ALTDORF (The Forest Knights: Book 1) (25 page)

He returned with the stew and a tall tankard of mead, and when Thomas held out a coin, Sutter shook his head. He looked at Thomas with the dark, red-rimmed eyes of a man barely holding on.

“Your coin is not welcome here. But you and your friends always will be,” he said, glancing down and leaving words unspoken.

Thomas tried again to pay the man, but Sutter was adamant in his refusal.

Thomas thanked him and after an awkward silence said, “I am sorry Sutter. How are Vreni and Mera?”

The innkeeper shrugged. “Well enough, I suppose. Lots of folk are worse off.”

Thomas nodded, not knowing what to say. He offered up a silent prayer for Sutter and his family, and took a mouthful from the tankard. It tasted of happier times.

“I need to find Pirmin. Know where he might be?”

Sutter cocked his head. “Too bad,” he said. “You just missed him and an old friend of both of yours, or so he said.”

The spoon stopped halfway to Thomas’s mouth. “Friend?”

Sutter nodded. “Man named Gessler, or Gissler, or something like that. Pirmin said you was all together over there in the Outremer. You know him?”

Thomas put the wooden spoon back in the bowl, and willed his heart to stop hammering in his head.

“Where are they now?” Thomas asked.

Sutter caught the flustered look on Thomas’s face and sat down across from him.

“What is it? He not the friend he makes himself out to be?”

“Worse. Gissler is a manhunter working for Duke Leopold. He was sent here for Noll Melchthal.”

Sutter leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. He raised a shaking hand to his temple and let out an anguished breath.

“Well, he found him then. I set up the meeting myself.” His eyes were haunted when he finally opened them and looked across the table at Thomas.

“Where? When?”

“This morning. But the location was Pirmin’s picking. They could be anywhere.”

“Sutter, listen to me. Gissler is an extremely dangerous man. Noll and Pirmin are both in more trouble than you can possibly imagine. If you know anything about where Noll might be, or the location of his camp, you have to tell me now.”

“God preserve me, Thomas, I know nothing! I swear it. I arranged meetings at coded locations between Noll and his men. They move their camp all the time and I have never known where it was. I swear.”

“Who would? You must know someone who does.”

“I leave signals in secret places and then Noll or one of his men contact me. That is how it has always been done in the past.”

Thomas stood from the table and Sutter jumped in his chair.

“Then get a message to them now. Tell them of Gissler.”

“What will you do?”

“I have to find Pirmin. And since you do not know where he is, I must find someone who does.”

By the Devil’s black hand, how could I not have seen what Gissler was up to?

In his heart of hearts, Thomas knew the answer to that question, and it was a disturbing thought riddled in sin. Thomas wanted Noll out of the way, and that desire had blinded him. Noll Melchthal was a danger to those Thomas cared for most: Pirmin…and Seraina.

He pushed through the inn’s doors and the afternoon light temporarily blackened his vision. When it cleared, he saw his long-eared mount leaning against the tether rail. The beast tried to stretch its neck down to some lush grass without giving up the comfortable support offered by the railing.

Thomas whirled around and his boots shook the floorboards as he stomped back inside. Sutter was still sitting at the table, his eyes focused on the uneaten bowl of stew. He looked up, puzzled at Thomas’s reappearance.

“Sutter, I need a horse.”

Chapter 27

P
IRMIN WAITED at the top of a treeless slope for Gissler to catch up yet once again. Vex whimpered at his side, eager to be off. Pirmin crossed his arms and looked at the pup.

“Easy boy. He may be a terror in the tournaments, but Gissler is not used to running through these hills like us. Give him some time.”

He watched Gissler scramble up the slope like a cat walking on ice; his feet slipping and sliding several times before finding firm purchase. Noll would not have approved, for he left the ground chewed up behind him. Pirmin knew the constant climbing and descending of the Alps’ meandering trails was difficult for someone unaccustomed to them, but Gissler had always been light on his feet. Far lighter than Pirmin had ever been. But, perhaps following Noll these past few weeks, as he goated through the mountains, had strengthened Pirmin’s own lungs and legs more than he realized.

They had set out an hour before dawn and three hours later arrived at a meeting spot Pirmin and Noll often used. Pirmin turned his back on Gissler and looked down into a shallow bowl at the bottom of three hills. To the east was thick forest, and that was the direction from which Noll would approach.

Shifting his ax to his other shoulder, he made his way down the grassy slope with Vex bounding before him.

Once Gissler caught up to Pirmin and Vex, the two men eased themselves down onto flat boulders to rest. Pirmin broke a loaf of dark bread in two and produced a wedge of cheese from his pack.

“How long before your friend arrives?” Gissler asked.

Pirmin shrugged. “Never know for sure with him. Could be somewhere in the trees watching us right now for all I know.”

Gissler glanced up at the hills they had just come over.

“Not that way,” Pirmin said shaking his head. “He will come through the trees, yonder.”

“Ah, yes of course,” Gissler said quickly turning his head and looking where Pirmin indicated.

Pirmin sensed a change come over Gissler in the last hour of their journey. Whenever Pirmin looked at him through the corner of his eye, there seemed to be a tightness in his face twisting Gissler’s dark features. It registered a memory somewhere deep in Pirmin’s mind that he could not place.

Gissler stood and stretched his legs. He saw Pirmin’s ax leaning against a rock beside him.

“The great ax,” Gissler said. “It has been a long time since I have stood beside her in battle.”

He leaned over and lifted the weapon from its resting place, grunting with the weight of it. Unlike most axes, the elongated handle of Pirmin’s was made from a hollow tube of forged steel, all eight feet of it. The blade on top flared wide on one side and narrowed to a vicious pick-like point on the other.

“How well do you know this Arnold Melchthal? Is he a man to be trusted?” Gissler asked, resting one end of the heavy ax on the ground.

Pirmin looked at Gissler’s face and realized what his subconscious mind had been trying to tell him. The change in Gissler, his dark expression; it was the same tight-lipped disdain that Pirmin had seen on the man’s face a thousand times before. It was the mask that covered Gissler’s face just before battle.

Gissler saw him staring.

“You called him Arnold,” Pirmin said. “I have never called him that. He goes by Noll.”

Vex began barking. Gissler smiled, but his eyes hardened.

“Perhaps Noll to his friends,” he said.

“You were not lagging behind all morning. You were leaving sign.” Pirmin stood and shaded his eyes. He scanned the hilltops.

“You mean to collect the price on Noll’s head.”

He could not stop his words. They flowed out of him, his voice deep and ragged. The signs had been there all along, but Pirmin had refused to see them. He had been a fool and allowed Gissler to use him. He had to warn Noll before it was too late.

Gissler’s eye twitched and he took several steps back. He hefted Pirmin’s ax with both hands and launched it as far away as he could manage.

Pirmin ignored him and instead jumped atop the closest rock. He turned towards the forest and held one closed fist high into the air. He heard Gissler make a shrill whistle sound behind him. Pirmin continued to hold his arm up until he heard steel clearing scabbard.

He turned to face Gissler, who held his sword in front of him. On the hill behind him he saw a solitary man, walking, crest the rise. He sauntered over the ridge and began winding his way down towards Pirmin and Gissler, like he had all the time in the world.

The tracker,
Pirmin thought, flexing his fists.

And then the ground trembled. Fully armored soldiers on horseback began flowing over the hill, one after the other, like rapids over river boulders. One rider carried a standard with a flag bearing a red lion; Habsburg soldiers.

Pirmin glanced around and weighed his options. The forest edge was too far away. The riders would be on him in less than a minute.

“Too late Gissler. I have sent the signal. Noll and his men are long gone by now.” In truth there was no such signal, but Gissler did not need to know that. Pirmin prayed Noll had the sense to stay clear.

“Not all his men,” Gissler said, leveling his blade at Pirmin.

Animals, especially dogs, sometimes display senses only their masters understand. Vex must have received at least a small portion of the hate and betrayal Pirmin was feeling towards Gissler, because before either man could speak again, the young pup growled and launched himself at Gissler.

He snapped at Gissler’s thigh, and although his jaw muscles had not yet fully developed, his teeth were sharp. Gissler cursed and knocked Vex away with the pommel of his sword, but not before the dog had torn a hole in his breeches and drawn blood.

Pirmin shouted at Vex and ran at Gissler.

Gissler’s eyes went wide as he saw the enraged giant charging at him. Even though he was unarmed, he knew what Pirmin was capable of. Ignoring the dog, he stepped to the side and almost eluded danger, but Pirmin reached out one tree-sized arm and snagged Gissler. The two men crashed to the ground, and Gissler lost his sword. Pirmin grabbed the small man and flipped him onto his back like he was nothing more than flatbread on a grill.

Gissler reached for the knife at his belt. The two combatants did not speak, or curse, or utter idle threats. That was the way of farmers in a fistfight after a night of drinking. For Pirmin and Gissler, each man knew he was in a fight for his life. Vex ran circles around them, barking and whining in distress.

Gissler freed his knife but Pirmin grabbed his wrist and head butted him flat on his nose. Blood splattered each man equally, like a giant mosquito had been crushed between them. Pirmin pushed against Gissler’s broken nose with his forearm to create space, and moved into a sitting position on Gissler’s chest. He began raining blows down on Gissler’s head.

A noose slipped around Pirmin’s wrist, and another around his neck. He had run out of time.

He screamed in outrage as men on horseback with pole nooses lifted him off the bloodied Gissler. Grabbing the end of the staff holding the noose around his neck, he twisted and yanked the man on the other end off his horse. Pirmin ripped the man’s helmet off with a flick of his hand and then crushed his head with a knee drop.

Gissler pushed himself up from the ground and staggered to his sword. He stepped in and thrust it through Pirmin’s shoulder. Pirmin grimaced and turned on Gissler. He tried to reach him but Gissler jumped back and the void was filled with more riders with heavy staves and nooses. They beat Pirmin’s arms and legs into positions so their ropes could be slipped on his feet, his wrists, or over his neck. Like hunters trapping a dangerous animal, they immobilized Pirmin’s limbs one by one.

The blonde giant twisted and fought, and although several unmanned staff nooses dangled off his neck and limbs, eventually a fresh soldier would gain control of it once again. Pirmin was forced to the ground, where they stretched him out and beat him mercilessly with their staves.

Eventually, bloodied and battered, he was splayed wide on the ground with his face turned to heaven. He fought back no more.

“Enough!” Gissler had to yell to be heard above the grunts and cursing of the soldiers, but the effort caused a painful vibration in his smashed nose. He held a cloth to his face to stem the flow of blood and walked over to where Pirmin was held down by a dozen men, every one of them sweating and breathing hard.

Pirmin turned a hideously swollen face to Gissler. He had to spit blood from his mouth before he could speak.