“I propose a toast,” he said. “To our host, Count Lafayette, and to the excellence of his table. This delicacy is certainly a rare treat. Shallya willing.”
The diners clinked their glasses, and returned to the succulence of Lafayette’s triumph.
PARADISE LOST
Andy Jones
“Well, Johan, y’see, it’s like this…” The gruff dwarf voice hung for long moments in the hot tropical air. “Sometimes yer has to take the big chance…” The voice trailed off. “Ain’t half hot, though.”
“Snowkapt Mountinz, I see Snowkapt Mountinz.” Indecipherable babble escaped from Keanu the Reaver like steam from a leaky kettle. “Ja, und schtreams, und kold, kold fountinz…” Even the barbarian’s delirium was thickly accented.
Johan Anstein, ex-Imperial envoy, groaned inwardly and manoeuvred a fragment of sailcloth to shade himself from the merciless ravages of the sun. The young, would-be warrior peered with squinting eyes at the dwarf sitting stoically at the rowlocks.
“But Grimcrag, what are we going to do?” Anstein’s voice was little more than a croak, his tongue thick and furred in his mouth. He could feel the sun hammering down on his head, even through the thick tarpaulin he had draped across his blistered shoulders.
The young man pointed what was (to his mind at least) quickly becoming a skeletally thin arm at the recumbent elf lying in the bilges. Jiriki rolled softly with the swell of the sea. “He hasn’t moved all day, and Keanu thinks he’s back home in Norsca.”
Johan studied the barbarian lolling in the steersman’s seat. Wearing nothing but a loin cloth and horned helmet, the Reaver glistened menacingly.
“Take mich Home, Momma!” the barbarian gargled, his teeth chattering uncontrollably.
“Don’t you be worryin’ about yon elf, lad,” Grimcrag interjected. “He’s always doin’ that suspendered animalation trick of his when things get tricky.” The dwarf deftly prodded the comatose Jiriki with a boat hook. “See, nothing!”
Grimcrag scratched at his beard and spat overboard. “It’s old musclehead I’m worried about. I don’t think he can take many more days without anything to drink. He’s getting beerhydrated, and it’ll be the end of him, mark my words.”
“No sign of land?” Johan asked hopelessly.
The dwarf performed what under normal circumstances would have been an almost comical double take. “Oh yes, didn’t I mention it? We’re about thirty yards away from a lovely landing berth. I can see the tavern from here… OF COURSE THERE’S NO BLOODY LAND!” Grimcrag snorted in derision, and continued scratching despondently at his beard.
Johan slumped back under the tarpaulin. “That’s it then, we’re done for.”
Minutes later, he had drifted off into a restless, sun-driven daydream.
“Gold, lad, gold! More than you can imagine!” The dwarf voice resonated with barely controlled excitement.
“Yes, but it’s not Lustrian, or from the Lost Kingdoms at all: it’s in a storm-wrecked Bretonnian galleon.”
“Never mind that, it’s ours for keeps now.”
“It’s sinking fast!”
“We’ve got time, lad, and this boat can hold plenty.”
“Wouldn’t we be better scavenging water and food?”
“VOT? S’YOU MAD?”
A madly canted deck, so far down in the water that it was not much of a climb at all even in their weakened state. Crazy angles, creaking hawsers, the desolate flapping of ripped and tattered sailcloth. Not so different from their own recent fate.
Keanu barging the others aside impatiently, muscles straining as he pulled at the iron ring on the deck hatch. Nothing… then the screech of swollen wood on rusted metal.
A black square leading down into nothingness. The stench of stagnant death and decay. The slap of lazy waters in the dark bilges below.
Heat-bloated bodies gently bumping against him in the darkness. Foetid water climbing quickly over their waists. Fish swimming blindly about their legs. The discomforting feel of being ghoulish carrion, unwelcome visitors intruding upon the rest of the dead. Heavy crates. A race against time and the horror of joining the bodies in the hold forever.
A portion saved. Exhaustion. The sad sight of a once-noble vessel slipping ignominiously below the waves, leaving at its last nothing more than bubbling froth and a few shards of timber.
The endless sun by day and the chill blackness of night. Day after day after day in a boat piled high with nothing but gold. Death’s shadow never seemed far away. Who would succumb first?
“Sail ahoy!”
Hope!
“You sure, elfy?”
“Yes, it’s some kind of corsair.”
“Wave everything! We’re saved!”
“Hide the gold, lad!”
“Where, for heaven’s sake?”
“Halloo! Halloo!”
A brine- and barnacle-encrusted tramp. A patchwork of old repairs over older repairs. A grimy grey sail. Tar and smoke-blackened timbers. A ruined figurehead jutting like a broken tooth. The most beautiful ship Johan had ever seen.
A grizzled, suspicious face. A toothless grin, a hooked hand. A swarthy bunch of no-hopers. Angels in disguise, no doubt.
“Well ’pon my soul, if it ain’t the great mister lardy-dardy I-wouldn’t-hire-your-ship-if-I-was-in-the-middle-of-the-Great-Ocean-on-a-tea-chest Grunsonn himself…”
“Vot?”
“Grimcrag, you didn’t?”
“Not exactly, lad… I think he missed out the bit about the tea chest leaking…”
A diplomatic elvish voice: “Look here, Black Hook Pugh Beard or whatever your name is, are you going to help us or not?”
“Depends, eh, lads? Shall we help the hoity-toities?” A chorus of despicable cheers and catcalls.
“Dependink on vot, ’zactly?”
“Got’ny gold in those boxes?”
“Ja!”
“No!”
“For heaven’s sake, Grimcrag. Yes, yes, yes, just get us off this blasted boat!”
“You’ll be wantin’ water then?”
“Ja.”
“Yes.”
“Mmph!”
“Definitely.”
Ropes and grapples snaking down. Chests brim full of Bretonnian gold hauled up on board. A fishermen’s net lowered. Salvation in sight. Four sun-bleached souls about to end their week-long torment. Heaven is nigh.
Johan stirred in his heat-drenched half-sleep. He already knew the ending of this particular dream. He’d seen it for real, and dreamed it a hundred times a day since. His eyes opened a crack, as he wondered yet again if maybe, somehow, this was all a dream, a very bad one. Perhaps he was really lying on silk sheets at home in Castle Baltenkopf? Pitiful hope seized his heart.
But no, here was the boat, and there sat the disconsolate form of the renowned Grimcrag Grunsonn, unceremoniously stripped down to filthy grey vest and long Johns. The lugubrious dwarf still wore his iron-shod boots and his helmet, but his armour and precious axe were tucked under his bench for safe-keeping. Johan blearily noticed that today the dwarf had rolled his sleeves up. Perhaps the sun was finally getting to even him.
Johan turned over and quickly drifted off into fitful sleep again, the endless monotony of the slap-slapping of the sea against the boat’s flimsy side a familiar lullaby. After a few hours of blissful oblivion, the dream came on again.
They are scrambling up the net, grinning madly to one another. Even Grimcrag has forgotten the thought of his gold in the joy of rescue. Fresh water? A bath? Food? What it is to have friends!
Halfway up and disaster strikes—the net falls away, plunging them down into the sea. Uproarious laughter from above.
When they surface, the ship is already drifting away. Their small, sorry boat is dragged alongside by the current for a moment, as if forlornly hoping for a tow.
The corsairs laugh cruelly, jeering at the Marauders from the safety of the gunwale.
“Come back!” Johan gurgles.
“MY GOLD!” shrieks G
rimcrag.
Jiriki and Keanu swim with strong, accomplished strokes towards the boat.
The pirates throw down some water skins and a few barrels of salted fish.
The Marauders clamber, exhausted, into their floating prison cell once more. Ironically enough, there is more room without all the gold. At least Johan can stretch his long legs.
Grimcrag is inconsolable, shouting curses southwards long after the pirates’ sail has dipped below the distant horizon. The sharks circle. In the boat they all know they are doomed.
Johan woke with a start, a sharp stabbing pain in his heart warning him that finally his time was nigh. He had hoped that he would not be the last to die. He didn’t think he could stand that. At least they hadn’t eaten each other. They still had their honour.
It was so hot he could barely breathe. Eyes closed, he groaned softly. What a way to go. The stabbing pain intensified, followed by a repetitive dull thumping ache in his head. After a moment, Anstein opened his eyes.
Grimcrag stood over him, staring open-mouthed at the horizon. Waking up to the view of a dwarf’s badly-sewn long Johns crotch revealed secrets to the young adventurer that lesser men had died for merely talking about in casual conversation. The dwarf was absent-mindedly stabbing him in the chest with a marlin spike, whilst simultaneously stomping nervously up and down on the ex-envoy’s head with a heavily booted foot.
“Pack it in, Grimcrag,” Johan croaked through sun-dried lips. “Just lie down and die quietly like the rest of us.”
The dwarf mumbled something through his salt-encrusted beard.
Johan thought he had misheard. He painfully raised his head, and pawed feebly at the dwarf’s long Johns. His breath came in rasping sobs. “What did you say?” He was surprised to see that the dwarf was weeping. Must be a delayed reaction to the loss of so much gold.
Salty tears ran down the grizzled dwarf’s cheeks, mingling with that already tangling his beard. Johan strained to hear his cracked whisper. “Land, lad. Marvellous, green, grassy, diggable bloody LAND!”
Keanu was mostly awake and rowing hard by the time they approached the beach, rounding the rugged headland into the sheltered cove beyond. So far, the island had seemed an impenetrable fortress, with cliffs on every side, but the sight of this sheltered cove took Johan’s breath away. A strip of white, white sand stretched for perhaps a quarter of a mile, with projecting horns of rock sheltering the cove from the open ocean. Coral reefs made bizarre living citadels in the clear water, and also created a natural barrier against any heavier swells.
Negotiating towards a gap in the reef, Keanu muttered something about catching a chill, and Johan could see whisps of steam escaping from beneath the barbarian’s helm. Clearly the man needed rest soon.
“See all that green, lad?” Grimcrag shouted, pulling on an oar. “That shows there must be water on the island somewhere.” The dwarf was wearing a relieved grin along with his boots and underclothes, and had obviously heroically put the matter of his gold to the back of his mind for a while.
Despite Johan’s best efforts, and the crazed shouting and whooping of them all, they had failed to rouse Jiriki from his deep slumber. Grimcrag had explained that it sometimes happened like that—and the Reaver had grunted something about “Vontink a lie in, praps”—but Johan could see that the dwarf was concerned.
Johan trailed a finger in the clear waters, watching the myriad schools of fish flash in the sunlight beneath him. He had taken an hour at the oars, rowing around what looked to be a huge lump of jungle-covered rock, and now he was taking a well earned rest. So many fish.
Then Grimcrag shouted for him to grab a boat hook and be ready to fend off. “We’re going through the gap in the reef, lad, and we don’t want to hole her.”
As they navigated safely through, the elf slept on, snoring softly, his feet at the tiller and his head just behind Grimcrag’s seat.
A few moments later and they were into the lagoon, five hundred feet or so from the white sands of the beach. Johan had once read a book from Araby about exotic fruits. Surely what he was seeing now were indeed the fabled, erm, barnarnowls or something; the exact name eluded him.
“Looks like we’re in for a sojourn in paradise, eh, Grimcrag?” he shouted excitedly, pointing shorewards. “See, corker nuts.”
The dwarf grinned deliriously, “Yes, and jimjam trees too!”
Johan sighed contentedly, sat back at the tiller and peered at the fish again.
A moment later, Anstein, Grimcrag and Keanu made simultaneous exclamations.
“Grimcrag, there’s no fish at all in the lagoon! Why d’you think that might be?”
“Hell, lad, what’s that coming from the jungle?”
“Achtung! Valkink Lizarts!”
Johan’s question was forgotten as all eyes swung forwards. All, that is, except for Jiriki, who was facing the wrong way and asleep anyway. A strange procession was making its way through the jungle and onto the beach. What indeed looked to be four- to five-foot tall, walking lizards were emerging in small groups, carrying bows, blow pipes and crude swords. Others were throwing quantities of fruit and flowers into the lagoon, while slightly larger lizards began blowing on trumpets fashioned from polished shells.
In all, Johan soon estimated there to be upwards of a hundred lizardmen on the beach. So engrossed were the reptilians, that they didn’t seem to have noticed the intruding boat. In fact, and Johan thought this most peculiar, they seemed to be studiously avoiding looking up or out to sea at all, as if terrified of what they might see.
“They won’t be expecting us, make no mistake,” giggled Johan, his fish spotting momentarily forgotten.
“Vot is dey?” Keanu asked. “Never seeink nothink like dat before.”
“Dunno, Keanu, but best be on the safe side,” Grimcrag growled, reaching instinctively for Old Slaughterer, his trusty axe. Only once the mighty blade was wedged firmly between his stumpy legs did he recommence rowing. “Johan, you’re an envoy, this should be right up your street,” the dwarf grunted over his shoulder. “Do something useful for a change.”
“Ja, Usevul.”
Johan looked at the throng of lizardmen they were fast approaching, and racked his brain for the appropriate phrase or saying. Visiting ambassadors he was fine with, or representatives of the merchants’ guild, but a hundred apparently semi-civilised lizards throwing fruit into a lagoon on a desert island was something different altogether.
“Well?”
“Ja, say Somzink.”
Feeling that his talents were obviously being called into question, Johan stood up and made his way to the front of the boat with what he hoped was an air of quiet confidence. From the way Grimcrag beamed toothily and nudged the steaming barbarian, he had succeeded so far.
Standing at the very prow, Johan cupped his hands to his mouth.
“HALLOO! HALLOO! DONT KILL US—WE, ER, COME IN PEACE!”
Judging by the collective intake of breath from behind him, his speech had a dramatic effect on Grimcrag and Keanu. The lizards on the beach were immediately thrown into a state of high panic. Some buried their heads in the sand, others ran off into the jungle. Others feverishly threw more and more fruit into the lagoon. Johan saw one of them biting large chunks out his trumpet. A few braver souls, who unfortunately all seemed to carry bows, stood uncertainly on the shoreline, arrows knocked and ready.
“Now you’ve gorn and done it, lad,” Grimcrag muttered. “At least try and smile, nice, like.”
Johan fixed his best diplomatic grin as Keanu and Grimcrag continued to row.
A moment later, something triggered the lizards into even more frenzied behaviour. Within a few seconds all save a dozen or so lonely warriors had vanished into the jungle. The creatures raised their bows uncertainly. Johan could see that they were still trying to avoid looking directly out to sea, which couldn’t do much for their chances of hitting anything.
“Bound to be poison-tipped. I heard once that…” Grimcrag was
rudely interrupted by an unmistakable elven shriek from the rear of the boat.
“AAAAAARGH! What in Tiranoc and the sunken realms is that!!!??”
“Oh good, Jiriki, you’ve woke—” began Johan as he turned, but the words died on his lips.
Perhaps fifty feet behind the boat, approaching them in a huge welter of spume and spray, was the biggest, most fearsome looking beast he had ever seen.
Consciousness slowly seeped back into Johan Anstein’s wiry frame, like reluctant treacle leaching through the stygian depths of an old gravel bed. Something was tickling his face.
“Two sugars in mine, Grimcrag,” Johan groaned, keeping his eyes screwed firmly shut as he clutched his head to stop it falling off. Johan’s skull felt as if the dwarf was enthusiastically excavating for gold somewhere behind his frontal lobe. “Must have been some party,” he thought, groggy from what could only have been last night’s excesses of ale. Cosy in his blanket, Johan desperately tried to let sleep reclaim him.
Something slimy and cold began wriggling up into Johan’s nose. It was only then it occurred to a sluggish Anstein that he hadn’t been to a party for weeks, not since three days before they set sail on that accursed boat. “Boat…”
Johan frowned inadvertently in his slumber, as dislocated thoughts fell like dominoes through his drowsy brain: “Boat… shipwreck… pirates… island… lizards… MONSTER!!!”
A swift moment later, Johan was very much awake and cautiously opening an eye, whilst keeping the other screwed firmly shut, just in case. He sneezed to clear his nose of what could only be an inquisitive worm, and blinked his one open eye. Total darkness. Either he was blind, or somewhere black and smelling of sandy earth. Somewhere black, sandy and with worms. Johan briefly wondered if maybe it was better to imagine he was blind.
Cautiously he edged onto his back, immediately encountering another problem. He seemed to be roughly wrapped in some sort of coarse material. It enveloped him in a manner most unlike a blanket. The word “shroud” drifted through the backwaters of Anstein’s stunned mind, on an unavoidable collision course with his conscious thoughts. Struggling free of his “blanket”, Johan gingerly reached upwards with his right hand. Almost immediately his nails scraped rough wooden planks in the dark. Panic struck as quickly as the Dwarf Mineworker’s Guild when the pit-head bar ran out of Bugman’s.
Tales of the Old World Page 22
