The Walrus and the Warwolf coaaod-4

by Hugh Cook

  Wine was served to him. He breathed in its bouquet, which made him cough. He poked a finger into the liquid, feeling for sediment. There was no sediment to speak of, but for half a broken tooth, which Drake hoicked out of his mug and discarded to the dogs which were snouting about at floor-level.'A good drop, doubtless,' he said.

  And sipped at the wine, which was warm. A dog stuck its head into his lap, and looked at him with adoring eyes.

  'In love with me, are you?' said Drake, scratching the dog behind the ears. 'Well, I'm pretty to look at, I know that proper. If I'm not fixed otherwise, you can sleep with me tonight.'

  But, when Drake came up with no hound-pleasing tidbits, his dog went begging elsewhere.'Bugger you, then!' said Drake.

  'Speaks Galish, does it? said something approximating to a face.'Aye,' said Drake staunchly. 'That it does.''And what might its business be? Pretty or ugly?' 'Ugly,' said Drake. 'Very ugly.' 'Blood on the blade, then?' 'Maybe,' he said.

  'Are you pad, then? Or does it jugulate for hire, perhaps?''My business is to dare,' said Drake.

  'Then where has it been daring, out in the big bold world with its iron and its ugly?'

  'Aagh, after dragons and such,' said Drake. 'Aye, hunting basilisk at dusk and phoenix at dawn.'

  'Sounds famous work. So are you famous? Should I know your name? Is it Git the Rape, by chance? Or Surly Cock-cutter?''My name is not for the unnamed,' said Drake.'Why, as for me,' said the stranger, T be Fimp.''Then I be Fimp-friend,' said Drake. 'Happy?''Always happy, lover. Always.'

  Nearing the end of the wine, Drake drank slowly, straining out the lees as best he could with his teeth. He was right – there was virtually no sediment. Only a few dozen soft black things looking like tealeaves. An excellent wine, then. Cheap at twice the price. A pity he couldn't get drunk on it.

  'What does it need?' said Fimp. 'Is it looking for help, by chance? Someone to idle and oxter it, maybe? Does it need to make money?'

  'It might make some through sale,' said Drake, wondering if Fimp's purse was fat or thin. 'But not sale of itself.'

  'Has treasure, has it? From adventures, perhaps? Ah … I vum you've treasure indeed, yes, riches fit to make the heart quop faster.'

  'Something of the sort,' said Drake. 'But not with me. It's a Door, aye, to wealth of all description.''Oh yes!''Really. I've got a … a sample of the wealth with me.' 'Show.''Buy me a drink,' said Drake. 'Then I'll show.'

  He assessed the stranger's purse as the fellow paid out for a shot of quetsch. That was strong stuff, but Fimp bought for himself a jug of oxymel, which Drake had seen in other places, and knew to be a drink as mild as water.'What have we bought then, me pretty one?''Sight only,' said Drake. 'No touching.'

  And he pulled out the magic talking amulet which he had won in a Wishing Tower in Ling after a battle with a ferocious Guardian Machine and an encounter with a deserted skeleton and an invisible door.

  'What have you got there, me younker?' said Fimp, as Drake held up the magic medallion by its necklace-chain of smoothflowing black links.

  'Something precious,' said Drake, speaking so soft that Fimp could hardly hear him for the background babble. 'Something rare.'

  Fimp stared at the cool, glossy lozenge of silver-splashed black with greedy eyes.

  'What's that silver on the black, youngling? Stars, is it? A golden sun on one side, yes, and – oh, this I must see!'Drake snatched the amulet away as Fimp grabbed for it.'Sight only!' he warned.

  'Where did it come from, then?' said Fimp. 'A lady's throat, perhaps?'

  T told you,' said Drake. 'It came from a land where I went by way of a Door. And there's more where that came from, through the very same Door.'

  'Then thinks you to sell us a map, perhaps? Map to your Door so precious? For us to club good gold, then you to vanish? Mannikin, we're not so greedy, nay?''You're not greedy?' said Drake, not understanding.

  'Oh, true, so very true,' said Fimp with a smirk. 'Never greedy enough to seek cheap wealth unending, or life eternal, or youth eternal either. Might sell such sometimes, true. I'm last to be selfish. So true! So true! Have sold a nation's worth of treasure cities in my time. But buy such? Never!'

  Drake, seeing he would find no instant buyers for the secret of the Door of Penvash – he had thought, for a moment, he might be able to make a quick fortune out of it – told a tale closer to the truth:

  'You want to know the truth of this? Man, it came from a Wishing Tower in the Deep South. Aye, and I had to fight with a Neversh to get it.'

  Fimp laughed, showing pyrrhous stains on his teeth. And others, who had been listening close, laughed with him.'So now it wants to sell us maps to a Wishing Tower!'

  'I'd never,' said Drake, 'for the knowledge is far too worthy to sell.'

  All laughed again, knowing that for a bare-faced lie. But the lie itself was not unwelcome, for these people appreciated the comedy of outrage.

  'Come, me little pajock,' said Fimp. 'Let's see that trinket closer.''You want to buy?' said Drake.

  'Perhaps,' said Fimp. 'Perhaps. We can talk of buying, yes, that does no harm, no harm in talk.'

  'Then first,' said Drake, 'flatten the gold you'll be talking with.'

  And he pointed to the counter of the bar, where he wanted to see Fimp's coinage laid out for inspection.

  'Come, Fimp,' said Drake. 'Why hesitate? Am I not Fimp-friend? Let's see the gold, then bargain.'

  'Ah now, me little younker,' said Fimp, 'You sees, I bargain – with this!'And he drew red metal to the menace.'So give it!' he said.

  Drake, with every manifestation of reluctance, handed the amulet over. Eager as a bald-headed vulture greeding at a gaping belly-wound, the shivman seized it. And Drake smashed him. Struck first, fast and hard. Struck second, third and fourth. Struck again – and stunned, bruised and broke before taking his opponent in a choke.

  'Speak to me nicely now,' said Drake, tightening the throttle. 'Speake to me nice, darling, yes, speak soft, my dear – or the blade speaks for me.'

  Fimp, dizzy, dislocated in time, muttered something in Shurlspurl, which meant nothing to Drake.

  'Is it life you want?' said Drake. 'Is it life? Gold has life, aye, bright as sun, hot as fire. I'll trade. Be quick! The blade hungers!'

  Fimp had dropped the amulet onto the counter of the bar. A hand dared from the crowd of spectators, lunging for the magic medallion. Quick as a flash, Drake stabbed the hand, which escaped with a nick – and without the amulet.

  'That's how quick you'll die,' said Drake to Fimp. All around, bright eyes watched for a killing. 'Soft,' said an oiled, luxurious voice. 'Soft, young Galish.'

  And the voice smiled its way into a man, who laid down cold gold on the bar.

  'Let him go,' said the man, a well-fed elderly fellow who wore blue and yellow furs though the place was warm.

  Drake scooped up the gold, secured his amulet, then released Fimp. Who slumped to the floor and then, kicked by patrons who wanted to get back to their drinks, began to crawl into the further recesses of the darkness, where he had the misfortune to encounter two bad-tempered tavern dogs.

  'What do you want?' said Drake to his gold-paying stranger.

  'Ah,' said the man in the colourful furs, 'the question, young Galish, is what do you want. How much ambition do you have?''Who are you?' said Drake. 'And what?''I am Ol Tul,' said the stranger.

  Drake took this for a regular name, ignorant of the fact that 'Ol Tul', in all varieties of Churl, meant simply 'The Man'.

  'As for what I am,' said Ol Tul, 'why, I am he who needs. I need blades to stand gate. Good work it is, day work.''As muscle, then.''Nay, as steel. Or is it too pretty?''What do you run?' asked Drake.

  'Do you mean to ask what I muckle? Pretty, I muckle women, and smoke. Both worth it. That's why the steel. To stand off the jealous.''Aye then,' said Drake. 'I'm in.'

  He had no special desire to be bodyguard, frightener or enforcer, and guessed well enough that the job he was being offered involved a bit of all
three. But he had to take what he could get. He was in a dangerous foreign city, alone, with no friends and no money. Moreover, he had to stay in Selzirk so he could take advantage of any radical change in the city's attitude to King Tor. Thus, in utterance, he accepted Ol Tul's offer.

  'So you're in,' said Ol Tul, nodding to the barman. 'But if you're to stay in, I must know more about you.'

  'What?' said Drake, as the barman put a couple of beers on the counter.'Name, genesis and training,' said Ol Tul.

  All difficult questions. It was dangerous to come from Stokos. To be a pirate? That might have its dangers, too. Drake remembered a fellow he had met in Estar, on the Salt Road south of Stokos. He had asked the man's name since the fellow looked remarkably alike the woodsman Blackwood, that charitable forest-dweller who had found, saved and sheltered both Drake and Zanya when they were lost in Estar's Looming Forest.Shen Shen Drax, that was the man's name.

  T,' said Drake, 'be Shen Shen Drax, leech-gatherer of Delve.''And where under the five skies be Delve?' said Ol Tul.

  'Why,' said Drake, 'Delve is a small place in Estar, south of the ruling town of Lorford. South, indeed, of mountain Maf, where lives the dragon Zenphos, who I had the pleasure of meeting once.'

  'A pretty tale that makes, I vum,' said Ol Tul, supping his beer.

  'Yes,' said Drake, taking a drag on his own beer. 'So you know my genesis right enough. Born in Delve, by the Salt Road. Aye, and raised there. Name and genesis both. You have them.'

  'But training?' said Ol Tul. 'This place called Estar, if I place it right, that's north of Chorst and Dybra. Little but grass and leeches there, if I hear right.'

  'Grass and leeches!' said Drake, speaking up for Estar as indeed he must if he was to pass for a patriot. 'Nay, man, there's more by much. Dragon, aye – that I've spoken of. And sheep, with much killing for disputes over the same. And a castle huge at Lorford. Aye. Castle Vaunting. A place built by wizards in generations long forgotten.''Lorford?' said Ol Tul.

  'The ruling town of Estar, as I've said,' said Drake. 'It stands on the banks of the Hollern River, which flows south from Lake Armansis. This Castle Vaunting, it rules the hill called Melross. Was there I had my training, aye.''How?' said Ol Tul.

  'For I took service under Prince Comedo, the ruler of the place,' said Drake. 'This leech-gathering business, man, it's not the world's best living, as you'd guess for yourself. So, when I were a strong fourteen – which is going back a few years now – I took place with the prince.''As what?''As soldier, man.'

  'Leech-gatherer to soldier,' said Ol Tul, with a smile which was not necessarily friendly.

  'Aye,' said Drake, stoutly. 'And, as a soldier, I trained beneath the Rovac warriors who serve the prince.''Name them,' said Ol Tul.

  'There are three. One is Oronoko, aye, who has skin of utter purple, as do some that's born in Rovac. Another is Atsimo Andranovory, a black-bearded brute who kills as soon as kisses. The third – that's Morgan Hearst. Aye. He's the best and hardest. A grey-haired killer. Grey eyes on him, too. He taught me man to man these last long years. Sword, aye. And hand to hand without weapons.''Then why left you Estar?' said Ol Tul.

  'Man,' said Drake, 'have you not heard the news? It's madness there. Dragon run wild. Invading armies slaughtering across the countryside. Wizards wild in wrath, killing with fire and thunder. All trade at a halt on the Salt Road. Man, those who could, they ran – aye, and Morgan Hearst, he led us as we ran. But he died by the roadside, died face to face with a dragon. But me – I lived. But just.'

  Ol Tul drained the last of his beer. 'Come with me,' said Ol Tul, 'and we'll put your story to the test.'

  Drake followed with some trepidation, wondering what kind of examination he was going to face. A detailed grilling on the geography of Estar, perhaps? A language test by some stray native of the place whom Ol Tul happened by chance to know? The people of Estar had their own tongue, aye, Estral, that was the name of it – but Drake had learnt nary a word of the stuff. The good woodsman Blackwood, who had sheltered him in need, had spoken Galish with the best.

  Fortunately, the test Ol Tul planned for Drake took place in a private combat pit. It was a tough test, and Drake got a rib broken while passing it – plus a five-stitch cut to add to his wound-list. But pass he did, with honours. Ol Tul brought many potential recruits to that combat pit, and nineteen out of twenty failed, and were dumped dead in the river.

  Thus it was that Lord Dreldragon of Stokos, currently posing as Shen Shen Drax of Estar, won the trust and confidence of Ol Tul, 'The Man', and was inducted into the underworld of Selzirk.

  Drake soon became acquainted with the ruling city of the Harvest Plains. But what he knew was not the city of palaces and temples which features in history books, but another place altogether: Selzirk of the thousand sewers, the city of low-life brothels, opium dens, protection rackets, blackmail, intimidation and outright murder. He lived by wit and by steel.

  The pace was fast. This life had no longueurs like that of the Teeth, where an entire crew of Orfus pirates might spend months at a time doing little but sealing, breeding, fishing and gambling. Drake lived instead at city-speed, and soon won a name for himself amongst those who served Ol Tul.

  A couple of times he almost died, for the way of the knife is different to that of the sword. But he mastered the skills of the shorter blade soon enough, and became known as a dangerous shivman. He began to scrape a little Shurlspurl, learning fast on the streets by day and in bed by night.

  But, while Drake soon knew the ropes and was showing off his growing grasp of the lingo, to his fellow hardmen he was and always would be (if he lived) 'the Galish', the outsider. If he died, of course, he would be simply forgotten.

  Drake gathered what news he could of the campaigning in the province of Hok, where the armies of the Harvest Plains were trying to root out and destroy the fugitive forces of King Tor. News was sparse. There was no word of victory, but none of defeat. Drake guessed that the campaign had become bogged down in the tortured terrain.

  He struck up acquaintances with old soldiers in bars and in brothels, and learned that the province of Hok was a chopped-up mess of cliffs and gorges, riddled with caves and drop-holes. Where its mountains gentled into the flat-lands of the Harvest Plains proper, the ground was low-lying and boggy, making communication and supply difficult.

  'Hok,' said one old soldier, 'is but a hundred leagues from east to west, and scarce more than twenty leagues from north to south. But when a piece of land is made of teeth, bones and splinters, it can be blood-sweat hard to win at war. If you'd seen terrain which was really rough, you'd have some idea of what I mean.'

  'Aye,' said Drake, who had seen lands rough as storm-chopped water in Ling, Penvash and elsewhere. 'I see it right enough.'

  When winter came, then, perhaps, he'd know the results of the campaigning in Hok. Then he'd be ready to make his next move. And what would that be?

  I'll make ambassador in Selzirk. Aye. Or, if that's impossible, I'll pack my sword and march. Aye. March south to Hok and do battle for real. A hero, like. Dangerous, sure – but what's that which I'm living? It's hardly safe, now, is it?It wasn't.

  44

  Name: Atsimo Andranovory. Birthplace: Lorp. Occupation: unemployed cut-throat. Status: illegal immigrant.

  Description: rough-bearded brute with scarred bald patch the size of a man's palm on the top of his head.

  Career: first fisherman then Orfus pirate; marooned by his captain on the shores of Estar, where put his sword at Prince Comedo's command; joined party questing inland after death-stone and led a mutiny against his leaders in dragon-lands beyond the Araconch Waters; came downriver with fellow mutineers through the Chenameg Kingdom to Selzirk of the Harvest Plains.

  It was autumn.

  Drake Douay was at sword in a loft, practising kata -some learnt on Stokos in his apprentice days, others taught him by the weapons muqaddam on a voyage to Hexagon and back. These days, he welcomed the austere disciplines of steel, fin
ding himself bored by the drunken company of his fellow thugs.The weapons muqaddam had taught him most.

  Slashing the air with sharpened steel, Drake remembered that strong, hard man. Killed by barbarians in Tameran, aye. Buried upside down with his feet cut off. A cruel way to die.

  / remembered you with ashes. Yet who will remember mel

  Drake was making his way in Selzirk, yes, but it was still a world away from home. If he died here, he would die unlamented amongst strangers.

  The weapons muqaddam, he was with comrades till he died. That was something, at least.

  When still alive, the weapons muqaddam had let Drake make blade chime against blade often enough to satisfy him, never caring how many swords got notched, or bent, or broken, or whether fancy iron or copper inlay fell out of them. He had taught Drake to train as though his life depended on the next stroke that he struck – which, of course, is the only way for a true weapons master to train.

  Drake realized, guiltily, that he had recently forgotten that lesson – and had been treating his kata as a dance. He used knife more than sword, these days, that was the trouble. Sword had become a bit of a game.'Concentrate, man,' said Drake to Drake.

  And put death into the next blow that he struck. All his training went into that cut. Through the sword, he lived a moment for the weapons muqaddam. He struck with the will to kill. Which is the only way to strike – even in training.'Where's the ghost?' asked a voice.

  Drake, still handling his weapon for murder, turned to meet this interruption. His ice-smooth steel cut the air clean and sweet. His face was cold, hard, remote. It spoke of a warrior's rapture. A rapture of death.

  'Easy, man,' said Pigot Quebec, alarmed at the expres-siononDrake's face.'Oh,' saidDrake, easing his stance. 'It'syou.'

  'Yes,' said Pigot Quebec. 'I'm glad you realize it. I thought for a moment you were making to kill me.''Perhaps I was,' said Drake, softly. 'Perhaps I was.'

  This was weird, this business of weapons. Live with the steel for long enough, andit takes to demanding a death. He shivered, and slid his blade to its sheath.'What are you here for?' he said.