Wolf's-head, Rogues of Bindar Book I (23 page)

Trimestrius
rocketed out from the canister. The prince dripped with unguent. A
greenish froth oozed from around his mouth and cheeks and chin. His
eyes were pools of vehemence.

Nuzbek tried
to navigate the parachute sideways, cursing at the misfortune, but
having no free arms, he could do nothing to unseat the midget while
Boulm clumsily strove to headbutt the troublemaker away from
him.

The initiative
failed. Trimestrius gnawed Boulm’s nose. The convict lost grip
completely of Nuzbek’s legs and the jar slipped from his grasp,
thudding in the sandy turf.

Trimestrius
sprang away savagely, attacking Boulm just as he grabbed Nuzbek’s
ankles at the last instant. Straddling his shoulders, Trimestrius
began to chew the lackey’s neck.

Boulm wrenched
his frame free. He wretchedly tried to stop the homunculus’s
champing, but cramped and contorted as he was, Boulm made no
headway. In a reckless rush of anger, Nuzbek swatted madly at the
dwarf, but the craft began to teeter sideways, careening toward a
tree trunk. The conveyance lashed wildly to the left, lurching in
midair, then knocking itself against prickly branches.

Boulm’s left
leg was pinned. He was slashed hard across a gleaming shard of
parapet glass and he howled in agony. He could not restrain the
impulse to clutch at his bleeding leg.

The urge was
foolish . . . He toppled, pinwheeling in the air, loosing a horrid
shriek that filled the sky.

Nuzbek pulled
up fiercely on the guy-lines. In an instant with the loss of
weight, the buoyancy gained him several feet. An unfortunate turn.
Boulm’s shouts passed unheeded; the lackey’s last outcry died in
his throat as Nuzbek stared in stony perplexity at his comrade who
lay unmoving in the fog wisps below. There was a sick twist to his
neck, with a knee bent backward.

Nuzbek uttered
a groan of exasperation; he twisted his face in fury and inspected
his new lithe enemy who was clinging monkeylike on the upper stays.
The illogic stunned the magician. Perhaps he believed his spells
infallible; but here was a counterexample: surely it was an event
of unnatural order how the traitor could have freed himself from
the jar—the lid was tamper-proof!

A chance
arrived and Trimestrius finally thrust a lethal strike at Nuzbek’s
throat.

The magician
blocked the attack—barely. The deflection momentarily unbalanced
him and the midget plunged five feet, sliding precariously onto a
sprawling beobar. Twisting, turning, clawing his way back up, he
only slid farther. The dwarf snatched quickly at the last
branch.

It held his
weight and saved him from a twenty foot fall.

The conveyance
started to buckle. Nuzbek, witnessing a new catastrophe, sought to
recalibrate. Boulm had landed on the last remaining jar, shattering
it and now the contents had gushed out on the sand, including the
figure within: a sandy-haired, purple-robed beauty rising woozily
to her feet. She was amazingly gorgeous, but no taller than
knee-high. Stepping away from Boulm’s corpse, she drew herself to
her full height, regal as a sorceress, with a gaze rising upwards
to scan Nuzbek, and with that, a cold wrath fixed icily on her
face.

“Ulisa!” the
magician growled, a little overwhelmed. “How can this be
happening?”

For a freakish
instant it appeared that Nuzbek was to about to lose his nerve, but
he kicked himself away from the tree, gaining some air space.

The manoeuvre
was timely—the parachute would have been ravaged by long, spiny
branches if he hadn’t pushed himself precariously away from the
parapet, kicking himself off from the ledge, avoiding the sharp
glass that had been Boulm’s downfall.

Shouts now
arose from the barracks. The prisoners were awakening—as too the
guards. Baus turned in time to spy a comic Skarrow bounding across
the sward like an ogre. Graves was on his heels. Farther afield,
the prison’s great portcullis rattled up. Oppet’s hounds were now
leaping out panther-like, straining on their leashes as if they
would snap them and maul the offenders. The hounds dug at the turf,
jousted the air with their horned snouts and snorted evil
symphonies of barks and snarls.

Oppet loosed
the chains on the dogs. Like a mad horde the hounds sprang out as
one. Oppet rang the gong in quick succession—a signal which Baus
knew was the call for a town emergency.

Baus shouted
up at Weavil. “Time is at an absolute minimum, Weavil! We must
depart! Unfurl your branch!”

Cognizing
crisis, Weavil struggled to propel himself along the prickly
foliage.

He was
unsuccessful. Thrust upside down and with his face smothered in
leaves, the escapee could barely manoeuvre let alone perceive what
was happening below. But he understood the need for speed, and
leapt out like a chimpanzee, earning himself an extra two feet.

The branch
sagged. Six inches. Not enough! Weavil slid down the remaining
length, but he lost his grip; he began sliding down the bough at an
alarming rate.

The bough
curved over like a great bow. Weavil rode the tip like a water
drop.

The branch was
within Baus’s reach now. With an urgency born of life and death he
mustered an audacious leap. Fingers snagged at leaves. For an
interminable instant Baus floated in air then clutched at something
substantial.

It allowed him
time to capture a segment that supported his weight. Up, up he
scrambled, tugging, grunting, grasping with all his force.

He gained six
inches . . . a foot . . . A new nest of horror emerged—what would
happen if the snauzzerhounds jumped and tore at his ankles?

A strange
shift in weight suddenly propelled him precariously upward. He
clung two feet below eye level to the wall’s summit. He wrenched
himself about in clumsy fashion, watching in horror as Weavil slid
past him, down the clumps of leaves into a heap on the ground.

Baus cried
out. What could stop Weavil from being gored by the hounds? The
branch was too far way for him to grab. If he should leap down, he
would also be gored.

The dilemma
was too real: two persons in the maws of the snauzzerhounds, or
one?

The choice
made Baus ashen and he watched in dismay as Nuzbek came floating
down to a standstill, alighting nearby where Boulm lay dead.

The magician
snatched up Trimestrius’s jar and seized its lid with a rare rage
before he gained the conveyance again.

Baus shook his
head in confusion. What was the blackguard up to? Did he not
realize that the claws of the snauzzerhounds were almost on
him?

The answer was
clear enough.

He aimed
straight for the dwarfed woman who stood with her hands tucked in
her robe.

Baus yelled
down at her in desperation: “Flee! Flee to the east wall!”

His cries
seemed lost in the mist. But no, the sorceress turned. He pointed
wildly to the wall. “To the far end of the compound! A breach in
the wall exists. Hurry! An escape route wide enough for you to
crawl through.” He shouted at Weavil. “Run, you little wifter,
run!—or you’re mincemeat too!”

Rviving
himself from the shock of his fall, Weavil hot-tailed it to the
opening.

The shrunken
sorceress did not waste any precious instants either. Having
grasped the essence of what the strange man had cried, she fled,
with her robe a billowing whirling Tyrian purple behind her.

Nuzbek dropped
in from behind, floating with a murderous speed. He gripped the
pyramid in his free hand, unleashing a ray.

The brownish
deluge stung the air. It seemed corrupted with a sickly
thaumaturgy. As if guided by some inner premonition, the small
figure of the woman ground to a halt, ducking.

The shaft
careened wide, only inches away from her path, blasting a
spongebush to a crisp. The dwarf clamped her resolve, raised both
arms over her head. A mysterious aureole seemed to envelop her
figure like a shroud: emerald and golden-red tinged.

Nuzbek
ululated a series of tempestuous vocables. From the glow pyramid
burst another ray, this one twice as wide as the last, wracking
maleficent colours through the air. The beam zigzagged, striking
Ulisa, but miraculously it reflected harmlessly off her expanded
nimbus, causing Nuzbek to squawk in surprise. He swung his
parachute about.

He dropped in
closer, floating in, snatching carelessly at her robe. He lurched
back in pain. He was struck with a forceful beam of her own wielded
by her aura and he tumbled from the chute, striking the earth with
authority. He lay there face first for a time, moaning. Ulisa
opened her eyes, ran fleet-footed to the wall where Baus had
pointed. Such was Nuzbek’s plight—he could not see her scrambling
up. Through the hole she slid before it was possible to steel
himself for action.

Weavil had
just taken hold of his senses. He fled in a terrible direction, the
same as Ulisa, despite the slavering tumult of the snauzzerhounds
two dozen yards behind him.

He was almost
there but was too late. Nuzbek had shaken off his pain and had
caught up with the midget on foot. He grabbed him by the collar and
hefted him off the ground, his little legs spinning.

“So, my little
rat!” he rasped in irony. “Notice that we are at last face to
face—on terms less jubilant!”

Into the empty
canister he shoved the midget and clamped the defective lid shut.
“That shall curtail your stink, you little meddler! Curse the
rising moon! Two of my long time foes have escaped, but no matter!
For the nonce, you shall serve as some collateral.” He sprinted
back to where he had left his chute and re-ignited the magic. Up
into the air he climbed, clutching his trophy, with a fiendish
intent carved on his lips. The snauzzerhounds came snapping and
yipping at him seconds too late.

Baus watched
in helpless wonder. What could be done? Weavil had been kidnapped
and Nuzbek had fled off into the beobar on his bewitched
conveyance.

Baus’s resolve
teetered on the brink of breakdown. Defeat loomed dark on his
horizon, smothering his sense of initiative.

The
snauzzerhounds had forgotten their flying quarry and loped over to
where Boulm lay mangled on the turf. After a brief sniff or two,
they came charging away to the edge of the wall where Baus crouched
on the parapet. If they harboured wings, they would fly and rend
him ear to ear, snapping and snarling with mad, opal eyes. Of Ulisa
Baus knew naught, but if she gained the murk on the other side of
the wall, it would be all the better for her.

With no guard
to contain the prisoners, the convicts scattered from the barracks.
Baus saw them under the fog-shrouded lantern, a horde of hooting
desperados ploughing their way toward the open portcullis. The yard
was a mass of thick, grasping bodies—Dighcan, Yullen, Zestes,
Paltuik, Valere, Lopze, Jorkoff—all kicking and pressing each other
with one obsessive motion.

There was a
clank of weapons. The runaways had gained the portal and with no
great decorum, bowled each other over and trampled Oppet and Mulfax
who were no match for their blood-maddened lust.

All were
rogues, true, but Baus wished them safe passage—at least for such
time as to supply him with a suitable diversion.

Two figures
came bolting out the gloom. They stared up at Baus with disgusted
rancour. Graves shook a grey fist at him; Skarrow flung a scathing
oath.

Baus shrugged
gamely.

Baus felt it
time to depart. He leapt down from the parapet onto the gnarled
beobar trunk and slid down in a heap of tired bones. A wet dampness
of the forest struck him: of rich moss and decaying leaves.

Meanwhile the
husky Captain issued a brusque order at Skarrow. The two raced back
toward the gate while the snauzzerhounds, seething and shaking, on
their heels.

It took Baus
only a moment to shake the cobwebs from his skull. He launched
himself into the fog-haunted distance like a haunted man. It would
not be prudent to linger, for in time the Constables would be
circling the wall, setting themselves out to organize a search
party . . .

“
Solve his
riddles, escape his plans,

Lest one
remain, putty in his hands,

Fly from
Bisiguth before a bride he taketh,

And so his
vengeance he maketh . . .
”

—’Topical
Fables of Sarch’, from Xiver’s New Contemporary Library.

I

Baus did not
pause to belabour his predicament under Heagram Prison’s wall. He
let his fingers claw free of the beobar’s trunk then launched
himself away double-time, thrashing through the woods with no
decorum.

His legs were
limber; his lungs were strong. He took to the moonlit gaps with the
swiftness of an antelope. Through his glassy eyes he saw the mist
muting the moonlight and shrouding his way through the tangle.

A mournful
horn blasted from nearby.

Baus stopped
short. With suspicious eyes he raked the unfamiliar gloom. A sound
echoed from far away, reinforcements of some sort. The position of
the blare was inexact; but he guessed his pursuers had reached the
better part of the wall that faced the sea.

Too close! He
plunged deeper into the forest, preparing for an attack. The idea
was to elude any new threat, but a crisp snapping of twigs brought
him spinning about, drawing his tiny blade. He strained to discern
the source.

“No need to
fear!” a pellucid voice called out from the darkness. “It is I, a
friend.”

The
declaration prompted Baus to release his white grip on the hilt of
his gladius. The voice was melodic, a woman’s rich soft voice,
clear as a bell. As the seconds passed, Baus discerned a robed
figure in plain acolyte’s garb, knee-high and subdued. A small hand
and cowl partially covered her face—the same he had seen in the
yard, a face unfettered by malice or devilry. She appeared
harmless, trotting from behind a massive trunk, with a small white
hand tucked in a loose velvet sleeve, lifted in peaceful
greeting.