‘Sir, I wouldn’t know what to do with a gala hoopla if one came along. I just want to join the Brigade.’
Commander Dar sighed, rubbed his face with both hands, swept the bottle of brandy into the top drawer, stood and sighed again. ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you.’
A minute later and Private (Probationary) Tilden Lambholder had been sworn in as the newest member of the Waste Brigade.
‘Right,’ Captain Dar said. ‘You stand against that wall and try to look threatening. It might help get rid of this visitor.’
Lambholder did his best. With his height and the muscles he’d developed working on the farm, he had the physical attributes to look threatening. However, the mildness of his demeanour and naturally sunny expression made it a difficult task.
But a new corpsman had to try. Shoulders back, chest out, he attempted a scowl and a menacing posture, even though he’d never been much good at it. Ma and Aunt Mona said he was just a big cuddly fella and they would never let him deal with the sheep thieves that infested Upper Harkbut.
Lambholder wondered, guiltily, how they were managing without him.
Captain Dar sat and stared at the door, drumming his fingers.
Lambholder wasn’t often the doubting type. His life—until this point—had been one of utter certainty. The weather in Upper Harkbut was certain (cold). The sheep were certain (woolly). His future was certain (joining the Waste Brigade). But a flicker of a shadow of a hint of a doubt was beginning to touch the outermost fringes of his mind.
Lambholder was beginning to suspect that Captain Dar wasn’t the paragon of perfection that he expected the leader of the Waste Brigade to be. Lambholder had imagined a rugged individual, hard bitten but dedicated to the common good. Brave, enduring, idealistic, but with a tough practical core. Instead, he saw a man with liquor on his breath and stubble on his chin, one who tried to dissuade Lambholder from joining the Brigade. Lambholder was mildly hurt at this. He hadn’t thought he’d get a ceremonial welcome, but he was disappointed that the son of the great Felden Lambholder wasn’t accorded some sort of recognition.
A knock came from the door. Before Captain Dar could answer, it swung open and a corpsman sidled in. He was small and neat, in contrast to Crully. His hair was clean and perfectly parted in the middle, his face was well shaven, and his uniform looked altogether made from better material than the standard issue. He paused in the doorway and ushered in a lean, smiling civilian. The civilian was dressed in the neat jacket and leggings of a small-time merchant. He was carrying a compact trunk, and he slapped it on the desk with a grin.
Captain Dar looked at both men. His expression indicated that he was definitely thinking of retirement, or perhaps the bottle in his third drawer. ‘Tremen,’ he said to the corpsman, ‘what is it this time? Who’s this?’
The corpsman saluted lazily. ‘Someone I think you’d like to meet, Captain.’
‘Another one of your friends?’
‘Not all of them are in high places,’ Tremen said, smirking a little. ‘Just most of them.’
‘I see. And this is?’
‘Chindler Sheeze,’ the civilian said. ‘Thanks for agreeing to meet me, Captain Dar. This could be your lucky day.’
Sheeze leaned across the desk and stuck out his hand. Dar eyed it sourly, then stood and took it. ‘What do you want?’
‘I have something a man in your position may be very interested in.’ Sheeze stopped and looked over both shoulders. ‘Is this room secure?’
Dar lifted an eyebrow. ‘It’s well attached to the rest of the building, if that’s what you mean.’
‘What about him? Can he be trusted?’
‘That’s Private Lambholder. He’s one of the Brigade. Of course he can be trusted.’
He’s one of the Brigade. Lambholder beamed until he remembered his role, and after that the scowl fought with a grin for possession of his face.
Sheeze threw a worried glance at Lambholder before turning back to Captain Dar and smiling. Lambholder decided he didn’t like that smile. It reminded him of the man who’d once come to the farm selling sheepdogs. He smiled a lot. He smiled when he told about his clever dogs. He smiled when he said what a nice house the Lambholders had. He smiled when he accepted the ludicrously low price Aunt Crendula paid for the dogs. He smiled as he waved and left. And, that night, when his dogs ran away from the Lambholders and joined him, he probably smiled a lot, too.
Tremen cut in smoothly. ‘Sheeze here has come into possession of a remarkable item.’
‘That’s right,’ Sheeze hurried on. ‘And it’s something only a professional would appreciate, Captain. A man like yourself, experienced in the area of disposal and confinement of magical waste.’
‘And you want me to give you money, is that it? I can sense these things, you know.’
Sheeze blinked. ‘I don’t see investing in our enterprise as giving us money. In fact, we’ll be giving your money back a thousandfold in a very short period of time.’
Captain Dar sighed and looked at the calendar on the wall. ‘And what is it this time? Magic proof gloves? Enchantment resistant goggles? I warn you, I’ve seen them all.’
While this had been going on, something had been unsettling Lambholder. Up on the farm, the Lambholders didn’t have many visitors, so the sound of a horse or a wagon was something to be aware of—for better or for worse. He’d grown used to hearing the rattle of a wagon long before it came into sight. It was a useful skill, as it allowed the Lambholders to prepare for visitors, of all sorts.
And so, without really realising it, he’d been tracking the progress of a wagon. A single wagon, and from the sounds it seemed as if it was racing towards the Waste Brigade depot.
It was only when the screaming started that he started to pay more attention to it.
‘Sir,’ Lambholder said, interrupting Sheeze before he could answer the captain. ‘There’s something happening outside.’
‘It’s not Crully, is it? He hasn’t fallen into a holding pond and got turned into a frog or anything?’
‘No sir. There’s a wagon coming our way, very fast. And someone in it is screaming.’
Dar found a ring of water on the desk where his glass had been. He dipped a finger in it and traced an elaborate doodle. ‘A novice wizard. That’s all I need.’ He stood. ‘Tremen, wait here with your friend. Sheeze, don’t move until I get back. Lambholder, you come with me.’
Lambholder followed Captain Dar. They hurried along a short, dark corridor and into the large room through which Lambholder had first entered the building. A bare wooden counter—unattended—divided the room in half. Captain Dar vaulted over it and ran to the racks of equipment by the door.
‘Here, get this on,’ Captain Dar said. ‘We’ve got a situation on our hands.’
He grabbed a heavy leather coat from the row of coats hanging on hooks. Then he struggled into one himself. ‘Gloves, too,’ he snapped, ‘and mask.’
Captain Dar was dressed well before Lambholder had finished fastening the ankle length coat. He was almost completely covered in stained and battered leather, featureless in the mask. ‘Hurry,’ he said, voice muffled. With a clumsy-looking swaying gait, he was gone.
Lambholder seized the leather helmet and gauntlets and stumbled outside.
The wooden fence surrounding the depot had seen better days. Lambholder decided it would make poor farming country. He couldn’t see any grass or plants growing inside the fence, and the trees closest on the other side looked as if they were sorry they’d chosen the neighbourhood. The buildings were weather-worn bare wood, long and low, barracks and store rooms mostly, he thought. The grey, bare earth beneath his feet was dusty and tired looking. Behind the buildings, he could see fumes and vapours drifting upwards.
When Lambholder joined Captain Dar, he was standing at the head of a mob of villains, thieves and cut throats. Lambholder immediately rushed to the captain’s side to defend him from them. To a man, they were unshaven and poorly groomed.
Clothes hung on them with a hint of desperation, as if covering up the ill-made bodies was a civic responsibility. They were all muttering, spitting and scratching various parts that—if everyone was lucky—were private. All this immediately proved Lambholder wrong when he had, at first, assumed them incapable of doing two things at once.
The stench that came from this assembly was enough to make Lambholder long for the dung pit back home on the farm.
Captain Dar, however, wasn’t fazed by this evil gang. He marched right up to them and pulled his helmet off.
‘Get back to work, you lot!’ he shouted. ‘Haven’t you heard a novice wizard before?’
The sound of screaming was very close now, and Lambholder could catch glimpses of a wagon hurtling along the dusty road leading to the depot. But over that noise, and the increased muttering, spitting and foot shuffling, Lambholder could hear one sound rising clearly over them all. It was the sound of his dreams slowly deflating.
The motley bunch in front of him weren’t assassins, bullies or out of work henchmen. They were the members of the Waste Brigade.
Lambholder had been brought up to believe that the members of the Waste Brigade were the elite. The highest standards of physical, moral and intellectual rectitude were the norm. Strong of arm, keen of eye, firm of heart, these were the qualities of the average corpsman. On the long winter nights, with only a pitiful peat fire for warmth—and several hundred sheep crammed into the living area—Lambholder had been entranced by tales of the shining examples of selflessness set by the Waste Brigade, risking their lives to clean up magic waste, pitting their strength against rough and wild enchantments, cleaning up where no one had cleaned up before, and all with a song in their hearts a smile on their lips and a sense of justice over all.
The reality, it appeared, was somewhat different.
‘Sounded like a good un on the way, Chief,’ a voice came from the ranks. One of the ranker ranks, Lambholder thought. ‘Looks like it’ll be a bit of fun.’
‘Haven’t you got work to do?’ Captain Dar snarled.
‘We’re off duty,’ came the chorus from the grimy assembly.
Captain Dar jabbed a finger at them. ‘There’s no off duty when it comes to emergencies. You know that. Now fall back and wait for your orders.’
He motioned to Lambholder, and the new recruit stumbled back. As he did, the mysterious wagon bolted from the last of the trees, and raced through the gates.
The horse was wild-eyed and a-lather. The driver was standing on the seat, robes billowing, one hand holding the reins, the other slapping wildly at his waist and midriff. He was screaming like a boiled wildcat.
The corpsman started cheering and whistling at this performance. Some even stopped spitting to do so.
‘Enough!’ Captain Dar bellowed as he seized the horse’s bridle. ‘Atch! Parjee! He’s hot! Get a Number 15 barrel. Stat! Where’s Stat? Stat, you find Corporal Crully. The rest of you, bring buckets of water from the pump. Move!’
The cheering stopped and the corpsman shuffled, stumbled and staggered into action.
Lambholder felt in a daze. This was the Waste Brigade in action? He turned his attention to the screaming wizard.
The wizard was only half Lambholder’s height, and painfully thin. His screaming was rising and falling, but even though the horses had come to a halt, he still stood on the seat of the cart. He plucked at his belt, but kept his gaze rigidly on the horizon. Light rippled and bloomed from him in waves.
‘Lambholder! We have to get him down!’
Manhandling the screaming wizard was like hoisting a very loud bundle of sticks, but he was much heavier than Lambholder had guessed. Once the Captain and Lambholder touched him, he became completely rigid, arms by his side. This close, Lambholder could see that the glowing and pulsing came from under the wizard’s clothes. Slowly, the light changed colour, but sickly yellows and browns were the main theme. And even through the heavy leather, Lambholder could feel how hot the wizard was.
‘Where’s that barrel?’ Captain Dar snarled, but then saw the barrel was near, propelled by two of the shaggiest of the corpsman. ‘Upright!’ Captain Dar snapped.
The buckets began arriving at that moment, and soon the barrel was full. Distantly, Lambholder noticed his gauntlets were beginning to smoke. ‘Easy, now,’ Dar said over the screaming. ‘Lift him up. Feet first, into the barrel.’
The other corpsmen stood well back at this stage. Lambholder wasn’t reassured by this at all. To add to his discomfort, he was sweating under the heavy leather gear, and he had an excruciating itch under his left armpit.
When the wizard’s feet hit the water, they hissed. Steam billowed upwards. ‘More water!’ Dar called. Soon, a bucket brigade had formed, the corpsmen passing buckets between the water pump and the barrel.
‘Slowly now,’ Captain Dar said. ‘Slowly.’
As the reluctant corpsmen topped up the barrel, Captain Dar and Lambholder eased the wizard into the water little by little. Soon the water had risen over the wizard’s feet and up to his knees. When it reached his waist, a cloud of steam billowed from the barrel and the water started to boil violently. ‘Hold him!’ Dar shouted to Lambholder over the wizard’s keening. ‘More water! More water!’ he called to the corpsmen.
Then the wizard sagged a little and the screaming stopped. His eyes focused for a moment, then he sighed and closed them. Lambholder put an arm around the wizard’s shoulders to steady him.
Soon, the water was up to his chest, and he bobbed gently in the barrel, either asleep or unconscious. His head rested on his chest.
Lambholder straightened, ready to clap the captain on the back. At last, a real Waste Brigade adventure! Then he noticed that the corpsmen had all backed off again. His sweat grew chill.
‘Don’t move,’ Captain Dar said.
‘Yes sir.’
‘Crully!’
‘Yes Chief?’ Crully called from a distance.
‘Get one of the big storage crucibles. The Invincible.’
‘The Invincible?’
‘You’d better take a few of the lads to help you.’ Captain Dar looked at Lambholder through the lenses of his leather mask. ‘I have to get the storage vials from him. He’s overloaded.’
‘Ah. Oh. Storage vials?’
A small twitch of the helmet may have indicated that Captain Dar was smiling. ‘Didn’t your ma tell you about this part of the job either?’
‘Well, no, not really. I realise now that most of the stories were a bit short on detail.’
‘Most stories are, lad.’
Lambholder struggled with this. ‘What do we do now?’
‘This wizard is obviously a novice. He hasn’t paid much attention to the basic rule of magic.’
Lambholder knew this part. It was the whole reason for the existence of the Waste Brigade. ‘Action and reaction,’ he said smartly. ‘Every time a magician expends magical force externally, an equal amount of magical force rebounds on the magician.’
‘Good lad. Gradually, of course, this builds up. Big magic, big build-up. In the old days, magicians simply used to slough this waste magic off. The great pools of raw magical waste were unusable, toxic, and that’s when the Waste Brigade was founded. It was our job to go around and siphon this stuff into tarred barrels and store them where they wouldn’t do any harm. Dangerous work, that. Nowadays, of course, things are a bit more civilised, thanks to the storage vials.’
Captain Dar motioned Lambholder closer to the barrel containing the magician. The magic-user was still unconscious, but the waves of heat had subsided. ‘See?’ Captain Dar said as he reached into the water and eased the magician’s robes apart. Bands of metal circled the magician’s waist, and they were glowing fitfully. Strapped to the metal bands were six jars each the size of Lambholder’s hand. They radiated light and heat.
‘Copper wire,’ Captain Dar explained. ‘All magicians have lengths of it strapped around their waist. It channels the excess magic into the stora
ge vials. When the storage vials are full, the magician brings them to a waste depot like this one. We drain the waste into barrels or holding ponds, then the magician is set to go again. This one obviously wasn’t paying attention to the levels of his vials. They were probably nearly full when he tried something extravagant like raising the dead, or turning lead into gold. Still, it could’ve been worse. I’ve seen life-sized charcoal statues shaped exactly like wizards, you know.’
Lambholder swallowed. ‘He’s all right now?’
‘Not nearly,’ Captain Dar said. ‘We’ve cooled him down a bit, but it’s only temporary. He could go off any second. We still have to drain the vials. Where’s Crully?’
‘Right here, Chief!’ Crully had taken time to don the protective gear, and he was waddling alongside two husky corpsmen. They were carrying an earthenware receptacle nearly as tall as Crully himself. ‘Just put old Invincible next to Captain Dar, boys. Right-hand side. I’ll just stand back so I won’t get in your way.’
‘Lambholder,’ Captain Dar said. ‘You hold the magician steady. Very steady.’
Lambholder tried to imagine he was back on the farm, dealing with old Cornelius, a particularly testy ram. Old Cornelius had been known to have territorial disputes with wild dogs, wolves, cows, trees and large rocks. He usually won these battles, and handling this cantankerous old ram was an exercise in tact and not moving too quickly.
Captain Dar lifted an eyebrow. ‘What do we have here?’ he muttered. He lifted his head a little. ‘Crully, is the lid off the Invincible?’
‘Yes Chief!’ Crully’s voice came from some distance away.
Lambholder had a better view than he really wanted, but he was helpless not to watch. Captain Dar moved slowly, gently unhooking wires from the stoppers in each vial. His hands were sure as they eased the first vial off the wire belt. ‘One,’ he said and he held it up for scrutiny. Water dripped from the vial as he studied it. ‘New design,’ he grunted, and turned and lowered it gently into the crucible.
Forever Shores Page 36