Hugh Cook - The Werewolf and the Wormlord

‘So he might,’ said Qa. ‘So he doesn’t have elections. He has me, instead. I fulfil a very valuable social purpose. Consider. Someone threatens the Wormlord’s throne. If he kills that person, he risks feud and social disorder. So he sends the challenger here, to be eaten. Result? Order, stability and enhanced social cohesion. Plus the surviving relatives of the deceased are enormously proud of their fallen son, nephew, father or brother, as the case may be. I give them their pride.’

The dragon Qa said this with great pride of his own. Alfric felt weak at the knees. Was it true? Could it be true? It certainly made a lot of sense. It explained a lot of things.

‘Do you always tell people what’s going on?’ said Alfric, wondering how other questing heroes had reacted to the dragon’s revelations.

‘Oh no,’ said Qa. ‘Usually they’re mostly grossly unmannerly. They don’t have any time for talking at all. They come here drunk, you see. Most of them, at any rate. One or two have offered to share a drink with me, but unfortunately that’s a no-no.’

‘Why?’ said Alfric.

‘Because I’m an alcoholic,’ said Qa sadly. ‘Haven’t had a drink for years, but I’m still an alcoholic. I can’t fool myself, not now. Anyway, that’s how it is. They come here drunk, haul out their swords and hack away. Straight into it! Don’t even introduce themselves most of the time. Of course, I know who they are anyway.’

‘Why?’

‘I get told in advance, who’s coming, and usually when. I was expecting you. They told me you’d be here by night. But why night? I didn’t think to ask. But now I think of it, it’s most unusual. They usually come by day, you know.’

‘I walk the night because She walks the night also,’ said Alfric.

‘Oh,’ said the sea dragon Qa, as if it didn’t like the sound of that one little bit. ‘She walks, does She? Well, nice chatting. I have to go now.’

And the dragon started to back off toward the surf. ‘Go?’ said Alf ric. ‘But we’ve business to conduct. Listen, I’m here to kill you, but it doesn’t have to end that way. I’ve got a proposition.’

‘Then bring it to me in the cave,’ said Qa, the swash of dying surf washing around the rearmost of his four feet.

‘The cave?’ said Alfric, pursuing the dragon down the beach. ‘Why can’t we settle things here?’

‘I can’t kill people on the beach,’ said Qa. ‘That wouldn’t be lawful. My charter’s quite specific. All killings to be done on the island. In the cave, in fact.’ ‘Couldn’t we make an exception?’ said Alfric. ‘Just this once. I mean, it’s all the same to me whether I die here or on the island. And anyway, I’m not really expecting to die. Or to kill you. As I say, I’ve got a proposition.’

‘That sounds very, very interesting,’ said Qa. ‘But I can’t afford to violate the terms of my charter. One violation and it’s all over, you see.’

Water broke and buckled about Alfric’s ankles. It was cold, and flooded into his boots through flaws of which he had previously been unaware. Yet he did not retreat, for there was much he wanted to know. Instead, he demanded:

‘Your charter?’

‘My agreement with the Wormlord. Oh yes, I got a formal written agreement, you can be sure of that. Not that I keep it here. My solicitor has it safe in Galsh Ebrek.’

‘Your solicitor!’ ‘That’s right,’ said Qa. ‘Anyway, I’ll see you in the cave.’

‘I’m not swimming out to the island,’ said Alfric.

‘I’m not asking you to,’ said Qa. ‘The sea goes in and out twice a day. Tides, that’s what it’s called. Influence of the moon and all that. Oh, but you’d know about the moon. You being a werewolf and all that.’

‘You called me a what?’ said Alfric.

‘A werewolf.’

‘A werewolf!’

‘Yes,’ said Qa. ‘Because that’s what you are. Aren’t you?’

‘No!’ said Alfric, hotly. ‘I am not a werewolf. That’s a base slander. A vile and gratuitous untruth. A rumour utterly without foundation. My father was smeared, that’s what it was. I-’

‘All right, all right,’ said Qa. ‘Sorry I spoke. Well, must be off now. Much swimming to do. Doctor’s orders, you know.’

‘Doctor’s orders? You have a doctor as well as a solicitor?’

‘Oh yes. Olaf Offorum. The Wormlord’s personal physician. He sees to me as well. Comes here twice a year to check me out. Told me to do more swimming. Oh, and to eat more horsemeat as well. Where is your horse?’

‘I haven’t got one,’ said Alfric.

‘You mean you marched here all that way with that great big pack? I don’t believe it. Not to worry, though. Mostly they bring their horses here, but when they don’t I usually look in the forest.’

‘The forest?’

‘That’s what I call it, but it’s only a few trees really.

You know. Down the shore. About a league away. Anyway, that’s all for now. See you later!’

With that, the dragon began to backtrack in earnest. A wave caught it, knocked it off balance and tumbled it up the beach. But on the second attempt the creature made it out into the surf. Alfric walked up the beach and sat down on his pack. His feet were cold and sodden, but he gave them little thought, for the sea dragon Qa had given him much else to think about.

The dragon’s story rang true.

It was undeniable, for instance, that ambassadors from Ang were always enormously impressed by tales of the dragon’s ferocity; and, come to think of it, by accounts of other dangers which existed in Wen Endex. It was something of a local tradition to brag of such hazards when speaking with an ambassador; and, for the first time, Alfric wondered whether that tradition was of spontaneous genesis, or whether the kings of Galsh Ebrek had carefully nurtured the custom.

Alfric Danbrog was starting to realize that there was much more to this business of kingship than met the eye. He had always thought the Wormlord did very little but sit on the throne: but obviously there was much more to learn.

Learn he would.

If he got to sit on that throne.

If he won all three saga swords.

If he secured Edda.

If he lived to see the morrow.

Alfric started to shiver, and not just because of the cold. He was starting to get nervous. He didn’t like the sound of this dragon-king arrangement one little bit. It all sounded far too organized: very much like organized murder, in fact. So did the Wormlord really mean him to live? Or to die? Whatever the truth of the Wormlord’s intentions, Alfric wished he could rush across the waters to Thodrun, forge his way into the cave and get it over with. Now.

But the tide was up.

So he would just have to wait.

Wait he did, until at last the skimmering skime of seawet sands stretched between Thodrun and the shore. Occasional waves still flirted across this sandstrand, but Alfric was not disposed to wait any longer. So he shouldered his pack and marched toward the island.

Up close to the rocks of Thodrun, the light from the island’s beacon was so bright that colours could be seen in the rocks, which were wet with water and riven with streaks of quartz, splashed with the glitterdust of iron pyrites and stubbled with weird and inexplicable crystals of coppery hue.

Alfric did not pause to admire these colours.

First, because he was not in the mood.

Second, because he was knocked over by a wave.

Up from the depths of the sea it came, and swirled its way around the flanks of the island, stirring the seaweeds of the shore. Kelp and blubber weed gave themselves to its dance; mermaids’ delight and seacow’s greed joined the rhythms of its delight; and at last that energy-surge wrapped itself around Alfric Danbrog and swamped him entirely.