Hugh Cook - The Wicked and the Witless

'I say,' said Sarazin. That's not – that's not my horse. Not mine to lose, I mean.' Fox, by this time, was almost lost amidst the trees.

Sarazin began to patter along after his father. But ran into stinging nettles which brought him to a halt promptly. Feet smarting, he beat a retreat. 'Fox!' he cried. Then, in a moment of anguish: 'Father!'

But Fox was gone, and Sarazin was left with no horse, no sword, no trousers – and, worse, an unaccountable sense of shame which he could not for the life of him explain. 'Boots,' he said.

Yes, he still had his boots. He ran back to the clearing, rammed his feet into the boots, then raced after Fox. He pelted through the forest. Ducked beneath eye-claw branches. Sprinted up a bank and saw his father ahead, riding his woman-burdened horse through the trees. 'Fox!' bawled Sarazin. Getting no response.

A bog lay between them. Fox had skirted it on his horse, but Sarazin plunged straight in. Desperate to catch up with his father. But the bog was deep, glutinous, clutching. He lost his boots to its suck and swallow. Found himself waist- deep, chest deep. Braved on, desperately. Stepped in a hole, went under. Clutched, grasped, rose gasping. 'Gluur!' Thus screamed Sarazin, incoherent as an animal.

He was in desperate trouble. He was clinging to a rotten branch in the middle of a bottomless slough which was already slubbering at his lower lip.

'Fox!' he screamed. 'Come back! Come back! Help me! Help! I'm drowning!' Then he clutched, clung, and listened. No reply.

The wind gusted in the swampside trees, then faded to silence. A single time-burnt leaf dwindled down to the swamp. Landing lightly, lightly, on its surface of curdled mud. Sarazin felt his lower lip quivering uncontrollably. He bit it. Hard. Tasted mud. Then tasted the salt of his hot, trickling tears. Then realised he was getting cold. Very cold.

He would have to get out of this bog, and soon, or he would be dead. He thrust around with his feet, questing for footing. Finding slurry-soft gulfs in all directions. -But the branch?

He was holding the end of a branch. A rotten branch, lying just beneath the surface of the mud. Why didn't it sink? Because it was, presumably, attached to something. -It goes somewhere.

Sarazin hauled on the branch. It held. So he dragged himself along through the swamp. Nearer the centre of the slough, the mud softened to grease, ooze, slime. Cold almost beyond endurance. And the branch was curving away into the depths. Too deep to reach with his hands. If he wanted to keep his head above mud, he must stand on it.

Sarazin stood on the branch, which he presumed to be attached to a dead tree somewhere far beneath the surface. The branch broke. He screamed. 'Ga-!' Then screamed no more, for he had sundered under.

Flailing desperately, Sarazin struggled in the slime. And found himself on the surface, in what was, he realised, more like muddy water than watery mud. He was swimming!

But now he faced a pretty dilemma. If he stayed in the muddy-water centre of the swamp he could keep himself afloat by swimming, but would shortly die from exposure. On the other hand, if he swam for the shore he would drown amidst clutching mud where swimming was impossible. 'Help!' wailed Sarazin. But no help came.

So he floundered towards the nearest bank, hoping. The water gave way to a vile custard of mud and slime. He struggled through this as best he could, but found himself sinking. In a frenzy, he thrashed and struggled. And grabbed hold of something.

A snake! 'Aaaahl' screamed Sarazin.

But kept hold of the snake regardless, because it was keeping him afloat. A strong brute, then. But… passive. Dead?

Then he realised he was not clutching a snake at all, but a tree root. He was too far gone to smile, but, slowly, began to drag himself along the tree root towards the shore.

Exhausted, stinking, shuddering, filthy, Sean Kelebes Sarazin trudged barefoot through the forest, arms wrapped round his body in a vain attempt to preserve some of his warmth against the mounting wind. He was utterly lost.

Then, at last, he saw some dark-shadowed huts which, on the basis of some softly-smoking earth-heaped mounds nearby, he identified as the habitation of some charcoal burners. He staggered to the nearest doorway and fainted.***

When Sarazin came to, Thodric Jarl was leaning over him, about to drape his nudity with a horseblanket. 'Awake?' said Jarl. Sarazin simply stared at him.

He was lying in a dark, filthy hole of a hut, the lair of a charcoal burner. From outside, he heard Amantha's voice raised in outrage: 'Don't you dare!'

Then a laugh which, he knew very well, belonged to Glambrax. 'Come,' said Jarl. 'Can you stand?'

Sarazin did not think so, but on making the attempt found that he could. Jarl led him outside, where there were a full forty or fifty people mounted on horseback. Some were armed soldiers – mostly men Jarl had brought with him from Selzirk. Then there were stable boys, servants, and a scattering of high-born ladies, Amantha among them. There was Glambrax, too, mounted on a mule.

Three of the horses had dead men lying across the saddles. Sarazin walked over to one of them, looked at his face.

'One of ours,' he said, recognising the corpse as a member of the Watch. We did not care to leave our dead in Shin,' said Jarl.

A spare horse was brought up for Sarazin. Jarl sliced a headhole in Sarazin's blanket so he could wear it like a poncho, the slack hauled in to his waist with a bit of rope. Then they set off.

Sarazin did not know what had happened, or where they were going, but he was too tired to ask.

Tarkal: eldest son of King Lyra, and hence heir to the Chenameg Kingdom. Deadly enemy of Sean Kelebes Sarazin, who defeated him in single combat in Selzirk. Brother of Amantha (with whom Sarazin is in love) and of Sarazin's friend Lod.

In due course they came to a derelict building which had once been the slave pen of a mine long since worked out and abandoned. There they took shelter and Sarazin began to learn of the disaster which had befallen Shin. 'King Lyra is dead,' said Jarl. 'How so?' said Sarazin, staring into the plattering rain.

'He fell from his horse,' said Glambrax, who paid close attention to whatever gossip was going. 'He was trapped beneath the brute. Thus a ditch drowned him.' 'Ditch?' said Sarazin.

'Some say ditch, some say swamp,' said Glambrax. 'But that he drowned there's no doubt. I saw the body myself. They brought it back to Shin.'

So Tarkal killed his father. There could be no doubt about that. 'What happened then?' said Sarazin.

Bit by bit, the story came out. Everyone had a different version of exactly what happened, but the outline was clear enough. On arriving in the capital with his father's corpse, Tarkal had declared himself king.

Without further ado, Tarkal had ordered that Lod be brought from his jail cell for instant execution. Men had gone away as if meaning to do just that – but had instead mutinied and placed themselves under Lod's command. Why did that happen?

'Nobody knows,' said Jarl, "but methinks them long in conspiracy with Lod. Either that, or they had a fear longstanding of Tarkal. In any event, there is now civil war in Shin, so I have come away from the place, meaning to leave the two brothers to fight it out for themselves.'

Tarkal will win,' said Amantha, with confidence. When we return to Shin tomorrow we'll find my brother lord of the Great House with Lod's headless corpse kneeling in obeisance at his feet.'

There was something obscene about her obvious enthusiasm for the idea.

We'll not return to Shin tomorrow,' said Jarl. Well send scouts instead, and we'll not move from here until it's safe to.' Does a coward speak?' said Amantha. Jarl laughed away the insult.