03 - Death's Legacy (16 page)

“So, you’re heading for Altdorf too,” he said.

Rudi nodded. “I came across some papers in Marienburg, which
might have something to do with who my parents were.”

“Really?” Fritz looked at him in surprise. Like everyone else
in Kohlstadt, he’d known that Rudi was a foundling, discovered deep in the woods
by Gunther Walder, who had subsequently adopted him. “I thought nobody knew
where you came from.”

“So did I.” Rudi wondered how much to tell him. “But I might
be related to a family in Altdorf, the von Kariens.”

“Never heard of them,” Fritz said, “but maybe the boss has.
He seems to know everybody.” He shrugged. “I’ll ask him. It’s the least he can
do after you rescued his package from river pirates.”

“Thanks,” Rudi said awkwardly. “I’d appreciate that.”

“What’s inside it, anyway?” Hanna asked, clearly intent on
deflecting questions about her own presence. Fritz glanced around the deck to
make sure no one else was in earshot, and dropped his voice.

“Antiquities from Lustria, for the Emperor himself.”

“You’re joking!” Hanna said, although her tone wasn’t
entirely disbelieving. Fritz shuffled his feet.

“Well, I don’t suppose he’ll actually collect them in person,
but the boss is bringing them back on his behalf.”

“What for?” Rudi asked. Fritz shrugged, and looked a little
uneasy.

“Well, I don’t understand all the details.” Rudi could
believe that readily enough. “But it’s all to do with the war, and the damage it
caused. The northeastern provinces are barely clinging on. Ostland’s the worst.”

“I know.” Rudi nodded. This was common tavern gossip even in
Marienburg. “But what’s that got to do with Lustria?”

“Well…” Fritz hesitated again, although whether to order
his thoughts or to think twice about the wisdom of discussing von Eckstein’s
business, Rudi couldn’t be sure. It was evidently the former, though, because he
went on happily enough after a moment. “Years ago, someone had the idea that if
you opened up a port on the northern coast you could bypass Marienburg, so the
Empire could trade freely with the rest of the world, and cut out the
middleman.”

Rudi nodded. He’d heard the same story from Sam Warble.

“It failed, though,” he said. “The elves wouldn’t cooperate.”

“True.” Fritz nodded. “But times have changed, and one of the
ports on the northern coast’s the new capital of Ostland, at least until
Wolfenberg gets back on its feet. If it becomes a major trading centre, it’ll
regenerate the entire north-east. That’s what the boss thinks, anyway.”

“I see.” Rudi nodded too, his head reeling. He’d managed to
pick up enough of the way commerce worked during his months in Marienburg to
appreciate the magnitude of the gamble. If it worked, investment and capital
would flood into the devastated province, and away from the Wasteland. “No
wonder the Fog Walkers are so desperate to stop it.”

“You still haven’t explained what the antiquities are for,”
Hanna said.

“Haven’t I?” Fritz looked confused for a moment. “Oh. Well I
thought that was obvious: to show people that trade with the far reaches of the
world is possible. It’s one thing to ask a merchant or a noble to put his hand
in his purse on a promise, and quite another to show them something that
actually came from Lustria.”

“I see,” Hanna said. Then she grinned at him. “Better make
sure you don’t lose the package, then.”

“No fear of that,” Fritz assured her, looking more serious
than Rudi had ever seen him. His voice dropped even further. “The Emperor
himself is involved, they say. Nothing obvious, of course, but he’s putting a
lot of his own capital into this. If it fails, the best hope for the whole of
the north falls with it.”

“Lucky they’ve got someone as reliable as you on the job,”
Rudi said, vaguely surprised to find the remark lacking in sarcasm. Fritz
nodded, with a trace of uncertainty.

“It’s a big responsibility,” he admitted. “I feel a lot
happier about it, knowing you’re on board to watch my back, though.”

“We’ll try not to let you down,” Hanna said, although her
eyes remained fixed on the columns of smoke in the distance long after the rest
of Carroburg had vanished from sight.

“Is that it?” Hanna asked, with some surprise. Shenk, still
blissfully unaware that Hanna’s witchsight had revealed the location of the
hidden compartment in the bulkhead, had retrieved the package from its hiding
place while his passengers had been eating their supper with most of the crew.
Now, it was lying on the top of one of the crates of earthenware that had
replaced the majority of the fish barrels in the hold. Food of any kind was at a
premium in Carroburg these days, and Rudi suspected the only reason Shenk had
kept any of it aboard at all was to fulfil a preexisting contract. “I was
expecting something bigger.”

“Me too,” Rudi agreed, although he spoke mainly to distract
himself from the irrational sense of dread that the oilskin packet evoked in
him. Until now, he hadn’t given the matter any real thought. It was roughly the
size of a conventional belt pouch, like the one he used to keep his snare lines
in back in his old life in the woods outside Kohlstadt. Hanna put out a cautious
hand, prodding the wrapping carefully.

“There are several things in here,” she said. Indistinct
lumps could be seen through the slick fabric, forming under the pressure of her
probing fingers. She shot a glance at Fritz, trying to seem casual, but Rudi
could tell she was desperate to find out what the magical item among them might
be. “Aren’t you going to show us what we’re supposed to be guarding?” To Rudi’s
silent relief, Fritz shook his head.

“The boss said to deliver it unopened,” he said. He turned
the package over, to reveal the wax seal keeping the contents enshrouded.
“Sorry.”

“Probably just as well,” Rudi said, trying to keep the
conversation light. “I’d hate to drop something and break it. Lustria’s a long
way to go to get another one.”

“I suppose it is,” Hanna said, and yawned widely. She’d
seemed tired ever since they’d got back to the boat, and Rudi supposed that the
strange stone hadn’t entirely sustained her during her magical duel with Alwyn,
if she’d even had to draw on it at all. Her powers seemed to be growing again,
and he wondered, not for the first time, just how much control she really had
over them. “Well, I think I’ll turn in.”

“Me too,” Fritz said, stowing the package carefully inside
his doublet. “Coach travel isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I may never get the
feeling back in my arse again.”

“I think I’ll get some air,” Rudi said, trying to wrest his
attention away from the faint bulge in Fritz’s impeccably cut jacket. The
sensation of fear that he’d felt at the first sight of the package had
diminished to an oppressive sense of unease, although he still couldn’t
understand why. Perhaps it was just because Hanna seemed so fascinated with it,
although how it appeared to her magical senses he could barely imagine.

“All right.” Fritz rolled into the hammock that Pieter had
slung for him, and pulled his cloak over his face. “Yell if you see any
pirates.”

“I’ll do that,” Rudi assured him. The comment had been made
purely in jest, he was sure, but now that it had been voiced, he found himself
inclined to take it seriously. He picked up his bow, and ascended the steep
flight of steps to the deck.

“Having trouble sleeping?” Shenk asked as he emerged, and
raised an eyebrow at the sight of the weapon.

“A little,” Rudi said, letting the frosty air clear his head
with a sense of exquisite relief. The stars shone down hard and sharp again
tonight, their faint blue radiance limning the deck. Mannslieb was barely above
the horizon, still too low to cast much light, and the baleful green glow of
Morrslieb was nowhere to be seen. Out in the open, the sense of dread he’d felt
at the sight of the package seemed irrational, and he let it go gratefully.
“You?”

“My watch,” the captain explained. “We’re running under a
skeleton crew again.” He sighed. “I’ll be damned glad to get to Altdorf
tomorrow. The sooner your friend and his parcel are off my boat, the happier
I’ll be.”

“That makes two of us,” Rudi said fervently. Shenk nodded at
the bow.

“Expecting trouble?”

“Always,” Rudi said. Since leaving Kohlstadt, that was the
one thing in life he’d found that he could constantly be sure of. “If the Fog
Walkers are going to try again before we get to Altdorf, it’ll have to be
tonight.” Shenk nodded.

“The same thought had occurred to me,” he admitted. Despite
their mutual trepidation, however, the night wore on without incident, and after
the watch changed and Ansbach replaced the skipper at the tiller, Rudi found a
convenient corner and tried to get some sleep.

He was woken shortly before dawn by a faint splashing sound,
which echoed in his ears long after the actual noise had vanished. Sitting up
cautiously, he reached for his bow, and looked around, allowing his eyes to
adjust to the meagre light levels. Mannslieb was higher in the sky, but the deck
was still shrouded in shadows, made all the more deep and dark by the faint
radiance it gave. He listened hard, stilling his breath, as he used to do in the
woods when he was trying to locate game by the rustling in the foliage.

Just when he was beginning to convince himself that he’d
imagined it, the sound came again. Nocking an arrow, he turned, moving as
stealthily as he used to do in the forests he’d called home.

His instincts hadn’t let him down: a patch of shadow moved by
the rail, shimmering and indistinct. He gazed at it, trying to bring it into
focus, but it refused to resolve itself. The hairs on the back of his neck began
to prickle. Could this be sorcery?

There was only one way to find out. Trusting his archer’s
instincts, he drew back and let fly, without trying to distinguish a target. He
was rewarded with a cry of pain, and suddenly the patch of concealing shadow was
gone. A young man stood there, clad only in a pair of sodden britches, the arrow
through his shoulder, dripping water and blood onto the deck. Both fluids looked
equally black in the moonlight.

Having no doubt that he was indeed facing a wizard, with
abilities similar to the ones he’d seen Alwyn display, Rudi drew another arrow
from his quiver.

“Stand to!” Ansbach bellowed, but the warning hardly seemed
necessary. Alerted by the intruder’s scream, the crew of the
Reikmaiden
was piling out of the cabins onto the deck, clutching whatever makeshift weapons
they could find. A moment later, Hanna and Fritz appeared too, Hanna’s dagger in
her hand, and Fritz flourishing his sword ready for use.

Rudi tensed, expecting the cornered mage to unleash a barrage
of phantom knives, the way that Alwyn had done, but the intruder clearly felt
that the odds against him were far too great to make a fight of it. Turning, he
leapt over the side of the boat. Rudi expected him to fall, and wondered how he
was hoping to swim with an arrow through his shoulder, but to his astonishment,
the young mage kept rising, almost to the height of the mast, making an
impossible leap across scores of yards of water to the bank.

Rudi tried to track him for a moment with the bow, drawing
back the string as he did so, but decided against taking the shot. Whoever he
was, the young man had been driven off, and there was no point injuring him any
further; or wasting another perfectly good arrow, come to that. A moment later,
he heard a crackling of vegetation from the bank, as the luckless wizard made it
to dry land, and a muffled curse echoed across the water. Evidently, his landing
hadn’t been a comfortable one.

“What the hell was that?” Shenk asked, his face pale in the
moonlight. Hanna shrugged.

“Shadowmancer,” she said. She shot a look of silent
complicity at Rudi. “He must have swum out to the boat, hoping to get aboard,
hidden by magic.” Rudi nodded.

“We had one burgling houses like that when I was in the
watch, back in Marienburg.” That happened to be true, although since the felon
in question had confined his activities to the richer quarters on the other side
of the river, he’d only heard about it through gossip with the other Black Caps
from neighbouring wards. Apparently, the magician in question had disappeared
without trace shortly after being taken into custody. Rudi had a sneaking
suspicion that the Fog Walkers had known a useful recruit when they saw one and
cut some kind of deal to keep him out of Rijker’s Island, the vast stone
fortress that dominated the mouth of the Reik, protecting the city from seaborne
marauders and its own indigenous criminals alike.

“Well, there’s one good thing,” Fritz said, “it’s nearly
dawn. At least they won’t have time for another try.”

“Not until we get to Altdorf, anyway,” Hanna pointed out.

Rudi’s first sight of Altdorf was a massive stone wall,
looming up on both banks of the river and stretching away into the distance on
either side, diminishing with the perspective as it went. From this far away,
the effect was uncannily like a single vast building, into which the mighty Reik
disappeared as if it was nothing more than an irrigation ditch, or the sewage
outflow of a palisaded village. He couldn’t help but be reminded of the
Vloedmuur, which surrounded Marienburg, however, this barrier was clearly built
to resist armies rather than the elements, squat and monolithic compared to the
coastal defences that kept the sea from swamping the mighty coastal port, at
least for most of the time.

The pressures of commerce and a growing population had pushed
a few buildings out beyond the walls, but unlike the ragged shanty town clinging
to the skirts of Carroburg, the structures he could see were mainly constructed
of solid stone, clearly meant to last. Almost since sunrise, and for the first
time since the travellers had left the Wasteland behind, the trees that had
fringed the riverbanks for most of the journey had receded into the distance. In
their place, fields had appeared, scattered farmsteads at first, and then modest
agricultural villages that reminded him all too vividly of Kohlstadt.