Wolf's-head, Rogues of Bindar Book I

by Chris Turner

  Weavil made a deprecatory remark, aimed solely at Baus, but in the end, reluctantly conceded the timepiece to his fellow inmate, not thinking twice that it would be him to bet it.

  Baus waited patiently for Weavil to disappear before he quietly introduced the watch into the pile.

  Karlil’s eyes widened. “That is Weavil’s bander. Are you sure? I abjure dishonesty in all forms!”

  Baus dismissed the observation. “You are a criminal, Karlil, and should know that this is fair play. I can hardly see the profit in not accepting the gift. Besides, Weavil and I are comrades; we are close as clams. His life he would entrust me with!”

  Yullen imparted Baus a look of marvel and respect. “You are indeed a fortunate man to have such committed comrades.”

  “Agreed,” grunted Dighcan. “I may have misjudged the peevish critter Weavil for an ingrate. He may yet be one who will prove to be one of those dying breed of contenders long missed in the line of Flanks!”

  Valere danced about with impatience. “Enough chatter! On with the play! We must increase the rapidity of our throws, so that I may test out a new face cream which I shall surely win from the vapid Lopze here.”

  Paltuik sneered. “Less fanfaronade and more play!”

  Lopze concurred.

  Nuzbek was now returning with his effigy: a mass of pale spindlefax twigs which constituted neck and arms, and a thin torso of spongebush representing something akin to his own tadpole-like form. A slurry grin carved on his face seemed to contradict the fact that he was a newcomer to the game. Pug noses and slab-sided visages veered in from all directions to examine Nuzbek’s icon.

  The item was free of regulatory breaches. Grudgingly, the group unanimously voted Nuzbek into the game.

  The magician remained unamazed at the judiciary ruling.

  Dighcan called the next round to order.

  Nuzbek threw first. He calculated his odds, framed his toss, and launched, astonishing all, blasting Karlil’s effigy to bits. The magician accepted the double-twine of rope, which constituted the belt around Karlil’s waist. Nuzbek transferred the item into his robe that seemed to gobble up everything that entered. There were grumbles and sneers, but nothing could be done. Karlil’s luck had changed. Baus managed to elude annihilation in the next round, barely missing Dighcan’s assault on the remaining icons and was exposed to a blistering toss from Zestes.

  Baus emitted a disconsolate cry. Weavil’s timepiece was transferred from the bander pile to Zestes’ palm. With cheerful bows, Zestes stuffed the prize into his baggy breeches with offhand delight. “On the morrow, I shall craft a sea-reed band with which I may wrap this lovely piece round my wrist!”

  “A grand endeavour!” cried Jorkoff. “Tomorrow we will see who owns the timepiece, you or I.”

  “There is no question of who will own it!” blared Zestes in annoyance. “I consider it bad luck to re-bet a newly-won item.”

  ‘How very endearing.’ Valere smiled fondly. “These kind sentiments are not the characteristics of the Zestes of old—the same chap who threw bluffly and bravely for anything and all? You have grown balmy-mannered in your years at Heagram, you old grimy goat!”

  “Think twice, redbeard—at least I have not outgrown my acumen as these slack-wits have.”

  Baus threw up his hands with impatience. “All this badinage strains my nerves! It’s no wonder that I have crafted so many ill tosses. Zestes, why snatch the timepiece when you could have purloined Paltuik’s fine pewter poodle or Yullen’s ear polish?”

  Zestes’ face crinkled. “What care I for Yullen’s ear slimes or Paltuik’s poodles? I care to annihilate their icons and dance a finger-snapping hornpipe to their lamentations.”

  “A cruel ambition!” roared Paltuik, “but watch! It is my turn to throw. Ho! A toss—a timble, a twist—” He pirouetted on his heels like a ballerina, pivoted then whistled. The rock cracked Zestes’ icon on the crown. The effigy teetered, wavered—fell like an old bole in the forest.

  Paltuik injected a triumphant cry into the gathering. “Now, it is my turn to gloat and dance with a fine timepiece in my hand. What say you of that, you bald butcher? Nothing? A pity! Hand over my fair trinket.”

  “By no means!” cried Zestes. “The round had come to a complete conclusion before you tossed. We had not deemed the bander official yet.”

  “What?”

  “What is all this squawking about?” sneered Lopze, marching in.

  “My toss was fair,” cried Paltuik. “Play continues with bander carried over into the next round unless otherwise stated. Just because your whimpering complaint was not heard before my throw, does not mean that I should suffer the penalties. Hand over my property, Zestes, or I shall be forced to acquire it by force.”

  Zestes blandly refused, prompting Paltuik to lunge and tear at his breeches. Zestes twisted away. Very inelegantly, he came to lose pieces of his baggy pantaloons. Grunting with indignation, he retaliated with a savage kick to Paltuik’s thigh, coming painfully close to the groin and Paltuik gave an outraged cry and stepped in to drag his knuckles across the bald ruffian’s scalp. “There, you see what happens when one gets uppity?” The action elicited a strangled bleat from Zestes’ exposed throat.

  Dighcan pushed his way through the figures and flung the two apart. “Six demerits for being caught rousting by Captain Graves, remember?” He turned to glare at Paltuik with disdain. “Your manner is cretinous, Palsy. It was your turn to throw, and you observed that Zestes did not specifically forward bander into the next round, nor is he compelled to. I am the referee and I declare that Zestes guard his wins and that your toss be invalidated!”

  “What cheap ruling is this?” roared Paltuik. “You are a favouritist!” With angry force, he lurched forward, ready to fight.

  “Your opinion is moot, and if you don’t desist from these febrile quibbles, I shall be forced to disqualify you!”

  “Go ahead!” exploded Paltuik. He plunged his weight on Dighcan. Fists were clenched murderously, muscles knotted and faces cherry red. It became clear that blood was to come and Dighcan threw off the attack and the two stood eye to eye, nose to nose, blowing smoke down at each other’s nostrils. The group fell silent; the blood could be heard thumping through the veins in both necks.

  After a long while, Paltuik stepped back, glowering with contempt. He muttered a caustic oath.

  Baus’s eyes watered. It remained an important fact that these bullies had been at odds for a long time—a lifetime?—it was a fact he would use for future gain.

  The next round got off to a shaky start as the men’s speculative whispers rose and fell, but eventually play was resumed and humour gave way to comradely backslapping. Baus lost his last three cils, and not surprisingly, observed the game from afar. He tossed pebbles at the turf, affirming that under no circumstance must his seaman’s charm that he coveted so dearly be put up so cheaply for grabs!

  The third round opened with Yullen. Being caught off guard on a foot fault, he was forfeited a toss. Karlil did not win back his rope and now banderless, his effigy toppled, suffered the discomfiting shock of a risk-turned-bad.

  The crew banded together, giving a great whoop-de-do. They ripped off his trousers and gave merry chase to him around the perimeter of the yard, hollering and swatting at his loins and bare legs with flail-cane. Nuzbek was not included in this play and sat back grunting in contempt.

  Baus stroked his chin in wonder. He glanced about the yard, wishing he could snatch up some manner of bander with which to win bets. Tussocks, pebbles, weeds, all were useless. He was forced to accept his ineffectual situation and with dejected vexation, slumped to the ground, chin propped in hand.

  The men returned to their game and Karlil, legs, arms and bare behind chafed, red and raw, accepted his fate. He limped over to sit out the next rounds where Baus and he exchanged glum, philosophical remarks.

  Midway through the game Weavil jogged up, doubly enraged when he learned of how Baus had squandered his heirlo
om.

  “Enough of your hypocritical platitudes, you impulsive traitor!”

  Baus spread his hands in supplication; he moved back to avoid Weavil’s furious but harmless blows. “There are some affordable risks we must take in order to ensure a dignified status in the game.”

  “Snake-tongued as a drake you are, Baus!” shouted Weavil.

  “The judgment is harsh,” muttered Baus through pursed lips, “but I accept your discomfort and its associated fervour—though with a certain, limited patience.”

  “You are a con artist and a clown! Win me back my heirloom!”

  “As you wish.”

  Weavil snapped his head back. “How might you do this?”

  “With craft and energy!” Skipping away from Weavil’s slaps and kicks, Baus constructed efforts to convince him that they must put their heads together if they were to win.

  Weavil was uncooperative. The sun had dipped well below the horizon, leaving a wan, purplish glow spilling over the trampled earth. High over the northern wall soared jade-coloured beobar, frowning with disfavour. They took on the guise of sombre giants which in the fading afterglow, remained eerie. Nuzbek strutted past the gamesters to spread his booty on the barrack’s veranda before tallying his items: a length of rope, a hand-pumped oil lamp, a chert toenail cleaner, a brown tin of snuff: all items of mint condition.

  The prisoners gazed on enviously, wondering how this tyro had procured these sudden treasures on his first foray, if not by thaumaturgy.

  Grinning meaningfully, Nuzbek scooped up his spoils. He disappeared into the sleeping quarters. Ausse and Germakk, the guards, arrived, wooden mallets raised, beating the bronze gong with purpose. Nine o’clock curfew was in order and Baus studied the jailors with care. Ausse was immoderately tall, blond-haired, chubby around the edges and guarded a splayed nose; Germakk was pink-faced, stocky and harboured a lean to his ruffled, orange-haired head that did not mask the irritating habit of his scowling and muttering.

  The sky’s reach had deepened to purple-rose. The men trudged gloomily to their quarters. Many grumbled of how bedtime had arrived so early and yet each understood the reality that their ultimate purpose was to work, and to work, one must sleep.

  Baus wrinkled his nose at the scent of unwashed bodies and the sweat-drenched garments. Slats of worm-gnawed wood were crammed together like dock planks. Each was equipped with a thin, brown moth-eaten blanket and a flea-infested pillow. Along four walls the hardboard beds were fixed, crafted such that the men’s heads faced the wall and feet were extended outwards toward the center. To say that the sleeping berths were examples of torture was a euphemism: all slept crammed parallel to one another like sardines. The earthen ground was cold, flattened by untold years of booted feet. Cloaks, breeches, socks and rancid underwear hung on wooden pegs. The odour of clam meat and snogmald competed with the sweat and grime and years of accumulation of dusky odours and too-many unwashed bodies in a tiny space.

  Baus was consigned to a narrow space beside Weavil along the north wall between Valere, Karlil. The taciturn Jorkoff lounged nearby, grumbling about being forced grudgingly to allot room. Nuzbek, Boulm and Nolpin crowded along the opposite wall, sandwiched in between sardonic Lopze, a boisterous Zestes and the rake-thin Yullen. A barred window poised on either side of the only door where Dighcan slept, on a wider bunk under the left window, while Paltuik reposed under the other.

  The gas lanterns flared out. Germakk stepped outside to maintain guard by the door. A leather snapperwhip was held on the ready in his palm. Ausse climbed the watchtower to supervise the compound. The main gate was left to the snauzzerhounds. While Germakk called lights out, Baus pulled a grey woollen cover over his head and tried to ignore the lingering odours that oozed from the mildewy cracks.

  Somehow the task proved impossible and he rolled over on his side and looked up at the silvery spanning webs lacing the rafters. He recalled how Weavil and Nuzbek had twice already gotten into fights. Weavil had smuggled in rocks to brain the magician’s skull at night—attempts which had both failed and now the two had received demerit points from Mulfax.

  If all went well, they would be out of this bull pen before any other calamity could strike. So Baus mused . . .

  IV

  That night, as on the previous, Baus’s thoughts were morose. They drifted into dreams in which his experience was visions of human-demon conflict. Driven on an unknown mission, he was compelled to battle some misanthropic forces, somewhat human-formed, with only a small dagger and his wits to protect himself. Under the glowering moon he fought a monstrous bird with man-like qualities and glowing eyes and unearthly limbs. A wide, black river flowed nearby with ominous stealth. Far over the forests mushroom-shaped towers abounded; farther still, the mouldering stone ruins of bygone ages. He felt his knees fall limp, his own desires well up within him: secret longings, impulses, passions, all dangling in his face like worms skewered on a hook. Weaknesses, banes—all his foibles—they were bared with purpose, all to undermine him. A dark presence hovered near his throat: something immutably dim, but all too real. The bite of knowingness gnawed at his being with cuts far worse than any blade or poison. He awoke, flushed with a cold sweat. He raked unhappily at his damp hair.

  He was sitting erect on his bed—back at the barracks, chest heaving like a bellows. Pale silver moonlight crept in through the small windows like fairy breath. Weavil’s regular exhalation played on his shoulder; the prisoners’ muffled snores became palpable.

  A sudden glimpse alerted him to a roving shape hunched peculiarly by the door.

  He blinked, bared his teeth. What, another dream?

  No! It was the black-robed Nuzbek hovering over Dighcan’s snoring form with prejudice.

  Baus leaned forward. He watched as Nuzbek flicked a thin baton out the barred window.

  Baus rejected the scene before him. For a moment, he saw Germakk stiffen as if in stunned wonder. Then nothing.

  Moments passed; the sentry made no movement. Baus watched in fascination as Nuzbek drew back from the window and began fiddling with the lock. The magician prodded the door open; he stepped past Germakk and out into the chillness of the night. He inclined his head in an arrogant way. Halting in a place behind the guard, he watched the watchman’s stony, inflexible stance with a kind of malign satisfaction.

  Germakk stood like a leaden effigy, snapperwhip held in midair, as if defying the laws of gravity.

  Baus drew a confused breath. Bold of Nuzbek to attempt such a manoeuvre!

  Baus extended his caution so as not to rouse Weavil or Karlil and he slipped out from under his blanket and stole around the bunk toward the door. Crouching at the threshold, he witnessed Nuzbek make a grand way past the guard and onto the Flanks’ playing ground.

  Soft lantern light spilled over the portcullis. The glistening bars were a stone’s throw from where he crouched. The magician craned his neck, gazed up to the watchtower. He seemed comforted to spy Ausse dozing off on his stool; his back was set against a corner in a most indolent pose.

  Nuzbek made a hurried dash across the moonlit turf. Ausse was looking elsewhere. He stood blinking in the blue black shadow of the watchtower, muttering deprecations while he began playing glove puppet tricks with his fingers in the shadows. Suddenly Germakk’s chin began to bob, sagging in slumber.

  Without warning, the lookout was benumbed. Baus stepped back in awe. Nuzbek disappeared into the shadows. The darkened interiors of the office remained quiet.

  Puzzled by the act, Baus padded earnestly to Germakk’s inert form and edged his way by the barracks’ shadowed side. He crouched there like a lurking animal, waiting for something to happen. The indigo shadows continued to cast their bleak hues across the turf.

  Moments later, Nuzbek emerged carrying two cylindrical objects in his arms. The objects were queer—the same canisters that he had so cordially coveted, conveyed to the yard by the constabulary.

  Cargo secured, the magician stole his way back toward the barra
cks. As he passed, Baus plunged himself deeper in the shadows, and Nuzbek was so engrossed with his prizes that he failed to notice the tense form of Baus peering up at him like a snogmald; he continued toward the northern wall and Baus crept after him like a wraith, keeping hidden under the wallside shadows.

  From a few stones’ throw distance, Baus watched Nuzbek kneel before the north wall, snatch up a dead chunk of beobar. The magician committed himself to a furious digging upon the loose sandy soil.

  Brief minutes passed; Nuzbek carefully dumped his jars in the pit and speedily covered them up. For a moment Baus’s perplexity reached an apex.

  Nuzbek scuttled back to the office to retrieve the last two of his trophies. Pausing on the way back to deliver Germakk another glancing blow with the ganglestick, he began digging again by the north wall: two similar holes where the last two jars were buried . . . here Nuzbek seemed troubled, in a manner which Baus could not readily define . . . fury? disdain? indecision?

  Perhaps the sight of the encaged midgets evoked rancorous memories? . . . Baus rubbed his jaw in bewilderment.

  His suspicion turned to doubt. He tried to imagine what use the jars would be to Nuzbek underground, but certainly it was for some sinister purpose. Obviously he coveted these jars; but why? Why bury them here when he could not escape?

  Baus arrested the speculations. Nuzbek had completed his camouflaging and with a demure satisfaction, began retracing his steps back toward the barracks.

  Baus was eager to be back himself. It was the height of careless impudence to loiter here while Nuzbek snuggled himself in bed. Fashioning hasty steps, Baus ducked under the shadows and scampered alongside the west wall. He gained the veranda, slipped by the immobile Germakk, and there he lay on his pallet feigning sleep.

  Nuzbek no sooner had arrived than he calmly inspected the guard. He was in no great hurry and the magician wedged himself between Nolpin and Yullen while Baus watched with leery satisfaction. The magician tucked his baton neatly into a slit under his pillow. Squinting through hooded lids, Baus noted the hiding place.