Hugh Cook - The Witchlord and the Weaponmaster

Then scritched and scratched again.

Once.

Twice.

Thrice.

While those yet awake in the cell – meaning everyone but the slumberous Zozimus – waited for mayhem to be unleashed.

Fortunately, having scritched and scratched at the door those three last times, Guest decided that honor had been satisfied, and settled himself to sleep. Soon he too was snoring, only somewhat more loudly than Zozimus. Bao Gahai stayed awake a little longer, as if assuring herself that Guest was really asleep. Then she too dropped off, and the lurching discords of her saw-voiced snore began to rip the air.

With all this snoring going on, the scholarly Sken-Pitilkin found sleep impossible. Instead, he sat lamenting his fate. Once he had been the commander of a great empire. Once he had ruled in unimaginable power. In later years, he had lived quite comfortably as a lord of dragons and master of the island of Drum, until his peace had been disturbed when Zozimus, Zelafona and Glambrax had sought refuge on that island, bringing killers from the Confederation of Wizards in their wake.

And now he was a fugitive, a renegade displaced from his castle, accursed of the Confederation, unwelcome in his homeland and hunted by his peers. He had sheltered as best he could on the unhospitable earth of Tameran, doing what he must to secure his survival – even stooping to tutoring when that proved the only way for him to win his bread! But now he was doomed to come to a wretched end, unless he could by his wizardry or his lawmongery secure his release from Alozay.

And even if he could secure his release, what then?

Where would he go?

And what would he do?

So brooded Sken-Pitilkin, until his peace was shattered as the door cracked and splintered with a bursting roar. And what a roar! It boomed and burst like a dragon in its rages, or like one of Pelagius Zozimus's experimental steam cookers exploding into fragments, or like a great heap of Tang's percussive toys all simultaneously erupting into flash and thunder.

That roar, and the splintering of the door which accompanied it, brought Zozimus abrupting from sleep.

"Dragons!" cried Zozimus.

But it was not dragons but men, as a moment's listening made plain. For, through the shattered door there came the sounds of murder, the killing-clash of steel, the bellows of battle.

"The door!" said Guest, wrenching at the fractured timbers.

"The door, the door! Help me!"

But only Morsh Bataar joined him in his onslaught on that barrier. Without, the enemy was surely slaughtering off those of the Witchlord's men whom they had not been able to take by surprise and overcome by stealth. By escaping into such battle, unarmed and unarmored, Guest Gulkan would only add his own corpse to the slaughter heap.

"Glut!" said Morsh, swearing. "The door holds!"

At which there was another shattering explosion. The blast slammed through the shattered door and dumped the would-be heroes on their backsides.

"Blood's grief!" said Guest, raising himself to his elbows.

"Am I alive, or what?"

None answered, until Bao Gahai chose to answer thus:

"Hush, child. Hush, child, and sleep."

Sleep! To advise such was lunacy. For none could so much as close their eyes. Surely Bao Gahai was quite deranged! As for Guest, he had not the slightest thought of sleep. He was waiting with the others. One and all, they were waiting for another explosion, all sure that a third such would kill them.

"What raises such thunder from living rock?" wondered Morsh Bataar, not seriously expecting an answer.

"There are oils which your anatomist can dissect out of the living flesh of dragons," said Zozimus grimly. "Such oils, abused for purposes of war, can conjure explosion, albeit at great expense."

Then none spoke further, for outside were screams of anguished murder. The wreckage of the door shook as someone crashed against it. There was a howl of blood-pumping fury. Iron smashed iron. Flesh wrenched itself in agony's outcry. Then came a groan, a guttering gasp, a death-moan.

"Had we but weapons!" said Guest, with clench-fist frustration.

The ultimate weapon is the warrior, yet a warrior unweaponed is but a poor thing, and a washerwoman with an axe can overcome him. Surely the Witchlord's people were putting up a fight; yet, just as surely, they must be being killed out, for without weapons they could not prevail against their enemies.

At last the sounds of killing diminished down to nothing.

"Blood," said Guest.

Contemplating his prospects.

His father dead. He himself a prisoner, trapped on Safrak.

His enemies meaning to sell him to Khmar.

"If die I must then now I'll die," said Guest, seizing one of the shattered timbers of the door and wrenching. "Now! Not later!"

His efforts provoked a wrenching scream of wood – an agony as great as that of one of the men so lately killed. The door did not yield, but its protest was heard by someone outside. Iron-shod boots rang on rock, approaching the door.

"Who's there?" cried a burly voice.

The voice spoke Eparget!

"Here!" shouted Guest, answering in that same Yarglat tongue.

"Here! Here! Within!"

"Who?" said the battle-booted voice, now outside the shattered door.

"Why, the Weaponmaster Guest Gulkan," said that same selfboasting young man. "Unloose me!"

"Unloose you? Why?"

"Unloose me, that I may fight."

"Fight?" said the warrior without. "Fight? Fighting is the least and last of things we need. I'll not let you out if fighting is your creed."

"You bloodpoxed box of sheep shit!" roared Guest. "Unloose me, or I'll rip your brains out!"

And he tore at the ragged door, though still it held.

Outside, the war-booted warrior laughed uproariously, encouraging Guest yet further in his fury. Then there were shouts, their import indistinguishable to the prisoners in the cell.

"It's Guest, my lord!" said the war-booted warrior.

Tramping footsteps echoed from stone to stone.

Then:

"Guest?"

It was Lord Onosh, the Witchlord himself, deep-voiced, with a note of bloodstained victory in the triumph of his voice.

"It's him," said Bao Gahai. "And me."

"Love of the gods!" said the Witchlord Onosh, speaking fervently. "I thought the pair of you perished!"

"And I likewise thought you dead," said Guest, speaking from the cell-murk. "How live you?"

"Through the grace of weapons," said Lord Onosh. "A key! A key! Who's got the key? You – a key for this cell. What? What's that you say? How in the five hells would I know! Well, look for it, man! Don't just stand there! Strolth! Hurry yourself, you son of a gaplax! Or will it take cold iron in your arse to move you?"

This last was said at a full-pitched roar, suggesting that the object of the Witchlord's wrath had almost hurried out of earshot, gone to look for the key to the cell of imprisonment.

"Weapons," said Guest, when no further outburst followed.

"Whence came weapons? We had none."

"We had many," said Lord Onosh, by way of contradiction.

"Where?" said Guest.

"In the treasure chests," said Lord Onosh, levering at door timbers with his broadbladed battle-sword. "We brought ten chests of treasure to Safrak. Ten chests of iron and steel."

"But," said Guest, bewildered, "those chests held gold, and diamonds. They were checked! I saw the Bankers check them!"

"Checked once, and not again," said Lord Onosh, wood giving way before the cunning leverage of his steel. "Deep water took the greater part of the treasure, and we replaced that greater part with steel made for war. Here, you, pass me the lamp. Guest – take this!"

A breach having been opened in the door, a lamp was passed inside the cell. It showed weary faces, the ashes of incinerated herbs, the sad remains of a charcoaled Book of Verbs, the blackened fibers of a handkerchief, and much scattered rust.