Hugh Cook - The Witchlord and the Weaponmaster

By trying to do so, he lost his chance. The murkbeast recovered itself, fed strength into the tentacle, held Guest tight, then abruptly jerked him off his feet and hauled him toward its gaping toad-mouth.

"Father!" screamed Guest.

But his father could not help him now. The murkbeast had him, and would engulf him in moments, sucking him down to a suffocating doom, or breaking him with its bone-munching strength.

Cornucopia: horn of plenty rumored to lie in the Stench Caves of Logthok Norgos. Many people have died questing for this legendary generator of wealth, most notoriously Uri the Valorous, far-famed master of insouciant courage. It is possible that the murkbeast which dwells near the entrance to the caves bears much of the responsibility for the 100% fatality rate amongst cornucopia-questers. The above-mentioned murkbeast currently has Guest Gulkan by the ankle, is dragging him toward its maw, and looks set to munch him down in moments.

As Guest Gulkan screamed, the murkbeast wrenched him toward its maw. With one convulsive spasm of strength, it got his booted foot inside its mouth.

Then stopped.

"Gods, gods, gods," sobbed Guest.

Lazily, the murkbeast tasted his boot.

So there was Guest Gulkan, down on his elbows in the muck, his sword in his hand but in no position to strike. His foot was in the murkbeast's mouth. And it was… it was making up its mind. Thanks to its prodigious strength, the murkbeast could torn its prisoner from limb to limb had it so wished. But the thing had bruited down a sating surfeit of the Mutilator's soldiers, and had no true appetite for further human flesh.

Even so, the thing was seriously considering gulleting Guest Gulkan as well. The murkbeast was like a small child which has stuffed itself with sweetmeats to the point of vomiting, but is still tempted by the gross and slimy glitter of a candied cherry, and deludes itself into thinking it can munch down that cherry while still escaping the painful and inevitable consequences of further gluttony.

"Help me!" said Guest, in a very whimper of uncontrolled and uncontrollable terror.

The cut-thrust heat of action was over. Time had slowed to a slow ooze, and in that ooze the Weaponmaster had all too much opportunity to consider the dreadfulness of his situation. Here we must remember that Guest Gulkan had already lost his limbs on one occasion, arms and legs having been torn away by the Great Mink in an arena in Chi'ash-lan. That being so, he knew the truth of pain, and knew that there is nothing worse.

"Be still," said Lord Onosh, urgently.

This was the most useless of all conceivable advice, for Guest was already being still. Very still. Furthermore, he had absolutely no intention of being anything else. But his studied quiescence did him no good at all. The tentacle wrapped round his ankle tightened. Then wrenched. Then pulled off his boot. Guest screamed.

"Has it hurt you?" said the Witchlord.

That sobered Guest sufficiently to allow him to give voice to an obscenity. Upon which the murkbeast swallowed his boot, decided it liked leather, and helped itself to the other.

"The boots have gone," said Guest flatly. "It will be flesh and blood next."

At which, Lord Onosh hesitated. Then kicked something.

Stooped. Grabbed something from the muck, and began to haul it towards the murkbeast.

"What are you doing?" said Guest.

"I'm – "

The murkbeast sucked roughly on Guest's feet.

"God's grief!" said Guest, sobbing in uncontrollable terror.

"Hold on, hold on," said his father. "I'm coming."

Indeed, the Witchlord was floundering through the mud with all the speed he could muster, dragging with him the corpse of one of the Mutilator's guards. As he closed the distance, Lord Onosh sheathed his sword and held the corpse in front of him as a shield.

The Witchlord's approach put the murkbeast in something of a minor quandary. If this dumb two-legged animal was going to walk right into its mouth, then there was no need for the murkbeast to waste time by capturing it. But what if it changed its mind? Best to make sure…

So thinking, the murkbeast extended a lazy tentacle and grabbed the corpse which Lord Onosh was holding in front of him as a shield. Lord Onosh heaved mightily on that corpse. Thinking it held a living animal with its tentacle, and thinking that animal was struggling to get away, the murkbeast heaved mightily on the corpse, wrenched it from the Witchlord's grasp and hauled it towards its mouth.

Lord Onosh then tried to attack, thinking to close with the monster and kill it while it was corpse-consuming. But the mud was too thick, too clutching, and he was still floundering even as the murkbeast opened its mouth wide enough to swallow both Guest Gulkan and the corpse simultaneously. Guest felt himself being sucked into the murkbeast's mouth.

"Your sword!" yelled his father. "You still have your sword!"

True.

Clutching his sword, Guest fought savagely, turning himself onto his back as he was sucked into the murkbeast's mouth.

Clasping his sword with both hands, he turned the blade upwards.

Even as the murkbeast bit down.

The murkbeast munched down with full force, munched without thought, driving Guest Gulkan's sword upward through the roof of its mouth. The pain of this unprecedented wound sent it into spasms. Caught still in its mouth, Guest was trapped by the wet, pumping lubrication of the murkbeast's spasming organ of absorbtion. He was being stifled, pulped, crushed. He could not breathe. A huge heat was drowning him, was -

"Ya!"

The shout was the Witchlord's, a shout of wrath, a shout so loud that Guest heard it even in his confinement. With that shout, the Witchlord drove his sword deep into the murkbeast's guard- glutted stalk.

This rupture of its belly was more than the murkbeast could stand. Insane with pain, it vomited up the contents of its gut. Guest was ejected in a hurtling spurt which saw him thrown to the mud, with a rain of corpse-mash splattering down on him.

Then the murkbeast collapsed in a shuddering heap, and Lord Onosh grabbed his son and dragged him to safety.

"Gods," said Guest, when his father released him. "I'm – "

"Hush down," said the Witchlord. "Hush down, and still. Lie still, and rest… "

Whereupon his son, needing no further introduction, flopped like a rag doll. A very muddy, wet, disheveled rag doll. A barefooted rag doll.

Even after all the trauma he had so recently suffered, the Weaponmaster had wit enough to lament the loss of his boots, for an underground warren like the Stench Caves was sure to be prodigiously productive of things which could tear the feet.

"Well," said Lord Onosh, at length, "at least we're through the worst of it."

"Are we?" said Guest.

"We got past the – the thing," said Lord Onosh.

"The murkbeast," said Guest.

"You had heard of it?" said Lord Onosh.

"I had not heard of it," said Guest, "but my many travels have made me adroit in putting names to unknown things. We will call it the murkbeast."

"The eater of many men," said Lord Onosh.

"Doubtless," said Guest. "But it can hardly have eaten everyone."

Many people had quested into the Stench Caves in search of the cornucopia. None had survived. Guest doubted that a mere murkbeast could have been sufficient for the destruction of so many heroes – for, after all, the murkbeast had not proved a match for two brawny Yarglat barbarians, and some of those who had quested into the Stench Caves had gone in great companies, strongly armed and surely proof against all but the worst of violence.

"You are very much the pessimist today," said Lord Onosh. "So I hope you won't be too offended if I give you some good news."