Hugh Cook - The Walrus and the Warwolf

'Sit down there,' said Drake, 'while I sharpen some torturing knives.'

Yot sat meekly, without attempting to jump him. Drake was disappointed. He wanted a desperate fight, yes, and the pleasure of wrecking Yot in combat before killing him. But Yot had no more spirit than a dead fish.

Whistling tunelessly, Drake began to sharpen his favourite knives.

'Drake,' said Yot, in a pale voice, 'I can … I can be of use to you.'

'Can you now?' said Drake. 'I don't really think so. I've got more taste than to want to bugger you. And I'd never let you suck anything you might just possibly bite off. But I can use you for fish bait – if the fish aren't too fussy tomorrow. And that's about all that you're good for.''Drake, I can – I can tell you things.'

'Tell me things? Like what? Like the precise and exact taste of Gouda Muck's arsehole?'

'Drake . . . things about home. You know. Cam. Your uncle. Your parents. Drake, your brother Heth.'

'Yes, and how hot the sun was, and how cold the rain,' said Drake, pretending news of Heth meant nothing to him.But Yot knew better.

'Drake, I saw Heth just before I left Stokos last, and that was recent. He was come to Cam to marry.'

Drake gave no verbal acknowledgment of interest, but the intensity went out of his knife-sharpening. Stokos! Cam! His uncle! His parents! Heth!

'Your uncle paid for the marriage. Yes, that's why it was in Cam.'

Drake pretended not to hear, but his sharpening strokes got slower and slower, and little tears pricked his eyes. It had been so long since he saw the Home Island last, so long since he wandered its streets of forge-hammering and coal dust.

'Tell me then,' said Drake at last, emotion beginning to choke his voice. 'Tell me about all of it.'

So Yot began to talk, and fear gave him eloquence. The words poured out of him, and what he didn't know he invented.

Before he had gone too far, Drake was offering him some ale to moisten his throat. Then, after a few tales more, he insisted that Yot must eat, yes, and change into fresh sealskins which Drake would lend him. And when at last Yot had talked himself out, Drake sat rocking on his heels for a while, stroking King Tor with an absent-minded hand and brooding.

'Well now,' said Drake, 'that was worth hearing and all. Come – there's a banquet tonight to mark the end of Slaving Day. It's a good do, or so I've heard. Will you come with me? We'll get some real food and good drink with it, then talk some more.'

'If you don't mind,' said Yot, still in that same pale voice, 'I'd rather rest a bit if I may.'

'For sure,' said Drake, content, and glutted with nostalgia. 'You can do what you want. We'll be together plenty in the future, as we make you into a pirate.'

'I'm not sure I've really got what it takes to be a pirate,' said Yot.'Don't run yourself down,' said Drake. 'Be brave! Be strong! Be confident! Come now – rest, and we'll talk again tomorrow.'

So Drake took himself off to the banquet, alone, and a great treat it was. Musicians from the kingdom of Sung played for them, so they ate to the accompaniment of the skirl of the skavamareen, and the uproar of krymbol and kloo. Naked bodies danced for their delight, and performed charades of love by flaring torchlight. There was food by the table-load, with plenty of lobster, crab, gaplax and crayfish. It was a well-organized affair, with an unending supply of good drink, and plenty of buckets to vomit into.

Drake indulged himself, drinking cold rice wine and warm brown beer. It bolstered his ego to know the others were admiring him as he quaffed down quantities of alcohol which would have killed an ordinary man, and, what's more, would have embalmed the corpse into the bargain.

The banquet finally reached the rowdy stage, with knife-throwing and wrist-wrestling, a brawl, and some extra-special entertainment laid on by Jon Arabin, who whipped one of his wives raw in public, having caught her out in adultery.

Drake left shortly afterwards, staggering markedly as he quit the banquet, so his future gambling partners would register the fact that he could indeed get drunk like other mortals. Actually, he was not even slightly tipsy – but, by the time he reached his home cave, he was staggering a little for real, out of sheer fatigue.

A low-burning whale oil lamp showed Drake that Yot was curled up in a corner. A number of things in the cave had been shifted – his bean bag, rocking chair, laundry basket, sea-chest, water cask, oil barrel, fishing tackle, harpoon rack and wardrobe. Had Yot been searching the cave? Or had some villain taken advantage of the banquet, and of Yot's deep sleep (or complaisant terror) to rummage the cave in search of Drake's fabled gambling treasure?

Drake was too tired to care either way. He knew Yot was no danger to him, for Drake was now the nearest thing to a friend that Yot had in all the Greater Teeth. And as for the gambling treasure – why, that was safely hidden in five separate places, and even at low tide the shallowest of those places demanded a three-fathom dive.

'We'll have to teach you to be a guard dog as well,' said Drake to King Tor, scratching that dignitary behind the ears. 'Or maybe I should start keeping geese.'

And, with that, he laid himself down on his pallet and pulled the blankets over himself, without bothering to undress or take off his boots. King Tor nosed his way under the blankets. Drake took the dog into his arms, and they cuddled together in an indiscriminate heap, sharing each other's fleas.

Very late at night, as Drake and dog lay snoring, Sully Datelier Yot roused his flesh to wakefulness and got to his feet. He extracted a shark-killing knife from the tangle of Drake's fishing tackle, raised the blade to his lips and kissed it. Then, shaking with fear but unshakable in his resolve, he bent over his sleeping enemy and struck with all his force.The knife went home.'Die, Demon-spawn!' screamed Yot.

And struck again, even as Drake heaved up from the bed. Drake rolled away, pulling a blanket with him. He swore viciously and whipped the blanket at Yot's knifehand. As wool entangled steel, Drake closed the distance.

They grappled, all knees, elbows and panting bones. Drake got a stranglehold. With hands that were wet with blood, he choked his enemy, squeezing his fingers deep and hard to the windpipe.

Once sure that Yot was dead, Drake threw the body outside, and hurled the bloody dog-corpse after it.

'Sleep with the man you murdered!' shouted Drake at the corpse. 'It's your one chance to sleep with your betters!'

Then stalked around his cave, kicking things until he had exhausted his anger. Then started to shake, as the shock of his brush with death set in. Then began to cry, first for poor King Tor, and then for his own exiled condition, and then simply because he was over-tired and heavily stressed.

Then he did the sensible thing, which his mother would have recommended had she been there, and went back to sleep for the rest of the night. Only his mother would have insisted that he take his boots off first.

When morning came, Drake was disgusted to find that Yot was still alive. He had thick black bruises on his throat, true, but could still walk and talk and breathe, eat and drink – he was, in short, a living demonstration of the difficulties attendant on killing a properly constructed human being.

Abject in fear, Yot knelt at Drake's feet, snivelling once more.

'Give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill you,' roared Drake. 'Just one!'

'I had to kill you,' sobbed Yot. 'I had to. I didn't want to, but it was my duty. I like you, Drake, honestly, but you're – you're a son of the Demon.'

'By the oath I am!' said Drake. 'And proud of it! That's the way my father raised me, and that's how he'd have me be!'