by Hugh Cook
‘Why, that’s very gracious of you,’ said Qa.
So Alfric opened up his pack and the pair began to banquet upon pork, with Alfric taking care to select the very best bits for the dragon. While they ate, they discussed Galsh Ebrek. Qa had heard of the untunchilamons, and was most interested in the progress of that breed of miniatures.
‘Maybe I could get one,’ said Qa. ‘As a pet. I’ve never had a pet, you know. It’s a pity I have to kill you, otherwise you could fetch me one.’
‘Doubtless you’ll get all you deserve in time,’ said Alfric. ‘Would you care for some more pork?’
‘Please.’
‘You’ve got quite an appetite,’ said Alfric.
‘Yes,’ said Qa. ‘Since this is winter, I have to eat extramuch. Otherwise I’d have to hibernate. Most sea dragons do, you know. All through winter. Of course, extramuch mostly means great quantities of seaweed. Fortunately, I’m able to vary the diet from time to time.’ ‘How?’ said Alfric.
‘With Yudonic Knights, of course,’ said Qa. ‘And their horses. Would you like some fresh horsemeat to go with your pork?’
‘I’d like that very much, if it were available,’ said Alfric. ‘For I’m rather partial to horsemeat. But unfortunately there’s no horse available.’
‘There is, you know,’ said Qa.
Then the dragon went to the back of the cave, dipped its talons into a generous crack in the rock, and hauled out something which smelt very much like fresh meat. It proved to be the haunch of a horse. A horse very recently dead, if Alfric was any judge - and he thought himself a good one.
‘You see,’ said Qa, ‘I did swim to the forest. I did find your horse.’
There was a pause.
Really!
This was most difficult!
‘I - I’m sorry I lied to you about the horse,’ said Alfric. ‘But the rest is true. About the poetry, the invitation to Tang. All true.’
‘I wish I could believe you,’ said the dragon. ‘But I can’t. You’re a liar, you see. Never mind, we won’t let that stand in the way of our friendship. Which will last at least until the meal ends. Perhaps you’re in the mood to listen to some more of my poetry. Are you?’
‘Most definitely,’ said Alfric.
So Qa began to recite. On and on went the recitation, the dragon at length abandoning food in favour of unrestricted concentration on poetry.
But it was too late.
For the dragon had already eaten more than it should have done.
And, soon enough, its eyes began to lull, its words became slurred, and it was struggling to keep its balance. Suddenly it fell over to one side. And then was abruptly sick.
‘Oh,’ said Qa, mournfully. ‘I haven’t been sick like that for years. Not since they fed me opium. At a banquet, it was. Done for a joke. There was opium, wasn’t there? In the pork. The bits you fed me.’
‘Yes,’ admitted Alfric.
‘You did well,’ said the dragon. ‘But not quite well enough. I’ve still the strength to kill you, you know. You’d better run while you’ve still got time.’
‘You’re bluffing, I’m afraid,’ said Alfric. ‘What’s more, I know you’re bluffing. Furthermore, it’s time for me to kill you.’
‘Just one thing I ask,’ said the dragon.
‘What’s that?’
‘No lectures, please,’ said Qa. ‘Not while I’m writhing in my death agonies. I couldn’t bear it. Lectures, I mean. About eating children and all that.’
‘Oh, that’s perfectly understandable,’ said Alfric, who detested children. ‘No, I’m not killing you for any moralistic reasons. I’m killing you out of enlightened self-interest. How would you like to be killed?’
‘A blade in the heart would be quickest,’ said Qa, rolling over. ‘Stick it in here.’
So saying, the dragon tapped its belly with a set of talons, indicating the location of the heart. Then it closed its eyes, as if waiting for death.
Alfric cautiously stepped back, away from the dragon. Stealthily he picked up a skull-sized rock. Then tossed it. So it landed on the dragon’s belly.
Instantly the creature exploded into wrathful action, clawing with all four taloned legs, fire ravaging the air as it roared its anger. Then it realized it had been tricked. It had been fooled into expending its best energies on nothing more than a rock. It screamed, incoherent with rage. Scrabbled to its feet. Charged at Alfric.
But stumbled, tricked out of its balance by opium. Slithered. Fell. And Alfric drew his sword and leapt forward, stricking, hacking, slashing, plunging. Then struggling, struggling, struggling to draw out the steel which was stuck in the flesh, flesh he was kicking and cursing.
Badged with blood the ravager at last got free his blade. Then hacked. Then hacked again. Then stepped back to watch his enemy die.
‘It hurts,’ said Qa. ‘It hurts.’
Alfric stood watching, panting harshly.
‘It hurts,’ moaned Qa.
Voice failing, fading.
A wisp of smoke escaped from the dragon’s nostrils. One last firefly-rivalling flicker of fire showed at its mouth. Then it was dead. It was most clearly and obviously dead. Though Alfric nevertheless hacked off its head to be absolutely sure.
And then—
Then he bathed his hands in one of the puddles, for they had got scorched by fire in the course of the battle, and were very sore.
For a long time he squatted by the cold water, hands engulfed in that darkness. As he waited there, his battle-anger cooled away to nothing, and he was left alone and very lonely. The cave was dark, dark and cold, and very lonely. And Alfric began to weep for the dead dragon and its lonely vigil, and for the bitterness of this cold universe where things lived in holes, crawling forth at intervals to fight each other and die, each yearning for comfort yet afraid to trust the other, the dreaded other which might provide that comfort.
At last Alfric withdrew his hands from the water, cleansed his sword, sheathed his sword, picked up the shrivelled iron of the saga sword Edda, then left the cave. His pack he left behind, and also any and all other treasures which had belonged to the dragon.
Waves were sweeping across the sandstrand which stretched between Thodrun and the shore, either because the seas had got up or because the tide had started to come in while Alfric was in discourse with the dragon. The wind’s icy blast in freezing squalls drove the racing combers with fury, but Alfric plunged into the water, unaffrighted, and struggled toward the shore. Only when he stepped clear of the sea did he realize how close he had come to losing the ironsword Edda to the wrecking waters.
Under the dead stars he walked toward the dunes, icy iron in his hand, bones creaking as his flesh animated itself toward its destination. He felt, at that moment, that he would not have cared even if he had lost the sword. For his guilt was upon him. He had killed, he had slaughtered a poet, and his shame would be upon him for ever. He had murdered Qa. He had been forced to. Because the dragon had not trusted him. If he had not lied about the horse, then he might have won the creature’s trust. The dragon would have gone to Tang, and all would have ended happily ever after.
Instead, Alfric Danbrog would have bitter memories to bear for the rest of his life. But at least he was alive, yes, he was alive, and returning to Galsh Ebrek as a hero.
CHAPTER EIGHT
After killing the sea dragon Qa, Alfric tramped along the coast until he came to an abandoned croft. By that time, the night was nearly at an end. He laid himself down inside the ruinous crofthouse and dropped off into an exhausted sleep.
When Alfric woke, it was still night. Was he at the end of his dragon-fighting night? Or had he slept right through the day to the start of a new night? He could not say, for clouds obscured the sky, denying him the timetelling stars. Regardless of how long he might have slept, he felt weary, his body aching like a resurrected carcass. Pain still dwelt in his dragon-scorched hands, and to this annoyance was added a pressing hunger which he had no means of sa
tisfying.
Hunger-driven, Alfric resumed his journey, at length passing between the Stanch Gates and entering Galsh Ebrek. Then he stopped in the nightmud street, momentarily unsure of how to cope with his many conflicting priorities. He wanted to rest, to eat and to drink; he wanted, also, to signal his success to Saxo Pall; and he should by rights report his successful return to the Bank.
Very well.
He was a Yudonic Knight, was he not?
Of course he was!
With that settled, Alfric backtracked to the Stanch Gates and acted like the Knight he was. He ordered one of the guards to the Bank to deliver a message, and directed another man to take a despatch to Saxo Pall.
‘My lord,’ said one of the men so commanded, ‘where will we look for you if there is a reply to your messages?’
Alfric considered. He didn’t want common guardsmen tramping into his own house.
‘You can leave any reply to my messages at the Green Cricket,’ he said.
A good choice, this, since Anna Blaume was a reliable holder of messages, and since Alfric meant to call round to the inn in any case to check on the progress of the orks.
With duties of communication thus satisfactorily discharged, Alfric took himself off to his own house, where he hoped a meal would be waiting for him. But it was not. Nothing was waiting for him. Not even his wife. Alfric foraged for food, eventually finding and consuming two (cold) baked potatoes and a cup of (equally cold) half-cooked moon beans. Then he went in search of his missing spouse: but his enquiries were fruitless.
What now?
Why, he must go to the Green Cricket, of course, to see if there were any messages for him.
When Alfric entered that insalubrious inn, he found a great many people within. But the place was not lively, for most of the patrons were in a near-corpse-like state in the aftermath of a party. What had occasioned such celebrations? Alfric did not ask. He was near collapse: though he knew not whether the cause of his suffering was indigestion, fatigue or emotional stress.
‘Hello Alfric,’ said the ork Morgenstem, addressing him from behind the bar. ‘How are you?’
‘Not very well,’ said Alfric. ‘Where’s Anna?’
‘In bed,’ said Morgenstem.
Alfric had taste enough not to ask: who with? Instead, he said to Morgenstem:
‘What puts you behind the bar? A career change?’
‘No, no,’ said Morgenstem.’ ‘I like it here.’
‘Good,’ said Alfric, for the sake of politeness. ‘Has anyone been here tonight?’
‘All kinds of people,’ said Morgenstem. ‘Many of them yet remain.’
So saying, the ork gestured at the sleeping drunks. ‘That’s not what I meant,’ said Alfric. ‘I meant messengers.’
‘You didn’t say messengers,’ said Morgenstem.
‘I say it now,’ said Alfric, resisting an impulse to hit the soft and blubbery animal. ‘Has anyone been here tonight? With a message, I mean? A message for me? Or a letter, a scroll, a parchment, a despatch, or anything else for me for that matter?’
‘No,’ said Morgenstem.
So much for that.
Alfric wondered what the orks were still doing at the Green Cricket. Had Tromso Stavenger refused them lodgings in Saxo Pall? Or had they proved too timid to present their diplomatic credentials to the Wormlord? Or— Earlier, he had been most curious to discover the fate which had met the orkish Embassy; but his weariness had increased considerably since then. He decided it was best that he stay resolutely uninvolved. He had enough to cope with on his own account without getting involved in any actual or potential diplomatic disasters.
‘Give me a beer,’ said Alfric.
‘Certainly,’ said Morgenstem. ‘If you’ve got the cash.’ ‘Put it on the slate,’ said Alfric.
‘You have one?’
‘Of course,’ said Alfric. ‘I come here often.’
The ork hunted around among the slates, found Alfric’s, chalked up a beer. Alfric took it to a seat by the fire and drank slowly. He felt oddly deflated and depressed. Maybe it was just the result of so much nightliving.
‘How did your quest go?’ said Morgenstem, who was polishing the bar.
Alfric looked up.
‘So-so,’ he said.
‘Did you kill your dragon?’
‘Yes,’ said Alfric. ‘But I’d rather not talk about it, if it’s all the same with you.’
Thereafter Morgenstem left him alone. Alfric drank in silence, watching a band of untunchilamons making warfaring forays from the fireplace. Time and again the miniature dragons descended on slumbering drunks, raiding hair and clothing for whatever livestock they could find. Occasionally, in an excess of enthusiasm, a dragon singed human skin while crisping a hapless louse: which occasioned some sleepy swearing and ineffectual dragon-swatting.
In due course, Alfric started on a second beer. An unusual procedure, this, for he usually stopped at one. Alfric Danbrog valued self-control above all else, and feared ill consequences should he ever lose his grip on his will thanks to alcoholic intoxication.
The self-controlled banker was halfway through his second mug when a woman came down the stairs. Anna Blaume? No. Viola Vanaleta!
‘Viola!’ said Alfric, upsetting his mug as he started to his feet.
The woman momentarily looked startled, but recovered her poise almost immediately.
‘Why, Alfric,’ she said, coolly, ‘what a surprise. What are you doing here?’
‘Looking for you, as it happens,’ said Alfric.
‘Are you?’ said Vanaleta. She turned to Morgenstem and said: ‘Did he ask after me when he came in?’
The ork looked uneasy.
‘Well?’ said Vanaleta. ‘I take it we can say your silence means no. Alfric, you didn’t come here to look for me. You came to get drunk.’
‘If I did,’ said Alfric, ‘such is my privilege. Just as it is my privilege, or should be, to return to my own home in every confidence of finding my wife in residence within.’ ‘You have lost yourself that privilege,’ said Vanaleta. At this stage the appropriate question was: why?
But Alfric did not ask this question, hence remained unenlightened. Instead he said:
‘I don’t like the tone of your voice. Let’s go home and sort this out.’
‘Home?’ said Vanaleta. ‘I’m not going anywhere with you.’
‘Your abstraklous contumely ill befits you,’ said Alfric coldly. ‘You are my wife. My handmaiden.’
After that, things went from bad to worse.
Both Alfric Danbrog and Viola Vanaleta were in moods most unreasonable. Alfric because he was suffering from fatigue, and from a murderer’s guilt, and from fear of his uncertain future. Vanaleta because she believed Alfric to be in the process of divorcing her, and thought his intemperate attempt to command her to be most unreasonable. Finally, Alfric was roused to such an anger that he tried to use force on his woman.
All things being equal, Alfric would have overwhelmed Vanaleta and would have dragged her home in triumph. But things were not equal. Before Alfric knew it, two dwarves had joined the battle. Du Deiner had him by the ankle while Mich Dir was doing his best to apply a stranglehold.
‘Unhand me, you filthy ablach!’ said Alfric, trying to kick away Du and claw away Mich.
He was still trying when two more people came down the stairs: Anna Blaume and Cod the ork. Shortly, Alfric found himself being set upon by one ork, two women and a pair of dwarves: a state of affairs which left him with no option except to surrender.
‘Get up then,’ said Blaume, ‘and I’ll get you a drink.’
A drink she got him, and then a second; and of the drinks that came later there is no counting. At one stage Alfric heard her say:
‘One observes that the thumb is second cousin to the left foot.’
Then she laughed; but what the joke was, Alfric had no idea.
‘Did I imagine it,’ he said, ‘or did you just say—’
‘Wh
at?’ said Blaume.
For Alfric’s speech had become quite incomprehensible thanks to the prodigious importation of liquor into his system. While he thought himself quite lucid, his ears were garbaging what was said to them, and his tongue was rubbishing his every word to a mulching slather. Even his vision was starting to fritz, for the outlines of reality were blurring and bifurcating in a way which had nothing whatsoever to do with any optical deficiency.
Nevertheless, Alfric was sensible enough to recognize Pig Norn when that mix of brawn and flabber came crashing through the front door with Muscleman Wu close behind him.
‘Jabraljik!’ said Pig, or seemed to Alfric to say.
This Alfric took to be a distortion of his name: and, taking this distortion to be a challenge to battle, he got to his feet. His feet he tripped over. His face he recovered but his spectacles were missing, and by the time he had groped his way to his sight’s salvation, the battle was well underway.
Pig and Wu were trying to spear orkflesh with their swords, but close-clinging dwarves and battering women were making this feat of chivalry difficult. Skaps the Vogel was swooping overhead, screaming in shrillvoiced anger. Some of the drunks, woken by the brawl, were fighting among themselves, or trying to.
‘Stop!’ said Alfric.
But nobody did.
So Alfric picked up a chair, or tried to. But his balance was betrayed by a draught from the fireplace, and he had to lean on the chair to keep his balance. He tried again, was more successful, and broke the chair over Wu’s head. While the chair definitely suffered - it was asundered into woodwarp and wormdust, dowelling and splinters - Wu fought on, dauntless and dentless.
Alfric took off his spectacles, put them into a beer mug for safety, then threw himself into the battle. With Alfric deadweighting from his neck, Muscleman Wu began to tire. Then a couple of guardsmen entered, and, thanks to their intervention, both brothers Norn were overcome and were booted out into the street.
Full of the vigour of war, Alfric pursued them. He stood in the doorway of the Green Cricket and swore prodigiously at a much-battered Pig Norn who was even then picking himself out of the mud.
