Hugh Cook - The Walrus and the Warwolf

The flames advanced. Jon Arabin glanced right, then left. East and west, flames reached away as far as he could see. Eastward, the flames stretched right across the river and into the forest on the other side.

'It's but an illusion,' said Rolf Thelemite calmly. 'Has to be.'

Moments later, they started to feel the heat glowing against their faces. Undergrowth crackled into fire as the flamewall marched forward. Trees exploded into flames. Advancing, the wall spat gouts of fire at random.'Back!' shouted Arabin. 'Back, or we'll be burnt alive!'

They turned and fled.

Name: Jon Arabin, alias the Warwolf.

Occupation: pirate captain and ambassador from Lord Menator of the Greater Teeth to Ohio of Ork.

Status: full-time survivor and leader of men, now responsible for the welfare of his old enemy Slagger Mulps (the Walrus) plus young Drake (known to the all-conquering faith of Goudanism as 'Demon-son Dreldragon'); Sully Yot; Whale Mike; Bucks Cat; Ika Thole; Rolf Thelemite; Simp Fiche; Salaman Meerkat; Ish Ulpin; Jon Disaster; and Peg Suzilman.

Description: lean, bald, black, beardless man with eyes of pale sky; currently looking much, much older than his years (and those are many enough).

Running from the flames, the thirteen survivors fled north. They had gone but two hundred paces when Jon Arabin called them to a halt:'Stop!' he yelled. 'The flames aren't chasing us!'

Panting, sweating, gasping, his men halted, and looked back. The flames had raged to the nearer wall of blue crystal then halted. But they showed no sign of dying down.

'We can't go south,' said Drake. 'Not yet, my son,' said Arabin. 'But no fire can burn forever.'

'This one can,' said Sully Yot. 'For it was started by the Flame of all Flames. Gouda Muck is angry with us.'

'Is he?' said Peg Suzilman. 'And who the hell would he be?'

'He is of no hell, but of a transcendental heaven which suffers no wind or rain, but music only. If you wish to know more of his-'

'What is this bullshit?' said Ish Ulpin. 'More religion crap?'

'We not talk gods,' said Whale Mike, leaning on his titanium battle-rod. 'We be happy friends.'But Yot, taking no heed, declared:

'It's not bullshit! It's truth! Revealed truth! Drake will tell you!'

Drake, at that moment, would gladly have paid good money for the privilege of strangling Yot. 'What say you, Drake?' asked Ish Ulpin. 'I say-' said Drake.

But did not say, for Meerkat, who had kept an eye on the forest to the north, yelled out: 'Ware! Slugs!'

They turned as one to see several gigantic yellow slugs cruising slowly toward them. The slugs held the north. East was the river, haunted by bone-chewing terror. South lay fire. Simp Fiche led the retreat, scuttling away to the west.

'Hold!' shouted Arabin. 'No running, or we're dead men by dusk!'But most of his men sprinted regardless.

'Bugger you then,' muttered Arabin, and, abandoning his efforts to bring the fools to heel, plodded on stolidly. With him went Whale Mike – who was not built for sprinting – and the swordsmen Drake Douay, Rolf Thelemite, Ish Ulpin, Ika Thole and Jon Disaster, their wits steadied by the possession of sharpened bronze.

After a half-league march, they caught up with the others, who had gathered in a boggy clearing between two sky-threatening buildings which hoisted great shiploads of forest-creepers toward the clouds. The runaways were sitting on a marble plinth which supported a steel archway.

Arabin strode into the slade, boots going quelch-squelch-quelch as they crushed stranded leaves into the mud, and shattered the surface of cloud-reflecting puddles.'How do you feel, boys?' asked Arabin.Sully Yot looked up and answered for all of them:'Knackered.'

'Aye, and that's not running far,' said Arabin. 'Is it? Slow and steady, that's the thing. We can outwalk these monsters easy enough, once we start thinking. Pull off your boots. Check your feet as our good friend Rolf has taught us to.'

With that, Arabin sought and was granted buttock-space on the plinth. All thirteen of them managed to squeeze onto the plinth, which was a good size larger than the stainless steel monument it supported (an arch just as wide as a man's outstretched arms).

Drake watched Slagger Mulps remove his boots then massage his feet. A sorry sight they were, too: a mess of corns and bunions, blisters, water-rot, and painfully raw patches of skin where tinea had got a grip. Mulps squidged a large blister with his index finger, disturbing yellowish fluid within.

Drake found his own feet almost as bad. Cold. Sore. Soft and pallid. And blistered. Whatever protected him these days against illness, it could not protect his feet.'Yot!' said Arabin. 'Get your boots off!'

'Yes,' said Rolf Thelemite. 'Remember: no feet, no soldier.''I'll do it later,' said Yot tetchily. 'I'm thirsty.'

So saying, he went down on his hands and knees to drink from a puddle. Bucks Cat stamped down hard and sudden, sending mud and water flying into Yot's face.'Hey!'cried Yot.'Belay that!' roared Arabin.

'Aye,' said Mulps, backing him up. 'Or there'll be more than one of us after your liver.' Cat, sulking, walked away. Nobody made any effort to stop him. At the edge of the clearing, he turned, then spat. Then was lost to sight, heading to the west, the sole remaining direction of safety.

Drake did what he could for his socks, which was little. He kneaded his feet. Every day, they were less like flesh and more like dough. He kissed his boots for luck, then put them back on. Then sat, thinking nostalgically about good times long since past – like the roast-meat banquet he'd enjoyed two nights before.

Between his legs, in the face of the marble plinth, was a round gilded hole big enough to have swallowed both his fists. Idly, he tried to pry off the gold, first with a fingernail then with the point of his bronze sword. He loosened no lucre, and concluded that the gold was colour rather than metal.

Disappointed, he stabbed at the ground with his bronze sword. At first, he had delighted in his choice of weapon rather than wealth when everyone scrambled for loot – after all, he had gambling gold waiting for him back at the Teeth. But now he thought it was not really fair that the others should have all the goldwork, some of which was highly wrought and obviously very, very valuable.

Perhaps this was the time to say something about it, before they got going again.

So thinking, Drake stabbed the ground again, harder this time, a bit of anger in the blow. And the point of his sword hit something. He poked it, then, idling at it as he might have idled at a scab on his arm, urged it from the earth. A globe of glass, if he was any judge. A paperweight, perhaps. He'd seen such sitting on the Examiners' desk when he went before the Board during his apprentice years, to suffer a viva voce examination on the Inner Principles of the Old Science.

He picked up the paperweight. Rubbed away the dirt. Glass? Crystal, maybe. Very pretty. A fist-sized transparent ball as big as his fist. Green, like the monstrous phalli they had seen standing on the banks of the river. Tiny lights of all colours gleamed within, hanging motionless like the souls of fireflies. Or like stars.'A globe of stars,' murmured Drake. 'A star-globe.'

He remembered the astrolabe the alchemist Villet Vate had once shown him. Maybe this star-globe was a fancy kind of astrolabe. Old, rare and precious.

'What have you got there?' said Meerkat, making a grab fork.'Something that's mine,' said Drake, snatching it away.

For safe keeping for the moment, Drake shoved his green star-globe into the gold-coloured hole between his legs.

The air filled with an ominous hum, waking memories of the sky-splitting disaster which had followed the destruction of the flying island-ship in the North Strait. Men scattered in all directions.'Sha!' shouted Meerkat. And:'Help!'cried Yot. And: