Hugh Cook - The Walrus and the Warwolf

But peered again at a sketch kept hidden behind the bar, glanced back at Drake, and, after pulling a couple of mugs ('Set them up in twins, I don't want to be wasting my time'), sent a runner to an inn lying handy to most of the dockside bars.

Drake had only just started his fourth mug when into the bar, as if by coincidence, came Sudder Vemlouf, whom Drake knew from old times back on Stokos.

'Sudder, me old mate,' said Drake jovially. 'What are you doing here? Sit down, man, and have a mug. Bar! A couple of ales and a dash of cold potato.'

He was feeling generous, in part because the beers had warmed him nicely, yes, slurring the sharpness of the harder edges of the world.

'I was never any friend of yours,' said Sudder Vemlouf, as the drinks were served.

'Sure no, you were neighbour to old man Muck. And how is the scratchy old bastard, anyway?'

'The Blessed One is in good health,' said Vemlouf formally. 'And he is far from happy with you.'

'What? Upset about the mastersword, is he? Oh, I admit everything. Don't worry. When I'm home, I'll rich him up till his eyes pop. I've got the money now.'

'You have no need to travel home,' said Vemlouf, 'for justice has found you here.'And, so saying, Vemlouf suddenly drew a knife.

A professional killer would have gutted in quick and low, and would have been halfway to the door before anyone realized a man was dead. But Vemlouf raised his knife on high like a ham actor in a melodrama.'Die!' he screamed.

And, both hands clasping the hilt, he brought the blade down.

There was a certain ritual quality to the way he struck. He was slow, yes – but the beers had done their damage. Drake flung up a warding arm – too late! The steel bit through his sealskins, slammed into his chest – and skidded off the amulet.

'Get away with you!' said Drake, giving Vemlouf a shove which sent him staggering backwards.

Vemlouf glanced at his unblooded blade, and then, with horror, at Drake.'You – you live?'

'Bloody oath I live! Now get out of here, before I kick your ring through your breakfast!'

'Demon-son!' hissed Vemlouf, tightening his hold on the knife.

'Oh, jalk off!' said Drake, as Vemlouf stalked toward him.

Then, seeing the man seriously intended to kill him, Drake picked up a bar stool and defended himself. But Vemlouf managed to give him a nasty scratch on the back of his hand. Drake, rather put out by that, broke his arm, knocked him unconscious, then threw him to the floor and jumped on him.

'Damned if I like your choice in customers,' he said to the barman, and left to find a quieter bar where he could practise religion in peace.

The next barman he encountered also had a hidden sketch, and also sent a messenger to a certain inn – only this time, of course, there was nobody to respond to the news.

'Who's drinking?' asked Drake of all and sundry, as a young man with sudden money necessarily must.

It turned out that everyone was. And, while demolishing a pearl's worth of ale, they were happy enough to listen to Drake hold forth on his recent adventures. Only one sceptic was unkind enough to dispute his tall tales about Ling.

'Where did all that fresh water come from?' asked he. 'And how did those cold cold lights keep burning?''By magic,' said Drake solemnly.

And would have come no closer to the truth even if he had managed to break into the armoured vaults holding the automated desalination plant, the Ground Effect generator, the Control, the Planet Link, and the other sophisticated machinery installed when the Plague Sanctuary was first established at Ling, many thousands of years before, in the nightmare years known as the Days of Wrath, which were now almost less than a memory.

'Magic?' said the sceptic. 'It was a place of wizards, then? Or was it?'

Wiser heads suppressed him before Drake could be bothered to find an answer, and the flow of ale continued unabated.

With so many eager co-religionists to help him worship, Drake was fairly deep in the clutches of faith by the time the bar was enlivened by the arrival of Jon Disaster, Goth Sox, Hewlet Mapleskin, Lee Dix, Shewel Lokenshield and others.

'Good to see you boys,' slurred Drake. 'Have a beer -I'm buying!'

Well, one thing led to another, till finally – and not for the first time – Drake's religious fervour got the better of him. He woke up the next day with a large-sized gap in his memory, and found himself at sea again. He had no money, no pearls, and no magic amulets – but for the one worn secretly against his skin for luck. He had also lost his boots.

What was worse, his penis hurt so badly he feared he had picked up a heavy dose of clap. But, on inspection, he found he had been tattoed with a snake design while stone cold unconscious.

'All right,' he demanded, 'which of you jerk-offs did that?'

'Who are you calling a jerk-off?' rumbled Shewel Lokenshield.

'Not you, you prickless wonder,' said Drake promptly, thus precipitating a fo'c'sle fight, which he lost.

The next day, his vital organ began to swell with blood poisoning. Consequently, he was a little down in the mouth. The other pirates, though, were in high spirits, for they were returning home wealthy. Jon Arabin organized deckside games of knuckleskull, First Off and Quivliv Quoo, which Drake, sore and sulking, watched from the sidelines.

However, by the time they raised the Greater Teeth his condition was improving, and he no longer lived in fear of imminent amputation. All he had to worry about was surviving until he could make a break for freedom.

But would he ever get another chance? He had blown his best opportunity, back at Narba. And even if he struggled back to Stokos, how would he cope with Gouda Muck? The old man must be lunatic to be sending armed assassins to revenge the theft of the mastersword with murder.

'The bugger's insane,' said Drake to Drake. 'But old, yes. Can't last much longer. Ten years, at most. Yes -that'll finish him.'

It was easy to say, but – ten years! That was more than half Drake's lifetime.

'I can't possibly wait that long,' said Drake. 'Anyway, attack's the best defence. Aye, that's for certain. First chance I get, I'll be back to Stokos to kill off old man Muck. King Tor won't hold that against me, I'm sure. In fact, once he understands what's going on, he'll probably help me. Aye. Likely pay good gold to see Muck wasted.'Or so Drake hoped.

* * *

The Warwolf, returning rich, avoided Gufling, and made instead for Knock. It was at that time early autumn. The year Khmar 18 was still young, and Drake was only 17 years old. (Though, if challenged, he would have claimed to have been 18, on the grounds that a couple of months would take him through to age 17'/2, and the missing half-year was not worth worrying about.)

It was a while since Jon Arabin had dared the approaches to Knock, and he disgraced himself by getting the Warwolf stuck as they were approaching the Skerry Passage at low tide. His own men thought it was hilarious. So did the crew of a sealing boat which slipped past a little later, returning from a hunting expedition laden with bloody booty.

'The Walrus will laugh himself sick to hear of this!' cried one of the sealers, from the deck.'He lives, then?' called Arabin.

'Aye! Lives, farts, shits, shags – and swears you left him on the Gaunt Reefs to drown.''That's a lie!' shouted Arabin. 'He had his choices!'

'That's as may be – but all his crew swears with him. They say the only thing you took from the rocks was a sweet-faced playtime boy.'

This news did not improve Jon Arabin's temper. Nor Drake's.'Does Andranovory live?' he yelled.'Who?' shouted one of the sealers.

'Atsimo Andranovory. A great big dirty brute with a great big beard which stinks like a bilge broom. A black beard, with black hair to go with it. Aye, and a great big chest.'