by Chris Tookey
Rulf ran out of the boy’s own hut, barking furiously at the intrusion. The lizard-man turned and threw his spear, which buried itself in the sheepdog’s head.
Wyrd gasped. Hogfrid’s mother screamed. Clothilda screamed a third time as the gate opened and a gigantic bugbear strode in. He was more than nine feet high and swinging a massive club with rusty nails protruding from the end.
Clothilda pointed and was about to scream a fourth time when the bugbear’s club smashed into her skull and silenced her forever.
Her husband Rottbad threw himself at the giant bugbear but was lifted off the ground with ease and thrown against the palisade, where a couple of smaller, seven-foot bugbears finished him with broadswords, finally slicing off his head. One of the intruders held it up as a trophy and laughed.
It was a horrible sound, and Wyrd shuddered with a fear that stuck in his throat like a scrap of stale bread. A sickening sense of hopelessness brought bile up from his stomach. What had his village done to deserve this? Was this something to do with the bugbear pedlar? Was he somehow to blame?
The boy crawled to the edge of the watchtower, over Herdis’s lifeless, pathetic little body. He slid quickly down the ladder and ran to his parents’ hut, the furthest from the village gate.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw more bugbears coming through the main gate, grimly intent on slaughtering livestock and torching the palisade. Villagers were rushing hither and thither, armed with their inadequate weapons, attempting to stop the bugbears from burning down their buildings. Ulf the Elder abruptly joined his ancestors when a bugbear impaled him on a length of pointed palisade, torn down and improvised into a jagged spear.
Thrugg the blacksmith had his own anvil dropped on his head. A couple of bugbears grabbed Mildreth and tore her limb from limb. One started chewing on the meat of her thigh, until the chief bugbear turned and snarled at him.
“I’ve warned you before! No eating between meals!”
“Sorry, Dad,” said the junior bugbear. “She’s wonderfully tender.”
“Find the ape-boy!” roared the chief bugbear.
One of his followers broke off from the slaughter and pointed at Wyrd.
“Is that him?” he cried.
In reply, the chief bugbear gave a roar and started to charge, raising his massive club above his head. The panic-stricken boy hammered on the door of the hut.
“It’s me!” he cried. “Let me in!”
He heard the latch on the door open, and his father pulled him inside. The club smashed against the door and there was the sound of bugbear oaths.
“You must not be here,” said Gunnar. “You must escape into the woods!”
“They’ll have thought of that,” said Sieglinda. “They will be waiting for him.”
“But I’ve come to help you fight!” protested Wyrd.
“You cannot help us now,” said Gunnar. “Just save yourself!”
“Is this something to do with the horn?” asked Wyrd. “Is it the wyrd horn they’re after?”
“Not the horn,” said his mother. “It’s you! It’s you they seek!”
She retrieved the wyrd horn from where she had hidden it, inside the family chest.
“Take it! Climb on to the roof! And blow!” she said, wiping her face in a vain attempt to hold back the tears.
“What’s the point?” asked the boy, remembering that Herdis had been unable to make it sound.
“For you, it will sound,” said his father grimly, with a paternal pride that Wyrd had not seen in him before.
“Come with me!” cried the boy.
“No, by Odin! I will hold them off,” said Gunnar. “Go! Up the chimney!”
Wyrd’s mother grabbed a stool and helped him climb the chimney, which was so hot from the fire that it took skin off his hands and feet. When he had made it to the roof, he looked down at the village. Everything in it except his parents’ hut was burning. Chickens, geese and sheep scattered everywhere. The bugbears were butchering the sheep and the few surviving children, for sport.
Wyrd’s eyes filled with tears. The huge bugbear was busy setting fire to his family’s hut below him, the last in the village to go up in flames. The monster caught sight of the boy and pointed.
“Up there!” it roared. “Kill the ape-boy!”
Wyrd ducked, and flattened himself against the roof as arrows whistled past his head. He pressed the horn against his lips and blew.
A rich, sonorous boom, as though from a very deep trumpet, exploded from the horn. It seemed impossible that so loud a sound could emanate from so delicate an instrument.
Almost at the same moment, there was a huge thunderclap, followed a few seconds later by lightning. As torrential rain began to fall, the boy wept. He wept for his dog, his cousins and his parents battling against impossible odds and implacable aggressors. He wept that, somehow, innocently, he had brought all this upon the village. He wept, last of all, because he knew now that he had no chance of escaping being burned to death, impaled by arrows or chopped to pieces by the intruders.
He heard the front door of the hut crash open beneath him, and he crawled over the thatched roof to the top of the chimney. He looked down and saw his mother’s face staring up at him.
“Never forget we loved you,” she said.
The boy groaned in horror as a sword sliced off her head. Her face was instantly replaced with that of the biggest bugbear, grinning straight up at him. It was a moment that would haunt his nightmares until the end of his days.
Without thinking, the boy put a pebble in his slingshot and aimed it down the chimney. The monster roared as it hit him in the eye.
Wyrd staggered to his feet, knowing that it was only a matter of seconds before he too would be burned to death or slaughtered. He looked up at the dark clouds scudding across the stormy sky and felt rain and tears mingle on his face. And he gasped at the sight of something dark, huge and winged, first flying across the moon and then landing lightly on the roof beside him.
Close up, the monster seemed much less dark. At first it seemed to be made of silver but, as the flames of the burning village lit the creature, these could be seen more clearly to be silver-coloured feathers. The monster had the beak and wings of an eagle but the body of a massive lion, and it sniffed superciliously at the carnage it saw beneath him.
“Allo, squire,” it said, without moving its beak. “Come on up!”
The bottom of a rope ladder suddenly appeared beside Wyrd, who hesitated, never having seen a rope ladder before. Would it take his weight? And what was this vast, winged creature? Why had it come to save him? Where was he about to be taken?
“Look, squire, no offence,” continued the voice above him, “but your hut is on fire and you are about to become a bugbear kebab. This could be a good moment to get a move on, or we might all be history!”
Without stopping to think further, the boy climbed the rope ladder, grabbed the feathers of the monster and hauled himself on to its back. He found himself on the back part of a large saddle, on the front of which sat an extremely small person.
The extremely small person turned round to address him. He wore long pointed shoes that looked as if they had never been cleaned and a brown body suit with rags hanging off it. He looked as if he had recently been waylaid and robbed by a gang of desperate gravediggers. The most noticeable things about him, though, were his hair, beard and moustache, which covered most of his face and were a strikingly repellent shade of pink.
“Pleased to meet you,” said the strange, pink-haired being.
“Are you… a dwarf?” asked Wyrd, unsure if this was a polite thing to ask.
“I am,” said the dwarf. “And, in order to remove any possible misunderstanding from the outset, I know I smell unpleasant. The name is Drains.”
“Drains?”
“I know,” said Drains, wi
th a half-defiant, half-apologetic shrug. “Don’t ask. It’s a long story.”
The boy put his hand to his mouth, trying to stop himself from gagging at the smell of the dwarf, which was reminiscent of stale eggs, old socks and, it could not be denied, drains.
“I’m Wyrd,” said the boy.
“I thought you must be,” said the dwarf.
Drains tugged on the gryphon’s reins and shouted, “Hup!”
Obediently, the gryphon used its wings to rise off the roof and hover ten feet above the hut, the roof of which was now starting to burn.
“Hang on tight and don’t look down!” Drains advised the boy.
It was only when they were about thirty feet in the air that Wyrd did look down, to see the roof of his family’s hut consumed by fire. Outside, his father was fighting off three bugbears with his pitchfork, unaware of a hooded and cloaked figure coming up behind him. The boy cried out a warning but was too far away to be heard. He looked on helplessly as the hooded intruder produced a broadsword from beneath its cloak and raised it high in the air. The blade descended on Gunnar, cleaving his head and body in half.
The murderer looked up at Wyrd. The hood made it impossible to see the creature’s face, but Wyrd would never forget the huge, distinctive clasp on its cloak. It was in the shape of a silver dragon, with its wings outstretched and its tail curving upwards.
“I said don’t look down!” muttered the dwarf, impatiently. “And don’t waste your energy crying. We’ve a long way to fly.”
Wyrd tried to hunch up into the saddle, to give the rain as little surface area to fall on as possible. Drains appeared unaffected by wind or rain, protected perhaps by his extraordinary profusion of hair.
“What do you think of the gryphon?” asked the dwarf. “Lovely little mover, isn’t she? I reckon this one’s about twenty-five horsepower. Tremendous acceleration. It’s all in the tail, apparently. Mind you, I reckon it’s the wings on this one – metallic feathers, you see. Less wind resistance. Know much about gryphons, do you?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Marvellous creatures,” said Drains, “if you know how to handle them. Not as powerful as a top-of-the-range dragon, obviously, but then you never know when a dragon is going to turn nasty.”
As the gryphon flew on and on into the west, with the dwarf chattering on about alternative modes of aerial transport, Wyrd tried not to weep, but his breath came out of him in great sobs. He had to stop himself gagging at the pungent smell of Drains. And he still shivered with cold, terror and horror at everything he had seen.
Finally, he remembered his manners.
“Thank you for rescuing me,” he said.
“Don’t mention it,” said Drains, breaking off from his account of the wonders of riding a fully-grown unicorn. “It looked as if you were having a spot of bother down there. You’re not blubbing, are you?”
“I’m sorry. It’s my village, my parents, and Herdis, Hogfrid, they’re my cousins or possibly – I don’t know – maybe they were just friends,” said the boy, sniffing. “And Rulf, my dog. All dead.”
“Oh yeah?” said Drains.
“You don’t sound very concerned,” said the boy.
“Don’t I?”
“No.”
“Sorry about that. But the truth is,” said the dwarf, “I’ve been around a bit, on one form of transport or another, and I’ve seen more murders and massacres than you could shake a stick at. One more is neither here nor there to a dwarf of the world like me, who has witnessed at first hand man’s inhumanity to man, not to mention creature’s cruelty to creature, man’s inhumanity to creature or, in your case, creature’s inhumanity to man. They don’t call these the Dark Ages for nothing, you know.”
“So, you don’t care what happened to my family,” muttered the boy angrily.
“Not especially,” replied the dwarf, with the air of one unaccustomed to courting cheap popularity. “It’s not as if I knew them personally. I’m sure they were all very nice, but it’s not as if they were your blood relations.”
“What do you mean?”
“Look,” said the dwarf, “it was you who used the wyrd horn, wasn’t it? And your name is Wyrd? I haven’t gone and picked up the wrong bloke?”
“Yes. Here it is.” The boy pulled out the horn and showed it to him.
“In that case,” said Drains with an air of authority, “pull yourself together, squire. It’s not as if the people down there were related to you or anything.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, stroll on, you didn’t know? Oops! Me and my big mouth!” said Drains. “Try to forget what I just said.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“Oh, nothing, nothing,” said Drains. “Don’t point your slingshot at me – I’m only the driver.”
“What did you mean about my relations?”
“You’ll find out when the time is right,” said the dwarf, maddeningly.
“Who from?”
“Who do you think?” said Drains. “His nibs. That’s who.”
“Who’s his nibs?” asked Wyrd, but before the dwarf could reply he supplied his own answer. “I know, I know – I’ll find out soon enough.”
They flew on in silence, and flew, until they were flying over a long thin island off the western coast of Britain. Even in the dark, the boy could see that it was covered in woodland and green rolling hills.
“What’s that down there?” he asked.
“Lyonesse,” said Drains, pointing downwards. “Nice area – if you don’t mind elves.”
And they flew some more, until the boy could see a dark moor beneath them.
“There’s Wingletang Down! We’re nearly there!” called the dwarf cheerily.
“Nearly where?” asked Wyrd.
“Atlantis, of course.”
4
Atlantis
In which our hero encounters his first wizard
A few minutes later, Drains said, “Hold on tight! We’re going down!”
They alighted on a big black rock, one of many that jutted out of the sea in a great bay. Even though the night wasn’t stormy, wild waves were smashing against the cliffs with a mighty roar. A mother seal protecting her young pup from the spray took one look at the gryphon and rolled off the rock, sideways into the water. Taking her pup in her mouth, she swam off to a more secluded, less smelly spot.
The dwarf looked around.
“Oh, yeah, great,” he said sarcastically. “This is just so absolutely typical. He’s only not here. I could have sworn he said Hell Bay. I mean, this is definitely the place. Still, never mind, I’ve done my bit. I expect he’ll be along in a moment. Right, squire, this is where you get off. Toodle-oo.”
He lowered the rope ladder and indicated for the boy to descend.
“I’ll be seeing you,” said Drains, obviously meaning the opposite.
“But you can’t leave me here!” cried Wyrd. “I can’t swim! And I’m frozen!”
“You don’t sound very grateful,” remarked the dwarf. “You could have burned to death back there, and now you’re complaining about the cold!”
“Hrmph!” said the gryphon, in a peremptory fashion, as though indignant that the two of them were arguing. It turned its head through 180 degrees, like an extremely oversized owl, and nodded towards a cliff on the mainland. There, a lantern could be seen swinging from side to side, as though to attract attention.
“Well spotted,” said Drains. “That must be his nibs.”
Drains pulled up the rope ladder and they flew towards the lantern. A dark shape, that appeared at first to be rock, rose to its feet and strode towards them.
He was a man of about sixty with a grey beard, dark brown robes and an implausibly tall magician’s hat, which he removed with a flourish.
“Welcome t
o Atlantis!” he said, removing a gold coin from his hat and tossing it to Drains, who instantly pocketed it.
From somewhere inside his cloak, the stranger produced a large salmon and presented it to the gryphon, which swallowed it in a single gulp.
“And now, Drains, be off with you!” ordered the man.
“You see?” said Drains to the boy. “That’s all the thanks I get. Ruddy wizards! Treat you like muck.”
“And for goodness’ sake, wash!” said the stranger to the dwarf. “You smell even more disgusting than usual.”
“I can’t bleeding help it,” mumbled Drains. “It’s a curse.”
“Thank you, Matilda,” said the stranger to the gryphon. “Your debt to me is paid. You are free to go.”
The gryphon inclined her head gracefully and flew away.
“What about me?” demanded Drains.
“Be off with you! I next require your services,” said the stranger, “at the High King’s court in Tintagel.”
“And how am I going to get there?” asked the dwarf. “You’ve only gone and sent away my only means of transport.”
“Not at all,” said the stranger. “I have found you a unicorn.”
He whistled, and a small, round pony with a long, shaggy mane trotted up. It would have looked exactly like a Shetland pony, were it not for its wings and the long brown horn in the middle of its forehead.
“Call that a unicorn?” said Drains. “Aren’t they meant to be bigger? And white?”
“He’s quite big enough for a dwarf,” said the man.
“Charming,” said Drains.
“Besides,” said the man, “he’s very economical.”
“He looks like he eats a lot,” said Drains doubtfully.
“But he can go a very long way on a full stomach,” replied the stranger. “He’s low maintenance and environmentally friendly.”
“Does he talk?” asked the dwarf.
“I don’t believe so.”
“Well, that’s a relief, at any rate,” said Drains. “I can’t stand flying creatures that answer back. What’s his name?”