by Paul Stewart
‘It’s larger than it looks from the outside,’ he said.
‘There’s stalls for nigh on two hundred,’ said Garth. ‘And that can be increased.’
Nathaniel nodded. He walked slowly across the dusty yard, looking round appraisingly, then stopped before one of the stalls. He put his hands on his hips, looked up at the roofless pen, then down into the broad V-shaped trench in the ground that separated this stall from the one next to it.
‘But they’re not finished,’ he said. ‘There’s no fences. They need fences.’
He turned to see Garth Temple grinning back at him.
‘They are finished,’ he said, rubbing his hands together eagerly.
Nathaniel frowned. He did not understand.
Garth pointed to the trench. ‘Greywyrmes won’t cross such a gap,’ he explained. ‘I guess it’s like in their own habitat. They’ll walk miles to avoid a wide crack in the rock.’
‘And they won’t simply jump over it?’ said the merchant, looking up, puzzled. ‘Or fly?’
‘Neither,’ said Garth. ‘Greywyrmes have wings, but they can’t fly no more than a few yards, and then only if they get up to a gallop. These here ditches will keep ’em securely contained.’
The young merchant shrugged. ‘All I can do is bow to your expertise,’ he said, and his expression hardened. ‘But I see no actual wyrmes in these stalls of yours, Temple. I’ve furnished you with all the timber and tools for this fine stockade, not to mention spread word far and wide amongst the good folk of the plains,’ he added with a sneer. ‘I’ve kept my side of the bargain. If this thing’s going to work, don’t you think it’s about time you kept yours?’
‘Garth. Garth!’
The voice sounded urgent, and Garth turned to see an agitated Amos Greenwood standing in the gateway at the far side of the corral.
‘What now, Amos?’ Garth snapped. ‘Can’t you see I’m busy here.’
‘I know. Sorry. It’s . . .’ His voice trailed away.
‘Well?’
‘Come, look,’ Amos told him. ‘I think you’ll want to see this.’
Garth flashed an exasperated glance at Nathaniel. ‘I apologize for this,’ he said.
‘The merchantman should see too,’ Amos said.
Nathaniel shrugged, and the two of them walked over to the gateway. As they approached, Amos turned and pointed off across the shimmering badlands.
‘I don’t see nothing,’ said Garth impatiently.
‘There,’ said Amos. He jabbed his finger at the air. ‘That dustcloud. There’s something stirring up the trail – and it looks like it’s coming this way. You reckon it could be them packwyrmes of ours?’
Garth reached inside his shirt for the spyglass he had dangling round his neck on a chain. He put it to his eye, held it there for a moment, then turned, his face twitching with the excitement he was trying to contain.
‘Reckon it could,’ he drawled.
Eighteen
News of the wyrmes’ arrival went round the stockade swift as wildfire. Men, women and bands of excited children left their tents and bunkhouses and streamed toward the far side of the corral. They gathered at the split-rail fence, looked out across the blistered rockscape beyond.
And there they were, the promised greywyrmes at last, trudging across the bare earth towards them. Their bodies looked to be fused and liquid, dissolved in the heatshimmer of midday
They had cheered at first, the onlookers. Now they were silent in awe. The greywyrmes were huge; a dozen lumbering monsters, ten times the size of a full-grown ox and slow and deliberate in their movements. Around their massive feet, five men darted to and fro, kith trappers and veterans of the weald, judging by their well-worn clothes and light kit. The sound of their angry cries and cracking bullwhips splintered the afternoon air.
The wyrmes themselves were silent. Their heads were down; their long thick tails were limp and dragging. A sour odour wafted in on the wind.
Garth Temple turned to his head stockman, who was tending to one of the wheezing oxen by the well. ‘Ebenezer,’ he called out. ‘Prepare the stalls. Fresh hay. Water . . . You know the score.’
Ebenezer acknowledged his boss’s instructions with a wave. He quickly reharnessed the ox, then headed for the stalls.
‘A dozen by my count,’ Garth told the merchant. ‘Ten full-grown, two calves,’ he added, aware that his voice sounded high-pitched and overexcited. He tried hard to mask his relief. ‘It’s a start, at least,’ he said gruffly.
‘Indeed,’ said Nathaniel Lint the Younger. He frowned, examined his fingernails. ‘Remind me how many you said we’d have for this “great journey” of yours, Temple? Three hundred, was it?’
‘Two hundred,’ said Garth quietly, his face colouring. ‘The harpoon gangs promised . . . two hundred,’ he said hesitantly, as the young merchant’s eyes narrowed. ‘With two hundred, we’ll clear all our building costs and make a tidy profit with the first wagon train.’
‘Our building costs,’ said Nathaniel, returning his gaze to the hot shimmering rock ahead. ‘It is my purse that bears the strain of this enterprise.’
The group of wyrmes were no more than a hundred yards away. They were cresting the last low ridge that separated them and the new stockade, their legs and lower bodies rippling in the intense heat. The excited crowd was getting rowdy again, conversation rising to a babble and the children dancing about, waving and shrieking. The sound of the cracking bullwhips had got louder; the smell of the wyrmes and their drovers more intense . . .
Garth turned to Nathaniel. ‘Patience, my friend,’ he said. ‘These are just the first of many. You’ll see. The new stockade will make us both rich.’
‘I have every faith in you, Temple,’ said the merchant with little enthusiasm. He was fanning his face with his hand, his wrist limp. His face was pinched up with the bad smell. ‘If it’s all the same to you, Temple,’ he said, ‘I think I’d like to go and freshen up.’
‘Of course,’ said Garth, secretly relieved that the merchant was not planning to greet the greywyrme party personally. ‘You’ve had a long journey up here.’ He clamped a hand on Nathaniel’s shoulder, his fingers grazing the fur collar of his coat. ‘My own quarters are at your disposal. Treat them as . . . as . . .’
His voice trailed away as he saw the merchant turn his head, eyebrows arched, and stare down at the hand – which he removed, smiling sheepishly.
‘Treat them like your own home,’ he said.
‘Thank you,’ said Nathaniel stiffly, and he turned and strode off, the white handkerchief that he’d plucked from his sleeve clamped to his nose.
Garth watched him go, then turned back to the incoming convoy. The kith wyrmehandlers had neat packs on their backs, with pans, snares and rock-spikes attached to them; a bullwhip in one hand and a steel-tipped prod in the other. They wore broadbrim hats, waistcoats and overjackets, breeches, heavy boots – all made of weathered wyrmeskin – and had the dyed homespun kerchiefs favoured by the harpoon gangs wrapped twice around their necks and tied off with a knot. And they each bore the signs of being a long time on the trail. Stubbled jaws and straggly moustaches. Red eyes. Grime. The sour odour of sweat.
As they got closer, Garth noted the curve-blade knives at their belts and the loaded spitbolts holstered in the flaps of their long overjackets. These were savage high-country kith, accustomed to the unforgiving ways of the weald. They could be unpredictable, prone to sudden bursts of violence; they were interested only in green liquor and returner’s wealth, and Garth Temple had dealt with them all his working life.
That young merchant had been wise to go off in search of a perfumed bath, he thought. This lot would skin him alive soon as look at him.
As the convoy approached, Garth eyed the leader of the wyrmehandlers closely.
‘Solomon Tallow,’ he hailed the hulking kith with
the broad shoulders and carefully trimmed stubble, that spoke of a vanity strangely at odds with his worn clothes and battered hat.
‘Garth Temple,’ the kith replied as the convoy came to a halt just outside the corral.
Behind him, the huge greywyrmes stretched back in a line, breathing heavily. The settlers lining the fence looked on, chattering among themselves. And as the dust cleared, Garth took in the sight of the first greywyrme.
Like the others in the line, its hindlegs had been hobbled with a short length of rope. More rope hadbeen used to clamp its jaws tightly shut, while strapped to its head was a set of oversized horse-blinkers, the stiff wyrmeleather flaps preventing it from seeing sideways. Like the others, it was in a parlous condition that neither the dustswirl nor the heatshimmer had managed to conceal.
Garth could now see that all the greywyrmes were bone-thin. Lacerations and weeping sores crisscrossed their flanks where they had been brutally whipped. And with their jaws bound shut, Garth didn’t like to guess how long the creatures had gone without water.
That had been his idea. The ropes. But then, how else could the men have herded the wyrmes without being burned to death? Tallow’s men had neither the skill nor empathy to do what needed to be done. But now Garth would take care of things. He only hoped it wasn’t too late. The creatures looked close to collapse.
Not that the crowd seemed to notice. They whooped and hollered and waved their hats in the air. Settler families who had been waiting at the new stockade for weeks embraced each other, delighted that the packwyrmes had finally arrived, men shook each other’s hands, while some of the more daring boys reached out over the fence and patted the flank of the huge creature at the head of the line.
‘Tell your men to get them into the stalls,’ Garth told Solomon Tallow. ‘We need to talk.’
Solomon nodded, then waved to the other kith, who proceeded to whip and goad the massive wyrmes back into motion. As they lumbered through the gateway and into the corral yard, Solomon rubbed a meaty hand over his close-cropped scalp and replaced his battered leather hat. He grinned at Garth, his even white teeth stark against the blue-black of his jaw.
‘What’s on your mind?’ he said.
Garth shook his head. ‘You sure took your time, Solomon,’ he said, looking him squarely in the eye. ‘I swear I was beginning to wonder if you’d ever turn up.’
Solomon nodded at the line of plodding wyrmes. ‘Not exactly the fastest critters in the world,’ he said. His grin broadened. ‘Yet we got ’em here in the end.’
Garth frowned. As they limped and shuffled into the stalls, clouds of flies buzzing around their festering sores, he feared they were in an even worse state than he’d first thought. What was more, the two of them had agreed on fifty wyrmes. Shaken hands on it. Yet Solomon had only brought him twelve, and two of them were calves.
‘What about the rest of them?’ he said evenly. ‘Fifty at a time. Wasn’t that what we said? In four convoys . . .’
Solomon smiled. ‘Now don’t be like that,’ he said. ‘It was as much as I could do to convince my boys not to slaughter the lot of them for their flameoil sacs and have done with the whole damn business. But no,’ Solomon continued, his face serious, brow furrowed, ‘we had us a deal, you and me. You showed us how to handle ’em, and we did.’
Garth flinched, but said nothing. He certainly hadn’t told them to treat the creatures so brutally they might not even survive.
‘Only herding these great lumps of wyrmemeat and keeping them alive on the trail is no easy task, Garth,’ Solomon went on. He smiled. ‘But you were right about them “migratory trails” of theirs. They lead right through the eastern mountains, all the way to those sprawling grasslands in the west.’
‘Still,’ Garth persisted, ‘a dozen wyrmes is a slim haul.’
The last of the line of wyrmes had just passed through the gate, urged on by one of the whipcracking wyrmehands. Solomon and Garth followed it into the corral yard.
‘We lost most of ’em on this trip, that’s true. But we’re learning,’ said Tallow. ‘And I’ve got three other gangs out there trapping as we speak – which reminds me . . .’
‘You want more money,’ said Garth wearily.
Solomon Tallow frowned. ‘You ever handled a kith gang, Garth?’
Garth looked down, his face burning.
‘No, didn’t think so,’ Solomon said. He nodded ahead at the other kith. ‘I got me a good bunch of men. This gang here worked hard.’ His dark eyes gleamed. ‘And I reckon they should be adequately rewarded for delivering such goddamn savage creatures up all meek and mild.’
Meek and mild! thought Garth. They looked half-dead.
‘I tell you something else,’ said Solomon as his wyrmehandlers pushed and prodded the wyrme across the planks laid over the trench, and into its stall.
‘What’s that?’ said Garth.
‘Me and the boys have got a hell of a thirst on,’ said Solomon, and he laughed. ‘I believe you’ve completed that tavern of yours since my first visit.’
Garth nodded. ‘We have,’ he said, and he reached into the inside pocket of his jacket for the leather pouch that nestled there. He retrieved it and tossed it across to Solomon. It landed in his outstretched hand with a satisfying jangle. ‘It’s all there,’ he said. ‘But I want the full complement of wyrmes next time.’
‘I would not have expected otherwise,’ said Solomon. He was smiling, but there was an edge to his voice that Garth couldn’t fail to notice. The gangleader held out his hand. ‘It’s a pleasure to do business with . . .’ He frowned. ‘What the—’
Garth Temple had brushed his hand aside and was dashing full-pelt back along the line of stalls. ‘No! No!’ he bellowed. ‘Stop! Ebenezer, STOP!’
In the first of the stalls, the stockhand was loosening the knot that bound the rope round the greywyrme’s muzzle to allow it to drink. Feeling its bindings slacken, the wyrme braced its jaws. The knot slipped completely and the rope flew off. The wyrme’s mouth opened in a great yawn – and a jet of yellow-white flame roared from its gaping maw.
The fire engulfed Ebenezer, who staggered backwards, arms raised and clothes and hair ablaze. He stumbled, fell.
Over by the split-rail fence, there were horrified screams and the plainsfolk scattered.
‘Help him!’ Garth cried out.
A wyrmehandler leaped forward and rolled the burning man over in the dust, while a second threw a thick trail-blanket over him to smother the flames. Meanwhile, Garth grabbed a wooden pail and dunked it in the trough, before tossing water into the face of the greywyrme. The air hissed and steamed as its breath was quenched for a moment, before another jet of flame poured from the wyrme’s mouth, furnace-hot and pinchnose pungent like molten rock, driving Garth back.
In the neighbouring stalls, the other wyrmes were stamping their feet, rearing up on their hindlegs and pawing at the air. They craned their necks. They rubbed the sides of their heads up against the gateposts or down at the edge of the trench, increasingly desperate to unshackle their own bindings, their frenzy fuelled by the unmuzzled wyrme, whose fiery breath slashed the air like a knife, until . . .
There was a thud.
Garth looked up in dismay. A heavy dullmetal crossbow bolt had embedded itself in the wyrme’s left eye.
‘Solomon,’ Garth gasped, seeing the gangleader lower his sidewinder and holster it in his overjacket.
The mighty creature tottered for a few seconds, then abruptly collapsed. It hit the ground in a cloud of dust, hindlegs stretched out behind it, front legs splayed and head lolling down into the trench.
Garth dropped his pail and hurried across to the stricken stockman. He crouched down, unwrapped the blanket. The smell of burning hair made him retch. Ebenezer was unconscious, the skin on the right side of his face red and raw and already puckering up.
The scars woul
d not be pretty, but at least Ebenezer was alive. Unlike the wyrme. Garth cursed under his breath. It meant the tally was down to eleven.
He looked round to see Solomon Tallow swaggering back across the yard, the other wyrmehandlers following him close behind. Anger and frustration flushed Garth’s cheeks and made his hands shake.
‘You killed it,’ he shouted after him.
‘Don’t mention it,’ Solomon’s voice floated back.
Nineteen
The proprietor of the new stockade climbed to his feet. Things surely were not going as smoothly as he’d hoped. Only eleven wyrmes in the corral. His head stockman burned and out of action. And he could already hear the plainsfolk muttering among themselves about these dangerous fire-breathing creatures.
‘Muzzled and they die of thirst. Unmuzzled and they burn you to a crisp.’
‘Happen we’d have been better off travelling with our oxen after all.’
‘Damn fool never thought it through . . .’
But Garth Temple had thought it through, to the very last detail. Treated with care and handled properly, these huge greywyrmes could be harnessed and used to transport the settlers up into the thin air of the high country. You just had to know how. And he, Garth Temple, did know how to handle greywyrmes.
Wyrmekind had always fascinated him, right from those earliest days as a trapper in the eastern valley country, and then, later, as a scrimshaw-den owner dealing in flameoil. He had studied their ways, learned how to handle them, and had developed a particular understanding of these great, gentle beasts. Slow to anger but deadly if provoked, the greywyrme needed careful handling, but Garth had the gift, an empathy, a closeness he felt every time he stared into their large doleful eyes.
He brushed the dust from his coat and entered the second of the stalls. His right hand gently rubbed the neck of the creature before him.
The plainsfolk at the split-rail fence were dispersing, going back to the bunkhouses and the tents, to tend cookfires and discuss their options over stewpots of bubbling barleymeal broth. He’d show them. He’d show them all.