Hugh Cook - The Walrus and the Warwolf

'It's not for myself that I want her,' said Drake to Drake. 'No, I want her because I'm a patriot. She's part of the key to the liberation of Stokos, aye, and the restoration of good King Tor.'

At Narba, he would turn back and make for the south again. Only: he would make very sure that he stole a horse for the journey, not a camel.

The kafila reached Narba.

And the Galish handed Drake over to the harbour guard, and he was marched off to the harbour jails and imprisoned without explanation.

* * *

The harbour jail boasted two rows of twenty cells, with a central corridor running between them. Drake knew not how many of those cells were inhabited, for he was denied a guided tour; instead, he was locked up without ceremony, and left to stew.

'This is a right mess,' muttered Drake, exploring the confines of his one-dwarf cell, which did not take long at all.

A little rudimentary light guttered through a rat-squeeze window, breeding shadows amongst the heaps of stinking damp straw covering the floor.

The weakest part of the cell was probably the door, which was made of metal bars. As Drake tested its strength – without much hope – a voice spoke from the cell directly opposite his.'It's you, isn't it?' said the black-bearded voice.'No,' said Drake. 'It's someone else altogether.'

'I knew it was you!' said Atsimo Andranovory. 'I'm going to rip you limb to limb.'

As the boozy thug was locked away well out of reach, this threat made little impression on Drake, who responded by faking a laugh.

'Thrown off the Walrus, were you?' he said. 'Slagger Mulps finally found what you were made of, did he?'

'Aaagh,' said Andranovory, hawking, then spitting in Drake's direction. 'Mulps and me, we had a difference, yes. But nothing like the difference he's got with you. Traitor!'

'What's this traitor business?' said Drake, sounding hurt.

'You betrayed us on Burntos, didn't you? That's why the woman was gone from her room. That's why the soldiers jumped us.'

'The soldiers jumped one of us,' said Drake. 'One of us who was drunk, aye, and noisy with it. If I'd betrayed us to Burntos, the soldiers would have sought for more than one.' 'Nara zabara jok\ ' said Andranovory.

And spat once more in Drake's direction. Drake replied in kind.

Five days, five lean meals and several spitting competitions later, both Drake and Andranovory were hauled from their cells. They were dragged into the daylight and brought before a dour man who wore red rope-soled shoes, red robes and a red turban. He was as black as Jon Arabin. Unless Drake was much mistaken, this was Abousir Belench, whom he had seen on occasion on the Greaters.

'Aaagh,' said Andranovory, hawking and spitting. 'Abou', man! Good to see you!'

'An'vory,' said Abousir Belench, without much pleasure. 'I'd hoped for better. Still, I'm short-handed. Who is the little one?'

'I see no little one,' said Drake, looking around, 'but if you want to know who I am, I'm Drake Douay, a hero-survivor of storm, wreck, voyage and disaster.'

'The lucky gambler, is that who you are?' said Abousir Belench.'The very one!' said Drake.

'He's a traitor!' said Andranovory. 'He betrayed the Walrus to – to Burntos. We were stopping there for water and such when he-'

'An'vory, that's nothing to me,' said Abousir Belench. 'I've a ship unmanned by battle. I can take the both of you if you'll both swear loyal – and swear to leave any differences between you unsettled till you get to the Greaters.''Done,' said Drake, quickly.'Done,' said Andranovory, with some reluctance.

And both swore loyal to Abousir Belench, captain of the good ship Jade. Belench then paid their release price to the harbour guard of Narba, and, by evening, they were at sea once more, heading for the Greaters.

So much for Drake's hopes of returning to Drangsturm! Every league was taking him further from the Castle of Controlling Power and the fair Zanya Kliedervaust.

He began to make elaborate plans for combining the recapture of Stokos with the winning of the lady Zanya. Perhaps King Tor could be persuaded to send some ships to Drangsturm to hire a few thousand Landguard soldiers from the wizards. They'd make good mercenaries, surely.

A brilliant idea! Landguard mercenaries, plus Orfus pirates, plus Menator's men, plus King Tor himself and the loyal subjects who would doubtless rally to his standard – with such a force they'd overrun Stokos with no trouble at all.

The only difficult bit would be kidnapping Zanya while negotiations were underway for hiring mercenaries . . .

With such schemes, Drake kept his spirits high as the Jade cruised north.

Abousir Belench was a moody, brooding man given to outbreaks of appalling anger. He was, moreover, a puritan of sorts. He liked men who worked hard, ate little and drank nothing. Drake Douay pleased this hard taskmaster, particularly since he was invariably sober. But Atsimo Andranovory had managed to scrounge enough liquor to get himself drunk five times before bad weather struck the Jade just south of the Greaters.

With the weather making the approaches to the Greaters impossible, Abousir Belench, wary of the dangers of the coast of Chorst, strove westward, out into the waters of the Central Ocean. In the storm-fight which followed, Andranovory disgraced himself by drinking himself legless.

By the time the bad-weather winds had blown themselves to nothing, the Jade was lost, far from the nearest landfall horizon. To get his bearings, Belench sailed east against contrary winds, eventually making landfall on the coast of Estar, just south of the Hollern River.

By then, food was low, so Belench led a raiding party ashore. They returned to the ship with four sheep and two goats – and found Andranovory drunk again.

'You useless piece of fart-arse offal!' said Belench. 'To think I paid money to buy you out of Narba!'

'Aaagh, I'm sick with the sight of the traitor,' said Andranovory. 'That's what's driving me to drink.'

'If it's Drake Douay you're talking of, why, he's a better man than you are any day of the year,' said Belench.

Thus started an argument of epic dimensions, which led to a brawl, which led to Abousir Belench marooning Andranovory on the coast of Estar. Drake, who still resented the way An'vory had strung him up by the heels so long ago, felt no pity at all for the hapless drunk – not even when the man broke down weeping as his comrades sailed away.

Abousir Belench sailed the Jade to Chastity Bay on Island Anvil, most northerly of the Greaters. There she was moored in a gigantic sea-cave, where work on overhauling her began. Drake, who wished urgently to return to Knock to report to King Tor, obtained a release from his oath of service to Belench, and took passage to the Inner Sleeve on a sealing boat.

The night before the sealing boat reached the Inner Sleeve, she rafted up with two pirate fishing boats which had lately come from there. The crews spent the evening drinking octopus gin, gambling, wrist-wrestling, boasting and gossiping.

The Walrus, it seemed, had reached the Inner Sleeve with a Neversh aboard. The poor brute had died of thirst and hunger just a few days after arriving at the Greaters -but it had lived long enough to impress Lord Menator mightily.

Menator had announced that he was 'giving earnest consideration' to making Slagger Mulps an admiral in his imperial fleet.

In response, Jon Arabin had declared that he would duplicate the feat which Slagger Mulps had accomplished. He would sail to the terror-lands of the Deep South, capture a monster of the Swarms and bring it to Knock for Menator's inspection. Even now, the Warwolf was being readied for the expedition.

'What news of King Tor?' said Drake. 'The ogre? He lives aboard ship in the Inner Sleeve as always.''So we've not yet invaded Stokos,' said Drake.