Hugh Cook - The Walrus and the Warwolf

'Ah now, me little younker,' said Fimp, 'You sees, I bargain – with this!'And he drew red metal to the menace.'So give it!' he said.

Drake, with every manifestation of reluctance, handed the amulet over. Eager as a bald-headed vulture greeding at a gaping belly-wound, the shivman seized it. And Drake smashed him. Struck first, fast and hard. Struck second, third and fourth. Struck again – and stunned, bruised and broke before taking his opponent in a choke.

'Speak to me nicely now,' said Drake, tightening the throttle. 'Speake to me nice, darling, yes, speak soft, my dear – or the blade speaks for me.'

Fimp, dizzy, dislocated in time, muttered something in Shurlspurl, which meant nothing to Drake.

'Is it life you want?' said Drake. 'Is it life? Gold has life, aye, bright as sun, hot as fire. I'll trade. Be quick! The blade hungers!'

Fimp had dropped the amulet onto the counter of the bar. A hand dared from the crowd of spectators, lunging for the magic medallion. Quick as a flash, Drake stabbed the hand, which escaped with a nick – and without the amulet.

'That's how quick you'll die,' said Drake to Fimp. All around, bright eyes watched for a killing. 'Soft,' said an oiled, luxurious voice. 'Soft, young Galish.'

And the voice smiled its way into a man, who laid down cold gold on the bar.

'Let him go,' said the man, a well-fed elderly fellow who wore blue and yellow furs though the place was warm.

Drake scooped up the gold, secured his amulet, then released Fimp. Who slumped to the floor and then, kicked by patrons who wanted to get back to their drinks, began to crawl into the further recesses of the darkness, where he had the misfortune to encounter two bad-tempered tavern dogs.

'What do you want?' said Drake to his gold-paying stranger.

'Ah,' said the man in the colourful furs, 'the question, young Galish, is what do you want. How much ambition do you have?''Who are you?' said Drake. 'And what?''I am Ol Tul,' said the stranger.

Drake took this for a regular name, ignorant of the fact that 'Ol Tul', in all varieties of Churl, meant simply 'The Man'.

'As for what I am,' said Ol Tul, 'why, I am he who needs. I need blades to stand gate. Good work it is, day work.''As muscle, then.''Nay, as steel. Or is it too pretty?''What do you run?' asked Drake.

'Do you mean to ask what I muckle? Pretty, I muckle women, and smoke. Both worth it. That's why the steel. To stand off the jealous.''Aye then,' said Drake. 'I'm in.'

He had no special desire to be bodyguard, frightener or enforcer, and guessed well enough that the job he was being offered involved a bit of all three. But he had to take what he could get. He was in a dangerous foreign city, alone, with no friends and no money. Moreover, he had to stay in Selzirk so he could take advantage of any radical change in the city's attitude to King Tor. Thus, in utterance, he accepted Ol Tul's offer.

'So you're in,' said Ol Tul, nodding to the barman. 'But if you're to stay in, I must know more about you.'

'What?' said Drake, as the barman put a couple of beers on the counter.'Name, genesis and training,' said Ol Tul.

All difficult questions. It was dangerous to come from Stokos. To be a pirate? That might have its dangers, too. Drake remembered a fellow he had met in Estar, on the Salt Road south of Stokos. He had asked the man's name since the fellow looked remarkably alike the woodsman Blackwood, that charitable forest-dweller who had found, saved and sheltered both Drake and Zanya when they were lost in Estar's Looming Forest.Shen Shen Drax, that was the man's name.

T,' said Drake, 'be Shen Shen Drax, leech-gatherer of Delve.''And where under the five skies be Delve?' said Ol Tul.

'Why,' said Drake, 'Delve is a small place in Estar, south of the ruling town of Lorford. South, indeed, of mountain Maf, where lives the dragon Zenphos, who I had the pleasure of meeting once.'

'A pretty tale that makes, I vum,' said Ol Tul, supping his beer.

'Yes,' said Drake, taking a drag on his own beer. 'So you know my genesis right enough. Born in Delve, by the Salt Road. Aye, and raised there. Name and genesis both. You have them.'

'But training?' said Ol Tul. 'This place called Estar, if I place it right, that's north of Chorst and Dybra. Little but grass and leeches there, if I hear right.'

'Grass and leeches!' said Drake, speaking up for Estar as indeed he must if he was to pass for a patriot. 'Nay, man, there's more by much. Dragon, aye – that I've spoken of. And sheep, with much killing for disputes over the same. And a castle huge at Lorford. Aye. Castle Vaunting. A place built by wizards in generations long forgotten.''Lorford?' said Ol Tul.

'The ruling town of Estar, as I've said,' said Drake. 'It stands on the banks of the Hollern River, which flows south from Lake Armansis. This Castle Vaunting, it rules the hill called Melross. Was there I had my training, aye.''How?' said Ol Tul.

'For I took service under Prince Comedo, the ruler of the place,' said Drake. 'This leech-gathering business, man, it's not the world's best living, as you'd guess for yourself. So, when I were a strong fourteen – which is going back a few years now – I took place with the prince.''As what?''As soldier, man.'

'Leech-gatherer to soldier,' said Ol Tul, with a smile which was not necessarily friendly.

'Aye,' said Drake, stoutly. 'And, as a soldier, I trained beneath the Rovac warriors who serve the prince.''Name them,' said Ol Tul.

'There are three. One is Oronoko, aye, who has skin of utter purple, as do some that's born in Rovac. Another is Atsimo Andranovory, a black-bearded brute who kills as soon as kisses. The third – that's Morgan Hearst. Aye. He's the best and hardest. A grey-haired killer. Grey eyes on him, too. He taught me man to man these last long years. Sword, aye. And hand to hand without weapons.''Then why left you Estar?' said Ol Tul.

'Man,' said Drake, 'have you not heard the news? It's madness there. Dragon run wild. Invading armies slaughtering across the countryside. Wizards wild in wrath, killing with fire and thunder. All trade at a halt on the Salt Road. Man, those who could, they ran – aye, and Morgan Hearst, he led us as we ran. But he died by the roadside, died face to face with a dragon. But me – I lived. But just.'

Ol Tul drained the last of his beer. 'Come with me,' said Ol Tul, 'and we'll put your story to the test.'

Drake followed with some trepidation, wondering what kind of examination he was going to face. A detailed grilling on the geography of Estar, perhaps? A language test by some stray native of the place whom Ol Tul happened by chance to know? The people of Estar had their own tongue, aye, Estral, that was the name of it – but Drake had learnt nary a word of the stuff. The good woodsman Blackwood, who had sheltered him in need, had spoken Galish with the best.

Fortunately, the test Ol Tul planned for Drake took place in a private combat pit. It was a tough test, and Drake got a rib broken while passing it – plus a five-stitch cut to add to his wound-list. But pass he did, with honours. Ol Tul brought many potential recruits to that combat pit, and nineteen out of twenty failed, and were dumped dead in the river.

Thus it was that Lord Dreldragon of Stokos, currently posing as Shen Shen Drax of Estar, won the trust and confidence of Ol Tul, 'The Man', and was inducted into the underworld of Selzirk.

Drake soon became acquainted with the ruling city of the Harvest Plains. But what he knew was not the city of palaces and temples which features in history books, but another place altogether: Selzirk of the thousand sewers, the city of low-life brothels, opium dens, protection rackets, blackmail, intimidation and outright murder. He lived by wit and by steel.

The pace was fast. This life had no longueurs like that of the Teeth, where an entire crew of Orfus pirates might spend months at a time doing little but sealing, breeding, fishing and gambling. Drake lived instead at city-speed, and soon won a name for himself amongst those who served Ol Tul.