Hammer and Bolter: Issue 20 Read online

  Dubnitz cursed as he saw one of Sascha’s bodyguards stumble, as if something had pulled on his ankle. A moment later, Fulmeyer brained him with his sword, dropping the ex-soldier to the deck, blood running from his eyes and ears. The other bodyguard gave a coughing roar and swooped to the attack, but Fulmeyer merely stepped back into the mist, avoiding the wild blow.

  In his place, a quintet of spears shot from all sides, impaling the hapless warrior. The mist cleared slightly as the pirates jerked their weapons free. Dubnitz was on them a moment later, charging across the blood-slick deck with an agility born of experience. Two of the five fell before the others retreated, leaving Dubnitz surrounded by a muffling wall of mist.

  ‘Sascha,’ he called out. ‘Sark,’ he tried. No answer from either. The alarm bell had fallen silent. The sounds of combat had faded. Dubnitz’s skin crawled. There was a hint of distant noise, like heavy bodies moving through the water.

  ‘It’s over, Dubnitz,’ Fulmeyer’s voice said, from close by. ‘Drop your sword.’

  ‘Or what, you’ll kill me?’ Dubnitz said, his eyes scanning the mist. Were the Sarks still alive? If not, Ogg would kill him.

  ‘We’ll do that anyway, it’s more a question of the way of it,’ Fulmeyer said.

  Dubnitz licked his lips, and tried to pierce the swirling mist. He didn’t like the sound of that. He cleared his throat. ‘If you want my sword, Marsh-Hound… come and take it.’

  Feet scraped on the deck. A cutlass chopped into the back of his cuirass, shredding a strap and sending a flare of pain shooting through his back and chest. Dubnitz stumbled forward, his chest striking the rail. He pushed himself around and his sword slashed through the curling mist, releasing a spray of red. A scream faded to a gurgle.

  ‘You’ll have to do better than that,’ Dubnitz said, breathing heavily.

  Two men emerged from the mist with twin yells. Dubnitz’s sword cut the head from one’s hand-axe and finished its arc buried in the second man’s side. Dubnitz jerked the dying man around and threw him into his fellow. The moment’s distraction enabled him to deal with the survivor.

  Boathooks burst past the falling body of the second man, thumping into his chest. His armour was thick enough that the hooks did little damage. But the rail wasn’t as sturdy. Wood cracked and then Dubnitz was falling backwards. His vision lurched as vertigo conquered his thoughts for several terrified moments and then the mist swallowed him. A moment later, the Reik did the same.

  The water was cold as he sank into its embrace. He could taste mud and foulness as he clawed vainly for the surface. His body felt as if it were being crushed in a giant’s fist. His vision blurred as the dark water burned his eyes and seared his sinuses as it sought out his nostrils, ear canals and mouth.

  Knights of the order learned early on how to swim in armour. It was a survival skill, when most of your business was done on the decks of ships. But the river had its own ideas. He felt the bottom of the Reik beneath his feet, and mud billowed up around him. His lungs began to burn. He couldn’t see.

  Men who were unarmoured and excellent swimmers had drowned in the shallowest areas of the Reik. It was murderous, as bodies of water went. Part of him thought that maybe, just maybe, he should simply acquiesce to fate. Nonetheless, he began to walk. His body throbbed with weakness, but he pushed on, until he saw a ripple of orange light above and he shoved himself upwards, reaching. His face split the surface of the water and he swallowed a gulp of air even as the weight of his armour pulled him back down.

  He shoved his panic aside. The river bank wasn’t far, not if the boat had run aground, and surely Manann, bless his scaly nethers, wouldn’t let one of his chosen warriors drown. As the claws of oxygen deprivation squeezed his mind into an ever-shrinking black ball, Dubnitz forced himself forward, fighting against weight and the current’s pull, using his sword as an anchor against the latter.

  Something dark spread above him agonising moments later, and things like bony fingers scratched his face and armour and he grabbed at them. The soft solidity of waterlogged wood met his palm and he reached out with sudden hope. His thoughts were sputtering like a candle flame in a wind as he heaved himself up out of the water with the help of the tangled roots of the fallen tree. The tree rested in a bend in the river and it had been newly felled. The boat had struck it, and torn out its hull.

  As his vision cleared, Dubnitz saw that the source of light he’d seen from below was the . It had been set ablaze, likely after being picked clean. His heart sank. But just as quickly as it had come, the black mood was swept away by adrenaline. Several shapes moved on the shore, searching through what could only be the ’s cargo. The pirates had dumped it on shore, by the looks of it.

  A born pragmatist, Dubnitz reviewed his choices as he clung to the tree. He could attempt to make his way back to Marienburg and return with a force of knights or even Ambrosius’s Marsh-Watch. Granted, if he returned to Marienburg without the Sarks, Ogg would gut him like a fish and Ogg was more frightening than any mist-borne daemon or savage pirate.

  There was little for it. Once more, Erkhart Dubnitz was forced by circumstance to play hero. It was not a role he relished, but it beat the alternative.

  Carefully, and as quietly as he could, Dubnitz eased himself along the roots, pulling himself towards the dubious safety of shore. The Cursed Marshes weren’t dry land by any stretch of the imagination, being more akin to a scum of slime mould atop the water, but it was safer to be above the mould than below it. Water dripped in runnels down his sea-green armour as he pulled himself up into the light of the burning boat. No one had spotted him yet.

  The main body of the pirates were nowhere in sight, leaving only the three scavengers he saw. Stragglers, then, Dubnitz decided. He squinted. The mist was gone as well. There was no sign of the surviving crew or the Sarks, though they could still be aboard the boat. The stink of burning flesh was heavy on the air, weighing it down. He looked at the fire, a swell of mingled emotions rolling through him.

  ‘Roll it towards the fire,’ one of the pirates said, kicking a crate and interrupting Dubnitz’s ruminations. He was big and bearded, with eyes like ugly coals. ‘Fulmeyer wants what’s left burned while they take the prisoners to the stones.’ There was a certain shuddering emphasis placed on that last word that piqued Dubnitz’s curiosity. Even more importantly, the Sarks were likely still alive. Fulmeyer had an eye for prisoners. Ransoms had been his game early and often.

  ‘Seems a shame,’ another said, fondling a bolt of Cathayan silk. ‘Was a time when we’d have taken the boat and everything with it,’ he added.

  ‘Better times,’ added the third.

  ‘Shut your mouths,’ said the first. ‘We’ve made our bargain now, and it was a good one.’

  ‘Fulmeyer made the bargain, not us,’ the third pirate said, frowning. ‘We can leave.’

  ‘And see that mist creeping in my wake? You don’t play foul with the lords of the marsh and get away with it,’ the first retorted, shaking his head.

  ‘So you say.’

  ‘Are you calling me a liar?’ the pirate snapped, reaching for the dagger sheathed on his hip.

  Dubnitz didn’t allow the other to reply. He rose to his feet, shedding water, and swept his sword out, chopping through the third pirate’s neck. The man gurgled and slumped. Before the second could do more than gape, Dubnitz ripped the sword free and plunged it into his chest, where it became lodged in bone. The first man howled and leapt, his dagger seeking Dubnitz’s guts.

  The knight grabbed the man about the middle and flung him over his hip, into the water. Dropping to his knees in the shallows, Dubnitz held the struggling pirate under the water for a moment. Then he dragged him up.

  ‘Where are the others?’ he asked the sputtering, gasping man casually.

  ‘G-go t-to-’ the pirate croaked.

  ‘Wrong answer,’ Dubnitz said cheerfully. He forced the struggling pirate back under water. Fingers clawed at his pauldrons and cuirass. As the bub
bles began to lessen, Dubnitz pulled him back up. ‘Where did they go?’

  ‘I-into the m-marshes,’ the pirate wheezed.

  ‘Can you show me where?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Pity,’ Dubnitz said, making to press the man back under the water.

  ‘No! Wait!’ the pirate gasped.

  ‘Friend, I’ll be honest, I’m in a foul mood, and I’m all for consigning your soul to Manann’s realm. Play silly beggars with me, and I’ll do just that.’ Dubnitz stood, pulling the pirate up with him. ‘But you help me find Fulmeyer, and maybe you live to do the yardarm jig.’

  ‘Not much of a choice,’ the pirate rasped.

  ‘Better than you deserve.’ Dubnitz shook him slightly. The Order of Manann had a special hatred of pirates, worshipping, as they did, a god of the seas and rivers. Dubnitz had hung more than his fair share, and it was one of the few of the order’s activities that he had anything approaching a professional interest in.

  ‘I’ll lead you to them,’ the pirate said, his eyes closing.

  His name was Schafer, and he was a Stirlander by birth but a water-man by choice. He’d been a crewman on a trade skiff for a number of years before he’d grown bored, slit the mate’s throat and taken off with the pay chest. Once he’d drunk the contents of the chest away, he’d signed on with Fulmeyer.

  All of this he related unasked and slightly defensively. Dubnitz could have told him that he’d heard worse, but didn’t feel like wasting the breath to reassure a man he fully intended to hang. Instead, he tried to steer the conversation into more productive waters as they made their way through the marsh. ‘What stones were you referring to earlier?’ Dubnitz said.

  Schafer looked back at him. The pirate was bound tight by a set of thin chains that Dubnitz had scavenged from what was left of the ’s cargo. ‘What?’

  ‘The stones, the ones you said Fulmeyer was taking the prisoners to.’

  Schafer frowned. ‘They’re just stones. There are lots of stones in the marshes.’

  Dubnitz fell silent. That was true, as far as it went. There were stones aplenty in the marshes, piled higher than nature intended. The Cursed Marshes had an ancient history, pre-dating men by a margin that was wider than Dubnitz was comfortable with. He looked around. The trees had thinned as they left the river behind. The ground was spongy beneath their feet, and water filled their tracks as they walked. The air was thick with damp and the sun was hidden behind a grey miasmic curtain.

  The water was high here, spilling over the roots of crooked trees and boles of sagging earth. Schafer had said that the pirates used skiffs to manoeuvre through the swamp. Dubnitz wished he had one, but he’d have to settle for foot pursuit.

  He blinked stinging beads of sweat out of his eyes. The heat was always surprising. Even in winter, the dark waters of the marsh held in the heat of rot and decay. But edging towards summer as it was now, it was nigh unbearable. Sweat rolled down, causing his skin to itch beneath his armour, which was caked in filth and rusting already. Schafer seemed hardly bothered, but then the pirate was probably used to the heat.

  They travelled in silence for a time, Dubnitz moving as quickly as he could in his armour.

  ‘What do you do with prisoners?’ Dubnitz asked. ‘Is it ransom?’

  Schafer was silent. His heavy shoulders hunched forward as if he were thinking of something unpleasant. His jerkin was stained with sweat. Dubnitz narrowed his eyes and jerked the chain, nearly pulling Schafer off of his feet. ‘I asked you a question.’

  Schafer glared up at him, but behind the anger, there was fear. Not of him, Dubnitz knew. His eyes widened slightly, and Dubnitz spun, hand on his sword hilt. A low fog clung to the path behind, caressing the trees and sliding across the ground. He caught a hint of movement, but heard nothing and saw no shape. He tensed, filled with a sudden, unreasoning fear.

  ‘What was that?’ he said, turning back to Schafer.

  The pirate licked his lips, but didn’t answer. Dubnitz considered striking him. Instead, he shoved him forward. ‘Keep going, friend; and you’d better not be leading me into a trap.’

  Schafer stubbornly refused to answer any more of Dubnitz’s questions as they made their way deeper into the marshes. But his manner became more furtive as they went. Finally Dubnitz jerked him to a halt and said, ‘If you find this place so frightening, why in Manann’s name would Fulmeyer seek sanctuary here?’

  Schafer stared at him. ‘No one said anything about sanctuary,’ he said softly.

  ‘Then where are they going?’ Dubnitz demanded, drawing his sword. He pressed the tip to the pirate’s throat.

  Schafer spat. He looked away. ‘They’re paying the toll.’

  ‘What toll?’ Dubnitz said. He pressed on the sword. A bead of blood spilled down Schafer’s unshaven throat. ‘What are you talking about?’ A sudden thought bobbed to the surface of Dubnitz’s mind. ‘Who are the lords of the marsh?’ he said, recalling Schafer’s earlier words.

  ‘You’ll see soon enough,’ Schafer spat. ‘They’re watching us now. We ain’t safe here. Nobody’s safe, except Fulmeyer, and those with Fulmeyer. And even they ain’t as safe as they like to pretend, damn him.’ Schafer made a sound that was half whine and half growl. ‘Damn him!’ he said again.

  ‘Who’s watching us? More pirates, perhaps? Is Fulmeyer working for someone?’

  Schafer laughed harshly, but didn’t answer. It was getting dark, and the evening mist was rising from the water. Beneath the surface of the water, faint lights shimmered, and Dubnitz shivered slightly. The brightest minds of the best universities stated that the ghost-lights of the Cursed Marsh were nothing more than trapped gases. This close, however, Dubnitz lacked such certainties.

  He had scavenged a lantern and wicks from the cargo, as well as the chain that bound Schafer, and he lit it as the darkness closed in. Schafer seemed content to stay close, and the pirate’s eyes darted back and forth like those of a frightened rabbit. ‘We should stop,’ he said. ‘We should stay here until morning.’

  ‘No,’ Dubnitz said. ‘We go on.’

  ‘I can’t find my way in the dark,’ Schafer protested.

  ‘You had better figure it out,’ Dubnitz said, tapping his sword.

  ‘You’re mad. If you knew–’ he stopped himself abruptly.

  ‘If I knew what, more about these lords you seem so afraid of?’ Dubnitz said. The mist was rolling across the ground. Something splashed in the water. Schafer started. Dubnitz held the lantern higher, but the mist swallowed the light. ‘What are they? Not men, by the way you’re acting…’

  Schafer laughed shrilly. ‘No, not men, but you can ask them what they are yourself!’

  Large shapes moved in the mist. The soggy soil squashed under heavy treads. Dubnitz swung the lantern about, but he could see nothing. There were sounds just past the edge of the lantern’s light and he caught a glance at what might have been scaly skin.

  ‘Here he is!’ Schafer was yelling. ‘Take him! Take him, not me!’

  ‘Quiet,’ Dubnitz growled. He could feel something watching them. Lights that might have been eyes or marsh gas blinked in and out of sight in the mist. He had his sword half-drawn. The shapes he saw did not evoke familiarity on any level. They were not men or beasts or trees. He could not say what they were.

  Abruptly, Schafer lurched forward with a despairing wail. He crashed into Dubnitz, knocking him off balance. Dubnitz stumbled forward, and crashed into something solid. Pain burst through him and he dropped the lantern. Luckily, it didn’t burst. Hastily, he staggered to his feet and snatched it up, catching sight of what he’d run into.

  The stone had been shaped at some point and time in the past. Not by human hands, or even those of a member of the elder races, but by something else. Dubnitz examined it as the mist congealed around him. Strange shapes had been carved into the stone, prompting faint memories of the crude trinkets he’d seen in the possession of one of his brother-knights who’d visited a wet little fog-shrouded isl
and to the west. The shapes were man-like in their proportions, but they hinted at something far larger, and more horrible. He saw what might have been representations of standing stones, and what could only have been bodies dangling from them, like some prehistoric gallows.

  Whatever the symbols represented, they provoked a feeling of disgust in Dubnitz, and he rose slowly to his feet, his sword out. Schafer had vanished. Dubnitz cursed and raised the lantern. The pirate couldn’t have gotten far, not with the chains on him. As the mist swirled, he saw more stones. Moving towards them, he again heard the sound of distant splashing, as if something were moving with him.

  Schafer screamed.

  Dubnitz charged into the mist. The pirate’s body laid a-sprawl at the foot of a large example of one of the stones. A dark blotch marked where the pirate had seemingly run headlong into the stone. It was only when he drew closer that Dubnitz realised that the blotch was far too high up on the stone for that to have occurred. Schafer was dead regardless, his skull crushed like an eggshell.

  Dubnitz froze, listening. Through the blanket of the mist, he heard the slap of wood on water. The skiffs! Forgetting Schafer, he started forward, splashing into the water. It sucked at his legs and for a moment, he regretted his decision to not wait until morning. There was no telling what he would stumble on in the darkness, even with the lantern.

  Forcing himself to be cautious, he slowed. The trees clustered thickly, their mossy branches scraping gently on his armour and across his scalp as he moved. As he walked, he had the impression of large things keeping pace. The lantern’s light flickered and sputtered, as if the wick had grown wet. Dubnitz shook it, but it gave a despairing poof and went out, plunging him into darkness. But only for a moment, as the night was pierced by dancing motes of ghost-green light, that swept almost playfully across his path.

  Discarding the useless lantern, he followed the motes and soon learned that they were sparks, rising from the strange flames, the colour of emeralds, which crawled up a number of stones, casting weird shadows across the mist-covered water. Dubnitz hesitated. He knew magic when he saw it, and the tales of popular bards to the contrary, there was little a man, no matter how pure of heart or strong of arm, could do against magic.