The Way to Babylon

by Paul Kearney

  They reached the eaves of the wood an hour later, and Ratagan immediately hefted his axe and stood guard whilst the others set up camp. Fife and Drum threw themselves on to the ground, panting like dogs. Their yellow eyes seemed to glow in the gloom.

  Soon after they had the fire lit, there was a rustle of dead leaves, and two men stood in their midst as if they had sprung out of the ground. Riven bit back an exclamation of surprise and took a good look at his first Myrcans.

  In his books they had been taciturn mercenaries who took service under the Dale lords. From what Bicker had told him, however, it seemed their role was more subtle than that. It was strange watching the characters of his imagination alive, walking and talking with him; almost like being on a vast film set. Both terrifying and exhilarating. Perhaps the weirdest thing was that these characters of his had a life of their own, sides to them that he had never imagined in his stories. They were, he supposed, necessarily more complex, as life was more complex than any man’s art. Two questions gnawed at him, however: first, had he brought Minginish to life, somehow, or was he merely tapping into it for his stories? And second, how?

  The Myrcans who stood there were somehow more brutal in appearance than he had ever envisaged. Riven had never seen men who looked more solid, more part of the earth. They were short, broad-shouldered and powerfully built, and they seemed to crouch as though ready to spring. Their hair was black and cropped almost to the scalp, and they were clean-shaven. They wore close-fitting leather breeches, stout knee-high boots, and heavy jerkins of hide which seemed to be reinforced with glinting mesh at the shoulders, the chest and the groin. Around their waists were blue sashes like Ratagan’s. They bore in their blunt hands five-foot staves of dark wood which were bound all along their length with metal rings that glinted in the firelight.

  Their faces were dark, their eyes like black stones. Both of them wore a stripe of white paint on their faces from ear to ear, running across the bridge of the nose. They might have been twins. No one spoke as they took their places by the fire. Eventually Ratagan broke the silence with a rumble from where he stood at the edge of the light.

  ‘What news, my friends?’

  The metal-bound staff flashed as the Myrcan responded. ‘Naught to the rear of us. The land is empty. We saw winter wolves, but they are far off now. The melting of the snows has sent the beasts retreating to the High Ground.’

  The Myrcan was staring at Riven with uncomfortable intensity. He shifted uneasily, and whispered to Bicker: ‘Tell him I’m friendly, will you?’

  Bicker smiled. ‘Ord, this is Michael Riven, the Teller of Tales. He is the one Murtach has spoken to you about, who comes from the Isle beyond the sea to help us.’ Then Bicker turned to Riven. ‘These are Ord and Unish. They are of the Myrcans.’

  ‘I’m honoured,’ said Riven, partly because he felt he should say something, and partly because he wished to allay any suspicions these formidable natives might harbour about him.

  The Myrcans regarded him unsmilingly, and then their gaze left him. He was tired and irritated, and no one would tell him anything. He pulled out his sleeping bag—which made the Myrcans stare again—and wrapped himself in it whilst the others prepared food.

  The ground under him quivered for a moment, then was still. He frowned and sat up, felt the place with his hands.

  ‘What is it?’ Bicker asked.

  ‘Nothing. I thought I felt... something.’

  ‘In the ground?’

  ‘It was my imagination,’ said Riven, feeling a fool.

  But Bicker and Murtach were exchanging glances. ‘Scarall is all right, isn’t it?’ Bicker was saying.

  Murtach looked worried. ‘I thought so.’

  Then the ground underneath Riven gave a heave, and sagged. He jumped to his feet. ‘Shit. There’s something under there. Something moved.’

  The company stood up, weapons hissing out of sheaths. Fife and Drum began growling low in their throats, eyes luminous in the firelight.

  ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ Riven demanded angrily.

  And the ground erupted beside him.

  A great clay-black shape sprang from the soil and launched itself at him. Stone-hard paws smashed him to the ground, and outlined above him by the fire was the head of a huge dog or hound, eyeless, black-mawed. Then the Myrcan staves crashed into its back, and it leapt at them with a howl. Riven crawled backwards, mind white with shock, and saw a black hound six feet long throwing the Myrcans about as though they were dolls, whilst the two wolves snapped uselessly at its heels. Bicker’s sword came whistling down on its flank with a crack, and bounced off, taking only a few chips out of the creature.

  Chips?

  It did not bleed, and where the sword had struck it was a shallow white scar the colour of new wood.

  Wood? Something from a far memory hammered at the back of his mind. A subterranean, wooden hound—but there was no time to speculate.

  Ratagan entered the fray with a roar, and his axe hissed down to thud into the creature’s neck. It sank inches, and he wrenched it out again whilst the Myrcans belaboured it with their staves. Murtach called off Fife and Drum, and they retreated from the fight, snarling. The beast seemed unharmed, and the staves bounced off it ineffectually. The huge mouth clamped over Ratagan’s lower leg, and he cried out, falling to the ground and thumping the head uselessly with his fists.

  At once, the Myrcans dropped their weapons, and fell on the beast with their bare hands. They wrestled with it, prising it free of Ratagan and manhandling it towards the fire. The hound struggled madly, and succeeded in crushing one of its attackers against a tree. The Myrcan released his hold. The hound was too much for his comrade, and it bit and buffeted its way free of his grip. Then, to his horror, Riven saw that it was coming back towards him.

  But Bicker and Murtach sprang on it with burning sticks from the fire. They shoved them into the beast’s face, and for the first time it howled with pain and thrashed blindly away. The two Myrcans grabbed torches also, though one of them had an arm that hung useless at his side, and the four surrounded the hound, jabbing it with the flaming brands. It writhed and snapped at them, but recoiled from the fire. Finally it howled in anger, and Riven saw its rear end sink into the soil. It corkscrewed backwards into the ground, their last sight of it being its black, revolving muzzle. Then it had disappeared, and there was no mark in the grass to indicate its passing.

  The company stood still, the flickering torches throwing their shadows among the trees. The only sounds were the flames, Ratagan’s hard breathing and the sniffing of the wolves as they padded round Murtach, verifying he was unhurt.

  ‘It is gone,’ Bicker said at last, and returned his torch to the fire. The others did the same. He went over to Ratagan, who lay with pain written on his face at the edge of the firelight, and bent to examine his leg. The unhurt Myrcan was tending to his injured comrade. Riven joined Murtach, who was watching over them with Ratagan’s axe in his hand.

  ‘That was a gogwolf,’ he stated, shaking. Murtach’s pets eyed him with suspicion.

  Their master stared at him grimly. ‘Indeed. Another of your pet monsters. It is a creature of the trees and the earth, and it moves through the ground as easily as we move on top of it, following the roots of the trees.’

  ‘It really looked as though it were made of wood.’

  Murtach seemed slightly impatient. ‘It is, and its hide is as hard as the bark of the toughest oak.’ Then he shrugged. ‘We should have remembered that sooner; but it is a long time since any of us here has encountered a gogwolf, and we never thought they would have come this far south out of the high forests. This is ill news indeed.’

  ‘What about Ratagan?’

  Murtach’s troubled expression eased. ‘Him? He is as tough as tree roots himself. A bite on his leg will not hamper him much.’

  They were silent. Bicker heated water in a copper pot and ripped up clothing to bind wounds.

  ‘Will it come back?’ Riven a
sked. He was still marvelling a little. I’ve seen a gogwolf.

  Murtach shook his head. ‘We hurt it, and it attacked on its own. If it had possessed comrades, then we would have had to leave the wood; but we will be all right here now, I think. Which is just as well, since I don’t think these two had better be moved, for tonight, at least.’

  ‘It was after me,’ Riven realised, unable to get the picture of that black maw out of his mind.

  ‘Maybe,’ Murtach replied. ‘That is something we can discuss in Ralarth Rorim, along with other things.’ He did not seem disposed to say more, and played with Fife’s ears absently.

  Bicker called them over, wanting more water heated. Ratagan’s wound was full of clay, and needed careful washing. It was ragged and bloody, making a mess out of his calf. The big man cursed furiously as he watched Bicker treat it.

  ‘Whoreson animal. This’ll lay me up for days, once we get home.’

  ‘But the women will love you for it,’ Bicker replied, grinning. Ratagan laughed, then looked about him. ‘Mole, you evil-smelling midget, where’s my fine weapon?’

  ‘In equally fine hands, clumsy one. She’s wondering if her master was drunk when he made that swing at the beast.’

  ‘Drunk or sober, she made a bigger impression than that pig-sticker of yours.’

  Riven turned his attention to the Myrcans. They were sitting quietly by the fire, the injured one—he could still not tell them apart—with his arm splinted and bound. He shook his head. Unreal, those two.

  Bicker stood up, wiping his hands. ‘It would be better to leave the wood, but we’d best stay here until morning, with the hurts we have suffered.’ He cut off Ratagan’s protest with a curt gesture. ‘We will set watches and keep the fire high. We cannot afford to be caught like that again. If there are gogwolves in Scarall, there may be all sorts of other things as well.’ He bent down and fumbled with his pack, grunting as he found what he was looking for. His hand flicked, and a flash spun through the air to become a dagger embedded in the grass at Riven’s feet.

  ‘That is for the Teller of Tales,’ he said, meeting Riven’s eye with a wry smile. ‘So that his tales may not get the better of him.’

  Riven pulled the weapon out of the ground. It was heavy, a broad double-edged knife with a twelve-inch blade. He whistled softly as he thumbed the edge. ‘You people don’t muck about.’

  ‘We can’t afford to,’ Bicker responded shortly. ‘Now you know why.’ He retied his bag. ‘You and I will take first watch. There will be little sleep tonight, but this time tomorrow we will be in the Rorim.’

  ‘Ralarth Rorim.’

  ‘Yes. That much at least you will be familiar with. But there is more to Minginish than in your stories.’

  ‘That I believe.’

  THE OTHERS WERE asleep, and Riven was nodding, the knife cold in his hands. He rubbed his eyes. ‘Bicker?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Talk to me. I’m falling asleep.’

  Bicker was cleaning his sword with a scrap of hard leather. ‘Another story? You will make a Teller of me yet.’

  ‘What about telling me how Murtach found me. He was at Beechfield, but he was an old man. How was that done? How many of your people know about me?’

  Bicker clicked his tongue. ‘We are a conspiracy, we are—’ He gestured towards the others who lay asleep. ‘We wanted to stop what was happening to Minginish. Murtach and Ratagan are my foster brothers, just as you imagined. Ord and Unish are two of the Myrcan Hearthwares of Ralarth Rorim. I am the Warbutt’s heir, though hardly a prince.’ He smiled crookedly. ‘The Warbutt does not take kindly to my... wanderings.’

  ‘Does he know what is going on here?’

  ‘Of course. Myrcan Hearthwares do not wander off without their lord’s permission.’

  ‘Tell me of Ralarth Rorim. Tell me of your family.’ Riven was biting back some of the questions he most wanted to ask, especially those concerning Jenny. They gave him a hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach.

  Bicker scratched his beard. ‘There is not much to tell that you do not know already. The Rorim is old, as much is in Minginish. It was built long before the first beasts ventured out of the mountains; but it was built at a time when the Dales were at odds with one another, and there was more raiding—for cattle and weapons, mostly. Sometimes for women. So it is truly a fort as well as a dwelling place, and though many live there many more can gather there in time of need. Its walls are not high; but they are long, and there is grazing within them and a spring that never fails.’

  Riven digested this for a moment. ‘And your family?’ he asked.

  ‘My mother is dead,’ Bicker answered succinctly. ‘The Warbutt—my father—you will meet. Murtach and Ratagan are sons of my father’s captains. There are no more.’

  ‘What about the people? What are they like? Are they... as I drew them?’

  Bicker smiled. ‘For the most part. There are just over two dozen Hearthwares, trained fighters who have been taught by the Myrcans. Their captain is Udaim, Ratagan’s father. Murtach’s father, Guillamon, is the wisest man in Minginish—or so Murtach likes to say. He is Warden of Ralarth. Some say he is a wizard of sorts.’ Bicker shot a quick glance at Riven. ‘Your story has a wizard.’ Riven nodded impatiently.

  ‘No one counts our people, but there are many of them. Shepherds, most of them, and farmers who till the earth around the Rorim. Now they and the sheep herders are at odds, for the flocks have been forced out of the hills by the beasts and there is competition for space. There has been trouble, and the Hearthwares have never been so busy.’

  ‘What are these beasts like, that come out of the mountains?’

  Bicker ran a finger down his sword blade. ‘You know now the gogwolf—though that is the first one we have seen this far south. A bad omen. There are normal wolves also, but bolder than we have ever seen them before. And then there are things such as the grypesh, the rat-boars, and the Rime Giants and the ice worms. All these we have known to have existed for a long time, but they stayed in their highland haunts and only hunters and wanderers encountered them, making for a good tale in the winter. But now they terrorise the very folk of the Dales and stalk the hills in between at will, cutting one village off from another; only the hardiest travel far these days, and then only at great need.’

  ‘I know the Rime Giants,’ Riven said. He stabbed his new knife into the turf. ‘I dreamt of you and Ratagan while I was in hospital. We were fighting a giant.’ He did not say that it had spoken with Jenny’s voice. That part of this world still frightened him too much. The thought of Jenny, here, frightened him, when it was not breaking his heart.

  ‘Guillamon—Murtach’s father—has seen you in dreams also,’ Bicker said soberly. ‘It was he who urged me to return to the Staer, though my father was against it. Murtach came for an adventure, and because his abilities made him useful.’

  ‘In the book he is a... shapeshifter,’ Riven said, choosing the word with care.

  The dark man nodded. ‘There is no magic in your world, but we have a brand of it here in Minginish.’

  ‘He was a werewolf,’ Riven said, his gaze flickering to the two wolves who lay dozing just outside the firelight. He felt a chill scale his backbone.

  ‘Murtach can take many guises,’ Bicker conceded. ‘He is a man with a gift, as is his father. He is a boon to us all.’

  But Riven was remembering a scene he had written once, where a transformed Murtach had roamed the high moors under the moon with his two fellow wolves for company. He shook his head. ‘Unreal,’ he muttered. And he suddenly recalled getting drunk with Doody, and glimpsing through the haze the prick-eared shape at the window, looking in at them from the darkness outside.

  What sort of people are these?

  ‘All this—all these troubles. This winter which you say has come and gone here, the monsters from the mountains. All this has happened in the past year since—since Sgurr Dearg?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you
think that, somehow, I’m responsible for it, don’t you?’

  Bicker did not reply.

  THEY CONTINUED ON their way the next morning without incident. Murtach and the wolves took the lead, and after them came Bicker, supporting an evil-tempered Ratagan, who leaned heavily on the haft of his axe. Riven came next, his new knife thrust through his belt, and then the two Myrcans, one with his arm slung.

  The land changed as they walked. They had been travelling across undulating hills that were almost moor; but now the folds of the hills dipped and more and more downward slopes began appearing, whilst before them bloomed a long view of flatter land that glittered with rivers and was scattered with small woods. It stretched off into blue distance, becoming a guess of more highland in the north. Riven stared at it. Valleys within valleys. Minginish was vaster than his glimpse of it on the hill of the door had allowed him to estimate. There were skylarks here, and corncrakes. The grass was less yellow, and the heather petered out. Just like the book. He did not know if that was disturbing or comforting.

  He could make out fields now, tawny with sun, and the grey dots of houses with their wisps of woodsmoke. Ponds of what seemed to be meltwater had gathered in hollows and there were ragged remnants of snow in the shadows of the steeper slopes.

  ‘Ralarth,’ said Bicker with gladness in his voice. ‘A long time, it seems, since last my eyes were on it.’

  ‘It’s still there,’ Ratagan growled, ‘though the Warbutt may have a word or two for your ear when we get to the Rorim.’

  ‘Hasn’t he always?’

  There was a low rumble on the air, and then two horsemen burst into view on the rise ahead, the turfs flying from their mounts’ hoofs like startled birds. They were in full armour, the steel plate glinting in the sun, the light shining off their helms and their harnesses jingling. To Riven, it seemed one of the most beautiful sights he had ever seen. They cantered over to the company and reined in their steeds ten feet away, throwing up their hands in salute.

  ‘Well met, Bicker! Has Ratagan stumbled and hurt himself?’