The Wurms of Blearmouth (13 page)

Amidst the racket, the bones jumbled around the cat seemed to whisper, in flinty voices, and he could almost make out the words as he crouched, trembling with fury. The low susurrations filled his skull. He glared at the bones, and saw in the gloom skulls among them. The skulls of lizard cats. They rustled and shifted before his eyes, and the whispering grew more urgent.

Red could smell a whiff of power, old power, and a need gripped his soul like a clawed hand about a throat.

Ssss … sssembling!

Semble! Semble you fool!

Yowling, the cat shook with tremors, and the bones crowded close, and things suddenly blurred.

The sorcery made the sweat on the cave walls steam and spit. Stone fissured and fell, shattering. In the miasma surrounding Red, old bones pushed into the cat’s body. There was terrible pain, and then triumph.

“I am Hurl! Witch Hurl!”

She tottered to her feet, impossibly weak, and looked down at her naked form. Leathery skin stretched over bones, tendons like twine. Not enough flesh, not enough living tissue to make her whole, to make her as she once was. But, it was
enough.

Hurl cackled. “I have my mind back! My beautiful, perfect mind! And … and … I remember everything!” A moment later she slumped. “I remember everything.”

She needed food. Fresh meat, hot, bloody meat. She needed to feed, and she needed it
now.

Feeling frail, she ventured out from the cave, skirting the foaming tumult. It was almost dark, the storm coming in like a bruise on a god’s forehead. There were corpses wedged among the rocks. Then she saw one lift an arm. Cackling, Hurl scrambled towards the hapless figure.

But when she crouched over him, she found herself looking down upon a dead man. Who then smiled. “I was never much of a sailor,” he said. “Tiny said: take the tiller. I tried to warm him, but the Chanters listen to nobody. I’m stuck. Will you help me?”

“You’re dead!” she spat.

“I know, and that’s the thing, isn’t it? We’re all cursed with our lot. I was probably alive once, but it’s not like I can go back. No-one can. Still, if you help me get out of this crevasse, then I could walk home. It’s somewhere across the ocean, but I’ll find it, I’m sure. Eventually.”

“But I need warm flesh! Hot blood!”

“Don’t we all, darling?”

She shook her head. “You’ll have to do, for now. It isn’t much, but it’s something.”

“A philosophy we share, my sweet. Now, about this help—oh, what are you doing? You’re eating my thigh. That’s not very nice, and you an old woman at that. Well, I suppose if you eat enough of me, I’ll be able to squeeze free. So that’s something. When you’re dead, it pays to remain optimistic, or so I have found. Not too much on that one now, all right? Here, see, you can reach the other one, too. It’s much fresher, I’m sure. Horrible weather we’re having, isn’t it?”

Tiny Chanter turned to survey his surviving siblings as they gathered on the beach, the icy water thrashing up round their ankles as the storm worsened. “It’s simple now,” he said. “We kill everybody.”

The one sister among them, Relish, snorted. “That’s your plan, Tiny?”

“That’s always my plan.”

“Exactly, and see where it’s gotten us.”

Frowning, Midge said, “It’s got us on shore, Relish.”

“Like Midge says,” growled Tiny, “it’s got us here, and that makes it a good plan, just like it’s always been a good plan, since it got us wherever we ended up, and we ain’t ended up anywhere but where the plan meant us to end up, and if you think I’m going to keep on tolerating your bad moods and foul mouth, Relish, well, that ain’t in the plan.” He turned to the others. “Draw your weapons, brothers. There’s killing to do, and that killing ends with those two sorcerors who stole our treasury.”

“They didn’t steal our treasury,” said Scant. “It was a squad of city guards and that treacherous captain, Sater.”

Tiny scowled. “But she’s dead, and we had nothing to do with that, meaning we’re still hunting for justice, and punishment, and those sorcerors objected to us killing them and that’s not allowed. We got to answer for things like that.”

Puny Chanter laughed. “Sater got between a dhenrabi and his mate! That was funny!”

Sneering, Relish said, “It’s only funny to you, Puny, because you’re sick in the head.”

“That’s funny, too! Hah hah!”

“Be quiet all of you,” commanded Tiny. “Draw your damned weapons and let’s get on with it. Stint, Fren, Gil, you kill that man up at the shack. But don’t mess up that fur cap of his. I want it. The rest of us, we go to the village. We get us a warm meal if we can find it, and maybe a few tankards, and then we kill everyone. Then we go up to that keep and kill everything there, too.”

“It’s your genius what leaves me speechless,” said Relish.

“I wish,” Tiny replied. Then he pointed at two of his brothers who were both gripping the same, huge sword. “Flea, Lesser, what in Hood’s name are you doing?”

“It’s our three-handed sword, Tiny,” said Flea.

Tiny walked up to Flea and whacked him on the side of the head. “Let go of that! There, take that axe, the five-bladed one. Let’s go everyone, we’re in for a bloody night.”

They set off up the beach, falling into single file on the trail, with Stint, Fren and Gil taking up the rear.

Leaning on his walking stick, Whuffine Gaggs stood beside his shack and watched the ten strangers approach. They were a big lot, he saw, each one with weapons bared and marching in a way that seemed ominous. Probably Tarthenal blood in the line, somewhere a few generations back. The sight of them made him feel nostalgic. The one woman among them was more reasonably proportioned. In fact, he saw as they drew closer, she had more curves than a clay ball, and knew how to use them as she bounced and rolled her way up the trail.

The one in the lead offered up a bright smile that didn’t reach his eyes, and simply trudged past Whuffine, as did all the others barring the last three. They halted and readied their weapons.

Whuffine sighed. “It’s like that, is it?”

The one in the centre of the line shrugged. “Tiny says we kill everybody.”

“You got me all over nostalgic here,” Whuffine said.

The man grinned and turned to the man on his right. “Hear that, Stint? The old comber remembers better days.”

“A good way to go on your last day,” Stint replied.

Whuffine glanced back to see that the others had all vanished somewhere up the trail. He looked back at the three brothers. “Tell you what,” he said, “you go on, tell your brother you did me in like you were told to, and leave it at that.”

“We don’t lie to Tiny,” said the one named Stint.

The third man frowned. “That’s not true, Stint. Remember the porridge?”

Stint sighed. “You still on about that, Fren?”

“It had to be you!” Fren shouted.

“Listen,” said the first brother, “we’re wasting time and it’s cold, so let’s just do this, loot the shack and get on our way.”

“Don’t forget the hat, Gil,” said Stint. “Tiny wants the hat.”

Whuffine nodded. “It’s a fine hat, isn’t it? Alas, it’s mine and I ain’t selling it or giving it up.”

“That’s all right,” said Gil, his grin broadening. “We’ll take it anyway.”

“You’re making me defend my hat,” said Whuffine, raising his walking stick and gripping the silvered end with both hands.

The three brothers laughed.

They stopped laughing when the shaft shimmered, became a thick-bladed longsword, the blade of which then burst into flames.

A rather short time later, Whuffine stood amidst sizzling chunks of human flesh, from which wisps of smoke rose as if from candlesticks. He watched the last bits of gore burn crispy black and then flake off from the blade of his sword. A moment later the weapon shimmered again and once more he was holding his walking stick. He looked down at the remnants of the three brothers and sighed. “It ain’t good to get me all nostalgic.”

Adjusting his fur hat, he went back inside his shack. He sat down in his captain’s chair and stretched out his feet. He looked round, studied his surroundings as if seeing them for the first time. The shark-jaws lining the slatted walls, the burst of dusty, curly hairs pushing out between the boards, the lanterns and brass fittings, the casks and skinning knives and shucking stones, the harpoon heads and bundles of netting, the dhenrabi spines and Jhorlick gills, the heaps of clothing and fine cloth, and the amphorae filled with oil or wine or dyes, the clay jar on the shelf with all the gold teeth, and the half-dozen Seguleh masks …

Whuffine grunted. All in all, he decided, this was a far finer abode that any chilly, draught-filled temple with muttering priests for company, and all the slippy pattering of bare feet in the dead of night, as cots creaked under unusual weight and unlikely forces made them sway and jerk. Better, indeed, than the dusty shadows of the alcoves smeared in old wax and crowded with pointless offerings, where spiders built webs only to die of starvation and their tiny shriveled bodies crunched down to bitter nothing between the teeth.

But somewhere in that temple, it was held, there was faith, thick as curdled cream, upon which a god could grow fat. Well, he’d yet to see that happen. The corridors echoed with pointless hopes and muddled ambitions, with sordid crimes and petty betrayals. Faith was a claw hammer to pry loose the boards beneath the commonry’s feet, an executioner’s axe to lop off the heads of unbelievers, a flaring torch to set light to the kindling crowding a thrashing fool bound to a stake. Whuffine snorted. Why, a god could get sick with this lot, no doubt about it.

If it wasn’t too much work, he would have ended this world long ago, and without much regret.

But I’ll settle for what washes up every morning. The bodies and dead dreams, the brave and the insipid, the frightened and the belligerent, the wise ones—but oh how rare they are!—and the idiots, of which there are far too many.

“Ah, listen to me, all nostalgic again.”

Slithering with all the stealth she could muster, Witch Hurl moved among the chopped-up hunks of scorched meat outside the door to Whuffine’s shack. She gathered a few clumps up and under one arm and continued on up the trail.

This meat was fresh. This meat wouldn’t sour her stomach the way that dead man had, and she wouldn’t have to listen to any endless nattering about crossing the ocean and getting home, when all he had left was his head, or his cry of thanks when she kicked it into the waves.

She tore off mouthfuls of the human flesh, swallowing without chewing.

Remembering everything gave her good reasons, now, reasons to continue on, up into the village, where she would deliver a night of vengeful mayhem that, by dawn, would see not a single villager left alive.

And you, Feloovil Generous, you I’ll save for the last. You betrayed me when I needed you the most, and for that you will pay—by all the hoary pig-gods of the Hog Harbingers of Blearmouth—may their bones rot in their stupid little barrows—you will pay, aye, Feloovil.

Because, woman, I remember everything!

With every mouthful of bloody flesh she swallowed, she felt her strength returning.

Soon, everyone dies!
She cackled, choked, and then spat out a sliver of shattered thigh bone.

Behind her, the storm struck the shore, and its howl filled the air. Reaching the rise and coming in sight of Spendrugle, Witch Hurl paused. A single glaring light was visible in the distant keep tower.
My tower! My keep!

Such a delicious night of slaughter awaited them all!

“We take the beach trail,” said Ackle, “but then cut off from it while still on the rise. Then it’s two hundred paces along the goat trail further down the coast. There’s a cut that leads down to a secluded strip of sand.”

“If you say so,” Spilgit said. He was freezing, clutching his shovel in hands swiftly growing numb. The light was almost gone, the wind turning ferocious and it buffeted them as they trudged along. Keeping his head down against the sea-spray slanting in almost horizontal, Spilgit stayed a step behind Ackle.

They were halfway along the coast trail when Spilgit heard the man grunt and saw him stagger to one side.

A wild-haired old woman was suddenly before him, shrieking and lunging with hands hooked like talons.

Spilgit swung the shovel and the clang when the flat of the blade struck the woman’s forehead was like a hammer on an anvil. The impact sent her tumbling into the brush between the trail and the beach.

“Gods below! Who was that?”

Ackle reappeared and joined Spilgit as they peered into the tangled thicket. “Did you kill her?”

Spilgit licked his lips, his heart pounding hard in his chest. “I don’t know. She attacked me!”

“Ever seen her before?”

“No, I swear it. I thought I knew everyone.”

“Maybe she came up from the sea. Another one from the wreck.”

Spilgit’s sigh was shaky. “I suppose so.”

“You’re a murderer now, Spilgit.”

“No I’m not. It was an accident. It was self-defense.”

“She had spindly hands and you had a shovel.”

“She attacked me, you fool. You saw it.”

Ackle shrugged in the gloom. “She didn’t attack me. But then, I’m not a tax collector, am I?”

“Let’s just get on with this, shall we? We’re out here, might as well bring the nightmare to an end, though I’m beginning to think that end is a long way off. Don’t look at me with those eyes, I’m an innocent man.”

Saying nothing to that, Ackle set off once more, and Spilgit quickly followed.

Lying on the bed, Hordilo watched her getting dressed. “It’s not going to happen,” he said. “I mean, you were great and all, but I’ve had my fill of wives.”

Birds Mottle glanced briefly at him before shrugging into her quilted gambeson with the huge tear exposing one breast. “Thought you never married.”

“Exactly, and I mean to stay that way.”

She faced him. “I was great, was I?”

“That’s what I said, but don’t take it to heart.”