03 - Death's Legacy (14 page)

“I’m fine,” Hanna assured him. Alwyn was trying to throw her
over her hip with a wrestler’s move, but the blonde girl had transferred her
grip to the mercenary’s sword hand and was clinging to it with even greater
determination than before, remaining on her feet apparently by sheer willpower.
Both women seemed too intent on their physical struggle to think of attempting
to settle it by magical means, which was probably just as well, Rudi thought. In
a city full of refugees from the ravages of the minions of Chaos, any display of
sorcery would probably spark a riot. Giving up the attempt to throw Hanna or use
her sword, Alwyn drew a dagger from her boot with her left hand and thrust it
hard at Hanna’s gut.

“You bitch!” Hanna stared at the hilt of the knife,
protruding from the bulging satchel at her waist. “I haven’t even worn that
yet!” Her teeth closed on Alwyn’s wrist, and the mercenary’s sword clattered to
the cobbles with a shriek of outrage and pain.

Rudi stepped in towards Conrad, who’d half-turned towards his
wife, clearly alarmed at her sudden scream, and struck at his head with the flat
of his sword. The mercenary saw it coming and ducked, lashing out with his foot
at Rudi’s groin as he did so. Rudi flinched, riding the blow, and grinned as
Conrad hopped backwards, favouring his uninjured foot—he’d spent the first
week’s wages he’d earned as a watchman on an armoured codpiece, and not for the
first time, blessed his foresight. Pivoting, he returned the favour before
Conrad could recover his balance, and watched the bounty hunter fold with an
unmistakable sense of satisfaction.

“Hanna!” He leapt to intervene in the women’s struggle,
laying Alwyn out with the flat of the sword as he’d intended to do with her
husband, and helped Hanna to her feet. Ignoring the faint sigh of disappointment
from the crowd, which began to disperse about its interrupted business, now that
the entertainment was over, the girl glared at the prostrate form of the
redheaded mage, breathing hard, and then bent down to snatch the purse from her
belt. “Hanna! What in Taal’s name do you think you’re doing?”

“She owes me a new dress.” Hanna took a crown and a handful
of silver out of the little bag, and dropped it carelessly back on top of its
feebly-twitching owner. The mercer she’d dealt with before was returning to his
stall, and watched warily while she rummaged through the stock, picking out a
dress almost identical to the one she’d chosen before. “This’ll do. Same price as
the other one?”

“Near enough,” the stallholder said, slipping the money out
of sight with a quick glance at Alwyn, who was too busy trying to sit up to
notice, and Conrad, who was still retching noisily in the gutter. He forced a
grin. “Even if it wasn’t, I don’t think I’d argue.” The grin stretched and
became a little more sincere. “You might talk like a pair of Reikland fops, but
you’ve Middenland blood right enough.”

“Come on.” Hanna acknowledged the peculiar compliment with a
tilt of her head, and turned away, the garment slung casually across her
shoulder.

“I’m right behind you,” Rudi assured her. Conrad was still in
no fit state to fight, if he was any judge, and seemed more interested in
checking his wife’s injuries now that he’d managed to regain his own feet in any
case, but he had no desire to hang around any longer than they needed to. He had
no doubt that both mercenaries would recover rapidly, and the watch would
probably be there at any moment.

“I wonder where the others are?” Hanna said, as they jogged
down the hill towards the docks. By way of an answer, Rudi pointed to the mouth
of a nearby alleyway.

“Over there,” he said. Bodun the dwarf was trotting into the
square, glancing around to talk to someone behind him, his axe held ready for
use.

“Just because there’s trouble in the direction they went off
in, it doesn’t have to mean they’re mixed up in it,” Rudi heard, in the dwarf’s
familiar rumbling tone, before Bodun turned to face where he was going. His eyes
widened with shock as he recognised Rudi, and then narrowed with all the pent-up
anger of a dwarf with a grudge, and he bellowed a challenge that echoed from the
surrounding buildings like a thunderclap. “Stand and fight, skavenslayer!” He
broke into a ponderous run, like a boulder beginning to roll down a
mountainside, barging a couple of townsfolk out of the way as he did so. A
moment later Theo and Bruno rounded the corner behind him, and charged,
overtaking the short-legged warrior as they did so.

“It is him!” Bruno’s eyes glittered with malice, his sword
already drawn, and Rudi knew that the youth wouldn’t think or care about the
bounty, the way Conrad had. He clearly wanted blood, and mere money wouldn’t
satisfy his lust for vengeance. Theo Krieger drew his own blade, angling across
the front of the impetuous youth, forestalling him from making the first attack.
That was something at any rate, the captain of the mercenary band clearly still
valued coin above retribution.

“Run!” Rudi shoved Hanna in the small of the back, impelling
her towards the docks. “I’ll hold them off!”

“Still think you’re Konrad from the ballads?” Hanna asked
rhetorically, turning to face the charging mercenaries. Her gaze flickered past
them, resting for a moment on their recently vanquished comrades as the crowd
parted again, no one in their right minds wanting to be caught in the middle of
what looked like becoming an ugly brawl. A few of the gamblers were exchanging
coins once more, in anticipation of the sport to come, and a halfling
sausage-seller seemed to be doing brisk business among the consolidating ring of
putative spectators. “Oh no you don’t, you henna-haired sow.”

Alwyn was back on her feet, either supported by Conrad or
holding him up, it was hard to be sure. Maybe they were supporting each other,
Rudi thought. She was staring in their direction, her hand moving, although it
was hard to focus on: the air around it seemed to be thickening, the sunlight
glittering on sharp metallic points. Abruptly, they were moving, and Rudi became
aware that a trio of daggers was hurtling through the air towards them.

One, at least, seemed to be missing the mark, expending
itself harmlessly in the cover of the hot sausage cart, which was quickly
abandoned by its diminutive owner with a shrill squeal of alarm. Then, to his
horror, he saw the phantom knife shimmer in the air like summer heat haze as it
passed clean through the obstacle and bore down on them as relentlessly as the
other two. Somehow, he knew, they would be uncomfortably solid when they arrived
at their target nevertheless.

“Party tricks,” Hanna said scornfully. “Shield your eyes.”
Before Rudi could react a wall of vivid yellow flame, almost exactly the same
colour as her hair, erupted from nowhere in the space ahead of them. The phantom
daggers hit it and vanished, as if they’d never been. The holiday mood among the
onlookers evaporated, panic-stricken cries of “Witchcraft!” beginning to rend
the air, and the spectators scattered, running for whatever cover they could
find.

Hanna’s jaw tightened. “If you want to play rough…”

The wall of flames seemed to shiver, contracting into a
small, tight ball, and turning the same shade of hellish red as the blazing
bolts that had dispatched the skaven and immolated Magnus’ mutants. Before Rudi
could protest, the tangled knot of fire hissed through the air towards Alwyn and
Conrad, the shadow mage’s eyes widening with shock. The air in front of them
began to shimmer, like a summer heat haze, and the two spouses’ outlines became
indistinct. The fire bolt began to waver, and Rudi thought he could see the pair
of shadowy figures begin to evade…

“Too late,” Hanna said, with vindictive satisfaction, and
then the protective illusion vanished abruptly. Alwyn was down again, thrashing
around on the cobbles like the victim of a fit. The fireball streaked over her
head, missing Conrad by inches, and burst against the facade of the tavern
behind them. The backwash of heat engulfed them both, and Conrad fell too,
screaming as their clothes burst into flames.

“Rut this!” Theo said. “We’re not being paid enough to fight
witches.” He turned, sprinting towards his fallen comrades, slicing down the
awning of a market stall as he went with the blade of his sword. Clearly seeing
what he had in mind, Bodun followed, seizing the other end of it. Between them,
they swung the heavy canvas over Conrad and Alwyn, smothering the flames that
surrounded their writhing forms.

“Oh dear,” Hanna said with heavy sarcasm. “She fumbled it.
That’ll teach her to try doing magic with a headache.”

“If she lives,” Rudi said, sick with horror. Hanna shrugged.

“Speaking of which…” Bruno was still on the attack, bearing
down on them regardless of the fate his friends had just suffered, brandishing
his sword as he came. Not for the first time, Rudi found himself wondering just
how sane the youth really was: not terribly, judging by his current demeanour.
His face was contorted with hatred, and he was screaming incoherently, a
peroration of malediction against every god Rudi had ever heard of and at least
one he hadn’t.

“You’re going to die! Sigmar can’t help you, Shallya can’t
help you, festering Tzeentch can’t help you, Taal can’t help you.” The crazed
youth swung his sword wildly, without any trace of the precision or skill that
Rudi remembered from previous battles. He blocked the clumsy stroke easily, and
countered. Bruno parried, more by reflex than intent, Rudi thought, and he drove
in past the attack, slashing down at the youth’s unprotected leg.

Bruno howled as the blade laid the back of his calf open
almost to the bone, and turned to face Rudi, his face still twisted. Rudi had
expected him to fall, but the berserker rage kept him moving, and the torrent of
blasphemy continued without respite. “Rhya rolls in what Ursun leaves in the
woods!”

“Run!” Rudi shouted to Hanna, fearful that she might resort
to magic again. “Before someone cries witch on you!” It was no idle fear. Faces
were visible at the windows of the shops and taverns, where many of the
bystanders had fled, and most wore expressions of shock and terror. He’d been
expecting her to argue, but she clearly accepted the wisdom of retreat, merely
turning and sprinting away.

“The gods only help themselves!” Bruno screamed, returning to
the attack. Rudi had no idea what was possessing him, but simply blessed the
fact that whatever it was had struck. A babble of voices in one of the alleys
dragged his head round for a moment, and he caught a brief glimpse of sunlight
reflecting from the heads of halberds above the knot of panic-stricken backs
trying to shove their way out of the square. There was no sign of the bearers
yet, but from the random motions of the shafts, they seemed to be mired in the
crowd that was attempting to flee the other way.

It had to be the watch. He turned his head. Theo and Bodun
were standing now, having done all they could for their fallen friends, and even
at this distance Rudi could see the cold rage on their faces. Without Hanna to
keep them scared off, they’d return to the fray at any moment, eager to claim
the thirty crowns on his head. Weapons in hand, they started back towards him.

Rudi sighed with regret. He had no desire to kill, but he had
to end this at once. Evading another clumsy rush, he struck Bruno’s sword aside,
and thrust his own blade deep into the youth’s chest. Bruno’s eyes widened in
shock and pain, and Rudi raised a foot to push against his ribcage, withdrawing
the blade. It came reluctantly, as if from thick mud, and the steel grated
against Bruno’s ribs. The youth fell, the light of madness dwindling in his
eyes, to be replaced for a moment by astonishment. Then he fell to the ground,
gurgling. Bloody froth gushed from his lips, and his heels drummed on the
cobbles.

Taking his own advice, Rudi turned and ran, heading downhill
towards the docks as fast as he could. Ahead of him, Hanna’s blonde head
shimmered and twisted through the crowd of ordinary citizens, going about their
everyday business, blissfully unaware of the life and death drama that had just
been enacted a couple of streets away, the crimson dress across her shoulder
standing out like a beacon. Aware that the bloody sword in his hand was
attracting unwelcome attention, Rudi wiped and sheathed it, still keeping up the
best pace that he could. He risked a quick glance over his shoulder. Theo and
Bodun were indeed in pursuit, a quartet of watchmen a few paces behind them.

“Rudi! Come on!” Hanna had stopped outside the hall of
Mannan, just a few yards into the street leading back to the harbour.

“Keep going!” he yelled, unable to fathom why she would take
such a chance.

“I intend to.” She fell into place at his shoulder, skirting
the shattered barrel. A thin puddle of sweet-smelling liquid had spread across
the width of the street, forming a wide pool as it flowed downhill. Hanna
sniffed the air. “Brandy. That’ll do nicely.”

“Nicely for what?” Rudi panted. Hanna said nothing, but a
moment later the volatile liquid burst into flames behind them, forming a
blazing barrier across the street. “Oh. I see.”

“I think we can slow down a bit,” Hanna said after a moment.
The dock area was just ahead, the never-ending bustle of commerce swallowing
them up and hiding them from observation. “No need to draw attention to
ourselves.”

“It’s a shame you didn’t think of that before,” Rudi said, a
little shortly. Hanna shrugged.

“She started it. Luckily she got hit by Tzeentch’s Curse
before she could do too much damage.”

“By what?” Rudi looked at her in surprise. “Bruno used that
word too, while he was raving.” He frowned in even greater perplexity. “What the
hell was that all about anyway? I’ve never seen him like that before.”

“It’s a sickness of the mind,” Hanna said. “My mother told me
about things like that, although there’s not a lot a healer can do for it.” She
shrugged. “Given the life he’d led, and some of the things he’d seen and done,
I’m not surprised he cracked. Toasting his friends was probably the final
straw.”