Ronan the Barbarian

by Bibby, James

  As twilight fell over the River Dagen, many miles to the east, nothing broke the quiet of the evening save for the rushing of the water and the plaintive call of a homeless and egg-less Pakas that was emigrating north in an attempt to find a place where it could safely build a nest without having it shaken down. And then there came a noise like distant thunder from the northeast. Quiet at first, and then louder and louder, until it could be recognised for what it was, the sound of hundreds of hooves galloping across the plain.

  They burst upon the river at the point where the Great East Road forded it and galloped through without pausing, dark horses with darker riders urging them on. And then they were gone, a wave of doom that faded into the encroaching night until the sound of their passing had vanished.

  The Tribe of Fallon was riding into the west.

  Ronan tugged the massive sword out from the treasure mound and swung it experimentally. It was well balanced and sharp. "This will do," he said. "I only need it until I find the Cavern of the Singing Sword."

  "It is yours," said the dragon. "And take what treasure you wish." He was lying contentedly back on his couch, martini in claw, and opposite him sat Bewel. The two of them had spent a couple of hours amicably discussing Tarl's idea. It had been decided that Philekazan would go off to join SOD'EM in Orcville until he had kicked his habit and that Bewel would go with him to lend support. An unlikely friendship seemed to be blossoming between the dragon and the elf, and they had discovered that they had a surprising amount of things in common (for example, both loved trashy literature, although Philekazan was a fan of Jeffrey the Archer, while Bewel admitted a fondness for Jilly the Cooper and her steamy stories about the sexual adventures of barrel-making folk).

  Ronan smiled. "Thanks," he said, "but we will just take what we need to buy food, lodging, and wine."

  "For the whole of Welbug," added Tarl, under his breath. He was carefully wrapping several small but extremely valuable items in his unwashed underwear, where few people would be brave or foolish enough to look, and stowing them in his pack.

  Ronan slung the sword around his neck, then picked up the bundle of unlit torches and tucked them under his arm. Although night was falling outside, he wanted to press on and make an attempt at finding a part of the underground city that he could locate on the chart, the southern part of which (including the dragon's cavern) was wine-stained and illegible. He turned to the dragon.

  "You have heard nothing from Pectin and his dwarves since they passed through?" he asked.

  "Not a dicky-bird," answered the dragon. "I haven't been that way myself. There's an old rock-fall a few hundred paces in and the gap that is left is far too small for a dragon. A roving orc did pop its head out a couple of months ago, but when it saw me it shrieked, made an awful mess of its clothes, and fled back from whence it came."

  "Ah, well, we had better tread quietly," said Ronan. "Goodbye!" And taking Tarl's pack and slinging it on his back, he raised a lighted torch and paced towards the rear of the cave.

  "Good luck," said Bewel and Philekazan together.

  "Thanks," muttered Tarl. "I think we're going to need it!" He staggered after Ronan, a little weighed down by the weapons he had chosen from the treasure hoard. There were two swords, a couple of daggers, a spear, a small mace, a long gold pointed thing (which, had he but known it, was part of a barbecue-set belonging to an ancient Cydorian king), two bows, a quiver of arrows, and a shield.

  With orcs ahead, Tarl was taking no chances.

  The passageway ran straight ahead to the north. It was twenty feet wide and nearly as high, with a flat and even floor. On either side, passages and rooms were carved into the stone of the mountain, but after Tarl and Ronan had walked about a quarter of a mile, these became less and less frequent, eventually ceasing altogether. Now there was just the single wide road pointing like an arrow to the north. The air was dry and stale, and little clouds of dust eddied about their feet as they strode on for mile upon mile. The road never once deviated, never rose or fell, just burrowed through the heart of the mountain, dark and silent save for the padding of their feet and the flickering of their torches.

  After they had been walking for an hour they stopped, and Tarl thankfully took a drink from his flask. His throat was parched, his nose was clogged with dust, and he had one of those tickles that never quite turns into a sneeze but just sits around and torments you.

  Ronan studied the chart and tried vainly to decipher the wine-stained representation of the southern parts of Samoth.

  "Are you sure we're going the right way?" Tarl whispered. "I thought this was supposed to be an underground city."

  "It is," came the reply. "Or rather, it will be. As far as I can make out, this is just the road that leads to it. The rooms round Philekazan's cave are the remains of the fort guarding the South Gate. By my calculations, we have another two hours march before we reach Samoth itself."

  After a brief rest, they rose and trudged on. Tarl started to sing but the tunnel seemed to magnify his words, sending them echoing ahead, and he soon stopped. There might be orcs in front of them, and not the semi-civilised city-dwelling types that he was familiar with, but the real subterranean sharp-fanged raw-flesh-eating horrors of his nightmares. And not just orcs either. There were other creatures that embraced the dark and shrank from light, creatures upon which it was best not to dwell. Tarl swallowed and tried to tiptoe as quietly as possible.

  Ronan's calculations were pretty accurate, and it was a shade over two hours later that they came again upon side-passages and rooms. The first one they found appeared to be a guardroom. It was hewn out of the rock on the left of the passage and had several steps leading up to it. A solid oak door hung askew from one rusty hinge, with numerous slashes and rents in the wood. The blade of an axe was still embedded in one of these, and on the floor of the room they found a broken sword-blade and a dented and battered helm. Ronan picked this up and stared at it for a moment. It was so battered and misshapen that it could almost have been one of his father's. A wave of loneliness swept over him, but for the first time in his life his thoughts returned not to the home of his youth, but to a comfortable bed in Welbug, and to the slender arms and loving eyes of the deadliest warrior he had met in years. He dragged his thoughts back to the present.

  "We had best stay here tonight," he said. Tarl sank gratefully and noisily to the floor in a welter of weaponry. They shared some wine, bread, and dried meat, and chatted aimlessly for a while. Then as he peered sleepily at the chart, Ronan heaved the door closed and wedged it shut with one of his swords. The last thing Tarl heard before he drifted off was what seemed to be the sound of distant drums.

  "Hey," he thought, "someone's having a party." And then he was asleep.

  To their surprise, Philekazan and Bewel got on like a house on fire. They swapped stories, had several large drinks, and laughed and sang for a while, and so it was quite late by the time they fell asleep and the two shadowy figures of Kaldis and Bonaponere were able to creep round the hoard and slip past the rock-fall towards Samoth...

  Ronan and Tarl awoke stiff and cold. They shared some more bread for their breakfast, and then Ronan dragged open the door. Faint light was entering the passage outside through small holes in the arched ceiling, holes that must have been bored all the way up to the mountain's side, hundreds of feet above. It was just light enough to see, so they extinguished their torches and continued on their way.

  It was obvious that they were now entering the underground city. Not only were there frequent side-passages, with signs written in the runic alphabet of the dwarves, but there were many doors and windows opening onto the road they followed. In places it widened out into vast underground squares and piazzas, with elegant pillars that tapered to a distant roof, and colonnaded walkways of marble and stone that shone with a ghostly glitter in the faint light seeping down from far above. At first there was little sign of life, but then the detritus of past residents began to appear. A cast-off shoe, a brok
en spear, a battered and many-holed bucket, and a few empty bottles.

  At the point where the road left what appeared to be an old market place, Ronan paused, struck fire, and in its flickering light tried vainly to locate their position on the map. Tarl lit a torch, and prowled around the edge of the market, looking into some of the abandoned shops that lined it.

  "It's no use," muttered Ronan, shaking his head. "I can't tell where we are. And this city has several levels! I don't even know which one we are on!"

  He peered at the chart and sighed in frustration. He had left Warrior School convinced that he was ready for any eventuality. His course had included most things likely to be of use to a warrior such as Weapons Training, Survival, Languages, Chivalry, and even the Physiology of Intelligent Races. (For example, it is useful to know that it is a sheer waste of time kneeing a troll in the groin, as they have no testicles. None of their own, that is, although many trolls like to wear earrings or other items made from the testicles of other, unluckier, folk.). However, his course had signally failed to include a section on Deciphering Ancient Charts Which Small Piss-head Friends Have Soaked In Red Wine.

  "Ronan?" Tarl's voice was low, but the note of urgency and fear in it was plain to hear. Quickly, Ronan bundled up the chart, and crossed to where his friend was standing peering nervously down a side-passage. It was quite narrow, running for ten paces before bending sharply to the left. At this point four steps rose gently to an open door and, on either side of this door, windows hewn into the rock stared blindly out. Slumped on these steps surrounded by old bottles and broken crockery, were the mummified remains of a dwarf.

  Ronan took the torch and crept silently forward, followed by Tarl. When they reached the bend they could see that the passage turned into a staircase, which led precipitately downwards into darkness, and from this darkness came a rank and foetid smell. They turned, stepped over the remains of the dwarf, and climbed the steps to the open door. Inside, they found themselves in the vestibule of a house. Slowly, sadly, they explored.

  Each room was the same. The floor was covered in broken glass, fragmented crockery, shattered mugs, and discarded clothing, and dried encrustations of food were splashed across the walls and ceilings. There was litter and dust everywhere, and in one upstairs room they found the remains of three more dwarves. One was clutching a largish leather-bound book in his bony hand.

  Respectfully, Ronan took the book and opened it. Inside, the pages were filled by a neat and tidy elven script.

  "What does it say? Can you read it?" asked Tarl.

  Ronan nodded sadly. "This diary belongs to Wain, the son of Dayne," he read aloud. "If this book should dare to roam, box its ears and send it home." He turned more pages. They were brittle and dry and stained with what looked like wine. Someone appeared to have been sick over them at least once, but they were still legible, and Ronan scanned them with a growing sadness.

  "We seem to have found the last remains of the dwarves' brave expedition," he said, after a while. "Alas! I fear their end was brutal! Listen to this!" He turned some more pages and began to read aloud once more. "Yesterday we heard the drums throbbing in the depths, and then orcs came in many hundreds, inviting us to join them in a party. At first, our leader Pectin refused, but the drums were rousing and the orcs insistent, and so did we weaken and accept. We lost Thyasin almost at once! He was but inches from the bass speaker when the music started, and both his ear-drums shattered."

  Tarl winced, and Ronan turned the page. "There's more," he said. "For four days now has the party raged. We cannot go on like this! We lost Basalt when he drunkenly took on the bouncer, a giant stone-troll the like of which I have never before seen, nor ever hope to see again. Alas for Basalt! His dress was casual, and he wore not a tie. I fear his end was swift. Old Rian was the next to go. We dragged him senseless from the dance-floor, but we could not revive him. We had told him he was too old to break-dance, but alas! He would not heed us. Then yesterday we lost Ptyalin and Pepsin. Orcs bet them that they could not cross the Bridge of Eldabad by walking on their hands. Oh woe, for they had drunk so much that both fell laughing to their deaths in the abyss. Then Trypsin perished when his liver went, and our hope went with him. For many an orc had he drunk under the table, yet if he could not survive this fell party, what hope was there for the rest of us. And late last night, we found Kerosin floating face-down in a vat of ale."

  Ronan turned more pages. Something unpleasant had stuck two of them together, and he prised them gently apart. "More days have passed," he said. "See how the hand-writing has deteriorated. In places it is almost illegible. Only the Gods know how much they had drunk by then. Listen!" He began to read again. "This fell catering will be the death of us! The bacteria in the water took Oen, and the seafood vol-au-vents have done for Pectin and for Dene. They cannot have been fresh! They cannot have been fresh!

  "And this morning we lost brave Endocrin. He died of sheer embarrassment when we told him what he did with his helm last night at the party. Now there are just seven of us left. We have managed to creep away, but sleep is nigh impossible for the noise. The drums! The drums in the depths! And now the orcs are at our door! They have invited us back to their infernal party!"

  Ronan voice was low, no more than a whisper, as he turned the final page. "It ends in this scrawl, here. "We are trapped! We have no excuses left! We cannot get out of it! We cannot get out of it!" There is no more."

  He closed the book and laid it gently by the bony hand that had held it for so long, and then bowed his head and stood in respectful silence. Tarl waited quietly, thinking of the massive and terrible party that had wiped out the colony. And then all at once, there came a slow and rhythmic pounding, echoing through the windows from the black stair-well beyond. Tarl and Ronan stared in horror at each other.

  "Drums!" gasped Ronan. "Drums from the depths!"

  Suddenly the pounding beat was matched and underscored by a rapid rhythmic throbbing. "Bum-ba-bum-ba-bum-ba-bum-bum", it went, and the very stone of the walls seemed to reverberate to the rhythm.

  "Klat!" swore Tarl. "A bass guitar! The music is starting again!"

  Gasping, the two of them dashed out of the house. Ronan ran for the market-place, tripping and sliding over the broken bottles in the corridor, but the pulsating beat welling up from the depths below seemed to grab at Tarl and drag him towards the stairs. Unwillingly, his feet began to shuffle in jerky little steps in time with the music and his breath came sharply and quickly. He closed his eyes, and a pale sheen of sweat stood out on his face.

  "Party," he gasped, as though enchanted, "got to party!" His feet reached the top of the stairs, and the foul orc stench that drifted up from below hit him like a physical blow and made his head spin. And then he was staggering down into the darkness below.

  As the first rays of the rising sun hit her face, Tyson was instantly awake. She stretched to ease the stiffness caused by the hard ground then sat up and threw off her dew-covered blanket. Nearby, the last embers of the previous night's campfire were still smouldering, and she threw on a handful of dry sticks and blew gently on them until the fire burst into life.

  Puss ambled up from beside the river with a decapitated wild duck hanging from its jaws. It found hunting pathetically easy in these fertile areas. The local birds were used to donkeys that hung around munching grass all day, and so when one wandered up and stood beside them, they weren't expecting it to bite their heads off.

  "You could be happily lying in a comfortable bed back in Welbug, you know," it told her.

  "No. I love all this." Tyson gestured to the tenuous mist that wafted gently across the surface of the river, the graceful willow trees that lined its banks, and the myriad birds that were singing their hearts out in the branches. "There's a feeling I get when I look to the west..." She paused. Somewhere she thought she heard a guitar chord.

  Puss looked at her, head on one side. "You're a bit of an old hippy at heart, aren't you?" it said.

  She s
miled and looked up at the mountains that towered above them on the other side of the river.

  "I hope Ronan and Tarl are all right," she murmured.

  Ronan swore viciously as he hurtled down the stairwell after Tarl. At first it was pitch-black and he stumbled and nearly lost his footing. But then a faint reddish light began to creep up from below. After a while the stairs turned sharply, and the right-hand wall gave way to a precipitous drop. Ronan could now see that the staircase was clinging to the wall of a vast cavern. The floor far below was cracked and pitted with fissures that glowed a fiery red, from which tongues of flame licked and played. It was packed tight with orcs, jostling, yelling, singing and fighting. Every now and then, one would be forced over the lip of a fissure by the crowd, and would fall screaming, only to disappear in a sudden brief flash of orange flame. Heavy, thumping music pounded from a dozen orc mage-decks in a deafening wall of sound. Acrid smoke curled up, and the body odour and mass halitosis of five thousand orcs arose in a mephitic cloud.

  Ronan could see Tarl further down the stairs, stumbling onwards as if in a daze. He leaped after him, taking the steps five at a time. As he neared him, the orcs at the foot of the stairs caught sight of them and started yelling and gesturing, waving mugs of their foul sweet black wine invitingly. They were the savage mountain-orcs of nightmare, tall menacing Uttuks and squat but powerful Kulashaks, and Ronan knew that if his friend reached the foot of the stairs he was lost.

  Throwing caution to the wind he threw himself down the stairs. To his relief Tarl had stopped and was staring blankly at the orcs below as they yelled obscene suggestions to him in their harsh, guttural tongue. Catching him up he grabbed Tarl by the arm, and yelling "Sorry, we're just nipping out for a bottle! We won't be long!" he dragged him through a roughly hewn archway and along a dark, claustrophobic corridor. Tarl stumbled and nearly fell and Ronan, seeing the glazed blank look in his eyes, grabbed him by the arms and shook him.