by Mark McCabe
The stained and crumbled edges of the wall that formed the horizon from his vantage point on the floor of the ruined shell of what had once been The Four Bells offered a stark contrast to the clear morning sky above him. In better times, the hostelry had been one of the finer establishments Kurandir had to offer travellers. All that it offered now to the two refugees who had passed a cold and uncomfortable night within its confines was a welcome respite from a bitter and piercing wind.
As Thom struggled to sit up and throw off the remnants of the drowsiness that still shrouded his thoughts, he felt Jinny stirring slightly beside him. By chance, he happened to look down at her face just at the very moment when her fluttering eyelids finally popped open. The broad smile he received in return for his effort lifted his spirits in a way that the dawn had somehow been unable to.
“Good morning sleepyhead,” he whispered softly, not wanting to disturb the tranquillity of Jinny’s own gradual wakening.
“Good morning,” Jinny yawned in response. Rolling over and stretching her slim body along the length of his torso, she snuggled in closer to the warmth of his side. “I’m hungry. Don’t guess there’s any chance of sending for breakfast in bed.”
Thom smiled wanly at the thought of such decadence. Breakfast in bed. What an idea. Did people really do things like that? Was there really a time when that was possible? And where did Jinny get such a notion?
“I’m sorry,” she murmured despondently, after a few moments of silence had passed. “I guess that’s not very funny. It’s hard not to think about food though. Especially when your tummy keeps rumbling.”
“That’s okay. Don’t worry. We’ll find something today. There must be plenty of food here somewhere. I don’t think we were in a very good frame of mind to think clearly yesterday. I hadn’t expected it to be like this. We both needed that sleep pretty badly too. We’ll get up soon and then we’ll turn this place upside down until we do find something to eat. And if we don’t, I’ll send our complaints to the owner.”
“Deal,” smiled Jinny as she pulled herself up beside him and began to look around at what had passed for their lodging for the night. “Looks like the wind’s died down a little. The sky looks a lot better too.”
They sat there among the ruins for a while then, chatting softly to each other and trying to forestall what they knew was before them, another search through the ruined buildings and bloated bodies of what was left of the provincial capital. Finally, the hunger that gnawed at their stomachs induced them to be up and about their task. Once they had risen and stowed their meagre possessions into the makeshift bundle Thom carried slung over his shoulder, they began once more to scour the remnants of the building they had chosen to spend the night in.
It had been no accident that had led them to that particular establishment. From the moment Thom had seen the painted sign flapping about in the breeze he had been determined The Four Bells would be their resting spot for the night. He had told Jinny that, although it offered nothing any one of a dozen or more similar buildings could provide, he had always wanted to spend a night in a fine hotel in one of the big towns. This might be his only chance to realise that dream. The fact that the hostelry had been severely damaged by the fire that must have ravaged the town when the sligs had sacked it hadn’t deterred him in the slightest. The lack of a roof wouldn’t matter a jot he had told her. They’d been sleeping under open skies for days, what difference would another night make?
He had decided not to share with her the thought that he didn’t want to get caught unawares in a place without the means for a quick exit. In the broken ruins of The Four Bells, he knew they would not only easily hear if anyone came their way but they would also have little difficulty in making a rapid escape in the unlikely event that trouble did put in an appearance.
He had also known that he was probably taking an unnecessary precaution. They had spent some time picking over the ruins without the faintest sight of either man or slig, live ones that is; there were plenty of dead ones. Though they had taken their time approaching the town, wary of the prospect of encountering any more stray sligs, they’d still had sufficient hours of daylight left to at least satisfy themselves that they were alone in the smoking ruins. Anyone with any sense, and that included the slig army, had obviously long since left.
Unfortunately, they had also done a pretty good job of taking whatever there was worth having with them. Thom and Jinny hadn’t been able to find more than a few mouldy scraps which in better times they wouldn’t have dreamed of putting into their mouths. Those times were gone, however, and they had quickly and greedily consumed the few morsels which they had found.
Thom knew they had to do better today. Though they had found plenty of drinkable water, they were both beginning to weaken from the lack of anything substantial to eat. By his reckoning, it could still be some time before they found a way back to wherever the Algarian lines now were. If anything, food would probably only become harder and harder to come by.
The slig army was somewhere out there between them and the Algarian lines. From what he had seen so far, the creatures were living off the land as they went, stripping it bare of whatever supplies they could lay their hands on. That wouldn’t leave much for him and Jinny, assuming they made it that far. It also meant that, for the moment at least, finding somewhere safe to sit out events wasn’t really an option either.
Food was quite critical to their survival and would only become more so as time went on. The promise he had made Jinny, that they should be able to find provisions somewhere here in Kurandir, may very well prove to be a hollow one, and he knew it. That was why they couldn’t afford to leave the place until they were sure they had given it a good going over. If there was food here, then they were going to find it.
And so, with the new day, the search began again. When their exploration of the building they had slept in revealed no trace of anything worth having, they widened their search, rummaging through building after building in an increasingly desperate hunt for something edible. The place seemed to have been swept bare of any such thing. It looked to Thom as if someone had already done what they were trying to do, whether slig or human he couldn’t tell. Perhaps there had been some survivors who had stayed on just long enough to strip the place bare. If so, then they had left by now. Kurandir was nothing more than a ruined shell. Even the dogs seemed to have deserted the place.
They weren’t totally alone, however. Thom did see a stray cat or two in the course of the morning and for a while, he considered whether he should try and catch one of their feline observers. At least he and Jinny would have some meat for their dinner. He knew that Jinny wasn’t ready for that though, and if he were honest with himself then he would have to admit that he wasn’t either. The time might come when desperation would force such squeamishness aside, but they weren’t at that point yet.
A low whistle from Jinny, one of their pre-arranged signals, drew Thom’s attention back to the task at hand. Turning in her direction, he saw that she had crouched down behind an upturned table and was frantically waving at him to take some type of cover himself. They were in the basement of what had at one time been a house. The floorboards from the ground floor were half gone; their burnt remains butted up against the stairway that still led down to what had once been the lower level. He and Jinny had ventured down into the cellar hoping to find some old store of provisions that might have been overlooked in the previous occupant’s haste to leave.
As Thom quickly crouched down next to a twisted jumble of wooden furniture that must have at one stage stood on the floor above, he saw that Jinny was peering over the top of the table at a large wooden cupboard which stood against the rear wall of the room, leaning back precariously against the stonework but otherwise relatively undamaged. As he watched she risked a furtive glance at the floor space between her and the bottom of the staircase that had led them down into the basement, then quickly turned and faced the cupboard again, as if to make sure it hadn�
��t changed in any way in the few moments she had taken her eyes away from it. He knew what she was doing, she was assessing the time required to cover that ground in the event she had to flee.
When she looked his way again and saw him looking at her, she began to point frantically at the cupboard. From her gestures, it seemed that she thought there might be something, or someone, in it. Thom had no idea what had led her to that conclusion but he didn’t intend to take any chances; the look of anxiety on her face told him that something had definitely frightened her. In their situation, they couldn’t afford to ignore even the slightest hint of danger.
Thom took a good hard look at the battered old cupboard Jinny seemed so intently focused upon. It was big, certainly big enough to hold a man, or a slig, though the latter would be a tight fit. One door was slightly ajar, as if it had been twisted on its hinge and would no longer close properly. In all other ways it looked fairly innocuous; though of course, he thought, if someone had chosen it for a hiding place, then that was exactly how they would want it to look.
Drawing his knife in a display of bravery which he knew was more for Jinny’s benefit than anything else, Thom waved to her to move back towards the staircase, as quickly and quietly as she possibly could. He waited while she scampered across the floor and stopped at the bottom of the staircase, one foot poised on the first step, ready to flee at the first sign of trouble. Her doe-like eyes flitted back and forth in a way that went straight to his heart. He knew that she was counting on him to keep her safe.
With one eye still on the cupboard, Thom stooped down and picked up a piece of broken rubble from the floor, trying to quell his own racing heart as he did so. Swinging his hand forward in a gentle underarm loop, he flung the makeshift missile across the room, aiming for the wooden door of the cupboard. His heart seemed to miss a beat as the rock hit its mark and bounced harmlessly back on to the stone floor of the basement. He felt the air rush out of him as he suddenly began to breathe again; he had been holding his breath as he watched intently, waiting for any reaction to what he had done. If there had been some small animal in or behind the cupboard he would have expected to hear or see something, some movement or sound in response to the clatter of the rock against the wooden door.
Still not daring to move, he waited a few moments more, keeping his eyes glued to the tiny gap left by the twisted door. Jinny, he knew, was still crouched on the bottom step, waiting and watching just as intently as he was. There was no other way, he decided. He would have to go and have a proper look. Forcing his legs to move, he began to cross the space that separated him and the cupboard.
Though one part of him kept telling him that what he was doing was foolish, that they’d be better off just leaving the place and searching somewhere else, the other was saying that if he did that he would spend the rest of the day constantly looking over his shoulder, wondering if something had been there and whether it had simply waited until he had left to follow him, looking for the right opportunity to take him by surprise and kill him. He knew that he was being overly melodramatic, that there probably wasn’t anything in there at all. In some ways, he felt a bit foolish. Whatever Jinny had seen or heard, it could have just been a mouse, or another cat, or nothing at all.
Better to be cautious all the same. As he approached the cupboard, he picked up a long piece of burnt timber. Holding it with his left hand, he reached out and slowly began to prise the door open. The other still held his knife, though he knew that if there was a slig hiding inside the cupboard he would just turn and bolt for the stairs, and hope that Jinny was long gone before he even got that far.
All of a sudden, the door burst open and before he could even think about turning and running a hairy shape jumped out from within and sprung at him, snarling like some wild monster as it did so. As Thom crashed to the floor, struggling desperately to fend off the beast that had landed on top of him, he felt a strong hand take a murderous grip on his throat. His opponent had taken a hold of his wrist with its other hand and was twisting it painfully in a clear attempt to get him to drop his knife.
He thought that he must be dreaming when he heard a familiar voice snarl from right next to his ear. “Drop it or I’ll squeeze the life out of ya right here and now.” It couldn’t be.
“Pa?” he sobbed, unable to believe his ears. “It’s me, Thom. Thank God. Is it you?”
When his opponent made no attempt to release him, Thom realised that he must have been mistaken. He felt the grip on his throat tighten as he struggled to get out from under the weight of his adversary. The message was clear, stop struggling or run the risk of having his windpipe crushed. Thom chose the former course. As he did so, his opponent slowly drew back, maintaining his vice-like grip but enabling the two combatants to get their first good look at each other.
It was his father. He looked haggard and thin, wild and dishevelled, but somehow, incredibly, it was him. The strange look he was giving Thom was hard to understand, though. Though his father was looking straight at him, he gave no sign that he recognised who Thom was.
“I been ‘round too long for that one, boy,” his father scowled slowly. “My Thom’s dead. Don’t even look like you much, anyway. Drop your knife ya thieving cur or I’ll throttle ya just for the fun of seein ya die.”
From the crazed look on his father’s face, Thom could see that he meant what he said. As he opened the fingers of his right hand, he felt his father shake it violently, forcing the knife to rattle across the stone flags of the floor. A thin plaintive voice drifted down from somewhere above them as the weapon slid to a halt against the far wall.
“T-Thom,” he heard Jinny call out hesitantly. “Are . . . are you okay?”
~~~
Hrothgar was in a good mood. He was finally back where he belonged, back among his fellow Sagath as they prepared to storm the defensive line the Algarians had hastily thrown up along the line of the Mendobar Hills after their retreat from the Sarrowmar. This was where a warrior belonged he thought idly, surveying the landscape with a practised eye as he listened to the voice of the slig beside him. This is what they were born to do from time immemorial.
Kurg, the hunt leader in charge of this section of the line, was bringing him up to date on the progress of the war. It was going well for the sligs, very well indeed if Kurg’s news was accurate. And if Hrothgar was in any doubt of that, all he had to do was to look about him. After all, they were already over the great river. Apparently, the Algarians had retreated from the eastern shore the previous day in such a panic that they’d been unable to prevent the Sagath from crossing over behind them. The bulk of the main slig force was now assembled here on the western bank and, from the look of them, they were more than ready for battle. They had got a taste for it now and they wanted more, anyone could see that.
Hrothgar knew that he was lucky he had come back when he had. If he had waited much longer it might have all been over. He’d ridden hard to get there and by the will of Zar, it seems he’d arrived just in time for the final throw of the dice. From everything he had seen and heard so far, it should only be days before the Sagath were at the gates of Keerêt itself.
That was something he wanted to be part of, the sack of Keerêt. There was nowhere else for the Algarians to run to now. Once they were bottled up in the city, their fate would be sealed. The sligs would pull down its walls then and the Algarians would run from their blades like women. Its streets would run red with blood. That had been a slig dream for untold generations, and now they were actually about to live it. It made Hrothgar proud to be a slig warrior. Oh yes, he was in a good mood. Then Kurg told him the news about Grartok.
“So, he finally found someone who could spawn a brat for him, did he?” he laughed, slapping his side with his free hand as he rolled back in his saddle. Far from being annoyed, as he’d always thought he might if his brother ever produced an heir, now it had happened he found the whole thing quite amusing. The very fact that it was such a big deal to Grartok said it all r
eally. From the way he’d apparently been carrying on anyone would think he’d started shitting gold nuggets. “The bitch must have spent the night buried up to the waist in horse shit to grow something from his seed,” he roared between bouts of laughter. “Which of the whores split her fat legs for the great Grartok this time?”
As he spoke, Hrothgar looked up at the Algarian defences, perched on the crest of the hilltop that stood just under a league or so from where he and Kurg sat astride their mounts. Though Kurg’s mount stood placidly, idly cropping the row of churned up vegetables that ran beneath its feet, his own was constantly moving, still panting and fretting, slowly cooling down from the hard ride he had given it over the last few days. He was only half listening to Kurg’s voice now. Grartok’s need to prove himself was all very well, but he for one was itching to get some blood on his axe.
“Mmmm. I’m . . . I’m not . . . I’m, I’m not sure,” Kurg finally responded, licking his lips nervously as he spoke. “They look dug in, don’t they,” he grunted after a moment, when he realised that Hrothgar’s attention was wandering, nodding his head towards the enemy lines as he spoke and glad to have changed the subject. “Nice of them to save us the job of digging a hole for their stinking bodies.”
They both laughed at that, though Hrothgar thought he detected a slight touch of nervousness in his fellow hunt leader’s mirth. He must be worried about the coming assault, he decided. Nothing wrong with that; better to be anxious now than later, when it mattered. “Well, may Zar be with you,” Hrothgar mumbled without much conviction, raising his clenched fist to Kurg in salute as he turned his horse away and proceeded on down the line of waiting men, nodding to this one or that as his horse slowly picked its way through the rich loam of the floodplain on which their force had been drawn up in readiness.
