Hugh Cook - The Walrus and the Warwolf

The only instant cure for that hangover was a drachm of fresh blood drained from a living salamander of the blue-gilled variety. But these were extraordinarily rare: even the salamanders sometimes seen in the flames of Drangsturm were but the more common green-gilled variety, which has blood useless for anything except removing wine stains from linen (and even the evidence for that use is dubious, consisting as it does of a reference in Cralock which is ambiguous, an assertion in the 'Regiment of Reptiles' which cannot be given much weight since the scholarship of Prenobius has thrown doubt on Gibble's corpus in its entirety, and a mention in Zoth which in all probability – and despite the claims of Elkstein to the contrary

– actually refers to the taniwha of Quilth, an altogether different creature).

Drake knew nothing of salamanders of any variety, but did know his booze. He sampled all types available

– which did not take him long, as the bar had been almost drunk dry the night before – then concluded he could not kill his hangover but must suffer it. He did not know it, but he would go on suffering from that hangover for the next five and a half days. If he lived that long.

Drake grunted, stretched, yawned, scratched his scalp, rubbed his head, pulled on the few hardly noticeable ginger hairs which these days straggled out from his chin, burped, farted, yawned again, took off his boots so he could pull the wrinkles out of his socks, pulled on his boots again, and felt as ready to face the world as he was likely to be on that particular day.

He felt by now that he had got the knack of walking around with his heels touching nothing but air, so it was with some confidence that he stepped outside. The sunshine was warm. The cockerel had shut up – with any luck, someone had strangled it. The blacksmith had quit hammering; a busy sound of filing now came from the forge. Within a shuttered house, someone – a big, big fat man, by the sound of it – was snoring loudly.

Drake grunted to himself, his grunt meaning, 'Demon's thanks, the racket's died down.'

The next moment, a small blac'k-and-tan dog ambushed him, jumping from beneath a propped-up dinghy, barking wildly. It snapped at his heels, almost dared itself to bite, then backed off growling ferociously. Drake liked dogs – usually – but today he was not in the mood. He swung a kick at the cur, lost his balance, fell over, threw out an arm to save himself – but never hit the ground. He just hung there, floating. He was not amused. The dog leaped forward and started worrying his wrist.'********!' said Drake, shaking it loose.

Or, to be precise, to give (in the interests of accuracy) form to that which a misguided prudery would rather suppress: 'Salk felsh!'

As he regained his feet, Drake said a few other words of similar nature. Then tore a fishing-float free from a drying net, and threw it. The float scudded past the dog's left ear, and the mongrel turned and fled.

Drake's throat was too sore to allow him the satisfaction of hurling abuse at its scampering heels.

He walked between forge and boatshed to the waterfront. A couple of dozen fishing boats were drawn up on the sandy beach; several larger ones lay at anchor in the harbour bay. Further out was the Sky Dancer, the ship Arabin's men still insisted on calling the Warwolf. A few people were moving about on deck; the unintelligible tones of their voices came drifting through the still, calm air. Tiny wavelets lapped against the sands like kittens eagering on cream.

Drake looked around for a boat so he could row to the ship. He saw a number of dinghies, all lying clear of the water. All looking heavy. And none had oars. Drake paused, shrugged, then walked out across the water.

By the time he reached the ship, he was having no trouble at all with his negative gravity. Those on deck crowded to the rails to watch, so he showed off a bit. Striding over the water with great aplomb, Drake paraded around the vessel, feeling still very sick but very clever all the same.

'Stop playing the fool, man!' shouted Rolf Thelemite from the deck. 'We need you up here, fast!'

Drake made a rude gesture for Rolf Thelemite's benefit. Then the Walrus himself, Slagger Mulps in all his hairy glory, shouted in a regular storm voice:

'Drake, you son of a snake-spawned cockroach, get your arse up here, now, before I come down there and kick it off!'

Drake was just considering whether the Walrus was also worthy of a rude gesture, and what his (Drake's) chances of survival would be if he made one, when the last of the enchantment wore off, suddenly and without warning. Gravity reclaimed him, and he fell into the sea, which was shockingly cold and wet besides. He spluttered and floundered a bit, while those on deck laughed loudly, then he swam overarm to the anchor cable, where he hung resting until a rope ladder was dropped so he could scramble up.'Here!' bellowed the Walrus. 'What's up?' asked Drake. He soon found out.

As the Walrus swiftly told him, in language almost salty enough to blister paint, Jon Arabin had been taken hostage by the locals, who thought that Baron Farouk of Hexagon would be worth a handsome ransom. They were holding him in the Bildungsgrift, an ancient (and usually abandoned) broch some three leagues inland. All of the locals had fled.

'No they haven't,' said Drake. 'There's someone snoring, and a blacksmith working still.'

'That forge is full of haunted metal,' said the Walrus grimly. 'I've been to see for myself. As for the snoring – that's Whale Mike, dead drunk in a stranger's bed. It would take six of us to shift him.'

'It wouldn't have taken six of you to shift me,' said Drake, slightly aggrieved.

'Aye, no,' said the Walrus, uneasily, 'but we had no time to search the town proper.'

In truth, a raiding party had gone ashore at dawn, had found Whale Mike asleep, had investigated the forge -and had fled immediately, having seen lean limbs of skeletal metal working unattended, stoking the furnace for the morning's work.

'Well then,' said Drake, 'it's a hard day for Jon Arabin, that's to be sure, but I'm off to bed. Wake me tomorrow so I can hear how you've handled it.'

'Not so fast!' said the Walrus, grabbing Drake by the collar as he sauntered away.

The collar, being rotten, tore free – but Drake stopped anyway.'What do you want from me?' he asked.

'Your luck,' said the Walrus. 'Man, the fortunes you've won by gambling – you're so fay you can luck this out blindfolded with both hands tied to your testicles.''Luck be buggered,' said Drake, turning away.

'Hold fast!' said Mulps. 'You'll be buggered yourself with a sealing spear unless you come to order quickly. I'm putting you in charge of rescuing friend Warwolf.'It was, Drake sensed, no idle boast.

'Okay then,' he said sullenly, 'I'll get Jon Arabin loose, or get him killed by trying.'

'None of that!' said the Walrus. 'Your life rides with his!'

'Ouch!' said Drake, his glorious stock of obscenities entirely failing him in the face of this news.

He saw – he was thinking fast, now – that Mulps had decided the situation was hopeless. They were like to lose Jon Arabin, which meant no admiral's hopes for the Walrus, hence no chance of extra booty to be divvied up between the crew, and thus, for a start, the possibility of civil war between the men ex-Walrus and the Warwolf originals.

Slagger Mulps was looking for a scapegoat, and had found one in Drake, the lucky one, whose glamorous dice and youthful insolence had not exactly made him widely beloved, at least not amongst the crewmen from the Walrus.

Jon Arabin's men thought better of Drake, as he had found when the Warwolf tried to have him thrown overboard more than a horizon away from the Teeth. But would they stand staunch against the Walrus? For an entire crew to face down Jon Arabin on Drake's behalf was one thing. For them to fight it out cutlass to cutlass with the likes of Ish Ulpin was another thing altogether.