The Wordsmiths and the Warguild aod-2

by Hugh Cook

  "What was it?" said Togura.

  "Sharbly we grounded a whale," came the laconic answer. "No worry. It's gone, and us, we're not drinking."

  At that moment, the ship lurched hideously. Togura was sent sliding. As he clung to the deck rail, he saw something rising up out of the sea. Up, up it came, ascending in blue-green coils.

  "Snake!" said the pirate.

  Its jaws leered toward them, as if it would strike, then it dipped down into the sea again. It was indeed like a snake, except that it was three times the length of the ship and had the girth of a bullock.

  "There's another!" cried Togura.

  There were two – no, three… four! five!… there were six sea serpents in the waters around them. Togura heard Jon Arabin, the ship's captain, bellowing orders. Shortly he heard wails and screams as the ship girls were brought up on deck. Fighting and biting, they were dragged to the stern and thrown overboard. They thrashed round in the water, screaming. Blood foamed on the waves as the sea serpents ravaged them.

  "That's murder!" said Togura, shocked.

  The young pirate gave a twisted grin.

  "Them or us," he said. "Which would you prefer?"

  "Well…"

  It was indeed a difficult question.

  Jon Arabin gave another order. And the weapons muqaddam grabbed Togura and started to drag him to the edge of the deck.

  "This is a joke, yes?" said Togura.

  The weapons muqaddam made no answer.

  "A joke? Understand?" said Togura desperately. "A joke?"

  They were now very close to the edge.

  "Draven!" screamed Togura, sighting his friend at last. "Stop him!"

  "Sorry, boy," said Draven, advancing at a casual saunter. "This isn't my ship. I've got no authority here. So enjoy your swim."

  "I can't swim!" screamed Togura.

  A lie – but he thought it worth trying.

  He locked his hands round the stern rail, and, struggling vigorously, managed to kick the weapons muqaddam in the guts. His enemy did not even grunt.

  "Did you hear me?" screamed Togura. "I can't swim!"

  "Bait doesn't have to swim," said Draven, grabbing hold of Togura's flailing feet. "Give my regards to the chiefest of serpents."

  "Don't do it! Please!" begged Togura, as he lost his hold on the stern rail. "Draven, help me!"

  "Heave ho!" said Draven, cheerfully.

  They gave him the old heave ho, and over he went. Arms and legs flailing, he tumbled through the air. He hit the sea awkwardly with a crash, a shock of cold water, and a blunt, ugly pain, as if someone had rammed his rectum with an iron bar. The impact drove him deep.

  Momentarily stunned, lost to all knowledge of his place, time and name, he struggled for the light. Breaking the surface, he gasped for air. A slip-slop wave slapped him in the face. He remembered what was happening. A shrill whinny of terror escaped him. He thrashed at the water as if having a fit.

  "No no no," moaned Togura, drawing his legs up to try and stop anything from biting them.

  Another wave slapped him harshly, cutting off his moans. Blinking away the stinging salt of the sea, squeezing a web of water from his eyes, he dared to look around. He could see no women. No sea serpents.

  The big seas hoisted him up then slopped him down again. The Warwolf, bulking away from him, heeled in the wind. He saw its lower timbers were foul with weed, barnacles and sea squirts; it was overdue for careening. Draven waved to him from the stern, then shouted something; the wind blurred away the sense of his words.

  "What?" shouted Togura.

  Draven shouted more unintelligible words, then pointed at something. What? Trying to see, Togura forgot all about keeping his legs up. They drifted down. The next moment, Togura felt something firm underfoot. Ah, ground! A miracle!

  The ground began to rise.

  Oh no!

  Togura began to cry out with short, panting, uncontrollable, hysterical screams. Up came the green surge in a smooth, hypnotic flow, riding up between his legs and lofting him into the sky. He found himself straddling a sea serpent, which was racing through the sea toward the ship. He began to slip. He grabbed for a handhold, finding nothing but a few barnacles clinging to battle-scarred scales. Taking his weight, the old scales themselves started to scab away, revealing fresh, gleaming, frictionless scales beneath.

  As the sea serpent raced toward the ship, Togura slid sideways. He scrabbled desperately for purchase. He had a brief, hallucinatory glimpse of the deck of the ship. It was below him. Men were scattering in all directions. Then the sea serpent crashed down. The stern splintered. Timbers smashed. Togura was thrown through the air.

  Togura, bruised to the deck, rolled to his feet in an instant. He stood there, swaying. The ship lurched, the deck canted, and down he went again. He saw a scream wailing between the sea serpent's jaws. Then the scream was gone. The jaws were turning toward him.

  Togura accelerated from a crawl to a sprint in one and a half paces. Then he collided with a pirate. Both went down. The sea serpent slavered above them. Blood dripped from its jaws. Togura, paralysed with fear, mewled weakly with terror. But the pirate bravely struggled to his feet, drawing his cutlass. A mistake. The monster snacked on the cold steel, then munched down on the pirate. Togura slithered away, then got to his feet and ran with a blind, lurching gait.

  Knocked to the deck by the ship's next ungainly movement, Togura turned to see half a dozen pirates charging the sea serpent, using a spare spar as a battering ram. Wood splintered, bones crunched, and Togura went humbling up the ratlines, climbing for dear life or cheap, life at any price, there was no time for bargaining.

  He climbed and climbed until he could climb no more, and then, at a dizzy height, he hooked his arms through rope netting and slumped there, exhausted. The ship, struck by another sea serpent, heeled alarmingly then righted itself; the motion, amplified by the mast, did sickening things to his stomach.

  "Enjoy your swim?" said a laconic voice beside him.

  Togura opened his eyes to look at his neighbour. It was the fair-haired young pirate he had conversed with earlier in the day.

  "You're a murderous pack of unprincipled bastards," said Togura savagely.

  The youth laughed.

  "What did you expect?" he said. "We're pirates! You got off lucky, though. Bait can be cut, blinded, tortured. Or ship-raped, my hearty. If there's time. This time there wasn't."

  "Does that mean I was bait all along? Did you expect to meet – "

  "Not so angry, man. Settle, settle! You, you were our much loved, honoured, respected passenger until we met the monsters. Stall it, man, don't say it – of course we weren't expecting them. None in their right minds – or out of them, for that matter – would sail to a monster's jaws full knowing. My name's Drake. And yours?"

  "Togura," mumbled Togura, his strength for anger fading.

  "What?"

  "Forester," said Togura, speaking up loudly, amending his name as he remembered who he was masquerading as.

  "Welcome, Forester. Do you – "

  The mast lurched alarmingly.

  "Dahz!" exclaimed the pirate Drake, using a foreign obscenity.

  Togura realised a sea serpent had coiled itself around the base of the mast. Even as he watched, the mast, very slowly, began to bend. Then, with a shudden shatter-crack, it snapped.

  They fell.

  Togura screamed.

  The sea roared up and smashed them.

  Engulfed in green, harassed by rope, choking and breathless, Togura struggled for air and daylight. Breaking up to the surface of the sea, he snorted water, sucked air, was floundered over by a wave, ducked by another, hauled down by a third, rolled over and over by a fourth, then lifted up by a fifth to an eminence from which he saw the Warwolf, encumbered by a trio of sea serpents, crabbing away through the sea with its broken mast trailing.

  "Swim!" yelled a voice.

  It was Drake.

  Togura saw his young pirate friend, sti
ll clinging to the mast. What was better? To cling to the mast until the sea serpents were ready for dessert? Or drown in the bottomless ocean?

  "Swim! Now!" shouted Drake, wind and distance rapidly eroding his voice.

  Togura struck out for the mast and the ship, but it was hopeless. The sea was rough; a strong, fast current was sweeping him away from the ship. Finally he gave up and trod water, watching the ship, listing badly, dragging itself away from him, still in the grip of three implacable monsters.

  Seeing a stray spar surfing through the water, Togura swam for it, reached it, latched on and clung to it for dear life. One end was all munched, crunched and splintered; he shuddered. The ship was now too distant for him to make out any detail of what was happening on board, but he saw black billows of smoke beginning to rise from the vessel. Soon one of the remaining masts was on fire; it was Togura's guest that the ship was doomed.

  "Drown down, you buck-rat bastards," he muttered, cursing the ship and its crew.

  By now he was very, very cold; he began to shudder violently and continuously. He would be chilled down to his death unless he could get to land. But there was no land anywhere near. Or was there? The island of Drum was now much closer. The current was taking him toward the shore.

  The current was swift, but, even so, it seemed a long time before he could cast off from the spar and strike out for the shore. He swam very slowly. Caught in the surf, he almost drowned, surviving by luck alone. The waves tumbled him onto a pebbly beach. He struggled up the beach and across the driftwood line at high tide mark, then shuffled into a cave and collapsed, exhausted.

  Chapter 20

  Waves thrashed, humped and slubbered, mounted and surmounted, gashed themselves, recklessly, against the rocks of Drum, sifted through seaweed, chopped each other into foam, then hurled themselves against the beach, tumbling stones, sheals and crab claws over and over in a bounteous explosion of spray. The daylight slowly weathered away.

  Exhausted, defeated and badly frightened, Togura Poulaan lay in his cave in a state of collapse. At the beginning of the day, buoyant with confidence, he had been a warm, brave, well-fed questing hero, riding a ship on his way to high adventure. Now he was a cold, hungry, shivering vagrant, a helpless waif of a gadling, marooned on the island of Drum, home of the notorious wizard of Drum, an ill-tempered necromancer known to have the unpleasant habit of feeding strangers to his household dragons.

  Togura wanted, very much, to be home on his father's estate. In bed. With a cup of something hot to warm and cheer him. He did not like it here. It was too cold, too wet, too lonely. It was dangerous. Things would hurt him. He would never get off the island alive. Recovering a little strength, he used it to produce hot tears of grief and regret.

  He was eventually roused from his blubbering self-pity by a strange clinking crunching slithering sound which he could hear even about the rouse, souse, suck, slap and gurgitation of the sea. It sounded like four or five men dragging a log across stones. Or, perhaps, like a large animal of peculiar construction making its way across a beach.

  Sitting up, Togura faced the cave mouth. The strange noise stopped. A beast peered inside, then withdrew.

  – A dragon?

  Togura was almost certain he had seen a dragon. He did not know whether to scream, to run, to freeze, or to pick up a stick and a stone so as to be prepared to fight for his life.

  In the event, he froze.

  There was a hiatus, in which Togura heard his own pounding pulse and the sea doing leisurely break-falls on the beach. Then the dragon looked in again. It gave a prolonged gurgling cough as it cleared its throat, then it spoke.

  "Hello," said the dragon, in Galish; the word was clear and distinct, marred only by a superfluous bark at the end of it.

  "Piss off!" screamed Togura, hurling a rock.

  "That's not very polite, you know," said the dragon, mildly. "Come outside. Let's have a look at you."

  The cave was large enough to admit the dragon, so Togura saw no percentage in disobeying. Reluctantly, expecting at any moment to be incinerated, he quit the cave. As no immediate disaster befell him, he was able to take stock of the dragon. Entirely green except for its eyes – which were red, with yellow pupils – it stood about as tall as a pony but was three times the length. It had short, stubby wings which were folded against the side of its body.

  "You look cold," said the dragon. "You need a fire. I'll give you one. I'm an excellent pyrotechnist."

  "A what?" said Togura.

  "Watch," said the dragon.

  It clawed together some driftwood then breathed out flames which were delicate shades of blue, yellow and green. The wood scorched, charred and flamed. Togura squatted down by the fire.

  "Thank you," he said belatedly, remembering his manners.

  "It was nothing," said the dragon, in a voice which managed to hint that it was really quite something. "We sea dragons are very talented, you know."

  "I'm sure you are," said Togura, hoping that he was engaging in a real conversation and not just being subjected to a before-dinner speech.

  "Sea dragons are characterised by versatile genius," said the dragon, encouraged. "Not like those ignorant hulking land monsters we are so often confounded with. We are not primitive brutes like the land dragons. No! A thousand times no! Sea dragons are the true lords of the intellect, noted for their wit, intelligence, grace, charm, sagacity and fashion sense, for their matchless command of all the philosophies, for their eloquence, good humour and comradeship, for their surpassing physical beauty, their wise counsel, their profound logic and their highly developed artistic sensitivity."

  "And for their modesty?" said Togura – and instantly wished he had bitten off his tongue.

  "That too," acknowledged the sea dragon, failing to realise that his comment was somewhat barbed. "Considering the true extent of our genius, considering the power of our swift-speeding inquiring minds armoured by their world-famous panoply of knowledge, we're remarkably modest, believe you me."

  "I do, I do," said Togura, earnestly.

  "Now warm yourself by the fire, young human," said the sea dragon, "while I go off to get instructions. Don't worry! I won't be long!"

  It waddled down the beach, its tail dragging across the shingle, then spread its wings – which were water wings, not capable of flight – and plunged into the water. Swimming swiftly and gracefully through the lumbering seas, it rounded a headland and was lost from sight.

  It had gone to report to its master – the wizard of Drum!

  Togura knew what he had to do. He did it. He made himself scarce, and, for the next five days, used all his native cunning – plus a lot which had been grafted on in recent months – to avoid and evade his pursuers. But, in the end, he was cornered by a number of dragons – all very pleased with themselves, and saying so at great length – and, after a lot of spurious speechifying, the dragons led him off to the grim, castellated stronghold of the wizard of Drum.

  Chapter 21

  As Togura Poulaan was marched into the shadows of the castle of the wizard of Drum, the iron-clad gates creaked open. Yawning darkness hid the nameless horrors beyond.

  "Come on," said the leading dragon, as Togura hesitated.

  The command ended with a short bark, followed by a hiss of smoke, steam and pulsating flame. Reluctantly, Togura shuffled forward. He was sure his death awaited him.

  Darkness gave way to the daylight of a big, bare, high-walled courtyard.

  "Stand here," said the leading dragon.

  Togura obeyed. The dragons formed a circle, with Togura in the middle. They looked eager. Expectant. Something was about to happen. Togura closed his eyes. One of the dragons started to sharpen its claws against the courtyard stones with a slick, evil, sizzling sound which reminded him unpleasantly of a butcher's shop. The leading dragon cleared its throat.

  "This," it said, "is the dragon hof. Here we gather each evening to eat, drink and recite poetry."

  There was a pause.
Togura opened his eyes. All the dragons were watching him, as if they expected something from him.

  "That sounds very nice," said Togura cautiously. "Very civilised. Dragons do seem to be very civilised." This was going down well, so he elaborated. "I only wish I had time to know you better. Time to appreciate your full conquest of the higher intellectual dimensions."

  "Time to hear some of my poetry, perhaps?" said the leading dragon, eagerly.

  "That too," said Togura.

  "Then we shall oblige."

  And, to Togura's dismay and astonishment, the leading dragon began to recite its poetry. At great length. It was windy, ostentatious and stunningly boring. Nevertheless, he applauded politely.

  The other dragons, jealous of the applause, demanded to be given their own chances to recite. Togura, faint with hunger, listened to their angry, arrogant, hogen-mogen voices disputing precedence. Each wanted to be first to recite. They barked, snapped, spat smoke, and suddenly fell to fighting. Togura, ringed round with fighting dragons, screamed at them:

  "Stop! Stop! Stop!"

  It did no good whatsoever.

  Then a voice roared:

  "Begenoth!"

  The quarrelling dragons instantly quailed down to silence.

  "Shavaunt!" shouted the voice.

  And the dragons turned and fled.

  "Now then," said the dragon commander, entering the courtyard. "What started all that off?"

  The dragon commander was an old, old man with a dirty grey eard, who walked with the aid of a shepherd's crook. Despite his age, his eyes were bright, his voice was firm, and he looked fit and healthy.

  "Well, boy?" asked the dragon commander.

  "I… I asked if I could hear some of their poetry."

  "You what!?"

  "Only some poetry, that's all. I just said I wished I had time to hear some."

  "No, boy, no, a thousand times no, that is one thing you must never ever do when you're face to face with a sea dragon. You must never ever – not on any account – encourage their artistic pretensions. Art, you see, is purely their excuse for being the most lazy, idle, shiftless, foolish, irresponsible, degenerate pack of gluttonous sex-obsessed drunkards this side of the east ditch of Galsh Ebrek."