Steven Erikson - The Wurms of Blearmouth

Grunting, Whuffine made his way over. As he drew near, cavalry boots crunching smartly in the sand with the jab of the walking stick making sweet punching sounds, he saw a man’s head rise into view, and then a bandaged hand lifted in a frail wave. The face was deathly pale, except where a burn had taken away half the beard. Rimed in salt, the man could have crawled out from a pickling barrel.

“Ho there!” cried Whuffine, quickly pocketing the ring as he hurried closer. “Another survivor, thank Mael!” His free hand slipped beneath the sheepskins and deftly palmed the knife.

Red-rimmed eyes fixed on him, and then the man straightened. A short sword was belted to his waist, and he now settled a hand on it. “Back off, wrecker!” he said in a snarl, using the sea-trader’s cant. “I ain’t in the mood!”

Whuffine halted. “You look done in, sir! That’s my shack up on the trail. Nice and warm, and I have food and drink.”

“Do you now?” The man suddenly smiled, but it wasn’t a pleasant smile. He looked down and seemed to nudge something with one foot. “Up, my love, we found us a friend.”

A dark-skinned, mostly naked woman rose into view. Her left breast, brazenly exposed to the chill wintry air, was white as snow, but this absence of hue was uneven, its edges like splashes of paint. The look she settled upon Whuffine was full of suspicion. Moments later a third figure stirred upright in the boat. Blood-stained bandages covered most of his face, leaving only one eye clear, along with the lower jaw. “Thath’s a wrecker all right,” this man said, pausing to split and then lick his lips with a forked tongue. “I bet thath thack of hith ith a damned gallery of murder and worth, and crowded with loot bethideth.”

“Just my point, Gust,” said the first man. “We could do with some new gear, and stuff to sell, too.” He then clambered over the side and stood on the sand. “Brisk, ain’t it?” he asked Whuffine. “But it ain’t no Stratem winter, is it?” He then drew his sword. “Put the knife away, fool, and lead us up to the shack.”

Whuffine eyed the weapon, noting the savage nicks along both edges. “I’m not going to take kindly to being robbed, and since the only town for leagues in any direction is just up the trail, where I have lots of friends, and where the Lord of the Keep is stickler about law and order, you’d be making a terrible mistake doing me harm, or cleaning me out.”

The one-eyed man loosed a laugh verging on hysteria. “Lithen to him, Heck, he’th threatening uth! Hah hah hah! Ooh, I’m thcared! Hah hah!”

“Stop that, Gust,” snapped the woman. “The point is, we gotta get going. Those Chanters ain’t all dead, you know, and I bet they’ll want their lifeboat back-”

“Too late!” shrieked the man named Gust.

“They went down, Birds,” said Heck. “They must’ve! There was fire and screamin’ dead men and demons and Korbal Broach and the sharks-gods the sharks! All with Mael’s own storm crashing down on us! Nobody survived that!”

“We did,” Birds reminded him.

Heck licked his lips, and then shook himself. “It don’t matter, love.” He rubbed at his face, wincing when his fingers touched the weal of the burn. “Let’s go and get warm. We can plan over a meal and a keg of ale. The point is, we’re on dry land again, and I don’t mean to ever go back to sea. You, wrecker, where in Hood’s name are we?”

“Elingarth.” Whuffine replied.

“Nothing but pirates,” hissed Birds, “the whole lot of them. Who’s up in that keep, then? Slormo the Sly? Kabber the Slaughterer? Blue Grin the Wifestealer?”

Whuffine shook his head. “Never heard of those,” he said.

“Of courth you didn’t,” said Gust. “They all been dead a hundred yearth! Birdth, thothe thailor taleth were old when you were thtill farming clamth with your Da.” He waved a bandaged hand. “We don’t care who’th up at the keep, anyway. It’th not like we’re getting an invite to dine, ith it? With the lord, I mean.”

“Oh,” said Whuffine, brightening, “I expect the lord will indeed invite you into his keep. In fact, I’m sure of it. Why’s he’s already entertaining your companions-”

“Our what?” Birds asked.

“Why, the elderly nobleman with the pointy beard, and his manservant-” He stopped then as Heck was clambering back into the boat.

“Push us off!” he screamed.

“Excuse me?”

But all three were scrabbling back and forth in the boat, as if by panic alone they could make the craft move.

“Push us off!” shrieked Heck.

Whuffine shrugged, walked over to the prow and set his shoulder against it. “I don’t understand,” he said between grunts. “You’ve been saved, spared by the storm, good people. Why risk another, and you so unprepared for any sort of sea voyage-”

The tip of Heck’s shortsword pressed up against Whuffine’s neck, and the man leaned close. “Listen to me if you value your life! Get us off this cursed beach!”

Whuffine gaped, swallowed delicately, and then said, “You’ll all have to climb out and help, I’m afraid. You’re too heavy. But I beg you all, don’t do this! You’ll die out there!”

The bandaged man laughed again, this time in the jabbering grip of hysteria. The other two scrambled from the boat and began tugging and pulling and pushing, feet digging deep furrows in the wet sand. Whuffine resumed his efforts and together they managed to dislodge the craft. Heck and Birds leapt back in and Whuffine, wincing at what the salt water would do to his boots, edged out into the waves and gave the boat a final shove. “But you have no oars!”

Hands paddled furiously.

The surf battled against their efforts, but after some time the boat was clear of the worst of the swells, and at last making headway out to sea.

Whuffine stared after them for a time, confused and more than a little alarmed. Then he returned to the corpses on the strand, and cutting off fingers and whatnot.

The sea was a strange realm, and the things it offered up on occasion passed comprehension, no matter how wise the witness. There was no point, Whuffine knew, in questioning such things. Ugly as fate, the world did what it did and never asked permission either.

He moved to the next body and began stripping the clothes away, eyes darting in search of jewelry, coin-pouches or anything else of value. Like his father used to say, the sea was like a drunk’s mouth: there was no telling what might come out of it. Or go back in.

Hordilo Stinq made a fist and pounded on the thick wooden door. He was slightly out of breath from the climb, but the effort had warmed him up some. As they waited, alas, he could feel the cold seeping back in. “Normally it’s not a long wait,” he said. “Lord Fangatooth has sleepless servants, ever watching from those dark slits up there.”

The man named Bauchelain was studying the massive wall rearing up to either side of the gatehouse. The remnants of a few corpses still remained, hanging from the hooks they had been impaled on. The heads, still bearing tufts of weathered hair and a few sections of dried skin, were all tilted at unnatural angles and the effect, from directly below where stood Hordilo, was that of being looked down upon, with toothy smiles and empty eye sockets. At the foot of the wall more bones were jumbled in disordered heaps.

“This keep is very old indeed,” Bauchelain then said. “It reminds me of the one I was born in, to be honest, and I find this curious detail most enticing.” He turned to his companion. “What think you, Korbal my friend? Shall we abide here for a time?”

But Korbal Broach was stripping down the two corpses he’d dragged all the way from the beach, flinging the sodden, half-frozen garments aside and prodding exposed, pallid flesh with a thick finger. “Will they keep, Bauchelain?” he asked.