Читать книгу Stormtide - Den Patrick - Страница 16

It took two weeks to make their way along the Rusalka River. Steiner had never travelled anywhere by barge before, nor had he ever been so absolutely bored. The persistent damp leeched any good mood out of the three travellers. The owner of the barge was a stooped man called Rezkh who might have been any age from fifty to seventy years old. Long, iron-grey hair emerged from under a battered grubby hat and he rarely said much on account of missing most of his teeth. When he did communicate, in a series of grunts, mumbles and gestures, the conversation was directed at Marek.

‘There’s not even a view to look at,’ said Kristofine, gesturing to the ever-present mist surrounding them. The river was the colour of unquenched steel and the riverbanks were thick with reeds the height of a man on both sides. Trees would emerge from the mist like ghostly sentinels as the barge slunk along the river. In the distance crows called out to one another in strident tones muffled by distance.

Kristofine spent the time learning swordplay from Marek, though there was scarcely enough space for the lessons. Rezkh the boatman would let Marek teach for an hour or so before complaining bitterly about ‘the gods-damned racket of swords crashing against each other’.

It was after one of these training sessions that Kjellrunn and Marek joined Steiner at the prow and stared ahead into the gently swirling mist. They settled down under their cloaks and pressed their hands into their armpits to keep warm.

‘Just our bad fortune to be travelling in winter,’ said Marek.

‘Better this far south than up in Nordvlast,’ said Kristofine, still catching her breath from the lesson.

‘Why is it called the Rusalka River?’ asked Steiner, trailing a hand over the side of the barge and into the water. ‘Why not just the Virag River?’ Marek cleared his throat and looked around to check that the bargemaster wasn’t eavesdropping on them.

‘Before the Empire came into being it was more common to meet things on the road that weren’t human. And sometimes they lingered near the canals too.’

‘Things that weren’t human?’ said Kristofine.

‘The old stories tell of water nymphs who served the land,’ explained Marek. ‘It was seen as good fortune to have one close to home. The fields and forests were more fertile when a nymph was happy, so they said.’

‘And when they weren’t happy …?’ asked Kristofine.

‘The Emperor’s hatred wasn’t merely confined to dragons. He hates all arcane beings. The Empire placed a bounty on the heads of the nymphs and for a time the men of Virag earned coin by murder.’ Steiner pulled his hand back under his cloak, his water-chilled fingers clenched into a fist. Kristofine huddled closer to him.

‘But the Emperor hadn’t counted on the true power of the nymphs. They didn’t pass on to Frejna’s realm and die like the Emperor had hoped. The nymphs came back but now they called themselves rusalka. Where once they had brought life, now they brought only death.’

‘What happened to them?’ asked Kristofine.

‘The rusalka wrought a terrible vengeance on the living for their treachery. Trade by barge stopped completely in Vannerånd, Svingettevei and Drakefjord. The Empire sent Vigilants to kill the Rusalka and many were slain on both sides. Some say the Rusalka were wiped out, but I think some still exist near lakes, where it’s quiet and people are few.’

The barge bumped against something and Steiner flinched. He looked around with one hand on the haft of his sledgehammer, then breathed a sigh of relief. Rezkh had found a small pier to tie up to for the night.

‘Maybe it’s time we went ahead on foot?’ said Steiner. ‘I think I’d like to spend some time among the living. This endless mist is getting to me.’

Marek smiled and clapped a hand on his son’s shoulder. ‘We’re close to the final stop anyway.’

‘How do they get you?’ asked Kristofine. ‘The Rusalka, I mean. How do they, you know, kill you?’

‘A rusalka appears as a beautiful woman bathing in the river. When a man gets close by she calls to him, and the man can’t help but draw close to her.’

Kristofine rolled her eyes.

‘And when the men are close enough the rusalka’s hair comes alive and wraps about the man’s neck, dragging him under the water and drowning him.’

‘We should really go the rest of the way on foot,’ said Steiner.

‘Seems to me the people of Vannerånd, Drakefjord and Svingettevei could have maintained their barge trade if they’d had any brains,’ said Kristofine, gathering her bag.

‘How’s that?’ asked Marek.

‘If the rusalka lured only men to their deaths, they should have employed women to run the barges.’

Marek laughed long and deep and Steiner found himself caught up in the sound, laughing along with him. It was the first time any of them had laughed since Tikhoveter had been killed.

The riverside inn was a welcome sight after two weeks aboard the narrow barge. A small village spread out from beside the canal though most of the buildings were little more than shadowy outlines in the mist. Once they had settled in, Steiner took a bath and joined Marek and Kristofine downstairs in the bar.

‘We’ve wasted two whole weeks on the barge,’ he said. ‘I need to start telling my story now.’

‘Steady now, Steiner,’ warned Marek in a hiss. ‘We only just escaped Virag. We need to be cautious. The Empire has ears everywhere.’

‘Even here, in a riverside inn lost in the mist?’

Marek shrugged. ‘I’m just saying we should be careful is all.’

Steiner cast his gaze around the bar and searched the faces of the local men and women. Wasn’t it the business of spies to blend in and look like everyone else? He approached the bar and nodded to a handful of heavyset men in muddy smocks and forced a smile.

‘Hail, friends.’

‘Friends?’ said tallest of them. He was a bull-necked man with a heavy brow and black beard shot through with grey. ‘Were only friends if you’re buying the drinks.’ The men around Bull-neck chuckled and looked away.

‘I bring news about the Empire. A story really.’

‘A story!’ Bull-neck grinned. ‘What a delight.’ Steiner couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic on account of his accent. ‘An’ you come all the way from …?’

‘Nordvlast,’ supplied Steiner.

‘So you come all the way from Nordvlast to interrupt our conversation with a story about the hated Empire. The Empire that took my niece three summers ago.’ The man’s expression darkened. ‘Go back to Nordvlast, halfhead.’

‘There have been two uprisings against the—’

‘Go back to Nordvlast,’ repeated the bull-necked man. ‘There’ll be no uprising in Svingettevei. We prefer to keep our heads attached to our shoulders. Go.’

Steiner headed back to his table where Kristofine waited with an anxious look. Steiner slumped down in the seat beside her and stared into his mug of ale.

‘I need to get better at that,’ he said quietly.

‘People are strange creatures,’ said Kristofine. ‘Territorial. You can’t just walk into their place and tell them a thing. It makes them feel stupid, ignorant. You need to make them curious. I used to see this done a lot in my father’s tavern. A person would come in and hint that they had just arrived from somewhere or perhaps knew something everyone else didn’t. Just a hint really, to make people curious, make them ask a question or two.’

‘Making people curious,’ repeated Steiner. He looked at his father over the top of his mug. ‘And what do you think?’

‘I think I’m an old soldier who doesn’t know much about storytelling. But I think Kristofine has a point,’ said Marek. ‘Let’s try it her way next time.’

Marek insisted that he needed a room of his own on account of not having a moment’s peace in the last month. ‘We have a little coin to spare,’ he said. ‘One night’s luxury won’t kill anyone.’

And so Steiner found himself alone with Kristofine that night when the bar finally stopped serving and the lanterns downstairs were extinguished one by one. They headed up the creaking wooden steps hand in hand and spent a minute fussing at the candles before Steiner sat on the bed and gave a deep sigh.

‘What’s got you frowning so, dragon rider?’ said Kristofine, running her fingers across his scalp and down his neck. She pressed closer to him and he rested his head against the soft curve of her stomach. Her fingers continued to trace the muscles in his neck and shoulders.

‘Dragon rider?’ He huffed a bitter laugh. ‘They called me the Unbroken back on the ship. At Nordvlast I wielded the Ashen Torment and fought Shirinov in single combat. Out here I can’t even make a handful of men listen to what I have to say.’

‘It will come in time. You’ll work out the trick of it. We’ll work it out together.’

‘Everything will fail if I can’t make people pay attention.’

‘I’m paying attention to you,’ she whispered. ‘And we have our own room for the first time since you were taken by the Empire.’

‘When you put it like that …’ Steiner gave her slow smile and stood up to kiss her.

‘Much better,’ said Kristofine as he began to unbutton her skirt.

They were late joining Marek for what passed for breakfast the following morning, and even the paucity of the fare couldn’t dim Steiner’s spirits.

‘Took us a while to pack,’ said Steiner, setting down his bag and sledgehammer, which he hid under his cloak. Marek raised an eyebrow. Kristofine blushed and Steiner took a seat. They ate their food in the bar and tried to ignore the stale smell of ale and the sweat of men long in their beds. Kristofine smiled a lot but said little, and Marek approached the innkeeper and his wife at the counter.

‘Folks are talking of trouble up north,’ said the innkeeper after the usual round of pleasantries. The innkeeper looked towards the door and then conspiratorially over his shoulder, even though the bar was empty save for Marek, Kristofine and Steiner. ‘Never heard anything like it, I tell you.’ The innkeeper was a thin man in his fifties, with a ratty ponytail of greying brown hair and a patchy beard. He’d introduced himself as Gerd or Ged – Steiner wasn’t quite sure on account of the man’s accent.

‘We’ve been on the road for a few weeks now and not heard a thing,’ replied Marek loud enough to attract Steiner’s attention.

‘Word is that the Empire have a fortress on a secret island.’ Gerd leaned across the bar and dropped his voice. ‘An’ they’ve been taking the children there this whole time.’

‘You know,’ whispered his wife. ‘The children with witchsign.’ She was a short bulb of woman called Lena, as generously proportioned as her husband was lean. She’d been pretty once, but decades spent ushering drunk fools out of her establishment had given her a hard look. ‘An’ to think, this whole time we supposed they were taking them to be slaughtered in Khlystburg.’ She raised her eyebrows.

‘That’s quite a tale,’ said Marek. ‘How did you come by such news?’

‘A trader came into the village late last night,’ said Lena. ‘He told us some Nordvlast man escaped the island.’

‘Said he was seven feet tall an’ covered in scars,’ explained Gerd. ‘Said he wielded a sledgehammer that could fire lightning bolts.’

Steiner half-laughed, half-snorted, as he attempted another spoonful of thin porridge, drawing affronted looks from his hosts.

‘Sorry.’ He coughed. ‘Excellent breakfast, by the way.’ Steiner shared a look with Kristofine and they both held their breath to keep from laughing.

‘Ignore my son,’ said Marek with a frown. ‘He’s a touch simple. I shouldn’t let him drink ale of an evening, but it helps him sleep.’

‘Never seen no enchanted sledgehammer,’ said Lena in a frosty tone of voice. ‘An’ our trader friend said the man flew on the back of a dragon and killed a dozen men an’ a Vigilant.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘But he was drunk as a lord and I’m not so foolish as to believe everything I’m told.’

‘She’s not foolish!’ crowed her husband, his eyes wide and earnest in his thin face.

‘And what will happen now?’ said Kristofine, rising from the table to join the conversation at the bar.

‘Same as always happens when someone crosses the Empire,’ replied Lena with a scowl. ‘They’ll find this man an’ kill him, fancy sledgehammer or not.’

‘Probably send those wicked Vigilants after him,’ moaned Gerd.

‘How much of what your friend told you do you believe?’ asked Kristofine. Gerd blinked at her and Steiner supposed he wasn’t asked for his opinion on a great many things.

‘Can’t say I know.’ He looked to his wife. ‘I suppose there could be one or two dragons hiding out from after the war. An’ I suppose it might be possible to ride one.’ He sighed. ‘But a sledgehammer seems like a stupid weapon for a man to carry. Never seen anyone fight with a sledgehammer before.’

‘And the lightning,’ said Marek. ‘That seems like pure invention.’

‘Aye, invention,’ said Gerd, nodding.

Steiner chose that moment to stand up and pull his cloak around his shoulders, then picked up his bag and hefted his sledgehammer. Gerd and Lena stared at him and he could almost feel their eyes counting the many scars on his face, scalp and the backs of his hands. He approached the counter. ‘Sorry I’m not seven feet tall,’ he said to Gerd and Lena, before turning to Marek and Kristofine. ‘Come on, we need to get going.’

They were a dozen feet from the inn when Gerd called out to them from the doorway. ‘Don’t be leaving so quick now.’ Steiner looked over his shoulder. ‘Is any of it true?’ said Gerd and Lena joined him in the doorway.

Steiner nodded. ‘The island. The children. They train them to be Vigilants.’

‘And the lightning?’ said Gerd, and Steiner could see the tiny spark of hope in his eyes.

Steiner shook his head. ‘I’m afraid not, no lightning.’

‘You’re not him,’ scowled Lena. ‘Come on now!’ And she ushered her husband inside.

Marek, Kristofine and Steiner walked for some time, leaving the misty village until at last Steiner spoke.

‘Think he’ll tell anyone?’

‘Without a doubt,’ said Marek with a slow smile.