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As he did so often when his everyday life was threatening to fall apart, Rudolf had left the barrel of gunpowder that was Vienna behind and had fled into the neverending forests of Hungary. Away from his father, from the demands of the court and the bustling mania of the city, Rudolf could finally be at peace.
Hungary had proven time and time again that it was a true treasure chamber for any aspiring ornithologist, and as such Rudolf had once again taken a handful of men with him to shoot and catalogue birds of all kinds. It was a comparably small hunting party, only him and a few friends of varying degrees of zoological fame and the vast landscapes of Hungary not yet touched by human development.
While they usually remained together while hunting, stalking their prey in groups, Rudolf had taken the opportunity of a beautiful, bright morning to go out by himself. Birding alone meant that he could not rely on his companions to shoot at birds that he missed, which in turn left him no choice but to hone his gunmanship to perfection as any shot that went astray would be entirely wasted without anyone to back him up. Apart from forcing him to practice his aim, the solitude of moving through the forest all by himself also gave him a welcome opportunity to merely exist for a while. Between the trees he was no crown prince, no noble, no heir to the throne upon whose shoulders rested the fate of an entire country. All he was there was just another hunter living and acting as part of nature, another man lost in the woods, another speck of dust in the wind, unimportant and undisturbed.
It had snowed throughout the night, but as the day had dawned the sky had cleared up. The air was clear and there was not a single cloud on the horizon. At noon, when the sun was highest and the day warmest, he would return back to their camp and take inventory of his and his companions' kills before heading out together for the second half of the day. Rudolf took his usual hunting equipment with him, most importantly a shotgun loaded with birdshots and a backup revolver in case of wolves or bandits, and headed into the forest.
The light mist drifting through the trees smelled of wet bark and pine needles and freshly fallen snow. Even with the Danube miles away, the plants here were stronger and healthier than those further inland. The trees overhead reached far into the sky and the underbrush was thick and deep, with occasional makeshift beaten tracks formed by the few scattered locals. Rudolf picked up on the trail of two deer, following them through the trees and further away from his camp. He ducked under branches and through bramble bushes and slowly made his way into the heart of the forest.
Wildlife was abundant in these parts of Europe, even in the winter. Hungary was an ornithological paradise compared to Rudolf's homeland. While a lot of the bigger, rarer birds headed south during the cold time of the year, the forests still were filled with life, the silence between the trees constantly broken by the rustling and bustling sounds of animals. Rudolf held his rifle ready to fire.
A familiar sound made him halt in his tracks. A distinct birdcall, coming from overhead.
He looked up and there was the source of the noise – a beautiful goshawk, belly feathers like speckled snow, its plumage shining in the early morning sun. The bird was resting on a branch a few paces in front of Rudolf, and even from down where he was standing he could see that it was bigger than any of the kind he had ever seen. He felt a sharp pang of regret in his chest as he watched the bird. Killing was not something he enjoyed, not even in the name of science.
He was still too far away for a shotgun hit. Normally he would have asked one of his companions to move around the tree and scare the bird to make it fly towards him, but since he was alone the only option he had was to sneak closer. He would not even have to move far. The gentle morning sun and the light foliage around him meant that he should have no trouble hitting his target as long as he could get just a few fathoms closer.
Rudolf held his breath. Eyes on the prize. Sneaking forwards quietly. His hands were steady, shot already lined up. Just a few more steps until he'd be in shooting distance. He set his feet down on the ground as carefully as he could, but just as he had gotten close enough to shoot at the animal, there was no more ground to step on.
Rudolf was falling before he could even properly register what was happening. The sudden drop took him entirely by surprise. He instinctively threw his upper body back in an attempt to regain his balance, but it was already too late. The ground beneath him had given away and he went down, falling, tumbling down the slope, head over heels, a mess of leather and limbs and in the middle of it all, his guns. His rifle, already loaded and the strap formerly loosely held to his side by his elbow, slipped from his grip. He grabbed for it more by instinct than by reason and managed to catch it by the trigger, and as he clenched his fist around it his world was swallowed up by a gunshot.
The shot went off right as the muzzle touched his left hand. Most of the pellets embedded themselves in his hand, some ripping right through the flesh, a handful hitting his chest, tearing through his clothes and burying themselves in his flesh, barely missing his neck and face. Rudolf screamed. Blood splattered around him. The pain was so all-encompassing that he almost didn't notice as mere moments after the shot had gone off, his boot caught on an exposed tree root and as it tore off, something in one of his ankles snapped.
Rudolf hit a tree at the bottom of the slope, the air knocked out of him, his eyes temporarily blinded and ears temporarily deafened. He curled up, mind and body almost forced into unconsciousness by the pain radiating through him. His hand felt like it had been forced into a pot of boiling water, and he could only feel one of his feet, the other one replaced by the searing pain of splintered bones stabbing into flesh.
As his senses slowly returned to him, and even before his vision and hearing had fully recovered, it hit him just how much trouble he was in.
At least he would in all likelihood not bleed out – the mass of surface-deep wounds meant that his hand and arm was bleeding profusely at the moment but they weren't deep enough to kill him, and the bone in his leg had apparently not broken off enough to penetrate the skin from the inside, leaving him with an unusable leg but not a lethal wound.
But he did not need to bleed out to die out here. The Hungarian forests were deep and filled with predators just waiting for wounded, defenseless animals like him, and even if the wolves did not get to him in a day or two, the cold would.
He had no choice but to move. He had to get closer to their hunting camp as quickly as possible. The closer he could make it the bigger was his chance to survive. He would have to at least make it back up the slope.
He sat up and assessed the situation, propping himself up against the tree and clutching his left hand with the other to attempt to stop the worst of the bleeding. From down where he was now resting the ledge was not only apparent but also looked imposingly tall and the slope terrifyingly steep. Whereas the rest of the area was densely covered in trees, the slope was devoid of larger vegetation. Rudolf guessed that the ground underneath the snow was solid rock, or at least more rocky than the rest of the area, which explained not only the spare foliage but also how much the fall had hurt. His hunting bag had torn open and the ground around him was covered with scattered hunting utensils, knives and bullets strewn everywhere.
He tentatively bent his knees and tried to put the smallest amount of weight he could muster on his feet, instantly regretting this decision as another round of pain shot up his side – the right leg seemed fine, albeit it still hurt from the fall and was probably covered in nasty bruises, but his left leg had indeed sustained serious damage. There was no way he could walk back to the camp, especially not in the snow. At least his clothes, made from tough leather and thick wool, had survived the fall, looking a bit scratched up but otherwise as good as new apart from where the shotgun blast had hit.
There was nothing he could do about the pellets in his chest, but as long as he didn't breathe in too deep he barely noticed them. For now, the pain from those wounds was mostly covered up by the much worse pain from his hand and leg, and the adrenaline coursing through his veins further helped to dampen it. The pellets that had hit his chest had been slowed down enough by his clothes that they had not been able to penetrate his chest far enough to do more than superficial damage. If he was lucky, they were only skin-deep, but either way they were not his main concern.
His left hand was an entirely different story. The shot had torn through parts of his hand to the point where he could not move his index finger, and the rest of it and part of his arm were covered in small wounds filled with small black pellets. There was enough blood coming from these wounds that the left sleeve of his jacket had begun to look heavy and wet, and the snow around him had turned red where his blood had dripped onto it.
Rudolf heaved himself up on his knees and crawled over to the scattered contents of his bag, leaving red handprints in the snow. He picked up one of the knives and grimaced. For once in his life, he was thankful that even out in the wilderness he could not resist the call of Morpheus and Dionysus – there was a small flask of alcohol still resting safely in a hidden pocket of his coat, and once had made it back to the camp, a small stack of various narcotics he had brought along on this trip would help him flee the grip of bodily pain. He took a swig out of the flask, the burning sensation in his throat clearing his head and numbing it at the same time.
As he stared at the wound, trying and mostly failing to move his fingers, the thought that even if he did not die he might just lose his hand and possibly his whole arm loomed heavily over him. He picked up a piece of thick but flexible leather that had once held his array of hunting knives and bit down on it as a precaution – they might have to take off his hand, but he did not want to accidentally take off his own tongue as well. Resting his wounded hand on his knee, he began to pick out the pellets with his knife as best as he could, groaning and swearing into the leather. He could not get at the pellets buried deeper in his hand and arm, but his best bet would be to at least get part of them out and then pray that he could either make it back to the camp or that he would be found before the wound got infected.
Then, tossing the bloodied knife aside and moving quickly to not give himself a chance to decide against it, he emptied the remaining contents of his flask on his hand. The pain was overwhelming. He screamed into the leather, body contorting in revived agony. The flesh almost seemed to sizzle as the alcohol ate into it, blood dripping from the wounds.
It only took moments for the pain to subside to a manageable level, the adrenaline pumping through him still numbing his body, but to Rudolf it still seemed like an eternity. When he finally spat the piece of leather out, it bore deep marks where his teeth had buried into it. He wrapped a piece of white cloth around his hand. He normally would have used this cloth to clean his hands after making a kill if any blood had gotten onto them, but this time it seemed to him that he was getting dangerously close to being the kill.
If the wound did, against expectation, not stop bleeding on the way back, he would have to use his suspenders as a makeshift tourniquet, but for now it seemed to be fine. Now that he had cleaned and bandaged the wound as best as he could, there was only one thing left to do: make his way back to the camp.
Rudolf looked up and gritted his teeth. The slope towered over him. He reminded himself that he had no choice. If he remained down here and if it began snowing again, it was likely that he would never be found. Rudolf took a deep breath, and began his journey up the slope.
Every step was pure torture. He had to mostly rely on his right leg and hand to make his way up the slope, moving forwards half crawling, half limping, hissing out a stream of curse words with every movement. Still, it was not nearly as difficult as he had feared – he could hold onto the sparse vegetation with his hand and move himself upwards with his leg. If he could keep going this way, he might even make it into shouting distance of the camp before nightfall.
Rudolf could already see the top when fate decided that it wasn't going to let him get away that easily. His right foot set down on what looked like a perfectly normal snow-covered stone jutting out from the slope, but as he put his weight on it it gave away, the rock beneath it breaking off. He stumbled backwards and in an attempt to stabilize himself put his weight on both of his legs. His left ankle crumbled under him. He instinctively tried to hold on to the nearest tree, just off to his left, realizing too late that his wounded hand would not be able to support him. Something in his hand ripped open again and pain tore through his body, paralyzing him. He screamed and let go, and back down he went. He hit the ground hard at the bottom of the slope.
His already broken ankle had not survived the weight he had put on it. His foot was sticking out at an angle that made him nauseous just by looking at it.
He let himself sink back into the snow, exhausted.
Cold sweat covered Rudolf's face. He could almost feel it begin to freeze on his skin. He closed his eyes. The image of the very first stag he had ever shot appeared in the darkness behind his eyelids, all colors of that spring day muted except for the red blood covering the carcass. He felt like he understood the animal now.
“May I help you?,” a voice asked. Rudolf shot up. Death stood off to the side, leaning against a tree as if this was the most normal everyday situation he had ever been in. Rudolf was in no shape to be surprised by this sight.
“Yes, please, I, oh God--” Rudolf interrupted himself with an angry, pained cry as he had tried to sit up and once more had put weight on his left hand without meaning to. He curled up again, panting and swearing through his teeth. Death waited patiently until the worst was over and Rudolf could speak again. Rudolf's voice was strained and pleading. “You have to help me.”
Death raised an eyebrow and stepped closer until he was almost standing over Rudolf.
“It doesn't look all that bad to me,” Death said and lowered himself down to Rudolf. Rudolf bit back a reply about how nothing looked bad to Death, and that he wasn't actively dying and therefore in all likelihood much more alive than most people Death usually dealt with. Sarcasm was probably not the best way to go in this situation. Death reached forwards to brush a strand of hair out of Rudolf's face. He smiled at Rudolf, lips slightly parted, an emotion somewhere between amusement and detached, scientific interest glittering in his eyes. “But you know as well as I do in which way I can help you.” Death was slowly moving in on Rudolf. The pain in Rudolf's hand and leg seemed to intensify the closer Death got to him. Sunlight was fading around them. The last thing Rudolf could remember was that it had been morning.
“Please.” Rudolf's voice was low. Death's face was already so close to his that he feared that if he spoke too loudly, their lips would touch. “I don't want to die.”
“Shh. Don't move,” Death replied softly, his breath brushing against Rudolf's lips. Rudolf wanted to slide away but Death had laced his fingers in his hair, rendering him unable to even move his head.
Rudolf's hand slid downwards. He still had one chance left – his shotgun was long gone, but his trusty revolver was hopefully still resting in its holster at his hips. He fumbled for it blindly, breath hitching in his throat as he found that the holster had moved from its original position during the fall, for a second fearing that it was gone entirely, and just as Death locked eyes with him for what he was fully expecting to be the last time, Rudolf's fingers finally found the gun.
He pressed the revolver against Death's head and pulled the trigger, then another time, and then another, desperately pressing the trigger over and over again even after the chamber was empty, firing blindly, eyes screwed shut.
Even as he was firing, a part of him knew that it was of no use. At a range this close, any gunshot should have made his target's blood splatter all over him, yet he felt nothing.
When Rudolf dared to open his eyes, he was not even surprised that Death looked just the same as before. Rudolf slumped back and dropped the gun. He gave up. If this was how he was to die, then so be it. Rudolf closed his eyes and braced himself for the inevitable.
“Every day you remind me more of your mother,” Death said, and Rudolf opened his eyes again. Death was still right in front of him, but he had moved back enough that Rudolf no longer acutely feared for his life. The searing, burning pain in Rudolf's wounds, too, had subsided to normal levels as Death had moved away from him.
Something about the way Death had said what he had said made Rudolf's heart plunge into the deepest despair he had ever felt. Any last semblance of hope he still had left, not just for his survival but for anything, had been eradicated by Death's quietly amused voice. He curled up, hiding his face behind his battered hands, and waited for the cold to embrace him.
As snow began to fall from the sky, Rudolf slowly drifted into an exhausted, freezing sleep, Death's watchful gaze still resting heavily upon him.
Rudolf gasped awake in the middle of the night. He thought he had heard something, but could not tell if he was dreaming. A dark sky was looming above him, the distant stars and moon sending down just enough light for him to see that Death still sitting where he had last seen him, watching him silently. Rudolf could feel frost covering his face. He couldn't feel his hands, which had at least made the searing pain from the bullet wounds fade to a dull ache. He tried to move his fingers and pain tore through his arm again, but it was distant. It felt like it was happening to another person whose feelings or bed he might have once shared but no longer did. Part of him wasn't sure if he was actually still inside of his own body. His eyelashes were covered in ice. He coughed. His lungs hurt.
Just as Rudolf tried to sit up a bit to make sure his body wasn't entirely frozen, he again heard something in the distance. Rudolf didn't even dare to breathe. Then, somewhere in the darkness of the forest, horns sounded. Rudolf screamed. The distant group responded with shouts and hollers.
Death, having gotten up and once more leaning against a nearby tree, was still staring at him when the men reached him. None of Rudolf's rescuers seemed to notice the figure watching them, but they all were avoiding looking at where Death was standing. As the men carried Rudolf away, their torches and lights illuminated Death's face, and Rudolf could see that Death was smiling.