Hugh Cook - The Walrus and the Warwolf

Drake, trembling, turned, tried to walk away, tripped over his own feet, and fell sprawling. Someone was urinating noisily. Someone else was vomiting. Sully Yot felt a tightness in his chest, and began to find it hard to breathe. The incident had precipitated a minor asthma attack. Yot had seemed to outgrow his childhood asthma on reaching the age of twelve, but the stresses of the journey had at last brought its return.'Where's Pouch?' said Arabin.'The damn fool fell in the river,' said Mulps.'Pouch!' roared Arabin. 'Come back here you . . . you

His voice trailed away to nothing. He stared at the water. Others joined him on the riverbank and watched in silence as the water boiled with blood. Suddenly the bloody waters vomited upwards, throwing a shower of river, stones and body-parts into the air. Settling swiftly, the waters soon ran smooth and clean once more.

'Blue-blooded mandarins,' muttered Arabin, in shock and wonderment; he had reached right back to his early childhood for that exclamation.

Drake got to his feet slowly, feeling sick. Two more comrades dead! Just like that! It was too much to take. So many good men dead. The weapons muqaddam, aye, slaughtered by the Collosnon. Quin Baltu, and – and all the others. It was grief just to list them. Good comrades. Men of my life.

Drake looked round at the shocked and shaken survivors. These were his comrades true. Many of these he'd felt like killing at times. Some, on occasion, had tried for his throat. But now . . .

My friends. My life.

He felt it hard to remember a time when he had not known these men. You who I love.

Now that was right strange. Weird, even. To feel so close to such a gross gang of warped, twisted killers and outcasts.

But are we not men ? Aye, we 're men all right. The same blood as princes.

And Drake, tears in his eyes, prayed to the Demon, to the Flame, or to Whoever It Was, not to write them off without thought and feeling.

For a while, the survivors watched silently as Whale Mike probed the river's waters with his battle-rod, trying to spear the death within the water. Then a quavering voice spoke:

'This is the Old City all right,' said Tiki Slooze. 'We'll none of us get out alive, no, none of us.'

'Shut up, you!' said Slagger Mulps. 'Or I'll smash you to death and damnation on the spot.' Then, to the Warwolf: 'Jon, let's make camp. I'm thinking a good fire's the thing, though there's daylight still. We've no need to walk further today.'

'Aye,' said Arabin, still slightly dazed. 'Aye. Just a little further, to a . . .a cleaner spot. Then we'll camp.'

That they did, Jon Arabin making a fire, as usual, with the tinder box kept safe in his sea-pouch. All were slow to sleep that night, resting uneasily beneath the gaunt shadows of darkness-haunted trees.

Out in the night lay the greater, darker bulk of half-demolished towers and monumental blockhouses of uncertain origin and unknown function. The river talked to itself, muttering, rambling, churning syllables of madness over and over, sweeping the chill of the Penvash mountains down toward the sea. Strange noises filled the night: distant thumpings, grindings and strange whistle-noises. And an intensely irritating high-pitched humming.Tiki Slooze woke them near dawn when he screamed.'What is it, man?' roared Arabin.

'My legs!' screamed Slooze. 'Something's bitten my legs off!'

'Nonsense, man,' said Arabin. 'You've been dreaming.'

To prove it, Arabin felt in the night for the legs of the torture-screaming Slooze. And felt the stumps, felt the wet hot gush of arterial blood spurting over his fingers. He moaned, fumbling for something to tourniquet with – but it was too late, would have been too late no matter how fast he moved, and Tiki Slooze was very shortly dead.'Are we all here?' said Arabin.'Aye,' said an optimist.But a check revealed one missing: Harly Burpskin.

The survivors stood back to back, weapons drawn, until it was light enough to explore. Day showed their dirt-rough faces gaunt with fear and hunger.

'Let's move,' said Ish Ulpin, more ready than the others for a task of death.

'Keep together,' warned Arabin. 'We don't know what's out there.'

'Thanks for the warning, mother dearest,' said the Walrus.None of them expected to find Burpskin alive.

Hunting, they found no proper tracks, only great trails of slime suggesting a snail had been there – a snail two or three times the size of a horse.

'And that,' said Arabin firmly, 'I won't be believing till I've cut it in half with a hatchet.'

All they found of Harly Burpskin was his head lying lonesome near the river. Though they were all potential cannibals, nobody suggested eating it: instead, they made a decent funeral pyre and burnt it, with what ceremony they could muster.

'He was a good enough sort,' said Drake, as the flames ascended.

'Aye,' said Meerkat, 'we'll give the man that.' 'And may the Doom Beyond be merciful,' said Peg Suzilman.

All were strangely moved by that little funeral service. It was decent enough to die by sword or by drowning, but the monstrous, senseless deaths their comrades were meeting with here were different.

Having disposed of the mortal remains of Harly Burpskin, they prepared to do the same for Tiki Slooze – only to find that what was left of Slooze had disappeared while they had been tending to Burpskin's head.

'Here's a fresh slime-track!' said Rolf Thelemite. 'Let's follow it!''Are you mad, man?' said Peg Suzilman. 'It's a killer!'

'Aye,' said Arabin, 'but anything that moves on slime can't move fast, can it? Stands to reason.'

'Evil things are not governed by reason,' said Sully Yot, mouthing a phrase Gouda Muck had taught him.

'I'll see my enemy face to face before I die,' said Jon Arabin grimly.

With that, he set off. The strongest fell in behind him. Shortly, they came upon a slug. It was yellow, translucent, and several times larger than an ox. As they stood gaping, it turned on them, cruising forward at about half a man's walking pace.'Kill it!'said Ish Ulpin.

'Nay, man,' said Jon Arabin. 'It must have a bloody big man-buggering mouth on it to start with. Worse, where there's one there may be a thousand. We know what it is. We know we can outpace it. Let's be going.'The others followed him downstream.

They crossed more slime-trails, and spotted other monstrous slugs cruising in the forest or lying, as if oblivious to the cold, on the roofs of gigantic blockhouses. When they halted, they became aware that there were at least a dozen slugs on their trail.'No good going back then,' said Mulps.

'Yes, and we can't chance crossing the river,' said Meerkat, looking with a shudder at the haunted waters which had chewed Raggage Pouch to pieces then spat out the bits.

'Then let's put our trust in speed, boys,' said Jon Arabin. 'A good steady pace now, no running, for we've all day to march in. Come on!'

Further downstream, they reached another wall. Not of granite but of blue crystal which glittered as fierce as diamond.'Man,' said Drake, 'this looks to be fabulous wealth.'

'Mayhap,' said Jon Arabin, 'but we've no time to be fooling with such.'

The rest of the pirates begged to differ. But all their attempts to souvenir pieces of the wall came to nothing. Even Whale Mike, flailing away at it with his rod of titanium, was unable to do any damage.

'Come on,' said Jon Arabin. 'The slugs gain on us while we greed without purpose.'

'We greed to get rich,' said Ish Ulpin. 'There must be a way to break this thing.'

'Look south,' said Jon Arabin. 'You see? There's another wall the same, some fifty paces further forward. Let's go that far at least.'

As he jumped over the wall, there was a roar from the south.

'Fire!' yelled Drake, as sheets of flame leaped from the glittering crystal wall fifty paces south.