wolf riders

by William King

  "Later, Heidi, later," said Pulg, dismissively. "Such matters can be sorted out in mere moments later on. First of all, let me show you the new creature I found languishing on the cruel streets of the city..."

  Heidi's gaze followed Pulg's outstretched hand, taking in Hans for the first time. The boy stared back, grinning nervously.

  "Hans has agreed to come and work for us," Pulg explained. "I think he will fit in well with the ethos of our little extravaganza."

  "Perhaps so," said Heidi, walking over to Hans, "especially if he can shovel dung." As she approached the youth, she crossed a beam of sunlight from one of the high windows which served to illuminate the hall. Her long dark hair seemed to sparkle and Hans felt his pulse racing. Uncertainly, he stretched out his hand to greet her. She came up and hit him over the head with a blow like the kick of a mule. He was knocked back against the bars of the cage. He felt as though he had been through a bout with Alexis Bosch, boxing champion of Hazelhof.

  He looked at Heidi uncomprehendingly.

  "Don't ogle me like that," she said. "I have enough trouble with the punters. I walk around half naked for their benefit, not for some puny little shit-shoveller."

  "I think that Hans has great promise, Heidi," said Pulg, approaching rather nervously and rubbing his hands together. "I think that some day..."

  "Some day he'll be co-proprietor, right, just like the rest of us?"

  "Well, yes, when the exigencies of business allow..."

  "In the meantime, it will be useful to have another downtrodden menial around to share the work, I suppose," said Heidi, with a faint smile. She held out her hand to Hans, who grasped it nervously. "Glad to have you around, Hans. Sorry about the head - just remember your place, that's all. Have you used a shovel before?"

  "Well, I..."

  "Don't concern yourself with things like that on your first day, my boy," said Pulg, putting an arm round Hans and leading him away, with a beaming glance at Heidi. "First I must acquaint you with the wonders of the carnival. You recognize these animals?"

  "Some of them," said Hans. "Others..."

  "Others are more exotic, of course," said Pulg. "Like this one," he gestured to the nearest cage. "Magnificent, isn't it?"

  Hans found he was looking at a huge lizard with eight legs and vague grey eyes. It flicked out a long tongue to grasp a passing cockroach but missed the creature byseveral yards.

  "Yes," said Hans. "What is it?"

  "A basilisk," said Pulg, "as terrible and glorious a creature as any I have met. One glance into its eyes and you can be turned into stone - quite an awesome capability, don't you agree?"

  Hans was too busy making sure he could move all his limbs to bother to reply.

  "Don't worry," said Heidi, who was following along behind them. "Herr Pulg has taken the precaution of blinding the poor creature."

  "Well, yes," said the showman, leading Hans onward. "A pity, of course, but quite a reasonable precaution in the interests of public safety. If only that idiot Grunwald knew the lengths to which I go to protect the public... Ah now, here is a magnificent creature, a bog octopus!"

  They were standing by a cage whose lower part had been lined with boards and covered in mud. Two huge eyes and several tentacles were poking out of the mess of slime.

  "One of my favourite beasts," said Pulg. "We might think of it as a sort of aquatic rhinoceros. But with more legs, of course. And here, here is a fen worm. Note its great length..."

  The tour continued past all manner of strange creatures, each one described in loving detail by Pulg, who would dwell on such matters as their natural habitat and noble disposition, while Heidi would provide additional comments, usually concerning their low intelligence or poor level of toilet training.

  Eventually they reached a fierce but strangely familiar creature which seemed infuriated at their presence. It snorted fire from its nostrils and flapped its great bat-like wings at them.

  "Folderol!" said Hans, "but, I don't understand..."

  "Oh no," said Pulg, with a chuckle, "not Folderol. He's rooting about here somewhere, free as the day he was hatched. No, this is another wyvern but this one is fierce and untamed as you can see. Folderol would be like this too, in his natural state."

  "Phew!" said Hans. "No wonder those City Watchmen didn't look happy."

  Pulg shook his head.

  "They just don't appreciate the majesty of these creatures," he said. "I'm proud to exhibit them, my boy, I can tell you that. Every one of them, from wyvern to fen worm. They are fine, magnificent beasts."

  "So just you remember that when you're mucking them out," said Heidi, "how magnificent they are."

  Pulg seemed very annoyed now.

  "Haven't you got that giant rat to see to, Heidi?" he said. "I've had about as much as I can take of your stupid comments. Why can't you appreciate the glory of this great enterprise of ours? Why must you always drag everything down to the level of excrement?"

  At that moment, a small red-faced man carrying a large pitchfork came striding across the hall. Everyone wrinkled up their noses and took a step backwards. He seemed to smell worse than the animals.

  "Right," said this newcomer, addressing Pulg. "That's all the dung I can pile up in the anteroom. Where do you want me to start putting it next?"

  He had not chosen a good moment to arrive. Pulg turned round and bawled at him.

  "Get rid of it!" he said. "Get it out of my sight!"

  "What?" said the small man, "all of it?"

  "No, you fool, every other shovel-full. Of course I mean all of it! What good it is to me?"

  "But I thought you were lining up a buyer..."

  "Well I was lining up a buyer, wasn't I?" cried Pulg, becoming hoarse, "but I'm one man battling against a chaotic world, aren't I? Don't you understand?"

  The little man looked nonplussed.

  "Well, er, no..."

  "You need not concern yourself, Wolfgang," said Pulg, his voice suddenly dropping, "with the machinations of a cruel world. Don't worry yourself about the idiocies of dung merchants and the overweening ambitions of snotball fanatics. Just get that dung loaded up on the cart and get it out of here, all right?"

  "Yes, Herr Pulg," said Wolfgang, looking positively terrified and scurrying away.

  "Now then Hans," said Pulg, taking the boy by the arm. "Come and see this," and he led Hans through a door into a second hall, almost as large as the first.

  "What do you think of that?" he said.

  Hans looked about him, at a vast cage containing a flaming hoop and a giant rat which was cowering away from the flames in the shadow of a raised podium. Behind the cage were benches, row upon row, stretching back to a pair of large doors which Hans assumed to be the main entrance to the premises. This, presumably, was where the performances were held. There were posters on the wall advertising forthcoming attractions.

  "Very impressive," said Hans.

  "Pathetic," said Pulg.

  Hans was taken aback.

  "Pardon?"

  "Pathetic," the showman repeated. "This poor cellar is wholly inadequate to the needs of Pulg's Grand Carnival. Come back here a moment," and he led the boy back into the other hall.

  "Look at these creatures," he cried, stretching out his hands and pacing across the floor. Sunlight coursed through the high windows, producing great angled beams of brightness, which lent the hall the atmosphere of a place of worship. The creatures produced a chorus of disparate cries in response to Pulg's antics. They paced about or climbed up the bars of their cages. The bog octopus rose up out of the slime, its great round eyes blinking as it peered at the showman.

  "Are the beasts not magnificent?" said Pulg. "Do they not deserve a better setting than a miserable cellar? There is a great stadium in Krugenheim. They use it for snotball matches and suchlike frivolities. But it is a fine stadium. That is where I plan to exhibit my carnival. And neither Grunwald nor paranoid dung merchants nor anyone else is going to stop me!"

  Pulg had r
aised a hand in the air, as though in some sort of victory salute. His eyes were alight with the fire of vision.

  Heidi could be heard sniggering in the shadows.

  "Oh no?" she said. "Well they've done a pretty good job of it so far, haven't they? Time and again they've refused you permission to play the stadium. They don't want your animals shitting it up."

  Pulg shook his head, suddenly brought down to earth again.

  "No, Heidi," he said sadly, "of course you are right. That's because they are blind like you are, like I am for much of the time. They choose to be blind to life's realities. That is why they content themselves with foolish games like snotball. They think of life as like Folderol here." He crossed the floor to where the creature was sitting and preening itself and scratched its wings affectionately. Folderol flicked out its tongue and licked its master back.

  "They think of life as a tame, calm thing, whereas in fact it is more like that other Folderol in that cage over there - a thing of darkness which can flare up in a savage attack at any moment. You can see that, can't you?" he said, turning to Hans.

  "Yes, Herr Pulg." There was really nothing else to say.

  "Good boy. But I will make them see reality. I will make them see the glories and the terrors of these beasts of mine. By Ulric, I will. I shall hold daily shows in the great stadium, and all of the Empire will come to see and be amazed!"

  He turned and walked out of a side door from the main hall, without a further glance at either Hans or Heidi. It was almost as though they were no longer visible to him, as though he was gazing beyond the room at a vision which only he could see.

  Heidi cleared her throat and turned to Hans.

  "Worked for a madman before, have you?" she asked.

  It turned out to be hard work at the carnival. The whole task of looking after the animals and much of the work of putting on the shows was split between just the three of them: Heidi, Wolfgang and Hans. Pulg just tended to strut around and talk a lot, though he introduced the shows and helped out Heidi with training the animals.

  But, as the weeks went by, Hans decided his new life wasn't really so bad.

  Back in Hazelhof, the dour woodsmen had mocked him for his strange appearance and his lack of physical strength. He had been an outcast there, where a man was considered of no use unless he could wield an axe. He had been reduced to doing odd jobs and running errands - for which no one ever thanked him. At least now he felt he had a part to play in life. He might get lumbered with some of the worst jobs - mucking out cages, for instance - but he also got some good ones, like giving out leaflets around the city, showing the punters to their seats, even taking part in the shows occasionally. And at the end there was always the applause of the punters - aimed principally at Pulg and Heidi and the animals, it was true, but he liked to think that he had earned a small part of it. And it was better than a clip across the head from an ungrateful woodsman.

  The part of his new life he enjoyed best, though, was after the shows were over: the job of escorting Pulg every evening to The Squandered Youth.

  "I'm getting worried about the public's attitude to Folderol," said Pulg, when he explained this new task to Hans. "That scoundrel Grunwald is looking for excuses to stir people up against the carnival. Leaving Folderol on his own outside the inn may not be a good idea at the moment."

  Hans couldn't understand why Pulg didn't simply leave Folderol behind if that was the case, but Heidi explained:

  "It's because he's always too drunk to walk home," she said. "Folderol knows the way and Pulg can ride on his back."

  So Hans had to wait with Folderol outside The Squandered Youth while Pulg was in there drinking. "Smile at passers-by," the showman told him. "Stroke the animal from time to time. That sort of thing helps to gain public confidence."

  But after a few days Pulg became more nervous still and decided it would be safer if they waited up on the inn's high balcony, where they would be safely out of sight altogether.

  At first, Hans was very reluctant to ride on the animal's back. He seemed to keep sliding off, and the smooth scales afforded no purchase.

  "Put more effort into it, Hans," Pulg scolded. "If I can ride him drunk, then I'm certain you can ride him sober. Put your arms around his neck! Pretend he's a beautiful woman."

  Hans didn't find this last advice very helpful. For one thing, it would be difficult to think of anything less like a beautiful woman than this scaly monster. For another, he had no more experience of beautiful women than he did of wyverns. But he persevered, and eventually he felt that he had secure enough a purchase to risk a take-off.

  "Right," said Pulg, clearing passers-by away with expansive, theatrical gestures. Even while trying to keep the wyvern out of sight, the showman in him could not be denied.

  "Take to the skies, Folderol," he cried, and the lumbering beast began an ungainly jaunt along the street, bouncing up and down and flapping its wings as it went.

  "This must be what an earthquake feels like," thought Hans, as he rode upon the creature's back, hanging on in desperation.

  And then all the buildings he could see around him seemed to be swallowed up by the earth and when he peered cautiously down, with his cheek pressed close against the scaly neck, he saw Krugenheim falling away beneath him, the streets and buildings dwindling to the size of a rabbit warren. At his side, Folderol's wings rose and fell like the breeze-blown petals of a strange black flower, creating cold gusts of air which swept across his back.

  The flight had wrested away all sense of caution and control. All he could do was hang on for the sake of his life, scared and exhilarated by the sheer helplessness of his situation. He just had to let go, he thought to himself, and he would be out on his own, floating through the air... He wanted to laugh, but the wind had taken his breath away.

  And then Folderol had swept round in a great circle and was coming in to land on the balcony of The Squandered Youth, claws scraping on tiles as it slowed its momentum on the building next door then leaping into space again to land on the high balcony of the inn itself, with a great jolt which took away the rest of Hans' breath.

  "Excellent," said Pulg, craning his neck and calling up to them. "I shan't be very long," and he disappeared into the inn for the rest of the evening.

  And so a daily routine was established. When Pulg finally staggered into the street again, Hans would remount Folderol and the beast would leap into space, gliding down into the street below, riding the cushion of air beneath its outstretched wings. Hans would then dismount and the drunken Pulg would have to be manhandled up in his place for Folderol to carry him home.

  Heidi would usually be sitting in the great hall with a mug of hot barley, ready with some witty remark about Pulg's condition as Hans assisted him across the threshold. The showman would either ignore her and stagger off to his bed or, on nights when he felt more spirited, he would get down on his hands and knees and beg her love and affection. She would tolerate this for a little while and then, if he still persisted, she would hit him over the head with a thick wooden stick which she kept handy for the purpose. She and Hans would then have to drag Pulg off across the floor to his bed.

  The next morning, he would emerge looking bright and healthy enough and make no mention of the night before. Hans decided he must have a very hard head - and a conveniently poor memory.

  "Why do you wait up for him?" Hans asked Heidi one day. "Why don't you stay out of his way?" Was she flattered by his attentions, he secretly wondered?

  Heidi pointed out herself, Hans, Wolfgang snoozing away in the corner.

  "Look at us," she said. "We work our backsides off so that Pulg can make money and throw it all away on drink. That's why I wait up for Pulg. I like hitting him. It's the only excuse I have to get back at the bastard."

  What Hans liked most about his evening visits to The Squandered Youth was sitting up on the high balcony looking out over Krugenheim.

  He had a fine view of the streets to the east, where the land f
ell away through the robbers' warren of the Untergarten to the wall and the gate where he'd entered the city. And over to the west, he could make out the law court and the stadium and the great turrets of the barracks where the Templars of the White Wolf from Middenheim were garrisoned, here to impose the sacred laws of Ulric in the city.

  The view was impressive, and it was somehow reassuring for Hans to see the same skyline day after day, sitting there on the high balcony with Folderol by his side. The wyvern, he decided, was his best friend at the carnival. The others were all right in their way, but they each had their drawbacks. Pulg was entertaining but so overbearing and unpredictable that it was impossible to relax in his presence. Heidi was probably nice enough at heart, but Hans found her constant sarcasm unnerving and he could still feel the blow on his cheek from their first meeting. Wolfgang, well, he tended to jabber on about dung a lot...

  Folderol, by comparison, was undemanding company, happily devoid of any irritating traits of conversation. He would sit there and listen - apparently - while Hans explained his plans to rise up and better himself. Hans had no guarantee that the beast could really hear or understand, of course, but with his head on one side and his great mouth hanging open as though with bated breath he did a very good job of appearing to listen. And he seemed to understand well enough when Pulg told him to take to the air, didn't he?

  "Just think," Hans told the creature, with a sweeping gesture of his arm to indicate the whole of Krugenheim stretched out before them, "I could play my flute up here and everyone down there would stand to attention, waiting for me to tell them what to do. I could watch them all from up here and give them orders - wouldn't that be good?"

  Folderol apparently thought so.

  "Mind you," Hans admitted, "the effect does wear off after a while and I don't suppose the music would reach far enough..." and of course he could hardly risk using up the flute's magic just to test out its range. But he would use it when the time was right. The world might be full of dangers, as Pulg claimed, but Hans had the flute, didn't he? He had the flute to impose order, to regulate the world the way he wanted it. Someday, he would seize control of Krugenheim, or some small part of it. He would find a way to do it.