was still shallow and he hadn’t regained consciousness yet. By the time they were able to move him – lifting his body with a pair of cloaks like a hammock and carried between two – evening was already drawing in.

  It was Volker who found the road warden’s rest, a small shack well hidden in the woods with a second outbuilding that served as a watchtower nearby. It was bare wood, but sturdy and well kept. Judging by the dust and the smell, it hadn’t been occupied in weeks. As they entered the hut where the road warden would sleep and eat his meals, Karlich was reminded of the crucifixes they’d found on the way to Blösstadt. The fluttering of dark wings, the frenzied pecking and the excited caws of crows came back to him, unwelcome as bad eggs.

  The hut was sparse with a small iron stove in one corner, an empty skillet perched on top. There was a bed. It had mildewed blankets and was stuffed with straw for comfort. This was where they laid Eber, his bearers grateful for not having to haul him around for a while. A stool sat by the bed – Karlich imagined the road warden tugging on his boots or sharpening his blade. A hook on the wall contained the empty echo of a crossbow, a darker patch in the wood where the light hadn’t touched it. A small cupboard revealed salted meats and a barrel of warm ale. The Grimblades tucked in without thought, not realising how hungry they actually were until presented with food.

  Small windows revealed a dingy view. The shack had a flat roof but angled at one end. It had started to rain, thunder in the east announcing a heavy downpour, and it teemed over the window in thick streaks. Through it there was the watchtower, a hundred feet or so from the hut and a small tethering pole where the road warden would have secured his horse. They’d found rope and spare iron horseshoes in the shack, but there was no animal in sight. The entire place was desolate and forlorn, as if missing the presence of its occupants.