The Wanderer's Tale (9 page)

There was a profound silence in the chamber, interrupted only by the occasional cough from one of the diminished audience. Nibulus began drumming his fingers on the table-top; Gapp wanted to bury his head in his hands.

‘Well,’ announced Finwald, ‘as I was saying—’

‘I wouldn’t say anything,’ Nibulus interrupted. ‘We’ve lost enough of them as it is.’

Finwald frowned and lowered the brim of his hat to cover his eyes.

Then Appa spoke up coldly, ‘Well, what are you lot waiting for? If none of you believes this is any more than fairytale nonsense, why don’t you just leave too?’ There was a distinct note of challenge above the defeat in his voice.

Methuselech, perhaps feeling sorry for his friends at the table, stood up and replied simply: ‘Because we don’t believe this is nonsense.’

‘No,’ interjected another. ‘The Wintus family has too great a reputation to risk throwing it away on the dreamed-up fantasy of some upstart mage-priest.’ He then stood down, happy with himself for managing to insult both Finwald and the Wintuses in one statement. But at least it seemed their scanty audience was willing to hear more.

Nibulus stood up and tried a different tack, one which he knew was more likely to win them over than any sense of obligation, and that was
pay
! Warlord Artibulus did, after all, control exceedingly large amounts of money.

Ah
, now
you’re talking.
Artibulus nodded in approval.

Terms and conditions of service, estimated duration, individual precedence, all these Nibulus outlined as briefly as possible, and left till the end the thorny subject of finally destroying the rawgr-lord Drauglir, assuming he was even still alive. But before he could expand on that, he was interrupted by one of the remaining soldiers.

‘We don’t know if that thing is still alive, and to be honest I couldn’t give a damn any more. So long as we get properly paid, that’s all I’m bothered about, but we still have to work out how to kill him before we get there. If he’s still about, there’s no way then I’m going to stand around while you lot are still bickering about how to destroy him.’

Nibulus sighed. ‘Look, if it pleases you, we can use
every
method suggested to us: pierce the heart and brain with silver, and also with a magical blade; set the bugger alight, drown him in gravy, stick a billhook up his backside, whatever . . . I can pass round a sheet of parchment right now and you can all write down any method you want. That way everyone should be satisfied, so long as we’re properly equipped beforehand. Finwald . . . ?’

‘My method,’ Finwald replied, holding up a silver shortsword. ‘I possess no magical blade, so have had this one made.’

‘This is all very well,’ butted in the last soldier irritably, ‘but according to my count we’ve listed no less than eleven different ways to kill the bastard. Exactly how long is it going to take to complete all of those, and just what is Drauglir going to be up to while we’re doing all this to him?’

‘Twelve ways,’ corrected Appa, and all heads turned towards him.

‘Oh yes,’ Nibulus said, ‘I was wondering when we’d get round to Bolldhe.’

The balding, red-faced foreigner did not show any reaction. He knew the ways of men better than most, and clearly was not about to waste his time trying to convince anyone of anything. Remaining seated, he merely nodded and returned his gaze to the table-top in front of him.

So, instead, the old priest Appa rose to address the prospective campaigners. ‘Brave enemies of Olchor, a while ago I had a vision. In that vision my lord Cuna told me — ’

‘Oh no, here we go again,’ said a bored voice from the rear.

‘He told me that I too must accompany my colleague Finwald upon his quest.’

This was met with a burst of cruel but predictable laughter. Though none of them had actually been there, the Far North was well known to be one of the harshest and most inhospitable regions of the known world. Appa, however, did not exactly look the hardy sort.

But the old priest was undeterred: ‘Yes, I, Appa the worn-out old cleric, was told I must also make the journey to Vaagenfjord Maw. And there was one destined to go with me, one who has already travelled the world. This man, Cuna revealed, would arrive unexpectedly from the East, going by the name of Bolldhe. And though not a follower of Cuna, he would be sent with Cuna’s blessing. For he is the one destined to destroy forever the Evil of Drauglir. Yet he would have no understanding of his mission, or even how to accomplish this sacred task.’

At this Bolldhe simply smiled and nodded.

‘But at the end,’ Appa went on, ‘he would know, and it would be up to me to help enlighten him. That’s how my vision ended – but a week later the very man arrived amongst us.’

All eyes were now on the traveller. He certainly did not look anything special. Judging from the weird array of clothing and accoutrements, he could hale from just about anywhere on the face of Lindormyn. Apart from the rawhide trousers, deerskin tunic and stoatskin cloak, which might have been purchased from any trader right here in Nordwas, nothing else he wore looked familiar. Everything else was alien to them: the garnet-studded leather belt from which hung a lizard-hide waterskin; the necklace of bizarrely shaped teeth sporting a large and opaque pale-blue gem in the centre; those heavy jade bracelets covered in exotic runes; the scimitar-shaped brooch-pin . . . And what about the strange tattoos on the backs of his hands: some kind of horned serpent, or dragon perhaps? Clearly this was a well-travelled man.

But why was this ordinary-looking man attired so extraordinarily? Though obviously no warrior, he did at least look fit in a wiry sort of way; a man who could look after himself. He had about him the ragged, unsleek look of a wild hare: in the constant watchfulness in his eyes and the careful way he held himself. While Peladanes and mercenaries
lounged
, this man seemed taut and ready to spring away at the first sign of danger, a man canny enough to dodge any opponent, or double back with a speed that would throw off any predator.

In short a loner, and a survivor.

All eyes remained on the traveller, but if they expected him to say anything, they were in for a long wait. Bolldhe just gazed back at them with an expression that seemed to say:
Yes, can I help you?

Finally one soldier called out impatiently: ‘Let me get this straight, cleric; you want us to accompany some old priest across near-impassable country, by a route you won’t disclose, to an old ruin inhabited by the burnt ashes of a five-hundred-year-old corpse, then to stick all manner of sharp things into it, and burn it
again
. And then, if it looks like rising to life again before the year’s out, to let this chatty foreigner destroy it by some means not even
he
knows of?’

‘He
will
know by the end of it,’ replied Appa. ‘That’s a promise.’

‘A promise made by
your
god – the one who appeared to you in a vision. You expect
us
to believe that?’

‘I know it sounds a tad unlikely, but it is true. That’s all I can say.’

‘Nice talking t’ you,’ said the mercenary, and calmly walked out of the room too. Those at the head table then had to look on helplessly as most of the rest rose to their feet and, without a word, followed his example. As the last man disappeared through the door, the company found themselves staring at a gathering of just two. These were the flamboyant Methuselech Xilvafloese and the grim mercenary with the disturbing stare.

‘
Armholes!
’ Gapp swore under his breath.

To either side of Nibulus there was a squeak of chair-legs across the stone floor. ‘I’m sorry, old man,’ Bhormann muttered as both he and Stufi got to their feet.

‘You too?’ Nibulus exclaimed incredulously.

‘Well, you know how it is . . .’ Stufi replied awkwardly, and the pair of them shuffled on out of the hall.

Words could not describe the absolute despair and bitterness that descended on those remaining at the table. Crushed and defeated before they even set off, they buried their heads in their hands.

‘How incredibly embarrassing!’ Nibulus breathed. This was not how he had expected his first campaign to begin. Or end.

Then he became aware of other eyes fixed upon him, and looked up to see Methuselech and the mercenary eyeing him patiently, waiting for him to say something more. Nibulus merely stared in silence at the swirling spirals of dust dancing in a beam of light slanting through the window, and listened idly to the scratching of a mouse somewhere nearby.

‘Well?’ he said eventually, with a hint of vexation in his voice. ‘What are you waiting for? Council’s over. No point in hanging around here.’

He felt a little guilty at treating his old friend Methuselech thus, especially after all the miles the man had travelled just to get here. But there was also a feeling of resentment that Methuselech should be dragging his humiliation out like this.

But the southerner, with pride in his bearing, loyalty in his eyes, sympathy in his smile and warmth in his voice, replied simply: ‘We await your orders, my lord.’

‘Come again?’ Nibulus gasped, wondering if the man was serious or if this was just another example of incomprehensible Asyphe humour. Then he turned his gaze to the other man who had stayed on. Though he could not make out the mercenary’s eyes beneath the shadow of the dark grey hood, a silent nod bespoke sufficiently of the man’s willingness to join their party.

‘So,’ Finwald announced quietly in his ear, ‘it looks like we’ve got our army.’

Nibulus just stared in front with a glazed look in his eyes, and muttered, ‘Oh, Shogg’s Arse!’

B
ETWEEN
N
ORDWAS AND THE
high, bleak hills where Appa had prayed the previous night, the well-ordered fields and meadows gave ground to a large wood. Many small tracks threaded their uncertain way through it, parting the dense, thorny undergrowth of bramble, nettle and fern, crossing stony streams of cold, clear water, and winding through the irregular ranks of knurled trees. The folk of Nordwas depended on these woods for much of their livelihood: fuel for their fires, timber for their buildings and furniture, and nuts, fruit and game for their tables.

But despite the bounty that these woods – the remnant of a much vaster forest in ancient days – had to offer, the good people of Nordwas were loath to pass beneath its murmuring boughs. For the Aescals – the predominant race of Wyda-Aescaland – were not forest-people. They regarded such places as uncivilized, and for the people of Nordwas these woods were a reminder of wilder, more savage times, times when strange forest-cults held sway: an era of shamans, sacrifices and primeval, night-born terrors. In short, they were seen as places of fear, and only the outer reaches were trod by them.

Aescals, though, were not the only people who lived in these parts. It was just in the last few centuries or so that they had moved up from the South, dispersing an older race – one that had been here since before records began – to the fringes; banishing them to the drear hills, the cave-ridden gullies, and here to the wild woods.

But there were some places in the shadowed depths of this primordial forest where not even the older race walked. Some, even, which had never been visited by Man since the world began. It was not that they were
all
guarded by terrible beasts or shades – though some were, to be sure. But they were sacred, hidden, and fey, and there was something about them that forbade any disturbance by the wasteful plundering of these two-legged upstarts. The only sounds to be heard in these gloomy yet beautiful places were the moaning of the treetops in the breeze, the creaking of ancient boughs, the dull thud of falling cones upon mossy ground, the furtive rustle of unseen creatures through the fallen leaves and the scraping of beetles in rotten tree bark. Now and again the cawing of a crow would filter down through the leafy roof of these woods, but even this was rare.

Today, however, there
was
something – or someone – in the hallowed depths of the forest. Whether man or beast, it was impossible to tell, for though it walked upright, it was covered in shaggy grey-brown fur and moved with a stealth not seen in even the wildest, wiliest hunter. There was something in its footfall, causing neither sound nor any disturbance of the leaf-mould, which told of an instinctive oneness with its natural surroundings. Not one twig was snapped, not a blade of grass bent, nor even the fragile, dew-hung threads of a spider’s web shaken, as this unseen, unheard and unsmelt prowler stalked through the closely intertwining foliage.

Then it stopped. Crouching upon all fours, it began to crawl forward, more bestial than human now. Padding silently over the ground, it took in everything with its quick eyes: the red-and-white toadstools that forced their way up through the moist, worm-broken soil; the pale, fungal remains of a burst puffball, its cloud of brown dust spiralling up through the one pale beam of light that illumined the glade; even the hair-thin legs of a harvest spider that carefully tested its weight on a blade of grass. Not one thing went unnoticed.