Tan Skulks (A Wielders Novel Book 1)

by Max Anthony

  The woman was working herself up into a frenzy. Skulks half expected her to drop onto the pavement and start thrashing about, but she remained upright on her crate.

  “And all these killings? They’re your faults.” A few of the crowd gasped at this. “It’s punishment from Plumpus for your sins against him! Plumpus is going to tear down the old gods and rise anew, and those who aren’t with him are against him! Those who are against him will be killed!”

  It was all the usual babble, tuned for the local audience, but having overheard the preacher refer to killings Skulks had become worried. He went back into the Domes Grand and approached the gentleman at reception.

  “Sir,” he spoke. “I have heard that there are killings in High Domes!”

  “Indeed sir,” responded the receptionist, “there have been a few reported deaths, but nothing that you should worry about. Here at the Domes Grand we pride ourselves on our excellent security and there has not been a murder on our premises for several weeks!” He said this as if it was a great achievement.

  “I am sure that the Domes Grand’s security is adequate, but could you tell me more about these deaths? I wouldn’t want to be walking the streets unaccompanied if there was to be a murderer on the loose! A man could find himself killed in such circumstances and that would be a most unpleasant outcome!”

  The receptionist thought about it for a moment. “There have been quite a few deaths I’m afraid to say - stabbings and poisonings over the last week or two, mostly within a few streets of here. People are afraid to set foot outside their doors and the local trade is suffering for it. The H’Goj Stabber is what they’re calling him. Quite a concern it’s causing.” Leaving the receptionist to his duties, Skulks headed back to his room to await darkness. It was starting to look as if Lunder hadn’t given up on his plans entirely.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Ufflot Rumple was quivering with excitement. Few things brought out the small boy in him like a good murder, preferably committed by him. He’d already killed once tonight – an elderly gentleman shuffling along with his stick on the way back from a late evening viewing of The Chambermaid’s Invisible Dress, a riotous comedy about a naïve young lady in her quest for love. This elderly gentleman had turned around at a voice saying “Excuse me, good sir, you appear to have dropped your handkerchief!” and found a dagger being pushed most cruelly through his innards, leaving him to gasp out his last breaths on the pavement.

  Ryanda Tremble was lurking in a doorway opposite as they waited for their next victim. Though she didn’t rejoice in the killings, she had proven herself a useful assistant with her adept’s powers able to freeze or silence the odd person who thought to make an escape. Rumple thought of taking Tremble as ‘his woman’, but in truth she despised him as a boor and a dullard, both of which were accurate summations. Working for the same king didn’t necessarily make her more predisposed to the unwanted advances of a buffoon like Rumple.

  A figure approached, walking along the street with a heavy limp, the trailing leg scraping along the ground as the person to whom it was attached struggled with the burden of infirmity. The figure was heavily swaddled in clothing, though the night was only cool, and a hood was pulled up to protect against the wind, though there was only a slight breeze.

  Tremble broke free from the shadows of her doorway as the figure passed, swooping upon it and linking arms.

  “Oh sir, might I prey upon you for an escort tonight? There have been murders and I would not like to be on the streets alone!”

  “Dear lady,” came the quavering reply, “are you a harridan or a strumpet looking for a tumble? My balls have been empty for many years now I’m afraid!”

  “I am neither harridan nor strumpet!” insisted Tremble, slightly peeved even though she had no right to be. “I am a lady of good standing hoping to find succour on this dark night.”

  “You won’t find a sucker here,” said the figure. “I’m a man who knows a harridan or strumpet when he sees one!”

  “Sir, I am not a strumpet!”

  “A harridan then! I knew it! Get thee gone from me, for you will not pry any of my pence from my pockets with your tart’s wiles!”

  Something clicked in Tremble’s head. Although it was quavering and muffled, she recognized the voice as one she’d heard not many days ago at a house in Hardened. Smiling sweetly, she turned to the figure beside her and thrust it away. This was not the sort of thrust that one might apply to the arm of a colleague who has just made a sheepish joke, the only response to which can be “Oh you!” accompanied by a playful push of their shoulder. Tremble’s push was that of an adept, casting the figure into the air and across the road, destined for an unwanted impact with a nearby wall.

  “If I’m wrong,” she thought, “we were going to kill him anyway. Harridan, indeed!”

  She was not wrong and Skulks was upset to find himself in flight. He twisted in the air and managed to cushion some of the impact with an arm, but had the wind knocked from his sails as he slid ten feet down to the ground.

  Though Tremble was merely an adept, she had sufficient ability to throw a ball of sparks at Skulks, which connected with him just as he landed. These sparks caused his clothing to ignite and he scrambled to take off his robe whilst hopping up and down. Eventually he shrugged himself clear, but not before Ufflot Rumple, quick to cotton on, had thrown a knife into his shoulder.

  “Gah!” exclaimed Skulks. There are many words and phrases one might expect to hear uttered from a person who has been thrown bodily across a street, set afire and had a knife penetrate their shoulder. Amongst all the options available to him, ‘Gah!’ was the first that Skulks’ brain loaded onto his tongue, before his tongue fired it into the street.

  Keeping calm, Tremble ensconced Skulks in a Net of Enswipenment, similar to that used by Foreman Y’Prout some days earlier and with that, Skulks toppled over, captured for the second time in a week. Lying on the ground he was able to see two pairs of boots standing near him, one of which gave him a playful kick in the stomach before it seemed to reconsider and returned to kick him even harder.

  “Good work, Ryanda,” said Rumple, his use of her first name causing an involuntary shiver to run down her back. It was an unpleasant shiver.

  “Should we kill him?” she asked. Rumple emitted a few sounds to indicate uncertainty.

  “No. Let’s not kill him. Lunder will probably want to speak to him first.” By his expression, Tremble could tell that Rumple was hoping to get the opportunity to torture Skulks. From his prone position, Skulks tried to utter a wisecrack, but found his tongue unable to move, which saved him from further kicks.

  The streets were now heavily patrolled given all the murders, so his captors picked up an arm each and dragged the ensnared Wielder backwards along the street towards No. 6 H’Goj Promenade, stopping only once for a rest and to respond to a passing group that their colleague was comatose through drink and that they’d certainly get him home safely.

  Opening the front door, they dragged Skulks along a beautifully fitted wooden floor, before dropping him unceremoniously in order to take a breather. His head struck the floor with a dull thump, causing Tremble to wince slightly, whilst Rumple gave him another kick.

  “That’s for being so heavy!” he exclaimed.

  “Where should we put him?” Tremble asked, her voice now a loud whisper. Lunder was in bed and he didn’t respond favourably to being awoken, even if the news was important.

  “Let’s put him in the cellar for now. How long will your spell hold him?”

  “A week or two.”

  “Plenty of time then. Come on, grab his arms.”

  With a thump-thump-thumpity-thump Skulks was hauled down into the cellar, wherein was located a prison cell that Lunder had installed in case he ever needed to retain the enemies of King Meugh against their will. Into this cellar Skulks was pulled and left on the hard stone flags which comprised the floor. He heard a rattling sound as the door was locked and triple-
bolted. There were also mage wards on the frame which Tremble activated with a quiet mumbling. Feeling their work done for the night, Ufflot Rumple and Ryanda Tremble headed to bed. Separate beds.

  The following morning, Tiopan Lunder arose at his usual time of seven. He checked his wards were intact before he dressed and with both tasks complete he made his way down three flights of stairs into his sitting room for his customary cup of hotleaf and perusal of the High Domes Sentinel. Hotleaf was an acquired taste, he thought to himself, but once one acquired the taste it was really rather fine. It was also hard to source in Casks, leading him into a preoccupied state for several moments as he tried to work out profit margins on introducing a larger supply of it to the Kingdom of Meugh.

  Once his day dreaming had run its allotted course, he riffled his newspaper and looked over the front page. “Murder Most Unpleasant!” proclaimed the headline, with a strapline of “More Bodies Found.” Over the page there was an editorial titled “High Domes in a State of Terror.” Lunder permitted a small thin-lipped smile to appear on his face. If he couldn’t have Hardened, he was jolly well going to try and get High Domes for his king! At least, he had to get something. King Meugh wasn’t generally amused when his plans, particularly his expensive plans, went awry. He might be tempted to lash out at the perceived cause of the failure. It might even be Lunder on the receiving end of this lashing out. And a lashing would be the least of his concerns. He’d be more worried about having his eyes cut out and being fed those same organs. Not that he’d be able to taste them with his tongue sliced off and sewn onto his testicles.

  With his musings having taken a turn for the worse, Lunder was interrupted by the sitting room door, which opened to reveal Ufflot Rumple. The assassin looked pleased with himself.

  “We caught the Wielder last night,” he said, words spilling out before he could even greet Lunder with a hearty ‘Good Morning!’ Tiopan Lunder stiffened straight.

  “You’ve killed him?”

  “No, not killed. We thought you might want to have a word with him before we did any killing. Maybe a bit of torture or something.”

  “Where is he then? What have you done with him?”

  “Tremble cast some spells on him and he fell over. We’ve dragged him into the cellar.”

  “Rumple, you fool! Why did you bring him here?”

  Rumple looked startled. “I hrumple gruggle,” he spluttered out, before it became apparent that the look on his face wasn’t in response to being called a fool. “Frumggh groppl,” he concluded, before falling face-first onto the sitting room carpet, a round red dot on the back of his shirt indicating what had done for him as the blood spread quickly and unevenly from its source.

  Wasting no time gaping, Lunder cast forth a Heat-Seeking Baboon from his armoury of spells and erected a shield about his person just in time to deflect an angular paperweight that came winging its way through the doorway at sufficient velocity to brain him. The baboon zoomed out of the living room, with Lunder following a moment after. While the baboon turned left, Lunder turned right towards the front door, summoning a shadowy bodyguard to watch his back as he wiggled the front door handle. Someone had locked it and they’d also been up to mischief with its wards, swapping a couple of them over in order to delay the opening of the door. Cursing Rumple’s imbecility, Tiopan Lunder turned back, intending to kill Skulks once and for all.

  While Tiopan Lunder furiously rattled his front door knob, Tan Skulks was already upstairs, vicious baboon hot on his heels. The Heat-Seeking Baboon was a spell of Lunder’s own devising and one of which he was quite proud. It was very quick to cast, a facility much favoured by the wizard in distress and once unleashed the baboon was highly inconsiderate, following its target until either the baboon was killed or the target eaten. Skulks hated baboons, having once been mugged by a troop of them in the Chirrup Isles of Treads. They’d made off with a pair of his favourite boots before he’d managed to drive the remainder away as they tugged at his purse.

  On the landing, the screaming simian leapt mightily towards Skulks, jaws elongated as it sought to either eat him or steal his trousers. Being quite partial to his trousers, Skulks punched it firmly in the mouth, before turning to flee as Lunder’s shadowy bodyguard joined the baboon on the landing. A buzzing noise from below indicated further magely foolishness would soon be heading his way. At the top of the next flight, Skulks jimmied the window open quickly and stepped to one side as the furious baboon hurtled at him. Missing its target and with a boot on its rear to assist it along, the unfortunate baboon shot out of the window and fell to the hard pavement beneath. Alive, but only just, the baboon was dispatched by a passing taxidermist who was scarce able to believe his luck as he stabbed it in the back of the head and slung the poor beast into a large sack.

  Now on the second floor and realising that he was running out of floors to which he could escape, Skulks confronted the shadowy bodyguard. It was nothing more than a silhouette, black as night, though the swords it held were silver. Kicking it in the balls, Skulks used a dagger-sword to parry a couple of its swings before surprising it with a vertical leap, grabbing the mini chandelier dangling from the landing ceiling and tweaking the semi-healed wound in his shoulder caused by Rumple’s knife. His kicking legs evaded attempts to chop them off and Skulks arched his back, landing behind the shadowy bodyguard, which was showing him no particular ill-will for the kick he’d administered to its balls, other than continuing in its attempts to skewer him.

  At that same moment a side door opened and Ryanda Tremble emerged in a dressing gown, smacking her lips and with her hair sticking up on one side from sleep. To compound Skulks’ pickle, the buzzing noise just then made itself known as a minor swarm of Chak-Chak Hornets, each a foot long with a sting the length of a middle finger and a permanent bad temper. Not what one would like to find crawling around the rim of one’s glass of cold fruit juice when taking sun in the garden. Skulks lopped two of them out of the air, while a third one stung him in his recently-wounded shoulder, causing it to throb like buggery. The remainder of the hornets, confused by the arrival of Tremble, swooped upon her. One tangled in her hair, two were fried by her wards and another four were hurled back by the same spell she’d used against Skulks the previous evening. In her panic she exerted rather too much force and the insects burst messily against the opposite wall. The last two hornets assailed the shadowy bodyguard, alighting upon it and stinging it repeatedly without realising in their eagerness that the bodyguard was immune to their poisons and their pricks.

  Skulks was not immune, and the insect which had stung him prior did so again, once more finding his wounded shoulder and squirting it full of acidic toxins, much to his chagrin. Taking advantage of the confusion, he grabbed the insect and squeezed, feeling it pop in his hand. He hurled the collection of guts at Tremble who was still struggling with a Chak-Chak in her morning hair.

  “Have this!” he cried.

  “Urgh!” responded she.

  Parrying a thrust from the shadowy bodyguard he fled once more whence he’d come, that being the first floor landing. Allowing himself a fraction of a second to take stock, Skulks used his Wielding to blend himself with the shadows, just in time to avoid a menagerie of bats, locusts, dogs and rodents speeding from below. Lunder despised animals, so it was unusual that he displayed such talent in the summoning thereof. Determined that Skulks would be leaving his house in the stomachs of at least four different creatures, the wizard was busy in the hallway bringing forth as much of a zoo as his waving hands could conjure.

  The shadowy bodyguard was not fooled by Skulks’ concealment, but found itself unable to make headlong progress against the assembly of creatures hurtling onwards. It waved its swords around in futility and watched as Skulks inched his way along the ceiling, glued there as if by forces unnatural.

  Unable to maintain his human fly impression for long, Skulks dropped nimbly back onto the landing, accidentally swallowing a locust and treating a straggling ankle
-biter to a surprise kick in the chops as he descended. With a yelp, the animal did its best impression of a one-dog cascade as it rolled back down the stairs, stubby legs pedalling. Gagging on the bitter taste and feeling the locust’s back legs kicking in his gullet, Skulks pushed open a side door, rolled through, slammed it shut behind him and forced the long-unused locking mechanism in the door to seal it behind him. He was in a very large bedroom with no further doors.

  His hopes that he would have a moment to take stock were scuppered when he heard the locked mechanism screech itself open once more. Ryanda Tremble was proving herself to be more than the one-trick pony he’d anticipated and had used the unfair tactic of magic to reopen the door. She’d initially dubbed the spell ‘Ryanda’s Knocker’, but after some wise reconsideration she’d changed it to ‘Ryanda’s Spell for the Unlocking of Doors’. Undaunted, Skulks surprised her by locking the door again and watched as the door knob rattled ineffectually as those without attempted to come within. A second application of Ryanda’s Spell for the Unlocking of Doors permitted those of murderous intent into the room, only to find it empty, with an open window indicating the likely method of Skulks’ escape. Tremble looked out of the window, but of Skulks there was no sign.

  The room behind her was now crowded with curious dogs, rats, bats and insects as well as a shadowy bodyguard, all looking at the window. Turning around, Tremble saw a hand reach for the door knob and pull the door firmly shut from the landing. A louder screeching from the lock suggested it was not only being turned, but twisted and warped to deny any further use of it whatsoever. If she’d possessed a talent for melodrama Tremble would have considered shaking her fist in anger at the door, but she was a practical sort of woman and refrained.

  Meanwhile downstairs, Lunder had evidently exhausted his panoply of summonses for there were no more sounds of screeches, moos, neighs or roars from below. Skulks popped a hopeful head over the bannister into the stairwell. Lunder was standing at the bottom of the stairs, looking furious.