According to the tavern gossip he’d heard in Marienburg, it
was still swamped with refugees from the recent wars in the north, so the
chances of anyone noticing two more itinerants passing through would be minimal,
even if news of the hunt for them had crossed the vast expanse of water
separating the province of Middenland from the Reikland, where he’d spent the
whole of his life apart from his handful of months in Marienburg.
Leaving the mate to his work, much to the man’s visible
relief, Rudi strode to the rail and looked out over the water. The snow had
gone, replaced by the pale sunshine of early winter. As they moved up the Reik,
away from the coast, Rudi knew, it would get a little warmer for a time, the
biting westerly winds from the Sea of Claws mellowing a little as they met the
bulk of the land.
The respite would only be a temporary one, however. He could
still smell the frost on the breeze, and he knew, with all the assurance of a
life spent outdoors, that the winter to come would be a hard one. The sunshine,
though bright, carried little warmth with it. However, inured to the cold by a
lifetime’s experience, he found it exhilarating rather than debilitating.
Just as it had the first time he’d found himself aboard the
riverboat, the sheer magnitude of the Reik left him almost breathless.
Silver-flecked water surrounded the sturdy little vessel, stretching off in
every direction almost as far as the eye could see. Upstream and down, nothing
broke its gently undulating surface apart from the distant sails of boats like
their own, too far off to make out any other details.
The far bank hovered almost at the limits of his vision, too
distant to reveal anything other than faint irregularities of colour that hinted
at variations in the terrain, hovering like a low cloudbank between the water
and the sky. He strained his eyes nevertheless, trying to pick out any landmarks
that he might have seen on the perilous journey towards the safety he and Hanna
had hoped to find in the city they’d so precipitously fled. There was nothing,
just the dull monotony of the moors and marshes that gave the Wasteland its
name.
Orientated, he glanced back at the stern, failing to catch
even a glimpse of Marienburg. He’d half expected to see the mighty span of the
Hoogbrug, or the ramparts of the Vloedmuur still visible in the distance, but
all he could see was the placid wake left by the
Reikmaiden
as she forged
through the water. The widening V disappeared to starboard, merging eventually
with the ripples raised by the wind on the river and the passage of other boats.
To his left a faint, continuous wave spent itself on the northern shoreline,
panting behind the vessel that had created it, like a dog on a leash.
His interest piqued, Rudi leaned against the waist-high rail,
the wood under his hand worn smooth by time and the elements, and took his first
leisurely look at the lands north of the Reik as they slipped past, little more
than a bowshot away They didn’t seem too different from the marshes and moorland
that he and Hanna had struggled over on the opposite side of the river, although
his spirits lifted a little at the thought of all the water that lay between the
two territories.
So long as Shenk’s business remained on the northern bank, he
and Hanna should be relatively safe. If they showed any signs of veering over to
the southern bank, they’d just have to stay below and hope for the best.
“Enjoying the view?” Shenk asked, appearing at his elbow.
Aboard his vessel, he seemed more confident and businesslike, Rudi thought, a
far cry from the nondescript little fellow he was when ashore. Even the faded
blue coat he wore all the time, apparently as a mark of his authority, seemed to
fit him a little better on deck. Determined to be courteous, Rudi nodded.
“It certainly beats walking,” he conceded. Shenk echoed the
gesture.
“Or swimming,” he said. An awkward silence descended for a
moment. “I just wanted you to know that there won’t be any need to jump ship
this time around.”
“I’m sure there won’t,” Rudi said, his hand resting casually
against the hilt of his sword for a moment. Shenk nodded curtly, apparently
genuinely insulted by his visible lack of trust.
“I told you, I owe you one, and I always make good on my
debts. If I’m honest, I hope I never see either of you again once we get to
Altdorf, but until we do, you’ve no call to be looking over your shoulder. Are
we clear?”
“Clear as a spring,” Rudi assured him, his confidence somehow
boosted by the man’s bluntness, far more than it would have been by a show of
strained politeness. Shenk seemed to relax a little too, as if reassured.
“Good.” He changed the subject. “How’s Hanna?”
“Still sleeping,” Rudi said, trying to sound casual. Shenk
nodded sympathetically.
“Probably the best thing,” he said. “She must be all in.” A
faint air of wonderment tinted his voice. “How she made that jump from the
wharf, I’ll never know. You either, come to that.”
“Well that makes two of us,” Rudi assured him, hoping to
steer the conversation to safer ground. Shenk nodded again. Then he shrugged.
“We’ll be putting in at Nocht’s Landing tonight. They have a
healer there. Nothing fancy, just a herbalist really, but I can get him to take
a look at her if you like.”
Rudi fought to keep his face neutral. Hanna and her mother
had been simple village healers back in Kohlstadt, at least so far as anybody
knew, but they’d been hiding the secret of their magical abilities from all
their friends and neighbours. What if this herbalist was the same, and had the
gift of witchsight, like Hanna? He’d know her for what she was instantly, and if
he was simply a healer after all, he might still recognise the cause of Hanna’s
malady. Either way, the risk was too great.
“Better to let her sleep, I think,” he said, trying to keep
his tone light. “She’s also a healer, don’t forget. I think they’re a bit
sensitive about being treated by someone else.”
“Well, you know her best,” Shenk conceded, “but if she hasn’t
woken by nightfall you ought to think about it.”
“Perhaps I will,” Rudi said, hoping that nightfall was a long
way off. His stomach growled suddenly, reminding him of how hungry he was, and
he seized on the chance to change the subject gratefully. “Do you have any food
on board?” The question seemed to amuse Shenk.
“We’ve got a hold full of it,” he said, “but you’re not
eating the cargo.” He pointed to a barrel on the deck, just forwards of the
cabin, almost as large as the one Rudi had hidden in the first time he’d been
carried aboard the boat. “That’s full of apples. Help yourself, that’s what it’s
there for. You missed lunch, I’m afraid.”
Glad of the excuse to terminate the conversation, Rudi left
the captain to go about his business and wandered over to the apple barrel. It
was still full, and as he lifted the lid the sweet smell of autumnal fruit rose
up around him, causing him to salivate. He plucked a couple out, finding them
still firm and barely wrinkled, despite having been picked at least a month
before. One thing Marienburgers were skilled at, he reflected, was the
preservation of food, something essential in a maritime nation whose ships plied
the waters of the world sometimes for months at a stretch. He bit into one,
feeling the sweet juice flooding into his mouth, and almost bumped into Ansbach,
who had approached the barrel from the other side.
“Sorry. I didn’t see you there.” He held out the second
apple. Ansbach ignored it.
“I’ll get my own.” The deckhand pushed past him, and selected
a fruit from the barrel.
“Suit yourself,” Rudi said, stifling the impulse to let the
lid fall on the man’s fingers, and went to check on Hanna.
To Rudi’s carefully concealed concern, Hanna still hadn’t
stirred by the time the
Reikmaiden
put into Nocht’s Landing, which turned
out to be pretty much as he’d expected. A wooden wharf, barely long enough for
the sturdy little riverboat to lie alongside, projected out into the river. A
couple of skiffs bobbed next to it, the fishing nets folded under their seats
probably the only things that made life out here on the fringes of the Wasteland
even marginally possible. Beyond the timber structure a handful of huts, too
modest to be dignified with a label as grand as cottage, stood, clustered around
a larger building that clearly served the tiny community as a meeting place.
Although it couldn’t have done enough business to qualify as a tavern, the smell
of cooking food and the sound of chattering voices drifting from it were enough
to inform Rudi that it was the next best thing, a mixture of social centre and
communal dining room, like the ones he’d seen in the hamlets around Kohlstadt.
The scent of baking fish, tenuous as it was over the
all-pervading odour of river mud and dung, which clung to the tiny settlement
like a garment, hit him straight in the stomach, and began to remind him, in no
uncertain terms, that he hadn’t eaten a proper meal since his supper with Rauke
the previous evening. The boat’s cook had abandoned the galley, evidently intent
on eating ashore with the rest of the crew, and if he didn’t want to spend
another night subsisting on apples he’d have no option but to join them.
That would mean abandoning Hanna, at least for a short while.
He hesitated, assessing the risks. He’d been through enough to know that there
was no such thing as safety to be found anywhere in the world, just a temporary
approximation of it, but she should be secure enough sleeping in the hold of the
boat. One of the crew would be left on watch, and could call him if she woke. It
was hardly as if he’d be difficult to find in a hamlet this size. To his quiet
relief the deckhand in question was Berta, the only other woman on board, who
seemed to have joined the crew in Marienburg, and who wasn’t regarding him with
open suspicion like almost everyone else.
“I’ll keep an eye on her,” she promised, tugging a woollen
cap down over her cropped blonde hair. She was short and stocky, heavily muscled
like a dwarf, and had evidently been around watercraft for a long time, judging
by the calluses on her hands from hauling ropes. Pieter and Ansbach seemed to
get on all right with her, and the cook, Yullis, probably did, at least when he
could be prised out of his galley to double up as a deckhand, which he did
whenever necessary. In his time as a watchman, Rudi had become quite adept at
reading people, particularly if they were trying to conceal something, and Berta
seemed honest enough. She seemed a little reserved around him, though, probably
as a result of the stories she’d heard from the others.
“I appreciate that,” Rudi told her, with a friendly grin,
“and I’m sure Hanna will too, when I tell her how kind you’ve been.”
“Yes, well, no need to ladle it on,” Berta said, although she
seemed pleased at the courtesy nevertheless. “It’s not as if I’ll have much else
to do.”
“Coming?” Shenk asked, pausing at Rudi’s shoulder, and he
nodded.
“Might as well,” he agreed. Busch, Ansbach and Yullis were
already ashore, their silhouettes clearly visible in the gathering dusk as they
made their way through the hamlet towards the community hall. Although he was
too distant to make out any conversation, they seemed to be exchanging greetings
with a few of the local inhabitants as they went. “I take it you’ve been here
before.”
“I’ve been a lot of places,” Shenk said, as they made their
way along the gangplank, “but we put in here every few months. Couple of other
boats do too.”
Rudi looked at the motley collection of huts surrounding
them, suddenly reminded of the one he’d grown up in, in the woods outside
Kohlstadt. He hadn’t thought of it in a long time, he realised, and the notion
was curiously depressing. Half a year ago, his world had been settled and
secure, the most he’d had to worry about being whether his snares would be full
and trying to master the bow his father had given him.
For a moment he considered asking Shenk what had happened to
the weapon, which had been left behind along with everything else they’d owned
when he and Hanna had fled the
Reikmaiden
a few months before, but
decided not to bother. The captain would have sold or traded it at the first
opportunity, and there was no point in bringing the matter up again. It was only
a bow, after all, and he had another now. He didn’t need a tangible reminder of
his adoptive father to keep his memory fresh.
That prompted a flood of new memories, of the night Gunther
Walder had died, struck down by a beastman, as the monstrous creatures had
slaughtered their way through the participants of what he could no longer deny
had been a Chaotic ritual of some kind. He shook his head, trying to clear it.
The more he learned about his history, the more confused he became. Gunther had
been a good man, he knew that, but he’d thought the same thing about Magnus
until the horrors of the previous night had opened his eyes. Perhaps his father
had been an innocent dupe, taken in by the man’s charm and apparent goodwill.
“I’m surprised you find enough cargo in a place like this,”
Rudi said, wrenching his thoughts back to the conversation, and hoping Shenk
hadn’t noticed his momentary distraction.
“You’d be surprised,” Pieter said, grinning. Then he shut his
mouth as the captain shot him a warning look. Of course, Rudi thought, an
isolated spot like this would be the ideal place to transfer illicit cargoes
between riverboats.
“It’s not a question of bulk,” Shenk explained. “All these
settlements would be completely cut off without the river. There are always
letters or messages to pick up, small items to barter and sell.”
“Like lamp oil, that sort of thing,” said Rudi.
“Exactly,” Shenk said, although whether he recognised the
reference to the barrels that Rudi and Hanna had been hiding in when they’d been
brought on board before, or was simply being polite enough to pretend that he
hadn’t, Rudi couldn’t tell. “Putting in for the night’s always better than
sailing on in the dark. As we’re here anyway, we might as well do a little
business.”