by Max Anthony
“Wielder,” gurgled Lunder through the baboonly attack, “I will kill you this time!”
Not wishing to give him the opportunity, Skulks drew his dagger-swords to finish the rogue wizard off post-haste, but instead found himself pummelled by a huge, disembodied fist, conjured by Rastus in an attempt to mete out a drubbing upon the man who had punched his nose. It looked similar to that employed by the Warp and the Weft against the bandits in Rhult, but lacked some of the power as Rastus was not a Wielder. The fist punched Skulks once in the shoulder and once in the eye, before he managed to duck beneath the third blow and stab the fist with his dagger. It was unworried by the thrust and fetched Skulks a healthy smack in the chops, for it moved with a good turn of speed.
Showing his own turn of speed, Skulks rolled off the low podium and underneath it, before using his Wielding to hide himself from prying eyes. As this happened, Lunder shed his disguise, bursting naked out of the magical skin he’d created and leaving the baboon to wring the neck of the floppy bag of flesh he’d left behind.
“I say!” shouted a wizard. “It’s an interloper!”
“Cheat!” called another.
“He was trying to swindle us!”
“And where are all of his clothes?”
“I can see his dangly bits!”
Beneath the podium, Skulks was pursued by the fist, which was at a disadvantage in the confined space. Skulks sliced off three of the fingers, which plopped bloodless to the floor. He jabbed at the fist twice more with his other dagger, expunging the magical energies from it and dropping it down to join its missing fingers.
The appearance of four legs outside the raised podium heralded the arrival of two angry wizards, one of them naked, but each looking to taste Wielder blood in a metaphorical fashion. Not able to recognize the owners by their lower legs, Skulks stabbed at random, opening a cut in Rastus’ knee, who was now angry, but also wishing he’d let bygones be bygones over his punched nose.
“Don’t let him get away with that!” shouted an eager wizard from the top row, as blood spurted from the deep cut in Rastus’ leg.
Knowing that the situation was finely balanced, Skulks did his best to inflame the situation. His brow furrowed and his arms waved. There was a quiet pop and a feeble gout of fire jetted from his hands, scarcely more powerful than a pigeon’s lit fart. Almost invisible, it wobbled its way over the auditorium, connecting with the oldest wizard in the room, who was fast asleep and snoring. This wizard awoke with a start, confused by the noise into thinking he was back in the Crimson Rebellion. He released his most powerful quick-cast spell, scattering nearby mages with a thundering explosion.
At this point, Tiopan Lunder had seen the injury suffered by his fellow wizard for venturing too close to the podium, so he’d made haste back onto it, where he petulantly destroyed the heat-seeking baboon with a spell of disintegration.
“Come out, Wielder!” he called, shouting above the cacophony. For his part, Skulks had little intention of coming out, knowing if he did so the advantage would lie entirely with Lunder. Peering out from one side of the podium, he saw that it was getting hairy in the auditorium. Some of the mages injured by the elderly wizard had taken advantage of the situation to settle old scores.
“You did that, you old coot!” yelled Jonners Boomtime to his old rival Britches Firmkex.
“Old coot? I’m fifty years younger than you!” yelled back Britches. “Here, have a sniff of this!” With that, he conjured forth ten barrel weights of dung, which he deposited upon Jonners.
Spluttering and spitting out partially-digested hay, Jonners swore not to take the insult lying down. Suddenly, Britches found himself covered in fat leeches, which greedily and hungrily sucked at his flesh. Many of them curled up and fell off as Britches’ wards flashed into life, but a good number remained until Britches conjured up a pile of salt which he jumped into.
Cackling at his revenge, Jonners summoned a thousand juicy slugs onto the salt pile and watched as they dissolved into a sticky green sludge, which covered the unfortunate Britches.
Not to be outdone, other wizards were furtively casting spells, hoping to cause mischief without getting caught up in it themselves. A clattering heralded the arrival of a chair beneath the podium, thrown along with forty others across the auditorium, many still with wizardly buttocks perched thereon. This particular chair lacked a passenger, and Skulks seized it, thinking to use it as a weapon. He ducked briefly out of the podium ready to bash Lunder with it, only to find that Lunder was gone. He met the eyes of the round, bearded announcer and raised a quizzical eyebrow.
“He went over there,” said the announcer, pointing to the emergency exit.
Skulks made a run for it. The early exchanges had now escalated into all-out violence. There was a swarm of Chak-Chak hornets doing their best to sting a pack of rabid dogs to death. As they fought, a cloud of Chak-Chak flies burrowed their way into the hornets, laying eggs and consuming their flesh. There were cats and rats, pigs and horses, all attempting to eat, trample or gnaw each other to death whilst avoiding a cascade of flames, frost and an electrical storm which had now materialised over the podium.
As Skulks darted through the exit door, he chanced a look back over his shoulder, just as a trumpeting roar announced the summoning of the first war elephant. The door swung closed behind him, but not before he’d seen the elephant locked in combat with an eight-feet tall demonic gorehound. For all of his distaste for the magical, Skulks had to admire their style and he was enjoying himself immensely.
The emergency exit led into a corridor and Skulks forced himself hidden as he sped along it. Lunder had left behind a trap or two. Skulks saw the first but missed the second in his haste. Triggering it released a small explosion, the best Lunder had been able to do in the circumstances. It burned his robes, but Skulks was travelling too fast for it to do him serious harm.
The corridor took Skulks back to the foyer, which was now full of hounds. Long, dark and sleek, they had an air of menace which suggested they did more than yap and nip at the ankles. Captain Honey and three of her men were already there, surrounded by the leaping, snarling pack. One of the men went down as Skulks watched, with three dogs tearing viciously at his arms and head.
Skulks charged forward, slicing the two hind legs from one dog and stabbing another sneakily between the shoulders. Two further hounds jumped for him and he ducked, plunging his dagger-sword into one as the other clattered into the back of his head, dazing the beast yet failing to knock any sense into Skulks. The dog shook its head and made to leap again, only to find Skulks had taken the opportunity to grab its thick, stubby tail. Anchoring his feet, he whipped the dog through the air where it collided with another as it attempted to bite Captain Honey on the leg.
Captain Honey was as grim-faced as Skulks had seen her and he assumed this meant she was concerned. She and her men had killed five dogs before Skulks had arrived, Honey’s sword weaving a beautiful pattern through the air, but the blade struggling to cut through the dense, muscular hounds. She punched one dog, smashing most of its teeth out as the man next to her drove a sword into it. Withdrawing the blade, he reversed it, allowing a charging hound to skewer itself as it ran. Even as he kicked a nearby dog with his steel toe-cap, Skulks found time to be impressed by the skills of the Hardened army.
With the tide of this particular battle turning, Captain Honey found time to look over at Skulks and speak. “Don’t ruin your new clothing!” she called, spinning around to deliver a simultaneous kick and sword-thrust to another of the rapidly depleting pack. Skulks hoped Lunder had exhausted his array of summoning spells for now.
“What are you waiting for? Go and stab the bastard!” She pointed out of the main doorway to indicate the direction Lunder had made off in. Skulks charged through, almost knocking over an elderly lady coming the other way, who was just popping in to use the loo.
“My humble apologies, good lady,” yelled Skulks, already thirty yards away.
&nbs
p; “The youngsters of today!” said she to herself, berating poor Skulks. She entered the auditorium, paused for one moment blinking, and then spun upon her heel to exit, with the toilets unvisited and a fifteen-minute walk home ahead of her.
For all of his magics, Lunder was no quicker than a normal man and although unencumbered by robes, he was much slower than Skulks. The fleeing wizard was using a greater spell of seeing and as he threw a glance back over his shoulder, he saw the faint, flickering outline of Tan Skulks sprinting across the auditorium’s plaza. Mumbling under his breath as he ran, Lunder cast a spell which caused the plaza pavement slabs to erupt behind him, bursting twenty feet into the air at their highest. Having completed their upwards journey, they rained down, making Skulks’ life a misery as he sought to avoid them while running at top speed. One of them caught him on the chest, spinning him around and knocking him from his feet.
Seeing his opening, Lunder stopped his run and turned his attention back to Skulks. He dropped into a trance, for his next spell required the most intense concentration.
“Pie, sir?” The voice jarred him out of his absorption, delaying the casting of the spell. A man had walked over to him, carrying a tray with a handful of pies upon it.
“Eh? What? Go away!” said an aggravated Lunder.
“There’re only a few left. Get them while they’re fresh!”
“Go away, I said! I don’t want any of your stupid pies!”
“No need to be rude!” said the pie seller. “And anyways, you can’t go running around with your todger hanging out. You might scare someone!”
Lunder was known by his associates to suffer bouts of petulance. With his spell thoroughly interrupted, he cast another. As the pie man watched, his tray was pulled from around his neck as though snatched by an invisible hand. It rose quickly up into the air and was thrown in the direction of the Ten Dams River, fading into a tiny dot in the sky as it sped away.
“There!” said Lunder in childlike satisfaction, before realising he’d just deprived himself of the opportunity to tell the pie seller to stick his wares up his arse. Instead, he finished off with, “Now bugger off!”
The man was quite philosophical about the loss of his tray, for he still had a pocket full of Slivers from the day’s trading and he certainly didn’t want to meddle with a wizard. He shrugged at the rudeness of Lunder and headed for home.
This interlude had likely saved Skulks’ life, for the pavement slab had winded him quite badly and had almost ruptured his heart. As his Wielding powers worked at repairing the damage, he pushed himself to his feet, only faintly aware that Lunder had stopped and was talking to someone ahead. As the pie tray flew into the distance, Skulks’ body was well on the way to repairing the most critical damage.
Lunder dropped back into a trance. Though he had told his associates that he planned to showcase his Lunder’s Spell of Repelling at the Wizards’ Convention, he hadn’t told them that he had a second spell he planned to unveil in the ‘Most Brutal Wizard’ category. This second spell was called ‘Lunder’s Transformation’ and he completed the casting just as Skulks broke into a canter towards him, still too far to throw a dagger-sword.
There was a ripping, crackling sound as Lunder’s body changed. His arms and legs became longer and thicker, heavy with muscle and sinew. Claws grew in the place of finger and toe nails. His face became more feral, taking on the appearance of a carnivorous beast, something between a wolf and a mountain lion. His flabby chest and belly became taut, as if he’d spent his evenings lifting weights and doing sit-ups, rather than reading his newspaper and drinking ale. Feeling like it could smash an army, the Lunder-beast bellowed a mighty roar. Or at least it attempted to, for the spell did not affect its voice.
“Roar!” it shouted.
Skulks was now close enough to throw a dagger-sword, but refrained, thinking his weapons might be better placed in his hands for the moment. As he got closer, the transformation completed and Skulks saw how impressive the Lunder-beast was. It was seven-feet tall, but much more massive than Skulks, looming and broad.
Not one to shy away from a good scrap, Skulks hurtled at it, swinging his daggers in the hope of catching it off guard. The Lunder-beast showed itself to be as fast as it was muscular, catching the onrushing Skulks with an open-palmed blow, throwing him backwards. With a thief’s nimbleness, Skulks managed to flip himself in the air, landing successfully back on his feet.
“Now you will find out, Wielder. Wizard always beats thief.” And with these words, the Lunder-beast shot forward, powerful legs bunching up as it closed the gap between them. Fast and strong it may have been, but it was also untrained, whilst Skulks had hundreds of years of practice under his belt. The Wielder ducked under one lashing claw and jumped back to avoid another, finding he had the edge in speed, though surely not in strength.
Although the confrontation had lasted only moments, there was already a sausage vendor nearby, hawking his wares to a group of interested onlookers. Coins were exchanging hands as bets were placed on who would come out on top.
“Ten Slivers on me to win!” shouted Skulks, never one to miss an opportunity to enrich himself.
“A hundred Slivers on me!” said the Lunder-beast, hoping to undermine Skulks with its self-confidence.
The two protagonists circled each other for a while, with Skulks aware that the passing time played into his hands. Across the plaza, the Heavenly Snouts was sparkling as spells detonated in the main auditorium, plumes of smoke and noxious gases rising into the air as the wizards within plundered their arsenal for spells that they’d hoped they’d never need to use, at least until day three of the Convention. Both Skulks and the Lunder-beast ducked involuntarily as one wall blew out, sending a cascade of rubble onto the plaza.
With lights and sounds filling their senses, Skulks and the Lunder-beast continued their circling, with the former making probing darts forward, hoping to wear the transformed wizard down with a series of minor cuts. The strategy wasn’t working, for the Lunder-beast’s arms were long and fast, making it risky for Skulks to get too close.
“Second time lucky for me,” said Lunder in a feeble attempt to anger Skulks. The effort to weaken the Wielder’s resolve failed, but Lunder pressed forward, hoping to claw his opponent to pieces. One clawed hand came down and Skulks ducked, but a second claw tangled in the new robes which he had neglected to shed in his pursuit of the wizard. Grinning triumphantly, the Lunder-beast hauled Skulks off the ground and into the air above its head. With its free arm, Lunder raked at Skulks, slicing open his flesh down to the bone. With his leg badly lacerated, Skulks stabbed at the beast’s arm, cutting off one of the fingers as it came in for a second swipe.
Knowing that the detached digit wouldn’t grow back, Lunder was thrown into a rage. He smashed the Wielder down upon the ground, clashing Skulk’s head and shoulder hard against the unyielding paving. With lights flashing before his eyes, Skulks rolled away, one arm raised to fend off the next blow. Unfortunately, the claws were too quick and they cut Skulks’ hand away, which sailed through the air and onto the sausage vendor’s tray.
“Thanks a bunch,” shouted the unsympathetic sausage vendor at Skulks. “How can I sell these now that they’ve got blood on them?”
Skulks was beyond caring about blood-splattered sausages, for he was very nearly vanquished. Rolling away once more, Skulks avoided the blow intended to finish him off and lurched to his feet, just in time for the Lunder-beast to barrel into him and knock him aside, though Skulks managed to deliver a decent stab into its chest with his one remaining dagger-sword.
“Urgh!” cried the Lunder-beast, stumbling sufficiently to buy Skulks some time. As he drew himself painfully to his feet, Skulks watched as the beast shrank before his eyes, reducing in size until it once more became the lanky frame of Tiopan Lunder’s human body. Though Skulks didn’t know it, Lunder’s spell was not yet perfected and the chest injury was sufficient to break the concentration necessary for the wizard to rema
in transformed. Clutching the wound, Lunder looked over with hatred.
“It looks like I’ll have to finish you with magic,” he snarled, beginning to mumble and wave his one free hand. Skulks raised his dagger-sword, meaning to throw it but he was a fraction of a second too late and he felt a constriction take hold of his body, holding him immobile. His frame was battered, but his mind was still clear and Skulks started to unpick the magical bindings.
“Too late, Wielder!” said a gleeful Lunder, stretching out his arm as he completed the final incantation necessary for his next spell. “Remember, thieves always come a cropper!”
Before he could release the incendiary burst that would destroy Skulks, a sword whipped down, cutting Lunder’s own hand off, which fell to the ground.
“Eh?” was the only word Lunder had time to utter before a dagger-sword entered first his chest and then his heart. Definitely dead, the wizard collapsed onto the ground.
“At least mine will grow back!” shouted Skulks, brandishing his stump as he attempted to get in the last word. He, too, collapsed to the ground, definitely not dead.
Twenty-Four
It was three days later when Skulks finally awoke in his modest home on Cow’s Skirt Corner. He looked sallow and unhealthy, for his Wielding powers had drained his body of all its available energy. Though he’d been too wounded to wake up, he’d spent most of the time dreaming about food, but his mind also replayed the image again and again of Captain Honey’s sword lopping off the hand of Lunder, saving Skulks’ life and allowing him to defeat the wizard.
By chance, Heathen Spout was present, for it was the evening and she had taken to dropping by for a time on her way home.
“How are you feeling, Tan?” she asked.
“Hungry,” was the muffled response. “And thirsty.”
