The Wine of Dreams (40 page)

There was a voice shouting very close to his ear, but it did not seem to be
shouting at him. It was demanding more arrows and more spears, but it had a
desperate edge to it that suggested that there were no more crossbow bolts to be
fired and too few spears to be hurled. Reinmar’s body continued to resist the
demands of his will, but not because he was any longer captivated by an odorous
magic. He realised, somewhat to his surprise, that he had simply exhausted his
strength. His limbs would not work properly, and his breathing was impossibly
laboured. He needed to lie down, to be given a pause in which he could recover,
but the battle was still going on, after a fashion. There were no more six-limbed
horrors rampaging about the storehouse, scuttling this way and that, but a fair
few beast-men still remained, lashing out with their claws and clubs.

“Come on!” the voice said, much clearer now that it was addressed to Reinmar
alone. “Got to get you out. We’ve men enough to mop up.”

He was unceremoniously dumped on a floor that seemed to have become
incredibly hard, and lay there for several seconds while the man who had helped
him—for a moment he wondered whether it might have been Vaedecker, impossible
though that was—answered a more urgent need.

The storehouse had become much darker as lanterns had expired or been dashed
to the ground, but there was still light enough, when his vision cleared, to see
the face that loomed over him when he was shifted on to his back. At first, it
seemed like the face of a lovely woman—but then the features shifted and it
became the face of a moth like those he had seen in his dream, and in that form, for some perverse reason, it seemed more beautiful
still. Then it changed again, abruptly, and became the face of the infantryman
who had spoken to Reinmar and Sigurd before the battle began.

That was real, he decided. The other had been illusion.

He felt a pressure pushing against his left leg, and realised that the
soldier had taken his blade from his hand and resheathed it for him.

“It’s all right,” the man said, in a voice harsh with strain. “It’s over—here, at least. The corporal wants thirty to stand guard and thirty to go to the
square to reinforce von Spurzheim’s position, but you’re in no shape to do
either. Rest a while, and then go home, if you can.”

Reinmar struggled to focus his thoughts.

“Vaedecker?” he said, weakly.

“Dead,” the soldier told him. “The giant too. In the morning, they’ll say we
won, but we didn’t. We didn’t stop them. No matter how many we killed, we didn’t
stop them. You played your part, though, and you’ve survived. Bruised, but not
cut—that makes a big difference, when there’s so much danger of infection. When
you can walk, go home, but step carefully.”

All Reinmar could say was “Sigurd?”—but the soldier had already answered
that question, and it was not the kind of news he was eager to repeat. What he
repeated instead was the advice to go home. He was being kind, although he was
absolutely right in his estimation that Reinmar was incapable of further
exertion.

When he was left alone, Reinmar lay where he was. It took several minutes to
work out exactly where that was, but he managed it eventually, and began to
measure the distance that extended between himself and the door to the street.
There was a mournful hush in the storehouse now, and the odour of smoke in the
air—but the smoke had drifted in from elsewhere; the building was not on fire.

Eventually, Reinmar managed to stand up. His limbs were aching and his lungs
felt as if they were full of filthy vapour, but he was indeed uncut, and might
have been unbruised had he not been dumped on the hard floor so many times.

When he made his way to the door the men to either side of it did not
challenge his right to go through it. One of them, indeed, murmured: “Well done,
lad.”

The other said: “Be careful. The street’s secure again, but if you’re heading
into town you might run across a stray.”

Once he was out in the street the scent of smoke became stronger, but in
comparison to what he had recently endured it did not seem foul or dangerous. He
had only taken half a dozen steps when he had to pause and lean against a wall,
but he could feel reserves of strength of which he had been previously unaware
taking possession of his heart and legs.

“Go home,” whispered a voice that he could not recognise, but which seemed
very sweet and loving. “Go home and slake your thirst.”

There was no face to go with the voice, although something withdrew into the
shadows when he looked around and he felt something that might have been
fluttering wings brush his cheek. The strength that was flowing back into him
continued to increase, but he became sharply aware of the dryness of his tongue
and throat. He looked back along the street and then forward, taking stock of
the bodies that lay about the doorway of the storehouse. Only one in four was a
well-made human.

Here, as inside the warehouse, his own side had been victorious—but the
victory had been costly. Had Reinmar been able to weep, he would have done so,
because he felt he knew better than anyone exactly how costly it had been.

Reinmar had stood firm against swordsmen, against horned beastmen, and even
against the transfigured scorpions, but he shivered now that he was alone with
the dead. He was not alone for long, though. Other townsmen selected out by
Vaedecker’s regulars were stumbling after him. One or two were retching
reflexively in reaction to the poisonous stink, but none had anything left in
their stomachs to expel. They all needed better stuff to breathe, and they were
as grateful as Reinmar for air that had nothing to foul it but smoke.

There were buildings burning in the centre of town, Reinmar realised, but
only a few. The town would not be destroyed, unless matters became far worse,
and the enemy forces seemed to have exhausted their efforts. They had attacked
in a fast and furious manner and had paid the price.

Reinmar continued to support himself against a wall while he retched again,
but he felt better for it. The loss of everything in his stomach had certainly
left him with a raging thirst, and he felt that he would surely die if he could
not find a cup of water soon, or a goblet of good Reikish hock, but he knew that
he was only a few minutes from home once he could persuade himself to move
again.

When he finally managed that, he was able to place one foot in front of the
other with reasonable steadiness. Two of his neighbours walked with him, but he
did not speak to them nor they to him.

There were no bloodthirsty beastmen running amok in the street, although he
and his companions passed half a hundred men not much less wretched than
themselves, and their condition was a telling commentary on the fierceness of
the greater battle. As he passed from street to street, Reinmar saw that
although the attackers had been forced to withdraw from the district soon
enough, they had not gone without leaving their mark.

Whether by magic or mere violence, the enemies of Eilhart had reached far
beyond the defensive barricades to spread their malice. They had left blood in
every street, and broken glass. Reinmar knew that it would be much worse in the
marketplace and on the docks, and did not doubt that morning would reveal scars
on the houses of all the merchants and manufacturers who had built and kept the
prosperity of Eilhart.

One of the sputtering fires, Reinmar saw when he came nearer, was burning in
the immediate neighbourhood of the Wieland shop—but it was not the shop
itself, and the neighbours who were chaining buckets of water from the nearest
pump seemed to have it under control. He did not volunteer to help, but made
instead for the door of his own home.

As he fumbled with the door-latch he looked down, and saw the condition of
his clothing. He realised that he must be a frightening figure in the ruddy
half-light, stained as he was by blood and ichor.

Why, he thought, I have become a monster of sorts myself.

The door was locked, and he knocked on it as loudly as he could, hoping that
Marguerite was inside, and that she would not be too frightened to answer his
summons.

He waited, but no one came.

He put his hand on the hilt of his sword, as if to feel the power that was
within it now that it had drawn so much alien blood, but he did not draw it. His
father would not like it if he forced the door, and he would have to put in
enough work cleaning, sharpening and polishing his weapon without bending the
blade by using it as a lever. He knew that he ought to climb up to the ledge of
his window, as he had done so many times before, and slip in through the gap, but the thought of the effort and
exertion that would be required made him hesitate. He hammered on the door for a
second time, more loudly than before. The knock was not soon answered, and he
eventually moved to turn away—but as he did so, he heard the sound of movement
inside the shop, so he waited instead.

“Who is it?” asked a voice from within: Marguerite’s.

“Reinmar,” he replied.

“Are you alone? Are you hurt?”

Alone, yes. Hurt… perhaps a little. Not mortally.”

He heard the sound of the bar scraping against the door as it was removed.
The door opened a crack, paused, and then swung wider—but Marguerite’s face
did not appear. Thinking that she had merely stepped back, using the door as a
shield, Reinmar moved into the open space. The only light inside was a candle in
a tray that had been set down upon the first stair in the flight leading up to
the second storey.

The door crashed shut behind him and he whirled around.

Marguerite was there, but she was not alone, and the man behind her had a
knife at her throat.

Reinmar felt a pang of bitter regret that he should ever have allowed his
private way into the house to be seen and copied.

“Cousin Wirnt,” he said, hoarsely. “Your friends and kinsmen have been asking
after you.”

“I have had to be careful, cousin,” the stout man assured him. “I had no
sooner left your shop than von Spurzheim’s men were snapping at my heels. What a
pest that man is! I had no option but to hide, and by the time I tried to reach
my father they had taken him away. I nearly returned to Holthusen, but that
might have been more dangerous still, so I thought it best to wait for another
opportunity to talk to my uncle. When I saw him leave, I nearly did not
recognise him—but then I realised that you must have brought him wine, of the
very highest quality. I am still willing to pay a fair price for the goods, of
course—if a life can still be reckoned precious after tonight’s pageant of
destruction.”

“I’m sorry, Reinmar,” Marguerite said, in a voice almost as hoarse as his own.

Reinmar observed, anxiously, that the gleam in Wirnt’s eye was not the glow
of the wine of dreams but something more electric. The strength of his craving
had obviously increased.

He was not mad, in the sense that Luther had been mad, but he was desperate
and dangerous, and the steadiness of his hand was unlikely to be trustworthy.

“Let her go, Wirnt,” Reinmar said. “Marguerite has nothing to do with any
quarrel you might have with me. She came here to render a service of
extraordinary kindness.”

“Should I be threatening the gypsy, then?” Wirnt countered, without moving
the tip of his blade from Marguerite’s windpipe. “She’s no use to you, I fear.
The call that the source will send out after tonight’s hectic work will be
irresistible. You might even hear it yourself—but I must be gone by morning if
1 am to make the most of my opportunity, and I cannot go without a supply of the
wine. You do have an abundant supply, do you not?”

“Actually, no,” Reinmar told him. “My grandfather took it with him. There’s
none left in the house.”

“He had no bottle with him when I saw him,” Wirnt said, “and he can’t be such
a fool as to march through the streets of Eilhart with a jug of dark wine when
it is full of witch hunters. Where is it, cousin? In the cellars? No more lies,
now.”

“It was pure nectar he had, not diluted wine,” Reinmar said. “I’m not lying. If
you hurt that girl, I’ll kill you. Let her go.”

Wirnt’s only answer to the threat and the demand was to press the point of
his dagger into Marguerite’s throat, drawing a trickle of blood. The fugitive
candlelight reflected in her eyes acknowledged her terror, but she did not cry
out. She was trying with all her might to be brave.

“Tell me one more lie, cousin,” Wirnt said, coldly, “and I might press a
little too hard.”

“You have already done that,” Reinmar retorted, with equal coldness. “Now,
you will have to earn enough regard to persuade me to let you out of here alive.
You have no idea how much killing I have done this night, of not-quite-men and
half-human chimeras and giant scorpions with entrancing scent.”

“You have killed such a fiend?” Wirnt retorted scornfully “I doubt that,
unless you had an army at your back—and if you did, that army is not behind
you now. I need the wine, cousin Reinmar, and I think you understand by now how
powerful a need like that can be. You know full well that I’d fight you if I had
to, and kill you if I must, and you do not seem to have strength enough to swat
a fly, let alone engage a man like me in combat. I don’t want to hurt anyone. I only want the wine you brought from
the valley, and once I have it you can certainly trust me to take it far away
from here. I’ll take it all the way to Marienburg if I can.”

“And what makes you think that you can?” Reinmar countered, hoping that if he
delayed long enough he might recover enough of his strength to make a fight of
it. “If even I might hear a call, for merely having sniffed a cork, what will
keep you from the hidden valley and a niche in the stone floor, and a lovely
flower sprouting from your flesh? Or has no one told you yet how the wine of
dreams is made?”