The Wanderer's Tale

by David Bilsborough

  But before he had a chance to ponder further, the man had placed a brawny hand on Flametongue’s hilt and snatched it away from him.

  Immediately the light dimmed as the sun went behind a cloud, and high, screeching voices sang in a wind that suddenly sprang up from nowhere, bending the treetops. Everyone, Bolldhe included, looked up in alarm.

  Then the cloud passed, and the wind died.

  The thief shrugged, and turned his attention back to the sword. ‘Do for starters,’ he assessed, and tossed it over to his brother. Still staring up at the trees, the other caught it by the hilt, then lowered his perturbed eyes to the flamberge. He turned it this way and that, thoughtfully, while the first one continued searching Bolldhe for any items of worth.

  He swiftly pocketed Bolldhe’s shark-tooth necklace with its beautiful pearl, and handed out the other items of worth to his accomplices: the scimitar brooch-pin, the garnet-studded leather belt, those heavy jade bracelets, even Bolldhe’s prized lizard-hide waterskin – all those beloved souvenirs of lands he had travelled through, places which were further distant than anyone save he himself even had the wit to imagine! He burned at the loss of these dear possessions.

  But not at the loss of Flametongue; for all he could care, they were welcome to that horrible thing.

  The leader finally tore his gaze from the flamberge and looked over to his brother. ‘Right, that’s everything, is it, Cuthwulf?’ he asked, still slightly preoccupied. ‘Fine, let’s get back to the others, then; they should be finished by now. Flekki, bind the citizen and bring him along.’

  The Hauger, cloaked, hooded and robed almost like a monk, waddled across to Bolldhe, unstrung a length of rusty copper wire from her belt and, while the Grell held their prisoner’s hands behind his back, bound him painfully by the wrists. She was a River Hauger, Bolldhe could tell as clearly from her garb as from her odour. For the clothes smelt permanently musty with river-mist, and had the hue of pond scum; even the array of brass tools at her belt were green with damp. As she made fast her flesh-cutting bonds, Flekki eyed Bolldhe with a face as grey, hard and calculating as any of her kin, but with an additional hint of the swagger-and-leer of her present company. Gods, she was ugly.

  ‘Bind him tight with copper wire,

  Blind his sight with drop o’ fire,

  Bake him, break him, never tire,

  Make his aching proper dire.’

  Thus she sang as she went about her work. When she was done, she pulled a pata onto her hand, and with it prodded Bolldhe to get moving.

  He stared down at her in disbelief. The pata was similar to Paulus’s punch-dagger, though it was attached to a gauntlet and was as long as a shortsword. Bolldhe was well aware that it was a favourite tool of the assassin’s trade. Just what under the sun were these people?

  Just as they were about to leave the glade, the leader paused for a second and turned back to Bolldhe. ‘And, friend,’ he called out to him, ‘pull your breeches up, there’s a good chap.’

  Eotunlandt may not have altered in any real way since his capture, but to Bolldhe’s eyes the whole land had now been drained of all its beauty and enchantment. It was as cold, hard and lifeless as any rocky wilderness, and as grey as ash; if there were to be any warmth or colour now, it would be in a hot splash of red.

  The burn on his face was by now shooting needles of intense pain deep into his head, causing him to feel acutely nauseous. He was also sweating freely, but this was not just with fear. The air had changed, had become clammy as the jungle, close as hay fields on a late summer evening. And this, he was sure, was not just down to his own imagination.

  From somewhere far up ahead, voices now came to him upon the sluggish currents of air. Voices thick with rage, sour with violence. One voice in particular. As they got closer, Bolldhe could hear that it was Nibulus’s voice; he was spewing forth a seemingly inexhaustible gush of highly imaginative double-barrelled profanities, though to whom, and for what reason, Bolldhe dared not allow himself to think just yet.

  It was, then, with a truly sinking heart that Bolldhe beheld his travel companions. In a bluebell-hazed meadow that sloped down from a copse of ancient and twisted oaks, they stood. In a circle around Zhang. Facing out. Weapons before them.

  Encircled by the rest of the thieves.

  Bolldhe looked with dismay at this additional bunch. Again there were seven of them, four men, a woman, another Hauger, and something he had never seen before in his life, a Dhracus. Like Bolldhe’s captors, they also had that air of deranged, gleeful bloodletting about them.

  There was no fighting as yet, but a cacophony of heated dialogue that clogged the air with a veritable tephra-fall of fury. Nibulus’s salient diatribe, from what Bolldhe could make out at this distance, seemed to be aimed not at the marauders ranged before him but at the two priests, both of whom were clearly refusing to obey his orders to ‘get stuck in’. He was un-armoured, as he had been ever since they had entered Eotunlandt, but from the manner in which he gripped Unferth, it was clear his defiance was undiminished.

  ‘. . . What’s the matter with you both? I’ve been outnumbered by far worse odds than this before! Just fight, will you?’

  But they would not. Wodeman was on the ground, trying groggily to get up whilst still clutching at a deep gash across his forehead. Paulus was clearly waiting for Bolldhe to come back and even things up a little, and so he stood poised but unmoving. With his bastard-sword held at half-guard, he stared expressionlessly back at the masked thief before him who was trying to menace him with an assortment of weird weapons.

  And Kuthy, well, he’d buggered off ages ago.

  Bolldhe was shoved on roughly, then shoved again harder so that he staggered and almost lost his footing. Finally he was kicked in the back so hard that he flew forwards, failed to recover his balance and pitched towards the ground. Though at the last moment he managed to twist his head round to avoid hitting the ground with the burnt side of his face, still the impact almost knocked him senseless, and he cried out in agony as sharp tips of grass nearly punctured his crisped skin.

  Powerful hands wrenched him back to his feet, and again he was propelled onwards. This time he needed no encouragement to hurry.

  Whoops of jubilation passed between the two groups of thieves as they were reunited, and a volley of coarse, derisory bawls and obscene gestures were launched at the beleaguered travellers. If there had been any stalemate previously, it was now over.

  Nibulus, who had also been hoping for Bolldhe to return, now looked up and saw him. He also saw the company he had brought back with him, saw his hands tied behind his back, and saw the Hauger’s pata held at his neck. His jaw slackened.

  ‘Bolldhe, you stupid prat!’ he roared. ‘What are you doing?’ He was so angry he did not know which leg to stand on.

  ‘I’ve just come back to rescue you all,’ Bolldhe cried between gasps. ‘Isn’t it obvious?’

  One of the men from the second group called out something in an unknown tongue to the leader of Bolldhe’s captors as they approached. He was a short, stocky man in his late thirties, who stood out from the rest of his bizarre companions simply because he looked so ordinary. His short hair, heavy red face and mundane clothing gave him the appearance of a builder rather than a thief.

  He did, however – and this was the absolutely pivotal detail – have a huge morning star at his belt, and moreover he was currently pointing a large blunderbuss directly at Nibulus.

  As the two groups came together again, they outnumbered their prey fourteen to four, not counting the incapacitated Bolldhe and Wodeman. Surrender, it seemed to Bolldhe, was inevitable, further debate a formality, and resistance was suicide.

  So why, in all that was sacred, was Nibulus still standing there waving his sword about? Bolldhe’s insides began to churn and twist anew, and a black weight descended upon his soul; he could almost hear his last seconds of life ticking away.

  Whatever it was the blunderbuss-man had said, though, caused the le
ader of Bolldhe’s thieves to shake his head in disagreement. He jerked his thumb at Bolldhe, and replied in the same language. This, however, was met with an unequivocally curt response from the smaller man, and surprisingly the mitre-bearer backed down. Sneering in rancour, he turned back to Bolldhe and spoke again.

  ‘Tell your fellows to yield. They have no chance now. Just give us your valuables, your weapons, your horse, and go!’

  All eyes were now on Bolldhe. He cleared his dry throat, and translated what he had been told. From the Aescals there came a buzz of relief that communication was now possible. There was also a hint of admiration for their failed rescuer, though Bolldhe was too scared to feel any pride.

  ‘You understand them, Bolldhe?’ Nibulus asked with hope in his voice. Then he added, ‘What the hell’s happened to your face?’

  ‘Shaving accident,’ Bolldhe replied. ‘And yes, I do – it’s my own language, sort of. And I strongly urge you to do as he says.’

  ‘No secret messages,’ the pig-eyed brute warned, and held the needle-sharp point of his Kh’is to Bolldhe’s eyeball.

  Just then there was movement within the circle, and all faces turned to see Wodeman heaving himself back to his feet. Not dazedly, as might be supposed from his wound, but staunchly, and with his staff gripped in firm hands. It was as if he had deliberately remained upon the ground in order to draw strength from the earth, in preparation for the Antaean task ahead. And there he stood now, meeting with calm, steady eyes the glare of the enemy, looking a formidable adversary, an imposing presence, his heroic stance only slightly lessened by the wolf’s-head cowl that, with its snout now sliced off, lolled down one side of his head looking more like a very sick cat.

  ‘That’s the spirit!’ breathed Nibulus to his weird comrade with a grin.

  Bolldhe, however, merely adjusted in his mind the odds to fourteen to five.

  ‘Just do as they say,’ he croaked to Nibulus. ‘Now, please?’ He waited for the Peladane’s response, while rillets of sweat poured down his brow. The air truly was growing stifling now.

  Nibulus’s eyes never left those of the man with the blunderbuss. The Peladane did not recognize what was being pointed at him, but he knew well the ways of war and there was something undeniably unnerving about staring down a huge, flanged barrel aimed directly at one’s head by a boar-faced, red-eyed maniac with a body like a Jutul’s, bracing his legs as if against some potential force. With the rapidity of a heart’s fibrillation, words now flickered through his mind: half-recalled, half-heard, words spoken in hushed tones around the campfires of the bivouac on the eve of battle in some distant, eucalyptus-scented land: Mascot? Mess kit? Miss-cut? Moss cat . . . ?

  But the word eluded him, and so did its rumour. A second or two passed, and something in the lines around Nibulus’s mouth told Bolldhe he had now made a decision.

  ‘Get ready to elbow that bastard in the guts as soon as I strike, Bolldhe,’ he said levelly. Bolldhe’s eyes widened.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Nibulus added with genuine regret in his voice, ‘but they’ll slaughter us as soon as we stand down.’

  ‘No!’ hissed Appa, and grasped the Peladane’s Ulleanh. The thieves meanwhile readied their weapons.

  ‘Yes,’ Finwald interjected. ‘They will kill us. Haven’t you guessed yet? They’re from Tyvenborg.’

  Appa’s face faded rapidly from its usual xanthic yellow to a pumice-grey.

  Tyvenborg. That name was a byword for ruthlessness and knavery throughout the North-west. For time out of mind the malefactors of the ‘Thieves’ Mountain’ had festered within their fortress like a swollen pustule, to regularly leak down into the unhappy lands around. Situated deep within the wild mountains in Pendonium’s easternmost reaches, it had over the years attracted all the maggots of the surrounding area to it like an open sore.

  The language Bolldhe now translated (though it was only now he realized it) was the Cant of Tyven, a bastardized, simplified version of Pendonian, cross-bred with the tongues of its neighbours. The presence here of the dwellers of Hrefna and Godtha too – it all fell into place. Only a dive like Tyvenborg could spew forth such a mixed bag of lepers as this.

  And the followers of the robber-baron Mordra-Culver shared no love for any man associated with the High Warlord Godwin Morocar, bitter enemies as they were.

  The man with the blunderbuss, apparently the leader, stared hard at Nibulus. Never before had he met with such defiance in the face of such odds. His large, sad eyes glared at the Peladane’s, and he guessed what was going on. He shuffled uncomfortably.

  ‘Dolen!’ he shouted at the Dhracus. ‘Tdap-dhna hwic’ oichnidz?’

  The Dhracus cocked her head oddly, tipped back the peak of her legionnaire’s cap, and her hitherto veiled eyes now glistened intensely as they probed those of the Peladane. Nibulus wavered uncertainly, strangely beguiled by those coal-black eyes, set as they were in a face that was too white to be alive, yet too perfect to be a ghoul’s.

  Then her blue lips parted with a hiss:

  ‘Nycweh luwkou koiu nadh h’diw!’ she growled, and immediately the thieves prepared to attack. Bolldhe clenched his eyes uselessly against the Kh’is. One thief, a man in colourful silks who had been eyeing the baggage – and especially Nibulus’s armour that was strapped onto the horse – made a grab for Zhang’s reins, and was unceremoniously kicked back several yards for his efforts. As shouts rose into the air, Bolldhe drew back his elbow in preparation for the required jab.

  ‘THAT’S ENOUGH!’ bellowed a voice suddenly, and everyone immediately halted.

  It was the leader. He had lowered his blunderbuss and spoke now to Bolldhe in Cant.

  ‘So maybe we will kill you if you disarm,’ he said, ‘and maybe we won’t; it’s a chance you’ll have to take. ’Cause if you don’t obey, you will certainly die . . .’

  Not waiting for a response, he laid his blunderbuss upon the grass and followed it with his morning star. Bolldhe hurriedly began to translate, hoping that the urgency in his voice might delay the slaughter to come.

  ‘Take a look around you,’ the leader said. ‘We’re thieves. We steal. But we only kill if needs be.’

  It seemed to be working. For the moment.

  The leader left his weapons where he had laid them and walked around, introducing his band of cut-throats.

  ‘I am Eorcenwold, and I give the orders. And this,’ he said, placing his hand on the mantled shoulder of the mitre-bearer, ‘is Brother Oswiu Garoticca, Priest-Assassin of the Order of Cardinal Saloth. He is my brother, too, brother number one as it were. I can see by your face that you are already aware of what his mitre is capable of, and don’t underestimate that blade at your eye, either. It sucks souls: a very useful tool for his cult.’

  Bolldhe was translating as best he could, but he hesitated at this last. Does my eye have a soul? he wondered.

  ‘Brother number two,’ Eorcenwold went on, indicating the blond horsetailed rogue with the voulge, ‘once visited the Caves of Aggedon, where that pole-axe of his slew a Fossegrim. And he has never wiped its poison from the blade, have you, Cuthwulf?’

  The blood of the Sea-Wyrms of Aggedon was reputed to be worse than the vilest man-made toxin in the world.

  ‘And my sister, Aelldryc,’ he continued, but did not elaborate on her prowess. Like him, Aelldryc was short and of unremarkable appearance, unthreatening save for the two-handed glaive she held in trembling hands.

  ‘The Little People: Khurghan, Flekki and Brecca,’ Eorcenwold pointed out the Polg and two Haugers. ‘Don’t judge them by their size; Khurghan’s accuracy is second to none throughout the hunting grounds, and even his tribe cast him out for being too barbaric!’

  Bolldhe avoided the gaze of the belligerent little thug, who toyed with his weapons like a feral child.

  ‘Flekki, too, has some interesting missiles,’ Eorcenwold said of the River Hauger’s tiny metal throwing-rings. ‘There are some intriguing substances coated on those chakrams. You never know what
you’ll get from them – quick-killing poison, crippling agony, paralysis, impotence or any other imaginative effect her cunning little alchemical brain can devise.’

  The thief-sergeant for some reason neglected to detail the skills of Brecca, the second, rather innocuous Hauger. Certainly this thin, slightly hunched Stone Hauger held no apparent threat, or even any real weapons unless one counted the piton hammer and adze, the only two of many tools at his belt that might cause even modest harm. He was a solemn, careful, even timid-looking Hauger, who seemed to favour means of defence rather than offence; he held a large shield of iron-banded wood on one arm, another strapped to his back, and wore an iron cap beneath his hood.

  Instead Eorcenwold moved on to introduce the masked man who was facing up to Paulus. Little of his lithe, greasy frame was hidden by his sleeveless tunic, but what his face looked like beneath that large helmet, none of the company could guess. Only a pair of cold, red-rimmed eyes could be seen behind the heavy face-shield. In fact, had it not been for the long strands of igneous-blue hair that trailed down his back, the fact that he was a half-Grell would have gone unnoticed.

  What was of more immediate concern to Bolldhe, though, was the veritable arsenal of weaponry he carried. A two-headed battle-axe was strapped across his back, and an ornate scimitar was sheathed at his side. In each hand he held extraordinary weapons:

  ‘Cerddu-Sungnir’s manople may look wicked enough . . .’ Eorcenwold warned of the sword that was attached to the iron gauntlet in the half-Grell’s left hand.

  ‘Preying Mortis,’ the half-breed hissed, introducing his favourite toy, ‘will eat your heart, and leave the rest for me.’

  ‘. . . but that crossbow is the real danger; it can fire five quarrels at a time. And the scimitar is a Dancing Sword, that can fight on its own.’

  Cerddu-Sungnir’s eyes widened in malign expectancy. Like the other thieves, he was enjoying every bit of this. The leader’s roll-call of their weaponry was as sweet to him as the gloating of a torturer before his ghastly job commences.