by Robin Jarvis
“Did you?” came the soft reply. “Then you were much mistaken. The one-legged nomad was most welcome in our city, and held in high esteem by those who sit upon the Green Council. He will be sorely missed by all who knew him and when we return to our city there shall be a day of mourning in remembrance of him. Ashes shall be strewn in the winding streets and his likeness carved above the thousand steps that climb the holy mountain. Our poets will compose verses to praise him, for his was a wearisome burden but he complained never.”
Chattan’s eyes stared into the distance and he became lost in a memory that returned the smile to his lips.
“For my part,” he said with a sigh, “my grief will be tempered with the recollections of the times he honoured me by sharing the contents of his flask.”
Stirring from his reverie he looked back at the two mice.
“It is obvious to me that you have much to tell,” he said, “but such tales must wait. We came only to give aid and do battle with our foes, yet we have come too late. The enemy has departed over the seas and what harm they have done here, well it does not take the book-learning of one of our scholars to imagine the slaughter that awaits our fearful vision.”
Lowering his sharp-nosed face, he gazed down at the glittering fragment in his grasp, then stared up at the White Mountains which were gleaming in the sunlight and narrowed his eyes at the spiralling smoke that still climbed above the trees.
“First we must make certain,” he said, rising to his feet and pulling the helmet back onto his head. “Though these folk are harmless, it is clear that within this region there are still members of the Scale. Now we must march to the Temple of the Twelve Maidens and see in truth the terrible deeds that have been committed in that most hallowed place.”
The warriors lifted up their spears and shouted dreadful war cries, but before leading them away, Captain Chattan instructed Karim to remain with Woodget and Thomas until his return.
“For your own safety,” he assured them. “Our armour may protect us from the darts and claws of our enemies, but you would wither at the first stroke. Do not despair of Karim Bihari’s company; to friends he is more gentle than his appearance suggests. Have no more fear of losing your necks. Now that he knows you are not a follower of the Coiled One, my lieutenant shall guard you with his own life.”
With that he led the others away and they marched into the meadow and towards the pine woods.
Alone on the shore with the mice, Karim returned his sword to its sheath and sat down with a jangling clank of his armour.
“I have no wish to see what awaits them,” he said, driving the shaft of his spear into the sand. “We were delayed too long to be of any use here. The Scales have preceded us, only death will they discover.”
“If you don’t mind,” Thomas began, truculently folding his arms and frowning at the warrior, “I think it’s time you told us who you lot are and what you’re doing.”
Karim’s eyes twinkled at him from inside the helmet. Then, with a sweep of his arms, the warrior removed the headgear and they found themselves looking at a creature similar to Chattan.
But here was a chubby face covered by dark red fur and a grinning mouth filled with large white teeth. Upon his forehead were stripes of ochre-coloured paint and a mane of ginger hair flowed down the back of his powerful neck. About the jovial jowls grew a thick, russet beard that was plaited into three short knots and in both of the small ears there was a row of silver hoops and studs. When he took off the gauntlets the mice saw that upon the large paws there were also many rings and silver bangles that rattled and tinkled at his wrists.
“You have never seen a mongoose before?” he cried in amusement. “Where have you been hiding? Are there none of my kin in your country?”
“Mongoose?” Woodget replied, repeating the unfamiliar word until he became used to it. “No, there bain’t be no mongeeses by Betony Bank. Not that I ever heard—only a gaggle of scruffy ordin’ry goose birds with honking beaks what me and our Cudweed used to pester and tease.”
“Betony Bank,” Karim uttered. “That is a curious-sounding land, outside of my experience. Upon our ship there are many charts; you must declare to me in which ocean this place lies.”
Thomas glanced at the water’s edge where the borders of the great island of fog still curled over the waves.
“Is your ship in there?” he asked.
Karim nodded. “Yes,” he said, “in the centre of that enchanted mist the Chandi is moored. She is the finest of our fleet.”
“But why do it lurk in that there fog?” Woodget chirped.
“So we may cross the seas in secret,” Karim answered with a laugh. “How else ought we to journey? The servants of the Scale are everywhere, it is not well for them to know all our ways and destinations. Always have the ships of Hara voyaged cloaked within vapours woven by our wise folk. Yet this, like so many other of our works, have the disciples of Gorscarrigern copied and turned to their own accursed purpose. A ship of their own do they possess, a golden vessel whose gilded timbers are tempered in blood and whose hideous prow inspires terror and dread.
“Within the eye of a storm does Kaliya, their slave-worked ship travel, and, when its thunderous passing mars the waters, no other craft, unless some powerful sorcery protects it, can endure the violence which rages in its wake.”
The mongoose gazed around the shore, at the wreckage of the Calliope, and sighed forlornly.
“I would guess that is what became of these poor folk,” he muttered. “On our voyage we saw the tempest’s fury in the distance and, recognizing the evil within, Captain Chattan steered the Chandi straight at its heart. But the Scales did not linger here, soon their hellish vessel veered aside and the storm drove east then south to avoid us.”
Tutting to himself, he sucked his teeth and preened the orange feathers that adorned his silver helmet.
“Many of us thought it would have been better to pursue that heathen crew to the bitter end of their journey,” he added, “but our captain would not have it so. To these ravaged shores he delivered us and here we found you. Forgive my earlier eagerness to separate your heads from your bodies, it has been a long voyage and there was hope of battle at its end. I fear my enthusiasm got the better of me.”
“Hang on,” Thomas interrupted. “Where did you say you sailed from—Hara, was it?”
Woodget blinked and stared at his friend in surprise until Karim put down his headgear and asked, “You have heard of my city?”
“That’s where Mulligan told us we were to go,” the fieldmouse announced, “To see ‘the Holy One’—ain’t that right Tom?”
Karim stroked his knotted beard thoughtfully. “Chattan will wish to hear your tale in full when he returns,” he said, “and you had best wait until then for the account of it, in case it grows stale with a second telling.”
“Mulligan made me promise to take that golden thing to your city,” Woodget confessed, “but I haven’t even got it no more—your captain still has it.”
Karim eyed him keenly. “Have no fear for that treasure,” he muttered. “Chattan Giri has no desire to steal it from you. When he learns your story I am sure he will return it to your care. Only a fool or a member of the Scale would lust after such an unwholesome device.”
“The Scale,” Thomas murmured, “But I thought...”
Above them a seagull suddenly burst into a raucous squawking as it rode the air and Thomas sprang to his feet.
“While we’re waitin’ for your lads to come back,” he said quickly, “me and Woodj’d like to finish off buryin’ them what’s dead, if that’s all right with you.”
“So, you bury your dead in the land of Betony Bank,” Karim remarked. “In Hara we inter them in the tombs cut under the mountain, if they do not die in battle away from our walls. But I respect your custom and will assist you in the labour, if you will allow me.”
“Course we will!” Woodget cried. “The more the...” abruptly the fieldmouse coughed as he real
ised what he was about to say and trudged off up the sandbank, grieved by his lack of thought and consideration for his deceased fellow travellers.
When nearly three hours had passed and the late morning was growing uncomfortably hot, Thomas and Karim had found all the bodies that lay scattered upon the beach and into the wide grave they had reverently been placed.
“Green guard and keep you,” Thomas murmured as the last spadeful of sand was patted down on top of them and the grave marked by a notice written upon one of the Calliope’s timbers.
With the dark, poisonous sludge that remained of Mulligan, neither mouse knew what to do and they feared to venture near it again. But they desperately wished to honour him and lay his soul to rest, so steeling their nerves, they took up their shovels again and stepped into the meadow.
“Wait,” the mongoose told them. “There is nothing you can do for the Irish nomad. Be content that his agonies are over. To bury that putrid slurry would only lock the venom into the ground and the soil would die utterly. In such cases it is best to leave it to the action of sun and rain. Let the weather destroy the blood of Gorscarrigern. In time only a bald patch of earth shall be here but who knows, maybe plants will grow again—then will Mulligan’s spirit be truly appeased.”
“But we can’t just leave him like this,” Woodget muttered. “He can’t go unnoticed for folk to trample by and not know he lies here.”
“Then build a mound of stones beside the reeking mire,” Karim suggested. “Yet take care not to go too close. The very fumes can spin the senses and cause you to fall into its foulness.”
And so they collected a great quantity of large and heavy pebbles and piled them high, near to the spot where Mulligan’s life had ended. Then, upon a large piece of wood, Thomas scratched the peg-leg’s name, wedged it in place for all to see and dismally the mice bade their travelling companion farewell.
Woodget closed his eyes and offered up a silent prayer, then blew upon his calloused and blistered paws.
Wiping the sweat from his forehead, Karim leaned upon his makeshift spade and puffed out his round cheeks. As the strongest of the three he had done most of the hard work, except in the building of the stone mound, for that was a personal tribute and although he revered Mulligan as a valiant figure, the grief of Thomas and Woodget was deeper and more intimate and he did not intrude upon their solemn toil.
In the short time he had known them, the mongoose had grown increasingly fond of Thomas and Woodget. The mice who dwelt in his city were so serious and po-faced that he had never considered them to be an interesting race worthy of attention—with the exception of the Irish nomad—but this pair were far different from them.
Although the fieldmouse had not mentioned it to anyone, his tender paws were causing him much pain, but diligently and without a murmur of complaint he had pushed himself as hard as his little strength allowed. Karim admired him for that and was touched by his insistence on the matter of Mulligan’s epitaph.
As for Thomas, the lieutenant was amazed at how many of the dead he had already carried up the sandbank. For such a small creature he was deceptively strong and capable. He approved of the way the mouse was not daunted by any task and marvelled that he did not balk at the hideous work, but stoically plodded on with it until the job was over.
“You have the hearts of mongooses,” he complimented them when all was complete. “Now, let us return to the sands and talk no more of death for a while.”
So from the vicinity of the freshly-dug graves they walked in silence, all three lost in their own thoughts, and returned at last to the place where they had sat before. But they were not there for long when Woodget’s acute hearing detected the return of Captain Chattan and the others.
Hurriedly Karim struggled back into the armour which he had discarded in the heat of the digging and stood to attention as they waited for the company to emerge from the meadow.
Presently the sound of their marching grew closer and through the twisted hedge they came. Even though the plumed helmets still covered their heads, Karim could tell that their faces were drained and horror shone in their dark eyes.
Captain Chattan greeted his lieutenant with a hollow, stricken voice and Woodget and Thomas wondered at the change that had come over him. He seemed shrunken, bowed by a great weight and they noticed that the paw which gripped his spear was trembling.
“You did well to remain here, Karim,” Chattan uttered, “for the shrine was defiled and the grove burned. As to the maidens who tended the place... we built a great pyre and now the sacred grove burns anew.”
He cleared his throat then turned to the warriors behind him and gave a signal. “Bring him forward,” he cried. “Let us see if the idiot’s claim is true.”
From the rear of the company two mongooses came, holding some wriggling thing between them and, although he could not see over the plumed heads of those who barred his view, Woodget clapped his paws in delight when he heard a familiar voice whimpering in woeful dismay.
“Oh Lordy, you’ve landed yerself in enough hot water now to boil an effylump—a right picklingfixbunkeredholepinchingcleftstick this is and no mistake. Oh my, oh my, oh my! What’ll become of me?”
“Dimmy!” Thomas and Woodget shouted with one voice.
Before Captain Chattan, Dahrem Ruhar was hauled, but into the innocuous and unassuming role of Dimlon, the simple young mouse, he had once again slithered and slipped.
As Mulligan had lumbered through the meadow, spilling his frothing blood over the spring flowers, the consummately vicious and irredeemably evil servant of the Dark Despoiler, Dahrem Ruhar, had crowed with devilish glee and leaped after his staggering prey.
Then, through those lidless, reptilian eyes he had seen the one-legged mouse stumble straight into Thomas and Woodget and his fangs glistened in the early sunlight as Dahrem contemplated the sport he could have with two further victims.
Flourishing the curved blades upon his claws, he had stolen through the grasses, saliva dribbling from his jaws in eager anticipation of the ghastly entertainments that would be his to relish. First Thomas would feel the deadly swipe of his talons, but the fieldmouse was another matter—what delight there would be in harrying that puny yokel.
Cackling softly to himself, Dahrem imagined the plaintive cries as the irritating bumpkin pleaded for his life, and when he tired of his squeaky grovelling, he conjured up a hundred horrendous horrors to inflict upon him before he perished.
But, even as the infernal disciple of Scarophion had crept closer, glimpsing the faces of his enemies through the stems of the yellow flax and preparing to pounce and strike them down, his schemes were dashed and toppled in total ruin.
Up the sandbank, the armoured warriors came striding and through the hedge they burst with their spears blazing in the sun. Hastily, Dahrem withdrew, squirming back through the grasses, slinking upon his belly like a wriggling serpent and a bitter curse hissed from his quivering lips.
Away from those fierce soldiers he fled, for he recognised them well enough and knew from whence they came. But now his malicious strategies were in disarray and the triumph that was so nearly his was fading fast. There was no way he could fight such a company of armed warriors from the city of Hara, so he organised his malignant wits and set his treacherous mind in motion to plot and consider his next move.
Swiftly that base, iniquitous brain worked and when he formed a grotesque and guileful plan, like a repulsive spider, Dahrem took up a position at the edge of the wood and there he waited in a cringing, curled up ball—ready for the troops to discover him.
There would be time enough later to contrive a way to fulfil his ultimate goal and claim the ninth fragment. Cunning and stealth had always won him his desires and this would prove no great challenge; even warriors needed sleep and attacks were always best received when least expected. No, for the present at least, his dignity would have to suffer further affronts and injuries as he reforged the disguise he had worn upon the Calliope.
Now, when the guards brought him before Captain Chattan, he was staring wildly in mock fear at the bright spears that surrounded him and his head lolled feebly upon his long neck.
“Oh Dimmy!” Woodget rejoiced, rushing forward to fling his arms about the pale grey mouse’s neck. “I didn’t think I’d ever be cheered on this awful day, but I’m so glad to see you I could burst!”
“However did you manage it?” Thomas cried, shaking him vigorously by the paw and clapping him on the back.
Dahrem squeaked with feigned joy to see them, whilst at the same time he laughed inside, scorning their friendship. Those fools were his guarantee of safety from this proud, parading rabble, they would confirm his false identity and so place him beyond the suspicion of that haughty captain.
How ironic that these self-same creatures whom he had been most eager to slaughter would now be his deliverers. Yet still Dahrem yearned to murder them and he prayed to his foul master that the opportunity would present itself again. Even while Woodget hugged him, the desire to rip out his throat burned within his black heart and he ached to drape himself in Thomas’s entrails and lop off his snout.
But such luxurious pleasures would have to wait, for the moment he had to humble himself once more and wear the guise of Dimlon.
“W... W... Woody!” he cried, gibbering with fake emotion. “And Tommy too! It’s a miracle, a blessuspinchmewakefulstonkingwonder this is—a real finominy! I thought you pair were goners for sure, me an’ old Mulligan both did.”
With his suspicious gaze trained upon Dahrem’s expertly elated face, Captain Chattan spoke to Woodget and Thomas, but not once did his eyes leave that beaming mask.
“Then this dunceling is known to you?” he addressed them. “We found him by the eaves of the wood, quivering like the spawn of the swamp frogs. I did not believe his tale—he claimed to have been washed ashore with the Irish nomad and together they ventured to the Shrine of Virbius. There they were attacked by a single member of the Scale and Mulligan was wounded, but this craven lout did flee and soon became lost in the darkness.