by Max Anthony
The guard turned and left.
Flexing his burned arm, which was now more of a tender pink than a cracked black, Skulks retrieved his dagger-swords and gave the nearest dead baboon a petulant kick. Reminding himself that he was here to rescue Lula Grindy in the interests of international relations, he approached her door. It was the same as the others, but with a hatch sealing off the grille entirely, so that the occupant would be unable to see out. Perhaps she’d been pestering the mage with questions and she’d surely have plenty after hearing the noise of whoops, shrieks and flames through the door.
There were two or three minor magic guards in addition to an unsophisticated lock that Skulks had sprung within a few seconds. He opened the door and stepped back as a shape hurtled out at him, swinging punches left and right. Though the swinger of these punches had clearly been trained in how to use her fists, Skulks had had enough of being pummelled for tonight, so jumped back far enough to allow him to speak some words.
“Lady Grindy, I’m here to rescue you!”
Lula Grindy, for it was she, stopped immediately, blinking in the light of the room. She appeared to be somewhere in her thirties and Skulks guessed she would be a head-turner under all the grime and bruises.
“Rescue me? Who are you?”
“I am sent by friends. Come quickly, for the King plans to have you hanged in the morning.”
Being a practical woman and aware of the hanging at which she was to be the guest of honour, Grindy asked no further questions, but motioned for Skulks to lead on. He had already guessed her to be a commander of soldiers for she looked lean and strong, with a piercing and evaluating gaze. She also didn’t ask unnecessary questions, though she was certain to be curious as to the presence of baboon parts and the dead wizard.
In no mood for further death, Skulks led Grindy back along a route he’d already planned in his head, which took him to a part of the building which didn’t operate as a prison. The rooms here still had bars on the windows, but with an exertion of his Wielder’s strength, Skulks was able to snap several free, providing an opening into the night through which he and Grindy made their exit. Proving herself to be athletic even in her dishevelled state, she took several paces and attacked the wall, managing to spring high enough to put one hand on top and use it to pull herself up. Skulks was impressed; once fully rested and fed she would be a formidable opponent and he wasn’t surprised that Meugh had desired her death.
With their escape enacted it was now Skulks’ turn to seek direction.
“Which way to safety?”
“This way,” she said, leading him off into the night.
Twelve
The King’s Ear was standing at an advantageous position on Huffing Lane, casting his suspicious eyes over everyone who passed. The night was well-progressed and ordinary folk didn’t have any business being abroad at this time, unless they were up to something the King should know about. This particular King’s Ear enjoyed his work immensely, for it allowed him to indulge in the bullying and intimidatory behaviour that he’d been too weak and small to indulge in when he was younger. He’d personally seen at least five innocent people put in jail, simply on the basis that he’d taken a disliking to them.
At the moment, he was watching as a lone figure shuffled its way towards him. Lone figures were a favourite target of his, for they were less likely to give him an argument than a large group of drunken heavy-set men who might jostle him and crack jokes at his expense, even when faced with the threat of prison. As he prepared his menacing little introductory speech that he would deliver as he stepped forth, he noticed with some puzzlement that the pavement was speeding up towards his face. He didn’t have much time to think about it, for he was unconscious by the time he landed with an uncomfortable-sounding thunk. Two hands reached under his arms and dragged him back further into the shadows, dropping him into a particularly unctuous patch of mud. The lone figure continued its journey unmolested.
After a short time, for Casks was not enormous, Skulks and Grindy reached a house which the latter thought to be safe. It was just another old terrace on a street of terraced houses in an area filled with terraced houses. Inside, it was well-maintained, so if it was intended as a safe house, it was also meant as a comfortable one. Cutting to the chase, Grindy addressed Skulks.
“Who are you and what do you want?”
Still naïve in the world of diplomacy, Skulks spilled the beans. “I am Tan Skulks, come from Hardened to cause mischief against King Meugh and his allies.”
Fortunately for Skulks, Lula Grindy was reliable and trustworthy. “Yes, we know of Meugh’s attempts to overthrow the Hardened government. Many of us were put in prison for speaking out against it, including me, as the former head of his army.”
“What do you know of his plans?” asked Skulks.
“He’s actively recruiting King Warmont’s men now and all the signs are that he’s going to try and overthrow Queen Happy and King Warmont. He’ll have the men to do it now I think, given how much those two have weakened themselves with their fighting. If Meugh can secure all of their cities and lands, he’ll have himself a proper kingdom.”
“Where’s he getting all of his money from to build his palace and hire his men?”
“Taxes. He’s bleeding us dry. I doubt he can keep it going for long before his soldiers go unpaid, so he’ll have to act soon. Some of the richer Casks families are keeping him supplied, though I don’t think they’re doing it willingly.”
Skulks rubbed his hands together in an unconscious gesture. “I may have to pay one or two of them a visit! Do you have a need for coin yourself?”
Grindy looked slightly bemused. “I’m not alone in objecting to what Meugh’s done to Casks. If I had some money it would help me make things hard for the King. Quite a few of the old lads from the army have mouths to feed and they’ll still answer me if I ask.” She thought about it some more. “If I had enough I could probably get half of his army to rebel. They weren’t happy when I was taken.”
“Excellent!” said Skulks, “I will return here later tonight. And one final word of warning. Don’t trust Meugh no matter what he says or does. He’s no longer human!” With that, Skulks slipped out of the house, heading back towards the docks. It would be morning in a few hours, but he hoped to still have time for yet more international relations before the night was through.
The house of Hurda Gloam was about a quarter-mile further along the dockside from the Casks prison. It could have also been mistaken for a warehouse, and indeed that may have been what it was before it was converted into a house large enough to contain the Gloam smuggling dynasty. As Skulks examined the building, it remained unlit, suggesting everyone was asleep.
As before, he scaled the surrounding wall, avoiding the shards of glass embedded in the top and dropped into the grounds. It was difficult to refer to them as ‘gardens’ for only weeds grew here, green and scraggly where they’d taken root amongst the uneven flag stones. Perhaps the Gloams chose to spend their money on other things, though Skulks thought it a wasted opportunity. The Gloams had bars upon their windows, though only on the ground and first floors. Consequently, Skulks let himself in via a second-floor window on the far side of the building where he was least likely to be noticed. The window desperately wanted to screech as he opened it, but his Wielding powers of thievery calmed it down, just as they opened the crude inner lock holding the window closed.
It was good that the window’s preference to screech was suppressed, for Skulks had chosen to enter an occupied room. In here was a young man, perhaps in his late teens, snoring softly for he had not yet learned how to properly snore. By the time he married, his new wife would discover to her dismay that his snoring was in its pomp and that he could rumble a paperweight off a bedside table with the vibrations, though he’d deny utterly that he was a snorer, using the excuse that as he couldn’t hear it, it couldn’t possibly be happening.
Ignorant of this future, the young man slept on
, blissfully unaware that thirty Scroats had been removed from his dresser and pocketed for the good of the kingdom. Having let himself out of the first bedroom, Skulks found himself on a landing. The house was quiet, with the Gloams betraying their appalling bad taste by not possessing an excessively loud grandfather clock to keep the residents in a state of heightened irritation.
“If I were a smuggler, where would I stash my ill-gotten gains?” Skulks asked of himself. In the house of a merchant, there would usually be a safety-box somewhere, built into a wall or hidden at the back of a cupboard. In the house of habitual law-dodgers, they may have a different method of protecting their valuables, thought Skulks, failing to realise that even smugglers might have them stored with a money-house or other place of safety.
Skulks dotted from room to room. The Gloam family appeared to be a large one, or they’d taken in a lot of lodgers, for most of the rooms were in use. By the time he’d swept the top floor clean of unguarded Scroats, Skulks was two-hundred-and-twenty-one Scroats better off, but non-the-wiser as to where to find any quantity coins which would be injurious to King Meugh were they stolen. He was running out of darkness and had to improve his Scroat-to-time returns. Suddenly remembering mention of a golden foot in the tavern earlier that same evening, Skulks returned to one of the rooms he’d visited previously. An elderly lady was asleep in her bed, whiskers fluttering gently in time with her breathing. The sheets were strewn roughly about the bed, for although it wasn’t warm, the occupant was a restless sleeper.
As it happens, Hurda Gloam was dreaming about her younger days, before she dropped a five-hundred-pound barrel of smoked Silver Flooties on her foot. Back then, each day was a new adventure as she watched her wealth grow from her smuggling activities and avoided the clutches of the local tax collectors. Alongside her was Captain Gloam, in the days before he’d choked to death on one of the dried peas he’d taken to chewing on.
Gloam’s dreams took her soaring, making her feel as carefree as she had back in her younger years. She snuggled deeper into the sheets as a smile made its way onto her face. “It’s like I’m floating on air,” her brain spoke to her, as she drifted between dreaming and consciousness. When she woke up some hours later, Gloam realised where the feeling of floating had come from, for someone had stolen her golden foot which she wore always, even in her bed at night. Furthermore, they’d also discovered the false bottom in the ale barrel in the cellar and removed fourteen thousand Scroats from their hiding place.
Though it was not in Tan Skulks’ nature to turn over his purloined goods so easily, he felt that he was doing his bit to forge strong future relations between Hardened and Casks by handing everything over to Lula Grindy, who looked somewhat nonplussed at the wealth upon her kitchen table. As Skulks exited her house, she was left with one unanswered question.
“How did he manage to nick her foot?”
With his work done for tonight, Skulks headed back to the palace, whistling a jaunty tune under his breath as was his wont when he felt that he’d accomplished something. His whistling was not quite interrupted, so much as joined by another, much more mellifluous whistling. Turning to his left, Skulks saw that a tiny bird had landed upon his shoulder, where it twittered a joyful little tune. Looking closely, for this seemed unusual, Skulks saw that the tiny green songbird appeared to bear a remarkable likeness to him.
“A Skulks-bird!” exclaimed he in delight, thinking that nature had produced a creature of great wonder and splendour.
“Coo! Coo! Don’t be a fool!” said the bird, startling Skulks for he had not expected it to speak, much less refer to him as a fool.
“Get off my shoulder, demon bird!” said Skulks, having flip-flopped from thinking the bird excellent to thinking it cursed.
“Skulks! Coo! Coo! We need your help!”
“Who are you and why do you come to me in the form of a bird with my face upon it?”
“We are Warp and we are Weft! We are held in Casks by your friend King Meugh!”
“How dare you! Meugh is not my friend! And how did he come to capture such worthy wizards as yourselves?”
“A thief-demon!” wailed the bird. “Our magics did little. Coo! Coo! It stuffed us into a sack! And brought us here!”
“Why can’t you just escape?”
The bird on his shoulder paused and observed him with one beady eye, as if wondering to itself why he’d asked such a stupid question.
“Because we like the scenery!” the bird cooed in sarcasm.
“Where are you being held?”
“Somewhere in the palace. That’s all we know! Help us Father!” Skulks shook his head at this, for though he most definitely wasn’t parent to these two child-wizards, it was a game they enjoyed.
“How much are you paying? And where’s my contract?” asked Skulks, pleased to be able to turn the tables on them, for they always demanded signed paperwork from him before undertaking any work on his behalf.
“We don’t have a contract!” sobbed the bird. “We had hoped to come to an amicable agreement later!”
“I will save you,” said Skulks in full confidence, “but I require a promise for something I have yet to decide upon.”
The Skulks-bird spluttered a little, the sound being an unusual one to come from a beak. Knowing it had little choice, but reluctant to agree to such an open-ended settlement of debt, the bird squeaked out.
“We agree. But please be quick! King Meugh has something nasty in store for us, we’re sure!”
With that, the bird fluttered off, leaving a small, white dropping behind it, in stark relief against the black of his tunic. Skulks attempted to dust it away but succeeded only in spreading it further across his shoulder.
“Bloody wizards!” said he, though in truth he was fond of the Warp and the Weft and determined to do everything he could to help in their escape. However, their rescue would have to wait for now, as daylight was creeping into the sky and Skulks had to return to the palace before his absence was noted. Back at Meugh’s seat of power, he climbed in through a second-floor window, found his room and settled down for the two of hours’ sleep that his busy night-time schedule had left him with.
Thirteen
The following morning, Hangman’s Square was thronged with people and the smell of bread and offal pervaded the air as street vendors jostled for prime position to peddle their wares. The mood was most definitely not one of cheer, for Lula Grindy was seen as something of a local-girl-made-good. Most people had turned up to provide her with some moral support as she swung kicking from the gallows rope, not that they’d have dared voice their support in case they had their tongue ripped out.
Having had a podium erected for himself and his honoured guests, King Meugh watched impassively as his hangman and two guards made their way into the adjacent Casks prison to fetch Lula Grindy. Behind the disguise, Skulks could see the demon grinning to itself in anticipation of the impending death it was to watch. No one from Hardened was particularly excited to see a public execution and Heathen Spout felt that she’d been outmanoeuvred, realising that her presence might give the mistaken impression that Hardened was in support of King Meugh and his methods.
A commotion was heard from the direction of the prison. It was the sort of commotion where everyone was trying to look so busy in the resolution of the commotion’s cause that they couldn’t possibly spare the time to tell the King that his prized prisoner had gone missing, one of his mages was dead and that there were signs of exploding baboons. In the end, the hangman and two guards returned with a fourth man who had the misfortune to be working at the Casks prison today.
“Where is my prisoner?” demanded King Meugh.
“We don’t know, Your Majesty. She’s gone! Kidnapped by baboons, we think.”
“Kidnapped? Baboons? Guards, kill this man at once for his stupidity and find my prisoner!”
With that, the unfortunate guard was stabbed to death and left to fall upon the floor. There were a few boos and a few la
ughs from the crowd, though they were directed at the King, rather than because the execution had been postponed.
“Long live Queen Lula!” shouted a brave voice from deep in the crowd.
“Find who that man was and have him whipped fifty times! Then cover him in salt and whip him again!” said King Meugh to a contingent of four guards nearby, who attempted to elbow their way into the crowd, though the crowd wasn’t budging. It seemed that Lula Grindy was more popular than she’d let on to Skulks, for he was unaware that there was a popular movement for her to be crowned.
Sparing not so much as a backwards glance at his guests, King Meugh stalked to his carriage, climbed aboard and commanded it to take him back to the palace. Having been left in de facto charge of affairs, Wibnius Ploot looked at a temporary loss.
“Guards, get me a report of what happened. Find someone to tell the people of Casks that Grindy has gone missing and put out a five thousand Scroat reward for her capture! We’re going back to the palace!”
Hardened’s trade delegation found themselves being ushered back towards the carriage which had brought them here. This one was sufficiently large to carry them all and also sufficiently large for one of the King’s Ears to hide in a compartment beneath one of the seats in order to listen out for any juicy gossip they might choose to divulge. Fortunately, both Skulks and Captain Honey were wise to this subterfuge and had made it clear through hand motions on the earlier trip that no one was to speak about anything of importance.
“The weather’s meant to pick up this afternoon,” said Ferty Slipper.
“Going to rain, I reckon,” said Clerk Souter.
“I hope it’s pie for lunch,” said Heathen Spout.
“That was a very hairy spider I saw going under the seat,” said Skulks, just to be perverse.
Thus, when he came to report to his superiors, this particular King’s Ear had very little he could tell them, though he’d found the journey an unpleasant one as he’d spent it imagining that every itch or prickle on his skin was a spider running inside his clothing.