Wolf's-head, Rogues of Bindar Book I (29 page)

A wedge of
oatcake, a tureen of brown mead, a slice of cold sausage—all laid
out in plain sight under a bell jar and appearing edible and
fresh.

Baus licked
his lips. To prolong any hunger for the sake of prudence seemed
absurd. To indulge in food that was not one’s own, however,
suggested a flagrant act of theft. Nothing under the table
suggested any elaborate trap. Lures, deadfalls, snares seemed
absent.

Why should an
individual leave fresh sustenance for a wandering wayfarer to
devour?

The question
remained unanswered and the altruism of the circumstance stymied
Baus.

However Baus’s
temptation grew and the victual remained untouched, harbouring a
scent of appealing quality.

Baus glanced
about in perplexity. He thought that perhaps the owner had stepped
out momentarily to complete an errand? Yes, that must be it!

Baus
congratulated himself on his reasoning. Partaking of the food, he
would be off as quick as a weasel: the dweller or landlord would be
none the wiser.

Further
vacillation continued, but Baus swiftly devoured the mead and
sausage and departed the byre in satisfaction. Whoever had provided
the lunch would be somewhat bewildered by the missing portions, but
what of it? Would he not, in similar condition, offer sustenance to
a downtrodden wayfarer? Surely! Gratified with this further
reasoning, he made excellent progress toward Krintz, along a route
of peaceful transit through rolling hills, flowering asphodel and
fragrant heliotrope.

An hour
passed. The lands sloped down toward the sea, rife with more
strange, yellow, slightly acrid asphodel. More startling ruins came
to notice—chipped pedestals, crumbling birdbaths, porticos,
weatherworn alabaster gates . . .

Around a small
copse the path now took a downward turn and Baus halted before a
brilliant glade of yellow flowers. A wondering gasp hung on his
lips. Flowers of such effulgence abounded in astronomical numbers!
The field was sprawled with golden splendour: cornflower, saffron,
lemon, mixes of paintbrush purple. Indeed, such a wonderful prism
of colour stung his eyes! A thin path wound its way through several
hundred feet and Baus moved forward toward it like a captive
hound.

He had not
reached the half-way point before he stopped, sharpened his ears. A
sudden noise had disturbed him: a heavy wheezing—or perhaps a
raspy, laboured murmuring. ’Twas quite incongruous with the elegant
grace of the asphodel and caused him to frown.

Glancing left
and right, Baus could not help but feel an unnatural awe at the
urge to stagger off the path and wade knee-deep into those strange,
yellow plants.

He ventured
not twenty paces before the flowers seemed to stiffen and coil
about his ankles as if alert for his escape.

Baus stamped a
foot. Arrogant creatures! Was he mistaken, or were the flowers
rearing their heads at him, big as ham fists?

He uttered a
carefree laugh, chiding himself for his alarm. Checking the rising
of hairs on his back, he found though there was something to his
former concern. The flowers had reared up imposingly, reminding him
of those that he had seen on the path just outside of Rudik’s farm.
The petals had suddenly flared outward and spread: a lofty
flower-giant emitted a soft sucking sound. Baus recoiled. A cloud
of sulphurous air puffed forth. He coughed, almost gagging on the
fumes. A strange low hum seemed to exude from the flowers’
mouths.

Baus began to
back out of the glade. His alarm only increased when he stumbled
over a rigid object. He crawled to his feet in terror, staggered
back when he saw a familiar bulky shape. A thatch of red-beard
wisped up—’twas a rogue lying face up and arms slumped over his
chest! He was wet and soggy, obviously deposited here for some
inexplicable reason, with his blue dungarees torn; his cheeks
scratched and his scarlet beard gone miserably limp. A stout beobar
limb denoting a club lay partially hidden in the grasses.

“Valere! Up, I
say!” cried Baus in a frantic voice. “What has gotten into you? Up,
up, little birdie. ’Tis time for Flanks!”

The figure
responded not in the least.

Baus nudged
the sprawling frame with his boot.

No
reaction.

The sea
captain was obviously comatose, perhaps even dead for all he knew
and Baus become suffused with apprehension. Baus could see no mark
or outward wound presented on his pasty skin. The circumstance
brought him a ripple of dread. Surely the red-beard’s enemy, if
such there was, remained lurking nearby, to spring on him.

Baus darted
glances left and right, ducked low, trying to shield his figure
from a prying figure in the wavering flowers. He saw no one. Wrath
and suspicion warred in his brain.

How long had
the captain lain here?

Baus tried to
rouse his comrade, but to no avail. The inmate was damp, heavy as a
brick, and in no condition to rise. He seemed under the influence
of an evil reek that rose from his skin. His underside seemed
almost cold as death too, as if he had lain here for some time, a
day or more.

Baus fretted.
Could he just leave his fellow inmate here? No! He must rouse the
seafarer, get him to his feet or he would die. No longer would his
conscience allow him to abandon another soul to an indeterminate
fate. The clammy bulk refused to budge. The heavy form turned, the
mouth slowly opened, offering a gibber or two, as if bewitched.

Baus reeled
back in startlement and reassurance. His mind strayed to Rudik’s
cryptic warnings—about the presence of fey things about . . .

He suddenly
felt a curious and not so pleasant sensation crawling over his
skin: something akin to insensate hunger—or a peculiar craving—for
a sweet thing or two. He thought the urge bizarre. He fought the
ludicrous feeling that he was being bewitched. It was inconceivably
impossible, considering that he had just ingested a generous meal
The fact that he was not normally enthused to such sweet things of
scent or taste began to rankle on his brain . . .

Oi! There was
a tug again! How deliciously fragrant the flowers were!

Reaching out a
hand, he touched the petal of a particularly winsome one that had
leaned forward and almost fondled the back of his hand.

Baus sniffed
with contentment. The flower bobbed in a tempting pose. He caressed
its leaves. The plant took a leap, landing close. He took a deep
draft, and smelled the most wondrous fragrance he had ever
smelled—’twas of a woman’s scent, seductive and irresistible:
lavender, anise, olive balm, spindleswoon. How had he missed these
exalted essences? The mark of singular incompetency! Baus snapped
his fingers with joy. He must be an oaf!

He tore off
the flower’s petals and with an absurd delight began to devour the
leaves in gulps and smacks. Incomparable! Sweet as molasses and
honey, and better! . . . His brain reeled. The grandness of it all.
Such palatability! Such flavourful-ness! His desire wailed siren
song; mad spurts of it traveled across the canvas of his mind and
let him journey to a land unheard of . . .

VI

It could have
been hours or days that passed, such was the torpor that Baus felt
lying there like a bloated snogmald in the grass. Dusk was falling;
it appeared as if there would be more lying around to do.

Such was not
to pass. A gigantic figure, clothed in hunter’s garb with a coarse
leather hood, swung out of the furze and strode into the glade with
imposing majesty. The gentleman, if such be, sensed something amiss
within the patterns of the pernicious flora. There was an
inconsistency that had him sniffing at the air and pulling at his
enormous sideburns. He looked this way and that, hooking a great
knobnail of a nose with his finger, before he came restlessly
heavy-footing it over to the two mounds that lay senseless in the
meadow.

As if from a
dream, Baus remembered the figure stooping low, peering into his
eyes and blinking with an ironic pity. Baus peered back into the
dun-coloured face. He saw a loose, eel-like mouth, greenish eyes, a
hooked, hog-like snout. The vision was absurd—a monstrous, coarse
visage, all gnarled and grinning with a head as bald and domed as
an egg, with a nose as large as an old parsnip. But, Baus
remembered the figure dipping down to inspect him with significant
interest. The leather fit him well, his boots were tough and wide,
the jerkin and baggy brown pantaloons neatly pressed—well, what was
there to say? Yellow belt and black buckles—all were imprinted in
his mind with despite the dreary state.

How many
fistfuls of the magic flowers had he devoured?

Gods and
demons! The outlaw winced. He felt exceptionally nauseated as if it
pained him sorely to think in such numbers.

Baus noticed
further that the figure seemed to carry with him some long bow,
complete with three freshly killed hares tied to his belt. A hunter
the giant seemed . . .

A low-pitched
rumbling suddenly filled the air, words which were not spoken
unkindly, but which went unrecognizably unheard insofar as the
meaning was concerned.

The ogre
picked up the seaman Valere’s club and placed it oddly in his
teeth. He then dragged the two of them through the glade by a leg
each. Pulling them through the hazy hollows and fallow fields such,
he whistled as if the fellows were of no weight. Everything
sheened—gold, yellow, mustard, flaxen to Baus’s blurred eye;
inchoate forms, a dream-ridden maze, hazed in and out of his
memory: golden blisterbush, yellow crackthistle, lemon asphodel,
and golden falling leaves. By the time he found himself laid down
on his back, his skin was raw and edged with cuts and his cloak was
stained from sliding along the turf. He was completely exhausted,
but he was aware that he and Valere lay sprawled before the old
byre where he had taken his lunch. Through filmy lids, he saw the
giant retrieving the wagon and hitching his wegmors, thrusting his
new catches onto the back like bags of flour.

The giant sang
in a booming voice: some eerie song rendered in an archaic seaside
dialect, this while he hopped in the front and urged his wegmors on
to speed.

Baus was not
sure where they were headed; he only guessed that they were heading
in a southerly direction, back through the leagues to the old city.
He grimaced. As the day drew to an end, the dreamy orange haze grew
to copper and grey. The incongruous party reached the old stone
ruins that stood forlornly as before, this time in the early light
of evening. Baus’s eyes adjusted and wandered over the rubble like
sluggish marbles. He perceived a series of wind-worn skeletal slabs
and vine-crawling alleys—the same as the forsaken city offered
earlier.

The
comprehension stirred a sense of ludicrous disbelief in his mind.
He thrashed and heaved but could not react practically to the
impulse that drove his limbs.

The cart
rolled endlessly on—o’er broken stone pathways, through weedy
plazas, under cracked archways. The wegmors wilfully tugged their
load with earnest. In what seemed a never-ending odyssey over
rubble and ruin, they arrived back at the fort-abbey containing the
mysterious spheroids—not to Baus’s surprise. The maze of black
turrets lofted high with ever more macabre authority in the waning
light and had Baus struggling to thrash some more.

With a mighty
flourish, the giant alighted from the wagon and drew out a set of
ringed keys from his inner sleeve. He plunged a large key into the
fort’s portal, set it heaving ajar with an excruciating creak. The
door was no orthodox door—it sagged too heavily on its bronzed
hinges, one of massive girth and fabricated with only the
forethought of wizardry.

The ogre
gathered up his charges. He carried them into the gloom and tossed
them with indifference on the floor. They wallowed in the litter
spreading as wide across the dusty beobar planks as could be
imagined. The giant set four wall sconces to light, then closed the
mammoth portal and barred it tightly with a stout brass beam. He
scooped up Baus and Valere and slumped them into chairs alongside a
monstrous table. This table spanned the greater part of a high,
dark hall which seemed fabulously large. Baus remembered his
paralysis, watching spellbound as his host repaired to a side
chamber, gripping his slaughtered hares. There was a tumult that
followed: of pots and various cooking instruments in motion, then a
sizzling of frying meat along with idle jabber. The smells of
stewed hare wafted in from the pantry, and Baus’s tongue was
tantalized with the aromas of promise.

He tried once
more to jerk his limbs free but found he could not. His brain was
muddled—much too heavy, his stupor, and signals could not be sent.
Valere was no exception and gaped vacuously at Baus from a round,
pale face from across the table.

The giant
returned some time later. His expression was curt, prompted likely
from the listless droop of his guests which implied a disparagement
of his hospitality.

Muttering
reproaches, the giant rummaged about a repository and emerged with
a flask of amber liquid which he took pains to thrust forcefully
down Valere’s throat. Baus suffered no more gentle treatment. With
revulsion he felt strong fingers drive the liquid down his gullet
with no more scruples than an ailing pet might feel a worm pill
being force fed down its gullet.

After he had
swallowed, Valere’s eyes grew waxy. His lips compressed into slits.
Baus’s nostrils no less flared out like a brute beast’s and he
plunged his fingers down his throat as if searching for the serpent
that had tumbled down.

“There, that’s
better!” the giant laughed. The knotty features of his aged face
achieved an earlier tone of joviality. “By Gladien’s flowers, you
two jacks have been bewitched! Lucky that I happened along—else
your limbs would be part of the scenery by now. Welcome to
Bisiguth!”