The Wurms of Blearmouth (14 page)

“I won’t, and you know why? You weren’t so great. You’re so hairy I thought I was rolling with a dog.”

Hordilo scowled. “I know what this is.”

“What is it?”

“It’s you thinking you need to throw a knife or two, since I told you I wasn’t interested. Making up insults ain’t no way to make yourself feel better. Maybe for a moment or two, but it never lasts. Besides, women like dogs, and I should know. So,” he concluded, “it didn’t work.”

“Well now,” said Birds, studying him, “you got all the answers, don’t you?”

“I got the answers to the questions, which is better than answers to questions nobody asks, since those kind of answers are a waste of time. So, if you still got a question, ask it and I’ll answer it, unless it ain’t a question worth asking.”

“I don’t,” she replied, collecting up her weapon belt. “There comes a point in a relationship when it all goes past words, or talking, even. And in the heads of the woman and the man, even thoughts dissolve into a grey, formless haze. Time itself turns into an illusion. Days and nights meld, forward and backward, up and down, now and then—all vanishing into a muddle of pointless existence.” She faced him from the door. “We’ve reached that point, Captain.”

“I ain’t fooled,” he said.

“By what?”

“You’ll step outside the door and close it softly behind you, and lean against the wall, with tears running down your cheeks. Then you’ll take a deep breath and find, from somewhere deep inside, the resolve to go on, alone, abandoned and rejected. But really, what else is there to do? The shattered, wounded heart will mend, maybe, in a decade or two. That’s how it is for women and it’s too bad, you know? But a man’s got a thicker hide, and well, that’s just natural. Something we’re born with.”

“How did you know?” she asked him.

He shrugged, sitting up on the bed and reaching for his trousers. “It’s all there, in your pretty face.”

She opened the door behind her and stepped out into the corridor. Hearing the latch drop in her wake, she made her way to the stairs.
Gods, when a woman needs a drink so soon after sex, that’s a bad sign for everyone concerned.

Reaching the top of the landing she heard a door open behind her and turned. A young woman was edging out, and there was enough about her that made it clear to Birds Mottle that this was Feloovil’s daughter. Seeing Birds, the young woman hurried over. “Who are they?” she asked in a whisper.

“Always a good question,” Birds replied. “Who is who?”

“Those huge men coming up the street. And one woman. Friends of yours?”

“Huge?”

“Giant!”

Birds pushed past her and hurried back up the corridor. She threw open the door to Hordilo’s room. “You were right! I need you. I want you. Let’s get married! Find us a shack somewhere out of the village, where we can hide away, making wild love for days on end!”

Hordilo stood, thumbs tucked into his sword belt. “A shack? Somewhere remote? Secluded, private, where no-one will disturb us? Sounds like my farmhouse. Ain’t been there since, well, since a while now.” He smiled at her. “Who’s the man with all the answers?”

“You!” she cried, rushing into his arms.

Tiny Chanter threw open the inn door and stepped forward, only to bang his head on the jamb. “Ow,” he said, ducking and continuing on. Over his shoulder he said, “Lesser, Puny, fix that door, will you?”

Behind him the two brothers started hacking at the plastered beam with their axes.

“Hey! Feloovil shouted from behind the bar. “Stop that!”

“Needs doing,” Tiny said, glaring round. “Too low for a proper man, anyway.”

“Then you duck!”

Tiny bared his teeth. “Tiny Chanter don’t duck for nothing.”

“Glad to hear it,” Feloovil said, throwing a tankard at his head. It cracked hard just above his left eye, fell to a table and bounced and then dropped to the muddy floor.

“For that you die!” Tiny bellowed, one hand to his forehead.

“Before or after I serve you?” Feloovil asked.

“Make it after,” said Relish, slipping past her brother. “I’m thirsty and famished!”

Flea went to a table and dragged locals from their chairs and flung them into a corner, and then he turned to his siblings. “Found us a table, Tiny!”

As Lesser and Puny, putting away their axes, hurried to join Flea, Scant and Midge, Tiny pointed a finger at Feloovil. “Ale. Food. Now.”

“Pay. First.”

“Tiny Chanter don’t pay for nothing.”

“Tiny Chanter gets hungry and thirsty, and so do his brothers and sister. Not only that,” Feloovil continued, “they all get to sit outside, on the ground.”

“Gods below,” Relish said to Tiny, “cough up some coin, brother, so she don’t spit in our bowls.”

Snarling, Tiny pulled out a small pouch. He loosened the drawstrings and peered into it. He frowned, small eyes getting smaller.

Feloovil snorted, leaning her forearms on the counter. “No wonder Tiny don’t pay for nothing.”

Midge rose from the table and walked to the bar, shoving Relish to one side as he slapped down three silver coins.

Feloovil swept them up in one hand. “Got pretty women upstairs,” she added.

“Really?” Relish asked.

Ackle led Spilgit down to a shelf of sand and crushed shells well back from the thundering surf, but spray engulfed them nonetheless, icy and fierce. Lightning flashed through the massive storm cloud roiling above the wild seas, thunder drumming through the howl of the wind, and Ackle was hunched over like an old man, prodding the ground ahead every now and then with his shovel. At last he halted and faced Spilgit. “Here,” he said.

“Then start digging,” Spilgit replied.

“I’m freezing.”

“The exercise will fix that.”

“No, I mean I’m freezing solid. My arms barely bend. I can’t straighten my legs. There’s ice in my eyes and my tongue feels like frozen leather.”

Spilgit scowled. “Stop pretending to be dead, damn you! You think I’m not cold? Gods below, go on, then. Freeze solid for all I care.” Pushing Ackle back he set to digging in the heavy, ice-laden sand. “If this is a waste of time,” he said in a snarl, “you’re not leaving this spot, Ackle. In fact, I’m digging you a grave, right here.”

“It’s there, Spilgit. My haul. My hoard. Enough to buy a damned estate, maybe two, if one of them is run-down and occupied by an old woman who’s half mad and eats bats for breakfast. The kind of woman you can push down the stairs and no servants to ask any questions, so the property just falls into your lap, because of debts or whatnot—”

“What in Hood’s name are you going on about?” Spilgit demanded, glaring up at the man. “What old woman? What debts?”

“I’m just saying. I was the last one to go, you see, and maybe bats were fine with her but I was down to making tea from cobwebs, and yet I stayed on as long as I could, and did I get a word of thanks? Not on your life. That hag spat on me and clawed my face, but the candlesticks were my severance pay—she promised them to me! Instead, she rips the pack and everything falls out, and then she kicks my shin and tries to sink her teeth in my throat. But she didn’t have any teeth. She gummed my neck, Spilgit, and that wasn’t a pleasant experience.”

Spilgit laughed harshly. “You ran from an old woman. Gods, Ackle, you really are pathetic.”

“She probably poisoned me. Or cursed me. Or both. I was actually looking forward to a proper death, you know. Just an end to this whole miserable existence. I’d earned it, in fact—”

Something clunked under Spilgit’s shovel. Breathing hard from the exertion, Spilgit worked the blade around the object, and moments later he could make out the curved lid of a banded chest.

“That’s it,” said Ackle. “I told you I wasn’t lying.”

Spilgit set the shovel aside and pulled at the chest, working it free. It was heavy and he grunted lifting it from the hole. “Hold on,” he said, eyes finding the seal over the lock, “this is a Revenue Chest!”

“That’s right,” said Ackle. “I beat a tax collector senseless, on the Whitter Road just east of Elin. With a candlestick.”

“You stole tax revenue!”

“Just getting my own back, Spilgit. Anyway, you quit as a tax collector, so what difference does it make to you? You’re getting half, besides.”

Spilgit climbed out of the hole, brushed sand from his hands, and then leapt at Ackle. “Thief!” His hands closed on the man’s twisted, scarred neck, and his weight drove Ackle down to the ground. Spilgit knelt on him, squeezing with all his strength, seeing the ugly eyes bulge, the deepening hue of the face going from blue to grey. “This time you die for real! Just what you wanted!”

Ackle’s struggles fell away, his kicking stilled, and all life vanished from his mottled face.

Still Spilgit gripped Ackle’s throat, gasping out the last of his rage. “Thief,” he said again, but this time without much feeling. “Look at you. Got your wish, fool. This was punishment. Legal execution, in fact. I’m still a tax collector—it’s in my blood, in my bones, gods, in my hands!” He pulled his grip free, crawled off the corpse.

Eyes falling to the chest, he frowned. “Stolen revenues. For building better roads. Lanterns in the streets. Keeping the drains clear. But still, well, a man needs to get properly set up. It’s not like they’ll take me back, anyway. I could go into accountancy, use my skills for the other side. A nice office, in a decent neighbourhood, in a fine city, with proper clothes. Servants. It’s what I deserve, after a year in Spendrugle. Year? Only a year? More like a century!” Reaching over he pulled close the chest, broke the seal and flipped back the lid.

The coins were properly columned, each column wrapped and sealed and marked with the total amount. They’d already been converted, meaning every damned coin was solid gold.
This wasn’t no normal haul. Not some scrapings from villages, farms and hamlets. Gods below, this was a city’s take. What in Hood’s name was that tax collector doing with it on Whitter Road? Without an armed escort?

Spilgit, you fool, the bastard was stealing it, of course!

He dropped the lid. He was getting cold again, now that he’d stopped digging and strangling Ackle. He had enough coin here to buy Spendrugle, all the lands surrounding it, and that damned Wurms Keep. He had the coin to hire an army and march back in the summer and lay waste to the whole place, and it was only what they all deserved.

Spilgit stood, staring down at the chest.

The shovel flattened the back of his skull and he toppled forward. His legs kicked a few times then went straight as spears. Ackle studied the sprawled corpse of the tax collector. “I told you I was dead!” he shouted. “You can’t kill a dead man! I told you!”

Dropping the shovel, he fell to his knees and pushed the chest back into the hole. It could all wait until the spring, anyway. Too cold for travel. His joints were freezing solid, making every move a creaking ordeal.

Ackle filled in the hole again, and then took up Spilgit by the ankles and dragged him to the edge of the shelf. He kicked the body into the thrashing surf, watched as the corpse was tugged out to sea, sucked down and out of sight between two massive rocks.

“Killing tax collectors,” he muttered. “I could make a living out of that.”

Picking up both shovels, he set off for the village.

Witch Hurl crawled up from the bushes and made it onto the trail on her hands and knees. Blood dripped sluggishly from her forehead, but the cold had frozen most of it. She had to hand it to Spilgit: the man’s reflexes were like lightning. Still, no matter. Against nine of her, he would have no chance, and indeed the time had come.

Muttering under her breath, she sembled. Her form blurred, she yowled in pain, and moments later nine lizard cats emerged from the redolent, spicy haze. The wind whipped those scents away. Her bodies were scrawny, but filled with venomous hatred. She slipped forward, tails writhing, nine slinky forms rushing up the trail.

The King’s Heel. It would all start there, with the conclusion of plenty of unfinished business. It was likely all the denizens of the village were in there, anyway, meaning she wouldn’t have to do much hunting through houses and huts, pig-sties and stables. No, they would all be crowded in the Heel tonight, sitting out the storm, warm in each other’s stink.

She would make of that wretched inn a tomb, a haunted crypt, its walls sweating the blood of slaughter, the echoes running in all directions from the screams and shrieks and death-rattles.

Racing closer, her gazes caught once more the glaring light from the tower of Wurms Keep. Her fury sizzled like fat in a pan, and she found her throats opening to hisses and then spitting, every scale upon her nine backs arching into serrated lines.

There, directly ahead, the entrance to the King’s Heel.

Reaching it, she flung herselves against the barrier. And rebounded. Frustrated rage filled her bodies. Claws were unsheathed, lashing out at the wind, gouging deep furrows in the frozen mud. She glared at the door, willing it to explode. But it defied her power. Hurl screamed through nine throats.

At the high-pitched wailing from outside, Feloovil shivered. “The wind’s gone mad out there! Here, then, have another drink!”

Laughing, Relish held up her tankard, watching it weave before her. “Brilliant idea,” she shouted. “A tavern on a ship! We should’ve thought of that years ago!”

“You ain’t on a ship no more,” Tiny said, his small red eyes tracking the room before returning to their concentrated fixation on Feloovil’s breasts. “You’re drunk,” he explained. “That’s why you’re all wavering back and forth, and the floor keeps tilting, and those lanterns swaying like that.” He belched then and leaned on the counter to get closer to those breasts, and then he addressed them. “I know you’re old and all,” he said, with a bleary smile, “but that just makes you more desperate, and a desperate woman is my kind of woman.”

“The only kind, I would think,” Feloovil replied. “And I’ll have you know I’m only thirty-one years old.”

“Hah hah hah!”

“Now, if you had me some offerings,” she continued, ignoring his derision, “I might show you the youth of my soul and all that.”