01 - The Burning Shore (18 page)

Night closed in, and with it, swarms of flies midges and plump, greedy
mosquitoes. Florin passed around the pot of the lotion they’d bought in
Swamptown, but it did little good. The insects, made devious by hunger, avoided
the toxic-tasting skin of their arms and faces and delved up into cuffs, or down
into collars, or just waited until the sweat of the hot tropical night washed
away the repellent.

They certainly ate better than their prey, who had nothing to munch their way
through but hard bread and small beer.

Florin, scratched and shifted, his back already cramped with pain. He knew
that he would never be able to sleep tonight. He wondered if he should organise
a watch, and was still wondering when the rocking of the boat and the quiet
drone of his comrades’ voices lulled him into a deep sleep.

The next day they lost their first man.

He was called Moritzio Benetti, and he’d been one of Castavelli’s men for a
dozen of his twenty-eight years. Florin had been awoken by the cries of his
captain in the warm fog of dawn.

“What is it?” he asked Lorenzo, blinking and stretching painfully.

“The Tileans have lost a man,” Lorenzo told him, his voice low and unhappy.

“Lost him? How do you mean, lost him? Where could he have gone?”

“That seems to be the question.”

The sound of the Tileans’ calls drifted through the mist with a new
intensity.

“I don’t see where he can have gone. There’s nothing to. stand on, for a
start. Unless he swam away…” Florin let the sentence trail off, knowing how
ridiculous that suggestion was.

There was a lull in the Tileans’ calls for their lost comrade, and for a
moment Florin thought that he could hear a man weeping.

Beside him Kereveld grunted into wakefulness, and crammed his hat down onto
the tangled mess of his hair.

“Lost a man, hey?” he asked after a moment. “Well, it’s only to be expected.
Let’s get on.”

Fourteen pairs of eyes turned on him coldly, but the wizard, unmoved, had
already returned to the study of his book.

After an hour’s rowing they came to another fork in the river. After some
hesitation, Kereveld directed them first to the left before changing his mind
and choosing the right.

“Lorenzo,” Florin said, his voice level with a careful insouciance he’d
perfected over a thousand card tables in happier times. “Let’s keep an eye on
the route we take. When we return we can try and give old Kereveld here a
break.”

Lorenzo’s face wrinkled up into a smile, and for a moment he seemed on the
verge of patting his master on the head as though he was a usually stupid child
who has just had a bright idea.

“Good idea, boss. In fact, I’ve been doing just that since we set off.”

“Good man,” Florin told him, and settled back to watch a troop of tiny
monkeys that were following the boats curiously.

“Must ask Graznikov if they’re any relation,” he mused, earning a dutiful
chuckle from his men.

“That’s funny,” said Kereveld, to nobody in particular. “I could have sworn we
should be going east now.”

“What does it matter, as long as we’re all happy?” Lorenzo asked him
sarcastically.

“Yes, you’re right,” the wizard sighed as he gazed upwards at the first glint
of the sun above the canopy. “Sometimes I feel like the great Heiermat himself.”

He must be putting it on, Florin thought.

He must be.

“It’s there. I don’t believe it? It’s really there!”

The boat rocked wildly as Kereveld leapt to his feet, the bony digit of his
forefinger outstretched as he pointed excitedly into the jungle.

“What is?” Florin asked, following the wizard’s gaze anxiously. The last time
the old man had waved his hands in this way the sky had been split asunder with
a meteor shower.

This time, though, there was no such spectacular denouement.

This time, there appeared to be nothing.

“Look, can’t you see it?” Kereveld turned on him, impatience edging his
excitement.

Florin, shielding his eyes against the glare of sunlight on the water, peered
forward into the wide lake that had opened up before them. Its surface lay as
still as glass apart from the ripples the expedition’s oars made, a great
horseshoe of brackish water perhaps a quarter of a mile across.

Here and there lilies floated upon its surface, the sunlight so bright on the
great leaves that they glowed emerald green. Florin had been busy watching the
frogs and dragonflies chasing each other across the archipelagoes they made when
the wizard had started yelling and windmilling his arms around.

“I can’t see anything,” Florin grumbled, his eyes now flitting over the walls
of the surrounding jungle. If ever there was such a thing as uniform chaos it
was here. Every mile of it was the same green, insect-riven tangle, and yet
every foot contained combinations of life that were as unique as any snowflake.

The wizard, his face flushed with the heat and the relief, glared down at the
mercenary.

“Look straight ahead. Can’t you see that rock? The one that’s shaped like an
eagle’s head? That’s what we’ve been looking for.”

Now that it had been pointed out Florin realised that he could see what the
wizard had described. Although it was as tall as one of the Lady’s cathedral
spires the great fang of rock was dwarfed by the great snarl of trees that stood
behind it.

The great stone had also been humbled by undergrowth. Although grey patches
still showed here and there, countless strains of moss and lichen and climbing
vines had coloured it the same thousand shades of green as its surroundings.

At the very top of it a stand of palms waved, like a battle flag planted on
the enemy’s ramparts.

“You think that looks like an eagle’s head?” Florin asked doubtfully, but
Kereveld waved the question away with a grunt.

“It looks more like a crested griffon’s head, which is what I was looking
for.”

“Then why didn’t you say so?”

“Because you fellows are too ignorant to know what a crested griffon looks
like. But anyway, come on coxswain. Head towards the rock.”

“Aye, sir,” the boatman said, and called out a new tune for the oarsmen to
follow. As the boat slowly turned and glided towards their destination Kereveld smiled to himself, then took off his hat to wipe the
sweat from his brow.

“Thank Sigmar for that,” he confided in Florin, who was still trying not to be
offended by being called ignorant. “I was sure that we were lost.”

“Really?” the Bretonnian replied. “And what would we have done then?”

“The gods alone know,” Kereveld said happily, settling back as the other boats
in their flotilla arrowed towards the rock. “To be honest I was never really sure
that this logbook was genuine until now.”

“Didn’t you know?”

“No, of course not. One never knows with these old grimoires. And by then,
of course, it’s usually too late.”

Florin looked at Lorenzo who gave him a “told you so” look.

“This was your idea,” he reminded him, thinking back to their flight from
Mordicio’s henchmen.

“Oh, so you knew,” Kereveld said, surprise lilting his voice. “I didn’t think
that van Delft wanted anybody to know. He said you’d all be too superstitious to
sign up to an expedition organised by my college.”

“Your college,” Florin repeated flatly, more of a statement than a question.

“Yes, the college of the heavens. Oh, I admit we’ve had a few disasters in the
past, but still. That’s wasn’t going to stop me.”

“Everyone needs gold, I suppose,” Florin said carefully, aware that the hum
of conversation had died amongst his listening men as they plied their oars.

“Gold? Oh no, we’re not here for gold,” Kereveld’s interest in the
conversation died as suddenly as it began. He was now busily holding the ancient
logbook up against the tree-line and squinting first at the picture and then at
the tower of rock.

Florin gently took a hold of his shoulder.

“So, if we’re not here for gold, what are we here for?”

“Heiermat’s last theorem,” Kereveld turned to him; his face clouded with
confusion. “Do you mean to tell me that you didn’t know?”

God cursed moron, van Delft thought savagely as he strode around the
perimeter. All he had had to do was to keep his mouth shut.

He paused as a gang of Kislevites threw some bushels of debris over what had
once been a rampart. It had become so overgrown that it was now useless: nothing more than a demarcation point between the
camp to be cleared and the towering heights of the jungle beyond.

The men returned to their work and the commander resumed his furious pacing,
silently cursing that fool of a wizard as he ploughed around the circuit for a
second time.

The only thing that had saved the expedition had been the fact that his
damned book had been right. The eagle-headed rock had stood over the remains of
a human campsite. Broken amphorae had been found, their wine-stained shards held
stubbornly within knots of ground vines. There had been boats, too, their rotten
hulls as dank and maggot-ridden as ship’s biscuits. They’d been left with the
expedition’s own boats by the shore of the lake, a twilit place where mud and
reeds gave way to fallen leaves and sharp-bladed elephant grass.

They had also found a scattering of gold coins. If it hadn’t been for them
van Delft doubted that the men would still be here.

The rumours had spread from the wizard’s boat like some terrible plague. It
had infected even the best of his men with pointless doubts and imagined fears.
The gold had proved some small antidote, the odd hexagonal shapes of the coins
and the bizarre patternings less important than their weight and their glitter.

Still, it had been a damn close run thing. Even some of the captains had
looked ready to cut and run.

Well, Castavelli had, at least. And if he had gone that pig’s bladder
Graznikov wouldn’t have been far behind.

Bloody politics, van Delft thought, and kicked at what looked like a giant
cockroach. Why didn’t I stay with the Emperor’s army?

The bug turned on him and sank needle-sharp mandibles into the leather of his
boot. He stamped on it, crushing it beneath his heel.

It made him feel better. And anyway, close run thing or not, there had been
no mutiny. At least, not yet. The men were busy clearing the small stockade,
every one clear in his duty of sentry or axe man or cook. The thick white smoke
of their fires was already rising into the air; a dozen acrid pillars that van
Delft hoped might serve to keep the mosquitoes at bay.

He wanted them to be as comfortable as possible, for tonight at least.
Because it was tonight that would see the expedition succeed or fail. If he lost
the hearts of his men now it was all over.

Bloody wizard, he thought again, but this time a little more distractedly.
Then he went to order the unpacking of some of the expedition’s onions and dried
meat for a decent stew.

Behind him the men sweated as they worked, and talked as they sweated. And
within their talk rumours grew and took on a life of their own so that, by the
time the perimeter had been hacked clear and the food cooked, nobody was quite
sure why they were here in the first place.

By the time they’d eaten even their officers were beginning to wonder why.
Van Delft, strolling around the smouldering campfires with a glowing cigar in
his mouth, could feel their doubt as he rounded them up like errant sheep and
led them back to his own campfire.

Kereveld was already sitting there, the flat pillar of his hat nodding up and
down as he dozed away the day’s unaccustomed hardship. A contented smile had
twisted the tips of his moustache upwards, and whenever the wizard’s eyes
flickered open he glanced around the camp as fondly as if he were everybody’s
favourite uncle, and this was a treat he’d arranged for them.

Van Delft had to admire his nerve.

“Right then,” he began, when they were all seated and plied with whatever
alcohol they’d take. “What’s with all these stories?”

The five men stared either into the flames, or at the flickering shadows that
sidled ceaselessly through the jungle beyond. Thorgrimm, the dwarfs’ leader,
looked into the hissing bowl of his pipe.

“Captain d’Artaud,” van Delft selected a volunteer, his voice still soft with
nothing more than mild interest. “I believe that some of the wilder stories came
from your boat.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Florin murmured modestly, as if he were disparaging a
compliment. “We just happened to hear our friend here telling us that his
college had funded this jaunt, not the merchantmen we’d thought. And that we
weren’t here for gold.”

He looked carefully into the fire as van Delft studied him.

“Actually,” he said. “We have been funded by a merchant, who is also a member of
Kereveld’s college. And as to not being about gold… well, why are you here?”

Florin thought about telling the truth, but only for a split second.

“To seek my fortune.”

Van Delft nodded approvingly.

“And you, Captain Lundorf. How about you?”

“The same,” Lundorf said with a shrug.

“Captain Castavelli?”

“Si, for fortune. ‘Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi’, as the ancients used to say,
and who are we to argue with some wisdom? Although fortune, she is like all
women, she is…”

“Yes, yes, thank you,” van Delft hurried on. “And you, Captain Graznikov. Why
are you here?”

“Gold,” said the Kislevite simply, and the dwarf beside him nodded agreement.

Van Delft asked him anyway.

“And Captain Thorgrimm. What brought you here?”

“Treasure,” the dwarf said, his eyes flickering at the word like a letch at a
lifted skirt. “Gold, silver. Maybe even gromril. But even if it’s only copper
we’ll take our share.”

He looked at van Delft defiantly, much to the commander’s irritation. That
glare was tantamount to an accusation of dishonesty. As if he’d steal copper!