Hugh Cook - The wizards and the warriors

'But he made it,' said Durnwold. 'He made it. A toast, I say, to Morgan Hearst, warrior of Rovac, dragon-killer!'

Goblets were lifted and the toast was drunk, except by the wizards, who could hardly toast a Rovac warrior – history could not be forgotten as easily as that.

'Truly,' said Jeferies, 'We are fortunate to sit together at one table, wizards and warriors, heroes and princes. There has never been a gathering like this in Trest for ten generations.'

'Twenty!'

'Thirty!'

'Ever!'.

'For certain,' said Jeferies. 'Now, I wouldn't like you to leave here without some entertainment worth remembering. Fortunately, we have here something entirely unique, the magician Lemmy Blawert. Bring in the conjurer!'

In came Lemmy Blawert, a sly, greasy, dingy little man with a horse-hair wig, a forked beard, a silver earring and a tarnished lower-lip ring. He limped forward, grinning, his body shapeless under grey and greasy robes. He bowed to Phyphor.

'Who is this individual?' said Phyphor.

'One of the world's wonders,' declared Jeferies, smiling. 'I trust he'll not disappoint you.'

'He looks a regular rat-rapist,' said Phyphor, in idiomatic Estral; since reaching Estar, the wizards' close dealings with the people had given them a fair grasp of Estral, the native language of the region, besides improving their command of the Galish Trading Tongue.

'Laugh you may," said Jeferies, 'but Lemmy Blawert will show you a thing or two."

Lemmy Blawert took out a pack of cards and fanned them out so only their backs could be seen.

'Take a card, master, any card."

Phyphor hesitated, then took one.

'It's the fool,* said Lemmy Blawert with a grin and a cackle.

Phyphor flicked the card over: it was the fool.

'Put it back, master, anywhere any,' said Lemmy Blawert, setting the pack down on the table. 'I'm not touching so there'll be no fiddling, no fooling.'

Again Phyphor hesitated, then he slid the fool into the middle of the pack. Lemmy Blawert produced a wand.

'Rowan this is this wand, rowan, sacred to the mysteries. You'll see a mystery now tonight."

He passed the wand over the cards once, twice, thrice.

'No touching so no fiddling, as you see masters, see me see, no touching, no fiddling. Now pick the top card, master.'

Phyphor turned over the top card. It was the fool. There were shouts of applause. Lemmy Blawert aped a bow then tucked the cards away inside his robes.

'I'll see those cards,' said Garash, reaching into the magician's robes. Then he swore, wrenching his hand away. Bright blood flashed where one finger had been torn open.

'It's the rat, master,' said Lemmy Blawert apologetically. 'He don't like strangers much. But here's the cards for you, master.'

He reached into his clothing and with a flourish scattered cards over the table: emperors, dragons, heroes, soldiers and a single fool. He left them where they fell.

'Dice, anyone? I've two dice to roll for your money with even odds. For me, the one-eyed one, the six-eyed six. A one wins for me, a six wins for me, and any roll where there's one and one or one and six or six and six. Even odds I'll give you. I win if one shows or six shows or both show. Whoever rolls against me has the numbers two, three, four and five. Even odds and fair dice.'

Lemmy Blawert retreated to a corner to roll dice with those prepared to wager with him. Miphon bandaged Garash's finger with a strip torn from a napkin.

'So you're off tomorrow,' said Jeferies.

'Heenmor has stolen a long march on us,' said Elkor Alish. 'We must travel fast.'

Perhaps they would find Heenmor hiding out in the Kikashi Hills, but Phyphor had already suggested that the renegade wizard might be running for Stronghold Handfast. That abandoned castle in the east, deserted by its last owners in days long forgotten by both the written word and the spoken, lay on the Central Plateau within the circle of the Ringwall Mountains. To get there, Heenmor would have to reach the Fleuve River, travel downstream to Ep Pass, cross the Spine Mountains by way of that pass, traverse the Dry Forages then climb the Ringwall Mountains themselves.

'Well then,' said Jeferies. 'If you must travel fast, why not travel a little way with a fast woman before you set out? But first: drink. More drink! Come on you dogs, drink! The night is still young, she may be a whore but she's young enough, so more drink – and minstrel, strike up a song!'

'Yes, master,' said the last minstrel left on his feet; he was very drunk.

He struck up a tune on an old and famous harp; unfortunately, a harp deteriorates with age, and is seldom any good after a century or so. Worse, this instrument had not been tuned; the minstrel fumbled the fingering and seemed to have forgotten half the words of his song.

Prince Jeferies threw a goblet of wine; inebriated, he missed, but wine spattered his harpist, who ceased playing.

'Well,' said Jeferies. 'It seems I can't offer you a song. Still, I can organise a flogging, if that would suit.' 'It would indeed,' said Garash. The minstrel blanched.

'Oh my prince,' said the minstrel. 'Oh honoured born, oh child of the Favoured Blood -' 'Silence!' roared Jeferies. 'Well, who's for a flogging?' Hearst stood.

'There's still time for a song, if you'd rather.'

Jeferies looked around and decided that none of his guards were sober enough to administer a flogging.

'A song, then! What instrument do you play, man of Rovac?'

'On Rovac we favour the drum,' said Hearst.

And Elkor Alish remembered the drums of Rovac on the night the city of Larbreth fell. He remembered Hearst striding down the halls of her palace with his fingers knotted in her hair, the weight of her head swinging free and bloody in the light of flaring torches. He remembered Hearst's face: the smile as creamy as lust. Ah yes, Alish remembered.

'We have no drums here,' said Jeferies.

'My voice will suffice then,' said Hearst.

'Yes,' said Jeferies. 'But remember your mother tongue is gibberish to us.'

'Were we on Rovac to speak in a universal language known to all the world, it would make no difference,' said Hearst. 'For few hear us without their minds being disordered by fear. But this much most men know: Ahyak Rovac!'

His shout echoed through the hall, startling some of the nodding guards.

'The song,' said Comedo impatiently.

'The song, yes,' said Hearst. 'I learnt it in Estar, so I will sing it in Estral – and let none say the Rovac are slow to learn. It is the song of the Victory of the Prince of the Favoured Blood.'

Prince Comedo clapped like a child: and indeed it was in childhood that Saba Yavendar's song of the Victory of the Prince of the Favoured Blood had become his favourite.

'On Rovac we prefer to sing with a foot on a corpse still cooling,' boasted Hearst. He looked Phyphor full in the face, then Garash, then Miphon. 'Is there any here who dares challenge Rovac?'

'None,' said Alish, as nobody else cared to open their mouths with Hearst in a mood like this. So Hearst hammered his fist on the table, once twice thrice, and began the song, which was in the Alacamp manner, half-chanted, half-sung:

By moon we come riding like tide on the flood, The stars for our guide and a prince of the Blood To lead us and speed us while night slips away To give us the blood-sky, the promise of day.

Valarkin knew that once these fighting men got their enthusiasm worked up, they could go on chanting and singing all night, for there was no shortage of battle songs and war epics.

– But it is all absurd, their mindless bull-roaring stupidity. Sweat curses sinew, bone butchers brawn, chopping away till a single hero stands gloating over pools of blood and piles of lopped-off testicles. What's the sense of it? They think they're powerful, but they're not: they're just mindless meat that labours with a sword instead of a spade. Power lies with those who command, not those who spend their lives strengthening their sword-arms.